6 ms·

WWDC 2011 Prelude

81 points by Judson 15y ago

drivebyacct2 15y ago
Good, bad, or otherwise, Gruber usually has unique insight. Nothing here seems shocking or surprising, or really anything that people weren't guessing a year ago.
- smackfu 15y ago
  Yes, this is basically a few paragraphs on iCloud and then some really mundane things to complain about.
mattparcher 15y ago
Regarding side-by-side portrait-orientation split views on the iPad, wouldn't such a layout require the message view to be too small? I'd rather that the message list appear in the top half of the screen, with the message view below it, but this isn't quite typical on the iPad (notable exception provided by Matt Gemmell's open-source MGSplitViewController [1]). [1] http://mattgemmell.com/2010/07/31/mgsplitviewcontroller-for-ipad http://mattgemmell.com/2010/07/31/mgsplitviewcontroller-for-...
niravs 15y ago
The Twitter app for iPad does an incredible job of solving the side-by-side portrait orientation split view problem. I wish the native mail app behaved like this.
- mortenjorck 15y ago
  Heck, I'd go one further and wish it were a native Cocoa Touch framework.
deltriggah 15y ago
I would rather have the two apps running on split screen view landscape.
- thirdsun 15y ago
  The windows 8 video that appeared some days ago had a good solution for this. You could put any apps side by side and drag the separation line horizontically - of course this requires a special view for many apps.
raldi 15y ago
I'm surprised he didn't mention that, without iTunes, you don't need a computer at all to use your iWhatever. You could travel for months with just an iPod Touch, or be a technophobe with just an iPad, and never miss not having a laptop to plug either into. Or, in my case, be a Linux guy with an iPhone and iPad and no longer need to borrow my wife's Mac for syncing.
- spicyj 15y ago
  You do need iTunes to activate the device, though.
  - raldi 15y ago
    Currently, but I see no reason that's not fixable.
    - spicyj 15y ago
      That was exactly what Gruber's point was.
gfodor 15y ago
Here's something that's been broken in iOS since v1.0 that I hope they fix: autocorrect. I was going to write a blog post about this but I'll just write a small version here. Problem 1: Autocorrect is by definition an algorithm that makes mistakes. Hence, it should be an 'opt-in' UX. Currently, it's 'opt-out', ie, I can type a word that's perfectly correct, and the computer can "overrule" me and replace the word I just typed. This is horrendous. If I make a typo, that's my fault and I can only get mad at myself. If the computer makes a typo (ie, replaces my text with text I don't want without me telling it to) then that's inevitably frustrating. Problem 2: The autocorrect bubble appears on the screen where the cursor is. This makes it so that I cannot develop muscle memory for the mechanism to de-activate autocorrect. Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X". Problem 4: Combine 1 & 2 and you realize that autocorrect as implemented right now necessarily makes it so I constantly have to be looking at both the keyboard and the cursor at the same time as I type. Every letter I type I need to "double check" at the cursor point to confirm iOS is not about to overrule me when I wack the spacebar. Then, if it turns out that I catch the computer doing something wrong, I have to remove my hands from the keyboard, and tell it "no, bad computer." On iPhone, this is barely tolerable because of the small screen. On iPad, it is a nightmare. It amazes me Apple got this one so wrong since they usually don't miss these details. Here's some alternatives: Proposal 1: Add a button to the keyboard to cancel the autocorrect and show the word if one is about to be blasted in over my typing. Basically move the "bubble" into the keyboard. This at least will make it so I don't have to watch the cursor like a hawk as I type. Proposal 2: Proposal 1 + make it opt-in. So the new keyboard key is one-click to activate the word as opposed to deactivating the autocorrect for that word. (I think this is how Android does it?) Proposal 3: Leave the UI as is but make the bubble opt-in (tap to replace) instead of opt-out. Of course there are other ways to deal with this and they all involve tradeoffs. But it's clear to me that since I've owned an iPhone now since they first came out and I'm still frustrated by the autocorrect clearly there's a better solution out there.
- weaksauce 15y ago
  Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X". Actually, pressing the x will indeed remove the bubble and not force the word correction. Maybe you are not pressing the x correctly?
ansy 15y ago
You know what Gruber didn't mention that's supposedly on the schedule? OS X Lion. There's not much to say about it I guess. But it could be the first system update distributed over the App Store.
- philwelch 15y ago
  I doubt that a lot--OS updates need to be on disc so you can boot from them.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Hm, why? Lion was already distributed to the developers through the App Store.
    - ZitchDog 15y ago
      What do you do if your HD goes kaput and you need to restore?
      - ugh 15y ago
        You take your Mac to the Apple Store.
      - ansy 15y ago
        Technically, you restore from your Mac's original restoration media (either DVD or USB stick). If it was Snow Leopard, then go to the App Store and download the Lion update again for free because it remembers you bought it before. I assume Apple will sell a DVD version for MUCH more money (full $129 or higher) that you can use to do a fresh install or upgrade from Tiger and Leopard. I also assume the Lion upgrade in the App Store will be super cheap. Probably $30. Possibly as cheap as $10.
      - dazonic 15y ago
        iCloud, dummy! Seriously though, I'm guessing it's a second partition.
CoffeeDregs 15y ago
tl; tisfl (this-is-still-fucking-long): I'd like to pre-apologize for this rant, but Gruber is killing me. He's trolling for pageviews/loyalists and I hate that I keep reading his articles expecting insight and objectivity. Learn from my mistakes. Also, I'm using grown-up words. Be warned. Also, I stopped reading TFA at the "What I Hope..." section because my head started to throb. From TFA: But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your Mac/PC. Consider just the new out-of-box experience. Rather than “Take this out, plug it into your Mac or PC (after first making sure your Mac/PC is running the latest version of iTunes), wait for it to sync before you actually play with it”, you might get something like “Take this out, turn it on, sign into your iTunes account, and start playing with it.” Really? Not plugging your phone into USB and then fucking about with iTunes is "dare I say game-changing". What decade are we in? Oh wait, maybe this quote was missing some critical bit of context... If so, fill me in. If not, FTFA. But wait, there's more: If Apple can work out (or, if we can dream, perhaps secretly already has worked out) a deal to allow movies, in addition to music, to be bought and stored permanently in your iCloud account, then the Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting movies. I like to buy movies, so here’s hoping. The point of the cloud is that I don't have to "store permanently" movies in the cloud. A bit of data is stored that says I have permanent access to the movie. [I know that some might yell about DRM and what, but I really dig this access model and don't give a shit if I lose access to Top Gun. GrooveShark + PSN + NetFlix => no media files in my life.] And how could studios possibly agree to this insanity?! Oh wait. Netflix. (To which someone says, "but they don't have everything"; to which I say, "they will".) "Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting movies"... If I wait longer, will this sentence become not-dumb?
- ugh 15y ago
  Regarding your second point, you two could be talking about the same thing. You are talking about it on a technical level, he is talking about it on a user experience level.

WWDC 2011 Prelude

81 points by Judson 15y ago

Good, bad, or otherwise, Gruber usually has unique insight. Nothing here seems shocking or surprising, or really anything that people weren't guessing a year ago.

smackfu 15y ago
Yes, this is basically a few paragraphs on iCloud and then some really mundane things to complain about.

mattparcher 15y ago

Regarding side-by-side portrait-orientation split views on the iPad, wouldn't such a layout require the message view to be too small? I'd rather that the message list appear in the top half of the screen, with the message view below it, but this isn't quite typical on the iPad (notable exception provided by Matt Gemmell's open-source MGSplitViewController [1]). [1] http://mattgemmell.com/2010/07/31/mgsplitviewcontroller-for-ipad http://mattgemmell.com/2010/07/31/mgsplitviewcontroller-for-...

niravs 15y ago

The Twitter app for iPad does an incredible job of solving the side-by-side portrait orientation split view problem. I wish the native mail app behaved like this.

mortenjorck 15y ago
Heck, I'd go one further and wish it were a native Cocoa Touch framework.

deltriggah 15y ago

I would rather have the two apps running on split screen view landscape.

thirdsun 15y ago
The windows 8 video that appeared some days ago had a good solution for this. You could put any apps side by side and drag the separation line horizontically - of course this requires a special view for many apps.

raldi 15y ago

I'm surprised he didn't mention that, without iTunes, you don't need a computer at all to use your iWhatever. You could travel for months with just an iPod Touch, or be a technophobe with just an iPad, and never miss not having a laptop to plug either into. Or, in my case, be a Linux guy with an iPhone and iPad and no longer need to borrow my wife's Mac for syncing.

spicyj 15y ago
You do need iTunes to activate the device, though.
- raldi 15y ago
  Currently, but I see no reason that's not fixable.
  - spicyj 15y ago
    That was exactly what Gruber's point was.

gfodor 15y ago

Here's something that's been broken in iOS since v1.0 that I hope they fix: autocorrect. I was going to write a blog post about this but I'll just write a small version here. Problem 1: Autocorrect is by definition an algorithm that makes mistakes. Hence, it should be an 'opt-in' UX. Currently, it's 'opt-out', ie, I can type a word that's perfectly correct, and the computer can "overrule" me and replace the word I just typed. This is horrendous. If I make a typo, that's my fault and I can only get mad at myself. If the computer makes a typo (ie, replaces my text with text I don't want without me telling it to) then that's inevitably frustrating. Problem 2: The autocorrect bubble appears on the screen where the cursor is. This makes it so that I cannot develop muscle memory for the mechanism to de-activate autocorrect. Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X". Problem 4: Combine 1 & 2 and you realize that autocorrect as implemented right now necessarily makes it so I constantly have to be looking at both the keyboard and the cursor at the same time as I type. Every letter I type I need to "double check" at the cursor point to confirm iOS is not about to overrule me when I wack the spacebar. Then, if it turns out that I catch the computer doing something wrong, I have to remove my hands from the keyboard, and tell it "no, bad computer." On iPhone, this is barely tolerable because of the small screen. On iPad, it is a nightmare. It amazes me Apple got this one so wrong since they usually don't miss these details. Here's some alternatives: Proposal 1: Add a button to the keyboard to cancel the autocorrect and show the word if one is about to be blasted in over my typing. Basically move the "bubble" into the keyboard. This at least will make it so I don't have to watch the cursor like a hawk as I type. Proposal 2: Proposal 1 + make it opt-in. So the new keyboard key is one-click to activate the word as opposed to deactivating the autocorrect for that word. (I think this is how Android does it?) Proposal 3: Leave the UI as is but make the bubble opt-in (tap to replace) instead of opt-out. Of course there are other ways to deal with this and they all involve tradeoffs. But it's clear to me that since I've owned an iPhone now since they first came out and I'm still frustrated by the autocorrect clearly there's a better solution out there.

weaksauce 15y ago
Problem 3: The bubble has the word it's going to replace with as well as an "X" -- the naive user will think that tapping the bubble will activate the word, and tapping the X will remove the bubble. It turns out, that tapping the word itself behaves the same as the "X". Actually, pressing the x will indeed remove the bubble and not force the word correction. Maybe you are not pressing the x correctly?

ansy 15y ago

You know what Gruber didn't mention that's supposedly on the schedule? OS X Lion. There's not much to say about it I guess. But it could be the first system update distributed over the App Store.

philwelch 15y ago
I doubt that a lot--OS updates need to be on disc so you can boot from them.
- ugh 15y ago
  Hm, why? Lion was already distributed to the developers through the App Store.
  - ZitchDog 15y ago
    What do you do if your HD goes kaput and you need to restore?
    - ugh 15y ago
      You take your Mac to the Apple Store.
    - ansy 15y ago
      Technically, you restore from your Mac's original restoration media (either DVD or USB stick). If it was Snow Leopard, then go to the App Store and download the Lion update again for free because it remembers you bought it before. I assume Apple will sell a DVD version for MUCH more money (full $129 or higher) that you can use to do a fresh install or upgrade from Tiger and Leopard. I also assume the Lion upgrade in the App Store will be super cheap. Probably $30. Possibly as cheap as $10.
    - dazonic 15y ago
      iCloud, dummy! Seriously though, I'm guessing it's a second partition.

CoffeeDregs 15y ago

tl; tisfl (this-is-still-fucking-long): I'd like to pre-apologize for this rant, but Gruber is killing me. He's trolling for pageviews/loyalists and I hate that I keep reading his articles expecting insight and objectivity. Learn from my mistakes. Also, I'm using grown-up words. Be warned. Also, I stopped reading TFA at the "What I Hope..." section because my head started to throb. From TFA: But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your Mac/PC. Consider just the new out-of-box experience. Rather than “Take this out, plug it into your Mac or PC (after first making sure your Mac/PC is running the latest version of iTunes), wait for it to sync before you actually play with it”, you might get something like “Take this out, turn it on, sign into your iTunes account, and start playing with it.” Really? Not plugging your phone into USB and then fucking about with iTunes is "dare I say game-changing". What decade are we in? Oh wait, maybe this quote was missing some critical bit of context... If so, fill me in. If not, FTFA. But wait, there's more: If Apple can work out (or, if we can dream, perhaps secretly already has worked out) a deal to allow movies, in addition to music, to be bought and stored permanently in your iCloud account, then the Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting movies. I like to buy movies, so here’s hoping. The point of the cloud is that I don't have to "store permanently" movies in the cloud. A bit of data is stored that says I have permanent access to the movie. [I know that some might yell about DRM and what, but I really dig this access model and don't give a shit if I lose access to Top Gun. GrooveShark + PSN + NetFlix => no media files in my life.] And how could studios possibly agree to this insanity?! Oh wait. Netflix. (To which someone says, "but they don't have everything"; to which I say, "they will".) "Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting movies"... If I wait longer, will this sentence become not-dumb?

ugh 15y ago
Regarding your second point, you two could be talking about the same thing. You are talking about it on a technical level, he is talking about it on a user experience level.