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To me, iOS is such a great example. We know Apple cares deeply about design and yet the number of places where iOS is setup to work against productivity is very

To me, iOS is such a great example. We know Apple cares deeply about design and yet the number of places where iOS is setup to work against productivity is very large. It does feel cultural. If Apple can't get this right, then it points to a cultural blind spot for all of tech. Humans are not computers--we don't multi-task. And measuring usage is just a proxy for measuring value--lots of times more usage means the experience was less valuable.

smitty1e 7y ago
I submit that the whole topic of human/tech interactions from mundane interrupts to data/privacy management, is a good decade or so from settling out. My kids have had their lives documented on social media in greater detail than I ever did with the old family albums. Hopefully they aren't too upset with the results.
addicted 7y ago
Apple has never been very good about productivity IMO. They have a lot of things they are good about, but productivity usually gets sacrificed at the altar of simplicity, or a prettier look. If you look at how the Mac productivity apps have changed, every one of them has moved from being productivity focused to being more about the design and looks. The obvious examples are Mail and Calendar (although Mail has been decent about bringing back some of the features it lost). Contacts/Address Book has always been a terrible app, and the iWork suite of apps also took a disastrous turn towards simplicity where they ended up losing a lot of functionality. What used to be really great about the Mac OS ecosystem was the plethora of productivity focused app makers, who also had a great sense of design. When it came to productivity on the Mac (or any platform, for that matter), the real strides came from 3rd party Mac developers.
chachachoney 7y ago
>> It does feel cultural. If Apple can't get this right, then it points to a cultural blind spot for all of tech. I don't think it's so much a blind spot as a deliberate disempowerment of the user. If we actually had general purpose computing devices with operating systems designed to empower users with the ability to manage complex flows of data in both meaningful and aesthetic ways, the 'tech' market as we know it would collapse. Cars have become computers, computers have become devices, and devices have become advertising nodes. Nodes are interested in invisible collection of data about the user, not aiding users in benefiting and sorting through the data generated. >> And measuring usage is just a proxy for measuring value--lots of times more usage means the experience was less valuable. So much this. We originally created these machines to automate repetitive tasks, but somewhere along the way we switched paradigms and now they force us to engage in repetitive tasks.

smitty1e 7y ago

I submit that the whole topic of human/tech interactions from mundane interrupts to data/privacy management, is a good decade or so from settling out. My kids have had their lives documented on social media in greater detail than I ever did with the old family albums. Hopefully they aren't too upset with the results.

addicted 7y ago

Apple has never been very good about productivity IMO. They have a lot of things they are good about, but productivity usually gets sacrificed at the altar of simplicity, or a prettier look. If you look at how the Mac productivity apps have changed, every one of them has moved from being productivity focused to being more about the design and looks. The obvious examples are Mail and Calendar (although Mail has been decent about bringing back some of the features it lost). Contacts/Address Book has always been a terrible app, and the iWork suite of apps also took a disastrous turn towards simplicity where they ended up losing a lot of functionality. What used to be really great about the Mac OS ecosystem was the plethora of productivity focused app makers, who also had a great sense of design. When it came to productivity on the Mac (or any platform, for that matter), the real strides came from 3rd party Mac developers.

chachachoney 7y ago

>> It does feel cultural. If Apple can't get this right, then it points to a cultural blind spot for all of tech. I don't think it's so much a blind spot as a deliberate disempowerment of the user. If we actually had general purpose computing devices with operating systems designed to empower users with the ability to manage complex flows of data in both meaningful and aesthetic ways, the 'tech' market as we know it would collapse. Cars have become computers, computers have become devices, and devices have become advertising nodes. Nodes are interested in invisible collection of data about the user, not aiding users in benefiting and sorting through the data generated. >> And measuring usage is just a proxy for measuring value--lots of times more usage means the experience was less valuable. So much this. We originally created these machines to automate repetitive tasks, but somewhere along the way we switched paradigms and now they force us to engage in repetitive tasks.