Looks like I’m not alone with my Air wireless frustrations. There seems to be a widespread issue with wireless connectivity. I can’t fathom how this was missed by Appl QA since this is a ‘wireless’ machine void of any other connectivity. This issue is particularly problematic considering the touted method to migrate is wirelessly. I hope Apple gets this resolved ASAP as it’s a huge pain and significantly effects overall usefulness of the product.
Here’s the key indicator that Twitter is different - it sucks. It really does, look at the list:
1) Unreliable - site is slow to moderately unusable to abhorrent almost all hours of the day. How slow is it? Bush can get through two whole Family Circus comics before the damn page paints.
2) Clients are the victim of API suckage - Twitterific and Snitter are both well designed, useful tools that live precariously at the edge of completely worthless and “Did that tweet ever get sent?” because they must rely on the service issues of the Twitter API
3) Web Interface is mean to me. It seems to find joy in never remembering my login. Ever.
4) SMS seems to kill my iPhone. I turned the flood gates on earlier in the week so I could find out how Merlin Mann likes his waffles no matter where I am, but that SMS deluge leaves my iPhone groggy, tired and makes the speaker cackle like a Christmas Witch. I ultimately had to bail on that.
So after all of this, I can’t seem to let it go. It’s a useful, verging on necessity at this point. And after all of this hassle I still come back to it. Just think of what it would be like if it worked well, for real. That would be cool, until then back to waiting for the damn pages to load and wishing Twitterific would stop filling up with my tweets and show me what other people are saying.
So I’ve begun to migrate some of my desktop-based apps to the web in recent weeks, primarily to adapt to PC work-life - Mac home-life. The most recent ‘victim’ has been NNW. I love the app, and really like Brent and the work he’s done. However, I’m seeing less value in a desktop app for feed reading when there’s a viable web-alternative. I’ve started to stray from ‘flagging’ items and instead, if I deem a post worthy of archival, it get’s marked in ma.gnolia. This way I have a tagged/social record of the posts I like that’s easily retrievable and contextual (via posts/marked date/etc). It’s cross-platform, portable and clean. I hate the Google Reader look & feel, and the ajax lag for onClick kills me, but those issues don’t diminish the overall value. And as a result my love for Ma.gnolia continues to bloom…
I spent several years as a usability engineer and in one session with a defense contractor, testing a complete rewrite of a big enterprise app that wasn’t going well, a participant told me that our products ruined her day. She dreaded her workday because she knew she had to come in and use our stuff. Ouch. That’s the nature of usability, of putting the user first. Somedays you get praise and hugs and somedays, well, somedays you realize how important it is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and walk around a bit. That product ruined her day because it worked fine functionally but the developers had never walked in her shoes, had never lived the life of a procurement specialist or supply-chain manager or dock foreman.
So while no one came and sat in my cube this week I’ll send Vienna feedback the only way I know how, by writing this. Vienna, if you’re listening, YOU RUIN MY DAY. I love your app, it’s free and easy and no-longer crashes incessantly. It has just what I need in a feed reader, but it lacks one crucial thing: empathy for it’s user. You’ve failed to walk in my shoes.
Exhibit A
This is the toolbar, under that damn gear icon is a host of features. Unfortunately they only exist in that menu, I can’t break them out as individual buttons. That means marking an entire feed “as read” requires click+drag+select+unclick every single time. It should just be *click* and done. Seriously this is an awful, awful bit if UI undesign trotted out as an enhancement. One of the downfalls of open-source is that criticizing an unpaid developer feels a little dirty, but it’s the truth. No one ever hesitated to tell me about issues with the interfaces I’ve designed, I guess it’s only fair I do the same.
Looking for a way to see how your web creations will look on iPhone ?
Check out iPhoney: iPhoney is not an iPhone simulator but instead is designed for web developers who want to create 320 by 480 (or 480 by 320) websites for use with iPhone. It gives you a canvas on which to test the visual quality of your designs.
I’ve been drooling over skitch for quite a while now, and thanks to Colin I can finally check it out. Rock.
Also info on how to use Safari Webkit2 and enabling debug menu on Windows.
I’ve already seen a few posts bashing the fact that Apple isn’t opening the iPhone up to the world beyond Safari-based apps. Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz had a particularly long winded rant that seemed to boil down to this…no SDK means no wicked cool games on the iPhone…sheesh talk about missing the point. I don’t remember there being a revolt when the video iPod was released sans games, that’s because it’s a media player not a console, same goes for the iPhone. While I think it’s great that people expect sooo much from Apple, they also like to stray beyond sensible. Give it a chance, more importantly give the developers a chance. It’s a new platform and I’m sure there are some wickedly creative folks who can make some brilliant, iPhone-specific apps. Let’s give them a little time.
My cousin gifted me the latest Sea and Cake album from iTunes. I don’t care what people say about the current state of the recording industry, iTunes has allowed my friends and I to gift and share music in a way we never would or could have before. Which in the end has exposed us to new music and generated more sales than conventional CDs/retail model. Thanks iTunes, thanks Branden.
There’s an article on the Big In Japan blog about the Obama campaign working with MySpace to commandeer a fan page. Not sure about this whole setup, comes down to understanding the terms of service and really knowing where the line is. I think it’s a shame that the campaign gets Joe’s friends and content, the page should have been wiped and the name alone transferred. Giving them the fruits of his work is shameful and the Obama camp was way out of line on this.
On a tagent, I’m seeing a trend in the Obama ranks, more and more politic-y behavior and a straying from their ‘new rules for politics’ approach. I’m wondering, is it possible to have a new-breed of candidate without having a new-breed of staff? Basically if Obama is not a business-as-usual candidate does it really matter if at the end of the day his staff is all dyed-in-the-wool democratic staffers pulling the same crap stunts they always have?
