[OT] Was: totally satisfied :D

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:11:50 -0400
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:34:12 -0400, Nick Sabalausky  
> <SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:46:35 -0400
> > "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> The keyboard click sound (which you can disable BTW,
> >> settings->sounds->keyboard clicks) obeys the ringer volume.
> >
> > Ehh? How unintuitive.
> 
> I cannot argue that Apple's audio volume isn't too simplistic for its
> own good.  AIUI, they have two "volumes", one for the ringer, and one
> for playing audio, games, videos, etc.
> 

There's also a separate one for alarms/alerts:
http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/12/01/13/user.unaware.that.alarm.going.off.was.his/

And Jobs-only-knows what else.

Apple actually thought that was a good idea.

Plus, my understanding is that one of Apple's explicit design principles
is that if an user-prompted action is something that's "expected" to
make a sound (by whatever *Apple* decides is "expected", naturally),
then to hell with the user's volume setting, it should make a sound
anyway.

It's just unbelievably convoluted, over-engineered, and as far from
"simple" as could possibly be imagined. Basically, you have "volume up"
and "volume down", but there's so much damn modality (something Apple
*loves*, but it almost universally bad for UI design) that they
work pretty much randomly.


> > I think the main problem is that the volume rules are just far too
> > convoluted. They took something trivial and hacked it up beyond
> > recognition, and all in the supposed name of "simplicity", go
> > figure.
> 
> I think if they simply made the volume buttons control the ringer
> while locked and not playing music, it would solve the problem.
> 

I very much disagree. Then when you take it out to use it, everything
will *still* be surprisingly too loud (or quiet). Just not when a call
comes in...

> BTW, a cool feature I didn't know for a long time is if you double
> tap the home button, your audio controls appear on the lock screen
> (play/pause, next previous song, and audio volume).  But I think you
> have to unlock to access ringer volume.
> 

That's good to know (I didn't know).

Unfortunately, it still only eliminates one, maybe two, swipes from an
already-complex procedure, that on any sensible device would have been
one step: Reach down into the pocket to adjust the volume.

> 
> It's more moving parts to break.  I wouldn't like it.  Just my
> opinion.
> 

How often has anyone ever had a volume POT go bad? I don't think I've
*ever* even had it happen. It's a solid, well-established technology.

> >
> > If it were my own personal device, I'd just jailbreak it and be done
> > with it. (And then pay the ransom to publish, of course, because
> > what else can you do? Create your own device and compete with Apple
> > under capitalism? Nope, Google tried that idea of "competition" and
> > look what happened:
> > <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/technology/jury-reaches-decision-in-apple-samsung-patent-trial.html?_r=1&ref=technology>  
> > )
> 
> If you want to develop for only jailbroken phones, you basically
> alienate most users of iPhone.  It's not a viable business model
> IMO.  Yes, it sucks to have to jump through apple's hoops, but having
> access to millions of users is very much worth it.
> 

No, no, no, I'd jailbreak it for *testing*. Like I said, I'd
begrudgingly still pay Apple's ransom for publishing, because what
other realistic option is there?

> 
> Oh, when you develop apps, it's quite easy to install on the phone,
> you just click "run" from xcode, selecting your device, you don't
> ever have to start itunes (though itunes will auto-start every time
> you plug in the phone, but you can disable this in itunes, more
> annoying is that iPhoto *always* starts, I can't figure out how to
> stop that).  From then on, the app is installed.  The issue is
> setting up all the certificates via xcode and their web portal to get
> that to work (should only have to do this once).  I think the process
> has streamlined a bit, you used to have to create an app id for each
> app and select which devices were authorized to install it.  Now I
> think you get a wildcard app id, but you still have to register each
> device.
> 

I don't use a mac, and I never will again. I spent about a year or two
with OSX last decade and I'll never go back for *any* reason. Liked it
at first, but the more I used it the more I hated it.

Fortunately, I'm developing with Marmalade, so I don't have to even
have a mac at all (not only that, I don't need to touch any Objective-C,
either). Now that I've actually had some sleep, ;), I remember now that
since Marmalade's deployment tool can code-sign (assuming you paid the
ransom for Apple's dev cert) and install direct to the device, so
you're right, I don't need iTunes after all.

Apple still requires a mac to submit to the app store, but luckily
my "boss" has a mac, and he's going to be doing the submitting anyway.
So I don't even have to touch one of those wretched machines at all.

> >
> >>
> >> I love how my iPhone will never scratch or deteriorate.
> >
> > Instead, it'll just get prematurely discontinued ;)
> 
> 3gs (released june 2009) was still being sold last month, and it is  
> getting ios 6 upgrade.  I still have mine and develop with it.
> 

That's fairly uncharacteristic for Apple though. And it's still only 3
years, that's not much anyway. Yea, for phones it's *considered* a lot,
but that's coming from a world where people *expect* you to go throwing
away your "old" expensive devices the moment your lock-in contract
is up (after only a year or two) so you can immediately jump back into
more lock-in, which is insane.

> 
> My wife and I have been very careful with ours, but I do see a lot
> with cracked screens.  Interesting thing is they still seem to work!
> I don't think a cracked/broken screen would ever work with a
> palm-style touch screen.
> 

Palm screens were better protected anyway, in various ways. And I never
saw a busted one (though I don't doubt they existed).

Although I did have a scare on my Palm once, when I noticed the
touchscreen and all buttons were unresponsive. After a special
trip home from work to get it on the charger (and hopefully sync it), I
realized what had happened: Turned out that when I had been playing
with the screen protector earlier, I'd managed to wedge the corner in
between the screen and the casing, so it was registering that as one
loooong tap. That was kinda embarrassing :)