OSX’s Calculator Phones Home?

So, I recently added Little Snitch to my Mac computing repertoire and who should it find wanting to phone home?  Hmmm?  That’s right, OSX’s Calculator.

OSX

Needless to say, I have blocked it.  I can’t for the life of me imagine why the calculator would EVER need to phone home.  What, does Apple want to know what I’ve been adding lately?

WTF, Apple?

Well, after about 5 seconds of googling, I ran across a post on Robert Accettura’s blog which says calculator phones home to find the current exchange rate for various currencies.  Robert goes on to give his opinion that this isn’t a privacy concern even though the communication does include a cookie which could contain personally identifiable info.

I don’t know about you, but my card-carrying status in the Tin-Foil Hat Brigade mandates that I nix these communications post haste!

Mac Switchers’ 101: It’s about the USERS’ experience

As I sit here trying to beat SQL Server into submission yet again, I am reminded of a story.

Many moons ago, I used to work for a small software company on the east coast. We were a 100% Mac development shop but were looking to expand. We wanted to offer some limited Windows development services to our clients, so we started interviewing Windows developers to fill that void.

But, we didn’t want just anyone. We were looking for someone who would fit in with our mindset, our office culture. During one of the interviews, one of our guys asked a candidate what he thought about UI. The candidate responded “I usually concentrate on making the code work first. Then I put a UI on top of it.” Well, that guy didn’t get the job.

See, Mac UIs have traditionally been designed by designers and from a user’s perspective. While designing the UI, the designer is (or better be) constantly thinking about how someone might USE this piece of software. The UI design should be done first, IMHO. You have to know what you’re developing before you develop it. In other words, do your UI before you code. Not the other way around.

Windows software, however, is very obviously (to me) designed by programmers, from a programmers’ perspective. That’s why you find horrible UI elements like menu trees that you have to keep drilling down level after level to get to what you want. That structure is extremely analytical in nature, and while hierarchies might not be hard concepts for most people, the problem lies in tying that structure, visually, to what it’s meant to represent. A programmer can keep that relationship in his head, but most people aren’t programmers. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a tree in my office.

Take a look at something developed for Windows and take a look at something developed for Mac. What you’ll see is the difference between a UI designed by programmers and a UI designed by designers. If you’re a switcher, you’ve probably already noticed this difference, even if you haven’t been able to put your finger on it quite yet.

As a programmer myself, I know first hand that it is next to impossible for a programmer to do decent UI design while programming the code. These two functions MUST be split and performed by two different people.

I think most software development companies focus too much on functionality at the cost of usability. Functionality isn’t enough. Functionality has to be a given. Of course the code has to work. But, usability is key. It is the most important thing in software development. Software is analogous to a tool. It not only has to do something, it has to do it in a way that makes it easy for me to do it with that tool. Otherwise, I’ll find a simpler tool that allows me to accomplish the same task with less hassle.

A good rule of thumb when designing a UI is to design it so that your grandmother can use it. And no, that doesn’t mean creating a bunch of wizards to cover every conceivable task your grandmother might want to do. Your grandmother’s not an idiot. She didn’t go through her life and not learn anything. Create the UI so that it uses concepts, analogies, and metaphors that she’ll clue in to.

And don’t cop out by trying to say “there’s no way my grandmother could understand a sql database.” I’d be willing to bet that your grandmother has cooked a thing or two in her life. And where did she store all those recipes? That’s right, 3 x 5 cards. Start there and then work your way into more complex elements. People don’t mind learning new things when they’re hidden in plain sight right next to something familiar.

That’s one misconception about Macs that I hear from Windows people all the time. Windows people tend to think Macs are designed for idiots and are therefore somehow inherently less useful. By contrast, I find Macs much more easy to use because they are designed with the user in mind. You can accomplish the same tasks on pretty much any modern OS. But it’s the way you go about it that makes the difference.  There’s amazing power in simplicity.

And that is pretty much the main reason I turn into a spitting, snarling, computer-throwing maniac after I’m forced to use Windows for any length of time.

Mac Switchers’ Initiation: At All Costs, Maintain the Metaphor!

It’s been too long
I know, I know, it’s been a while since my initial post introducing this series. But, now that it’s the holiday “break,” I don’t have work projects and “end-of-year” money vying for my attention. That, and the fact that I have about 3 more hours to kill while I wait for my plane at the Phoenix airport… (You know you’re getting on the right plane to LA when the crowd waiting with you at the gate is a bunch of surly, tragically creative, hipster, misfit types. These people just don’t live anywhere else. And somehow in that is our only sense of community.)

Anyway, let’s get to it. Our topic for today is about what makes the Mac so great in the first place. And that, welcome readers, is The Desktop Metaphor.

The Desktop Metaphor
What is that, you ask? Aside from being your friend, the Desktop Metaphor has governed the way we interact with computers since it was developed in the 1970s at Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and brought into the mainstream by Apple in the early 80s.

As we all know, computers were initially “hard to use” since they required one to learn vast numbers of text commands, each with their own syntax. Although extremely useful, they largely failed to grab users because they worked the way computers worked instead of working the way people worked.

With what is known as the “Desktop Metaphor,” user interface designers utilized one of the great tenants of learning. If you want to teach someone something, relate it to what they already know. And this is exactly what the Desktop Metaphor did for computers.

When you work at a desk, that desk has various useful elements. There’s the top of the desk, or the “desktop.” There are drawers where you store your files. There are typically a series of accessories like a calculator, a stapler, a calendar, an in and out box, a clipboard, etc.

I think you get the point, so I won’t go into much more detail on the “what” aspect. Suffice it to say that, because computers have been programmed to work like we do, they are a lot easier to understand and in turn are much more useful.

The place, though, that the Mac excelled (and Windows has failed), is in maintaining this metaphor. The things on a computer screen function the same way they do in the real world.

And the people rejoiced, finding familiar things on their computer screens
Time for a tangent; this reminds me of a story. I have some friends back east who went on a consulting call back in the mid-90s to an electric company in one of the southern states (company and all involved will remain nameless). My friends were meeting with the CEO of the company and one or two of his cronies.

This CEO was so old-fashioned that he was running the company via a manual spreadsheet he literally kept pasted to the walls of his expansive office. Apparently, they all kept referring to the spreadsheet during the meeting to get figures, etc.

One of my friends, trying to impress them with his abilities, whipped out his laptop and worked up a similar spreadsheet in Excel in a few minutes. When he showed them what he had done, the CEO looked at him suspiciously and said “that looks like the devil’s work right there.” I guess it was too real for him.

Uphold the metaphor! Case in point
So, yes, computers became easier to use by adopting the desktop metaphor. But, over time, certain developers have tried to expand on that metaphor. And in my opinion, wrongly so.

I bring this up in this series because I’m noticing some Windows-like behaviors creeping their way into Mac OSX. Now, this wouldn’t be a bad thing except that these behaviors are not natural. They are not part of any real-world metaphor. And I worry that the quality of products coming from Apple will suffer as a result. This is also troubling because Apple used to have a Human Interface Group devoted to keeping everyone in line. Since OSX came out, that group must have either been disbanded or had their authority revoked.

Just to give you an example of what I’m talking about, let’s look at the act of copying. This may sound overly simplistic, but go with me.

One classic tool of every modern computer is the clipboard. I admit that I originally had no clue where this metaphor came from until I did some work with publishers. In the publishing world, it is common to use a clipboard or some other surface to store your temporary items before you paste them on the final page you are designing.

And the clipboard metaphor works extremely well with most people. If you want to cut or copy some text or an image from a document, it goes onto the mythical clipboard. If you paste, the contents of the clipboard are put into the place you designate. It works so well because people can totally get the concept when you explain the origins.

Lately, though, there has been a push to disregard this metaphor, and I’m looking squarely at the Windows world. I’m talking about how one copies files on a computer.

In an office setting, when you want to copy a file, you get the file from the filing cabinet, take it to the xerox machine and make your copy. You then put the original back where it came from and you can put the copy in another folder, etc. If you want to move a file to a new location, you simply take the file from its current location and put it in its new home.

On a computer, you do pretty much the same thing. You find the file on your hard drive (filing cabinet), drag it and drop it onto its new location. One of my pet peeves on Mac OS for years has been when you try to move a file from one drive (filing cabinet) to another. This always results in a copy, not a move. A behavior which is computer-like, but not at all one you would expect in the real world. The real-world equivalent would be if a xerox machine somehow got attached to a filing cabinet so that every time you put something in it, it makes a copy. WTF? (I suspect a lazy programmer is to fault for this.)

In Windows, you can copy files by selecting them, right-click and choose “Copy” them to the clipboard and then “Paste” them into the directory you want. Wait, what? Did you say copy them to the clipboard?!? (And for those of you paying attention, here is the crux of the biscuit.)

Presumably, someone got too smart for their own britches and said “wow, on a computer, ‘copy’ goes to the clipboard, so why not make files ‘go to the clipboard’ when you say ‘copy’ and then you can ‘paste’ them where you want them.”

What?!?

NO!

NO, NO, NO! WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

When have you ever taken a whole entire file (or folder, for that matter) out of a filing cabinet, put it on a clipboard, made copies of the entire file and then put those copies into another filing cabinet? Never! Clipboards have nothing to do with copying files!

But, lo and behold, this little “feature” has recently made its way into Mac OSX.

What are we on about?
So, when you hear Mac people complain about things like this, this is what we’re talking about. Apple, to us, is a different company. It’s a company that “gets it.” No other company does. Apple is unique in this. Historically, they don’t screw their customers (until the iPhone fiasco) and their customers agree to pay a little more for better products and better service. They understand how to make technology work in such a way that makes it easy for regular Joes off the street to use it.

Unfortunately, (I suspect due to the large influx of switchers) the metaphor that we’ve all bought into is being trounced upon. And it confuses us. And we don’t like to be confused. We want our computers to behave and obey and work like we want them to work. Not the other way ’round.

Leopard, it is a-comin…

So, I saw over on TUAW that Apple has released a preview video today of Leopard. To me, the funny thing is that I wasn’t going to check it out until I noticed a mention of there being a girl in the video.

Aside from me just explaining that reaction away as me just being a guy, I think we have officially hit the critical mass of marketing conspiracy (I use sarcasm, of course). But really, there used to be a time when I would migrate to things like this video naturally. Now, I’m finding that I have some prerequisites, like whether or not there’s a chick involved. Not that I’m complaining, but I feel like I’ve been programmed to expect my geeky world to be considerably dressed up to the point where I shun it if it’s not. Damn you, Beauty and the Geek, what have you done to me?!?

Anyway, after viewing the video (my first real taste of the upcoming Mac OS X, 10.5 “Leopard”), I wanted to put in my two cents about it. So, here goes:

• Coverflow in the Finder is cool and hugely useful, I just hope that it doesn’t involved any caching. That would make it a huge security risk because the Finder would essentially be making copies of your files and storing them god-knows-where. I do government consulting, so I can’t afford to have sensitive data strewn about willy nilly.
• I HATE that they’ve used iTunes as their model for the Finder. Seriously, that blows. This is such a Windows mentality, using a vertical bar on the left like that (“the sidebar”). It creates so much wasted screen real estate. Previous versions of OS X at least looked better. Now they’ve taken out the window dressing.
• It’s cool how The Dock now reflects things behind it, but no matter how you dress up The Dock, it’s still The Dock and needs to die. Long live the customizable Apple menu! Oh, wait, that’s been dead for years. Dammit!
• Quicklook — can anyone say OpenDoc?
• Time Machine — I like the idea of Time Machine. I just hope it doesn’t ask me every time I connect an external drive if I want to use it for Time Machine. That’s going to get VERY annoying VERY quickly if it does. I also hope you can encrypt your backups.
• Spaces — love it! I can tell I’m going to be spending a lot of time figuring out how to use it best, but I love this feature.
• Mail — I like some of the new features like Data Detectors, integration with iCal, notes, tasks, etc, but I don’t use Mail. I use Entourage, so I’m still waiting for MS to get me a new Universal version. Ho hum…
• iChat — Can anyone say “Knowledge Navigator?” iChat Theatre totally reminds me of Knowledge Navigator. I LOVE it! And the background effects reminds me of The Jetsons. Man, the future really IS here!
• Installation process — I love how he says “next, read and agree to the software license” and he just click “Accept” without even so much as a glance at the agreement. He should at least scroll through it to the bottom or something. Lol.
• Installation process 2 — it takes an hour or two to install?!?! WTF?

Apple Makes Good On $100 iPhone Promise

Apple, Inc. announced today their plans for distributing the long-awaited (okay, it’s only been a week or so) $100 credit to existing iPhone customers. If you own an iPhone and have been living under a rock, you might be wise to check out what’s been going on with this.

See, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone last week by about 33% ($200 to you and me) and a bunch of people who already paid the full price for their iPhones got pissed off about it. So, Apple decided to do right by their customers and give existing iPhone owners $100 credit to the Apple Store.

Now, one should make serious note that Apple already has a 14-day price protection policy. So if you buy something from Apple and they lower the price within 14 days of your purchase, you can go back to Apple and they will just give you the difference.

The $100 iPhone credit I’m talking about is for people who bought an iPhone 15 days or more before the price drop. Anyone who bought it within 14 days of the price drop can just go back to Apple and get the full $200 difference back. Those of us in the 15 day or more crowd can only get $100 back which is not too shabby of a deal if you ask me. And if you’re reading this, then you’ve asked me.

So, how does one get their $100? I thought you might ask. And just for you, my gentle readers, I took the plunge for you today. I went to my local Apple Store (the best one on the planet, I might add) seeking my $100 credit and this is what happened.

The nice people at the Apple Store told me that I needed to follow these steps:
1) visit Apple’s website and follow the link from the main page
2) enter my phone number and iPhone serial number.
3) wait for up to 5 minutes while the site 1)verified that I had indeed activated an AT&T account on my iPhone and 2) that the serial number was valid.
4) look for an incoming SMS text message on my iPhone which would contain a validation code.
5) go back to the website and enter the code
6) print out the resulting credit code and take to Apple Store to redeem.

Since I was already in the store at the time, I used one of the plethora of Macs just lying around otherwise going to waste. I printed my credit page on the printer at the Genius Bar and a friendly salesperson kindly retrieved it for me (since I figured my wandering behind the Genius Bar without being an actual “Apple Genius” might get The Steve mad at me or something).

Once you have that credit page printed out, you can use it as if it were a gift card. They said that the only things you cannot buy with it are iTunes music and another Apple Store gift card. All in all, the process was pretty painless for me. I’ve been hearing reports from some who have had much difficulty, though, so your mileage may vary.

What did I buy with my credit? One of the new 802.11n Airport Base Stations to replace my aging, 7-year old Linksys wireless router. Now, all my base are belong to me true.

Anyone else have any experiences with the credit that they’d like to share?

I Am T-Rex, God of CoverFlow

So, I went browsing through my album cover art in iTunes (called CoverFlow for the uninitiated) today and noticed something peculiar. It seems that the 70s band T-Rex has totally taken over. Perhaps they made a deal with The Steve, although in exchange for what I can’t even imagine.

As you can see in the picture above, this cover for T-Rex’s (I believe) fifth album with notable tracks “The Wizard” and “The Children of Rarn,” is popping up in CoverFlow where it doesn’t belong. It’s showing up for albums who’s covers cannot be found by iTunes. I have many albums which cannot be found on iTunes (some digitized from vinyl — yeah, I know!) and iTunes insists that they’re all the same T-Rex album.

In the instance in the picture above, the album is something which doesn’t exist. I made the album up myself based on a compilation of internet radio recordings I made from Virgin Radio, broadcasting out of London, UK. Yet, there is the trusty ‘ole T-Rex cover.

Maybe they’re making a resurgence. Are the kids getting back into the T-Rex?

Is a 16GB, 3G iPhone in the works?

I thought I’d post an email I wrote to a friend on Thursday, the day after the now-legendary iPhone price drop. In the email, I ponder about Apple’s plan(s).

I think Apple has had this planned since earlier this year when they saw how crazy everyone was getting over a non-existent iPhone. If you look at it, they should be coming out with a 16GB iPhone in another month or two to take up the top price point. I think yesterday’s move was just laying the groundwork for that.

I also think they knew they would piss people off by lowering the price, but they underestimated just how upset people would be. And they didn’t want people to get too upset or change the marketplace too much, so they didn’t announce the 16GB iPhone yesterday.

They’re implementing a tiered marketing strategy. They know each of the levels of updates they want to make to the current iPhone, they’re just planning it out and implementing that plan with the end goal of maximizing profits for each seasons’ shopper.

They knew the iPhone was overpriced but that the market would support that price because of supply/demand. Now, though, they’re trying to position themselves to maximize profits over the holiday period.

You wait — in November, they’ll release the 16GB iPhone just before the holidays.

They successfully captured max profits from the early adopters and now the back-to-school crowd is in their crosshairs. Next up is the holiday shopper.

Now, today, some rumor sites are posting about a supposedly leaked T-Mobile ad which advertises a 16GB, 3G iPhone to be released in, gasp, November.

The even more interesting thing here is that I think we’ve finally reached the point where advances in technology have outpaced the market’s ability to accept them. In other words, technology is changing faster than people are willing to pay for it.

Apple Does Good By Early iPhone Adopters

“The Steve” posted an open letter on Apple’s website today saying:

we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.

Like I said in a previous post, I don’t think Apple owes anyone anything, caveat emptor and all those other Latin phrases, but as a business owner myself I think they do need to recognize that they seriously pissed off their core audience. As such, I applaud Apple’s decision to stand by the early adopters who continuously help to make Apple a success story.

Is it just me, or does anyone else want so bad to say “give me my two (hundred) dollars!”

Some are worried that this move may adversely affect investors’ positions, but I think this is a great opportunity for Apple to realize increased earnings for the quarter. Consider that in the letter, The Steve said they would be giving $100 credit to The Apple Store. So, that money will just go right back in to Apple’s coffers. And more than likely, people will be buying items that cost more than $100. So, even though Apple will most likely take a charge for the rebate (or whatever they’ll be calling it) on their balance sheet, they will see increased sales greater than the charge, me thinks.

Then again, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Nelly Furtado LOVES The New iPods

What do you notice in this flickr set from iLounge’s unboxing of the new iPods? That’s right — Nelly Furtado is featured on the front of every new iPod box. (Or, at least the boxes iLounge bought.)

This is a great marketing decision for her! Think of all the millions of people that will be seeing her when they buy the latest and greatest music player.

“So, Mr (or Ms) new iPod owner .. what music are you going to put on your iPod?”

“Well, you know, I was going to go for Megadeath and Mudvayne, but now I’m thinking Nelly Furtado. I’m not quite sure why…”

And in this photo, you can see why Virgin Radio DJ Geoff Lloyd called the new iPod Nanos “fat” on this morning’s show. They do, they look like a short pudgy iPod. I like it.

Incidentally, iLounge did a great job with these photos. Not only do they show all about the new iPods, they’re done very creatively to boot. Well done, iLounge!

Woz just bought 5000 more iPhones

There was an article I read on a blog site the other day (I think it was .. oh, here it is from Jacqui Cheng at arstechnica) where Woz was raving about how low the price of the iPhone was back in January when it was announced. He said it was so low that he was planning on buying a bunch for all of his friends.

Well, the big huge gargantuan Apple news of the day is that Apple announced at their press conference this morning that they have reduced the price of the 8GB iPhone by $200. That makes the price for an 8GB iPhone now $399 down from $599 (for those who suck at math(s)). That’s a never-before-seen-in-the-technology-industry reduction of about 33% in just 68 days. At this rate, in two months from now an iPhone will cost around $267.33. And in about two months from that, a mere $178.23!

So, with this price drop, Woz must really be pleased! He must be going to his nearest Apple Store and picking up another 5000 of these cheap-ass babies.

I jest, I kid, of course. Woz probably only bought 4500. What, you think he’s just gonna throw away his money like that?

Anyway, the real issue surrounding this story is about the quickly huddling masses of “early adopters” who are circling the wagons as I write this. Although opinions run the gamut, it’s clear that emotions are definitely high over this unprecedented move.

Apple has clearly put itself in a position to have a successful holiday season and at the same time has managed to alienate a few hundred thousand of its most loyal and faithful customers. As a result, many see this as a personal slap in the face and feel that they are entitled to some sort of reciprocation from Apple for supporting the product early on. And I have to say, I agree.

But, let me be clear. Economically speaking, in terms of supply and demand and caveat emptor and all that, those who buy something early and pay a premium are due nothing if the value of their purchase declines no matter how rapid or drastic the decline.

However, in terms of customer relations, rule 1 is and has always been “the customer is always right.” In other words, keep your customers happy, for if you piss them off then you will eventually have no more customers.

I always think it’s in any company’s best interests (Apple’s included) to maintain smooth relations with its core audience, who wouldn’t? But this move by Apple today reeks of a huge slap in the face to that core audience.

The message Apple is sending today is one of if you are thinking of buying a gift from the Apple Store for someone for the holidays, you’d be better off buying a gift card. That way, the buyer can wait until after the gold rush and make their purchase when prices stabilize at a lower level. And they can potentially get more for their money.

Unfortunately, everyone loses with this message. Apple loses and its customers lose. Except Woz, that is.