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As Apple prepares to show off new features for the iPhone and other devices at its developer conference on Monday, the company is grappling with an uncomfortable issue: Many of its existing features are already too complicated for many users to figure out.
At last year’s conference, for example, Apple’s top software executive, Craig Federighi, demonstrated how users could order food, scribble doodles and send funny images known as stickers in chats on its Messages app. The idea was to make Messages, one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, into an all-purpose tool like China’s WeChat.
But the process of finding and installing other apps in Messages is so tricky that most users have no idea they can even do it, developers and analysts say.
Source: The New York Times
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(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 05 2017, @01:59PM (5 children)
The purpose of an iDevice is to show off to people that you can afford to pay 3x as much as an android device to do the same thing.
Functionality has nothing to do with it.
Its like watching a fashion show and complaining that none of those dresses would be suitable for gardening work or taking the kids to soccer practice, you're kinda missing the point. The point is the owners have (had) money.
Its a peacocks tail feathers.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 05 2017, @03:22PM (4 children)
That's a bunch of BS; you're talking about two completely different things. You're sorta right about both of them, but you're wrong because you're trying to link them together and conflate them.
For iDevices, you're absolutely correct: the purpose is to show off that you can afford to pay 3x as much as an Android device to do the same thing. Also, that you're a dumb lemming happy to buy into Apple's walled garden and do everything the Apple way.
For fashion, that stuff exists because (some) women like to look pretty, just like some men like to wear tattoos or whatever. It's not really about money (you can buy pretty women's clothes dirt-cheap from places that copy the fashion designers), it's just like the peacock tail-feathers you mention: looking good for the opposite sex, even if it isn't all that practical. Obviously, pretty dresses aren't usefor for gardening, but how many younger women do any gardening these days? Or take kids to soccer practice? Once women are doing those things, all their dresses are in the closet and untouched for years, and they're 6 sizes too large for them anyway because they've gotten fat. Those dresses are worn by generally younger women (or older women who stayed in shape and have enough money to hire a gardener and a nanny) and are used for things where they are practical, like going out to clubs and getting picked up.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 05 2017, @04:07PM (3 children)
"For iDevices, you're absolutely correct: the purpose is to show off that you can afford to pay 3x as much as an Android device to do the same thing. Also, that you're a dumb lemming happy to buy into Apple's walled garden and do everything the Apple way."
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Your above post was humorous in a heavy handed and unsophisticated way, but this post is ignorant and arrogant and willfully so.
The Apple "ecosystem" has advantages over Android. Apple stuff will be compatible with Apple stuff and for some of us this is worth the price of admission. If that advantage means nothing to YOU, that's fine for you, but it in no way negates the very real advantage the Apple ecosystem offers. Some of us don't want to root our phones or fuck around with settings. We want stuff that works that we don't have to fuck with, and Apple does offer that. Just because this is not your preference doesn't mean there is not real value in this case. The needs and preferences of others are possibly different from yours. I ride a motorcycle that does wheelies at 80mph in 3rd gear and I love the bike. Could you make use of such a bike ? Maybe not, but that doesn't negate its value to me.
Next time try having some empathy and don't be such a narcissist.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Monday June 05 2017, @06:30PM
The Android "ecosystem" is the same way. Google stuff works pretty flawlessly with other Google stuff; the difference is Google doesn't try so hard to prevent you from using non-Google stuff...which doesn't always work as well...which people like you then blame on Google for no apparent reason. The fact that they give you the ABILITY to use crap software that doesn't integrate doesn't mean you have to. I mean FUCK Google and all, but you buy an Android phone and you put in your Google account and everything just works. Mail, social, chat, cloud backup, app/media purchases, all of it integrates pretty seamlessly and automatically. They're a terrible company but they still do write decent software.
And Apple stuff DOESN'T always "just work". My dad's got no real problems with his Galaxy, but my mom's iPhone is a constant source of tech support nightmares. Like when the Kindle app started displaying upside down for no apparent reason. Checked the iPhone orientation settings...no luck. Tried locking it in the correct orientation...nothing changed. Eventually I discovered that there were multiple independent screen rotation settings...and I'd been spending hours trying to configure the wrong one. What an amazing and intuitive interface! Ugh.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday June 05 2017, @11:46PM (1 child)
I've used Android for years and recently switched to an iPhone. I like iMessage and how smooth a lot of things run. However I can't fucking stand iTunes and how it manages mp3 files. Alright so I have a bunch of music on my phone but don't like Apple's built in player. I can download other players but they can't access any of the the files on the phone! I have to fire up iTunes and then grant permission to every single file on my computer so they can be re-copied to the phone. You can't add whole folders either, only individual files! So that option is out. I'd jailbreak the phone but that would require downgrading to iOS 9.something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 06 2017, @12:30AM
That's when you install something like AutoHotKey and write a small script to automate granting file permissions for you.
~From one of the only Windows Phone fans