[OT] "The Condescending UI" (was: Do we need Win95/98/Me support?)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:op.v8melay5eav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>
> I read that post.  I don't think you used it enough.  The swiping *is not* 
> the only interface to the photos.  You can scroll rapidly through a list 
> of "albums" (using swiping, but it has a "throw and catch" feel to it, 
> unlike swiping individual photos),

Yea, I didn't like the "throw and catch" feel. Too timing-sensitive.

> or the thumbnails of an album (or all  photos), and while in the 
> single-photo view, tapping once on the screen  brings up left and right 
> buttons so you can quickly advance or go back  through photos (including 
> holding down the button to have it go through  extremely fast).

Shit, now that you mention it, I do seem to have a vague memory of breifly 
noticing that and then completely forgetting...My official excuse is "It's 
been awhile" ;)


> The only issue I have with it is that iTunes' interface is completely 
> useless when it comes to selecting photos to load.  On my PC, I have all 
> my photos organized into folders named after the date they were taken.  So 
> in iTunes, in order to let's say, load photos from the last 2 years on my 
> iPad, I have to go through and check every *single* folder that I want to 
> copy.  And better yet, there's no way to select a *range* of folders.  I 
> don't know how it is on mac, maybe it has better integration with iPhoto. 
> But it's utterly useless on the PC unless your entire photo catalog fits 
> on your device (not the case for me).
>

That bring up one of the things I hate about Apple's (and everyone's really) 
mobile devices: There's no reason the data shouldn't be accessible like any 
other USB drive. But everyone would rather try to force lock-in.


> FWIW, I have not always been an apple fan.  My first real apple product 
> was my iPhone, purchased in 2010.  Now I have a macbook, and I have to say 
> I'm very impressed with it (it does have a quad-core i7, so that may be a 
> good reason).  So maybe it's just post-iPhone apple I'm more impressed 
> with :)
>

Heh, I haven't always been an Apple hater. My very first computer was an 
Apple IIc, and I still think the world of it. I guess I'm just more a Woz 
fan than a Jobs one. Then I got a 486 and forgot about Apple (just like most 
of the world did) until OSX came along.

I was very intrigued by OSX at the time and got an eMac (10.1) to play 
around with. It was fully my intention to switch to it as my primary system, 
and that's how I used it for about a year or so. Aside from the Dock being a 
sub-par version of the Taskbar, I was genuinely impressed with it at first. 
But then I slowly started having problems with it: Technical problems, 
irritating restrictions, some things that I just couldn't get used to even 
though I had been convinced I would get used to, etc. But Windows has never 
been perfect either, so I was still more or less happy with it and intended 
to stick with it.

Then 10.2 came out and everyone I talked to raved that it "fixes all of 
10.1's problems!" So I got it. And learned that people are filthy liars ;) 
It barely fixed a damn thing. A small handful of partial-fixes here and 
there, but that was it. The problems kept up and somewhere in the second 
year I found myself using it less and less (just to get things done), and 
using my "secondary" XP system more and more. And then OSX's issues and 
Apple's arrogance just started to annoy me more and more, and my eMac 
basically died (and would have been quickly abandoned by Apple even if it 
hadn't died), and that was the end of me and Apple. By the time 10.3 came 
out, and people made the same claims about it that they had made about 
10.2...Well, "fool me twice"...

Then Apple went on to make a bunch of other stuff that I would keep an open 
mind about at first, but then made me scratch my head and think "How the 
hell do people like this?". Now I just simply trust Apple to be totally nuts 
in whatever they pull out of their ass^H^H^Hhat.

>>
>> It's not that I think *all* elements of *all* their designs are bad: I 
>> just
>> think they have an outright addiction to taking minimalism and "treat the
>> user like an idiot" waaaay too far. They treat those things like Java 
>> treats
>> OO, and to similarly disasterous results. (At least, that's the problem I
>> have with apple's *designs*. As far as the way they run their business, I
>> think they're evil to the point of making MS look like the EFF.)
>
> I'm not so much impressed by the minimalistic interface as I am to the 
> attention to details.  For example, on my iPhone, it comes with a set of 
> headphones with a remote + mic inline on the earbuds.  This has a 
> 4-contact plug.  A standard headphone jack has 3 contacts.  What impressed 
> me about iPhone is that it remembers the volume level I set when it's 
> plugged into a 3 contact jack (which I use at work w/ speakers) vs. a 4 
> contact jack (which I use exclusively with my headphones).  That's also 
> separate from the volume level of the phone when not plugged into 
> anything.
>
> Things like that are not "main features", but they are why apple stuff 
> just seems to "work" without you noticing how helpful it's being.
>

I think part of my experience was that, yea, there's often some details that 
are nice here or there, but they always seem to screw up on fundamentals.

>
> Yeah, I think it's generally considered bad form to give one button 
> multiple uses.

"Modal interface". Yea, that's the problem with interface minimization: It 
tends to increase modality which is often worse.

For example: I'll take a good side-mounted potentiometer knob for my volume 
control over the iPod-Classic/Zune (or worse - iPad/iPod-Touch) volume 
mechanism anyday: It's always *right there*, it always works, it always 
remembers what you set it at, you never even need to look at it, and when 
you're not looking at it's *still* it's far more accurate and precise. "It 
just works."

> A symbolic label would have helped here :)
>

Heh :)