Tim Cook's Freshman Year
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
It's frustrating, impedes the reader's experience, and makes people not want to bother with your content.
Okay, done with my UX rant. Sorry. Thanks.
Some netbooks do have these keys removed, but certainly not "most" laptops.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=780345
It shows how browser makers can help alleviate the problem.
Its something I've never used and have never thought about while designing, seems like a lot of websites are ignoring it as well; fb, techcrunch etc.
* Have to move it more to travel the same distance
* Have to fiddle with it to get exactly one page
* Have to track your position during the scroll
* Have to scroll more often than once per page
This (among numerous other near-universal UX transgressions) has gotten to the point that my first action on almost any internet article is to hit ⇧⌘R.
You're not helping.
It would be nice to click on a discussion like this and see a discussion about the content of the link taking place. One can hope.
Siri is still a gimmick. That's bordering on the unacceptable now, esp when compared to Google's voice offerings & how fast they've reached par & exceeded it. Stil no APIs, no offline capability, slow response times when it's working.
> aware of Maps & fixing it, albeit slowly
Slow is relative here: this isn't an overnight fix. It's very, very complicated.
> iOS […] is getting tired fast & it's highly visible to the consumer.
Really? What consumers? They're on track to sell 46m iPhone 5 units in this quarter.
When people bellyache about iOS it serves to remind me that the people who debate phone operating systems on the internet are categorically not the target market. If you happen to like it then great. If not, Apple doesn't give a shit: this is a mass market consumer device.
> Siri is still a gimmick
Siri is really, really useful when it works. It needs to work faster, and it needs to work more often (i.e. not garble my input), but I'm highly impressed by it.
> esp when compared to Google's voice offerings
Which are far less sophisticated
> & how fast they've reached par & exceeded it
Unless I'm missing a Google Siri beater, you're talking about Google's voice search in its iOS app. It's much faster than Siri, but it's also much less sophisticated. I asked this very question on Quora recently[1].
> Stil no APIs, no offline capability, slow response times when it's working
Apple is feeling this out. Don't expect APIs until they work out a way to do it really simply.
Offline capacity is a joke, right? We live in a world where we're online on airplanes and even on the subway (in London). Is it in Apple's interests to spend precious engineering resource on a solution to a problems which won't exist in a few years? And I bet a lot of Siri's usage is for online activities anyway. Or put it this way: what's the point in building offline mode for Siri when it's just for setting reminders (can't do geofencing: no signal), launching apps (which can't connect to the net) and writing emails and text messages which won't get sent.
You're totally right on slow response times. It's painfully slow. My guess is that performance is now Apple's top priority with Siri.
[1] https://www.quora.com/Siri-software/Why-is-Siri-so-much-slow...
The only conclusions anyone can draw about Siri/GVS are:
• GVS is noticeably faster and more accurate at detecting input • GVS does not deal with as sophisticated a range of inputs as Siri.
I believe he's talking about Google Now on Android, which has already surpassed Siri.
It creates the impression of doing the same thing but the context is, I think, being derived largely from Google's web search backend (which already knows what I mean when I type "NY Giants scores"). It may be that this is a sustainable path for Google. Apple has to work out what you mean before it ties you into a solution. Largely Google Now didn't seem to be doing that. (Not criticising one or the other for that.)
This idea is often expressed on HN but I've never seen a convincing argument that radically changing the UI every year is something consumers want.
The variety of new keyboards available on Android is a great example. While iOS users are still pecking away like it's 2007 I have swype or swiftkey if I want them and the innovation in those apps is now making its way into core Android.
I can make Firefox my default browser for everything and it's not just a wrapper around webkit.
I can share to pocket from almost any app, not just those that explicitly code for it.
When I want to attach a photo to an email I can choose from any app on the phone that provides images, not just those that the app developer found time to support.
Consumers were pretty happy with PalmOS & Motorola Q until the iPhone came out. We, however, the populace of geeks who inhabit HN, should know better. There are many ways in which Android is pulling away from iOS. From automatic app updates, to account registration & syncing..to widgets & lockscreens. None of these are a fatal blow but all taken together start adding up to a significant advantage.
On the other hand, iOS smoothness & polish are still second to none. I'm not saying it's a bad mobile os at all. It's an amazing piece of software. I'm saying I wish it were evolving.. faster. Just look at the amazing update iTunes just received. Compared to the previous version, It's an order of magnitude faster on my laptop. I was hoping for a similar leap from iOS5 to 6. It didn't materialize.
Recently, I saw an Article on The Verge taking on the static weather app icon that hasn't changed since 2007 & how it's a metaphor for Apple's being overly careful & protective (or lazy, take your pick) of the UI it introduced with the first iPhone. I think that's valid criticism.
Full Disclosure : I carry two devices with me all the time. an iPhone 5 (iOS 6.1, beta 3) & a Galaxy Nexus (4.2.1) I've had every single iPhone since day 1, Every single iPad except for the 4 & the mini. i'm typing this comment on Macbook air.
I think you're overhyping all of these. The one huge feature that is sorely lacking in iOS is contracts/intents/services.
My iPhone feels better in the hand than my s3. But it lives in my bag, not in my pocket because I find the s3 much more efficient and pleasant to use.
I'll be frank: you do not understand what makes Siri important or useful. It's not simple voice recognition and dictation (which Google does better), but the fact that it's tightly integrated with many apps and services. Being able to look up facts on Wolfram Alpha, set reminders and alarms, find restaurants, and countless other things from any screen is invaluable. I'd even go so far as to call it revolutionary.
Google is not even close to matching this level of tight integration (party because they don't have the same level of control over their own ecosystem as Apple does over iOS).
I think your broad point is true: Google's reco is better, Siri's integration is deeper, but you really need both to make it useful.
Apple's 64% looks closer to 75%, because nine percent of the market is just plain excluded from the chart. Another issue is that Google's five percent is smaller than Zune's three percent.
I don't understand how an editor can let something like this get through, even if it's only incidentally related to the story. If it takes some random jerk on the internet a few seconds to se something is wrong with the chart, surely they are cutting corners? It undermines my confidence in the other information they are providing.
That said, it is quite sloppy.
"> While not intentionally misleading, this chart is pretty sloppy
I agree, I don't think this chart is intentionally misleading. From my experience, minor errors do happen, even to the best of reporters/editors/graphics people. Sometimes a chart with known problems will be pushed out for the sake of a deadline, just as it would in software."
edit: It's fixed now: http://images.businessweek.com/cms/2012-12-06/feature_chart_...
It was a trivial mistake in an otherwise great article.
Though he does misattribute the quote to JFK - it originated about 2000 years earlier... Luke 12:48 "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required". ;)
The only thing is that it's begun to shape Apple. I'm much more excited about his moves to bring manufacturing to America than any product apple has launched under his stewardship.
I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but there seems no question that Apple is now a completely different type of company and it's amazing how much a single person can put their stamp on a global and multibillion dollar company.
I'm sure last time I heard a fact like that about Apple it was more like "products that didn't exist 3 years ago." Impressive that they seem to be speeding up on that measure of innovation.
It's entirely likely that Samsung is simply dominating the formerly-fractured not-Apple side of the market, consolidating sales under its masthead and, unlike RIM, HTC, et al is doing so profitably.
Given that Android device sales were growing incredibly rapidly during a time when no manufacturer was making much profit on them, I think Apple's profit share has been overstated for some time. It was only a matter of time until someone figured out how to make money selling to the slice of the market that Apple ignores.
Bigger screens were partially a response to Apple's ability to lock up global "retina" LCD production. Unable to compete at ppi, they could compete on absolute resolution. They're certainly popular on their own merits though.
"and different/more exciting OS UX"
This seems a bit fanciful. Here's a better story: guy walks into a store, salesman steers guy towards model that gets him the bigger commission.