Damn. I hate it when this happens. An app that has been a useful part of my Internet dance routine decides it’s time to join the algorithm dance party so it can recommend “things I might like.” Pocket, an app that has long been one of my partners has sashayed onto that crowded recommendation engine dance floor. Which essentially means it will eventually disappear from my dance card.
Pocket began it’s life as an app called appropriately “Read It Later.” It’s flirted with all sorts of changes along the way, adding a paid premium version in 2014. Pocket was integrated into the Firefox browser awhile back and then acquired by Mozilla in 2017, Up to now Pocket has avoided the lure of the recommendation algorithm dance party. But no longer. They began rolling out this change to Android users In January and are now introducing it to iOS users this month.
Pocket works on all of my devices so when I see an article I want to read I use an extentsion to save it to Pocket so I can read it when I have the time and on the device that is most convenient when I find that time. I’ve been using it for quite awhile and it is at the top of my Billboard Top 10 list of apps I install on a new device.
To be fair, many apps end up chasing new dance partners. In order to keep paying the bills the money has to come from somewhere, whether it be advertising, raising prices or venture capital. At the moment there is still a free version of Pocket. So the origins and functionality of the service still exist.
Here’s my complaint. Pocket is turning into a recommendation engine first and deemphasizing the “Read Later” functionality. All you have to do is look at the new UI on a mobile device and while “Recent Save” is at the top, the page is designed to take you to “Editors’ Picks.” Those “Editors’ Picks” are curated. Call me cynical, and probably unfair, but I’m guessing that curation is done by algrothim. Call me even more cynical but when a service tells me that it is making a change to provide me with “topics you care about” I translate that into “links that serve the service first and not the user.”
Be honest. Do you actually rely on recommendation engines? Sure, occasionally they’ll surface something of interest. But in my experience they mostly serve up more of the same the way that Amazon and streaming media services do. Like a bad DJ who doesn’t know how to keep the mix fresh and exciting and just spins the same old same old. I can’t begin to list the number of apps I once used that have danced their way into an uninstall this way.
It’s not an original dance step. It’s become a tired one. Sure most love to hear the DJ spin up “The Chicken Dance” at a wedding. But do they actually put it on their own personal playlist? By and large, while it may increase revenue (again not a bad thing) in the short term I’ve yet to find an app or a service in this drunken conga line that I don’t at some point scratch from my dance card. Bluntly, I could care less what Pocket’s “editors” think I should see, or what other users think I should see.
Obviously nothing lasts forever, especially in Internet years. But I’d love to see this dance party be one that wears out its welcome sooner rather than later.
In the wind up to Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference for Apple to release news of upcoming new impressive technology focused on Accessibility issues around Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This year is no different.
Apple’s press release highlights the new features for cognitive accessibility, Live Speech, Personal Voice and Point and Speak Magnifier. You can read the press release here.
While each of the advances are more than worthy I was particularly impressed reading about Personal Voice. Here’s an excerpt from that release:
For users at risk of losing their ability to speak — such as those with a recent diagnosis of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or other conditions that can progressively impact speaking ability — Personal Voice is a simple and secure way to create a voice that sounds like them.
Users can create a Personal Voice by reading along with a randomized set of text prompts to record 15 minutes of audio on iPhone or iPad. This speech accessibility feature uses on-device machine learning to keep users’ information private and secure, and integrates seamlessly with Live Speech so users can speak with their Personal Voice when connecting with loved ones.1
Personal Voice allows users at risk of losing their ability to speak to create a voice that sounds like them, and integrates seamlessly with Live Speech so users can speak with their Personal Voice when connecting with loved ones.
“At the end of the day, the most important thing is being able to communicate with friends and family,” said Philip Green, board member and ALS advocate at the Team Gleason nonprofit, who has experienced significant changes to his voice since receiving his ALS diagnosis in 2018. “If you can tell them you love them, in a voice that sounds like you, it makes all the difference in the world — and being able to create your synthetic voice on your iPhone in just 15 minutes is extraordinary.”
I’m reminded of the time when noted film critic Roger Ebert, who lost his voice due to cancer, made quite a stir with news of how he was using a synthesized version of his voice to communicate. It was big news then. Apple’s Live Voice seems like it has the potential to make that kind of thing more accessible to many more.
Check the end of this post for updates. Soon after I posted this the issues popped back up. The saga continues.
Oh, Apple. You make it sound so easy. Can’t sign in with an Apple Watch? Devices having syncing problems or lose connectivity to the Continuity/Handoff magic? Sign out of iCloud and then sign back in. Problem solved? Sometimes. For a time. Not every time.
Signing in and out of iCloud to fix issues can create random headaches as nasty as a migraine. You never know when those migraines are going to hit. You live life a bit on edge anticipating and dreading the next reccurence. You know it will happen. Or you fear it will. And when it does hit, well you know what’s coming.
I haven’t blogged about things Apple in awhile. Not since this post on Apple’s Design Trap. But it feels like my pace might pick up a bit given the frequency of new kinks I’m experiencing in the Appleverse. Funny, not funny, how these migraines seem to surface in the run up to Apple’s annual new operating system announcements at WWDC and then continue throughout the summer. It almost feels like whether we sign up for betas or not, we’re all along on the summer beta bus for the ride anyway. Especially if we take advantage of the number of services and features connected to iCloud.
Yes. iCloud. Troubled when launched, it is less, though still troubled now. But though it may be less, it’s actually become more mysterious because it’s tied to so much more than when it had its troubled beginnings. When I say mysterious I’m not just talking about how users feel. Talk to an Apple Support rep about an iCloud issue. Beyond advising signing out and signing back in they are by and large as confused by the mystery as the rest of us.
Here’s the story.
I’m a big Apple fan so I come at my criticisms of Apple from the point of view that I enjoy and prefer Apple’s devices and software. I use a variety of Apple’s computers and products. I also subscribe to iCloud via AppleOne. I like to take advantage of quite a few of the features that require an iCloud subscription to benefit from such as Sign in with Apple Watch, Universal Control, Handoff and Continuity. Prior to last fall’s release of Ventura, iOS16, watchOS9, etc.., iCloud would somehow randomly bungle things up so these features would just stop working. Typically you don’t know that things have stopped working until you go to use one of the features. The problem(s) seemed to be resolved after the Fall 2022 releases of those new OS’s. But as we all know Apple keeps working and releasing updates throughout the year.
After this past spring’s release of Ventura 13.3 the problems appeared again. After the release of Ventura 13.3.1 I didn’t see any of these random cock-ups and dared to breathe a sigh of relief. Premature as it turns out. Even though there were mutliple device categories involved in the 13.3/16.4 round of OS updates I’m pinning this on Ventura because in attempting to track problems down I discovered that there were no issues with any of these features between iPads and iPhones. Turn off the Macs and things worked as designed. Call me crazy but “Turn off your Mac” sounds slightly worse than “you’re holding it wrong.”
Coming back to either of my Macs (MacBook Pro M2 and iMac 24) I could randomly no longer log in with my Apple Watch. That’s a first world problem I know, but hey, it’s my first world so it’s a problem for me if not for any substantial number of users. And of course the error message Apple offers is about as helpful as warm spit.
For those that don’t know there’s no place to “sign in” using the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. To sign out of iCloud on your Apple Watch you actually have to sign out of iCloud on your iPhone and the reverse is true. So this little not so helpful message should tell you to sign out of iCloud for your iPhone. Oh, and the clever little animation in the above GIF is showing the enjoyable experience I would receive when I tried to toggle the control that lets me sign in with my Apple Watch. Top notch support and design. All around.
Once I arrived at this goodness I would then check to see if any other of the Continuity/Handoff features would be disabled and of course they would be.
Consistently Inconsistent
Now here’s the bigger problem. There’s no consistency to the failures. Sometimes the problem would be on both Macs and sometimes on one of the Macs, (it seemed like they were taking turns). Once I rebooted the MacBook Air to attempt and resurrect the lost iCloud features connection and in that case I had success. Only to see that the connection on the iMac had failed in the time it took to reboot the MacBook Air. In almost all instances there was nothing out of the ordinary added to either machine (that I’m aware of) or me using the machines in any new or different way. Other than an operating system update. (*cough*)
Prior to Ventura I had talked with Apple Support and scoured online sources for solutions when this problem would manifest. There were and are as many guesses to solve these problems as there are people looking for answers. Everything from rebooting to rebuilding your device(s). The same is true in this current moment. In some cases a reboot solves the issues. In some cases not so much.
Others solve it with any number of solutions (Bluetooth on/off, logging a user in and out, etc…). Most who get to the point of logging out of iCloud report some success, only to see the problem come back at intervals ranging from a couple of hours to several days.
Currently I’m in that latter “several days” category. It’s almost consistent at three days. Occasionally sooner. Occasionally longer. The range of unpredictability is at least narrowing. But the bottom line here is this: Apple has no idea how to solve this issue.
So there’s a problem. I can only conclude that it’s related to iCloud and something introduced recently in Ventura that affects Macs given that everything seems to work when the Macs are turned off. Signing out and back in to iCloud will solve it. For awhile. That’s the current state of affairs.
What Apple and those who leap to the “Sign out of iCloud” as a solution to this migraine-like nightmare don’t tell you is the potential series of after shocks you’ll encounter along the way back.
Apple does provide a handy list of the services you’ll lose access to when you sign out of iCloud at this link. And when you decide to take that step Apple will also let you know that you’ll lose any credit cards you have set up with Apple Pay. Apple will also give you the option to save some iCloud data on your Mac. But that advice doesn’t cover what you may or may not have to do to get things back up and running the way you want it to. These are some of my experiences:
Things that happen each time I’ve logged out and back in to iCloud.
First, if you happen to use different Apple IDs for purchases/music and iCloud you’ll have to manually reassociate your purchases/music ID with your iCloud account in the same way you do when you set up a new device. I know I’m not the only old geezer who first got an Apple ID back in the day when I used iTunes and an iPod with Windows, so I’m sure others will have to do this as well.
Second, if you use iCloud Photos and have chosen to save originals to your Mac, you’ll have to make that selection again in the settings for Photos. If you do have to reselect this Photos setting that means you’ll burn bandwidth downloading those originals again at some point.
Third, if you’ve downloaded some music to your device you’ll have to redownload those selections again. Again, Apple doesn’t seem to remember what you’ve downloaded previously.
Fourth, As expected all of your Mail, Notes, Reminders, Calendars, and Contacts have to be redownloaded. (More on Contacts in a bit.) This seems to work relatively quickly with the exception of Mail, Notes, and Contacts which can take some time depending on what you’ve accumulated.
Fifth: Apple does warn you that you’ll lose credit cards in Apple Pay. So you know that going in. Having to go through this process so frequently in recent weeks unfortunately flagged my account at my bank necessitating a phone call to explain what was going on. So I’m not re-adding that card back to Apple Pay until or if this problem settles down.
Things that happen sometimes and sometimes not when I logged out and back into iCloud.
Messages: I’ve got several group threads I hide notifications from. I sometimes have to “re-hide” those notifcations. Sometimes not.
Airpods and Bluetooth: I don’t choose the default Airpod setting that allows Airpods to connect to a Mac automatically. I use the “When last connected to this Mac” setting. That setting sometimes holds and sometimes does not.
The image I use for my avatar on my login screen sometimes comes back as normal. Sometimes not.
Contacts: I mentioned that earlier. On some, not all, occasions Sign Out/Sign In Contacts seems to want to rebuild it’s database completely. I only noticed this after one of these episodes when for the first time my M2 MacBook Air got hot to the touch. In trying to figure out the problem I noticed that the AddressBookSourceSync was the culprit eating tons of memory and processor time. Again, this didn’t happen each time, but it did happen multiple times on each Mac. Note: I hardly ever use the Contacts app on my Macs. Typically any contact I add or change comes from my iPhone.
Various other settings and preferences seem to come and go. But again, it’s not like I use everything on my Macs every day so who knows when in this cycle of logging out and back in something changed or didn’t.
I get the problem here. Apple has created quite an intricate and appealing series of services that rely on iCloud as a backbone. When things work they work great. But they don’t always just work. Advancing these services and features requires constant development and there’s no real way to make sure every possible detail and permutation is locked down and working on the annual pace that Apple rolls out these operating systems. So, there will be problems. Bugs. Issues. Headaches. Call them what you will. Fix them and move on.
But, if things are moving so fast that your support personnel and documentation can’t keep up then it might be time to re-evaluate the pace. The misleading “fix” in that message in the animated GIF above has been around for at least two generations of Apple operating systems. Frankly at this point, it’s insulting.
iCloud woes date back to its inception. I doubt they will ever truly be solved. But at least give users and your support personnel information that makes sense, explains what your fix may or may not do, and isn’t misleading or sounds ignorant.
Updates: A few hours after posting this the issue happened again after being away from the iMac 24 for a few hours. Nothing going on just the computer normally going into Sleep Mode. As had happened once before, all was working on the MacBook Air until I rebooted the iMac. And then the MacBook Air took the same iCloud dive.
The reboot of the iMac 24 was successful and brought things back on that device. I’ve rebooted the MacBook Air 4 times now and still no luck on that device. That typically means I’ll have to sign out and back in to iCloud. I’ll update again after doing that.
Update 2: Wednesday. I logged out and back into iCloud last night. After the requisite time of letting things settle back in most things that I checked seemed to be working again. Until they didn’t. This morning I tried to open MacBook Air while having coffee and none of the features were working again. So far everything at the moment seems viable on the iMac 24.
Two more reboots of the MacBook Air seemed to right the ship.
Update 3: Thursday. Ran some errands for a few hours today. Returned. Neither Mac would accept Login With Apple Watch and all of the attendant other problems. Rebooting both machines yielded a return of things to the MacBook Air but not the iMac 24.
This is getting old.
*For a variety of reasons this post has been in the creation process over a couple of weeks. During that time the issues I discuss occured mutliple time on both Macs. I anticipate they will continue.
Every day is a good day when you learn something new. And this amazing story certainly offers something new to me.
TropeTrainer was software that had been taught to sing the words of God.
Then it went silent.
A developer created TropeTrainer, software that helped prepare kids for their bar and bat mitzvahs. He passed away. Due to advances on computers his software abruptly stopped running on new or updated computers and much was lost.
Most magical was the voice synthesis, which featured an adjustable timbre and a playback speed, Buchler boasted on his website, that could be set “from unbearably slow to comfortably fast.”
In a wink to exasperated Torah tutors, he devised the slogan “Software With Infinite Patience.”
That brief description and excerpts here risk trivializing this story. So, go read the story.
The world is continuing to rush headlong into a new universe of Artificial Intelligence but apparently I died before the gold rush began.
At least that’s what WatchGPT an OpenAI based app for the Apple Watch thinks. I decided to give it a try and asked it a simple question: Who is Warner Crocker?
After explaining it wasn’t a search engine it spit out some “facts” including that I died on Christmas Day 2020. I must have missed that.
Although my demise sounds pretty factual I’m still hanging around as far as I know. And sure the years since December of 2020 were kinda sketchy due to the pandemic, so far I have avoided COVID and other life threatening adventures. The cast for my current gig seem to respond to me as if I’m alive and kicking. My family and friends still treat me like I’m walking around and causing trouble.
Granted most of these AI products let you know that they’re still in development. Still, I can imagine quite a few scenarios where folks input a query and get death notices that then get reported as facts in whatever vehicle they’re looking the fact up for.
Let’s list a few flights of fancy here:
A school paper on a contemporary figure.
Checking out info on someone you might want to date.
Running a check on a perspective employee or employer.
And to think, big companies are jumping into this pool feet first assuming they will be able to save money by cutting their workforce.
I’m wondering if my wife can use this to make an insurance claim?
There’s really no such thing as a day off when you’re directing a show. But today, Monday, is our day off. The actors do very much need down time to deal with the realities of life and also process a bit. And yeah, I’ll do a grocery run, throw some stuff in the laundry and some other personal stuff. But it’s also a breath when I prep for the week ahead. Sure is nice to be able to get away from all of those other screens and sit on the porch swing with just an iPad to do that.
Why are we calling this current fad/trend/gold rush into Artificial Intelligence “artificial?” Shouldn’t we be calling it Accumulated Intelligence?
From what I’m reading the output these new services are spitting out is more like a mash-up of what they’ve scraped and collected from around the Internet. You know. Stuff created by humans. Apparently the writings, the artwork, the photos, the music, the code, the thoughts, the you name it, have been collected and are being tumbled and jumbled up and presented as responses. So somebody can charge you for it or sell ads against it.
And knocking the moniker again here, that of course means it’s all been said and done before. There’s not much we can really credit to divine inspiration beyond the talent to discover, describe or display what already exists. Because that’s sorta kinda how we humans evolve (or are intelligently designed) anyway. We gain knowledge and intelligence through our experiences. And through those experiences we become who we are, think what we think, and create what we create based on the knowledge we accumulate.
I’m assuming that’s what the makers of artificial intelligence call real or natural intelligence. But it’s tough to sell ads against that.
Given that we humans are known for both brilliance and the not-so-brilliant in what we say, do, think, create and accumulate, you can say we as a species struggle a bit with the tensions brought about by natural intelligence. Certainly we seem to be hitting a speed bump on the brilliance part as the not-so-brilliant part continues to plow-ahead of late.
But again, this AI fad is taking what exists, shaking and baking, stirring the pot, and presenting it to us in a newly polished form we can get on our smartphones while waiting for the transit apps to give us wrong information about our train’s arrival time.
The very human response when someone learns something new or that an answer is wrong can certainly be “I didn’t know that.” What’s funny with these machine learners though is that in the early going they seem to be spitting out mistakes just like humans do. And taking the same kind of offense when called on it. So nothing new under the sun there.
And apparently these machines need to be governed by rules. Well, that’s only human too. We govern ourselves (well, some of us do) in order to try and remain civil and polite. And protect our profit margins. Again, only human.
So, I’m saying it’s early enough in this game that we should strip away the “artificial” in AI and change it to “accumulated.” Because sure as shooting at some point down the line some big error is going to be spit out by a machine that causes something bad to happen. And we’ll shift the blame to the machines. Just like we humans always do.
But I guess there’s one benefit to this “artificialness.” The machines can’t plead ignorance or “I don’t recall” when things get inconvenient or uncomfortable. At least until we start using “artificial lawyers.”
Is it real or is it Memorex? Remember those days? We’ve been treated to questions like those for some time now when it comes to music, film, and other means of arts and entertainment. And the pace of things seem to be quickening as the powers that be in these industries are jumping with both feet into the big tech Artificial Intelligence rush.
New technology is great when it can advance creativity. New technology is also bit scary when we don’t know exactly what it’s going to yield. But the one thing we do know is that if the bean counters think they can save a buck and make two by using a new innovation they’ll take that leap, regardless of the risks it might pose to the creative spirit.
I’ve been talking about Artificial Intelligence a bit here and obviously will continue to do so. It’s the thing of the moment. Which means some hope it’s the thing of the future. And it just might well be. But how that is going to impact the arts is going to be a tricky future to navigate. Perhaps after Google, Mircosoft and any other tech giants get their AI search engines up and running we can ask and find out. (Google calls theirs Bard. Seriously?)
We’ve already seen technology create magic in audio and film/TV. De-aging is a popular recent trend in film. Of course that follows the trends of CGI characters and CGI backgrounds and CGI just about everything else.
We’ve got computer generated narrations for eBooks competing with live readers. We’ve been enhancing audio tracks for decades, and in the most recent decade or two we’ve been enhancing live performers.
Yesterday there was a story in Vice about voice actors being asked to sign over the rights to their voices so their clients can use artificial intelligence to generate synthetic versions for future work, perhaps replacing the need for the artist for future work.
Each technology advance gets met with both praise and criticism. Some deserved. Some not so. I’m no luddite or traditonalist who eschews these advancements. But I think we’re heading into tricky ground in this next chapter of entertainment and creativity that parallels what we’re experiencing in real life.
There’s that old and recently accelerating propaganda truism (ha!) that teaches us it’s not about separating fact and fiction. In the Peacock network’s series The Undeclared War there’s a great sequence when a news editor sums it up while explaining the way it is to a younger new recruit:
“The point is to get people used to the idea that everything’s a lie. There is no truth. Once they accept that. Biggest liar wins.”
Who cares if a search result yields a false result? Who cares if Carrie Fisher is dead when she’s still appearing in Star Wars? Who cares if deep fake videos or audio can sabotage a politician or a company? Who cares if the audiobook you’re listening to is read by a human or a computer?
Set aside the labor issues and putting folks out of work. Those are real discussions that need to happen. But what if Tom Hanks, who is pretty darn excited by the de-aging process in film, or rather a digitally created Tom Hanks keeps starring in movies long after he’s gone. Hell, we could have Forrest Gump appearing with world leaders that haven’t been born yet twenty years after they’re dead.
We all had a good laugh at the manipulative creation of boy bands awhile back. Don’t think we won’t see and hear new bands created out of the whole cloth of digital bits and bytes. There’s no question in my mind that we’ll see an entire film created out of an AI prompt some day down the road.
There will be innovation. There will be excitement and celebration and there will be reactions. Some of which might actually be human.
There’s an excellent discussion about design vs practicality going on currently within the Apple community that gathers around the Mastodon water cooler. It was kicked off by Matt Birchler responding to a post from Daring Fireball’s John Gruber commenting on how far ahead third party iOS apps for Mastodon were than those on the Android platform. Birchler filled out his thoughts in a post called The Shocking Stage of Enthusiast Apps on Android.
John Gruber continued the thread on Daring Fireball with an excellent post called Making Our Hearts Sing. That in turn prompted Frederico Viticci to pen a post on MacStories called The Practicality of Art in Software. I’d highly recommend you read Matt, John, and Viticci’s posts.
Beyond a brief summary let me just say that I’m in profound agreement with each of the posts. There are differences in the arguments, but they all aim at the same larger point about Apple.
Yes, in my view Android apps for Mastodon pale in comparison to iOS apps. As backed up by my own experiences, I do feel the general design of Android apps also lack what Gruber calls “the artistic value in software and interface design” that he sees in iOS apps. AND, as Viticci says “As a computer maker or app developer, you have to strike that balance between the aspirational and the practical, the artistic and the functional.”
The two cents I’m about to add to the discussion isn’t in contrast to what these three have laid out. Like I said I’m in agreement with the points in each argument. Think of this as tangential to the discussion.
So here’s the tangent.
Design is key to any endeavor that’s creating a product. We can talk form following function, or practicality, or art for art’s sake. Doesn’t matter where you enter the discussion. It’s key. And the posts I’ve mentioned above do an excellent job of hitting those points.
Apple has captured, captivated, seduced and perhaps suckered many of us with its approach to the design of its products. In my opinion I think they’ve largely succeeded. If you “think different” then I won’t question your taste, but I’ll just acknowledge that we sail on two different oceans. That said, Apple is also masterful in the design of the marketing and rollout of products. In many ways the product and the marketing of the product are inseparable.
But I think Apple has designed itself into a predicament in the same way many tastemakers do. Once you embody an asthetic and it becomes not only your brand but your essence you create almost impossible semiotic expectations. You’re no longer designing just your next creation, you’re designing to meet the expectations you’ve created. It can be a trap when you follow that path OR if you deviate from it.
And that’s where the trap gets tricky. Be real with me here. When you see amazing and beautiful screenshots of a new app I’m sure you’re often as tempted as I am to push the Buy button before you even read and understand the description of what the app offers. Especially if the App is from a developer you’ve had good experiences with in the past. It’s no different than following any other artist in any other medium. Favorite singer, buy the next album. Favorite author, buy the next book.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying all app developers, Apple, or other artists are trying to pull one over on us. (I’m sure some are but that’s another topic for another day.) Using a combined appeal to our senses and our reservoir of good feelings from past experiences is what designing products is all about. The successful designers know just how to reach us and build a following. Some would call it maniuplation. They’re correct. The intent of most art is to maniuplate a response.
Take Weather apps for example. Goodness knows how many of those I tried just because those radar displays looked gorgeous in screenshots. The well worn cliché of not buying a book by its cover certainly applies to App marketing and we all know how clichés get started.
And then there are the artists and designers that break the mold. Try something new. Take a different, sometimes radical approach. That may work in the long view once a more full body of work can be viewed from a distance. But it’s risky in the immediate market of expectations, which is why its viewed as a departure. But strike gold and the risk can pay off.
Play to our attactions to the pretty. The shiny. The well designed. The well packaged. Play to our desires for something familiar while yearning for something new. Create tension with those competing desires and debut that “departure” inside a wrapping of the familiar and you get a double bang for the buck. And here’s where Frederico Viticci’s long, and well documented struggle with Stage Manager works so well as the prime example in this tangent.
Stage Manager is Apple’s attempt at a windowing solution for iPads and Macs. iPad users have been yearning for a windowing or multi-tasking solution for awhile. What they’ve been yearning for is something most are already familiar with from experiences with laptops and desktops. Surely this would be beautiful in a “think different” sort of way. But not too “think different” in the practical mechanics.
If you’re an iPad user I am reasonably sure you were awed by the demo of Stage Manager when you first saw it. It looked magical. It looked magical in that Apple way. It looked like the solution many iPad users have all been waiting for. I know it did for me. And it was rolled out in all the ways we’ve all become accustomed to.
But the practicality of Stage Manager on the iPad largely failed to live up to the promise of those expectations once users got their hands on it. Frankly, I find it more than a dissapointment. But the design from demo to packaging of the idea was certainly alluring and seductive enough to get us (me) in the door.
So to wrap this up and get back to the points about design asthetics, practicality vs pretty, and Mastodon Apps on competing platforms let me say this. I’ve downloaded and followed the development of many of the iOS Apps for Mastodon. I’m genuinely excited by what I see and feel. Although there are differences, some are starting to morph a bit into the same look and feel but the feature sets (currently) set them apart.
After giving a spin to some of the Android Mastodon apps I’ve been dissappointed in the smaller selection available and also the lack of strong design statements in those that do exist. And again, features sets give them distinction. I’m sure others feel differently and vive la differénce.
This difference though cements my thinking that the expectations and semiotic differences between Apple and Android design philosophies are baked in at this point in the game. Apple has created such a deeper dependency on design prowess. Android’s “come as you are” approach leaves more room for less when it comes to the art of visual design. Fundamentally there’s nothing wrong with ether approach from a user perspective. Choose what you’re attracted to and have fun with your choice.
The larger and more precarious point with this tangent is that Apple’s rich design expectations, as powerful as they are, are also Apple’s Achilles heel. Great artists aren’t afraid to fail. Great product makers who use great art as a selling point need to tred more carefully to avoid the level of disappointment that can turn a legacy into a burden.
Be honest. Do you actually rely on recommendation engines? Sure, occasionally they’ll surface something of interest. But in my experience they mostly serve up more of the same the way that Amazon and streaming media services do. Like a bad DJ who doesn’t know how to keep the mix fresh and exciting and just spins the same old same old. I can’t begin to list the number of apps I once used that have danced their way into an uninstall this way.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 