swernli

There is a button in iPhoto for that. You click it, it asks you what size you want the photo(s) to be, compresses them for you if needed, opens up Mail, opens a new mail window, and inserts the photos for you. What any other mail client does by requiring you to search through folders, potentially needing to go back and "save as" the photo if it's too big, iPhoto does with 2-3 clicks.

I disagree with you there. Yes, those are command line "interfaces" in terms of what the GUI (or lack thereof) is. But typing in a name into a search box and being presented with a graphical list of results as links or icons is not at all the same thing as a command line interface that lets you actually type commands, parse results, and execute other command line programs. Don't confuse a search box with a command line, because those are very different things.

Very true. And yet we still have so many feature rich yet experience poor devices, programs, and services out there. It's almost as if most people don't get the idea of quality over quantity...

Here is a long, only tangentially related story about the computer usage habits of "normals" where the action, a system restart, is much less an indicator of the problem than the reason...

I was getting together with a bunch of high school friends after our first year of college. We were chatting about our experiences, and as tended to happen around myself and my computer savy friend, discussion of computer problems started. One person began sharing a problem that they have with their laptop where for some reason the keyboard "gets messed up" and numbers start appearing instead of letters. I thought it was amusing, until I was shocked to hear not one but three more people jump in and share that they've had the same strange problem. These weren't dumb people either, just not tech savy folks. I was about to explain the concept of numlock to them, when one of the people pointed out that the problem could be fixed with a reboot, and advised the others to try it the next time they encountered the issue.

As I said, not stupid people. Most of them were at ivy league institutions and have gone on to successful careers. They don't know jack about computers. These are the "normals" we have to make sure not to forget when we design software.

I think you have a good point about the test not being perfect. But I think your explanation is a great example of what such basic tests are really trying to get at: people's usage habits reflect their level of knowledge. I agree that the reasons you bring up are valid, and to use the search bar for those reasons shows your grasp of the technology. There are pleny of people who use the search bar instead of the address bar because they just plain don't understand the address bar. Their reasons are the complete polar opposite of yours, but the end result is the same or very similar usage pattern. Unfortunately, like so much in life, it takes a lot more than a simple test to accurately determine the "why" behind an action instead of just measuring the "what."

Google isn't known for any quality of it's software. Google is known for their search engine. Yes, people on this site might tout the glories of Chrome, but to the average user, all they see is a search engine and email when they are on the web, and a slew of mobile devices that still aren't as clean and polished as the iPhone.

I agree with points in general, but for one detail:

> Europe does have excellent designers; however, it lacks a start-up worshipping culture...

So? The iPod wasn't made by a start-up. The technology wasn't built from an acquisition of a start-up. I dare say it had absolutely nothing to do with start-up. Yes, Apple came from a start-up. But to my mind, the distance between Apple the start-up from a garage and Apple that envisioned the iPod and DRMed iTunes is sufficient to stop assuming only a start-up could've made the iPod.

Big companies make things too.

> Evolving a product is neither revolutionary nor particularly original.

Interesting, because the example you point to, the iPod, didn't really capture it's outrageously huge market share until the iPod Mini, which was an evolution on the original design. In fact, the entire iPod line until the introduction of touch was a steady evolution from one to the next, and continued onward winning over customers. It beat out other mp3 players despite all of them having the same features, if not more, by doing it well. Or as you put it:

>I am pretty much sure everything on this list was invented by someone else ... it's the execution, not being first ... Also, it's not feature count, it's how well it works on the whole.

Thanks for making my point for me :)

I'd call Xbox Live a successful, innovative product, especially given the way they've continued to evolve it in a way that delivers more value to the user and gradually gets them closer to the idea of having the Xbox as the center of the entertainment system.

Personally, despite not owning one myself, I'd say that the Zune HD is already on par with the iPod Touch in terms of what the product offers. They have different strengths, overlapp in some areas, and both make excellent devices. The iPod Touch wins only when you include the content of the App Store (note that I'm making a distinction between the Store and the content there). If Windows Phone lives up to what they've shown so far, I believe that landscape may shift toward parity faster than you'd expect...

I think the author makes a similar point (about third party hosting services needing safe harbor) when he points out that Amazon EC2 is like the landlord, who of course can't be held responsible for underage drinking at the club. I agree that appliance-esque simplicity is what is needed to allow/encourage "civilians" to host their own content, and I hazard to guess that the author would too. And what is stopping us from creating that?

I remember in my freshman year of college when students discovered the library sharing feature in iTunes. Word spread pretty quickly, and soon most folks were using their laptops to do what the Zune tried to popularize: sampling the music of peers for free over the network in order to connect over musical taste and find new bands. I think what the author points out is that other programs have similar features (such as iPhoto being able to share a folder of images to the network), but they are limited to local networks and can't be reached from everywhere. Why not institute a system that allows that same "share my photos" check box to make them available on the web? Then I, and many of my friends who have faced the same problem, won't have to create a facebook account just to be able to see a friend's wedding pictures...

There are a lot of things that you depend on that aren't "user-visible" and require what you call "programming for the sake of programming." In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's good that some of us love that stuff, otherwise there would be no one to write and/or fix the fancy language features, libraries, and embedded systems young whippersnappers like you depend on.

By the way, I'm actually fairly young myself (23), but I've always loved the down and dirty, close-to-the-metal details of programming. And I also have the soul of a 50 year old (a la: "I need a lawn so I can yell at kids to stay off it." http://xkcd.com/479/).

An old article, but interesting for the same familiar reasons. I've done some work in genetic programming, most of which was done for a graduate project that I really enjoyed. The part of this article I resonated with the most was the end where they discuss the issue of finding problems to apply this method to. I have had some designs for evolutionary algorithms floating around, and even started parts of a framework, but keep losing motivation for it for the same reason: if I get the GP system up and running, what do I run it on? What do I have to evolve? I hate that my creativity stagnates without a well defined problem...

Very true, but most people don't realize it. Or worse, people will admit that money and time and effort on eduction produces rewards, but they don't equate those short term indications (grades) with the long term rewards (options in life, potential stability and/or self-determination). Amusingly enough, something that is a reward for reward sake (XBox Achievements) is accepted without question...

In our typing class, the teacher would give us each a floppy that stored our progress, averages, and what typing tests we were working on. I got tired of doing the tests (I was practicing typing at home on my own), and I wanted to streamline the process. So I looked on the floppy, and found that while the file with your progress and average scores was stored in some kind of program specific encoding, the files that contained the typing tests chosen by the teacher for that day were text files. So before each test, I would quickly open the file in notepad and change the text to be just the letter "j" and nothing else. The program would start timing you when you typed the first letter and stop timing when you reached the last letter, so as soon as I hit "j" it would instantly register 120 words per minute, since that was the fastest it could measure.

Needless to say, the teacher was curious as to why I started getting 120 wpm on every test, so when she asked me I figure I'd just tell her the truth, and explained how I editted the file. She thought it was funny and creative, and (after I demonstrated that I really was learning how to type anyway) just gave me an A in the class.

Interestingly enough, Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) has come up here before: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908868

Maybe not for the Surface specifically, but how about just multiplatform but with built in support for Win7 multitouch? For that we'll have R.U.S.E.: http://ruse.us.ubi.com/index.php?page=news&newsid=10422

I think the first camp's worries are justified a bit by the second camp's perspective and mistake (at least the way you've phrased it). Yes, it may end up being the "computer for people who never use their computer," but by some estimates that is most people, which means it will take over for the content consumer majority and leave full-fledged computers to the content producers. It all depends on your definition of "use" since as netbook-crowd would argue, most people don't need beefy processor and lots of ram, just a way to get online and run some basic applications.

I agree with you: there is a lot to dislike about facebook if you prefer to, but there is also a technological achievement there that is frustratingly difficult to deny. But I don't think they will go the way of AOL (at least not for many more years) for two major reasons: address book and photos. I know plenty of people who have two contact lists: the numbers in their phone and the people they are friends with on facebook. Sure, systems like the one Palm has let you download your contact list from facebook, but until most people are aware of that option, they will continue to use facebook as the way to keep track of people. And photos. Man, was that a killer app for that site. I personally know several friends who never wanted to sign up for facebook, but ended up having to do it so they could see their friend's wedding pictures or baby pictures or vacation pictures. And I also know friends who put their pictures on facebook and nowhere else, because they don't do back-ups or have a consistent place to store them locally and assume facebook will always have their pictures for them.

Until people can easily get contacts and pictures off of facebook and onto another accessibly sharing service in an automated fashion, they will continue to depend on it.

I'm frequently suprised by how many people are only aware of one zoom method or the other. Even back when the iPhone was released, I remember a couple of reviews lamenting the lack of arbitrary zoom for the times when the double-tap auto-zoom didn't get close enough, and some others complaining about having to mainly zoom and asking for something automatic. It's as if knowledge of one feature makes you less likley to be aware of the other.

Reminds me of the idea I've hear taught in programming: give users only one way to do something, and you dissappoint some people, but give them more than one way and you'll confuse everyone.

Or the digital multi-tool, from the old show ReBoot: http://reboot.wikia.com/wiki/Glitch

Ditto. I posted this mostly because I was suprised the comparison hasn't come up more in discussion, so I figured maybe not as many people were familiar with it as I assumed. Discussion of the various benefits and short-comings aside, I am so ready to pretend like I'm on the bridge of the Enterprise...

For what it's worth, check out the wikipedia page on the RAZR, specifically the section on Cultural Impact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razr. Key quote: "The RAZR has been said to the 'iPod' of mobile phones. Being the slimmest phone during its release in 2004, it easily stood out amongst other phone models. IT has also been one of the most popular mobile phone models since its first release, until being surpassed by the iPhone 3G in November 2008..."

However, it notes this popularity was never matched outside the USA.

The inability to change their products is directly tied to the restrictions in the problem space that let them make the defaults great. You're right, you can't change them. Which means you can't screw it up. Most people are not tech-savy enough to handle the choices, so instead of giving people something mediocre and saying it can be customized, Apple makes something great that is locked down. For most people, that's perfect. For those it isn't good enough for, they can get something else.

That's a good point that goes a long way to proving Apple right. Yes, a small subset of people create software that the rest use. And every day, that small subset desides what that software can and can't do. Apple decided what their software AND hardware can and can't do, because they make both. Apple never promised the world that all their hardware would be able to run arbitrary software.

At the end of the day, for the layman, non-techie user (ie: most of the population of the world), whether they are buying Windows, or an iPad, or using a Web app, they see it as something that enables them to do certain things and not others. They don't see the same restrictions we see as developers, and most of the time, they either don't understand them or don't care. At the end of the day, they got the product they paid for and use for what they wanted. If you want something different, buy something different.

Good point. I made the classic mistake of forgetting to correct for my own bias :). That said, I at least appreciate that they make fun of the parties on both the left and right, which are more and more becoming paradies of themselves rather than collections of reasonable human beings interested in debate and compromise. However I think the most important point is exactly what you and several other people have said: get lots of input and make up your own mind. I'm not sure how many people are interested in doing the legwork though...

I'm curious; what do you think is the OS that's ready for the desktop? By the high score of your comment, I'm guessing a lot of people agree with your sentiment, and I don't understand your distinction between what is "ok for some users" and "ready for the desktop."

In my opinion: The Daily Show and/or Colbert Report. I guess you could say their only bias is toward comedic pessimism. Is it sad to say that a comedy network has become what I believe to be the least biased news? Or is it just our modern evolution of what has always been the place of good satire: to criticize, under the guise of comedy, that which "serious" outlets dare not discuss?

To be fair, I think the article (and the original paper) do more than bug sniffing; the code that fails test cases is being automatically modified to eliminate the bug.

The "Do what I mean" programming idea is certainly a good one. One of the pioneers of genetic programming, John Koza, once described the possibility of using genetic programming as a companion for human innovation. Intead of the algorithm completely replacing human written code/design components, it could produce potential solutions to problems posed by an operator which then go through tweaking or analysis by humans and can be sent back for more evolution, turning it into a sort of partnership (I can't find the exact source, but I used it in a project presentation a few years back). Kind of cool to imagine: pair programming with a computer partner!

The HN insular social circle is abnormal.

Could have been from some of the plant life. There certainly seemed to be an abundance of native flora and fauna that took sufficiently different forms from the standard leafy greens that it isn't implausible that the "feathers" were really plant-based.

Then again, it's a made up world in a sci-fi movie; there is a long list of things that wouldn't be "implausible."