Perpetual Random Apple Rants Thread

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gregatron5

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  • #1
    We all(?) love Apple and its products to some extent or another, but we can all definitely agree Apple is not perfect. Let’s have a thread for gripes big and little that don’t necessarily deserve their own thread but would feel good to vent about. I’ll start.

    Apple can put a speaker and U1 chip in the AirPods Pro case but not the Apple TV remote? WTF Apple!
     
    Cranioclast

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  • #3
    What's going on with Apple's weather widgets? They bought Dark Sky (the best weather app/site I've ever used) and are shutting it down. Their widgets all still link to The Weather Channel, though.

    So they bought and shuttered a decent weather service and are still sending their users to IBM's weird 24-hour cable site? Admittedly, The Weather Channel (and Weather Underground) have improved recently. They seemed to be on a downward trajectory towards more annoying ads and videos about how the weather is going to kill you, a trend the continued for way too long after the IBM acquisition. I guess that's more of an IBM rant.

    So when do we get to see what became of Dark Sky or did Apple just buy it to kill it?
     
    Jonathon

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  • #9
    Cranioclast said:
    dmsilev said:
    I assume the Dark Sky purchase was to serve as a foundation for WeatherKit.
    Click to expand...
    Oh, that's good. You would assume they are going to create a website for their widgets to link to. Interestingly, weather.apple.com exists, but currently returns a 403 response.
    Click to expand...
    The widgets link into the Weather app on iOS and will on iPadOS when 16.1 launches; that's powered by Dark Sky now.

    Not sure what their plan is for the macOS widget, though. There's still no Weather app on Ventura (not even a Catalyst port of the iPad app), so probably just leave it pointing to weather.com and pretend it doesn't exist.
     
    Arasirsul

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  • #11
    dal20402 said:
    All I want:
    (4) A desktop display of the quality of the 14" and 16" MBP screens
    Click to expand...

    This, but I want it twice, and I want them to actually test their systems with two of them and fix their multi-screen wake-up issues. The fact that I still can't wake my clamshell mac when it's connected to two screens is insane. I have to open the lid about half the time.

    I'd also like them to pay attention to which sound output devices I use. Yes, my webcam reports having a sound device. No, I never _ever_ want to use it. Please quit trying.
     
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    dal20402

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  • #12
    Arasirsul said:
    This, but I want it twice, and I want them to actually test their systems with two of them and fix their multi-screen wake-up issues. The fact that I still can't wake my clamshell mac when it's connected to two screens is insane. I have to open the lid about half the time.

    I'd also like them to pay attention to which sound output devices I use. Yes, my webcam reports having a sound device. No, I never _ever_ want to use it. Please quit trying.
    Click to expand...

    To be fair this has rarely been an issue with Apple or Apple-blessed displays. I spent the money on two LG UF5Ks partly because they completely solved this problem when connected to my iMac Pro. No sleep/wake issues ever.
     
    Mhorydyn

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  • #14
    dal20402 said:
    All I want:

    (1) Multiuser support in iPads
    (2) Cell radios in MacBooks
    (3) ActiveSync for macOS
    (4) A desktop display of the quality of the 14" and 16" MBP screens
    (5) Aperture back from the dead

    That's it. Not a huge list.
    Click to expand...

    I'd settle for just #5. Photos has improved over the years, but it's still not really good enough. I stick with it due to the convenience and integration, but I wish they just brought Aperture back.
     
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    jaberg

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  • #15
    Mhorydyn said:
    dal20402 said:
    All I want:

    (5) Aperture back from the dead

    That's it. Not a huge list.
    Click to expand...

    I'd settle for just #5. Photos has improved over the years, but it's still not really good enough. I stick with it due to the convenience and integration, but I wish they just brought Aperture back.
    Click to expand...

    +3 for the return of Aperture.
     
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    MrElbbiw

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  • #16
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    galad

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  • #17
    Jonathon said:
    Cranioclast said:
    dmsilev said:
    I assume the Dark Sky purchase was to serve as a foundation for WeatherKit.
    Click to expand...
    Oh, that's good. You would assume they are going to create a website for their widgets to link to. Interestingly, weather.apple.com exists, but currently returns a 403 response.
    Click to expand...
    The widgets link into the Weather app on iOS and will on iPadOS when 16.1 launches; that's powered by Dark Sky now.

    Not sure what their plan is for the macOS widget, though. There's still no Weather app on Ventura (not even a Catalyst port of the iPad app), so probably just leave it pointing to weather.com and pretend it doesn't exist.
    Click to expand...

    Ventura has got the Weather app, and clicking the widget will open it.
     
    Jonathon

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  • #18
    galad said:
    Jonathon said:
    Cranioclast said:
    dmsilev said:
    I assume the Dark Sky purchase was to serve as a foundation for WeatherKit.
    Click to expand...
    Oh, that's good. You would assume they are going to create a website for their widgets to link to. Interestingly, weather.apple.com exists, but currently returns a 403 response.
    Click to expand...
    The widgets link into the Weather app on iOS and will on iPadOS when 16.1 launches; that's powered by Dark Sky now.

    Not sure what their plan is for the macOS widget, though. There's still no Weather app on Ventura (not even a Catalyst port of the iPad app), so probably just leave it pointing to weather.com and pretend it doesn't exist.
    Click to expand...

    Ventura has got the Weather app, and clicking the widget will open it.
    Click to expand...
    I need to play around with Ventura more, apparently.
     
    mklein

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  • #20
    The Mac User Interface needs a top level czar to make sure every nook and cranny of the Mac experience is excellent. For example, try searching for something in Calendar, and you will see the suggestion list block the actual search results.

    I often want to create a long list of issues like this but am not getting paid to do so.

    Another example ~ any typo in Spotlight will invalidate the search. Can't they figure this out after decades?
    Copying a lot of files and folders on various hard drives is maddening -- there's two hours remaining for which folders and files to where?
    Another one: I have 10,000 videos in Photos, I just want to attach one of them in an email, and it is impossible to show it in the finder. Why?!? So then dragging it from the Photos windows begins a bizarre slow export process!
     
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    dal20402

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  • #22
    mklein said:
    Another example ~ any typo in Spotlight will invalidate the search. Can't they figure this out after decades?
    Click to expand...

    I agree with your other examples but I think this is a blessing and an advantage of Spotlight. I get extremely annoyed by Google always wanting to give me results that are not what I actually searched for because something else spelled similarly is more common.
     
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    daGUY

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  • #24
    I don’t get what Apple’s overall strategy is with regard to product colors, particularly the iPhone. Why are there so few options, why are they generally so bland and boring, and why is there no consistency from year to year? I’m sick of these “space gray but if you hold it at just the right angle in certain lighting there’s a tint of X” colors. Give me products in a real color that I can see!

    Additionally, there’s little consistency between product lines. Why do the iPad mini and iPad Air come in all the same colors except for blue? Why do the iPhone 12 and 14 come in purple, but not the 13? Why doesn’t the iPhone 14 Pro come in blue anymore when the 13 Pro and 12 Pro did, and the non-Pro 14 still does? Why doesn’t any model of iPhone 14 come in green when the 11, 12, and 13 all did? Why does the MacBook Air come in Midnight but not the MacBook Pro? Etc.

    The new iMac strategy is the way to go: one “safe” default silver model, and then a full spectrum of actual colors for everything else. Put the people who designed the iMac in charge of colors across all product lines!
     
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    irfoton

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  • #25
    1 - overlapping windows for iPadOS
    2 - put a major effort into Siri - get it back on track
    3 - bring back Apple routers
    4 - increase base iCloud storage from 5GB to something useful
    5 - Bring back outline mode in Pages
    6 - fix Spotlight results window on macOS - why can't I go to the enclosing folder of a document from that window!!
     
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    dal20402

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  • #26
    irfoton said:
    3 - bring back Apple routers
    Click to expand...

    At this point, with how few people are using anything other than what the ISP brung 'em, you might as well suggest bringing back the QuickTake.

    irfoton said:
    4 - increase base iCloud storage from 5GB to something useful[
    Click to expand...

    Dangit, this should have been on my list. :judge: Since the free tier became 5GB we should have seen at least two and probably three doublings.

    irfoton said:
    6 - fix Spotlight results window on macOS - why can't I go to the enclosing folder of a document from that window!!
    Click to expand...

    You can do that! Right-click on the appropriate result and there is a "Show in Enclosing Folder" item in the contextual menu.
     
    9600man

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  • #28
    The Touch Bar. I found it to be remarkably useable and intuitive. Which surprised me for all the gripes I heard about it. I never messed around with customising it as the Macbook M1 I have is only temporary and I don't want to get to used to a hardware paradigm Apple has dropped alrady (RIP 3D touch on the iPhone, you were a glorious heuristic evolution to the greybeard 2d tapping 😢).

    Since I never really followed the TouchBarGate saga, why was it dropped? Was it the greybeards? Did they kick a fuss? Or is it a hardware failure thing where over time the touch bar became unreliable?
     
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    ham bulu

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  • #29
    I don't know about Apple's internal reasoning, but as a someone who actually liked it I can recount my perspective:

    1. It was a clear mistake to not have a physical ESC button, which they corrected in a later iteration but held back a of lot users from embracing it
    2. They never integrated it into the Magic Keyboard which again held back users with second screen setups from building workflows around it (which ironically the 2016 USB-C only MBPs excelled at)
    3. Developer adaption rate was low since Apple chose to limit the Touch Bar to MBPs for better market segmentation instead of establishing it on all Macs and Apple notebooks
    4. It additionally suffered from the 2016 MBP's general reception and was quickly tossed into the "solution for non-existent problems"-bin alongside the butterfly keyboard

    9600man said:
    The Touch Bar. I found it to be remarkably useable and intuitive. Which surprised me for all the gripes I heard about it. I never messed around with customising it as the Macbook M1 I have is only temporary and I don't want to get to used to a hardware paradigm Apple has dropped alrady (RIP 3D touch on the iPhone, you were a glorious heuristic evolution to the greybeard 2d tapping 😢).

    Since I never really followed the TouchBarGate saga, why was it dropped? Was it the greybeards? Did they kick a fuss? Or is it a hardware failure thing where over time the touch bar became unreliable?
    Click to expand...
     
    JimCampbell

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  • #31
    9600man said:
    Was it the greybeards? Did they kick a fuss? Or is it a hardware failure thing where over time the touch bar became unreliable?
    Click to expand...

    Well, for me, a white beard, it was a perfect storm of things: I only use the laptop in a non-desktop configuration (ie: without an external keyboard) about 20% of the time and the Touchbar hiked the price significantly for a 'feature' I wasn't going to use 80% of the time. When I did use the laptop as a laptop, my workflow already used F-keys, so I had to set the Touchbar to permanently display them, meaning it had zero utility over a non-Touchbar keyboard with the added annoyance of not being able to navigate by touch. Add in the non-physical ESC key, which was incredibly easy to brush and activate, especially when going for an F-key, frequently cancelling the dialogue box I'd just invoked via the F-key in the first place. Then, to add insult to injury, mine developed the strobing fault.

    So… no, I shed no tears over its demise!
     
    cateye

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  • #33
    "solution for non-existent problems"
    Click to expand...
    ++. It replaced F-keys for people who were easily confused by F-keys (is that an actual audience?), and those of us who actually used the F-keys to their full potential were pissed off and loud about it.

    Add on what everyone else had said: Little developer support plus Apple's typical profit-minded decision to use it as a differentiator for expensive laptops and never expanding it beyond that set up for guaranteed failure. There was no other possible conclusion for a feature no one asked for, few used, developers ignored, and Apple had no intelligent vision for why they introduced it in the first place. It was an unnecessary "we're special and different" bullet point when Apple had a moment of existential doubt about the appeal of their laptops.

    So that would be my Apple rant: "special and different" does not make for essential, quality products. It makes for twee marketing copy with nothing to back it up.
     
    Jonathon

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  • #34
    cateye said:
    "solution for non-existent problems"
    Click to expand...
    ++. It replaced F-keys for people who were easily confused by F-keys (is that an actual audience?), and those of us who actually used the F-keys to their full potential were pissed off and loud about it.

    Add on what everyone else had said: Little developer support plus Apple's typical profit-minded decision to use it as a differentiator for expensive laptops and never expanding it beyond that set up for guaranteed failure. There was no other possible conclusion for a feature no one asked for, few used, developers ignored, and Apple had no intelligent vision for why they introduced it in the first place. It was an unnecessary "we're special and different" bullet point when Apple had a moment of existential doubt about the appeal of their laptops.

    So that would be my Apple rant: "special and different" does not make for essential, quality products. It makes for twee marketing copy with nothing to back it up.
    Click to expand...
    I still like it for volume and brightness controls; those feel really natural as sliders instead of buttons.

    Unfortunately, it never really did anything else useful-- probably the most compelling use case it had was as a scrubber in audio and video applications, and it doesn't even do that well (too small and imprecise, not to mention that you have to take your eyes off the screen and your content to use it, making it demonstrably worse than an on-screen seek bar or timeline). It's actively bad for apps that did use it for button controls, because you have to look at it to do anything but it's also easily triggered by accidental touches (if I had a dollar for every time I've dropped out of a video call because Chrome puts its back and refresh buttons there...).
     
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    dal20402

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  • #35
    I've been using my 2019 MBP for the last few days while my 2021 version is in another city, which has given me back the Touch Bar after not using it for a while. I've noticed and appreciated the Touch Bar's presence, even as the fan noise, heat, and screen quality of the 2019 MBP all remind me of why I like the 2021 machine. I so wish I could configure the hard keys on the 2021 to do something, anything, other than trigger Siri and Spotlight. I also enjoy the soft keys for Zoom and Teams calls, and (I admit it) the emoji picker.

    I still wish Apple had sought to improve the Touch Bar and bring it to the desktop. But I would prefer any of the other things on my list more.
     
    Jonathon

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  • #36
    Setting up my new 14 Pro and waiting for apps to download after transferring data to my new phone (used the direct phone-to-phone transfer, which seems to have worked quite nicely).

    One would think that it'd prioritize downloading the apps that are actually on my home screen first. Or perhaps download in order of most used. Or download the apps that have widgets on my home screen first, so I don't have big black gaps on the screen for hours.

    Nope. Not sure what order it's going in, but it was probably a good 20 minutes in before it downloaded anything on the home screen that I didn't explicitly tell it to prioritize. Because, you know, a bunch of Apple Arcade games that I haven't played in three months are way more important than the handful of apps that I use all day, every day.
     
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    dal20402

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  • #40
    irfoton said:
    neither of those work on my machine.
    Click to expand...

    You don't have this?

    soef.png
     
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