Apple News, Voice Memos, Home and Stocks Mac Apps to Get Major Updates to Make Them More Mac-Like

[Ferc Kast]

Nice of Federighi to throw the designers under the bus when surely he OK’d all of these apps.

*cough*iOS 6*cough* Seriously, though: if the initial Apple Maps launch was anything to judge by, then if he hadn’t, we’d have gotten the same statement but by Tim Cook instead and Federighi could be out of a job.

 

[abrantes09]

All hail Craig

 

[ninjadex]

No HomeKit support for developers in Project Catalyst. Unbelievably, the HomeKit framework is not included in UIKit for Mac. Hope Apple's new Home app is good, because that's the only HomeKit app you'll be using on macOS for the foreseeable future. Strange decision.

 

[Millah]

I hope Apple continues to discover that their users are not so very stupid or naive. 🙄

The biggest problem I have with the industry-wide trend toward software and hardware lock-in (including the removal of useful software features & the fight against right-to-repair laws) is that it will continue to lead to learned helplessness.

Instead of being able to solve problems on your own, you'll be expected to take it to an "expert" for repairs; instead of providing open-ended tools for creating, you'll be expected to confine your work to the fit within the narrow avenues a few engineers decide are worthy of inclusion.

And you might say, "Whatever, man. It's not that big of a deal. It's only consumer electronics. Get with the program." To which I would reply that if you don't think – on at least some level – our use of technology does not influence our social perspective, to say nothing of how it can literally rewire our brains, than you're probably the one who needs to re-examine your perspectives.

There's a lot more at stake here than pixels on a screen. 😉

Umm, what?

I think you’re in the wrong article. This article is about UI improvements to Mac software ported from iOS.

 

[psingh01]

I don't think Mac users needed to evolve to want a Mac experience on Mac apps. They've wanted it from the start!

 

[rizzo41999]

Photos is garbage. Bring back iPhoto and Aperature! Respectfully, a little tired of them passing off editing features as "new" when we literally had them back in 05'.

 

[Quu]

I use the Home app on my Mac often. I have two main gripes with it.

1. It's very laggy. You right click on something to get a contextual menu and it takes several seconds to appear. The entire UI is very unresponsive to input.
2. A lot of the things I want to access, for example having my air purifier oscillate is in a nested menu. This is fine on an iPhone that has 3D Touch because you can pop to access those sliders and buttons that are nested, on a Mac it doesn't work, just slows things down and combined with the lag I mentioned above it's compounded.

So I hope they fix these two things.

 

[GuruZac]

I get the impression with the recent additions to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Apple seems to have been honestly listening to their customer base. And I've always like Craig. He should host most of the keynotes.

 

[Rogifan]

*cough*iOS 6*cough* Seriously, though: if the initial Apple Maps launch was anything to judge by, then if he hadn’t, we’d have gotten the same statement but by Tim Cook instead and Federighi could be out of a job.

It’s not the same at all. On stage this year Craig made fun iTunes and how bloated it had become. This is different. This is Craig saying “yeah we get these apps suck but that’s because of designers preferences not technical limitations”. Well Craig showed off these apps on stage last year. Why did he approve them if they didn’t rise to the standard of a good Mac app?

 

[trusso]

Umm, what?

I think you’re in the wrong article. This article is about UI improvements to Mac software ported from iOS.

🙄

I know, and I'm happy to see that Apple responds to some merited criticism.

The fact that we have to be thankful for useful changes to software (or hardware) as if Apple is some sort of deity to whom we must offer supplication is the underlying issue I'm commenting on. The improvements to the UI of Catalyst apps is a (welcome) example of this.

 

[coolfactor]

Craig is a real asset for Apple. He would make a fantastic CEO, but then he wouldn't be able to do the work that he truly enjoys.
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It’s not the same at all. On stage this year Craig made fun iTunes and how bloated it had become. This is different. This is Craig saying “yeah we get these apps suck but that’s because of designers preferences not technical limitations”. Well Craig showed off these apps on stage last year. Why did he approve them if they didn’t rise to the standard of a good Mac app?

You need to realize just how complex these software projects are. They (Apple) clearly have a long-term roadmap, and can't do everything "now" as users hope. They likely planned for evolution, but needed to start somewhere. This is the next stage of evolution.

When designing software, what is obvious today was likely not obvious yesterday. Clarity is achieved through a process.

 

[NMBob]

I sure hope they mean it, and that they actually know what the heck they are doing this time around. Starting with a few Apps is better than not doing it at all. It's about time we get consistency and visibility back into the OS and Apps (both Mac and iOS) rather than the current "Everything grey all the time because little Jony likes not being able to see things. He thinks that means it is art!" UI crap we have today:

"Little Jony at age 17, discovering blank-canvas-art for the first time. While the world didn't know it at the time, this pivotal moment would one-day spell the end of Apple device usability."

(Unfortunately, I bet all they do is make the apps look more "Current MacOS" rather than actually trying to fix things.)

That's funny!

Someone probably found an old copy of their human interface design guidelines propping up one corner of an old cheese-grater Mac Pro when they packed up to move to the Spaceship. The lightbulbs in the software and hardware divisions started lighting up.

 

[entropys]

But photo editing got a major update, as part of Catalina, as did photo organisation and video now has many of the same editing tools—it’s stupendous! To say Photos needs a major update (implying it didn’t get one) is disingenuous.

I don’t know what happened Apple in the last 18 months, but somewhere along the way they figured out how to put a fire under every platform. Frankly, it’s difficult to believe how may things Apple has been addressed at WWDC. They are like a different company, software wise. Could it be, I wonder, the reorganisation and new-to-them adjoining department layout at their new headquarters?

Customers not agreeing with their design decisions or direction in the way desired could do that. It’s called a wake up call. Let’s hope this new direction continues.

 

[Precursor]

Somehow they understood they should take the Mac audience and it's feedback serious.

I believe it has nothing to do with Mac audience but iPad audience. There are more iPad users than Mac users now and with iPadOS they probably want to cater to these users by making iOS apps feel more Mac-like.

 

[macgabe]

Stocks has gone from one of the better designed financial apps on the phone to now one of the worst designed on all devices.

Phone pointless, Mac super pointless, Watch mega pointless.

On the phone I used to use it every day many times swiping between charts - it was that one gesture that made the whole one portfolio thing worthwhile. When they disabled that, no point.

On the watch the micro list is just a bit of a joke - especially since it is synced so you can't really pick what appears easily - it has to be at the top of your portfolio. Admittedly it's not completely useless just to see what the S&P and a currency is doing but could be so much better.

The Mac version is so basic it's embarrassing: one long list with no subdivisions, a very small chart, a pointless and prominent list of financial spambot "news", and the completely mad axis numbering system which eschews round numbers and no chance of a log scale, which they've kept from day 1. Since with one click anyone can get to a much more useful portfolio and chart system (often free) on the internet (not least of which Yahoo itself) there's really no reason for anyone to use this.

It's not all bad - there have been 2 developments I've welcomed: linking to stock info in Numbers is super useful, works well generally, and transforms that app. The "All" timeframe in Stocks is also a welcome and generous feature which many other chart systems don't have. Finally the Yahoo db access to just about any stock or index worldwide is again very useful and beats many rival systems. So with just a few tweaks this could all be really useful…

 

[Glockworkorange]

Nice of Federighi to throw the designers under the bus when surely he OK’d all of these apps.

lol. Like he wasn't aware of the issues. Get the **** out of here, Craig.

 

[gregorynacu]

My problem with those 4 marzipan apps is that they are too simple. I think we've come to expect a certain bare minimum of functionality from a Mac app. Let me give one example. Back in the old days of the Voice Memos app on early versions of iOS, I recorded lots of notes. But, they didn't sync to my Mac. So, I exported them all, to save on my Mac. Eventually I deleted them from the voice memos app to save space on my phone. I have a backup! When Voice Memos came to the Mac, I thought, "Oh, perfect. Now I can import my backed up notes, and get them back on my phone." But, the Voice Notes app has no way to import. You can't drag and drop, you can't file->open, you can't copy audio into a note. It's like a hermetically sealed box that you cannot put anything into.

 

[cocky jeremy]

I'll be happy knowing these are more Mac like when I hide them away to never use them... still.

 

[truthertech]

That these were intentional design decisions makes it worse. Still, it is encouraging that Federighi himself is aware of the deficits and intends to do something about it.

You're missing the point he's making. This was an early version of the new technology that required a simple port over that wouldn't be ideal. They made this clear when they introduced it last year that they were introducing these early versions as demonstrations of the new technology and that more was on the way in design and scope in subsequent versions. Not sure why that's hard to grasp when they made it clear that this would evolve a lot in the second year.

 

[unfunfionn]

The Home app has become a necessary evil since I got rid of my Echo Dots, but it’s so sluggish to use and it’s bordering on unresponsive sometimes. Maybe that’s just me.
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You're missing the point he's making. This was an early version of the new technology that required a simple port over that wouldn't be ideal. They made this clear when they introduced it last year that they were introducing these early versions as demonstrations of the new technology and that more was on the way in design and scope in subsequent versions. Not sure why that's hard to grasp when they made it clear that this would evolve a lot in the second year.

They released them pre-installed on a production release of macOS. It’s easy to grasp why putting unlabelled beta technology into a production release will confuse users. Unless of course we expect everybody to watch a keynote before installing.

 

[Red Oak]

But photo editing got a major update, as part of Catalina, as did photo organisation and video now has many of the same editing tools—it’s stupendous! To say Photos needs a major update (implying it didn’t get one) is disingenuous.

I don’t know what happened Apple in the last 18 months, but somewhere along the way they figured out how to put a fire under every platform. Frankly, it’s difficult to believe how may things Apple has been addressed at WWDC. They are like a different company, software wise. Could it be, I wonder, the reorganisation and new-to-them adjoining department layout at their new headquarters?

Company is on fire right now. So many good things launched at WWDC, it is crazy.

Color me shocked

 

[SeattleMoose]

Cross pollination of mobile and desktop apps can only be a good thing. Will help both sides.

 

[Fukui]

The biggest problem I have with the industry-wide trend toward software and hardware lock-in (including the removal of useful software features & the fight against right-to-repair laws) is that it will continue to lead to learned helplessness.

Instead of being able to solve problems on your own, you'll be expected to take it to an "expert" for repairs; instead of providing open-ended tools for creating, you'll be expected to confine your work to the fit within the narrow avenues a few engineers decide are worthy of inclusion.

look, those “expert” services are “growing” the economy... do you want economic growth or not!? /s

 

[anthogag]

I am using Apple News+. It would be better if I could access News (and magazines) from the lock screen. A faster more seamless access to news and magazines.

There should also be a way to temporarily download magazines onto the iPhone because it uses huge chunks of data if I'm not on wifi. And wifi connections can be slow and can be quite annoying waiting for magazine pages to load. Perhaps after I read the magazine it removes itself from the iPhone.

 

[matrix07]

I am using Apple News+. It would be better if I could access News (and magazines) from the lock screen. A faster more seamless access to news and magazines.

There should also be a way to temporarily download magazines onto the iPhone because it uses huge chunks of data if I'm not on wifi. And wifi connections can be slow and can be quite annoying waiting for magazine pages to load. Perhaps after I read the magazine it removes itself from the iPhone.

I want to subscribe to News+ but I’m waiting for them to correct navigation issue first. At least gives us My Magazines tab so we can access our magazine shelf easily.