Dear Apple
Fighting bad design in Apple products one thing at a time.
The blog went down with a Posterous boat and all the recent posts are lost. I am looking into switching to a self-hosted solutions meanwhile. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Viewing all posts tagged "bloopers"
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The Author of Windows File Copy Dialog is back
And this time he’s not joking. After working on Copy Files dialog he managed to help the guys from Mac OS Trash Team as well.
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Why all my files are multiples of 4kb in size?
Look at me how accurate I am. All my files are exactly 4kb in size… Oh, wait. They are not! But that’s what it looks like in Finder.
Yes, you can use Cmd-I Get Info inspector to see the real file size, or even better - Terminal… Let’s take a look: 4KB on disk.. Who cares? Why Do I need to even know this? Oh here it goes (512 bytes), thank you.
Dear Apple, I would like to see the person responsible for this. You know, I don’t really care how much 4kb blocks in filesystem any of the files takes. What I do care about is the real file size however. This is the most stupid thing I seen. And what is even more astounding that this goes unnoticed for years. Actually as many of the other things I write about.
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Annoying inconsistencies in interface design
Great post from unsane.info which looks like something I’d write:
Everyone knows that I like working with Apple products. Much as I love Apple products, and I find myself at my most productive on them, there are of course times when various features in UI design seem to have … failed … somewhat, and those little failures sometimes drive me nuts.
Take for instance, Finder’s schizoid approach to presenting my iDisk account. My Mobile Me account name is “prestondeguise”, and on my Desktop, my drives are presented as follows:
That’s logical – it’s got a (urgh) cloud icon; it names the disk after my account, and all is well. However, every time I go and open a new Finder window with the purpose of going into this storage area, I suffer a momentary glitch where I can’t find it. The reason, of course, is simple:
Can you spot the “prestondeguise” volume there? No, you can’t, because Finder calls it the “iDisk” volume instead. It’s annoying, it’s frustrating, and it catches me every time. Sure, I may pause only 10 seconds or less, but I shouldn’t have to pause.
There are three key things that interfaces need to get right:
- Functionality (it must work)
- Elegance (i.e., it mustn’t be ugly, yet shouldn’t be tarted up to the point of obscuring functionality)
- Consistency (it must present the same information the same way wherever possible)
While some would argue that Finder is a classic example of something that’s only barely functional, I don’t see it as being quite that bad. It does remain largely elegant, simply because it’s to the point and doesn’t unnecessarily clutter. Consistency though is where it fails when it comes to Mobile Me accounts – to present effectively the same “volume” under two different names is poor UI design.
It’s not often I call Apple on poor UI design, but this is definitely one of those times.
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Just do it!
Instead of cancelling, could you just cancel it next time instead? You know, without showing me this dialog for 10 minutes before I force quit.
And while I’m at it, I’d like to know what Stop button was originally supposed to do in this dialog? I mean if it worked - would you be able to Un-cancel something?
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If it’s broken… fix it!
Just found this in iPhoto library while cleaning up photos. Not sure what’s going on - probably the original or edited image got lost somehow. How did this happened by the way? In any case, here are some suggestions on improving the thing:
- When something is wrong - explain it clearly with words. Picture is missing / corrupted / whatever.
- If it’s fixable - just fix it. Recreate thumbnails / remove edited image and use original one.
- Offer some resolution. Don’t just show me this blackscreen thing.
- Show an indication of the problem. Found this by a pure accident. It’s like this only when you open the photo for viewing, thumbnails are in place and there is no sign that something is wrong.
Apple is paying less and less attention to details unfortunately. I understand they want to cover as much ground as they can, but after the war is over we are left with what? Frankly, can’t say iPhoto got better with the last version increase.
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Mysterious folder-like “Name” entities in Finder
Another glitch in the Matrix, this what my home folder looks like according to Finder. Each folder seemed to contain ‘Name’ entity. They look like folders and if you unfold the ‘Name’ then you will see the actual files. Nothing a reboot can’t fix, but anyway…
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Endless Safari
Ever had a chance to see a browser you can’t quit? Well here it is. New Safari is nice, but I’m getting tired of it’s memory appetite. Looks like 8 gig turns out to be a reasonable minimal memory requirement for power user on Lion. Don’t know about you, but I am getting 8 gigs for my new Mac Mini.
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Nice controls placement, by the way…
The funny part is - Format dropdown stayed put even when I was moving or resizing the window.
As seen in OS X Lion Preview app.
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Preview loves Desktop. So do you.
After you mouse-click File > Export (keyboard shortcuts do not affect Preview.app), go to the folder you want to export images to and change the export format in the dropdown… you will be teleported to the Desktop.
Who would use any other places to export images in different formats anyway.
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