The Race for Mediocre

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I was catching up on some Macalope Weekly back-issues today and couldn't help but think, several weeks further into this whole Surface fiasco, that the Macalope is more right than ever about Microsoft's current direction under Ballmer:

Well, yeah, OK, but what if not doing things really well—just kind of trying to cover all your bases and then shoving something out the door—was kind of your thing? What then, smart guy?

Live long and prosper, @TheMacalope.

On Setting Up Windows Machines

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At work I'm required to use a Windows laptop. As, perhaps, many of you are. And yes, a little piece of me does die every day. I've decided to get a Mac anyway to do actual work, and I can use this PC to interface with the small handful of Windows-only applications I am required to use. Incidentally my iPad has become a huge part of my workflow since being given this HP Pavillion g Series with a sweet AMD Quad-Core processor. Let me just say that not all Quad-Cores are created equal.

All that to say that this is not the point of my post. The point is that when I first got this computer I had to, obviously, set it up for actual use. This took me the better part of the day. Seriously it took almost 5 hours.

First things first. The computer booted into Windows 7 which, as far as Windows goes, is fairly nice, but it has subtly changed enough from XP that I get confused about things like "Personalizing" my desktop. But when it boots you need to go get some basic tools like an anti-virus package. I went with Windows Security Essentials - why is this not bundled? Security software is essential for Windows - it should be included standard. Once that's downloaded I double-click to open and then start doing something else... downloading Chrome, I think. After several minutes I notice that WSE still has not installed. So I click on the yellow install shield in the task bar and the screen goes black... after a few seconds a warning dialogue pops up that asks if it's okay that the program I just launched makes changes I click 'yes' and only then will the program actually install. Then Windows needs to restart. Fine. Restart. When Windows loads up again it it begins installing update 1 of 75. That took about 10-15 minutes. Then it restarted again. Then it installed a few more updates, probably around 10-15. Then it restarted again and booted into the actual OS after a while. Then I installed Office (I use iWork on my Macs) and it reminded me about how much I love authentication... 'cause one cannot copy-paste off the back of the Office packaging. Fine.

Then, because the built-in trackpad on this HP box is so horrendous I bought a wireless mouse (with USB dongle, of course) and as soon as it was plugging in, it just worked... no, no it didn't. Windows needed to reboot again. Reboot.

Install Dropbox, C-Cleaner, and Defraggler. No restart. Nice.

Then came the death blow. Installing programs I use every single day...

  • Reeder? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Fantastical? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Cobook? No. Windows alternative... none.
  • Coda? No. Windows alternative... Dreamweaver: $399
  • Pixelmator? No. Windows alternative... Photoshop: $699 or GIMP: Shoot Me
  • Motion? No. Windows alternative... After Effects: $999
  • Aperture? No. Windows alternative... Lightroom: $149
  • Mail.app? No. Windows alternative... Postbox: $39 or Outlook: Shoot Me

That's $290 in Mac software that would cost $2290 to replace most of in a Windows world.

After about two month of this I broke down and bought a Mac. I still have that HP in the corner. And I use it occasionally for a small handful of Windows-only tasks. But it sure looks awful lonely.

Windows users... I don't know how you put up with these machines. The constant rebooting. Updates a-plenty, all requiring a reboot. Software makers that assume you're trying to steal everything (but with those prices I can understand why). Even the OS assumes it's been stolen until proved otherwise.

You know the best part? No one in my office thought it was at all weird that I spent my whole first day setting up my machine. No one.

When I bought my new Mac I had it set up in an hour.

Google Maps for iOS

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Jake Smith:

The question is: will Apple accept [Google's maps app]?

I disagree. The question is: what are we giving up? Maps needs access to some rather important information. Like your address book (Contacts) and location data. This means that Maps can report back to Google routes you use on a regular basis as well as stores and other shopping opportunities nearby. People you know, and things they're into will help Google provide you with eerily specific ad targeting. I just don't know that I want Google to have access to where I am at any given time (when I'm getting directions). I also doubt that I want Google to know who I am friends with, but I require Facebook for my job, so I just assume I've already lost that battle.

Short of the long is this: we are for sale. And the more info Google has about us, the more valuable we are to Google's customers.

Office for iOS & Android

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Free, but it requires a Microsoft account, and only allows viewing (which iOS already does, without a Microsoft account). And if you want "basic editing" it'll cost $4/month. Or, if you want more advanced editing you can just buy the whole iWork suite for $30 in the App Store. This sounds like the stupidest thing ever. How did it possibly take Microsoft 4 years to come out with this?

(via The Verge)

Space on RT

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Justin Rubio:

Microsoft has revealed exactly how much free space new Surface owners are left with after taking into account Windows RT and system-related files. For the 32GB version of the new tablet, users have access to only 16GB of storage, with the remaining half taken up by Windows recovery tools, Windows RT, Microsoft Office, and built-in apps.

What's most amazing about this to me is that this is the stripped-down version of Windows designed exclusively for tablets. How unreal will the space requirements for Windows for Surface Pro be!?

Tim Cook on Compromise

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Microsoft was chanting the mantra of "No Compromises" at it's Surface Launch Event. But that's just delusory nonsense. Even Tim Cook, whose company has been leading the charge in almost every profitable & popular emerging area of personal computing said (via Joanna Stern):

One of the toughest things you do is make hard tradeoffs and decide what a product should be, and we’ve done that with the iPad.

It's not about 'no compromise' it's about the right compromise.

High-Risk Permissions

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Ellen Messmer via Jim Dalrymple:

Of the 412,222 Android apps evaluated from Google Play, Bit9 says more than 290,000 of them access at least one high-risk permission, 86,000 access five or more and 8,000 apps access 10 or more permissions “flagged as potentially dangerous.”

While I've no doubt that "wallpaper" apps don't need access to anything on one's phone this excerpt seems unfair to Android. We all remember Path-gate, and the outrage over that. It happens in iOS as well. And if you read through what Bit9 says are 'high-risk permissions' some of these very permissions are available to devs on the iOS platform as well. Like GPS location data and Contacts data. Granted, iOS now requires users to expressly approve any application's access to this data, but that by no means makes the average user totally safe from an app maliciously crafted by a devious developer.

What I think would be more interesting would be an analysis of 412,222 applications on the iOS App Store to see how many of them access 'high-risk permissions' the difference there would be a much more honest comparison.

Ballmer's Reality Distortion Field

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Steve Ballmer, in reference to the tablet market (via CNBC & The Macalope):

I don't think anyone has done a product that I see customers wanting.

There's only two possible things happening here. Either Ballmer knows he's lying through his teeth, or he doesn't. Unfortunately both of these alternatives still make him look like, well, an idiot. If I were Ballmer and had some high-end talent heading to the free agency pool soon, I'd watch my back.

Option 1: Ballmer knows he's lying through his teeth. He's trying to play down (read: ignore) the obscene success of the iPad as irrelevant (sounds familiar) in order to make the Surface look like the better option. But this doesn't make the Surface look better, it makes Steve Ballmer look out of touch with reality. And worse, it makes Microsoft look like they have not a single clue what people want. Microsoft isn't the biggest player in the game anymore. And Ballmer needs to realize it. Perhaps more importantly he needs to know that we realize it.

Acknowledge that Microsoft hasn't had a compelling product in this space. Acknowledge that you're targeting it. Show us what you have, tell us what it costs, tell us when it will ship, and tell us why it's better.

Option 2: Ballmer doesn't know he's lying. If this is the case, then Steve Ballmer has his own Reality Distortion Field.

Skeumorphs Unite!

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The raging debate over the creeping themes of skeumorphism in Apple's software continues in an article by Farhad Manjoo over at Slate with an ill-conceived question-as-a-headline: Should a Calendar App Look Like a Calendar?

That's quickly followed up with this little gem:

The design battle that’s tearing Apple and the tech world apart.

Wow. This article is shaping up to be to tech journalism what skeumorphism is to design, namely:

[M]imic[ing] the elements in an older device that were functionally necessary for that device to work.

I'll admit that in the past this kind of hyperbole might have been necessary to draw attention to the lowly byline of a tech journalist, but in the 21st century, when nerds are the new cool, I think an article like this can attract plenty of views based on its own merits.

Anyway, Farhad leads off with the firing of Scott Forstall, who is rumoured to have been in love with virtual things that looked like other real things, and was supposedly the main drive towards skeumorphism at Apple.

Some legitimately good points and other interesting facts then find their way into the narrative, such as:

[T]he iPhone calculator’s three-dimensional buttons are an archetypal example of skeuomorphism. You needed three-dimensional buttons in physical calculators; on a flat screen, 3-D buttons aren’t necessary. (On the other hand, leather stitching in the Calendar app isn’t skeuomorphic, because the leather isn’t functional, just decorative.)

Which leads Farhad to conclude:

[T]hat’s really the main advantage of skeuomorphic designs: They remind us of stuff we already know, and stuff we already know feels comfortable.

Now while that may be true, he's missed the real issue here, which is that the implementation of skeumorphic design often interferes with or contradicts the practical usefulness of a piece of software. Address Book under OS X Lion is a prime example of this.

Unfortunately, in the end, all Farhad can offer by way of constructive criticism to Jony Ive in his new role is this:

It’s true that iOS’s apps have gotten a little over the top, and they could do with some cleaning up.

Maybe it's certain kinds of tech journalism that "have gotten a little over the top".

Samsung/Apple UK judgment

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This whole thing is so stupid I can't even handle it. The UK court wants Apple to apologize to Samsung on the Apple UK homepage for giving Samsung months and months of free adverts and fodder for ads with additional space on Apple's site. I understand why Apple was upset with what Samsung had done (and continues to do), but they gave the South Korean electronics manufacturer a metric tonne of publicity (I was going to say "free publicity", but it wasn't). None-the-less Samsung's Galaxy Tab line went from 'just another tablet' to front-and-centre. They should be thanking Apple, especially since Californian tech giant lost it's case in Europe, leaving that territory rife for the selling.

Maybe they'll make back what they lost in the US...

NYC iPad Mini Launch

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Buster Heine:

The damage from hurricane Sandy will probably mean that the iPad mini launch at the 5th Avenue Apple Store will be much more subdued than past launches.

How is this even news? With what's happened to utilities and public services, not to mention the horrific loss of property and life - this almost seems to be in poor taste. Once these people have an opportunity to collect their lives, then we can worry about how iPad Mini is selling in New York.

sigh

Everyone Happy All The Time

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Microsoft's big push behind Windows 8 (and its new tablet, the Surface) has been all about the promise of “no compromise”. Microsoft wants its offering to be all things to all people. But to anyone who thinks critically about anything, ever, that's just plain stupid. Design is all about compromise. It's about choosing what battles to fight and what battles to cede.

The 11" MacBook Air. If you want a laptop that compact and portable, the screen won't be very large. The battery life won't be as good. The thermal envelope doesn't support jamming a ton of processing power in it. Why? Because those are the things that need to be sacrificed at the altar of portability.

The 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display has the opposite problem. It has a large (and gorgeous) display, better battery life, and scads of horsepower. But it's much bigger and much heavier than the 11" Air.

The iPad (4) is bigger, thicker, and heavier than the iPad Mini, but those are the tradeoffs that had to be made to keep the battery life the same and still run the retina display/A6X processor.

Of course, despite all the high-minded talk, this is also true of the Surface (from Matt Honan):

Microsoft’s new tablet is an altogether curious device. It’s something completely new and different. It is, in some ways, better than an iPad. In some ways, worse. It’s brilliant, and yet it can be puzzling as well. Confoundingly so at times. It’s a tablet of both compromises and confusion. It is a true hybrid — neither fully a desktop nor mobile device. That’s reflected in all sorts of ways. It is Wi-Fi only, but won’t run traditional Windows applications. It has a full-featured keyboard and runs Microsoft Office — but it’s certainly meant to be touched and swiped and tapped.

It’s different.

And of course — but again, not unexpectedly — Windows 8 runs into similar compromises (from Tom Warren):

Microsoft has made the decision to remove a number of features from its Office 2013 RT release to ensure battery life and reliability are not impacted on tablet devices.

Some compromise is fine as long as we don't go overboard (remember netbooks?). Consumers understand compromise. Further, people in general understand compromise. We do it all the time in all aspects of our lives. Our electronics are no different. And Microsoft, I don't blame you for compromising; we all knew you had to do it. But please, please don't treat us like we're stupid.

That's one thing I won't compromise on.

The Other Side

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Jim Dalrymple:

How is it that stopping a company from blatantly ripping off your design “obviously impedes innovation”? It doesn’t. As I wrote earlier this week, all it does it stop copying. It encourages innovation because companies will have to think for themselves instead of stealing like Samsung did.

I can't believe anyone lands on the other side of this debate. Seriously.

iOS vs Android

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Loren Donelson:

Since I’m noodling a move back to iOS, I thought I’d make a list of things that I’ll miss about Android — things that might make my shiny new iPhone 5 end up on Ebay.

Usually posts like this are real eye-rollers but with the exception of WiFi Hotspot (which iPhone can do right now) these are well-reasoned and a couple of them I want for myself. Like "Drag-and-drop":

It’s so much simpler on Android. I just connect my phone via Micro-USB cable and drag-and-drop files directly onto my phone in the Finder.

Or "Settings Automation":

Locale is hands down my favorite app for Android, and there’s nothing comparable on iOS. I use it to change phone settings like 3G data, volume, and ringtone, based on conditions like location, time, Wi-Fi, plugging in headphones, and more.

Hope Scott Forstall is paying attention.