[OT] Was: totally satisfied :D

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:05:35 -0400, Nick Sabalausky  
<SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com> wrote:

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

This makes sense.  Why would you ever want your alarm clock to "alarm  
silently"  How would you wake up?  This is another case of someone using  
the wrong tool for the job (for reminders, use the new reminder feature,  
or use an appointment with an alert, those obey the silent switch).

And the volume is set by the ringer, it's not a separate volume.  It's  
just that it doesn't obey the silent switch.  If it did I'd be pissed,  
because I frequently turn my phone to silent at night, but expect the  
alarm to wake me up.

> Apple actually thought that was a good idea.

Because it is.

> 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.

I don't know any examples of sounds that disobey the silent switch except  
for the "find my iPhone" alert, and the alarm clock, both of which would  
be quite foolish to have make no sounds.

Really, when you take the silent switch into account, the sound system  
works adequately for most people.

> 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 you exaggerate.  Just a bit.

>> 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...

The ringer volume affects almost all the incidental sounds, the click for  
keyboard typing, the lock/unlock sounds, alert sounds, alarm volume, etc.   
The audio volume affects basically music, video, and game sounds.

>> 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.

Well, for music/video, the volume buttons *do* work in locked mode.

>
>>
>> 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.

I have had several sound systems where the volume knob started  
misbehaving, due to corrosion, dust, whatever.  You can hear it mostly  
when you turn the knob, and it has a scratchy sound coming from the  
speakers.

>> 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?

I wouldn't do that if it were me.  You might find yourself adding features  
that aren't allowed or available in non-jailbroken phones, and then go to  
publish, find out your whole design is not feasible.

>> 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.

It's a required thing for iOS development :)  I have recently experienced  
the exact opposite.  I love my mac, and I would never go back to Windows.   
Mac + VMWare fusion for running XP and Linux is fucking awesome.

> 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.

I recently learned objective C, and I'd hate to use it without xcode,  
which is a fantastic IDE.  Obj-C is extremely verbose, so without  
auto-complete, it would be torturous.

>> 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.

I think that model is here to stay, because they have now gone to a model  
where the two prior generations are available, the previous at half price,  
and the one two generations back for free (subsidized of course).  Given  
that the release cycle is about once per year, this also means that the  
one 3 generations back will be supported for at least a year (it would be  
shit if you got a 3gs, and then when the 5 comes out 2 months later, it's  
not supported).  This is why iOS 6 is on 3gs, but not on the iPad 1 (which  
was released more recently, but has not been sold for a while).

>> 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).

The *screen* wasn't broken, it's just the plastic starts deteriorating.   
Jobs famously had an early iPhone prototype with a plastic screen and  
pulled it out at a designer meeting and yelled at them saying "this  
fucking thing is in with my keys, it's getting all scratched up!  we need  
something better."  That's when they started thinking about using the  
glass screens.

Hate him if you want, but he definitely has revolutionized mobile  
technology.

> 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 :)

hehe :)

My kids often say the iPad isn't working, and then I have to point out  
they are holding it with their thumb on the screen.  At least those  
problems are easy to fix :)

-Steve