New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

its weird because those skeuomorphic thingies run contrary to the general shift in software design which has figured out that the design is the usablity

― lag∞n, Friday, September 21, 2012 11:32 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's really, really weird to me. esp since iOS itself seems predicated on a streamlined interface that has no "literal" counterpart, aside from one of those calculators for babies/old people

a. the data it generates is super valuable

this is the weirdest thing though - apple is not a search company. they're not going to make a lot of money off people searching for stuff, so they're always going to have less of an organizational imperative to have awesome maps, it'll always be harder for them than it will be for google.

but yeah, point b for sure

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg/250px-Steve_Jobs_Headshot_2010-CROP.jpg

we call it the iCalculator for babies/old people

god damn it

this is the weirdest thing though - apple is not a search company. they're not going to make a lot of money off people searching for stuff

― hot slag (lukas), Friday, September 21, 2012 12:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this data can inform siri, which is a search engine, itll be key to the internet of things, digital payments, etc blah blah blah, ie most of the stuff it relates to hasnt surfaced yet, this is all abt positioning, knowing where a person is and whats around them is super important in mobile, its all tied together maaaan

no i mean the assumption the reason that they got rid of google maps or that their own maps sucks is just that they didn't think maps was that important. i think both are pretty unlikely.

There's actually a bit more history behind all of this. I do remember early on in the iOS 1.0 era that both AT&T and Apple were surprised by just how popular Maps became (go figure!), and that the overall bandwidth that Maps uses could be relatively high... 60-70MB/month if you were getting directions 10 times a day. The TomTom maps are actually vectorized rather than raster tiles, so the new system will display faster and use less bandwidth.

Then there's the whole question about Google's own mapping API. Back when iOS 3 was released, Core Location was opened up so you could finally get GPS coordinates into your application, however because of Google's terms of use, you would have to license your own maps - otherwise you had to punt over to the old Apple Maps. Google's Terms Of Service for the Maps API is actually somewhat complex: http://developers.google.com/maps/faq - mapping isn't exactly a core part of their revenue (search and advertising is), so there's less motivation for Google to offer these other services as stand-alone apps. The old Maps app was written by Apple, not Google, and wasn't exactly the greatest thing out there either - there was more constant criticism about Apple not providing turn-by-turn navigation over the years than complaints about the new Maps now.

To add further complexity, Google is most definitely in the data collection business so if you allow turn-by-turn navigation then who gets to keep that search data? Does keeping a record violate Apple's own terms-of-service with the consumer? I understand why Apple did what it did, but I think it could have been handled better. At the very least a preference setting that would allow you to choose a map provider similar to how you can switch between Google searching and Yahoo or Bing. Want turn-by-turn? Auto-switch to Apple.

The whole "removing functionality and then covering it up with a dubious feature" (the 3D city stuff) is an old Apple m.o. that annoys the hell out of me.

I can't wait to see what they've ripped out of iTunes in exactly that MO

apple's map motivations seem pretty clear - apart from the basic importance of location to mobile, they don't want to be beholden to google, and from what I understand google wouldn't license turn-by-turn to apple, reserving it for android. so yeah apple got backed into a corner but instead of figuring out the best way to the door they've smashed a hole in the wall and called it a window.

the thing about apple is ppl have ALWAYS... at least in the modern osx era... complained about how the software looks... pinstripes brushed aluminum etc

its how easy it is to interact with that ppl love, not the look so much

imo

also the alternative to skeumorphic design has always seemed to be like... look at our different-coloured squares... i think we are still pretty early on in an evolution of an "anything goes" (ie we have the power/resolution to display anything we want) design language for digital stuff

i still prefer the system 7 window theme, tbh. even more than platinum. but tbf those complaints all have really similar roots: stop trying to make software ape real-world objects. That's only become more obviously the problem as the quality of the mimicry improves.

xp there are also two levels to skeumorphism: there's the leather and the stitching, but there's also the "pretend this is an actual calendar", which leads to daft limitations like you can't see the next three weeks on the last week of a month.

Designers need to learn (or relearn) how to break out of both those mindsets to advance.

xp there are also two levels to skeumorphism: there's the leather and the stitching, but there's also the "pretend this is an actual calendar", which leads to daft limitations like you can't see the next three weeks on the last week of a month.

I've always thought that skeumorphism is a result of generational differences - at the management level there's still guys who still believe that there's a significant population of people who haven't used a computer and still need ridiculous visual cues for familiarity. I noticed this at the keynote for the original iPad when so much time was wasted on showing off the same b.s. word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation dog-and-pony shows when there was so much more greater potential to highlight.

My favorite interface is still the original NeXTStep interface.

Gotta admit that the thing that I'm most cheesed about re: Apple Maps is simple -- pedestrian/transit directions require an extra app. Thanks dudes. Until that's resolved I will be sticking with Google.

i don't think i ever once used google maps for public transport direx, but that's probably only because Transport for London has such a comprehensive dealie for it, a public database that any app can tap into

So OTM re nextstep. Except the mail app and its jumbo buttons

There's free maps apps for iphone that are better than google maps, don't get why that's so terrible.

so uh what are they

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410009,00.asp

(not all mentioned are free, and hilariously one of the namechecked apps is from Tom Tom)

"not all mentioned are free" = half are 49.99 !!!!!!

hopstop sounds pretty cool though

really, I'm going to use bing on an iphone? *gives up*

in a waikiki starbucks at about 9:00 this morning, i saw a man in his late 40s/early 50s, sitting by himself in a leather armchair. moustachioed and casually dressed (faded ballcap, t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops) he wore sunglasses while reading the Wall Street Journal. almost as soon as i took note of him, i watched as he turned the page to a full-page ad for the iPhone 5. despite this ad having hardly any text, he held it up and seemed to be closely studying it for a good ten or fifteen seconds, until finally making a silent mock-"well aren't we special!" head wobble, folding the paper in half, setting it down, and taking a sip of coffee.

casually dressed (faded ballcap, black turtleneck, jeans, new balances)

"well aren't we special!"

:D

i mean aa recommending android to others then getting an iphone himself is p illustrative of the nature of peoples complaints

― lag∞n, Saturday, 22 September 2012 00:09 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sadly this is otm. my reason is specific (i.e. good luck to learners of chinese on an android handset) but millions of people probably have equally specific ios requirements.

btw apple's 'maps will improve as people use it' is wishful thinking imo.

well i bet it actually will, it just may not ever catch up with gmaps

theyll improve because apple works on them, people using them just provides useful data

Pretty pissed that my iPad 1 is essentially obsolete already.

yeah, there's a lot that can be done without ~crowdsourcing~, starting with putting cities and towns on land xp

thats the great thing abt starting from such a low point

http://www.escuchar-musica-espagnola.com/Musica-De-Los-80/Yazz/images/Yazz-The-Only-Way-Is-Up.jpg

Pretty pissed that my iPad 1 is essentially obsolete already.

wait, i have an ipad 1 ... is it obsolete now?!?

First gen iPads can't run iOS 6

oh good, i thought it was no longer useful as a book and comic book reader / news reader / web browser / email in bed toy

Haha no, it's still fine for that. My sweetie is very happy about that!

trying to figure out if i should plug in my iphone and try to revert to iOS 5 but i feel like ghost of jobs has some sort of master plan to fuck me over if i do that

isn't downgrading impossible without jailbreaking?

i spent about 2.5hrs downgrading on my 3G once and it wasnt jailbroken.

what if i restored from last week's backup?

pretty sure I read something about downgrading via dfu mode yesterday, can't find it now

i'm serious about being too scared to do it

is it seriously worth the trouble

doubtful

you can still downgrade, but only for the next couple of days as they're expected to stop signing ios 5 pretty soon.

I forgot about the iPad 1 thing. It's a pisser, because it means you can't iMessage from your phone number on those.

iphone 5 is pretty sweet y'all

only ever used the 1g so this is a biiig update for me, can't really say how it compares with more recent ones except to say

FIVE ROWS OF APPS

side effect of loading ios6 on ipad 3 - native youtube is gone and google's app is iphone only

five snaps in a star formation

is it obsolete now?!?

At the very least it's possible that it will never be updated again.

first world problemzzzzz