Apple’s 2013 Scorecard
hypercritical.co
hypercritical.co
If I use Messages just on my iPhone, it works just fine. However, when I use it between 2 macs, an iPhone, and an iPad, it just breaks.
Sure, it's an edge case use - most people use messages just on their phone - but it's a pretty basic feature.
Works fine for me across the board. My only issue with it is how it's eating ~2gbs of disk space on my phone for attachments. I haven't figured out a way to get rid of it without going through and purging all my messages or formatting my phone.
The only odd behavior I get is that, occasionally, the desktop client will take a moment to catch up to the other devices, or be missing chunks of a conversation. That usually sorts itself out in under two minutes or so, though, so I assume it has to do with the time it takes iCloud to respond.
EDIT: I'm still on 10.8, if that's relevant. I intentionally lag a point version behind because of audio software (the latest and greatest always breaks audio).
Occasionally there is a hiccup where a conversation thread is not immediately synced with the other devices, but that seems to be happening less and less.
Also Mavericks removed the ability to disable graphical smileys :(((((( (Is there a workaround or fix anyone knows? please tell me!!)
I mostly use Messages on Mac but use iOS some too. There's a huge problem on iOS which is scrolling to the bottom when people type stuff, which prevents you from catching up on conversations until everyone stops talking. That's super frustrating.
(Auto scrolling to the bottom when you talk, on Mac, is also annoying. I want to read through chat I missed, reply to things as I go, and not lose my place. You have to open a second copy of the window to deal with this.)
Hangouts is pretty good too, although a few nitpicks - the emoji icons are ugly as sin (I'm willing to bet that some sort of copyright/patent law is to blame here), and it's gotten a few messages stuck (to be fair I can't say the same thing hasn't happened to iMessage).
Strangely, both Hangouts and iMessage are better than plain SMS though, even with just sending plain text messages back and forth.
What, you mean the model where you actually own your music, and artists make money when you buy more? As opposed to Spotify where you own nothing and artists make no money?
Sorry if it's not working for the other side (I have no idea since I am the consumer, not the producer), but its clearly (to me) an easier to use system than "purchasing" music:
1. I don't need to worry about "backing up" my purchases or buying increasingly bigger hard drives to store content that I am usually only using ~1% of (which while arguably not a problem in desktop land, is certainly an issue in mobile land). iTunes match was kind of too little too late to finally solve this issue (And on a recurring fee ends up defeating the purpose of the whole "own your music" trope). Not to mention the absurdity and waste of millions of people keeping the same data over and over again.
2. Discovery is greatly facilitated when the friction of a purchase is removed. iTunes Radio, et al don't come close to just seeing a friend listening to something, trying it, listening to it on repeat 10 times, then deciding to listen to more from that artist.
3. If I'm not at my computer I can still log into Spotify website and listen to "my music" no matter where I am.
4. I can send songs to my friends without paying for them again.
Go watch some young kids. They go to YouTube for their music. Whether you like it or not this is the model of the future.
Also when updating the metadata on songs.
> I miss the days of the old tiny flip phones
This is progress. Either get with the times or get left behind. Use cases for mobile devices have completely changed, and now there are serious, tangible benefits to a large screened device that no one except an extreme minority is protesting. Note that this doesn't mean they all have to be tablet-sized; anywhere from 4 - 5" is what most would agree on as the perfect range for devices. The iPhone 5s/c isn't even 4". It's 3.997" if we want to be pedantic, which is too small for everything we use smartphones for now.
In some areas. I'll tell you what: my "old tiny flip phone" never froze up, refusing to make phone calls, end phone calls, or respond to user input at all. That's pretty important when you really need to make a fucking phone call.
I've had no problems at all with Messages over the last 6-8 months. Multiple devices (iOS/OSX) all messages synced, in the right order no less, and unread badges updated.
> Make iCloud better
IMO iCloud Documents is a lost cause until the document silo problem is fixed. I can't even consider using it knowing that my data may end up being inaccessible on different devices. I don't like having my data locked into a specific application. I think Apple should just throw in the towel here and let other cloud service providers plugin to iOS. Maybe they should just bring back a revamped iDisk for power users.
> Resurrect iLife and iWork
They should have prioritized iPhoto/PhotoStream.
> Reassure Mac Pro lovers
They need to do the same for Mac Mini & iMac lovers next year. Desktops are just going to become more and more of a niche product in the future. I don't know if Mac desktops can continue to exist if they are just MacBooks in a different form factor. What's the point? Apple should be targeting them towards the hardcore desktop users left. For the iMac that's obviously a big Retina display and for the Mini it really needs a discrete GPU option again. It would give people a reason to actually buy Mac desktops again.
... I wish everyone else would and give Apple a break.
You do realise that not everyone is a programmer right?
Also missing from the list... "Give us another cool new thing." Everything they did this year was just a minor upgrade. I'm fairly technical and I can't tell you what OS X Mavericks did that the last one didn't... or for that matter what any of the last 3 revisions have really added... all I know is that Office on a Mac still sucks, and Pages doesn't let you work on and save Word files as Word files without jacking them up. Someone please make it so I can use Word docs correctly on a Mac and I'd be happy. Basic basic functionality...
But they produced two very big new things:
- Mac Pro, a completely re-imagined workstation with some extremely clever engineering and a push for future GPU computing using OpenCL
- iOS 7, a very big change to their most popular OS
You ask for a "cool new thing" but then you complain about a lot of minor, iterative issues ("Office on Mac still sucks", "Pages doesn't let you...", "Basic basic functionality...").
Well it's the kind of stuff I want to expect from Apple...