Kirk McElhearn debuts a new Macworld column called “Hey Apple, fix this!”
The first of this series focuses on this issue with the Mac’s Notes app:
Apple made a bewildering design decision: They don’t allow users to choose a default font and size in the OS X version of the app. On iOS, the Notes app inherits the overall font settings you choose; if you choose to increase the size of the system font, in Settings > Display & Brightness > Text Size, then the font in Notes gets bigger, as it does in apps such as Mail, Reminders, and others. (Not all apps support this Dynamic Type setting.) But there is no such system font size option on OS X. So all notes start out in a tiny (to me) font.
I love the idea for this series. There certainly is no shortage of this sort of issue on both the Mac and iOS. Kirk’s daylighting of this sort of issue can only help bring it attention, get it fixed.
Here’s an issue I’d like to see daylighted in Kirk’s column:
Every so often (perhaps one in five calls), my phone rings and iOS refuses to recognize my slide to answer. The slider appears, but does not recognize my touch. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but once it goes in this mode, there’s no way for me to answer the call. But once the call goes to voice mail, my phone returns to normal.
I’ve done all the normal things, like restart the phone, hit the power button, nothing seems to help.
And I know I am not alone in this. I’ve gotten a wave of Twitter responses from folks experiencing the same issue, with some going as far back as iOS 6 and an iPhone 4s.
Kirk will never run out of article topics doing this.
Here’s a simple one:
Hey Apple: Quit changing the behavior of everyday operations because you think it’s better. It the change you make is not necessary top the functioning of the operating system, then make that change optional.
This would solve many complaints from Window behavior to Save As behavior. Apple, you make computers. You don’t make my workflows.
Sometimes they should NOT fix something, because it was fine. Two words: Disk Utility.
Dave, I have the same issue occasionally on my iPhone. I double-clicked the power button once, and that made the screen respond again. Another time, I tried that same remedy and it didn’t work, but trying the Home button did. It’s weird and inconsistent. Definitely agree that this one has been out there for a bit and that Apple should look into it.
I’ve had that thing with the slider! I just thought my finger was too wet or too dry. Never even occurred to me it was the phone’s fault. Now that I think about it, it’s probably some sort of conflict with the lock screen and the phone app. They should just use Decline and Accept buttons even if the phone is locked. Taking a call is the most basic function of a phone, this should be fixed immediately.
I’d like to see the dictionary in iOS get some Siri love. When I select a word to lookup in the dictionary, there are times that help with pronunciation would be very handy, and the phonetical guides aren’t the easiest to decipher. However, iOS doesn’t support the seemingly simple feature to speak the word, whereas apps like Dictionary.com and others do. Come on Apple, you can do better.
Save As has been a broken concept for 32 years.
I’ve run into that bug where the slider doesn’t respond. I flail at the phone and by the third ring or so, it responds for me and I’m able to answer the call.
This is by no means an attempt to excuse the behaviour. It sucks. But next time it happens, don’t give up.
And hopefully Apple will fix it.
I -REALLY- hate the new workflow in apps like Textedit. Especially when saving. Just because I type something into a document doesn’t mean I want to save it. It annoys me to no end. There’s been some third party apps to adopt this that I’d actually use if it wasn’t for this ridiculous behavior.
I have the slider problem too but I’ve found a fix ( at least for me )
When it first starts to ring I slide it as usual and after two or three attempts realize it’s broken again. Then I wait about 1 or two seconds (nothing touching the screen) then I slide and it works as it should!
Currently works with my iPhone 6 and latest version of iOS but it has been working since a while back ( I think around iOS 7 beta )
I think it is related to touch recognition. Touch position change in base of the tilt of the device, when you wake up the phone for a call the tilt is not calculated right by the motion processor so the slide you make on the device is thought outside the slider. To fix it try level the device parallel to the ground, wait one on two sec to let calculate the tilt and slide again.
For the slider-not-sliding issue, take note of whether or not your device is charging. If the slider won’t slide (or if there are other touch recognition issues) while charging, unplugging the device will sometimes cause it to respond correctly. And sometimes it doesn’t help. When it does help, it’s supposedly because the output of the ac/dc converter wasn’t clean enough.
My two big current issues since I bought my 27″ iMac running El Capitan:
1) Time Machine backups to my Drobo no longer work. Every couple days I get a message that Time Machine needs to do a new backup. Time Machine backups to the Drobo have been working fine for years before El Cap.
2) Mail crashes at least once a day. Even if it’s just running in the background. I use Spam Sieve on the iMac to do spam filtering for my iOS devices. I had to create a background process that runs every 15 minutes to restart Mail if it crashed.
But it’s still way better than Windows. I know because I use both at work.