4 ms·

Having worked in aws for two years, I have zero faith in Amazon's ability to deliver a compelling user interface for anything remotely casual. Also, I'm sorry,

Having worked in aws for two years, I have zero faith in Amazon's ability to deliver a compelling user interface for anything remotely casual. Also, I'm sorry, amazon has absolutely no strength in enterprise marketing, and Microsoft is king of that realm for a reason.

dabber 10y ago
>zero faith in Amazon's ability to deliver a compelling user interface for anything remotely casual. Hah, took the words out of my mouth. Prime video is the first example that comes to mind.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  Hell their main site is a mix of various styles of ui changes from over the years. It's really inconsistent and sometimes confusing. Example being search filters. You can check the prime button but changing another filter may remove it.
  - dabber 10y ago
    Its always been something I've thought about briefly before going about my day, never really in any depth. What do you think the reason is? My thought is, not many people complain loudly so why invest the resources in an overhaul. If it ain't _totally_ broke why rock the boat kinda thing. That or the engineers build the frontend ;-)
    - dawnerd 10y ago
      I think it migh be the result of too much a|b testing. Everything hung feels ultra optimized for whatever metric they're going for that week.
notahacker 10y ago
Yeah, this is a bit like Microsoft announcing they're going to make a "killer lifestyle gadget" or Apple announcing an enterprise server. They have the resources to succeed, it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >Yeah, this is a bit like Microsoft announcing they're going to make a "killer lifestyle gadget" What, you don't think the Zune was killer? /s >They have the resources to succeed, it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market. No, not really. I don't think it's even possible for a "lifestyle gadget" to succeed as long as it has the "Microsoft" name on it, even if Apple secretly designed it for them and MS seriously committed to it. With the Zune, MS really was focused on making it succeed, and it still failed miserably. As a company, they just don't "get it" (they don't understand what it'd take to succeed in that market), plus their brand is a big negative in that market. IIRC, the Zune didn't even have MS's name or logo on it anywhere, so they even understood that much, but it still wasn't enough. I think MS trying to make trendy consumer devices is a lot like Jeep trying to make sporty electric cars. It just won't work; the company doesn't understand the market and the consumers won't take the company seriously.
  - netzone 10y ago
    To be fair, the Zune was Steve Ballmers baby, I'm convinced Satya Nadella (I thought it was a woman for the first year or so) would make a better product in that regard.
- GuB-42 10y ago
  > it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market. Amazon as a publisher doesn't have the right outlook, mark my word.
SilasX 10y ago
Yes! Amazon Video can't do something as simple as "return me to the thing I was watching when I log in". I'm watching a TV series and every time I start it (through the Xbox app) it forgets that entire series/season unless I save the season. And even if I save it, it will jump me to the latest episode that I started rather than the one I was watching when I quit. Edit: also, I've long had a pet peeve with AWS, where they will gladly let you walk through all the steps for setting up an EC2 server before saying "oops, you don't have permission to do that".
- wapz 10y ago
  > it will jump me to the latest episode that I started rather than the one I was watching when I quit. When is the last episode you started different than the one you were watching when you quit? Do they auto-play when finishing so if you started episode 2 and watched until episode 6 it would start from episode 2 again?
  - SilasX 10y ago
    No, I mean if I (or someone on that account), years ago, had watched episode 18 of the season until the middle, and I'm starting the season from the beginning and watch until episode 3 -- then every time I come to the season, it will jump me to 18 rather than 3. And it doesn't even (by default) show that season in "recently watched" or other place that's easy to get to!
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

dabber 10y ago

>zero faith in Amazon's ability to deliver a compelling user interface for anything remotely casual. Hah, took the words out of my mouth. Prime video is the first example that comes to mind.

dawnerd 10y ago
Hell their main site is a mix of various styles of ui changes from over the years. It's really inconsistent and sometimes confusing. Example being search filters. You can check the prime button but changing another filter may remove it.
- dabber 10y ago
  Its always been something I've thought about briefly before going about my day, never really in any depth. What do you think the reason is? My thought is, not many people complain loudly so why invest the resources in an overhaul. If it ain't _totally_ broke why rock the boat kinda thing. That or the engineers build the frontend ;-)
  - dawnerd 10y ago
    I think it migh be the result of too much a|b testing. Everything hung feels ultra optimized for whatever metric they're going for that week.

notahacker 10y ago

Yeah, this is a bit like Microsoft announcing they're going to make a "killer lifestyle gadget" or Apple announcing an enterprise server. They have the resources to succeed, it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Arizhel 10y ago
>Yeah, this is a bit like Microsoft announcing they're going to make a "killer lifestyle gadget" What, you don't think the Zune was killer? /s >They have the resources to succeed, it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market. No, not really. I don't think it's even possible for a "lifestyle gadget" to succeed as long as it has the "Microsoft" name on it, even if Apple secretly designed it for them and MS seriously committed to it. With the Zune, MS really was focused on making it succeed, and it still failed miserably. As a company, they just don't "get it" (they don't understand what it'd take to succeed in that market), plus their brand is a big negative in that market. IIRC, the Zune didn't even have MS's name or logo on it anywhere, so they even understood that much, but it still wasn't enough. I think MS trying to make trendy consumer devices is a lot like Jeep trying to make sporty electric cars. It just won't work; the company doesn't understand the market and the consumers won't take the company seriously.
- netzone 10y ago
  To be fair, the Zune was Steve Ballmers baby, I'm convinced Satya Nadella (I thought it was a woman for the first year or so) would make a better product in that regard.
GuB-42 10y ago
> it's just that it's baked into the company DNA not to focus on the things they need to excel in that market. Amazon as a publisher doesn't have the right outlook, mark my word.

SilasX 10y ago

Yes! Amazon Video can't do something as simple as "return me to the thing I was watching when I log in". I'm watching a TV series and every time I start it (through the Xbox app) it forgets that entire series/season unless I save the season. And even if I save it, it will jump me to the latest episode that I started rather than the one I was watching when I quit. Edit: also, I've long had a pet peeve with AWS, where they will gladly let you walk through all the steps for setting up an EC2 server before saying "oops, you don't have permission to do that".

wapz 10y ago
> it will jump me to the latest episode that I started rather than the one I was watching when I quit. When is the last episode you started different than the one you were watching when you quit? Do they auto-play when finishing so if you started episode 2 and watched until episode 6 it would start from episode 2 again?
- SilasX 10y ago
  No, I mean if I (or someone on that account), years ago, had watched episode 18 of the season until the middle, and I'm starting the season from the beginning and watch until episode 3 -- then every time I come to the season, it will jump me to 18 rather than 3. And it doesn't even (by default) show that season in "recently watched" or other place that's easy to get to!

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]