Re: iPhone = Excellent

"Sandman" <mr@xxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
mr-4ED686.15452102072007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 7/2/07 6:45 AM:

In article <C2ADF8C9.86752%CSMA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Snit <CSMA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

How do you figure? How is it easier to surf the web on a Mac?

As I said: there are pros and cons for each but all do a good job. The UI
of IE 7 confuses many users and there is a greater risk of malware with
Windows... but it is also true that there are websites Safari does not work
well with (though also true of IE 7, it is more true of Safari). Safari
does have private browsing and snap back, but, again, I think all do fill
the basic needs well.

Yeah, I think features that make web browsing easier is form auto-fill
and things like that. The UI of the web browser is pretty secondary to
the UI of the web pages, generally. Basically, for a new user I can't
see any huge difference between Safari/IE or even Safari/Firefox when
it comes to how easy it is to surf the web.

Well, when you open a PDF IE presents multiple print buttons and has other
oddities - but, yes, all do the job adequately. So it does not sound like I
am just picking on IE, I will say when I have a lot of tabs open I getting
the spinning wheel with Safari more than I would like - though I do not see
it much on newer hardware.

It boils down to this controversy of applications staying open when
their last window has been closed and things like that. The users sees
an interface (the window) and closes that interface - so why is the
application still open? Things like that.

Sure: and there are differences there - but I think if someone just wanted a
machine for email and web then any of the OSs would work OK. OS X might
have an advantage in that it shows image attachment quite well and has some
other goodies, but overall I think they all work close enough to the same to
not make a *big* advocacy point. At least not as big as what I list, below:

Sure, but in the sphere of "discoverability", the UI of the Mac could
be improved. Just to use Mail as an example;

1. How do I move a mail message - ok, I just drag it to a folder. Fine.

Most can do this after being shown once.

2. How do I delete a message? Ok, I mark it and then click the delete
widget in the top.

Mark it? Do you mean select it? You can also delete it the same way you
move messages - just drag it to the trash. Or, if the message is open, just
hit delete.

3. How do I delete several messages? Ok, I select several and click
delete.

And selecting multiple is not really very discoverable... Picasa tries to
deal with this but I am not sure I like how it handles multiple selections.
Some programs have check boxes next to the messages (or files). This seems
to work better - and I will say MS is doing this more than is Apple.

4. How do I select several messages? Hmmm, shift/command key while
clicking? Hmmm, ok

And so on... Discoverability breaks down the more complex the task is.
How do you change the UI to make this easier? Can it even be done?

Check boxes in your example... but sometimes I am not sure it can be done...
not without cluttering the UI. Programs such as Photoshop or Flash have
enough "modes" and functions where it makes discoverability challenging for
most. MS Word suffers from this as well - it is one of the main things MS
is trying to solve with their new UI. I look forward to working with it
more and seeing more people work with it - so far it seems like a relative
success... and I am sure there will be tweaks to improve it as time goes by.

Weird talking about MS solving some UI issues... just weird!

I am not convinced Apple's methods in Pages and Keynote is really working...

* Working with multiple applications: for the most part, again, OS
X has an advantage here: the Dock is easy to use and applications
do not get opened multiple times... as they do in most other OSs.

What do you mean by multiple times?

At once. I cannot tell you how many times I see people on Windows trying to
get back to a window by opening the application again... which creates more
confusion in that it adds to the task bar

Isn't this true only for web browser? I really don't know.

No, this is true for most - though not all - applications. So things like
this happen - say a user is working in Word and wants to copy an image from
some website to it. The open IE and navigate to the image and, assuming they
know how, right click and select copy. They then click the Word icon in the
quicklaunch bar and open a new document in Word. They get confused. They
try to go back to the image in IE... and open a new instance of IE. Now if
they look at their task bar they have (at leas) four options... and are
stuck.

Windows does not make working with multiple applications as discoverable as
does the Mac.

I just tried to click ProntoEdit Professional in the start menu while it was
already running and it just brought the app to the front.

Hmmm, try some other apps.

Plus, what should actually happen when you click the application icon again?
The general rule on OSX is to bring all application windows to the front, or
if there are none, create a new window. Yeha, I think that is the best way to
handle it.

Agreed.

It's harder to switch between open windows in OSX, however.

Sometimes... an assuming the task bar on Windows does not get overcrowded
and assuming the "tasks" on the taskbar do not become menus... though even
then you just click the item - on OS X you have to click and hold or
control/right click.

Yes, but they are only "open" in the sense of the application keeping
a list of urls. They're not cached in memory at the same time.

Does it have to reload them each time?

Yeah, as far as I've understood.

Look here: <http://www.apple.com/iphone/internet/>. It keeps thumbnails of
the different pages... at the very least. I am not sure what happens when
you leave the browser and come back to it, but it does seem to allow you to
have multiple pages open at once when it is open.

Yeah, well, thumbnails != cache. And when I think about it, I read
about it not keeping cache of the *history*, i.e. when you hit "Back"
you actually have to reload that page.

Multiple windows may be a different story, I admit.

Though seems likely it would reload those as well. Sort of a pain
considering its slow network.

Again, it "saves" multiple cities. The wether widget isn't constantly
running in the background, I'd guess.

True: but when it is running it might load multiple cities - even those in
the background.

Oh I hope it does. This really doesn't constitute having multiple
applications running at once, though. :)

Not multiple applications but multiple tasks.

Not parts. You can send the current URL as an email, that's all. Saari
has a "Share" button that, well, just prepares an email with the
current URL.

OK.

Which, as far as I can understand, is the only way to get anything but
iTUnes-synced data back to your Mac. The Notes application doesn't
even sync back to your Mac.

However, that may be because iPhone was supposed to be launched at the
same time as Leopard, which does have Notes functionality.

I expect that when Leopard ships the iPhone will also get some functionality
bumps... if not right then shortly after.

Rumor has it that it might work with better networks in your neck of the
woods...

Yeah, I think Apple has to do this for the European launch...

From what I know the phone situation in Europe is well ahead of what it is
in the US - in general. Apple will have to account for that.


--
? It is OK to email yourself files and store them there for a few weeks
? No legislation supercedes the Constitution (unless it amends it)
? Apple's video format is not far from NTSC DVD and good enough for most


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