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27 September 2009 //
Filed under
Apps + iPhone
So I decided months ago that a 12 hour round trip drive was a good idea in order to see my favorite band in concert, and had I not seen them 4 times previously, I would have been right. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed the concert, as I always do, but 12 hours and about 1/4 mile short of 750 miles round trip (all in one day mind you – I drove there, saw the concert, and immediately hopped in the car for our return drive home) has taught me differently. In short, it was a pretty bad idea, and, to get on with it, Navigon’s usually very excellent MobileNavigator, didn’t help. Between off the cuff directions that made no sense and taking us straight through the heart of the Cleveland ghetto on our way out of town (read: after midnight), the iPhone application didn’t display its usual charming self that gets me where I need to go with no fuss.
I’ve always been skeptical of using turn-by-turn GPS navigation devices (iPhone or otherwise). I generally don’t leave my area of the country, the Kentucky Bluegrass if you’re at all interested, which negates the need for using a GPS application at home (we’re not that big and finding something is never all that hard), and having one for those rare out of town trips via car seems sort of like buying that expensive international calling plan for your iPhone when you only leave the country for a couple of weeks a year.1 But after having read a few reviews on the different iPhone GPS apps, I decided to give MobileNavigator a shot. At $89.99 it is less expensive than a dedicated GPS unit, and one less piece of hardware to buy/keep/maintain. I already have my iPhone in the car all of the time, and it would be nice to not get lost when we do go out of town. The first few uses, mostly as test runs, went well. In fact, I was pretty amazed at the accuracy of the app. I might have chosen a different route on occasion, but I can’t blame the application for keeping me on main roads rather than some of the more rural routes in our area. Either way it had always chosen a reasonably quick and efficient route to my destination, and directed me there without error. Then I went to Cleveland.
Now, I don’t want to lead you to believe, my dear readers, that the application landed me in Chicago, in fact I didn’t even turn the application on until we were about 15 miles outside of Cleveland, but it did show some “irregularities” once we got into town. As we were entering the outskirts of Cleveland we got a notification:
In .5 miles remain in the left lane and continue on I-71 North.
Got it. Then just before we get to the interchange, another notification:
In 400 feet, turn left on ‘x’ street.
Uhhhh. At 80 MPH (Yes, I do drive fast) turning left in 400 feet on an Interstate seems pretty dangerous (not to mention impossible because I-71, like most interstates I’ve travelled, don’t have any place at all where making a left turn is possible). Okay, disregard that unfortunate error and keep going. Then after a few more correct notifications which get us off of the interstate and to a stop light we get another:
In .2 miles turn right on to ‘y’ street.
We can see our destination on the display map and we’re psyched; not only are we about to see a great band perform live, but we’re close to the end of this 6 hour car ride (which took place right in the middle of some of the worst rain I’ve ever driven in). And just as we start to move we get yet another notification:
Please make a U-turn as soon as possible, then an immediate right on ‘z’ street.
Again we decide to ignore the funky notification and just move on, which indeed was the correct decision. Our destination was right around the corner, and the timing, as before, seemed wrong. One never knows, though, because I did pay $90 for an application which specializes in telling users how to get where they want to go. Add to that the fact that it had always been perfect in my previous use, and a situation is set up which can, at worst, get someone lost,2 but in a worst case scenario could get someone hurt.
Fortunately if one uses just a little bit of sense when interpreting the directions spoken by the application it will still help with getting you to your destination, but there are cases during which even common sense can’t help all that much.
GPS units, and apparently GPS applications for the iPhone, are programmed to map the “best” route possible from your current position to your destination. What “best” means in the context of real-time use sometimes gets confusing as to whether you’re taking the shortest route to your destination, or the fastest based on type of road and speed limits (of which MobileNavigator is keenly aware). But one thing it does not take in to account is the context of those routes. Sometimes the “best” route in terms of time and/or distance isn’t the Best route. Though mostly populated by hard working people who simply want to live their lives in peace, “bad neighborhoods” are not called bad neighborhoods for no reason, and GPS software can sometimes put users in a bad position, particularly if you’re in an unfamiliar city where finding assistance or seeking help may not be an easy task. I understand that it would be very difficult to designate such areas,3 but whenever the philosophical, sociological and political hurdles have been overcome, I welcome the technology which will keep me out of the ghetto in unfamiliar surroundings at 1.30 in the morning, yet still take me on a route that will get me where I want to go.
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1. During a recent trip to Brazil, every time my iPhone connected to the local Brazilian cell network, I received a text message from AT&T telling me that I should pony up and subscribe to a full-time international calling and data plan.
2. Having bad directions would only result in the program finding its error (or at least discovering that you had diverted from the planned route) and correcting it by re-routing your course to get back on track.
3. What constitutes a “bad neighborhood?” Where would we draw the lines?
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2009-09-27 ::
Christopher Williams
18 September 2009 //
Filed under
Applications + iTunes
With the release of iTunes 9, a few new features were unveiled, and a couple of them are great. First and foremost is the new Home Sharing feature. Long have I longed for a way to transport music to and from my home server with ease, and though I have developed a work flow consisting of Screen Sharing and and the venerable DropCopy which does admirably well, though is a bit clunky, Home Sharing makes it Drag-n-Drop easy. Simply configure all of the computers on your home network through iTunes (Advanced > Turn On Home Sharing), fill in your iTunes account email and password, and start browsing other libraries on your network. When you see any form of media on another computer that you want, drag-n-drop to your own library and voila, those items are copied across the network. Brilliant.
For all of it’s functionality and overall handiness, however, it does have two noticeable drawbacks; one cannot move items from your library to another. For instance, I often rip CDs on my laptop, then transfer them to my headless server; for that you will need to either sit at the other computer, or use some Applescript wizardry or screen sharing. In short Home Sharing allows users to pull, but never push media. Though I’m sure that it is a security precaution, and likely a very good one, I find myself lamenting that there is no option for pushing media via Home Sharing. I would find that functionality immensely useful.
The other issue with Home Sharing is that the syncing feature only supports items purchased via iTunes. Though any media file is drag-n-drop friendly from one library to another, only media which has been purchased via Apple’s store will automatically sync to other computers with Home Sharing enabled. Were this feature enabled for any new media file added to iTunes, the feature would be killer. Though I’m sure that the execution of automatic syncing is well thought and fairly seamless for users, it’s the thought process which lead the Apple engineers to implement automatic syncing as an iTunes Store-only feature that seems half-baked. Not all of the over 200 million iTunes users worldwide can buy from the iTunes Store, and I’m sure that only a fraction of those who are able actually do which seems to limit a very cool idea to only a relative few without reason. We’re not talking some fancy MobileMe functionality, but some pretty basic copying from one machine to another over a network. I know that Apple favors their content over my own, a fact which they have proven time and again, especially with prioritizing iTS content over the content I already own in the Apple TV menu hierarchy, but to completely disregard my already paid for content as something I might like to transfer without jumping through hoops seems more like a business decision than a design decision.
Another notable change in iTunes is the new left side browser. The “old”, on top browser view which appears above the library content is still an option but the new default browser is on the left side of the library and spans the entire height of the library window. While I found it a bit odd initially, I soon discovered that this left side view allowed for me to view more, more efficiently.
Though my library is not large in comparison to some, I have 183 artists and 474 albums (5329 songs), and having the left side browser allows me to view my content without the constant scrolling (which would be worse in mammoth libraries), while also not having to sacrifice the available viewing area of the content. If I want to see more artists in the traditional on top browser, I encroach on the number of songs/videos I can view. Because most of the content in iTunes consists of shorter names,1 vertical viewing space is more efficient at displaying lots of content, so encroaching on the left margin a bit does not lessen the amount of content I can view. With the Album Artwork column closed, I can view 44 artists and 45 songs in the left-side view,2 a drastic difference to the traditional browser where if I choose to view 45 artists, where I would see exactly zero songs.3
Where the left side browser encroaches on usability, however, is when users show lots of attributes for individual songs. In my library, I show the song name, time, artist (though it's redundant), and album which are not hindered at all by the new found horizontal space constraints because of their relatively short entries. That said, some users show all manner of file attributes including bit rate, rating, play count, release date or any of the 38 viewing options available to users. If one chooses to show a lot of the metadata, horizontal viewing space could become quickly used up, making the vertical browser less useful because of the need to scroll horizontally to see the information required.
A question:
Why make this fairly drastic UI change now, 9 versions after iTunes' release? Were the left side browser not the default view in iTunes 9, one might surmise that the Apple engineers who design the iTunes UI have just thought of it, which seems unlikely given the level of thought put in to UI design at Apple and the fact that iTunes is on version 9 (as opposed to version 2 or 3). But the new left side browser is the default, and it seems so obviously superior to the on top browser that it makes me wonder why it took so long to implement.4 Given that Apple has not shipped a non-widescreen monitor for years, it seems hard to believe that the UI guys on the iTunes team hadn’t thought of a left side browser to take advantage of the ever shrinking vertical space on the screen by using as much horizontal space as possible in lieu of vertical.5 Afterall, iTunes has always had a version of a left side browser since its inception in the form of the library pane on the left side of the screen. It has always been this way, yet only now have they seen it fit to finally match the UI of the browser to that of the rest of the program rather than being in stark contrast visually, and far less efficient in everyday use.
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1. While there are long album/song/artist names that may go out of view due to their length, most of this information is rarely more than a few words meaning that vertical space is far more valuable than horizontal space when perusing the content in an iTunes library.
2. The discrepancy is due to the “All (183 Artists)” taking up the very top slot in the Artist column of the vertical browser. This changes, however, as soon as I scroll down just 1 slot to once again show 45 Artists and 45 songs. This is all on a 15″ MacBook Pro. I’m sure that large cinema displays show even more, and that smaller MacBook screens show less.
3. This of course is not possible as iTunes will not allow a user to drag the horizontal browser to cover the entire available space; fully open, there are but 6 songs viewable, and 36 artists in the browser.
4. It would seem that the iTunes design team also views the vertical browser as superior, otherwise they would not have made it the default view in its premier.
5. According to MacTracker, the last non-widescreen display to be shipped by Apple, the 17″ Apple Studio Display, left the factory over 5 years ago in June 2004.
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2009-09-18 ::
Christopher Williams
15 September 2009 //
Filed under
Applications + iTunes
Earlier this week I wrote about what I thought was a pretty serious bug in iTunes when downloading content from the iTunes Store. I had noticed a download that I had been unsuccessfully trying to complete for at least two days, an update to Navigon’s MobileNavigator, mysteriously started anew when I unplugged my MacBook Pro from the power supply, and that the 1.439 GBs of app that I had already downloaded vanished as if it were never there at all.
As a followup, I tried to replicate this bug so that I might report it to Apple, but to no avail. I’ve tried both starting the download with the power supply attached and unplugging when nearly finished, as well as starting the download sans the power supply, later plugging it in, then unplugging it again once nearly finished, but was unable to recreate the odd behavior of restarting the download. I tried both methods multiple times.
Here’s to hoping that it was a one-time event and not a widespread problem.
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2009-09-15 ::
Christopher Williams
13 September 2009 //
Filed under
Applications + iTunes
An article by Jay Robinson analyzes the new iTunes LP format which, in part, seeks to revive full album sales by including various extra features which are reminiscent to the days of yore when people bought full LPs and cherished them because of the supplementary experience provided by the sleeve notes and vast amounts of images (those days are not dead yet, BTW – you can also get Porcupine Tree’s latest album on iTunes, or order the CD from Amazon). These extras include artwork, detailed liner notes, videos as well as an array of other “stuff” that might make people interested in buying the album as a package rather than that one song they really like. Robinson analyzes both the user experience with the new LP format, which he describes as well thought out and engaging for the most part, and takes an initial dive into the internals of the .ITLP package which consists of little more than a .plist file, some HTML and CSS files, and various media files.
The best news is that there isn’t a hint of Flash to be found, and the various animations, which are comprised of CSS3, are incredibly rich.
But Apple and the labels are seemingly missing the entire point with this new format. Sure, the extras are a nice bonus to the music, but for those who are interested in buying a “Special Edition” of a particular album, 256k AAC is likely not going to be high enough fidelity. I would have hoped for Apple Lossless which, at about ~60% of the size of an AIFF or WAV file, loses size, but not quality. It is identical to what one would hear if listening to a CD. If I’m intrigued enough in a band to want extra content to go along with a particular album (otherwise I could just buy the album at a reduced cost), that enthusiasm is drastically tempered by highly compressed AAC quality audio files. In fact, any impulse to buy an iTunes LP is completely erased, regardless of how great the extra content may be.
Audio fidelity is the single reason why I don’t buy from digital media outlets any longer, and a few videos and liner notes aren’t going to change that. I understand that most people generally can’t tell the difference between 256k AAC and any of the various lossless formats, myself included, but at times the differences are stark, especially when there is layering in the sound field – the field sounds fairly empty in comparison to a lossless compression scheme – or the production of the music tends towards higher frequencies (Lamb of God’s Sacrament is a great example where just about everyone for whom I have played both the iTunes version and an Apple Lossless version ripped from the CD immediately notices the “digital wash” in the high pitched cymbal work by Chris Adler – in short it sounds terrible).
If the iTunes LP experience is supposed to be about a rich media experience to supplement the mediocre quality of the music provided by iTunes for existing iTunes customers who have tended more towards single track purchases than full album purchases, I’m sure it will work wonderfully. But if the point is to lure CD buying holdouts towards a digital medium, the low quality of the audio files will spoil their plans.
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2009-09-13 ::
Christopher Williams
12 September 2009 //
Filed under
Apple + Applications + iTunes
I’ve just run into what I believe is a pretty serious bug in iTunes 9. A bug which just about prompted me to throw my computer out the window.
I’ve been trying to download the newest version of MobileNavigator from the iTunes Store (trying being the operative word as I’ve been at it since it’s release). It has a few features which take the turn-by-turn navigation app to the next level.1 Because I live in what many people would call the sticks, I have to use an insanely slow and unreliable ISP with a max download speed of 1.5 Mbps. The newest version of MobileNavigator weighs in at 1.44 GB, and when also trying to download HD versions of Lie to Me from iTunes on my home server, these things take a while. I can take that. But after 2 days of utter slowness I decided to pause the HD downloads simply so I can finish the MobileNavigator download and be on with it. All was well with the world until I unplugged the power supply from my MacBook Pro (yes it had plenty of battery) with just under 1 minute remaining in the download, and POOF!
My download, mysteriously, started over. You know, from the beginning. So after 2 days, one interrupted internet connection (which had already prompted the download to start anew rather than continue where it left off), and a nearly finished 1.44 GB download, I have exactly nothing to show for it except for 3 hours remaining in my downloads list in iTunes.
Thanks Apple.
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1. A couple of the new features of MobileNavigator include iPod controls within the app and text-to-voice.
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2009-09-12 ::
Christopher Williams
10 September 2009 //
Filed under
Uncategorized
It’s been a long time since we have posted anything. In fact, over 2 years. We’ve had to go through an entire restructuring of the site, hence the missing posts of yore. My last post consisted of a bunch of four letter words over the debacle known as iPhone activation. Sure, now it’s a breeze, but if you were one of the fools waiting in line for hours for the priveledge of handing Apple $599 for the original iPhone, you’d know that some people got activated with ease, while others, like myself, had to wait for over 2 full days before my phone was useful. Great. Thanks. I really appreciated that, AT&T.
We’ll be talking about all things Apple here at macademic, and that starts . . . now. Well with the next post anyways.
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2009-09-10 ::
Christopher Williams
