WWDC 2011 Prelude
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
Problem 1: Autocorrect is by definition an algorithm that makes mistakes. Hence, it should be an 'opt-in' UX. Currently, it's 'opt-out', ie, I can type a word that's perfectly correct, and the computer can "overrule" me and replace the word I just typed. This is horrendous. If I make a typo, that's my fault and I can only get mad at myself. If the computer makes a typo (ie, replaces my text with text I don't want without me telling it to) then that's inevitably frustrating.
Problem 2: The autocorrect bubble appears on the screen where the cursor is. This makes it so that I cannot develop muscle memory for the mechanism to de-activate autocorrect.
Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X".
Problem 4: Combine 1 & 2 and you realize that autocorrect as implemented right now necessarily makes it so I constantly have to be looking at both the keyboard and the cursor at the same time as I type. Every letter I type I need to "double check" at the cursor point to confirm iOS is not about to overrule me when I wack the spacebar. Then, if it turns out that I catch the computer doing something wrong, I have to remove my hands from the keyboard, and tell it "no, bad computer." On iPhone, this is barely tolerable because of the small screen. On iPad, it is a nightmare.
It amazes me Apple got this one so wrong since they usually don't miss these details. Here's some alternatives:
Proposal 1: Add a button to the keyboard to cancel the autocorrect and show the word if one is about to be blasted in over my typing. Basically move the "bubble" into the keyboard. This at least will make it so I don't have to watch the cursor like a hawk as I type.
Proposal 2: Proposal 1 + make it opt-in. So the new keyboard key is one-click to activate the word as opposed to deactivating the autocorrect for that word. (I think this is how Android does it?)
Proposal 3: Leave the UI as is but make the bubble opt-in (tap to replace) instead of opt-out.
Of course there are other ways to deal with this and they all involve tradeoffs. But it's clear to me that since I've owned an iPhone now since they first came out and I'm still frustrated by the autocorrect clearly there's a better solution out there.
Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X".
On the other hand, I've noticed simply turning autocorrect off results in less overall frustration, despite less efficiency at first, since the mistakes I make are my own and its my responsibility to improve my typing accuracy so they approach zero.
The problem with disabling autocorrect is that you no longer get the obvious corrections: i -> I, dont -> don't, etc. And even if you leave autocorrect enabled, the iPhone may decide to stop doing those obvious corrections. It's just a complete mess.
Let's not forget that the iPhone also has no way for the user to add their own corrections or create custom text expansions.
Apple needs to separate the basic text replacement from the more advanced (and problematic) predictive auto-correction. The corrections need to be utterly consistent, easily undoable and redoable, and all without leaving the keyboard.
I think for anyone who's used a BlackBerry or, say, TextExpander on the Mac, it's obvious what Apple needs to do to solve the problem. And I really hope they do, because right now iOS devices are not really suitable for typing anything longer than a single sentence.
That's not true. I've noticed the iPhone autocorrect add words to its dictionary after I use them a few times.
This is a quick way to train the algorithm into learning your spelling habits.
Also, I'm using grown-up words. Be warned.
Also, I stopped reading TFA at the "What I Hope..." section because my head started to throb.
From TFA:
But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud
might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from
USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your
Mac/PC. Consider just the new out-of-box experience. Rather
than “Take this out, plug it into your Mac or PC (after first
making sure your Mac/PC is running the latest version of
iTunes), wait for it to sync before you actually play with it”,
you might get something like “Take this out, turn it on, sign
into your iTunes account, and start playing with it.”
But wait, there's more:
If Apple can work out (or, if we can dream, perhaps secretly
already has worked out) a deal to allow movies, in addition
to music, to be bought and stored permanently in your iCloud
account, then the Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine
for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting
movies. I like to buy movies, so here’s hoping.
That said, I'll say: that's a nice point.
“But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your Mac/PC.”
He says that it would be game-changing for iOS devices. That’s most definitely true. I don’t think he says that it would be a game-changer for the industry.
If their cloud service is an "ownership" model rather than a subscription access model like rd.io or Netflix they won't be getting much cash from me.
I'd guess Gruber's two overexcited paragraphs were the result of his trying to reconcile the "big deal" atmosphere surrounding WWDC (e.g. inviting world media) with what little he knows about it. It goes without saying that OTA sync is not the "game changer" Apple is ready to unleash on the world. If Apple's got a real game changer (and jury is still out) they're prolly going after markets worth over $100 billion.
The smartphone was a powerful disruptive device primarily because it converged the function of many things (among others "an ipod, a phone, an internet device" as Steve repeated at the debut). Tablets also did the same thing a bit less obviously.
Currently Apple offers 4 non-mobile consumer devices: computers (mac mini and iMac), Apple TV, Air Port and Time Capsule. In addition consumers also have televisions, game consoles, DVD/Blue Ray players, and stereos.
So my theory again is that Apple is coming out with a converged device that replaces* most of the above (I don't think they will sell the actual tvs or speakers).
* It won't replace them perfectly. In fact in many cases it will be strictly worse, as in the case of cloud gaming vs console gaming. But just as the best camera is the one you have with you, the totality of having one simple device that just works will be what they are banking on.
Call me a fan boy then. Many companies tried to make tablets before apple. The ipad was game changing. Many people tried to make mp3 players before apple. The ipod was game changing. Many people tried to make smart phones before apple. The iphone was game changing.
On that note, gmail + google docs + google apps were game changing. If apple can do as well or better, on their much superior platform, it will be game changing.
Android has been a mess for media and is only now starting to offer regular consumers the things they've had for years with iOS (movies, tv shows, netflix).
I am the most idiotically brainwashed Apple Fan Boy around, ipads, MacBook Air, iPhone, watch all my TV on iTunes (though, 100% of my books are on the kindle) - and even _I_ can point out how miserable the iTunes experience is for media. What, precisely, am I supposed to do with the last few years of TV Shows that I've purchased? When it was in DVD format, I could simply pack them in folders, at 32GB/page in my binder - 1.5 Terabytes/binder. Easy to lend, share, store - never lost a single file. I have three of those binders now.
With iTunes, what happens when my stupid 128 GB Hard drive fills up? What options did iTunes give me to managing / shifting TV Shows/Movies onto a NAS. I have to do this godawful copy / move / delete dance to manage my media, and, should that NAS crap out - everything is lost.
iTunes has been a _horrible_ long term media management experience for me, and adding the "cloud" feature, in the same way Amazon has done for books on the kindle (and, now that I think of it, Music on their storage locker) - is just bringing them up to the status Quo - it's a case of _stopping the pain_ - not really "game changing"
So - yes, please add the Damn "Cloud" already, so I can win back some of my life that I've dedicated to being a .mp4 data sysadmin.
PS: You want Game Changer? Give me cloud access to all the Media I've purchased from iTunes over the last six years. That _WOULD_ rock my world. :-)
But most iPad competitors have little-to-no reliance on a
connection to a desktop PC, the way an iPad does.Meanwhile you're trolling for karma and you love that?
> I keep reading his articles expecting [...] objectivity
Oh come on, you're not writing that seriously now are you?
> Really? Not plugging your phone into USB and then fucking about with iTunes is "dare I say game-changing". What decade are we in? Oh wait, maybe this quote was missing some critical bit of context... If so, fill me in. If not, FTFA.
It's game changing not because it's novel, Gruber is in fact well aware that Android or WebOS have had OTA sync of everything for a long time (he's mentioned it several times in the past), but because it plugs one of the biggest holes in the iOS platforms, especially w.r.t. the iPad: the systematic reliance on computer tethering for almost all operations. That is a major iOS drawback right now, and a major advantage of competing platform. If Apple can plug this hole, the value proposition of iOS (again, especially on iPad which feels much like a computer and on which the over-reliance on computer tethering really is uncomfortable) skyrockets.
> Oh wait. Netflix. (To which someone says, "but they don't have everything"; to which I say, "they will".)
Netflix does not let you buy movies. That seems to be what Gruber has issue with here: if they pull a movie from their catalog, it's gone. The point of buy would be to stay in control of the media: if the studio decides to pull the movie from the catalog, you still have it. If you want to download it to whatever device for offline viewing, you still have it.
> If I wait longer, will this sentence become not-dumb?
I don't know, do you think waiting will teach you the fine arts of understanding written words?
Or, in my case, be a Linux guy with an iPhone and iPad and no longer need to borrow my wife's Mac for syncing.
There's not much to say about it I guess. But it could be the first system update distributed over the App Store.
I assume Apple will sell a DVD version for MUCH more money (full $129 or higher) that you can use to do a fresh install or upgrade from Tiger and Leopard.
I also assume the Lion upgrade in the App Store will be super cheap. Probably $30. Possibly as cheap as $10.
With Apple's insistance that new HDDs in all their newer devices (*except the Mac Pro) are not user serviceable, no one should care about that because the new harddrive will be pre-loaded with an OS after you get it back from the Geniuses or AppleCare.
Recent iMacs have been known to have their harddrive fans spin at full after a stock harddisk is replaced with an aftermarket replacement. Rumor is circulating that recent MacBook and MacBook Pro models are similar. Apple has hijacked some unused SATA wires to use for onboard temperature control on their branded drives. Unless you have access to genuine apple parts, any harddrive replacement on those models of computers won't work well.
http://blog.macsales.com/10146-apple-further-restricts-upgra...
Long story short: To Apple, Harddrives are not user servicable components, thus to Apple, "no one should care", because the computer will come back to the consumer after any repairs to a failed harddrive with a clean copy of the new OS.
I don't agree with that, but this is how things will be. I'm just a messenger with an opinion.
As for Lion, it's anyone's guess whether we'll get a burnable/USBable DMG or not...
One of the "features" of Lion is a restore partition—I think that means a partition that is simply a copy of the install disc. That, combined with the fact that OSX has been able to in-place resize mounted volumes for a while now (originally coded for Boot Camp), makes me think that when Lion installer "app" starts, it simply makes 8GB of room at the beginning of your hard drive, writes its disc image there, then reboots into it.
Nope. They can be on USB keys for starters, and you can reinstall to the previous version and re-update if the update is fast enough.
What if you have a Mac and therefore a tiny hard drive that is full because you use iApps that refuse to read from external media?
[1] http://mattgemmell.com/2010/07/31/mgsplitviewcontroller-for-...