iPhone 2.0 App Trouble Theory
I have a theory about why there are so many apps crashing or not working on the latest version of the iPhone software. I believe that due to the nature of the iPhone’s handling of applications with no background processes, the installation of an app that you downloaded directly from the mobile version of the App Store or the direct deletion of an app right from your iPhone, the installer app (both install and delete) is killed when you try to open another application.
For example, I tried to delete 3 apps from my iPhone that I knew I wasn’t going to use anymore. I clicked the X on each app and I was asked if I really wanted to delete the app and I said ‘delete.’ At that point, the app disappears from the iPhone screen and it seems to be deleted. But what I think is going on is that it is actually being uninstalled in the background. So when I click 3 in a row like I did, it was uninstalling each one individually. As soon as I click another application, like Settings, the iPhone kills the delete process to try and open Settings. But instead of getting the Settings I get a white background where the Settings should be and then Settings crashes. At that point I can’t open any applications and frustration ensues. And there’s a half-deleted application that is still half-on/half-off of my iPhone. When I try to sync with iTunes there’s a noticeable lag in iTunes recognizing the iPhone and then I get an error about syncing the apps I was just trying to delete. This also happens when the iPhone is attempting to install a new app you just downloaded. If you don’t wait until it’s all the way done installing before opening another app, you’ll get a crash.
The kicker is that there’s no way to tell how long to wait when deleting an application. You just have to wait a while and kind of guess when it has actually been fully removed from your phone. The install process has a progress bar and a notification pop-up when it’s finished.
How Humiliating
I suppose I won’t be taking any monetary advice from Brett Arends. In his piece for the Wall Street Journal titled “When It Comes to the iPhone, Waiting Was Golden” he makes the case that only fools went out and bought the first generation iPhone. From the article:
So much for all those who stood in line a year ago. They paid $599 (again, plus cellular contract) for a model with eight gigabytes of memory, and those models only ran on slower EDGE networks.
How humiliating is that? Owning one of these is like being the PC guy in a Mac commercial.
Clearly, Mr. Arends hasn’t done any actual math on this subject. He simply says that an early adopter paid $599 for an 8GB model and someone who waited will pay $199 for an 8GB model with 3G and GPS. That certainly seems cut and dry. But we’re talking R.O.I. here, right? That’s the lead on this story, in fact it’s part of the page title. And if we’re talking R.O.I. then we must talk about total cost of ownership. And in the end, you will pay more for an iPhone 3G than I did for my iPhone 2G. Here’s how it breaks down:
I stood in line on June 27, 2007 for the first generation iPhone.
- $599 for 8GB iPhone
- $480 for 24 months @ $20/month Unlimited Data Plan (including 200 SMS)
- $1200 for 24 months @ $50/month voice plan
- -$100 credit when Apple dropped the price to $399
- TOTAL $2179 for 24 months of ownership
The new iPhone 3G will be released on July 11, 2008 with new data plans
- $199 for 8GB iPhone (with 3G and GPS, $299 for 16GB)
- $720 for 24 months @ $30/month Unlimited Data Plan
- $119.76 for 24 months @ $4.99/month 200 SMS Plan
- $1200 for 24 months @ $50/month voice plan
- TOTAL $2238.76 for 24 months of ownership
Note: I include the $4.99 for SMS because that’s what iPhone 2G users get included with their data plan at $20 a month. You could choose to pay 10 cents per message sent or received for SMS but that would not be a true comparison of features. Also, this does not take into account taxes and regulatory fees which increase with your total bill.
Humiliating indeed. The way I see this is that I enjoyed a superior product for a year before the “waiters” are going to get a chance to experience the same product. They’ll pay $60 more than me to experience the product but they’ll get 3G and GPS. Every other new feature is in the software and I get that as a free upgrade. I don’t think there’s anything humiliating about enjoying the world’s best phone for a year and paying less than other people are about to.
The true winners here are people who just bought an iPhone in the last month or two. They only paid $399 for their iPhone and they enjoy the same contract as the day-one iPhone buyers. But their contract gets to stretch into 2010. They’ll enjoy a much better R.O.I.
Google Reader for iPhone: A Step Backward
Google announced yesterday that they have a new version optimized for the iPhone and MobileSafari. They mention that the new version is better for the iPhone than their standard mobile version in that it utilizes javascript to do more from one view. “Starring, sharing, and keeping unread are done in place, so you never have to leave the list view or refresh the page.”
I think that all sounds well and good. But the truth is that the mobile version was actually better because it wrapped the original article in javascript and stripped out everything but the text and pertinent graphics. This was useful on EDGE and made it easy to keep up with my RSS feeds while away from my computer. I’ve been happily using the mobile version since I bought my iPhone almost a year ago and I wasn’t even asking for a change. The mobile version was such a great iPhone application. You just got the text, perfectly presented in your browser.
My biggest gripe about the new version is that they actually took features away. The mobile version has a Settings link that allows you to “Reformat linked web pages for mobile browsers.” You can turn that on or off as you see fit. I could choose to display 5, 10, or 20 articles at a time on the old version. The new iPhone version doesn’t even give you settings at all.
On both versions, there are 2 links at the bottom of your feed list: “Load More” and “Mark These Items as Read.” On the mobile version these links are stacked on top of one another and take up the same amount of screen space. Clicking either link is easy. But on the iPhone version the “Load More” link is left-aligned and significantly larger than the “Mark These Items as Read” link which is right justified. The first time I tried to click the mark-as-read link I actually clicked the load more link because that link spans the width of the iPhone’s screen. It’s awesome that they do that so I don’t have to be so specific with my touch but the mark items as read link doesn’t span the width of the iPhone and you must be very specific with your touch on that link. And the space it takes up is so much smaller than the load more link that it’s too easy to accidentaly touch the load more link.
Obviously the iPhone version is still in beta and these things can be easily fixed. But I wish more developers would remember that it’s never a good user experience to take features away (unless it’s proven that the feature is little-used and gets in the way of completing tasks). You should start with you already have and then add functionality to improve the user experience. I just hope they add those settings back. I won’t be able to use the iPhone-specific version until they do. Luckily for me, the mobile version was already an awesome iPhone app to begin with.
The Mac in Corporate America
I use a corporate-supplied MacBook Pro in an environment that is almost exclusively Windows. It’s a challenge, to say the least. This isn’t the first time I’ve worked on a Mac in an all-Windows corporate environment and you quickly learn how to troubleshoot your own machine since many IT people do not have the slightest clue how to help you if a problem occurs. Luckily for me the lines between Mac and PC have blurred considerably since the old OS 9 days and working in a PC environment isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Most people I interact with who don’t know the computer I’m using will probably never know the computer I’m using. They assume I’m on a PC just like them.
If you’re ever concerned about moving to a Mac because you fear that the software will be different or you won’t be able to share files with PC users, I’m here to put that fear to rest. Here’s a list of software I use that keeps me working with PC users:
- Microsoft Office 2008 - Written specifically for the Mac and is completely interoperable with Microsoft Office for the PC. It has Entourage instead of Outlook but they are pretty much the same applications. I am on an exchange server, my calendar is in sync, I have access to the corporate directory, etc.
- Keynote 08 - This gem just kicks Powerpoint’s booty and there’s no sense in using Powerpoint. I do my own presentations anyway so I don’t need to share my files with someone else. On the rare occasion I do need to share my presentation with another person I just export my Keynote file as a .ppt file. I usually lose some of the nifty animations but the presentation is still better than anything you can produce with Powerpoint.
- Omnigraffle Pro 5 - Superior to Microsoft Visio 2007 in almost every way. The beauty of it is that I get to use such a great program for all of my diagrams and PC users never know the difference because I can open and save in the Visio format. I’ve shown other IA’s Omnigraffle and how you can quickly create a site map using the outline mode and they’re always blown away.
- OmniPlan 1.5 - I’ve never used Microsoft Project so I can’t make a direct comparison but OmniPlan does the job nicely and no one has any problems opening and viewing my files. The Omni Group is on the ball. They just make killer software with real-world business uses. I also use OmniOutliner (which is never closed) and OmniFocus to help me keep my thoughts and tasks in order.
- Adobe Creative Suite - No one outside of myself has any need to open a Photoshop document or Illustrator document but they could if they had the software. Just like Microsoft Office, Adobe created their software to be completely interoperable between Macs and PCs. Just don’t use PostScript fonts and you should be fine.
- Parallels - When push comes to shove and I have to use a PC because some business application requires Active X or I’m working with Sharepoint I can open Windows XP and work with Windows applications just like they were installed on my Mac. The move to Intel was one of the smartest moves Apple has made and the architecture allows me to use Windows at almost native speed in a virtual world. It works so much better than Virtual PC ever did.
In addition to these titles that allow me to work with PC users I also use Mac-only software that I couldn’t imagine living without. Programs like 1Password, Coda, CSSedit, Delicious Library, MarsEdit, Skitch, TextMate, and VisualHub. I use .Mac to keep my Address Book, Calendar, Bookmarks, Mail Accounts, and FTP sites in sync but that service has finally gotten a Windows counterpart with Microsoft’s announcement of the Live Mesh service. Even though .Mac has it’s problems (and it does) I still find it incredibly useful, especially the online disk space.
One of the biggest myths is that you don’t get good software on the Mac. There may not be as many applications produced for the Mac but the software that is produced is almost always superior to anything you can find on Windows. I’m trying to say that without sounding like a fanboy but I know I come across that way. I just think the Mac software developers take a lot of pride in their work and it shows.
The Mac is definitely making a comeback and it’ll be showing up in more and more businesses. There’s no reason it should be excluded anymore. I work on a Mac every day and I’m able to access our network, use Cisco VPN to log in remotely, share files, and open and save PC documents. It’s truly a business machine.
UPDATE: My friend Pat Charles pointed me to this article on InfoWorld that has real-world data to support my claim that Macs will be showing up in more and more businesses.
UPDATE 2: It looks like this is a timely blog post as there are many more articles coming out about this very subject. Check out Business Week’s The Mac in the Gray Flannel Suit.
UPDATE 3: This will be my last update on this post but this has never happened to me before. Clearly I was on to something. Please check out MacUser’s “Macs in business: Making the case” for their perspective.
Talk About Bad Information Design
I went to ESPN to check out who won tonight’s men’s college basketball championship and I was led to this page where I was greeted with the graphic below.
I understand that both school’s primary color is a shade of blue. But it should have been instantly recognizable to the person creating this graphic that the 2 shades of blue were much, much too close together for this chart to be meaningful. My first thought would be to add each school’s secondary color and make each line thicker so the user could quickly see the difference between the blue/yellow line and the blue/white line. But the chart doesn’t only fail in its color presentation. It also crams a lot of data into a small column while keeping detail off of the chart. In order to get more detail the user needs to hover over the graphic which they would only know to do if they hovered over the graphic by chance. In this regard I think of the words of the great Edward Tufte when he says “to add clarity, add detail.”