But it’s not a discussion. It’s the same people repeating the same unsolvable complaints over and over and over again.
That’s the difference that Adam pointed out between ‘criticism’ and ‘whining.’ That whining is not a conversation starter, it’s a conversation killer.
In my opinion the conversation killer is the “if you can’t say something nice don’t say it” mindset. For myself the time to have a discussion came and went in silence before I realised it and it wasn’t even a particularly big trigger to for me to decide that “yup, doin’ it!”.
Yes there are a number of trolls, yet while it might feel like repeated repetition to Adam but to many writing for the first time they’re only seeing themselves. Don’t assume they’re reading up and down all the threads like Adam and, yes I’m assuming, yourself. ASC is the perfect example of that where you can see minor variants of the exact same thing mega-multiple times per page. People are like that and more so in 2019.
Sure, but that’s not remotely what Adam was suggesting.
Maybe, but this thread is evidence that they’re not being shut down by the criticism.
And you’re also ignoring the flip side of the coin, which is all the people who read a whine-fest and decide not to post because it’s an unpleasant atmosphere. I gave up on Macintouch because it’s so relentless negative that it’s actively unpleasant.
(At least this way they’re confined to this thread).
That’s the way I read his original post and especially the last line in it. Irrespective of my error, this is Adam’s site and what he wants goes. If anyone wants something different to that they can put the effort in to create it. Simple as!
Yeah, but herding it all into the one thread is ultimately an attempt to shut it down. But again, Adam’s site so it is what it is. Don’t get me wrong, I do understand a decent slice of such as the “Tim Cook sucks and it would be different under Steve” etc. That sort of thing won’t ever get anywhere.
I’ve been told I that “dilute the brand” and don’t deserve to use Apple products on MacRumors. lol
His definition of ‘constructive’ is pretty clearly laid out earlier: “There is a difference between criticism and whining. Criticism is pointing out—without being insulting or demeaning—that a specific product, service, app, or feature has some sort of a problem. Criticism is backed by reproducible statements of fact and in an ideal world, includes realistic suggestions for improvement.”
As opposed to allowing it to dominate all the other threads?
But we’ve discussed it already, and no one here can do anything about it. It’s a dead horse.
There’s certainly an argument that a person shouldn’t be allowed to change an Apple ID password by just knowing the device’s passcode. In a world where security is all-important, it would win.
But since passcodes should never be shared, particularly in a world where almost every device has multi-user Touch ID or Face ID, there’s an equally valid argument that allowing a person who has forgotten their Apple ID password to be change it by knowing their passcode offers more benefit to the entire population of users and to Apple than the harm that comes to a few.
So no, I’m not going to write an article about it because I don’t see it as an obvious mistake on Apple’s part that needs fixing. I see it as a decision that Apple made and that you disagree with because it didn’t protect you from other mistakes you made. That’s entirely understandable, and you’re certainly welcome to lobby other journalists who might agree with your point of view. Continuing to beat the dead horse here certainly won’t have that effect.
I fear you overestimate my influence. I have a pretty good idea of what I can do, and it’s quite limited. Public criticism, even when it’s valid, deserved, and effectively communicated, is often not as effective as private discussions with the right person at the right time.
I’m not against discussion at all, as long as there’s a possibility for a constructive outcome or further exploration of a complex topic. I don’t think anyone who actually reads TidBITS would ever accuse me of being a shill for Apple. I am frequently critical of behaviors that I feel are detrimental, but I always try to suggest alternatives (except when the obvious alternative is “stop doing that”). If discussion involves raising questions I didn’t ask, or suggesting potentially similar scenarios that I might not have been aware of, that’s all great.
For instance, if you look over at the discussion in our article about Apple Announces Siri Privacy Reforms, that’s a fine discussion.
Similarly, my article proposing that users be allowed to train Siri engendered some great conversation and back and forth.
But in either one, statements that Siri sucks, and Google and Amazon do voice way better, or the like do nothing to further conversation.
I’ve never done improv for real, but in reading about it and talking with people about it, I’m tremendously impressed by the central tenet, which is to say “Yes, and…” to anything from the other participants. As soon as someone says “No,” the improvisation fails.
https://medium.com/improv4/saying-yes-and-a-principle-for-improv-business-life-fd050bccf7e3
Opinion…and whining. If you don’t like Apple’s stuff…move over to Windows or Android or roll your own with Linux flavor of your choice. Griping here accomplishes NOTHING.
Apple is not going to change what they do because of anything said here. Apple is going to do what Apple is going to do…and because they’re a public company required by law to maximize shareholder value…they’re…mostly…going to do what is 90% good enough for 90% of their users.
Will they make mistakes? Sure.
Will they do things that a particular user doesn’t like? Sure. But unless it affects a serious numbers of users or impacts their bottom line…they’re unlikely to do anything about it.
There have been things I liked…and things that I disliked…about EVERY version of macOS and iOS since I started using them. But the reality is that I can’t do anything about it…so one is left to either put up with it, find work arounds/different ways for doing stuff than I had last week, or going to another platform. Simple really.
I am hoping the class action anti-trust suit against the Apple App Store succeeds.
I’m not a lawyer either…but I think this suit is going nowhere. Apple is not a monopoly so can pretty much do whatever they want. Developers who don’t want to pay 30%…can go develop for Android.
That is ALL GONE in Catalina. All my music library and playlists were no longer present in the new Music App when first launched.
Are you saying that without an Apple Music subscription there was no access to the music you had bought/ripped/whatever and was on your hard drive from the OS? I’ve not used the beta so no knowledge…but I would think there’s a way to import your old music into the new app. If that’s the case…and there’s no workaround…then I’ll have to see what other app can import that music. About 99% of my music is stuff I ripped from CD myself…very little purchased from anyplace else.
My point is my music library is MINE. It belongs to me, not to Apple. They held what was MINE in their cloud and denied me access to MY music until I agreed to their extortion
And it may be that you just didn’t find the import button…or didn’t find the workaround…or whatever rather than any extortion attempt on Apple’s part. Dunno…haven’t used Catalina. It could also be a bug…in which case it will likely get fixed as many users have music that was not purchased through Apple. It could also be an oversight…something they didn’t think about…in which case it will likely get fixed. Even if it doesn’t…YOUR music was still resident on your drive and YOU could have done something beyond the Music app to listen to it…it’s not Apple’s job to make sure that YOUR music and stuff that they have no control over is available in APPLE’s Music app…although it seems like a reasonable feature to have included.
Whining about a BETA OS is pretty pointless…submit a bug report…or figure out another way to solve your problem…or just go and buy a frigging Window box instead. Griping here accomplishes nothing…which is about as much as me griping about griping does:-)
I agree with Adam…you’re overestimating his…or any journalist’s…influence. The only thing he or they can do is perhaps influence a contact inside the company…which may or may not actually do any good. Again…Apple is going to do whatever they think best to maximize shareholder value.
Let me see if I can clear this up.
All the actual music is on a Netgear server in storage back in the US. I’m traveling.
But I had uploaded the library metadata to Apple back when it was still attached and paid to subscribe to their matching service. Like $25 a year. They were successful in matching 40% or so of my library.
So without the server, the only thing I could actually play were the matched tunes.
Everything is all intact. The whole library, the playlists, and the matched tunes present in Apple’s collection.
The difference is it was all present upon launch in iTunes. It would just report the actual mp3 music file could not be found for the unmatched songs…
In the new app, all the libraries are new and separate: Music, Video, Podcasts.
Upon launch of the new Music App, my library was empty. The titles of my playlists were visible but the playlists themselves were empty. Zero song, no metadata, just playlist names in the sidebar.
To make it visible however, I had to subscribe. Or sign up for the trial.
Then it looked just like iTunes, the library and playlists intact, but only able to play the matched tunes.
So in the conversion, Apple preserved everything perfectly, but made it all a part of Apple Music.
Perhaps it would be different if I still had the library with the actual songs attached to my computer. Perhaps the library metadata will remain after I cancel Apple Music. Certainly I expect the matched tunes to go away after canceling.
There was no documentation. It’s still beta. But that old service of Apple taking your library and matching it is apparently no longer available as a separate service.
It’s built into Apple Music.
No bugs, no complaints. Although I was pretty panicked after it loaded the Catalina beta to find everything gone.
I did file a bug report because the library metadata should not be dependent upon subscribing to Apple Music, even if subscribing for 90 days was free. And maybe this is only affecting someone coming over from iTunes?
I’m just pretty happy with Spotify. And since I don’t have the music server with me, it is easier to just use Spotify instead of the Apple Music app.
i need to read some reviews of Apple Music versus Spotify.
I have very little knowledge of Apple Music so not in a position to offer an opinion.
I’ve really gotten tired and disgusted with this thread and had sworn off commenting. But I feel another history lesson is necessary here to put the development of the App Store into perspective. Think back to the 2000s when Facebook wasn’t yet a gleam in Mark Zuckerberg’s eye, Amazon was still mostly an online book and cd seller and Google was a Chrome free search engine. Except for Mac, Microsoft Windows (which was, and IMHO still is a ripoff of Mac. OS) had managed to obliterate every other operating system, Lotus Jazz, IBM’s PC DOS and OS/2 (which were initially developed in cooperation with Microsoft). Except for Adobe and a few others, and there very were few other developers other than Adobe, and MS was putting the screws to them to halt development for Macs, which Adobe announced they would. And there wasn’t much in the way of Windows apps that were being developed by companies other than Microsoft either.
In 2000, Microsoft Office Standard, cheapest version of the package, cost $499 for new users and $209 for upgrades. Office Premium was $799 new, $399 for upgrades. So figure in 20 years of currency inflation:
This started to change once the Apple developed the App Store and started to give away it’s Office knock off for free. The App Store let anyone who could develop a sandboxed app have a place to market and sell it. It totally and absolutely changed the way software is marketed and sold and gave developers of all sizes a way to make money, and there’s over a billion Apple devices in use, a big % of which are iOS. And iOS users not just spend more on apps, they spend more within apps. For the first half of 2019, Apple has earned $25.5 billion in App Store sales and Google earned $14.2 billion:
Google has about the same pricing structure as the App Store; they both charge 30%, and IFIRC, there’s a small difference in membership fee. Apple does have stricter app vetting policies.
Personally, I don’t think the fee is unreasonable at all. Apple not only delivers superior audience and sales numbers as well as vetting, they are responsible for payments, taxes, currency exchanges, cloud services, etc., all of which vary in countries across the globe. And they provide excellent marketing support and analysis.
Particularly for PDF files, you might want to consider adding them to the Books app. With the respective iCloud configuration, that’ll also synchronize the files across your devices, and it can make accessing them a bit more effective, what with its optimized-for-readible-stuff 
UI.
There’s more good news today about App Store revenues:
“Morgan Stanley pointed to new research from app data tracking firm Sensor Tower, which shows that August App Store revenue saw the strongest year-over-year growth since February 2018 and the largest month-over-month acceleration since early 2015. The firm maintained its overweight rating and $247 price target on Apple’s stock.”
Apple poised to report huge growth in App Store sales, Morgan Stanley says:
To a greater or lesser degree, Apple’s always played fast and loose with its own user interface guidelines, long before Tim Cook began his Reign of Misrule (™).
You know, I love noting in situations like this that Tim Cook’s Apple makes more profit every year than Steve Jobs did in all his time at Apple combined.
Check out how iPhone continues to dominate a highly desirable, maybe even the most desirable, US market segment:
83% of teens own an iPhone (up slightly vs. LY) whereas 86% of teens expect an iPhone to be their next phone
And how Apple Arcade subscriptions could be a very profitable way to keep these iPhone buyers locked in:
Video games is one of the most notable share gainers in the survey at 14% of teen male spending vs. 11% multi-year average
http://www.piperjaffray.com/3col.aspx?id=5552
Since Josh asked about Arcade games reviews, it might be a good way to lure in some younger subscribers to TidBITS. Maybe eventually a spin off newsletter? It would take some promotion to get it off the ground.
I stopped by here when this article first started on August 26. I stopped by for fun and am astounded how the “beat goes on” - I have been a long time Mac user, not a Mac fan. I know there are shortcomings and issues I wish were better. I post these issues to Apple Support and wait. Because the alternative platforms do not work for our company, we stick with what we know and what works.
I am not surprised to see that complaints keep on coming. I think I have learned that there is nothing more fun than complaining! I have also learned complaining requires understanding where to post your issues. And, while this discussion keeps the hits coming to Tidbits (not a bad thing), I am not sure it is solving anything.
At any rate, carry on and have some fun while you are at it.
BTW, I am not a fan of whining, but here I am whining about people whining!
Apple still doesn’t want to pay their taxes, neither domestically or internationally. “We pay enough taxes,” opines Tim Cook.
Jobs created companies and industries because there were great things to be done. Jobs transformed the world, Tim Cook made an international tax criminal out of Apple (no don’t delete that Adam in a knee-jerk reaction please, Apple is before the courts in the EU for exactly that, illegal tax evasion).
I won’t delete it, but I will note that you’re characterizing it in an overly extreme and unbalanced way. Apple is before the courts in the EU because the company is appealing the EU’s decision to make Apple pay Ireland $14 billion in back taxes. Without getting into the details of the situation at all, which are vastly more complex than everyone agreeing that Apple is guilty of tax evasion, I find it worth noting that the Irish government is also appealing the decision.
When the supposed victim of wrong-doing is saying, “Well, no, actually, I wasn’t a victim,” it’s hard to consider it a open-and-shut case.
And yes, I did delete the text insulting everyone in North America. Whining is offensive enough, but I don’t allow insults of individuals or groups.
Jobs may have invented the products that transformed the world, but it was Tim Cook who figured out how to make and distribute those products globally, at a scale almost unprecedented in human history. Cook was the one who actually got them broadly into people’s hands. Jobs created it; Cook made it a consumer product.
As to the tax thing, I note the case covers taxes not paid in Ireland from 2004-2014, which means that, by your logic, Jobs was the one that got Apple into that situation.
Regarding taxes…Apple is simply following the law…one of the ways you maximize value is to minimize costs and that includes taxes. Tax evasion is illegal…tax avoidance by following the rules that various tax levying authorities institute is not only legal but even the IRS recommends doing so.