Or why Apple always stops half way
Steve Jobs is said to drive his team with his perfectionism to the brink of despair - and beyond. He was the "ultimate user" of all defined only from his perspective.
Perfektinismus I find this increasingly rare for Apple products. Rather half-baked hardware and software is developed on an assembly line. The new Mighty Mouse is a case in point. will
on the mouse functions in the strict sense I received less: the laser scanning appears solid if not outstanding, little stuttering in the horizontal movement can be observed on even ground quite disturbing, but not in daily use. Just as good or bad as its predecessor, the Mighty / Apple Mouse would say I am.
The form is extremely flat. This is first time a common question: the flat keyboard called on me first and show skepticism, now I adore it. The keyboard of my MacBook Pro Unibody I would say even as a good compromise - as well as the associated glass touchpad is perhaps the most compelling piece of hardware, Apple has released last year.
Whether the flat shape now works so well in mice, will have to prove in the long test, and in any case, you have to change his hand position.
What I want to go into detail but, with some fanfare presented is touch interface. This works perfectly on a purely technical level, any movement for scrolling or wiping is accurately conveyed the impression here really have a "touch pad mounted on it" arises most of all.
The question is: why Apple uses it. The support functions are now:
- scrolling (vertical / horizontal, so what one mouse yet the mouse ball of the Mighty already was)
- two-finger wipe to the left and right. Press down
- links and right-click the complete mechanical mouse (exactly as in the Mighty Mouse)
That was it.
Ehrlich.
We are thus reached the status that the Apple touchpad had three years ago. So here is a list of functions that offensichtich at the level of the drivers are missing: (with two fingers apart / together)
- zoom - which offered "it simultaneously press the Control key" alternative is nonsense;
- two fingers to scroll up / down (which ever one could prove it as "Jump to the beginning or end" or "Run Expose and Spaces");
- three finger gestures (would be easily mapped onto the general area, even with my fat fingers) ;
- Click through pure touch the surface, not the archaic pressing down the mouse;
- gestures rotation left / right.
- Bediehnung alternative, why not really make the whole surface used as a trackpad, so the finger position changes the cursor position.
So we have no progress in the functionality compared to the Mighty Mouse: it even lacks the third mouse button (pressing down the ball) and proven side buttons.
now presents itself to me quite specifically the question: why Apple is doing this or concrete: why they do not so much, why they refuse "to walk the extra mile".
It is more puzzling when one considers that with MultiClutch for years (!) there exists easy to use tool for OSX with which you can be (multi-) touchpad teach practical tips.
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Why does not this approach taken by Apple, or even better purchased of hobbyist developers, as has been done in cover flow? The next example: Momentum scrolling.
OSX lags behind the iPhone afterwards - for years
Momentum scrolling is, in short, everything the iPhone Bediehnung as pretty does: a gentle "roll out" after you've scrolled, which leads to the iPhone is known rather to a "pushing" as a scroll. Everyone loves it. Why was not adapted for OSX? That this relatively easily possible, proves SmartScroll again another hobby developers.
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Its implementation is so perfect and "sleak" that I happened to sound any OSX computer without SmartScroll like a relic from the Stone Age. Say, like a Nokia mobile phone olles compared to an iPhone. Now, Apple has for years implemented and show This "momentum scroll" in the show called Magic Mouse driver - on and off.
Only:
- The jerky scrolling. It's ugly. They want to turn it off immediately. In the A / B comparison, the buttery soft SmartScroll implementation is superior to two generations.
- Why only for the Magic Mouse and not for all-wheel mouse and touchpad? SmartScroll proves uncompromising that it is just for touchpads extremely useful.
I do not want in your head that Apple is the TRAUT Feature auf diese Art zu implementieren wenn ein (von mir sehr geschätzter) Hobby-Entwickler dasselbe in besser seit Jahren zum Download anbietet.
Nun mag man einwenden: nur Gemach, das wird Apple alles nachreichen.
Vermutlich werden sie das tun, irgendwann. Und hier beginnt der zweite Teil meiner Philippika: warum wendet Apple seit Jahren diese enervierende Salamitaktik an, was nützliche Features angeht? Hier mal einige Paradebeispiele:
- das iPhone ist nicht nur eine „Ikone der user experience“ wie es so schön heißt, sondern auch eine einzige große Riesensalami, um im Bild zu bleiben. Und ich meine jetzt nicht so lächerlich zu vernachlässigende Features wie cut&paste. Die Älteren unter uns werden sich erinnern: es gab eine Zeit, da gab es keinen App-Store. Da wusste niemand, dass es einmal so etwas wie Apps geben könnte. Auch wusste niemand, was für ein 3D Chip eigentlich im iPhone verbaut wurde und was man alles aus den Lagesensoren heraushohlen konnte. Und wir erinnern uns weiter: dieser Zustand dauerte EIN JAHR an. Dann plötzlich ging auf der Keynote die Bombe hoch und man dachte: OMFG - was habe ich da ein Jahr lang bloß unwissend in der Hand gehalten? Nun spricht es natürlich für eine kaum zu unterschätzende Überlegenheit von Apple, dass man sich diesen Ein-Jahres-Featurefreeze can afford - but was that necessary?
- Snow Leopard and the 64 bit drama that SL is not pre-boot with 64 bit but 32 bit - given. But why do not succeed, iTunes, at least the flagship applications of OSX, iPhoto, and about to release in 64 bit? What the developers have actually done a long year since SL was announced?
- Speaking of iTunes: it's an icon of mediocrity. The basic management features are cool, here it meets 90% of my use cases. I will not even ask for more. But why use the Scolling is so jumpy? Compared with iPhoto, Apple Mail feels the whole surface sedate, choppy, unfinished at. And this condition has existed for years. In iPhoto are much more complex data maintained in equal numbers, yet everything is nice and smooth.
- iTunes the LP format, how unkind it is actually for? Why do we have to wait for months until it runs on the (also an icon of mediocrity) Apple TV? And why the LP data is not displayed on the iPhone and iPod Touch, which are still made for it? It is comforting to hear a little "is all saved up for the Tablet" - we live in the here and now.
It seems to me the result to be such that the first implementation neuer Soft- und Hardware immer nur auf einen niedrigen Minimalkonsens hin optimiert ist. Für mich ist das eine Frage mangelnder Qualitätskontrolle. Ruckelnde Software wie iTunes oder Momentum Scroll sollte es 2009 nicht mehr geben.
Vielleicht ist Steve doch sehr krank.
Oder, wie ein Freund twitterte: „viel Maus, wenig Magic“.
