Tag Archives: Macworld

So I got into an argument on Twitter, about Twitter with @jsnell, and @harrycmarks

Anyone who reads my blog probably knows about app.net, so I won’t go into details about it. I already linked to an article by Dr. Drang yesterday.

What’s been bugging me is that lots of people in the blogsphere have been complaining about Twitter, on Twitter – with app.net in mind.

I get that the changes Twitter is making are not everyone’s cup of tea. I really do, but I’m with Dr. Drang on this one: No one is forcing you to use Twitter, seeing 10.000 retweets about Miley Cyrus new haircut, or Justin Bieber’s latest bs. I also see that most people who complain about the changes are either devs, or folks who have been on Twitter for a long time and don’t like the changes the company is making.

But I think I know why they have to make them: Independence.
Twitter wants to stay independent. They’re not looking for a buyer, so they have to make money. They want to build a sustainable business, and to do so they are starting to enforce policies that are not to everyone’s liking.

Think about it: When was the last time you heard of a company out of Silicon Valley that was aiming to stay relevant and independent? Anyone?

So, after going through my Twitter feed for a few days, and growing increasingly frustrated with people complaining about Twitter on Twitter, I shot off a tweet. Jason Snell of Macworld was the target.
I didn’t pick him for any particular reason other than he was the last one in my feed. Here’s what he said, and my reply:

Harsh, I admit, but it wasn’t really directed at Jason, whom I admire greatly. It was just me venting my frustration over so many people complaining about Twitter. Apologies to Jason.

Then, the always awesome Harry C. Marks (@HarryCMarks) of curiousrat.com chimed in, after I asked him what his beef with Twitter was. He managed to bring me back to a more reasonable myself – thanks for that! You can follow the conversation we had on my feed (@TLITD69).

Again, I get why some people are complaining, but I also get why Twitter needs to do what they are doing. I’d rather have them stay on their own and make money, then have them swallowed up by a big tech company because the best-case scenario in that is that the service remains “free” for, say Google users. The worst-case is an aqui-hire. No matter what, the best possible outcome would be worse than what it is now.

Update: Harry C. Marks offers his own thoughts on app.net.

See Jason (D. O’Grady)? That’s how Apple rolls.

Apple last week patched all Macs that were potentially affected by the Flashback drive-by malware.
I’m sure Jason D. O’Grady is happy about that.

How did they do it?

They saw what was happening, they tought about how to best fix it, they implemented two Java updates to fix the underlying vulnerability, rolled them out, and then they issued a third patch that actually removes the malware, and does a few other cool things, like disabeling Java for all users unless it’s been used in the last 35 days. Boom!

Once the patch disables Java, a user has to manually enable it if he needs Java applets to run on his Mac. Most people don’t. This is a totally new approach to a problem like this: Apple is proactively countering the threat. Well played!

Law of Vulnerabilities Blog via Macworld:

This is exciting and to my knowledge nobody has done something like this before. It makes total sense to me: We have been telling users to disable or uninstall Java if they do not need it, but we know very well that only very security conscious users will do so.

See Jason? That’s how Apple rolls.

Fireballed and Snell’d. @daringfireball, @jsnell

John Gruber at Daring Fireball in response to my thoughts on iTunes from yesterday:

You can’t please everyone, but it sure seems to me like there are more Mac users who wish Apple would break iTunes into a set of smaller tighter-focused apps (like on iOS) than there are iPad users who wish the Music, Video, App Store, and iTunes Store apps were combined into a single app (like on Mac and Windows).

I’m not so sure about that. It seems to me from the comments on my blog, and the comments on the Macworld article by Jason Snell, that the numbers are pretty even.

My point is: On iOS it makes sense to split the apps, because we use it very differently from how we use iTunes on the Mac.
On iOS you tap the app that you want to use for a specific scenario. On the Mac (and on Windows) you have a centralized way to access all your media. It makes it easier, in both worlds, to have it the way it is.

Again, I do not doubt that Apple is re-working their approach, I just don’t think they will split the Mac app now, and I don’t think it’s broken the way it is.

Edit: A commenter on my original post brought up an interesting issue: How would you restore an iOS device, if the apps holding your info are separate from one another?

Is iTunes broken? @jsnell thinks so…

I disagree with Jason’s view.

Every now and then someone comes along and complains publicly about iTunes. Sometimes you can read that it’s outright broken, other times it’s bloated, and so on.

I’m kinda sick of the moaning to be honest.

iTunes has evolved from a pure music player for our Macs, to the center of our entertainment world, connecting all our iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, iPods) to our Mac, and to iCloud, iTunes Match, etc. All this while weighing in at roughly 222 MB.

Let’s dive in:

Apple has packed almost everything involving media (and app) management, purchase, and playback into this single app. It’s bursting at the seams. It’s a complete mess. And it’s time for an overhaul.

Like I said above: Apple is chosing to use one app to manage our digital lives, excluding photos. I wonder how many would scream if they had to use, say, four apps instead. One for music, one for movies, one for iOS sync…you get the idea. That would be a mess.

I use iTunes every day to listen to music on my Mac at work, and it works just fine. It’s not perfect, but it’s good. My issues are not with the core feature of iTunes, the music player. My issues are with all the other junk that has been grafted on since then.

Define “perfect” music player. I mean, what exactly do you need a music player to do, except…you know…play music? I don’t mean to sound harsh, but come on…
I also doubt that the 99% would call iTunes capabilities “junk”, actually I’m pretty sure they’re very happy they don’t have to deal with several apps.

iTunes syncs the media and apps on all your iOS devices, and I haven’t found it to be either flexible or reliable. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to delete everything and re-sync music, or videos, or apps because iTunes got confused about whether it had synced to that particular device before.

I’m seriously at a loss here. I’ve been using iTunes for many years now, and I never had problems with it. At all. Currently we have three iPhones (3G, 4, 4), two iPads (2, 3), two Macs (iMac 2011, Air 2011), one iPod Touch, and one Apple TV (2nd gen) connectd to iTunes. Different profiles on all of them. No issue. Ever.

Recently I connected my wife’s iPad to our Mac at home to add some videos for my kids to watch. The iPad had never been synced with the Mac before, because it was using iCloud and the App Store. The moment I plugged it in, iTunes attempted to sync its own parallel collection of apps to this iPad, which I didn’t want. When I tried to turn off this feature, it offered me a decision I’d never seen before: To delete all the apps on the iPad, or keep them and stop syncing. The second option was exactly what I wanted to do. So I chose it, and watched as iTunes proceded to delete all the apps on the iPad anyway.

I don’t doubt that this happened. It’s supposed to happen. When I set up my 3rd gen iPad a few weeks ago, I synced it wirelessly with iCloud. Several days later i wanted a local backup, so I plugged it into my iMac, and the exact same dialogue popped up. I was expecting this. My iMac didn’t know this new iPad, so it wanted to delete all apps and resync with it to back it up. If there were an easy way for Apple to fix this, don’t you think they would have done so by now?
Besides, wasn’t it possible to just download the movies from iCloud? I’m serious. If you right-click a movie in iTunes it gives you the option to upload it to your iCloud. End of story.

Given that all apps are available in the cloud these days, I’m not sure why iTunes is aggressively trying to sync apps with devices. In fact, given Apple’s aggressive moves with iTunes Match and iTunes in the Cloud, even Apple seems to realize that syncing media with a Mac or PC running iTunes is kind of a mess.

No, what they do realize is that people want the option to have all their stuff on a local drive, and that broadband internet is not available everywhere.

And let’s be honest: iTunes is at its worst when it comes to app management. The app-management interface in iTunes is ridiculously slow. iTunes can fill up your hard drive with tens of gigabytes of iOS apps that can easily be downloaded from Apple. Syncing apps frequently destroys folders and makes app disappear. The interface that shows where the app icons will appear on your iOS device is unstable, unreliable, and inefficient.

I’m sorry to be blunt, but this is a rant. A whiny one at that. Even my Core2Duo, 4GB RAM iMac from 2008 running on Lion (before I bought the new iMac), had no problem at all doing the things Jason describes. Nothing of the sort has happened to me, or anyone I know for that matter.

If Apple’s going to embrace the cloud wherever possible, it needs to change iTunes too. The program should be simpler. It might be better off being split into separate apps, one devoted to device syncing, one devoted to media playback. (And perhaps the iTunes Store could be broken out separately too? When Apple introduced the Mac App Store, it didn’t roll it into iTunes, but gave it its own app.)

I’ll refer you to the mess I mentioned above about several different apps to accomplish what one app does now.
The reason the Mac App Store is seperate is pretty simple: Apple recognizes that not everyone will use iTunes, but everyone needs OS X updates, and OS X app updates.

The iTunes we’ve all come to know has had a good run, but it’s reached the point where it is a crazy agglomeration of features and functionality. If someone were to design it today, it wouldn’t remotely resemble its current state. And as a portal to iOS devices and the iTunes Store, iTunes is too crucial to Apple’s business to ignore or run on auto-pilot.

Again, where exactly is this “crazy agglomeration of features and functionality”? iTunes is well structured, and easy to use.
Sure, if someone were to design it today, and I’m sure Apple is on top of that, iTunes would look different. No argument there, and I’m sure they will evolve it into something different over time – maybe even soonish, but it’s not their M.O. to radically change things, so I expect gradual changes, which is a-ok by me, and probably by most of you.