Since Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference in early June, word has spread that iOS 6 will remove the Podcasts tab from the Music app, and in preparation, Apple has released a new app called Podcasts into the app store.
It's pretty. I'm pretty pissed off at it.
First things first, it has some reaslly nice features, you can: subscribe to podcasts using the built-in Catalog or radio-inspired "Channels" section; set varying subscription/auto-download settings per podcast; and most importantly, receive new episodes over the air automatically.
But.
There are some serious issues that honestly make me wonder if this wasn't an assignment given to an intern as a trial by fire; if that is the case, they have been burned.
There are … pauses
As soon as the app starts it shows you the Library and then … you wait. It's probably checking you Music app for un-synced podcasts or something over the network, but it's certainly not in any hurry to let you do things like scroll around, tap a podcast, or anything else. Occasionally it will just stop responding for seemingly no reason. It's like your brand new iPhone has changed into a 3+ year old HTC Frond.
Car integration is completey busted
What's a great place to listen to podcasts? In your car! Cars with "iPod integration" have a USB port (or more rarely, a dangling Apple 30-pin connector somewhere) that you can connect your iPod or iPhone to, and then use the car's play/pause, next and previous buttons to control playback. It's awesome, and in Apple's new Podcasts app, it only works for about 3-5 seconds, just about long enough for you to get on the road. Wretched. (I know it's busted for the 2010 Prius. Maybe another car works better? I can't really afford to test that.)
There is no indication of new episodes
The default view of your library is lists of podcast's album art in a scrollable list. Do new episodes show up as a badge, or is there maybe just a blue dot like in Mail.app? No! You get to poke around randomly and be dissapointed until you happen across one, or just give up and switch to the table view. The table view is also the only place to find a "playlist" of all unplayed episodes.
Episodes won't download over 3G if they're larger than 50 MB
This is greatly improved over the old limit of 10MB, but it's still stupid. If you stream the episode instead of downloading it, the whole thing still plays! Stop making me play games and download the damn thing.
As released this app is awful, but maybe they can throw a few more developer hours at it before iOS 6 and the new iPhone come out in October. If not, I guess I'll have to start sizing up the third party options. This is hugely annoying because I don't need any fancy features, if this app simply worked properly I'd be perfectly happy.
Showing posts with label User Experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label User Experience. Show all posts
July 5, 2012
April 20, 2012
What your smartphone's default email signature says about what manufacturers think of you
I would like to think that this is a fake, a joke, someone having a lark. But in the end I know it probably isn't. It got me thinking, though, about these things. I turned off the "Sent from my iPhone" signature on my phone because I have no interest in attaching tiny ads to my emails, but if you compare the two they send rather different messages; let's explore.
Sent from my iPhone
This is technically an ad, yes, but it also sounds somewhat personal. I sent this email to you from my iPhone; implied is a mea culpa for any typos in the message. Perhaps I was walking down the hall, at lunch, whatever I do when I reply to email away from my desk. Taken this way you could almost believe (though not quite) that I actually chose this as an email signature just to convey that message. At the very least, marketing or not, it's short.
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ II Skyrocket™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone.
There is nothing technical about this; my default email signature is a blatant advertisement for both my phone and carrier, one of which likely exchanged large sums of money to be included in my every message in the hopes that my not caring or knowing how to change it will hopefully influence you into believing that one and/or the other of these companies offers a product/service worth a damn. I am unlikely to tell you face to face that I ever send anything via anything else. Neither am I likely to remember all 5 segments of my smartphone's full name if ever quizzed about it. Please, the next time we meet in person, tell me what the Menu button in Android does so I might be able to change this. I am more than happy to stand there and let a sales person tell me that Android 2.3.5 is "state-of-the-art" and neither crack a smile nor roll my eyes. I promise you I don't know how to type ™ on this keyboard. I wish I didn't sign a two-year contract for this. Finally, if there are typos I'm sorry, I sent this from my phone because I decided it couldn't wait until I got back to my desk.
I'll briefly drop the same advice here that I give to anyone that asks me in person:
So you want a smartphone? If you ever plan to ask me a question about it, you should get an iPhone. If you're going to ignore that sage wisdom, then the only Android phone worth owning at any time is whichever one has "Nexus" in the name this year. No, I don't know if you can get one at the Verizon/AT&T Store.
Does this mean I think you, gentle reader, have made a terrible error in buying whatever non-Nexus Android phone you might have? Not if you're a tech geek and knew full well ahead of time what you were getting into and decided "I really want this phone even though it will never be improved beyond its current state," or you plan to put CyanogenMod on it yourself. Have a good time with all of that (but don't ask me what's happening when it goes walkabout on you).
Sent from my iPhone
This is technically an ad, yes, but it also sounds somewhat personal. I sent this email to you from my iPhone; implied is a mea culpa for any typos in the message. Perhaps I was walking down the hall, at lunch, whatever I do when I reply to email away from my desk. Taken this way you could almost believe (though not quite) that I actually chose this as an email signature just to convey that message. At the very least, marketing or not, it's short.
Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ II Skyrocket™, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone.
There is nothing technical about this; my default email signature is a blatant advertisement for both my phone and carrier, one of which likely exchanged large sums of money to be included in my every message in the hopes that my not caring or knowing how to change it will hopefully influence you into believing that one and/or the other of these companies offers a product/service worth a damn. I am unlikely to tell you face to face that I ever send anything via anything else. Neither am I likely to remember all 5 segments of my smartphone's full name if ever quizzed about it. Please, the next time we meet in person, tell me what the Menu button in Android does so I might be able to change this. I am more than happy to stand there and let a sales person tell me that Android 2.3.5 is "state-of-the-art" and neither crack a smile nor roll my eyes. I promise you I don't know how to type ™ on this keyboard. I wish I didn't sign a two-year contract for this. Finally, if there are typos I'm sorry, I sent this from my phone because I decided it couldn't wait until I got back to my desk.
I'll briefly drop the same advice here that I give to anyone that asks me in person:
So you want a smartphone? If you ever plan to ask me a question about it, you should get an iPhone. If you're going to ignore that sage wisdom, then the only Android phone worth owning at any time is whichever one has "Nexus" in the name this year. No, I don't know if you can get one at the Verizon/AT&T Store.
Does this mean I think you, gentle reader, have made a terrible error in buying whatever non-Nexus Android phone you might have? Not if you're a tech geek and knew full well ahead of time what you were getting into and decided "I really want this phone even though it will never be improved beyond its current state," or you plan to put CyanogenMod on it yourself. Have a good time with all of that (but don't ask me what's happening when it goes walkabout on you).
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