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Where do you see Apple in 5 years? (Page 2)
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Spheric Harlot
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Jun 26, 2013, 07:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Can't you sync over WiFi using iTunes?

I'm okay with secondary local sync mechanisms as a supplement to iCloud, but not with replacing iCloud.
The problem with contact and calendar syncing is that it's either/or, but not both. So yeah, you can switch to local sync, but you have to disable iCloud syncing for those items for that to work.
     
besson3c
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Jun 27, 2013, 01:28 PM
 
Spheric: would you use Windows if there was some audio software there that you liked?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 27, 2013, 02:10 PM
 
*needed*, not *liked*.

Of course.

Though a) that's not likely, and b) my equipment choices are influenced by existing gear/systems. Also, my audio interface is Mac-only.

The only major thing I could think of at this point is FL Studio, which won't be available on Mac at any point, as it looks.
     
glideslope
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Jun 27, 2013, 02:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Could you point me to those rumors?

The only things I've read are musings such as those presented in this thread, or by the kids on the Verge forums. Nothing approaching actual "rumors".
Sorry, no pointing.
To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
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Spheric Harlot
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Jun 27, 2013, 05:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by glideslope View Post
Sorry, no pointing.
So, there aren't actually any rumours about Apple building an All-in-One portmanteau OS.

Phew.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 27, 2013, 06:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
I have a twelve-foot screen, I use it every day (for watching videos). Does that mean you agree with me?

(I'm not using it while writing this post, but more to the point all the same apps run on the twelve-footer as run on this two-footer; that doesn't make any of the apps break, all it means is that the user has the flexibility to choose which apps work better on which screen).
I would love for you to either edit photos on that screen in an attempt at an actual workflow and report back with your experience, or to just cut the facetious bullshit.

Deal?


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Nope, it's the native app that came with my phone. It works better than the iOS maps apps in my experience.
Useless comparison. Compare it to the Google Maps app on iOS.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
For one thing (that's on topic), zooming out to get an idea of what you're looking at is a real chore with multitouch, but pecking at the "-" button 5-6 times in succession is natural and easy. (or is there a secret multitouch trick I don't know about for quick zoom-outs?)
Solution 1: Try it on an iOS device. Instantaneous, fluid, and completely natural.

Solution 2: Standard on iOS: double-tap to zoom in, double-two-finger-tap to zoom out. But this is the B-solution. I never use it, due to Solution 1 being flawless.


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
You are being single-minded. All your reasoning relies on there only being one way. You imply that allowing a mouse means you can't use your multitouch anymore. That is not it at all. They are not mutually exclusive.
Yes. They. Are.

I don't know how many more examples I can bring, but to put it bluntly: You have no ****ing clue what you're talking about.

Thirty seconds with a VNC app on an iPad, trying to control a desktop, makes this painfully obvious. I've said this above, and it has become clear that there is nothing I can say that will get the point across that is completely clear when you Simply. Try. It.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
I'm not saying they're the same, I'm saying that keeping them separated is a kludge. Some tasks are far better suited to one, and some tasks are far better suited to the other, but sometimes you need to do both tasks in the same workflow. Do you get what I'm saying?
Yes.

You don't get what I'm saying:

The mouse interface is not marred by adding multi-touch gestures run through the abstraction of the mouse-pointer interface on a Magic Trackpad. That's fine.

But adding a single-mouse-pointer interface back into the multi-touch interface, even occasionally, BREAKS THE INTERFACE. Completely.
Because the whole reason the iPad exists is because A WHOLE LAYER OF INTERFACE ABSTRACTION HAS BEEN COMPLETELY REMOVED.

Add a mouse pointer, and the iPad is a conventional computer, and it's entire raison d'être is destroyed.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
But that's not true if you force them to use 6 fingers at the same time?
Most people learn to use five fingers at a time from around two minutes of age. People know how to use four fingers because THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE BORN WITH.

I don't know why it is confusing to you that there is a difference between grabbing something, and using a remote-controlled robot arm to grab something.

If this isn't clear, I have nothing left I can use to explain anything to you.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
These advanced gestures are just as obscure as advanced button mapping or advanced keyboard shortcuts. Their availability must be strictly optional, or else the consumer market would stone you.
There is nothing advanced about being able to move and manipulate several points on a screen at once. You seem to think that I'm talking about the four-finger gestures and the stuff that is possible on Magic Trackpads by proxy, as well.

I'm not.

I'm talking about DIRECT MANIPULATION of screen interface.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Keeping the tablet and PC two separate things instead of one is more complex.
For Apple. Not for the user.

I don't expect my fridge to be a stove and a lawn-mower. I have no issues whatsoever with my pencil being a separate object from my paintbrush, nor with my razor being a separate product from my garden shears. I even keep them in separate places.

It would a shitty razor that would double as pruning shears, even though they're both made of metal and do ostensibly similar things.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Picking up your work to take with you when you go to the water cooler (or water closet) is "stuff that works the way I do." Your description here supports (the option of!) merging the two, not stubbornly keeping them separate.
Using different tools in different ways in different situations is the way the world works. Stop trying to equate things that aren't equal just because they happen to be built around similar technology.

You're confused.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Way to presuppose your conclusion.
This is pointless.

Apple won't be unifying the interfaces; I understand why; you don't want to.


Enjoy the ride.
     
Uncle Skeleton
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Jun 28, 2013, 10:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I would love for you to either edit photos on that screen in an attempt at an actual workflow and report back with your experience, or to just cut the facetious bullshit.

Deal?
The world is full of kludges for exactly this reason, because the theoretically ideal solution often conflicts with one or more aspects of reality. That doesn't mean they're not kludges. What it does mean is that you can't automatically reject things just because you identify them as kludges.



Useless comparison. Compare it to the Google Maps app on iOS.
I was. The iOS version of Google Maps doesn't have +/- floating buttons. It also doesn't allow me to pre-cache map regions or apply a scale bar (god, missing that was infuriating). Meanwhile the android version does allow those things, which while a bit kludgy they are features that I sorely missed on the iOS apps, even before I knew that the android version does provide them.


double-two-finger-tap to zoom out.
Thanks, I never knew about that option.


Yes. They. Are.

I don't know how many more examples I can bring, but to put it bluntly: You have no ****ing clue what you're talking about.
Your abusive name calling line of reasoning is unconvincing.


Thirty seconds with a VNC app on an iPad, trying to control a desktop, makes this painfully obvious. I've said this above, and it has become clear that there is nothing I can say that will get the point across that is completely clear when you Simply. Try. It.
1. I don't see any reason why being able to control a mac using an ipad interface is necessary to demonstrate your assertion that adding the mere ability to control the ipad with the mac interface would interfere with the existing ipad interface used on the ipad.

2. I installed an android VNC app to try to understand your POV (I couldn't find drag-supporting free iOS app). I still don't know what your complaint is. I can drag files, use menus, right-click and scroll. I can't type very well or use keyboard shortcuts, obviously, because there is no hardware keyboard (and also I have to use 1 hand to hold the mobile device, which makes typing harder). The screen being small is the biggest problem I'm having. I wish you could articulate what your gripe is, because I don't see it. Touch-VNC is worse than native of course, but it's actually better than touch-native in certain aspects (like I can use cmd-f on a webpage again, something I miss in mobile browsers (BTW is there a way to search a webpage in mobile browsers?)).



Yes.

You don't get what I'm saying:

The mouse interface is not marred by adding multi-touch gestures run through the abstraction of the mouse-pointer interface on a Magic Trackpad. That's fine.

But adding a single-mouse-pointer interface back into the multi-touch interface, even occasionally, BREAKS THE INTERFACE. Completely.
Because the whole reason the iPad exists is because A WHOLE LAYER OF INTERFACE ABSTRACTION HAS BEEN COMPLETELY REMOVED.
Ok good, this is progress. Here is your assertion that I dispute: adding cursor back to multi-touch breaks multi-touch.

Just because iPad was born from lacking a cursor, doesn't mean that adding the cursor back will break it. Analogously, MacOS was born from lacking a CLI, but adding the CLI back didn't break the GUI. Once the new interface (touch for the ipad or GUI for the mac) has had a chance to show its strengths, the genie will not be crammed back in the bottle.


Add a mouse pointer, and the iPad is a conventional computer, and it's entire raison d'être is destroyed.
Why? When adding a CLI back to the Mac didn't convert it back to a "conventional" (terminal) computer, destroying its GUI drag-n-drop raison d'être?


Most people learn to use five fingers at a time from around two minutes of age. People know how to use four fingers because THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE BORN WITH.
As did I, but I still didn't intuit the 2-finger tap trick you told me about above.


I don't know why it is confusing to you that there is a difference between grabbing something, and using a remote-controlled robot arm to grab something.
Because 95% of the multi-touch magic is not "grabbing something," it's another less-skeuomorphic gesture that is not self-evident (like 2-finger tap for example). It needs to be learned just like mousing needs to be learned: it's not hard, and it's second-nature soon, but it's not akin to "grabbing."


There is nothing advanced about being able to move and manipulate several points on a screen at once. You seem to think that I'm talking about the four-finger gestures and the stuff that is possible on Magic Trackpads by proxy, as well.
Yes, I am talking about all manner of apps, not just the apps you happen to use. If you don't want to use the cursor, then don't use it. That's not a convincing argument for why no one should be able to use it.

You have a convincing argument for why you personally wouldn't benefit from the proposed feature. What you don't have is a convincing reason why allowing other people to use it would interfere with your situation.



I don't expect my fridge to be a stove
That would be awesome though. "Marge, can you turn the oven to cold?"


I have no issues whatsoever with my pencil being a separate object from my paintbrush, nor with my razor being a separate product from my garden shears. I even keep them in separate places.

Using different tools in different ways in different situations is the way the world works. Stop trying
You keep them in separate places and are familiar with them being separate because they are separate, not vice versa. By that reasoning, by the reasoning that we have grown accustomed to the limitations of things, nothing would ever change and all changes would be unwelcome ones. "Stop trying" period, is what that reasoning tell us. That is bad reasoning.



This is pointless.

Apple won't be unifying the interfaces;
I certainly don't disagree with that. Apple wasn't going to adopt the two-button mouse or file cut/paste either, not until the competition shamed them into it. I certainly don't expect apple to lead the way in this, but I firmly believe that whoever beats them to it will prove how inevitable it is, an Apple will eventually, begrudgingly follow like they have with other features.
     
glideslope
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Jun 28, 2013, 11:05 AM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Your abusive name calling line of reasoning is unconvincing.
Try to remember that he is Clinically Insane.
To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy.”
Sun Tzu
     
shifuimam
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Jun 28, 2013, 11:49 AM
 
Uncle Skeleton, you're my new favorite 'NN regular. A+
Sell or send me your vintage Mac things if you don't want them.
     
Uncle Skeleton
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Jun 28, 2013, 12:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
Uncle Skeleton, you're my new favorite 'NN regular.
Yay!

A+
Hey, that's my blood type
     
besson3c
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Jun 28, 2013, 05:26 PM
 
Spheric: I don't understand your point about controlling a Mac via your iOS device via VNC. Why would anybody want to do that? Is this an academic or practical argument?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 28, 2013, 07:57 PM
 
There is a fundamental difference between a mouse-based interface and one based on direct manipulation through multi-touch. They are completely different and separate things, and not interchangeable or simply integrateable.

This difference is impossible for some people to wrap their heads around intellectually. But it is immediately obvious the second they TRY it.
     
besson3c
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Jun 28, 2013, 08:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
There is a fundamental difference between a mouse-based interface and one based on direct manipulation through multi-touch. They are completely different and separate things, and not interchangeable or simply integrateable.

This difference is impossible for some people to wrap their heads around intellectually. But it is immediately obvious the second they TRY it.

This is not true in all cases. Say, a touch interface for ordering something off of a menu, can be interchanged with a point and click one without any real issue. Not all interfaces benefit from touch based gestures.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 28, 2013, 08:21 PM
 
I'm talking about the opposite.

And I'm trying to get across that there is a fundamental difference, not that there aren't some cases where it could work well. The difference is basic enough that it is impossible to combine them without some serious compromises that inevitably must result in a fundamentally broken interface.

Note that Apple has in recent years broken a number of interface fundamentals (and more in Mavericks), so they'll probably do it anyway just to prove me wrong.
They are opting for higher-complexity interface decisions in Mavericks (multiple menu bars!?), so it's not out of the question that they'll do something weird there, but they will not and cannot mar the iPad with support for write-once-run-anywhere pointer-based interfaces.

I've made my point; Skeleton has decided not to want to understand, aaaaand it's time for me to go.
(Edit: Giving this another chance)
( Last edited by Spheric Harlot; Jun 28, 2013 at 09:20 PM. )
     
besson3c
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Jun 28, 2013, 08:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I'm talking about the opposite.

And I'm trying to get across that there is a fundamental difference, not that there aren't some cases where it could work well. The difference is basic enough that it is impossible to combine them without some serious compromises that inevitably must result in a fundamentally broken interface.

Note that Apple has in recent years broken a number of interface fundamentals (and more in Mavericks), so they'll probably do it anyway just to prove me wrong.
They are opting for higher-complexity interface decisions in Mavericks (multiple menu bars!?), so it's not out of the question that they'll do something weird there, but they will not and cannot mar the iPad with support for write-once-run-anywhere pointer-based interfaces.

I've made my point; Skeleton has decided not to want to understand, aaaaand it's time for me to go.

I still don't understand why you don't think that a single application could provide both touch and point and click controls depending on what the user has, just as a single website can drive multiple devices.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 28, 2013, 08:46 PM
 
Because showing a completely different interface depending upon the device context is essentially a rewrite. It's not the same app.

Pages for Mac and Pages for iOS, or Garageband on iOS and on Mac, certainly share rather huge parts of the technical foundation and code. But the interface is completely rewritten.

If what you're talking about is being able to use the same basic code and wrap it into a completely different interface, then we're full circle back to our discussion from a few months ago, because that is exactly what we have today.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 28, 2013, 09:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
1. I don't see any reason why being able to control a mac using an ipad interface is necessary to demonstrate your assertion that adding the mere ability to control the ipad with the mac interface would interfere with the existing ipad interface used on the ipad.
That wasn't the point of the VNC suggestion.

That should be painfully obvious from the fact that plenty of apps exist that simple would be completely inoperable from a mouse — which is why I posted the Adobe Eazel as just one, but mentioned a half-dozen others that you just dismissed as being "specialized" or "power-user" stuff. (Garageband is anything BUT "power-user").

The stuff that exists solely because multi-touch makes it possible wouldn't work, but you probably wouldn't know it until you tried to run it. So how is this in any way a desirable solution?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
2. I installed an android VNC app to try to understand your POV (I couldn't find drag-supporting free iOS app). I still don't know what your complaint is. I can drag files, use menus, right-click and scroll. I can't type very well or use keyboard shortcuts, obviously, because there is no hardware keyboard (and also I have to use 1 hand to hold the mobile device, which makes typing harder). The screen being small is the biggest problem I'm having. I wish you could articulate what your gripe is, because I don't see it. Touch-VNC is worse than native of course, but it's actually better than touch-native in certain aspects (like I can use cmd-f on a webpage again, something I miss in mobile browsers (BTW is there a way to search a webpage in mobile browsers?)).
This is a solution that is equally as simple as just a mouse interface?
If this is one default mode of operation, what is the point of having a touch interface?
Is this a concept and interface that your mother would feel perfectly comfortable with?

And most importantly: is it as straightforward as a purely touch interface?

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Ok good, this is progress. Here is your assertion that I dispute: adding cursor back to multi-touch breaks multi-touch.

Just because iPad was born from lacking a cursor, doesn't mean that adding the cursor back will break it. Analogously, MacOS was born from lacking a CLI, but adding the CLI back didn't break the GUI. Once the new interface (touch for the ipad or GUI for the mac) has had a chance to show its strengths, the genie will not be crammed back in the bottle.
History disagrees: as long as the other interface is REQUIRED for certain things, the experience is marred and the interface is broken.

The Mac did not even have a command-line interface until more than fifteen years after its release (it got one in OS X Public Beta in 1999).

Windows floundered about for more than ten years and wasn't successful as a GUI alternative until the command line was finally hidden (in Windows 95).


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Why? When adding a CLI back to the Mac didn't convert it back to a "conventional" (terminal) computer, destroying its GUI drag-n-drop raison d'être?
The GUI had fifteen years to establish new conventions before that ever happened, and BOY, was there bitching about it when it did happen even then.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
I still didn't intuit the 2-finger tap trick you told me about above.
It's not necessary. Pinch-to-zoom works perfectly. Shortcuts don't need to be intuitive (though the double-tap to zoom has been *widely* publicized since the initial presentation in January 2007).

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
I certainly don't disagree with that. Apple wasn't going to adopt the two-button mouse or file cut/paste either, not until the competition shamed them into it.
Apple adopted two-button mice TWENTY YEARS AGO (I can't remember the exact system version). They just didn't MAKE one until they figured out a way to build one that they could configure as a single-button mouse by default without confusing users with a second button (the Mighty Mouse was NOT configured for multiple buttons out of the box for quite a while).

The File Cut/Past support is exactly what they're NOT doing. They are NOT using the Cut/Paste metaphor, because the way Windows does it is fundamentally…(wait for it)…BROKEN. Cut a File, copy something else into the Clipboard, File is removed from clipboard but remains at original location. This is completely different from every single other cut/paste action in every single other application on almost every single other system for the past thirty years, where copying something new to the clipboard will forever delete whatever had been cut to there previously. Done for obvious reasons, but Fundamentally Broken.

Apple doesn't actually make the "cut" option available, but when pasting an object, you can use the option key to move it there instead. I don't know why it took Apple so long to figure out how to do it in a way that wasn't broken (probably it was low-priority, and just not given much thought until some developer finally had an epiphany under the shower), but hey, there it is.

Maybe — maybe — Apple (or somebody else) will eventually figure out how to reconcile the two fundamentally different approaches to human interaction in a way that isn't broken.

I wouldn't hold my breath until then, though — it might be 2025.
( Last edited by Spheric Harlot; Jun 28, 2013 at 09:21 PM. )
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 28, 2013, 10:06 PM
 
A Week With OS X Mavericks | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

in the grand scheme of things, OS X Mavericks represents Apple’s commitment to innovate uniquely for different form factors. Apple has drawn a line in the sand and stated with their actions that they believe software for the PC is different and should be treated different than software for tablets and smartphones. This does not mean all our screens are islands- quite the contrary. They share experiences and get more tightly integrated relationships in the multi-screen reality we live in. But it does mean that Apple is committed to delivering the best desktop and notebook computing experience possible. Mavericks represents this for Apple.
Well, there you go.
     
besson3c
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Jun 28, 2013, 10:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Because showing a completely different interface depending upon the device context is essentially a rewrite. It's not the same app.

Pages for Mac and Pages for iOS, or Garageband on iOS and on Mac, certainly share rather huge parts of the technical foundation and code. But the interface is completely rewritten.

If what you're talking about is being able to use the same basic code and wrap it into a completely different interface, then we're full circle back to our discussion from a few months ago, because that is exactly what we have today.

How do you know that to be true? There is a very big difference between simply sharing some code while the new projects are managed by different groups and ship as two separate products vs. having one team work on one product. Are you saying that Garageband for iOS and OS X are exactly the same application managed by the same people but with a different interface? If so, I find that hard to believe, because my understanding is that the iOS APIs are maintained and developed separately from the OS X Cocoa APIs.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 02:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Spheric: I don't understand your point about controlling a Mac via your iOS device via VNC. Why would anybody want to do that? Is this an academic or practical argument?
When my laptop was out of commission (being repaired), I used my Transformer exclusively unless I was sitting at my desktop computer. There were a few times I needed to RDP into my server (headless at the time) to do some maintenance.

Doing this with an Android RDP app on my Transformer, which has a real keyboard and trackpad with left/right mouse buttons was freaking awesome. I could even full-screen it, and since RDP can dynamically set the remote host's screen resolution based on the connected client, it resized the res to my Transformer's display, and it was an absolutely flawless experience.

When I was done, I disconnected, and bam - back on a touchscreen tablet to do touchscreeny sorts of things.

Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
This is not true in all cases. Say, a touch interface for ordering something off of a menu, can be interchanged with a point and click one without any real issue. Not all interfaces benefit from touch based gestures.
And, for interfaces that do make use of the touchscreen, a multitouch trackpad (like on the Transformer) can use the same gestures, while certain other gestures (say, two-finger tap for right click) can be replicated with the physical mouse buttons on the Transformer dock.

Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I still don't understand why you don't think that a single application could provide both touch and point and click controls depending on what the user has, just as a single website can drive multiple devices.
You know as well as I do that Apple zealots are fervent about their religion. Once a particular opinion about technology has been formed by a zealot, they will not see any alternative, regardless of reason. For SH, it is fundamentally impossible to provide a useful, quality UI that can use mouse/keyboard OR multitouch display OR both simultaneously. Anyone who disagrees with him could not possibly be right in any use case or context.

It's no different in politics and actual religion (e.g. not those based around twit in a black turtleneck).
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Jun 29, 2013, 02:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
That wasn't the point of the VNC suggestion.

That should be painfully obvious from the fact that plenty of apps exist that simple would be completely inoperable from a mouse — which is why I posted the Adobe Eazel as just one, but mentioned a half-dozen others that you just dismissed as being "specialized" or "power-user" stuff. (Garageband is anything BUT "power-user").
You're offering Garageband as an example of apps that "simple would be completely inoperable from a mouse?"

The stuff that exists solely because multi-touch makes it possible wouldn't work, but you probably wouldn't know it until you tried to run it. So how is this in any way a desirable solution?
You already ignored the answer to this, but I'll just go ahead and waste both of our time by repeating it so you can ignore it again:
Battery monitors and trackpad drivers exist solely because laptops make it possible, and they wouldn't work on desktops and you wouldn't know it until you tried to run it. So how is it in any way a desirable solution to have desktops and laptops run the same OS with compatible apps that the user can decide when and where to transfer between?



This is a solution that is equally as simple as just a mouse interface?
If this is one default mode of operation, what is the point of having a touch interface?
Is this a concept and interface that your mother would feel perfectly comfortable with?

And most importantly: is it as straightforward as a purely touch interface?
Again, I don't see the relevance of any of these questions to your assertion. I can't answer until you explain the relevance.



History disagrees: as long as the other interface is REQUIRED for certain things, the experience is marred and the interface is broken.
Where did you get "required" from? I keep saying "option" and "redundant," which are the opposite of "required." Is all it takes to win you over stipulating that the mouse interface would not be "required?" Because I can do that (I have done that )


The Mac did not even have a command-line interface until more than fifteen years after its release (it got one in OS X Public Beta in 1999).
What's really important though? Is it the magic 15 year waiting period, or is it whether or not the old interface is still required for certain things? I say the latter. Once the new interface is established and demonstrates that it can live independently, then on the very next day the old interface can be added back as an option without killing the new. 15 years is irrelevant. It would be ludicrous for you to claim that I'm wrong for the first 15 years but I'm right after 15 years.



The GUI had fifteen years to establish new conventions before that ever happened, and BOY, was there bitching about it when it did happen even then.
What's your point by this? That the bitchers were right and we never should have crossed them? In hindsight, was adding back the CLI a mistake in your view?



It's not necessary. Pinch-to-zoom works perfectly. Shortcuts don't need to be intuitive (though the double-tap to zoom has been *widely* publicized since the initial presentation in January 2007).
This has been in the context of you claiming that tap-drag or long-drag is too kludgy to accept. But these have been widely publicized and widely implemented features too. Are you using a double-standard here?



Apple adopted two-button mice TWENTY YEARS AGO (I can't remember the exact system version). They just didn't MAKE one until they figured out a way to build one that they could configure as a single-button mouse by default without confusing users with a second button (the Mighty Mouse was NOT configured for multiple buttons out of the box for quite a while).
And they still wouldn't have "figured out a way" by now without being shamed into it by the competition which is what I said. Ditto file cut/paste (however you want to call it), and ditto letting people keep working while they walk away from their desks without switching to a different machine.
     
besson3c
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Jun 29, 2013, 02:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
When my laptop was out of commission (being repaired), I used my Transformer exclusively unless I was sitting at my desktop computer. There were a few times I needed to RDP into my server (headless at the time) to do some maintenance.

Doing this with an Android RDP app on my Transformer, which has a real keyboard and trackpad with left/right mouse buttons was freaking awesome. I could even full-screen it, and since RDP can dynamically set the remote host's screen resolution based on the connected client, it resized the res to my Transformer's display, and it was an absolutely flawless experience.

When I was done, I disconnected, and bam - back on a touchscreen tablet to do touchscreeny sorts of things.
I see...

You know as well as I do that Apple zealots are fervent about their religion. Once a particular opinion about technology has been formed by a zealot, they will not see any alternative, regardless of reason. For SH, it is fundamentally impossible to provide a useful, quality UI that can use mouse/keyboard OR multitouch display OR both simultaneously. Anyone who disagrees with him could not possibly be right in any use case or context.

It's no different in politics and actual religion (e.g. not those based around twit in a black turtleneck).

SH does seem religious at times, but I sometimes think that with this particular case he just needs a little straightening out and there is a lot of mental disconnect

If I understand things, he feels that because a touch interface and a point and click interface are fundamentally different, they require their own apps, because somehow the interface is tethered to the layers beneath it.

What I'm saying, and what it seems like you and Skeleton are on board with is that a single application can have multiple interfaces or support multiple input methods. SH points out that Apple already does this in the code that is shared, but as I pointed out a few posts above, simply sharing code is different than building everything into a single application developed by a single group. If SH believes that Apple is doing what I'm describing, he may be right, but I have not heard of this nor seen any specific evidence, if there could be evidence to support this.

It sounds like what Microsoft did with Windows 8 was a little off, but I think the direction the industry going in, whether Apple is on board or not, is to allow developers to write a single application that will work on all devices. SH seems to feel that this is an impossibility because he keeps on coming back to how the interfaces are fundamentally different, but I believe that in many cases the interface is a small percentage of the overall codebase, and it makes far more business and financial sense to do the single application + multiple interfaces/input methods thing.

I also think that if the Android world can figure out the fragmentation issue and some of the other political/non-tech issues it is plagued with right now *and* get into what I'm describing, it could really knock back Apple a few rungs. With Apple's track record and general approach over the years, I'm not all that sure that businesses perceive Apple as being friendly to them enough to be fully confident into making major investments into Apple infrastructure. Sure, some have and some will, but at the very least I think there are reservations.
     
shifuimam
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Jun 29, 2013, 02:51 PM
 
Wait, there was bitching about there being a graphical app to access a shell (which is a fundamental element of any *NIX based OS)?

That seems like bitching for the sake of bitching without any actual thought behind it, if you ask me. Most of the people I helped at the Apple Store didn't even know Terminal existed, and they had almost unilaterally switched to Mac long after OS 9 was phased out.

Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
SH does seem religious at times, but I sometimes think that with this particular case he just needs a little straightening out and there is a lot of mental disconnect
The religious fervor shows itself in any conversation like this, where people have repeatedly indicated solid reasoning behind a statement, and the fervent believer consciously ignores those to continue pushing a single-minded point. That's what I'm getting at.

It sounds like what Microsoft did with Windows 8 was a little off, but I think the direction the industry going in, whether Apple is on board or not, is to allow developers to write a single application that will work on all devices. SH seems to feel that this is an impossibility because he keeps on coming back to how the interfaces are fundamentally different, but I believe that in many cases the interface is a small percentage of the overall codebase, and it makes far more business and financial sense to do the single application + multiple interfaces/input methods thing.
Abstraction between hardware, software, and inputs is a Good Thing(tm). It's the reason why Java exists, and it's the reason why the .NET framework has matured into something that's (a) built into Windows and (b) used by many developers, because C# is significantly easier to learn and use than older languages (C, C++, etc.). Those older languages still have their place - C is very low-level and allows for writing lean code, which is important for some applications (pretty sure Office is still written in C to this day). This doesn't, however, mean that abstracting languages don't also have their place.

Hell, it used to be that you had to write your code specific to the hardware it would be running on, because there was little to no abstraction between hardware and software. What Metro aims to accomplish is along the lines of what .NET did - maintain a system-wide pipeline between the OS and the software, so that the developer doesn't have to worry about the architecture his compiled code will be running on. The same application can run in Windows 8 RT and Windows 8 x64, without any additional effort on the part of the developer. This obviously will not work for ALL software - and nobody is arguing that it will - but the movement in this direction is beneficial to users and developers.

I also think that if the Android world can figure out the fragmentation issue and some of the other political/non-tech issues it is plagued with right now *and* get into what I'm describing, it could really knock back Apple a few rungs. With Apple's track record and general approach over the years, I'm not all that sure that businesses perceive Apple as being friendly to them enough to be fully confident into making major investments into Apple infrastructure. Sure, some have and some will, but at the very least I think there are reservations.
I'm unconvinced that fragmentation is a tangible issue in the Android world, especially since Android apps all run in a JVM (which, as already mentioned, is a virtual machine that abstracts hardware from software so that things like architecture are irrelevant). You might say that it means that the version of Android is different on each device, but as I've said in past posts on this particular subject, the migration from the majority running 2.3 to running 4.x is going to happen sooner rather than later - since many Android devices out in the wild are phones, users aren't going to upgrade whenever they want; they're going to upgrade every two or more years because of cellular carrier contracts. I have a phone right now that, with a stock ROM, can only run 2.3, simply because I can't afford the phone I want yet. I've unlocked it and flashed it to Jelly Bean, but other users with an Evo 4G are still running 2.3 and just waiting to upgrade for whatever reason.

The retail release of the Ouya could mean some pretty significant things for Android. Right now, most of the games in the Ouya app store are just ports of existing Android games (and some of them have pretty fantastic graphics, btw). However, if I can buy a game and run it on my phone, tablet, or television depending on where I am or the mood I'm in, that's a motivator to buy those games. Same goes for multimedia apps, like Netflix, Hulu, and sports subscription services offered by agencies like MLB, NFL, etc. For $99, it can already do far more than what one can do with an Apple TV (same price point, although the Ouya has much better hardware since the Apple TV hasn't been updated in awhile), which really just runs a modified version of iOS (at least, I think that's what it is, don't quote me on that).

Apple may be right in their move to keep everything in separate little worlds - computers, mobile devices, and TV boxes - but it's also possible that they're just doing this to maintain a separation from what Microsoft is doing. They tried that for a long time with both the classic OS and using PowerPC, and on both fronts eventually had to relent and start going more mainstream. I don't think Apple will continue to resist the touchscreen movement for much longer, especially since now budget laptops and AIO desktops have touchscreens.

Hell, I played with a 27" brand new iMac at Micro Center a few weeks ago and totally tried to use the display as a touchscreen, because I'm so used to the screen on my Lenovo AIO desktop. I felt like kind of an idiot when I realized that no, that $2500 desktop still can't offer what a $500 machine from Woot can.
( Last edited by shifuimam; Jun 29, 2013 at 03:06 PM. )
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Spheric Harlot
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
What I'm saying, and what it seems like you and Skeleton are on board with is that a single application can have multiple interfaces or support multiple input methods.
I'm not disagreeing with this, at all. This might well work for some apps.

But my points are the following:

a) an architecture that works sometimes, for some apps, but not universally, is broken.

b) If you're going to develop an app that is intended to work equally well on both interfaces (without actually using a completely redesigned interface for both), your mindset will from the get-go constrain you to an app that is not designed to best utilize either interface paradigm. You will be unable to make anything but either a rotten compromise or an app of very limited utility. This may work sometimes, and even be the perfect implementation sometimes, but see a).

c) Especially, you will be limited because we haven't even seen a fraction of the possibilities pointerless multi-touch will bring over the next fifteen years.

d) This presupposes that if you're going to use the same basic code and wrap it in a completely redesigned interface, I'd call this two separate apps.


That's not religious.

That's common sense.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
Wait, there was bitching about there being a graphical app to access a shell (which is a fundamental element of any *NIX based OS)?

That seems like bitching for the sake of bitching without any actual thought behind it, if you ask me. Most of the people I helped at the Apple Store didn't even know Terminal existed, and they had almost unilaterally switched to Mac long after OS 9 was phased out.
The worry was that if the Terminal became accepted as a standard interface, people would stop developing native Mac GUI apps.

In fact, for the first year or two on OS X, I had to use a Terminal script to open my DSL connection via Roaring Penguin.

Two things helped fix this:

1. The GUI was *so* well-established as the default interface after fifteen years of Macintosh that it was clear that regular users would never use the terminal, which was a kludge: uncomfortable, alien, but workable with a some effort.

2. Apple included developer tools for free that made it trivial for a hobbyist developer to write a native, good-looking GUI wrapper for any UNIX tool s/he liked.

A very similar fear hit when Apple went Intel and offered Boot Camp - that developers would expect users to simply go through the kludge of using Windows in addition to the Mac OS on their machines, rather than developing native Mac apps.
This was a conscious gamble on Apple's part, and it paid off by so rapidly increasing sales that developers realized they could make good money by offering Mac versions of their apps, because the users were willing to pay for a native version.
There are still cases where this fear materialized - for instance, Quicken hasn't made a Mac-native version of their accounting software for the German market since Quicken 2007.

Note the timing (intel switch was in 2006).
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
It sounds like what Microsoft did with Windows 8 was a little off, but I think the direction the industry going in, whether Apple is on board or not, is to allow developers to write a single application that will work on all devices. SH seems to feel that this is an impossibility because he keeps on coming back to how the interfaces are fundamentally different, but I believe that in many cases the interface is a small percentage of the overall codebase, and it makes far more business and financial sense to do the single application + multiple interfaces/input methods thing.
Exhibit A, as you bring it up:

The very face of Windows 8, the home screen, SUCKS on a mouse-based machine. It is obviously not designed for a mouse pointer, IMO (yes, I've used it).

If Microsoft, the champion of the "No Compromises" Compromise, can't get it right, and that's what they're betting their future on, well...
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:28 PM
 
Here is my vision for Apple...

iOS was a very smart fork on Apple's part, as it allowed them a space to focus on their mobile plan without worrying about breaking anything in the Mac world, and it provided them with more agility to make rapid improvements.

However, and this is probably going to make SH's blood pressure increase, iOS and OS X will eventually complete their amalgamation. This idea that OS X will be left for creative pros like SH as a separate product/project is absurd to me, because it makes no sense for Apple to fund and have to support a small part of their business in a way that makes them vulnerable like this, when it seems that their general approach with this part of their business is to do things so long as they remain low hanging fruit. It Apple saw the pro market as an integral part of their future they would have put out a worthy pro Mac a long time ago (and it could be that the new Mac Pro is just an attempt to profit from those willing to pay a small fortune for cutting edge performance ala fancy gaming PCs or something).

The amalgamation will be just like I'm describing where there is a single OS that supports multiple input methods and/or has separate interfaces for some percentage of it. This current trickle down to OS X strategy is an important part of this plan to bring the two worlds together until they are just one. It could take a while, but I'd expect this transition process to be complete within the 5 years.

I don't really know or have opinions about what sorts of devices Apple will invent, but what will drive Apple's business will be software based on the multiple interfaces/input methods concept.

SH might be quick to say that what I want is what Microsoft did. What Microsoft is doing seems to be sort of the reverse of what Apple is doing. Microsoft seems to be trying to bring the mobile world to its existing Windows world, whereas Apple is devoting more resources to iOS and bringing the fruits of these efforts to OS X. Because Microsoft had no real mobile world to speak of, I think starting with a single OS made sense for them (although they probably should have gone about things differently in terms of their actual execution plans in terms of the Windows 8 experience), and like I said, the iOS/OS X fork made sense for Apple. However, my prediction is that the Microsoft vision of a single OS will ultimately prove to be "correct", and I think Apple sees it this way too, they are just keeping their cards close to their chest.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
You're offering Garageband as an example of apps that "simple would be completely inoperable from a mouse?"
What is your problem with that?

Do you disagree?

You still haven't accepted Adobe Eazel as an example, have you?

What are you looking for?


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
You already ignored the answer to this, but I'll just go ahead and waste both of our time by repeating it so you can ignore it again:
Battery monitors and trackpad drivers exist solely because laptops make it possible, and they wouldn't work on desktops and you wouldn't know it until you tried to run it. So how is it in any way a desirable solution to have desktops and laptops run the same OS with compatible apps that the user can decide when and where to transfer between?
Car metaphor time:

I'm arguing that a car is great for things that a bicycle can't be used for, and vice versa, and bringing up examples.
You're countering my examples by arguing that a car isn't fundamentally different from a bicycle because such functions as windshield wipers and starter motors are specific to cars because they offer utility solely useful to cars.

Um yeah.

Except for the fact that cars in themselves offer utility not afforded by a bicycle. You can do stuff with them that you CANNOT DO with a bicycle.

The Eazel, or the GarageBand interface, or those controllers I posted, are specific uses that an iPad offers, that a traditional computer CANNOT OFFER in the same way, not nearly as usefully or naturally.

Your examples of a battery monitor would be…the battery monitor on an iPad, or the home button. Well, duh.


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Again, I don't see the relevance of any of these questions to your assertion. I can't answer until you explain the relevance.
Geez. The point is:

HOW IS THIS BETTER INTERFACE?

Yes, it can do more stuff. But while it may not be worse at everything it can do, it is confusing and unpredictable. IT IS WORSE INTERFACE.

My Swiss army knife has WAY more functions than my kitchen vegetable knife. But I never use it unless I have to, because it's kludgy and just not a very good knife. Nor a very good pair of scissors. It will do in a pinch. Just like my VNC app on the iPad will do in a pinch.

But anybody designing their whole workflow around a Swiss army knife needs to be taken out back and shot.


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Where did you get "required" from? I keep saying "option" and "redundant," which are the opposite of "required." Is all it takes to win you over stipulating that the mouse interface would not be "required?" Because I can do that (I have done that )
The mouse-pointer interface will be REQUIRED for ANYTHING that hasn't been completely redesigned for multi-touch. Duh?


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
What's really important though? Is it the magic 15 year waiting period, or is it whether or not the old interface is still required for certain things? I say the latter. Once the new interface is established and demonstrates that it can live independently, then on the very next day the old interface can be added back as an option without killing the new. 15 years is irrelevant. It would be ludicrous for you to claim that I'm wrong for the first 15 years but I'm right after 15 years.
Absolutely not.

If Apple had added Flash to iOS, half the web would still require Flash. If I'd said that you wouldn't need Flash, I would have been wrong for the first few years, and right some time around now (mostly).
But that would never have even happened if the elimination of the old an kludgy hadn't been stringently enforced from the get-go.

The multi-touch interface needs time to establish itself, and for people to EXPECT it, and ONLY it (the same way the GUI needed that time). Again: Windows didn't really take off until people could no longer be EXPECTED to use the command line.

If you **** up people's expectations now with half-assed solutions and weird and jarring breaks between interface modes (such as reported on Microsoft Surface), you'll never get the interface to where it needs to be going forward.
     
besson3c
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I'm not disagreeing with this, at all. This might well work for some apps.

But my points are the following:

a) an architecture that works sometimes, for some apps, but not universally, is broken.
Who here would say otherwise or disagree with this? I think we all understand that you can't just expect that an interface designed for touch can be interchangeable with point-and-click.

b) If you're going to develop an app that is intended to work equally well on both interfaces (without actually using a completely redesigned interface for both), your mindset will from the get-go constrain you to an app that is not designed to best utilize either interface paradigm. You will be unable to make anything but either a rotten compromise or an app of very limited utility. This may work sometimes, and even be the perfect implementation sometimes, but see a).
Again, I don't think any of us are disagreeing with that.

d) This presupposes that if you're going to use the same basic code and wrap it in a completely redesigned interface, I'd call this two separate apps.
Why? The user might think of these as two separate apps, but the development team can still be a single team developing a single app with multiple interfaces. Getting an interface right takes a lot of time and care into decision making, but once a path has been set the end result is often or usually something that is a relatively small percentage of the overall codebase. By "small" I don't mean in importance or significance, but literally that - i.e. lines of code.

That's not religious.

That's common sense.
If you don't disagree with what I've written why have you been so quick to dismiss these same viewpoints I've expressed in the past? My viewpoints have remained consistent for months, I've just been trying to find better ways to express them since it seems like you haven't fully understood what I've been trying to say. Was I just doing a steal ass job of expressing my viewpoints?

Do you still think that OS X will remain in perpetuity for creative pros?
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
The worry was that if the Terminal became accepted as a standard interface, people would stop developing native Mac GUI apps.

In fact, for the first year or two on OS X, I had to use a Terminal script to open my DSL connection via Roaring Penguin.

Two things helped fix this:

1. The GUI was *so* well-established as the default interface after fifteen years of Macintosh that it was clear that regular users would never use the terminal, which was a kludge: uncomfortable, alien, but workable with a some effort.


This is completely tangential to all of this discussion and needs to be put in a completely different context, but I disagree with the notion that some have (perhaps not you) that the command line is some sort of vestige of the past only there for old, archaic, un-evolved tools that are worthy of criticism for relying on the command line.

Some tools work best on the command line, and there is no better interface suited for them than the command line. For instance, look at the Ruby on Rails console for one of a number of examples. In addition, the command line can be supremely useful for creating workflows that establish bridges between different tools/applications.

Again, this is segue from the conversation we are having. I completely acknowledge that this is all geek stuff, not regular user territory, but still, you gotta give the command line its props from time to time.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 03:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Exhibit A, as you bring it up:

The very face of Windows 8, the home screen, SUCKS on a mouse-based machine. It is obviously not designed for a mouse pointer, IMO (yes, I've used it).

If Microsoft, the champion of the "No Compromises" Compromise, can't get it right, and that's what they're betting their future on, well...

Microsoft is rarely, if ever a model of ideal interface, but these valid criticisms you have involve execution and decision making, not the very premise of having a single app/OS that drives multiple interfaces.

I will add to my "vision" post that another smart reason behind what Apple did in forking iOS was that it gave Apple some time to really figure out how to how to make all of these pieces work and fit together, making them more immune to this sort of criticism. It will take many years to figure out how to make what I'm describing work, so it was silly of Microsoft to jump into the deep end in hedging their future on the premise of amalgamating the interface.

I've never proposed amalgamating the interfaces, just the development process.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 04:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Microsoft is rarely, if ever a model of ideal interface, but these valid criticisms you have involve execution and decision making, not the very premise of having a single app/OS that drives multiple interfaces.
I postulate that the very premise of integrating these disparate interfaces into a single device/system IS poor decision-making and execution of a move towards touch-based interfaces that is destined for failure (which may mean failed interface, rather than merely commercial failure).

Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I've never proposed amalgamating the interfaces, just the development process.
I'm not arguing with you about that. We've already been over that.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 04:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I postulate that the very premise of integrating these disparate interfaces into a single device/system IS poor decision-making and execution of a move towards touch-based interfaces that is destined for failure (which may mean failed interface, rather than merely commercial failure).



I'm not arguing with you about that. We've already been over that.
No argument on the MS approach.

I return to my earlier question then: did you change your mind, or was I really that bad at explaining myself? This has been my position all along.
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 05:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Do you still think that OS X will remain in perpetuity for creative pros?
I don't know.

What the hell is perpetuity? Ten years? A lifetime? Until the second coming?

If I were to venture a guess, I'd think that OS X on "real" computers, as distinct from iOS, will be with us for another decade at least, by current strategy.

But Apple has in the past changed their plans. I'm pretty sure they were surprised by how rapidly the app market exploded, and by how rapidly the iPad was adopted.

We'll see how the iPad's capabilities/power/apps expand over time, and how quickly. Who knows?
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 10:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
I don't know.

What the hell is perpetuity? Ten years? A lifetime? Until the second coming?

If I were to venture a guess, I'd think that OS X on "real" computers, as distinct from iOS, will be with us for another decade at least, by current strategy.

But Apple has in the past changed their plans. I'm pretty sure they were surprised by how rapidly the app market exploded, and by how rapidly the iPad was adopted.

We'll see how the iPad's capabilities/power/apps expand over time, and how quickly. Who knows?


"With us" meaning there will be laggards that stick with it like people have sticked with Windows XP, or "with us" meaning Apple is continuing to release updates to it?
     
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Jun 29, 2013, 10:21 PM
 
My prediction to you SH: at one keynote Tim Cook announces that it has been their strategy all along to work towards consolidation, and that they've been working on builds that combine both iOS and OS X while offering different interfaces depending on input method, and that they've used user feedback over the years to come up with this version. Once you see that you'll continue to be able to run all of your apps and continue to do your thing you'll be on board, and it will certainly not be 10 years before this happens.
     
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Jun 30, 2013, 12:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
My prediction to you SH: at one keynote Tim Cook announces that it has been their strategy all along to work towards consolidation, and that they've been working on builds that combine both iOS and OS X while offering different interfaces depending on input method, and that they've used user feedback over the years to come up with this version. Once you see that you'll continue to be able to run all of your apps and continue to do your thing you'll be on board, and it will certainly not be 10 years before this happens.
On the API level, that has already happened: many new APIs are (almost) identical on OS X and iOS (e. g. Text Kit). And the two OSes share the same kernel and underlying structure. But that's the same as saying that Linux and Android will merge: it's a misnomer. Android is based in Linux, but you would not say that eventually the two will »consolidate«.
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Jun 30, 2013, 01:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
On the API level, that has already happened: many new APIs are (almost) identical on OS X and iOS (e. g. Text Kit). And the two OSes share the same kernel and underlying structure. But that's the same as saying that Linux and Android will merge: it's a misnomer. Android is based in Linux, but you would not say that eventually the two will »consolidate«.
I think in the context of what I've been saying what I meant was clear, or at least I hope it was. Again: a single OS/app project/development team/product with multiple interfaces/support for multiple input methods.
( Last edited by besson3c; Jun 30, 2013 at 01:56 AM. )
     
OreoCookie  (op)
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Jun 30, 2013, 01:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
I think in the context of what I've been saying what I meant was clear, or at least I hope it as. Again: a single OS/app project/development team/product with multiple interfaces/support for multiple input methods.
Again, that won't make any sense, because the trade offs are very different for both systems. The idea of multitasking on iOS is very different than on OS X, for instance. I don't think it makes sense to use the approach you suggest: two »skins« (user interfaces) built on top of the same code base.

If anyone brings up the single OS strategy, again, look no further than Windows 8.
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besson3c
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Jun 30, 2013, 01:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Again, that won't make any sense, because the trade offs are very different for both systems. The idea of multitasking on iOS is very different than on OS X, for instance. I don't think it makes sense to use the approach you suggest: two »skins« (user interfaces) built on top of the same code base.

If anyone brings up the single OS strategy, again, look no further than Windows 8.

I've addressed how this would be different than Windows 8 earlier in this thread.

What about multitasking presents enough differences that this couldn't change in 5 years? If your point is that iOS needs to be far more concerned about battery life and efficiency, I would say that all this does is provides Apple with more incentive to write better code, but this greater efficiency is something that would benefit either operating system. I.e. if there was a more efficient way to multitask, fork into the background, allocate CPU cycles, etc. why wouldn't Apple want OS X to do it this way too?
     
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Jun 30, 2013, 06:24 AM
 
Besson, they're doing exactly all of that, and have been since 2007. They were very vocal about leveraging all the advantages of OS X (like advanced power management) for the iPhone from the very beginning, in January 2007.
And at WWDC this year, they made a big point of incorporating much of what they had learned from iOS — like suspending background apps — into OS X.

They're very clear, and explicit about this. It's in the keynote. It is not new, not a future direction, and not a revelation. It is the whole point of why iOS was based on OS X in the first place.

It is also completely under the hood, and has absolutely nothing to do with consolidating interfaces (which is what the whole discussion in this thread was about.)

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Jun 30, 2013, 09:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
What is your problem with that?

Do you disagree?
Because there is already a version of Garageband that runs on Mac, disproving the premise that it is "simple inoperable" there?

You still haven't accepted Adobe Eazel as an example, have you?

What are you looking for?
Fair question. What I'm looking for is the logic why 1 NONworking app is more important than 9 other WORKING apps. You are arguing that:

App X (be it Eazel or Garageband) works on interface Y (touch) but would be useless on interface Z (mouse). Apps A-W are ignored even though they work just fine on both interfaces.

I am making the analogy:

App X (be it battery monitor or trackpad driver) works on interface Y (laptop) but would be useless on interface Z (desktop). But now suddenly apps A-W (all other mac apps) working is not a good enough reason to make the merged OS and compatibility between Y and Z a stupid/impossible idea.


Car metaphor time:

I'm arguing that a car is great for things that a bicycle can't be used for, and vice versa, and bringing up examples.
You're countering my examples by arguing that a car isn't fundamentally different from a bicycle because such functions as windshield wipers and starter motors are specific to cars because they offer utility solely useful to cars.

Um yeah.
No, what I'm doing is applying the logic of your examples to within-group (one car to another) as well as to between-group (car to bicycle), to test whether the logic is sound (specific to between-groups and not to within-groups). If the logic can't distinguish between-groups from within-groups, then that logic is not sufficient to demonstrate that the groups need to be kept separate.

You're arguing that the groups can't be merged, based on the logic that 1 member of the group can't be merged to the other group. That is the composition fallacy. I concede the truth that there exists >=1 member which can't be merged (usefully), however I dispute the logical leap from there to the conclusion that the group as a whole can't be merged, and I base this dispute on the fact that other groups are already satisfactorily merged despite single group members failing the merge. Specifically, the groups merged are laptop and desktop, and the single members failing to merge are battery monitor and trackpad driver. The evidence necessary to disprove my position would be either (A) a majority of touch apps would fail to merge, or (B) a different logical reasoning that is specifically true to the merger in question but not true of other mergers which are proven successful.


The Eazel, or the GarageBand interface, or those controllers I posted, are specific uses that an iPad offers, that a traditional computer CANNOT OFFER in the same way, not nearly as usefully or naturally.
Once more for good measure...

By the same logic, the [trackpad driver and battery monitor] are specific uses that the [laptop] offers, that a [desktop] computer CANNOT OFFER in the same way, not nearly as usefully or naturally.

In this case the logic doesn't result in the desktop and laptop REQUIRING separate OS. Why in your case would the logic require it?


Your examples of a battery monitor would be…the battery monitor on an iPad, or the home button. Well, duh.
No, my examples are of the same binary running in the same OS but on different interfaces, with those binaries being pointless on 1 of the 2 interfaces, yet the merger of OS across interfaces still existing and even thriving. That was the situation you claim would be impossible.




Geez. The point is:

HOW IS THIS BETTER INTERFACE?
Because it gives the user the option of standing up from the desk and taking their work with them, without switching to a new machine. It also allows the user to decide to throw in a touch gesture in the middle of their mousing, if that's what they want (ie Shif trying to touch the iMac screen in the showroom).

Edit: thirdly it's the same way that merging a phone and PDA to make the iPhone is better: it's better for the user if they can have 1 gizmo in place of 2. Occasionally you benefit from clicking on a phone number to immediately call the number, but primarily you get more use out of it simply because you're already holding it. You can do things that you wouldn't _pick up_ a different device to do; instead you would simply not do them if the devices weren't merged.


My Swiss army knife has WAY more functions than my kitchen vegetable knife. But I never use it unless I have to, because it's kludgy and just not a very good knife. Nor a very good pair of scissors. It will do in a pinch. Just like my VNC app on the iPad will do in a pinch.

But anybody designing their whole workflow around a Swiss army knife needs to be taken out back and shot.
So violent... tsk tsk tsk.

The more apt analogy would be a swiss army knife with 20 features to the same knife with only 10. Does adding the fish scaler take away from the can opener? Perhaps, if you object to the fatness of the handle, but otherwise you are free to not use the additional feature. Your analogy only works because you insist on comparing apples to oranges. Comparing to a kitchen knife is like comparing garageband (the app) to an actual garage band with physical instruments. I hope it's not difficult to see why that is an incorrect analogy...




The mouse-pointer interface will be REQUIRED for ANYTHING that hasn't been completely redesigned for multi-touch. Duh?
"Duh" notwithstanding, I dispute this. You're basically saying that developers are too stupid to be able to choose to use the new interface, even after now knowing the ways in which it is superior to the old. I dispute that. Can you corroborate that claim using any evidence?



Absolutely not.

If Apple had added Flash to iOS, half the web would still require Flash. If I'd said that you wouldn't need Flash, I would have been wrong for the first few years, and right some time around now (mostly).
But that would never have even happened if the elimination of the old an kludgy hadn't been stringently enforced from the get-go.
Again I refer to the difference between not-taking-away and adding-back. If Apple adds-back support for Flash today, does the web revert to requiring flash now that it's free of the requirement?


The multi-touch interface needs time to establish itself, and for people to EXPECT it, and ONLY it (the same way the GUI needed that time). Again: Windows didn't really take off until people could no longer be EXPECTED to use the command line.
You don't think the multi-touch interface is established? Even 5 years from now? I do.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 30, 2013, 10:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Because there is already a version of Garageband that runs on Mac, disproving the premise that it is "simple inoperable" there?
With all due respect, this is the point where I say, once again, that you have no clue what you're talking about.

THEY ARE DIFFERENT APPS.

The only things they have in common beyond the fact that they record audio and MIDI data are some general appearance — bezels, colors, and buttons — and the fact that iOS Garageband files can be imported into Garageband on Mac (but not vice versa).

NONE of the instruments on iOS have even REMOTELY similar interfaces on the Mac. The Mac application can do a lot the iOS app cannot, but the iOS app has all the virtual instrument interfaces that are simply *impossible* on the Mac.

It is a perfect example of what I'm talking about; you're just not even looking at what I bring up in support of my arguments.


Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
Fair question. What I'm looking for is the logic why 1 NONworking app is more important than 9 other WORKING apps.
If this is really a question because this is something you're actually willing to accept, then our misunderstanding is suddenly perfectly clear:

That is simply not how Apple's interface design works.

This is basic, basic stuff.

An interface that is broken by design (by not working in one out of ten cases) is not an option. It's fine if you want to roll your own, and it's fine if you want to install a third-party app or extension that will allow you to do something essential to you at the expense of breaking fundamentals and consistency. But it is not an option that Apple would ever ship out of the box.

It's a broken, inconsistent and unpredictable compromise.

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
You don't think the multi-touch interface is established? Even 5 years from now? I do.
Maybe five years from now, maybe ten — whenever everybody is used to using one, and deviations that break the interface rules are immediately obvious and rejected by the market.

Right now, this thread is just one example that a large part of the general public hasn't even begun to grasp what it's actually about.



The last three years have brought stuff to the iPad that was simply unimaginable before (I just spent all day on a job yesterday where it was the most normal thing in the world that the sound guy was hovering around the stage the entire time, remote-controlling the main mixing console via an iPad app to adjust our on-stage monitor mixes on the fly). Who knows what uses for this interface people will come up with in the next decade?
     
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Jun 30, 2013, 10:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
With all due respect, this is the point where I say, once again, that you have no clue what you're talking about.

THEY ARE DIFFERENT APPS.

The only things they have in common beyond the fact that they record audio and MIDI data are some general appearance — bezels, colors, and buttons — and the fact that iOS Garageband files can be imported into Garageband on Mac (but not vice versa).

NONE of the instruments on iOS have even REMOTELY similar interfaces on the Mac. The Mac application can do a lot the iOS app cannot, but the iOS app has all the virtual instrument interfaces that are simply *impossible* on the Mac.

It is a perfect example of what I'm talking about; you're just not even looking at what I bring up in support of my arguments.
You should either choose examples that are less ambiguous, or not get mad when they don't come across.

Regardless, any example of any app is still a fallacy of composition. Just because it's an Apple-branded app doesn't change that (Apple makes battery monitor apps too, but non-battery desktop Macs still run the same OS).


If this is really a question because this is something you're actually willing to accept, then our misunderstanding is suddenly perfectly clear:

That is simply not how Apple's interface design works.

This is basic, basic stuff.

An interface that is broken by design (by not working in one out of ten cases) is not an option. It's fine if you want to roll your own, and it's fine if you want to install a third-party app or extension that will allow you to do something essential to you at the expense of breaking fundamentals and consistency. But it is not an option that Apple would ever ship out of the box.

It's a broken, inconsistent and unpredictable compromise.
Your assertion that Apple doesn't do that is demonstrably false. For a fifth time, I refer to the laptop-specific functions that are binary compatible with desktops. Apple ships those. Apple also ships apps that are "unpredictably" incompatible with certain Macs but not others:

They also ship some apps that run both iPad and iPhone but other apps that are iPad-only.

These conceptual incompatibilities don't prevent the iPad and iPhone from running the same OS, nor the laptop and desktop from running the same OS. Apple allows some apps to cross over while other apps can't, based purely on context-specific utility. Those that cross reap the benefits, and those that can't are no worse off than if the cross-over was forbidden to all. It's not "broken, inconsistent and unpredictable."


Maybe five years from now, maybe ten — whenever everybody is used to using one, and deviations that break the interface rules are immediately obvious and rejected by the market.

Right now, this thread is just one example that a large part of the general public hasn't even begun to grasp what it's actually about.
It's you who doesn't grasp that there are many ways to use the hardware, and that other people might actually benefit from a feature that doesn't interest you.


The last three years have brought stuff to the iPad that was simply unimaginable before (I just spent all day on a job yesterday where it was the most normal thing in the world that the sound guy was hovering around the stage the entire time, remote-controlling the main mixing console via an iPad app to adjust our on-stage monitor mixes on the fly). Who knows what uses for this interface people will come up with in the next decade?
What evidence is there that adding redundant mouse access would interfere with that?

Let me ask another way, when has adding back a feature ever stifled the creativity of the alternative feature? Note: adding back is not the same as failing to remove (like your windows 3 example).
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 30, 2013, 11:08 AM
 
Aaaaaaaaand, we restart the thread.

Bye-bye.
     
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Jun 30, 2013, 11:26 AM
 
I see it. Re-"start" = you not having to back up your claims. Being challenged on them comes after, where you'd rather not be, so you call a re-"start." Good strategy. Stick to your strengths.

     
besson3c
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Jun 30, 2013, 12:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton View Post
I see it. Re-"start" = you not having to back up your claims. Being challenged on them comes after, where you'd rather not be, so you call a re-"start." Good strategy. Stick to your strengths.


As if SH is not partially responsible for restarting the thread. I asked him several posts ago if he has evidence that Apple is not simply sharing code between apps.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 30, 2013, 12:59 PM
 
What the hell? OF COURSE Apple is directly sharing code between the apps.

That's sort of the point of implementing the same APIs in the OS.

Also, that's why I don't get what you in particular are going on about. Shif and Skeleton, I've now understood: they simply don't understand why interface rules cannot be broken without destroying usability. And I'm fine with that, now that it's clear that there's no point in discussing it.

But your argument is basically that Apple should be doing what they set out from the start to do, and you're asking me for proof or something that disproves the obvious and explicitly stated?

I really don't get it.
     
besson3c
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Jun 30, 2013, 01:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
What the hell? OF COURSE Apple is directly sharing code between the apps.

That's sort of the point of implementing the same APIs in the OS.

Also, that's why I don't get what you in particular are going on about. Shif and Skeleton, I've now understood: they simply don't understand why interface rules cannot be broken without destroying usability. And I'm fine with that, now that it's clear that there's no point in discussing it.

But your argument is basically that Apple should be doing what they set out from the start to do, and you're asking me for proof or something that disproves the obvious and explicitly stated?

I really don't get it.

What I've been saying is simple, at this point I think it is your willful decision to misunderstand rather than my communication.

There is a difference between simply sharing code between two separate projects/apps/products and two separate development teams vs. developing a single app/product/project that supports multiple interfaces/input methods. What evidence do you have that Apple is doing the latter? I've said this a bazillion times and asked you this multiple times, if this distinction is unclear to you, I don't know? Reread this a few times?
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 30, 2013, 01:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
There is a difference between simply sharing code between two separate projects/apps/products and two separate development teams vs. developing a single app/product/project that supports multiple interfaces/input methods. What evidence do you have that Apple is doing the latter?
This distinction is arbitrary and one of degree, IMO.

Interface is not merely a pretty skin on an app. Something like the smart instruments in GarageBand is NOT a matter of just slapping a new interface on the same core functionality, because that particular functionality does not even exist on the Mac.

However, using CoreAudio APIs and the basic Logic audio engine, albeit limited to 8 tracks, for recording and playback: Does that count as "sharing code"?

So: No, Apple is most definitely not taking the same core app and simply slapping another interface on it. That would result in badly compromised crap like the Windows RT Office touch version.

As for separate development teams: That, too, is a pretty arbitrary distinction.
It is well-known that Apple has in the past had small teams that work on whatever is prioritized, switching from, say, the Finder to iWork, and then over to iPhoto.

I do not know whether Garageband for iOS is made by the same people who make Garageband for the Mac, but I do know that GarageBand and Logic are made by the same people. Does it make a difference to you?
     
 
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