I just wanted to say that I like it too, and your'e right, it does "just work". Surprising for Microsoft, but Office has always been their best product.
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iCloud Development Held Up By 'Deep Organizational Issues' at Apple
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I just wanted to say that I like it too, and your'e right, it does "just work". Surprising for Microsoft, but Office has always been their best product.
Isn't that was Claris was supposed to be? Was Claris killed, or brought back in-house?
That's an opinion, and a pretty lightweight and dubious criticism. I like the way it looks and works.
As for "My Photostream", I'm 99% sure that when iCloud Photo Library comes out of Beta and is fully implemented, "My Photostream" will be going away, because it will be obviated by the former.
I can agree with a lot of this. I am confused by the statement that iWork isn't meant to compete with Office. What would you say is its purpose then?
I see a lot of people complaining about Mail: I personallly have few issues with it. I like it.
Syncing of reminders, calendar and contacts also work fine for me.
I get what you're saying that this is not going to be the end product of iCloud. I too have confidencet that it will improve. What disturbs me is that I see Dropbox getting more useful feature and overall syncing speed right already while iCloud is still struggling. You mentioned you had a bad experience with Dropbox. Can you elaborate?
You mention that Apple does more than anybody else. I am wondering if maybe Apple is trying to do too much. iWork has a lot going for it, but not enough to let me rely on it fully. iCloud syncing is too slow. I plan on looking up YouTube for speed tests to compare it with Dropbox and if no one has done any then I just might have to run it myself.
I also come out of IT, and my opinion still stands. OneDrive syncs flawlessly for me, and so does iCloud in my use.
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Here's what happened: I bought a new iPad. I was setting it up, and, as I remember it, asked for my Apple ID and I flubbed it. I think I said 'Skip' and it asked if I wanted to enable email, and I said yes. It then asked for an email address and I entered my iCloud email address and it complained that it already exists. Yeah, no duh... But it wouldn't let me go on without entering 'an email address', so I entered my work email address, and it went merrily along it's way, and somehow all of the iTunes stuff I had up to that point was assigned this new Apple ID.
At the time, I didn't realize that I was actually creating a new Apple ID. Not until it was done. Which was odd, because my, at that moment, 'old' email address came up fine on the new iPad, and everything continued to work, play, be readable. I didn't at the time realize that I had created a schism that would overturn damn near everything that I thought was reality about 3 years later.
I thought that all of my iTunes content was under the first account, but it had apparently been 'transferred' somehow to the new account.
So there I am standing there telling someone at the Genius Bar that I want to kill the account that they can see has everything I own from Apple as far as content goes killed. After they explained it to me, I understood their bizarre looks when I was trying to explain what I wanted...
Nothing, from the Apple/iTunes standpoint was anything close to what I thought it was. I was dumbstruck.
That one mistake threw everything in disarray...
And when they finally explained this to me, I asked them then why all of my existing iTunes content was assigned to my 'new account', and why they couldn't just 'unassign' it from that one, and put it on the one I swore up to that day was the 'real account'.
I walked out more convinced than ever before that iTunes was a screwed up mess... I mean, hell, search the forums here and on the Apple support blogs and you will find all of the times I've blown up parts of the iTunes database on my iMacs...
But anyway, to your point: Yes, I'm stupid. I did this all myself... I like pain...
I counter that it was far too easy for this to happen, and obviously Apple didn't plan for it.
And I still wonder, to this day, how, if they can't transfer purchases, how all of mine got 'transferred' to my new account.
I don't know man, I have never heard of purchases being transferred to another account, and, if this did happen with you, you are unique. And as far as iTunes databases, I've been using iTunes since it's debut in 2001 (wasn't it 2001?) and they have been transferred between three Macs. There are even times when I have just dragged databases over. Maybe it's because I know what I'm doing, I don't know. I'm not saying that to cut you down, but it always amazes me how some people have nothing but issues and problems and for others, it all works fine.
From what I remember, iCloud was doomed because it is/was core-data based. That's not that big of a deal for single enterprise apps, but for horizontal apps that's just way too much mental overhead to deal with. Plus the engine used to screw up, occasionally vaporizing data.
I mean come on, it's 2014. Just make a document-based sync engine; this structured data stuff is ridiculous. Heck, you don't even have to replace the core-data based APIs.
iCloud is designed by computer scientists, for computer scientists: it's overbuilt, makes no sense, is too complicated and abstract, and performs badly. It's probably impossible to administer and scale as well.
I gather that Apple had to build that big data center in NC just for iCloud. They could have build a dropbox clone and not build that huge datacenter.
I mean come on, it's 2014. Just make a document-based sync engine; this structured data stuff is ridiculous. Heck, you don't even have to replace the core-data based APIs.
iCloud is designed by computer scientists, for computer scientists: it's overbuilt, makes no sense, is too complicated and abstract, and performs badly. It's probably impossible to administer and scale as well.
I gather that Apple had to build that big data center in NC just for iCloud. They could have build a dropbox clone and not build that huge datacenter.
The list of Apple garbage is long... and the recurring motif is ignoring the customers' cries of pain as their data is lost or screwed up, more money forced out of their wallets, hands aching from use of crappy mice.
As far as iWork vs. Office, I elaborated on that in a previous post, so I'll just quote it here:
"iWork is INSURANCE. In the event MS Office was ever stopped being produced for Mac, iWork is there. Plus, it's FREE and not everyone wants to or can afford to spend the amount of money MS charges for desktop MS Office (and don't want to steal it either). Also, not everyone needs all the features MS Office provides, so it's there for them so they don't have to buy Office."
As for DropBox, it had the absolute worst web UI/UX I had ever seen. Painful. Just really bad. As as far as not getting why people where pissing themselves over it, at the time, Apple had iDisk. Now, yes, iDisk had problems in it being slow and that had a lot to do with it's use of WebDav, as I recall. But it was so much more advanced. No one has attempted anything like it since. It would mount in your finder and on your desktop just like a remote network drive, and you could store files there and access them through the Finder, without taking up space on your HD. And if you needed a local copy for offline use (for instance, you had a laptop), that could be enabled. It also had icon, list and column views, and sharing of files with links that were emailed to to people and custom username and password protection that you created for each shared file (if you wanted it protected, or you could make it public to anyone who had the URL). The usernames and passwords also could be valid indefinitely or you could custom set them to expire after a period of time from days to weeks, to, if I recall correctly, months. I think over time, a lot of this old iDisc functionality will come back into iCloud Drive.
iCloud is next too useless. You can't trust that your data is available or save. It's slow. It's insecure. You can be assured prying government eyes are watching. If your router, ISP, Apple or some intermediary on the net goes down then you loose access to your data. I like my data local. I'll take care of my own backups and distribution.
Yeah - filemaker too. My god, you must be as old as I am. Claris was Killed in 1998.
Joining the old club, I'm having flashbacks to my old day job in the computer room..
ClarisWorks, what you gave your employees in hopes they couldn't manage to break things/it. Only to be beat up because of missing XL functions.
We tried.
As much as I like Apple, I will NOT allow them to organize my photos...
I've been organizing my own digital photos for 12 years now, and can locate most anything in under 60 seconds. Do it yourself, and be disciplined. You will be a lot happier, and won't have to fear losing your photos. (Backups, backups people!)
iPhoto (now Photos) in iOS 8 can be handy, but is not a solution for storing or organizing ANYTHING I like to consider permanent.
Here's a tip: iPhoneView is a handy tool on the mac side, there is something for pc too, but I forget what it is...
If the Apple internal teams can align their efforts, they may come up with something that is useful to a lot of people. Whatever it becomes though, I likely won't be using it.
I've been organizing my own digital photos for 12 years now, and can locate most anything in under 60 seconds. Do it yourself, and be disciplined. You will be a lot happier, and won't have to fear losing your photos. (Backups, backups people!)
iPhoto (now Photos) in iOS 8 can be handy, but is not a solution for storing or organizing ANYTHING I like to consider permanent.
Here's a tip: iPhoneView is a handy tool on the mac side, there is something for pc too, but I forget what it is...
If the Apple internal teams can align their efforts, they may come up with something that is useful to a lot of people. Whatever it becomes though, I likely won't be using it.
same thing happened to me when i was trying to get all the photos off of my wife's iphone. i couldn't find a way to do it on my mac so i just plug it into my old win 7 laptop see what happen. and it pop up ask me if i wanted to transfer all photos and specified location click ok and it was done in 10 mins.
oh it also give me an option to remove all the photos from the phone once it's done too.
I always have a local copy of my iCloud docs so I am puzzled why you say you cannot access your data if the cloud copy goes down. Also, how would this be different with any other cloud service.
My understanding is that iCloud is more secure (read a couple of articles comparing Dropbox to iCloud and this was one of the few areas where iCloud came out ahead).
Actually, no, you don't lose access to your data, because whatever you put in the iCloud Drive directory in the Finder stays local on your HD and just uploads copies to the cloud, and downloads copies to any other Macs. You should maybe do some research and enlighten yourself.
Sounds horrible. Cook should change his way of work/company management immediately. Firing and making talented people leave, placing Ive in charge of everything (he's not yet in charge of iCloud development? Definitely should be. /sarcasm/) releasing clearly buggy and unfinished OSs with dubious design decisions... Apple still sells a lot of iPhones but one day that could change. And that day there won't be any good quality products to backup iPhone sales loss. OS X deteriorates. iWatch won't be a hit due to its design. Thinner and thinner, that's the key innovation Apple promotes very year. Some nice features are lost behind bugs or not finished yet. How can someone release an OS when half of its key features are not ready? What is that?.. Nah... He won't hear me.
I read recently that most family businesses are closed by the third generation. The founder knows how to do things, his kids seen it and know how to repeat the process without deep understanding of the mechanics, but their kids are so sure they're so exceptional 'cause they already have a working business bringing money so they don't actually work and fight for it. And then it ends. It seems Mr Cook (and John as well) is in that position right now. He believes he's the chosen one, whatever he does is amazing and outstanding 'cause he rules the most rich company in the world and iPhones sell like hot cakes... It's so magical.
I read recently that most family businesses are closed by the third generation. The founder knows how to do things, his kids seen it and know how to repeat the process without deep understanding of the mechanics, but their kids are so sure they're so exceptional 'cause they already have a working business bringing money so they don't actually work and fight for it. And then it ends. It seems Mr Cook (and John as well) is in that position right now. He believes he's the chosen one, whatever he does is amazing and outstanding 'cause he rules the most rich company in the world and iPhones sell like hot cakes... It's so magical.
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Ah, now I see what you mean when you call iWork "Insurance". Yes, I can understand better now why iWork is not given more attention.
Agreed that Dropbox's web interface is clunky. Never liked it, but then I always use it via Finder. Even Drobox's iOS app won't let you rename files.
The agenda should be: get rid of iTunes and icloud.
Seriously, why do i need iTunes to copy music to my iPad? Isn't apple about "ease of use"? ITunes is the most inconvenient piece of bloatware imaginable, simply because it's being forced on the users. On my android, i connect it and copy over music, films and data like on a USB drive. Done.
Seriously, why do i need iTunes to copy music to my iPad? Isn't apple about "ease of use"? ITunes is the most inconvenient piece of bloatware imaginable, simply because it's being forced on the users. On my android, i connect it and copy over music, films and data like on a USB drive. Done.
I don't get this. It's called plug the iPhone/iPad into your mac and it syncs everything through iTunes. I haven't used iPhoto in a long time, but, as I recall as well, when you plugged your iPhone in, iPhoto treated it like a camera and would ask if you wanted to import the photos into iPhoto. None of this is rocket science.
Honestly I think this is a bit alarmist. I have had few problems with iOS 8: fewer than iOS 7 and even that was not so bad in its first few months before it smoothed out.
Thinner and thinner makes for nice lightweight products that I personally appreciate. It trades off in battery for some devices but there is the iPhone 6+ if that is a concern.
Have you held the Apple Watch yet? I am personally reserving judgement about its success until we have had a chance to play with it.
iCloud is not just "incomplete" but more like woefully inadequate and restrictive, compared to Dropbox or Google Drive.
You can't share iCloud with other Family users, you can't upload your own stuff easily, you can't do so many other things we expect to be able to do and can do on other cloud storage platforms.
iCloud sucks, I cancelled my subscription and will not bite again for a while. It's overpriced, under-delivering garbage....
You can't share iCloud with other Family users, you can't upload your own stuff easily, you can't do so many other things we expect to be able to do and can do on other cloud storage platforms.
iCloud sucks, I cancelled my subscription and will not bite again for a while. It's overpriced, under-delivering garbage....
Because iTunes is the app that plays music on your Mac? And so naturally iTunes syncs playlists etc, to your iPhone, iPad. Hey, if you don't want to use it, that's your prerogative. iTunes is more than easy to use. There's nothing to complain about here. Move along.
How do you organize your playlists? This is one of the reasons why I switched over to iTunes in 2007 and never looked back.