Finally: beta users can't leave misguided app reviews

It's always been the case that Apple-related forums have been filled with non-developers seeking guidance on how to install iOS betas on their primary devices.  But especially now, with Apple adopting the "Public Beta" model and with them allowing more or less full access to the developer betas without the annual $99 fee, nonsense app reviews have proliferated.

These fall into two categories:

1) people who don't understand that the reason an app doesn't function properly is because they are running a beta version of the operating system.

2) people who blame the developers for not updating the app to function properly with the beta version of the operating system (something that is usually not even possible).

This has been something developers have been wanting almost since the early days of the App Store.

Much nicer task switcher in iOS 9b4

Now, when an activity is available via Handoff, instead of showing up as a blank white screen in the "carousel" of apps, there is a tab at the bottom of the screen that when dragged upward drags up the appropriate app and activity.

Seriously - Macs are Going to ARM

Now comes word that Intel is delaying the 10nm node and the "tick tock" is broken.  Good reader, do you really need any more data to believe that Macs are going to get ARM'd?

Source: Ars Technica
More on the inevitable Mac transition to ARM: AppleNews.Zone

Microsoft Office for Mac 2016

Office 2016 is available for Office 365 subscribers.  I've been using the preview for some time, and have made heavy use of Word 2016 for the last few days.  A couple observations:

Interface

The new interface will be the first thing you notice.

Word 2016

Word 2011

It remains a cross between Office of old and the Windows version of Office, providing a ribbon experience in addition to traditional menus.

Note that above I've used the built-in preferences to use the traditional color scheme, otherwise the ribbon/menu area would be the same blue color found in the iOS versions of Office.

Bugs

It's buggy. Using Word with documents containing lots of annotations and track changes is an exercise in frustration, with parts of the screen going blank, inability to figure out which comments connect to which text, etc.  Office 2011 was quite buggy for a year after introduction, and it's looking like I will have to keep two versions of Office in my toolbox once again for quite awhile.

More later.

Ah ah ah

Apple Co-Designing Accessory Packaging?

Today comes word that Apple is revamping another aspect of its retail Apple Stores by only carrying third party accessories sold in packages co-designed by Apple.

More on the Safari Controversy

Further to an earlier post, here's another article from a web developer whining that Safari doesn't support his favorite new standards-based googads.

Here's a choice bit:

"It’s holding the mobile web back, as the web isn’t better than the lowest common denominator, and by having a dominant mobile platform where the web only is being updated once a year, and by one vendor, it simply slows down the distribution of new features, which ultimately slows down the innovation on the web."

This emblematic of the fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning.  The mobile web can never be more than the lowest common denominator, which is exactly why Apple doesn't focus its efforts on non-user-facing features.  Apple wants you writing native apps which can take advantage of Apple's value added hardware features and Cocoa stack.  Apple has no interest in developing an ecosystem of apps that run just as well on a $100 Android phone as on an iPhone 6+, which take no advantage of Apple's hardware features, which don't integrate with HealthKit and HomeKit and Apple Watch, which aren't searchable with Siri, etc.  Because if that's the dominant ecosystem, what's the point of buying Apple hardware?

So good luck with that petition, folks.

Apple Music: Interface Mess - Interstitial 5

The fun continues on the desktop.

Above we have iTunes 12.2 on Mac OS X (happens to be running on El Capitan).  We have a more complete set of tabs, text only, including My Music and "Playlis..." That ellipsis was certainly necessary, huh?  Note that here we have the options spelled out, without any icons.

Again "New" means something closer to "Explore" than "New."

Above we have a playlist suggested by Apple Music. One of the songs is grayed out. Why? I have absolutely no idea. But it means the song won't play.

Here we have a desktop version of the "wall-of-text" menu.  But here we at least have icons, making its little easier to figure out what's going on. Except that the same icon is used for multiple things, repeatedly (e.g. "New Station from Artist" and "Go to Artist.")

Here we have two different "Add To" options. The top bottom one provides a submenu listing various playlists and denies where the song can be sent. 

So much redundancy and inconsistency...

Two of these things are not like the others:

And this is what it looks like after clicking "More Artists":

Hmm.

Here's a good use of whitespace: 

Apple Music: Interface Mess - Interstitial 4

The "Downloading 30 songs" belongs where, exactly?

Whining About Apple Web Standards Compliance is the New Whining About Lack of Flash

Link:  World Shocked that Android Developer Misunderstands Apple's Priorities

People, it's simple:

1) Customers don't care about esoteric web standards

2) Apple does not benefit from you porting your shitty Android App to a multi-platform web app

3) Customers prefer native apps to web apps

4) Apple is driven by what customers want

5) If you have to post a follow-up article stating that discussions about your article being linkbait are "boring," your article was linkbait. 

Apple Music: Interface Mess - Interstitial 3

My Music Tab, artist view. Why is it that when "My Music" is selected (within the My Music section - so we have "My Music" selected twice, once at the bottom in the tab bar, and once in the selector in the middle. Argh), we see just albums (from our library) but when we click on All we see "Top Songs" then "Top Albums" then "Albums?"

All this inconsistency makes my head hurt.

Apple Music: Interface Mess - Interstitial 2

Now we're hiding useful functions behind long-presses.  Are there any other built-in apps that use long presses? Will this function be replaced with Force Touch when that becomes available?  And, again, what's with the wall-of-text menu?

I didn't know this function existed, but I'm glad I finally figured out how to tell Apple Music I really have no interest in seeing any suggestions involving either Nickelback or Kelly Clarkson...

Apple Music: Interface Mess - Interstitial 1

As long as I'm ranting about Apple Music, how do you explain the following to normal user:

Do I like the track or not? What's the purpose of the star ratings? And the heart? Why are there two ratings systems that don't interact with each other?

Apple Music: Interface Mess

Yes, the service called "Apple Music" encompass many disparate features but by jamming everything into a single app Apple has managed to create a confusing mess.  While Apple will have its defenders, claiming that the interface isn't "that complicated," my real world observation of people who are not CPU designers or app developers, struggling to figure out how to use the Music app on iOS, is anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

Apple Music: Family Sharing Troubles

I'll report more fully on Apple Music in the future, but here are some preliminary thoughts on how it interacts with Family Sharing.

Up until now, my family has generally shared a single iTunes Apple ID, and has used Apple Match.  We have a "server" in the house with around 8,000 songs on it, mostly ripped from our collection of CDs (we had a lot of CDs, because we are old).

Apple Match allowed each of us full access to any song on that server.  I did not realize this, but apparently Apple Match would not work if different family members were using different Apple IDs, all linked under Family Sharing; only songs bought on iTunes would be available on each device in that case.

Since a big part of Apple Music is music discovery - the service suggesting playlists based on individual music preferences - it seemed a good idea to finally switch my family to using Family Sharing for iTunes.  My classic rock/classic rock/rock/rock/alternative/alternative doesn't mix well with my kid's pop/pop/hits/hits and my wife's classic rock/classic rock/rock/rock/alternative/country/pop/hits/

We had already been using Family Sharing for iCloud; iOS allows you to use a different ID for iTunes/music than you use for everything else iCloud-related, and we had taken advantage of that.

So I thought this would be simple; just go to Settings | iTunes & App Store and click on "Apple ID: ..." and enter the same Apple ID we had been using for other iCloud functions.

This worked fine on my kid's iPhone, but on my wife's iPad all hell broke loose.  Apple Music kept insisting that we start a new free trial for her; it failed to understand that she was under the Family Sharing plan I had already set up on my own device.

After much experimentation, the following procedure solved this problem:

1) Go to Settings | iTunes & App Store and sign out
2) Go to  Settings | Music and uncheck Apple Music
3) Kill the settings app and Music app (by double-tapping the home button and swiping both apps upward)
4) Go to Settings | iTunes & App Store and log in the family-member Apple ID
5) Go to Settings | Music and check Apple Music.
6) Launch Music

Though this solved that problem, we next realized that none of the music in our personal collection was available on either my wife's or kid's devices.  This despite "iCloud Music Library" being turned on for each device.

After some more research, I discovered that iTunes Match does not share personal music (i.e. music not purchased on the iTunes store) among Family Sharing members; presumably the same is true for iCloud Music Library.

This is a bit of a pain since not all of our music is available on Apple Music (e.g. The Beatles).

If we figure out a solution, we'll let you know.