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Seems like many people are not making enough of the distinction between choices and bugs. Sure there are bugs in lots of stuff, and that's an entirely valid con

by lips 11y ago

Seems like many people are not making enough of the distinction between choices and bugs. Sure there are bugs in lots of stuff, and that's an entirely valid conversation, but there's also a layer of confounding choices. Some make sense from an "corporate" perspective, some... -iTunes bloat is a choice, and bugs. -Mail.app is mostly bugs. (non-standard .mbox was a choice) -Final Cut X was a choice. -Eschewing strong AppleScript support in native applications is a choice. -The app store(s) are a choice. -Allowing core utilities like Contacts and iCal to stagnate and be outshone by 3rd parties (BusyMac) was a choice. -Aperture+iPhoto=Photos was a choice. (So was selling Aperture after it was EOLed) -FFF

wlesieutre 11y ago
> The app store(s) are a choice. In that case, allow me to summarize some of the choices that went into building the Mac App Store. - It's a web view. No local caching of layout or anything. If your network connection hiccups, instead of a reasonably rendered error message, you get this: http://i.imgur.com/5xNgwMH.png http://i.imgur.com/5xNgwMH.png - Text in the search box is blurry. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think someone made a choice to render it with its y-position at a half pixel increment. And then nudge it down so it comes into focus when you click on it. Because really, what sort of asshole would still be using a low DPI screen? http://i.imgur.com/gj3mqrz.png http://i.imgur.com/gj3mqrz.png - How many Install buttons does an update need? Eh, let's choose two. Two's a nice number. And have that "Update All" button stick around even though all updates were already installed. https://i.imgur.com/p9QoCqZ.png https://i.imgur.com/p9QoCqZ.png - Earlier today, though it didn't lend itself to screenshots, my Xcode "Install" vs "Installing" button that couldn't decide what mode it wanted to be in and just bounced back and forth instead. Why choose one when you can be both! - The "Check for Unfinished Downloads" menu. Do you know what happens when a download doesn't finish? Or why it's not presented in a sane way in the normal UI? Me neither. Instead of gracefully handling errors, let's choose to bury them in a secret menu that people will happen upon via StackOverflow searches when their installation keeps failing with no indication of why. https://i.imgur.com/xkgP0lc.png https://i.imgur.com/xkgP0lc.png A+ design work right there. Excellent choices.
- lips 11y ago
  This is exactly my point. Apple has been making these choices for a while, but they're being swept into a convo about bugs, and thus capacity/engineering. I think atp.fm dip into this for a second in their most recent (yesterday) podcast episode.

by lips 11y ago

wlesieutre 11y ago

> The app store(s) are a choice. In that case, allow me to summarize some of the choices that went into building the Mac App Store. - It's a web view. No local caching of layout or anything. If your network connection hiccups, instead of a reasonably rendered error message, you get this: http://i.imgur.com/5xNgwMH.png http://i.imgur.com/5xNgwMH.png - Text in the search box is blurry. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think someone made a choice to render it with its y-position at a half pixel increment. And then nudge it down so it comes into focus when you click on it. Because really, what sort of asshole would still be using a low DPI screen? http://i.imgur.com/gj3mqrz.png http://i.imgur.com/gj3mqrz.png - How many Install buttons does an update need? Eh, let's choose two. Two's a nice number. And have that "Update All" button stick around even though all updates were already installed. https://i.imgur.com/p9QoCqZ.png https://i.imgur.com/p9QoCqZ.png - Earlier today, though it didn't lend itself to screenshots, my Xcode "Install" vs "Installing" button that couldn't decide what mode it wanted to be in and just bounced back and forth instead. Why choose one when you can be both! - The "Check for Unfinished Downloads" menu. Do you know what happens when a download doesn't finish? Or why it's not presented in a sane way in the normal UI? Me neither. Instead of gracefully handling errors, let's choose to bury them in a secret menu that people will happen upon via StackOverflow searches when their installation keeps failing with no indication of why. https://i.imgur.com/xkgP0lc.png https://i.imgur.com/xkgP0lc.png A+ design work right there. Excellent choices.

lips 11y ago
This is exactly my point. Apple has been making these choices for a while, but they're being swept into a convo about bugs, and thus capacity/engineering. I think atp.fm dip into this for a second in their most recent (yesterday) podcast episode.