This essay, by former Adobe, NeXT, and Apple employee Glenn Reid, was originally posted just a few days after Steve died, back in October 2011. The essay popped up this morning on Hacker News and I thought it was worth a repost. It’s a terrific read.
Kate MacKenzie, writing for Mac360:
Apple’s customers use their devices more than other devices. We use Mac, iPhone, and iPad more. We buy more. We buy and use more applications. We take more photos and movies. We buy and listen to more music.
The Apple Usability Syndrome is born from one basic fact. Apple’s products– all of them– are more usable, friendlier, simpler, and more effective for customers than are competitors. Usability matters, folks.
This is an interesting argument, that Apple users tend to use their devices more than Android users use theirs. Not sure if this is true, but for the sake of argument, let’s accept that and move on:
One perfect example of the usability syndrome is in the most recent Apple product that has failed to excite the critics but has customers feeling pleased and has started a trend among retailers. Apple Pay. Name another mobile payment device (not your credit card; we’re talking high tech here) that gets used more than Apple Pay.
And:
Here in Brooklyn where I live and in Manhattan where I work Apple Pay is growing in usage, both among merchants and Apple customers. It’s no longer rare to see Watch being used to buy something at Macy’s or Starbucks or McDonalds or a gazillion of the merchants that line the streets.
What is rare is to see someone using Samsung Pay or Android Pay, yet both have far more devices, and, ostensibly, a gazillion more users than anything with an Apple logo on it. What gives?
It’s the Apple usability syndrome. We Apple customers actually use our products; Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, or whatever.
Anecdotally, I find this believable. I have seen a number of people use Apple Pay and I’ve never seen anyone use another device-based payment method. I’ve never seen Samsung Pay or Android Pay used in the wild. Do Apple device users use their stuff more than Android users?
I’ve been very vocal about the problems I’ve had with Apple Music since it was released, but the service has improved quite a bit over the last couple of months, so I should be just as vocal about that. One of the more significant improvements I’ve found is with Apple’s built-in radio stations. In fact, it’s changed how I listen to music.
I always listened to the music in my library, instead of songs on the radio. I’m not sure if I listen to music differently than other people or what it was, but Apple’s choice of songs on streaming radio never really worked for me.
When I have people over, or I’m driving, I want to hear songs that are familiar. If I select an AC/DC track, I expect to hear Rock songs, and songs that I know well. I really enjoy a drive with AC/DC, Metallica and other bands like that blasting away.
Apple seems to have figured that out because recently, that’s exactly what I’ve been getting. Songs I know, hit after hit, with very few exceptions.
I stopped using the “Play More Like This” feature in the radio stations. I just let Apple’s algorithm choose the songs for me without any intervention. I don’t know why, but overall, the station does much better without me messing with it.
That brings up a problem ‘I’ve always had—how do I find new music? There’s not much new music in the stations I make, and that’s perfectly fine, because I’m looking for familiarity with those stations. So, I turned to Apple’s built-in music stations.
The one I listen to the most is Hard Rock. When I’m in the mood for background music, or I’m exercising, or otherwise in the mood to find new music, I’ll play the Hard Rock station.
I’ve been impressed and surprised by how much new music I’ve found. There’s definitely been some changes to the way Apple is curating the stations because the song choices and different—and much better—than when the service started.
I’ll often “Love” a song when listening to the station. This affects how “For You” works, so Apple Music will begin to recommend more music and bands like the songs I’ve previously loved. That leads to more new music.
When I first started using Apple Music, I thought “For You” would be the way I’d find most of my music, but it’s actually through the curated radio stations that I’ve been most successful. “For You” has become a secondary path for playlists and albums that I can use, and I do.
I’ve found myself reaching for my iPhone to “Love” a song only to see that I already did—that’s when I add it to my library. Sometimes I add it on the first play, but if I try to “Love” a song a second time, I must really like it.
I’ve been using Apple Music like this for a couple of months and it’s working really well for me. In fact, it’s rare that I’ll play an album from my library anymore—in the past, that’s all I’d play.
I’d really like to have an area in the Apple Music app where I could see all the songs that I’ve “Loved” over time. There is some great music that I need to add to my library.
For now, this method of listening to some of my favorite songs and finding new music is working quite well for me.
Vulture:
There are few movies as quotable as the 1980 disaster-movie parody Airplane! — and of the movie’s many memorable gags, arguably the most enduring is the moment when reluctant pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) tells Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen), “Surely you can’t be serious,” and Rumack replies, “I am serious — and don’t call me Shirley.”As part of our weeklong 100 Jokes That Shaped Comedy series, we dug into the origins and execution of that exchange — as well as the overall comedic mechanics of Airplane! — with the trio who wrote and directed the film, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker.
Airplane! is one of the funniest, silliest movies I’ve ever seen, and as enjoyable now as when I first saw it as a kid. I remember hearing that line for the first time and using it in real life millions of times since. One of the funniest lines ever uttered in a movie.
A few days ago, I wrote about Parse shutting down:
Never heard of Parse? Not surprising. But no doubt you use it. Parse offers massive database services, making it easy for app developers to collect data while managing many of the details.
As an example, Parse offers tools that handle login registration as well as login verification. You hand your visitors over to Parse code, they login, then Parse gives them back to you, all logged in. You don’t have to store the data locally and you don’t have to reinvent the validation code. Parse handles it all.
But all that is about to end. And all those developers need to find another solution or shut down their apps.
Allen Pike, writing on his blog, points out the rude surprise waiting for many app users once Parse is turned off for good:
As much as Parse will try to get the word out that they’re shutting down, many apps’ owners don’t even know that they’re reliant on Parse. Parse’s overly generous free plan made them popular with freelancers and consultants building quick app backends for their clients. Many of those clients don’t know what Parse is, let alone that the little app they commissioned a couple years ago is a ticking time bomb.
Marco Arment, writing on his blog, gets at the source of the problem:
In particular, it’ll be problematic when possibly hundreds of thousands of iOS apps just stop working in a year because their developers have long since moved on, or their contracts expired, or they can’t afford to spend time on a significant update.
One of the most damaging side effects of unhealthy App Store economics is that developers have little motivation or resources to keep apps updated.
Is there a way to notify users of apps that are dependent on Parse, give them a chance to migrate elsewhere?
UPDATE: Here’s a starting place for developers who use Parse and want to migrate elsewhere. [H/T Dave Aiello]
Stewart Alsop:
Dear @ElonMusk: Thank you for reaching out to me. I heard from our phone conversation that you feel that my post, “Dear @ElonMusk: You should be ashamed of yourself”, was a personal attack on you. I also hear that you are not comfortable having me own a Tesla car and have cancelled my order for a Tesla Model X.
Really, Tesla? You cancelled his car order? Both sides should be embarrassed by this public back and forth.
Mikey Campbell, writing for Apple Insider:
After a week of testimony and deliberation, a jury in the patent owner-friendly East Texas Federal District Court handed down a unanimous decision against Apple’s FaceTime, iMessage and VPN services, as well as the devices running them, finding each in infringement of VirnetX intellectual property covering secure communications protocols.
VirnetX initially won $368.2 million in damages from Apple in a 2012 lawsuit involving the same IP, but that verdict was ultimately vacated on appeal last September. As part of its appellate ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit called for a damages retrial, which resulted in today’s decision.
In its retrial, VirnetX sought $532 million, though the sum was inflated to $625.6 million due to continued willful infringement on the patents-in-suit. The second court action also appended FaceTime infringement allegations on a new claim construction.
Given that this is a retrial, can Apple appeal this verdict?
What’s interesting about this is the possibility that a bad USB-C cable can fry a laptop. Clearly the cable is the culprit, but is there something about the standard that allows a mis-wired cable to direct power to where power should never go? That’s one bad cable.
Tim Bajarin, writing for Tech.pinions:
Over the last two years, the technology to deliver a more robust 2-in-1 experience has gotten much better. There are two products on the market I think might be pointing us to the next major shift in portable computing. Microsoft’s Surface Pro and Apple’s new iPad Pro are, at the moment, the best of breed 2-in-1s. I will probably be dragged, kicking and screaming, toward these new designs. But after using both for some time now, I am starting to warm up to them.
And:
When Tim Cook announced the iPad Pro, he said it could do as much as 80-90% of what anyone could do on a traditional laptop. On a recent trip, I decided to try that theory out. I only took my iPad Pro with me and used it as if it was my MacBook or a Windows laptop. I found, in general, Cook was right.
I want to believe. I really want to. But as I’ve said before, the iPad works best as a content consumption device, with light duty creating content. For the heavy lifting, I still turn to my Mac.
Melissa Holt, writing for the Mac Observer:
Today, though, I’m going to talk about enabling Remote Management to monitor what your children are doing at any given moment while they’re on your home network. I’m not saying this should necessarily be the first thing you do to keep your kids safe online, but hey, if the little buttheads keep doing stuff they’re not supposed to or that might endanger them, you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.
Melissa’s post does a nice job walking you through the settings that let you watch someone else’s screen, with or without them being aware that you are watching them.
As a parent, I can understand the temptation to watch over your kid’s shoulder to make sure what they are doing is safe. You love your kids and worry constantly. I get it.
But I struggle with the anonymous part of this.
If you want to be stealthy, choose “Observe” only; that way, the child won’t know you’re logged in. But you can also decide to control things, change settings, and so on. Click “OK” when you’ve got things configured, and you’re done!
Now how do you dial in from your own Mac and watch what that dastardly kid is doing? Easy peasy. Just open a Finder window by clicking on the blue smiley face in your Dock, and then under “Shared” in the sidebar, you should see the kid’s Mac appear.
This just isn’t for me. I love the idea of remote management, especially since it makes it easy for me to help my parents or others when they need help with their computer. But the anonymous watching just feels creepy, especially given Apple’s commitment to privacy.
Craig Grannell, writing for Revert to Saved:
I’m starting to feel like Apple has a vendetta against anyone with a vestibular disorder. Since OS X Lion, we’ve increasingly seen aggressive animations added to Apple’s desktop OS that can trigger dizziness, motion sickness, vertigo and related symptoms. These include slide transitions when moving between full-screen apps, the ‘morphing’ animation to and from full-screen apps, the slide between Launchpad pages, and entry/exit zooms for Mission Control. iOS 7 then introduced similar animations, along with parallax effects that made people ill. And now tvOS has followed suit.
iOS at least helped users, in providing a Reduce Motion option in the Accessibility section within Settings. Within six months, most of the worst animations were possible to replace with non-aggressive crossfades, much to the relief of vestibular disorder sufferers worldwide. But we’ve seen no such progress on OS X, and the tvOS ‘Reduce Motion’ setting turned out to be so ineffective that it may as well have played a little sniggering noise when activated.
The iOS team clearly understands the problem. My guess is, no one on the tvOS or OS X team suffers with a motion disorder.
OS X’s aggressive default animations — something that could leave me groggy and feeling ill for an hour or even until going to sleep at night.
If you know anyone on either of those teams, please pass this along. As Craig mentions, perhaps there’s a terminal command that allows you to turn off OS X animations. That’d be good to know. And if not, perhaps one could be added.
The Business Times:
Apple Inc said its mobile-payment service is now available in more than 2 million retail locations, with merchants such as Crate & Barrel, Chick-fil-A and Au Bon Pain rolling it out in stores.
Online retailer Zappos.com added Apple Pay on its iPhone and iPad apps Tuesday as competition intensifies among mobile payment providers.
And:
“We’ve been getting requests from customers to use Apple Pay for quite a while,” said Aki Iida, head of mobile for Zappos.
“It makes the customer experience easier, why not try it?”
Apple is pushing to diversify, putting more emphasis on services, to balance the heavy investment in hardware.
In October, 16.6 per cent of people who own newer iPhones had tried Apple Pay, an increase from 9 per cent in November 2014, according to a survey by Pymnts and InfoScout, a consumer researcher. The service has been expanding globally.
Apple Pay was introduced on October 20th, 2014. Apple’s original projection was 1.5 million retail locations by end of 2015. The increase in retail locations is critical to user adoption. It’s a long road, but Apple Pay numbers are clearly moving in the right direction.
The Verge:
…this video from the show’s associate director Carrie Havel shows you a small slice of the action, with Havel coordinating the live footage — singing along to “Great Lightning,” but with all the lyrics replaced with camera numbers.It just goes to show that when it comes to live performances, the choreography behind the scenes is usually as impressive as what’s on stage.
This behind the scenes stuff is fascinating. You can’t begin to imagine the work that goes into a production like this and then to add to the pressure, they’re doing it live. Incredible work.
Walt Mossberg wrote this morning that Apple’s apps need work. He’s absolutely right.
In the last couple of years, however, I’ve noticed a gradual degradation in the quality and reliability of Apple’s core apps, on both the mobile iOS operating system and its Mac OS X platform. It’s almost as if the tech giant has taken its eye off the ball when it comes to these core software products, while it pursues big new dreams, like smartwatches and cars.
Walt touched on iTunes for the desktop and how bad it has become, especially since the integration of Apple Music. I’ve been harping on Apple Music since it was released, and while it has gotten much better, I am amazed it was released in the state it was.
It’s just not like Apple to release software that is so broken. Consider that it took Apple months just to allow people to reliably download music to their iOS devices. This is a feature they promised on day one.
Of course, there are other problems that I’ve talked about before, but I won’t get into those again.
There are only three reasons I can think of that software issues like the ones we find in Apple Music would happen at a company like Apple that prides itself on software that “just works.”
They didn’t know how bad it was when they released it. (Highly unlikely)
They are so big now, they just don’t care. They are Apple, so people will use the software regardless of what they do. (Please don’t let it be this one)
They were given a timeline to release the software whether it was finished or not. (This one is probably, but very scary)
I understand that Apple has a lot of balls in the air, but they have clearly taken their eye off some of them. There is absolutely no doubt that Apple Music is getting better with each update to the app, but what we have now is more of a 1.0 version than what we received last year.
Personally, I don’t care much about all the celebrities that Apple can parade around—I care about a music service that works. That’s it.
If Apple Music (or any of the other software that has problems) was the iPhone, it would never have been released in the state it was.
Imagine this scenario. All the telephones in the US operated without dials, all depended on a human operator connecting your call by hand. No phones had dials.
City by city, AT&T had to roll out new equipment, giving rotary dial telephones to everyone. They put out this message via a newsreel shown in the town’s movie theaters:
At midnight Saturday the telephones in this city will be changed to dial service and all telephone numbers will be changed.
What an incredible problem to have to solve. Completely replacing an almost universally used installed hardware base overnight. No early adopters. Everyone gets a new phone and your old phone will stop working at midnight.
Here’s the video. Fascinating.
Google’s Max Braun took some of his off time to marry an HDMI display board with a two-way mirror to produce a bathroom mirror that shows you the news, weather, etc. Terrific project. Lots of details and pictures, back and front.
Ars Technica:
Traditional data centers use as much electricity for cooling as they do for running the actual IT equipment. Accordingly, much of the innovation seen in the high-density cloud server space has been to develop data centers that are cheaper to cool and hence cheaper to run. With its much higher heat capacity than air, water has become the coolant of choice, pumped around and between the computers to transport their heat outside.
Microsoft has demonstrated an experimental prototype of a new approach: instead of pumping water around the data center, put the data center in the water. Project Natick is a research project to build and run a data center that’s submerged in the ocean.
My first reaction was: Wouldn’t this raise sea temperatures? Phil Dennis-Jordan ran some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, concluded that all the data centers in the US, if cooled this way, would only raise temperatures a ten-millionth of a degree (centigrade) per year.
And that certainly would be a cost/energy savings over traditional air conditioning methods.
[H/T Carlos Oliveira]
Aamna Mohdin, writing for Quartz:
German scientists today will set about the first steps towards what has become the Holy Grail of energy—nuclear fusion, which has the potential for unlimited amounts of clean power. There are a number of challenges to harnessing this power—researchers need to build a device that can heat atoms to temperatures of more than 100 million °C (212 million °F).
After almost nine years of construction work and more than a million assembly hours, researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Greifswald are set to do just that by heating a tiny amount of hydrogen until it becomes as hot, hopefully, as the center of the Sun.
Researchers are keen to tap into the incredible amount of energy released when atoms join together at extremely high temperatures in the super-hot gas known as plasma. Today’s test will not produce any energy, just the plasma—a different state of matter created at extremely high temperatures. German chancellor Angela Merkel, who has a doctorate in physics, will reportedly attend.
There’s a lot packed into this post. Fusion is a huge deal. If it becomes practical, it changes the world. We’ve been chasing it for a long time, so don’t hold your breath, but this is another step along the path.
Heating hydrogen until it becomes as hot the center of the Sun. Wow! What could go wrong?
And, finally, Angela Merkel has a PhD in Physics. How cool is that?
A nice, detailed tutorial on kerning. Something here for even moderately experienced designers.
The Lynn University web site:
Lynn University, one of America’s top 25 most innovative schools according to U.S. News & World Report, today announced it will deploy the all-new iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard to all undergraduate day students and faculty. Lynn will distribute approximately 1,800 devices this semester.
While the number of units might be just a speck in Apple’s iPad Pro overall sales picture, this is still an important sale. University adoption is right at the beginning of the sales lifecycle. The thinking being, get students using a product in school and they’ll stay with that product when they graduate.
Mark Gurman, for 9to5Mac:
Apple is currently aiming to unveil the new 4-inch the iPhone 5se, the iPad Air 3, and new Apple Watch band options at an event on Tuesday, March 15th, according to sources.
And:
The new band lines will include multiple new colors for the rubberized Sport bands, new Hermès bands, a ‘space black’ version of the Milanese Loop, and an entirely new band line made of a new material.
Assuming this is all true, it’ll be interesting to see if the smaller phone has a new camera design (without the dump, dual lenses).
The Ides of March. Interesting choice of dates.
NASDAQ:
After dipping its toes into brick-and-mortar retailing last year with its first physical bookstore, online giant Amazon.com Inc. is poised to dive into the deep end.The Seattle company plans to open as many as 400 bookstores, Sandeep Mathrani, chief executive of mall operator General Growth Properties Inc., said on an earnings call on Tuesday.
While nothing official has been announced by Amazon yet, if true, this seems like a bit of a head scratcher. After all, Amazon has been the prime suspect in the decline of traditional bookstores. But the best part of this story is the line, “Physical stores would give Amazon customers a place to leaf through books before buying them.” You don’t say. What a clever idea.
Re/code:
Mophie, the accessory maker best known for its iPhone battery cases, is being bought for at least $100 million by rival Zagg.Zagg CEO Randy Hales said in a statement that the deal creates “numerous opportunities” to boost profits and revenues by combining the two companies’ strengths and distribution networks. Mophie CEO Daniel Huang and operating chief Shawn Dougherty will continue in their current roles, reporting to Hales. The deal, approved by both boards, should close later in the first quarter.
I’ve always been a fan of the Mophie products. I met their people several times at Macworld Expos and really liked them. Hope this works out well for all involved.
BBEdit is the leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. Specifically crafted in response to the needs of Web authors and software developers, this award-winning product provides an abundance of high-performance features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text. An intelligent interface provides easy access to BBEdit’s best-of-class features, including grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, project definition tools, function navigation and syntax coloring for numerous source code languages, code folding, FTP and SFTP open and save, AppleScript, Mac OS X Unix scripting support, text and code completion, and of course a complete set of robust HTML markup tools.
I’ve been using BBEdit for 20 years—I love this app.
Introduced in 1975, the Marshall JMP 2203 amplifier ushered in a new era of Marshall rock dominance. The JMP 2203 — which became the JCM800 in 1981 — offered varying degrees of intense, modern-sounding crunch and bold clean tones. Over the ensuing decades, the 2203 became a go-to for artists ranging from Jeff Beck and Andy Summers, to Tom Morello, Judas Priest, Slayer, and the Pixies’ Joey Santiago.
This was announced at NAMM and released today. You know I’m downloading this classic amp. There are pictures and video of the amp in action at Universal Audio’s Web site.
The Daily Dot:
Upwards of 360 million photos are uploaded every day to Facebook. But are you still posting pics like it’s 2006?From creating a disappearing profile photo to stopping the Facebook app altering your images when you upload them, here are eight pro tips you seriously need to know.
I don’t post a lot of pictures on Facebook but I know lots of people do. There are some good tips here regarding privacy, ideal dimensions, filters and auto-enhancing.
Viljo Marrandi:
Our owner and operator, Viljo Marrandi, has been doing handwork since childhood, growing up the son of a carpenter and wood carver. Beginning with a one week class taught by master engraver, Sam Alfano, in Antwerp, Belgium, Viljo was fascinated with the art. After practicing his craft for several years, Viljo received private lessons from Scott Pilkington, another renowned engraver and custom crafter, and honed his skills at English scroll with engraver Simon Lytton.Viljo named his company, “Bottega Marrandi,” the word “Bottega” meaning “Workshop” in Italian. So welcome to his workshop, we think you will love it.
Check out the pictures of the Apple Watch engravings. If you’re looking to really personalize your Watch, these designs would be amazing. No idea about costs – I have neither money nor an Apple Watch. Thanks to my friend George Canellis for the link.
Copy:
We know this comes as disappointing news to our users, but rest assured that we will do everything we can to take care of each of you in the manner for which Barracuda is known. We have partnered with Mover to make migrating your data to another service as easy as possible and have created a step by step guide that walks you through the process of moving your data to a local hard drive or another cloud storage solution.
Copy was used by a lot of people when it initially came out as a back up to or replacement for Dropbox. They gave new users a lot of free data storage – I had 75GB. It goes without saying, that was unsustainable. They have included an FAQ on how to move your files but it’s easy enough to just download them to your desktop for storage elsewhere.
Ben Brooks, writing for The Brooks Review:
An astonishing amount of people right now are moving — in one way or another — to iOS as a full time computing platform. Perhaps not ditching the Mac completely, but at the very least declaring iOS ready for most of their work. And it’s not just writers, I’ve been seeing some people who do seriously heavy duty work moving to the likes of the iPad Pro and other iOS devices.
It’d be interesting to see a scientific survey to get a sense of how deep this runs. Are these early adopters? Or is this a true trending change in user behavior?
On a Mac you have to decide if your window is going to be full screen or not. If it is full screen, is it full screen but split with another app, if so by how much? Or is it going to be a window on the desktop, if so where and how large? Repeat that for every app, and a lot of your day becomes just managing the size and location of your windows.
With iOS you only get one size on your iPhone, and four sizes on the iPad (full screen, 2/3, half, 1/3). That’s simpler no matter how you slice it. It’s also faster, as you are now spending far less time managing application windows. Spend your time arranging your application windows or spend it getting shit done.
An interesting take. There certainly is a lot of fiddling that goes into using the Mac that I don’t have on my iPhone or iPad. But I do appreciate the power of the Mac’s windowing system combined with a large screen monitor. But I do a lot of graphics design and programming, so I might be an edge case.
The share sheet system in iOS is fantastic as I can take this file right here and send it directly to where I want it to go, without any hiccups or shuffling. The worst experience on iOS is trying to find a file in something like BitTorrent Sync, Dropbox, or the iCloud Drive app. Yuck. I take my file from one app to another, always working on it.
On my Mac I have files I drag out to the desktop, to drag into another app, to export back out of that app, to drag back to another window, to then upload and finally use. It’s madness if you really think about it. On iOS I rarely touch icons representing files, instead I get to where and what I need much faster.
Madness, true, but I’m so good at it now!
My iPad gets warm when I play some games. Otherwise it is just a cool glass slab.
My MacBook: warm. Even more warm with each thing I do. Heat is important, as it can be uncomfortable touching my MacBook, but I’ve never felt that way with my iPad or iPhone. We don’t like warm — warm devices is disconcerting to say the least.
There’s lots more of this. I found this whole post thought provoking. I still live in both worlds, sometimes using OS X and iOS at the same time. I still see iOS as portable consumption, light creation and OS X as power user content creation.
[H/T John Kordyback]
Steve Jobs, in between gigs at Apple.
[H/T Scott Knaster]