iOS 14 is available today(apple.com)
apple.com
iOS 14 is available today
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/ios-14-is-available-today/
442 comments
> People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
People rarely criticize Apple for the products themselves. Apple gets criticism because of the "weird" (for lack of a better word) restrictions on the products. I've stopped using a Mac for quite a while now - but I recall examples - when the first Macbooks came without a optical drive you could buy an external one. But it will only work with _that particular Macbook model_ (after googling around I found that you could send a magic SCSI string to make it work). There is no iPhone with a SD card slot - my dad _LOVED_ iOS and his iPhone 6S but he had to switch to an Android phone so that he can use a 500GB SD card to store all his photos (he wants _ALL_ his photos available locally on the phone, so cloud sync is not an option).
I could go on. Apple makes some amazing products, but then adds quirks that makes the amaze short lived.
People rarely criticize Apple for the products themselves. Apple gets criticism because of the "weird" (for lack of a better word) restrictions on the products. I've stopped using a Mac for quite a while now - but I recall examples - when the first Macbooks came without a optical drive you could buy an external one. But it will only work with _that particular Macbook model_ (after googling around I found that you could send a magic SCSI string to make it work). There is no iPhone with a SD card slot - my dad _LOVED_ iOS and his iPhone 6S but he had to switch to an Android phone so that he can use a 500GB SD card to store all his photos (he wants _ALL_ his photos available locally on the phone, so cloud sync is not an option).
I could go on. Apple makes some amazing products, but then adds quirks that makes the amaze short lived.
I hear you.
The headphone jack on the phone, I can actually see it. Not a lot of real estate inside a phone, and they wanted people to try AirPods (which I love, and might not have tried if it weren't for the missing jack).
But... no headphone jack on a 13" tablet? I edit movies on there sometimes and I grumble every time I dust off the dongle to plug in a mic for voiceovers.
But, no, people criticize Apple for everything they can think of. It's one of those companies where there's a set of people who, for whatever weird reason, have decided it's the enemy. They're against Apple and everything it stands for.
It's strange, I think the only company I feel that way about is Facebook. Maybe because phones are the most intimate things we own, they become part of our identities?
The headphone jack on the phone, I can actually see it. Not a lot of real estate inside a phone, and they wanted people to try AirPods (which I love, and might not have tried if it weren't for the missing jack).
But... no headphone jack on a 13" tablet? I edit movies on there sometimes and I grumble every time I dust off the dongle to plug in a mic for voiceovers.
But, no, people criticize Apple for everything they can think of. It's one of those companies where there's a set of people who, for whatever weird reason, have decided it's the enemy. They're against Apple and everything it stands for.
It's strange, I think the only company I feel that way about is Facebook. Maybe because phones are the most intimate things we own, they become part of our identities?
>But... no headphone jack on a 13" tablet? I edit movies on there sometimes and I grumble every time I dust off the dongle to plug in a mic for voiceovers.
This is especially dumb from Apple considering the number of pro audio apps marketed for the iPad that require the use of a wired connection for latency reasons. (no, Bluetooth audio will never have low enough latency for music production)
This is especially dumb from Apple considering the number of pro audio apps marketed for the iPad that require the use of a wired connection for latency reasons. (no, Bluetooth audio will never have low enough latency for music production)
these same pro users are likely going to need more than a single USB port and will likely have dongles with them.
> They're against Apple and everything it stands for
I think it's because Apple competitors try to copy the look and feel (round corners, hiding stuff away, make it convoluted to get to advanced settings to make the settings look less "intimidating") to try to pull Apple userbase and it waters down the experience for the people who are against Apple.
I think it's because Apple competitors try to copy the look and feel (round corners, hiding stuff away, make it convoluted to get to advanced settings to make the settings look less "intimidating") to try to pull Apple userbase and it waters down the experience for the people who are against Apple.
> Not a lot of real estate inside a phone
iPhone got thicker and bigger when they removed the headphone jack.
iPhone got thicker and bigger when they removed the headphone jack.
doesn't that reinforce the point? Space was needed for something else...
To play devils advocate, I think from apples perspective they 100% don't want people using random SD cards they buy from amazon then calling up apple tech support for help when it fails/corrupts all their photos that weren't synced to the cloud, posting complaints online about how the iOS lost all thier photos etc...
Although personally i think there still should be one, and a headphone jack!
Although personally i think there still should be one, and a headphone jack!
Apple found out people were using SD cards to expand the storage on their Macbooks in stead of buying the higher storage options... few years later the SD card slot is dropped entirely.
Even the immense photo and video/graphics userbase of Apple wasn't enough to stop the SD card slot removal. :-(
Even the immense photo and video/graphics userbase of Apple wasn't enough to stop the SD card slot removal. :-(
Which model had the slot? Like the original? I started with the 5 and it didn’t have one but I’ve always been hampered by the lack of space.
MacBook laptops had SD cards slots, or at least the Air and Pro models. iPhones and iPads never did, although there’s been a super awkward adapter available for iPad since it first came out, but it is super limited in what it can be used for.
> People rarely criticize Apple for the products themselves
Apple prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrducts smetimes prrrrrevent them frrrrrrrrrm ding s
Apple prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrducts smetimes prrrrrevent them frrrrrrrrrm ding s
I came here to say the same thing. Just watched a few Star Wars and Pixar scenes on Disney+ and I was shocked how well it worked. I thought it might be gimmicky, but it's a total game changer for watching movies at night with Airpods. Also very happy my iPhone can finally display PIP as well.
Do you know how it compares to Dolby Atmos for headphones, DTS Headphone:X, and Windows Sonic? Those solutions all work with conventional stereo headphones.
Edit: after more reading I believe the main difference is the sensors in the Airpods Pro track head movement. For instance the virtual center (dialog speaker) would always appear to be coming from the display device, even if you move or tilt your head.
Edit: after more reading I believe the main difference is the sensors in the Airpods Pro track head movement. For instance the virtual center (dialog speaker) would always appear to be coming from the display device, even if you move or tilt your head.
Son of a gun, I went and researched and turns out my Mac can produce a "similar" spatialization effect in VLC from 5.1 audio at least, under Window > Audio Effects > Filter > Headphone virtualization. Not that I've ever heard anyone mention its existence before. But I'm definitely using that from now on. Thanks for setting me on that track!
As for comparing the two... the iOS one is absolutely better, but the VLC one is still a really nice improvement. But it's definitely not just the head tracking. The VLC one somehow feels like it spreads the audio out "horizontally", so background sound comes from outside the head, but people speaking still sound "between my ears". Whereas with iOS, the people speaking genuinely sound like they're in front of me -- it puts the center audio forwards -- and nothing sounds "between my ears".
I would guess Apple can produce something superior because they know the exact shape and positioning of their own headphones, as opposed to a generic stereo headphone plugin?
Not to mention, of course, the lack of head tracking in VLC. I just researched Dolby Atmos for Headphones to compare, and it looks intriguing but appears to be Windows only.
As for comparing the two... the iOS one is absolutely better, but the VLC one is still a really nice improvement. But it's definitely not just the head tracking. The VLC one somehow feels like it spreads the audio out "horizontally", so background sound comes from outside the head, but people speaking still sound "between my ears". Whereas with iOS, the people speaking genuinely sound like they're in front of me -- it puts the center audio forwards -- and nothing sounds "between my ears".
I would guess Apple can produce something superior because they know the exact shape and positioning of their own headphones, as opposed to a generic stereo headphone plugin?
Not to mention, of course, the lack of head tracking in VLC. I just researched Dolby Atmos for Headphones to compare, and it looks intriguing but appears to be Windows only.
Classic "virtual surround" works like you've noticed in VLC. I believe the new spatial audio formats (including Apple's) all use a standard HRTF (head-related transfer function) that approximates an average person's ear canal shape. This lets you be placed in a virtual space surrounded by audio sources/objects.
Sony's Mark Cerny had a fascinating talk on PS5's spatial audio implementation. Sony might even support importing a custom-measured HRTF for even greater sound placement accuracy. No idea where you'd get it measured though!
Sony's Mark Cerny had a fascinating talk on PS5's spatial audio implementation. Sony might even support importing a custom-measured HRTF for even greater sound placement accuracy. No idea where you'd get it measured though!
Not particularly useful for movies but an interesting fact is that you get this same effect with any pair of headphones while playing VR games since all the stuff for head tracking exists already.
I own a pair and they don’t stay in my ears even if I’m sat perfectly still for more than 15 minutes at a time. I really hope they fix this somehow.
I have the same problem as you. Our ears must be similarly defective.
You can buy silicon flaps that slip over the top and will keep them comfortably in your ear. The problem is that they don’t fit in the case with the flaps on.
I haven’t tried AirPod Pros but I assume they are better in this regard.
You can buy silicon flaps that slip over the top and will keep them comfortably in your ear. The problem is that they don’t fit in the case with the flaps on.
I haven’t tried AirPod Pros but I assume they are better in this regard.
> I haven’t tried AirPod Pros but I assume they are better in this regard.
I actually have no problem with the origin AirPods, but the AirPod Pros always slip out of my ear. The former relies on the shape of your ear to hold it in, the latter relies on friction of the insert in your ear canal; and I guess my ears are just unusually slippery. I've tried all the different sizes, and not found anything that works. When I'm working out or cycling I always use the original AirPods.
YMMV of course.
I actually have no problem with the origin AirPods, but the AirPod Pros always slip out of my ear. The former relies on the shape of your ear to hold it in, the latter relies on friction of the insert in your ear canal; and I guess my ears are just unusually slippery. I've tried all the different sizes, and not found anything that works. When I'm working out or cycling I always use the original AirPods.
YMMV of course.
I only have the problem with AirPod Pros. The fit test never passes in my right ear and they feel very uncomfortable after about 15 minutes. They also fall out when I speak and walk with them on.
But the worst is that sometimes my own voice resonates back in my ear, its hard to describe but very unpleasant and disturbing in a conversation.
But the worst is that sometimes my own voice resonates back in my ear, its hard to describe but very unpleasant and disturbing in a conversation.
Yeah same. I can wear the originals out for a run and it’s not a problem.
Like you it’s worse in my left ear too.
Like you it’s worse in my left ear too.
Apple: where it's not a problem with their hardware, it's a problem with your ears.
To be clear, it’s the same for me with any in-ear buds that don’t have the silicone flap thing that I first found on the Bose QuietComfort headphones.
That earbud style just fundamentally doesn’t work for some anatomical reason in a percentage of the population.
That earbud style just fundamentally doesn’t work for some anatomical reason in a percentage of the population.
Good to know, I wanted to buy some AirPods but I'm another one that can only fit BOSE IEMs. I guess I'll pass.
Does anybody else with "wrong" ears used to get awful outside ear pain with the old all plastic iPhone earbuds? I physically cringe in pain just looking at them.
Does anybody else with "wrong" ears used to get awful outside ear pain with the old all plastic iPhone earbuds? I physically cringe in pain just looking at them.
For what it’s worth, I had the same problem with all previous Apple earphones. But, I don’t have that problem with airpod pros.
I've tried every single option for in-ears except for custom-moulded parts. None of them fit.
I've tried cheap ones, I've tried expensive ones, I've tried swappable tips. Nope.
I also hate the Darth Vader soundtrack I get when I shove in-ear plugs in my head. I can hear every single breath I take.
Regular old AirPods though? They stick to my ears like glue.
People have different shaped ears, no one model can fit everyone. Even over the ear headphones differ on how they fit people with glasses. PortaPros are a complete no-no for me for example. Great headphones, absolute nope with glasses.
I've tried cheap ones, I've tried expensive ones, I've tried swappable tips. Nope.
I also hate the Darth Vader soundtrack I get when I shove in-ear plugs in my head. I can hear every single breath I take.
Regular old AirPods though? They stick to my ears like glue.
People have different shaped ears, no one model can fit everyone. Even over the ear headphones differ on how they fit people with glasses. PortaPros are a complete no-no for me for example. Great headphones, absolute nope with glasses.
Exactly the same. Original airpods were fitting my ear like they were molded just for me. I ran and jumped with them in my ears multiple times, they pretty much didn't move at all.
Airpods Pro are awesome in terms of sound and features, but no matter which of the included eartips I use for it, they always tend to wiggle out. Never fully to the point of falling out, but plenty of times it got to that weird in-between stage of falling out and staying in. No idea why. Hopefully there are more third party eartips available for Airpods Pro now as opposed to the last time I checked (which was just a month or two after the release), so I can finally find a pair that makes them stay in.
Airpods Pro are awesome in terms of sound and features, but no matter which of the included eartips I use for it, they always tend to wiggle out. Never fully to the point of falling out, but plenty of times it got to that weird in-between stage of falling out and staying in. No idea why. Hopefully there are more third party eartips available for Airpods Pro now as opposed to the last time I checked (which was just a month or two after the release), so I can finally find a pair that makes them stay in.
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As an owner of the regular airpods, I never really saw the reason to upgrade, but this sounds pretty compelling. How many shows support this?
All the ones I tried on Apple TV+. I think pretty much all scripted TV these days is produced in at least 5.1 surround, which is what it needs (also supports 7.1). But it has to be supported by the content and the app you use.
LifeHacker put out a guide a few hours ago about which streaming services support it on their iOS app [1], the upshot being:
Supported: Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max
Not yet supported: Netflix, Prime Video, Showtime Anytime, PBS, TNT
[1] https://lifehacker.com/which-apple-devices-and-video-service...
LifeHacker put out a guide a few hours ago about which streaming services support it on their iOS app [1], the upshot being:
Supported: Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max
Not yet supported: Netflix, Prime Video, Showtime Anytime, PBS, TNT
[1] https://lifehacker.com/which-apple-devices-and-video-service...
Only Apple TV+, Disney+ & HBO Max support it at the moment, no Netflix or Prime yet.
There is an A Tribe Called Quest album with a skit that almost always made me turn around to see who is talking behind me when listened to on headphones. AFAIK they used stereo microphones on a mannequin to achieve this effect. I don't know what my point is but I guess it's a bit surprising that it took so long for this to enter the mainstream as we've certainly had the ability to do his with minimal extra processing for quite some time now.
It's called binaural sound, and can be played back on any headphones.
> People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
I agree. Some solutions from Apple are uniquely wonderful.
Imagine if they opened up this feature for 3p companies like Netflix. And let’s suppose Netflix commissions original content that is tailor made to take advantage of this type of audio. Of course, Netflix would benefit from increased subscribers and one could argue Apple would benefit from the availability of the content too — more people likely to buy airpods.
However, I’m personally convinced that Apple’s 30% commission charge to Netflix is completely justified. After all, they’re taking advantage of an end to end solution built by Apple. But of course, Netflix could bypass the IAP policy and not past the benefits into Apple. But I’m just using Netflix as an example. Any 3p app such as game or music app or movie app would benefit from this feature.
I only bring up the 30% point because it’s been make headlines recently and the hn community also has been vocal on the topic.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know enough about the spatial audio feature to say if it works with apps like Netflix or not. I’m presuming it doesn’t for illustrating my argument.)
I agree. Some solutions from Apple are uniquely wonderful.
Imagine if they opened up this feature for 3p companies like Netflix. And let’s suppose Netflix commissions original content that is tailor made to take advantage of this type of audio. Of course, Netflix would benefit from increased subscribers and one could argue Apple would benefit from the availability of the content too — more people likely to buy airpods.
However, I’m personally convinced that Apple’s 30% commission charge to Netflix is completely justified. After all, they’re taking advantage of an end to end solution built by Apple. But of course, Netflix could bypass the IAP policy and not past the benefits into Apple. But I’m just using Netflix as an example. Any 3p app such as game or music app or movie app would benefit from this feature.
I only bring up the 30% point because it’s been make headlines recently and the hn community also has been vocal on the topic.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know enough about the spatial audio feature to say if it works with apps like Netflix or not. I’m presuming it doesn’t for illustrating my argument.)
Netflix can and hopefully will add support. HBO Max and Disney+ support spatial audio right now.
Netflix stopped allowing subscriptions via IAP in December 2018.
Wow. With my bad ears, I wasn't sure it was working as you described until my right AirPod battery died and the spatial audio went away. Stunning is right.
I was of the understanding that the accelerometers are actually inside the AirPods - so that shouldn't prevent them from working with Macs.
Maybe it comes with Big Sur?
Maybe it comes with Big Sur?
> My understanding is they don't support Macs because they don't have accelerometers/gyroscopes so the AirPods wouldn't know what they were relative to spatially.
What about when using the AppleTV? (This question isn't really for crazygringo who wouldn't be using the Mac to watch video if they owned an appleTV.)
What about when using the AppleTV? (This question isn't really for crazygringo who wouldn't be using the Mac to watch video if they owned an appleTV.)
AppleTV doesn’t support it either.
> So not only does it blow me away technologically, but also that I got it as a free upgrade almost a year after buying the headphones!
Being pedantic here: it is not actually free for you. The costs of improvements delivered through software updates are built into the original price you paid for it through deferred revenues and "subscription accounting". [1] In other words, Apple is not subsidizing new feature delivery from other sources of revenue or from debts. This came from the collective AirPod Pro users' pockets.
Accounting (and the related legality) aside, it is great to see hardware products get enhancements and a longer useful life through such means (whenever it happens).
[1]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/01/apple-now-sitting...
Being pedantic here: it is not actually free for you. The costs of improvements delivered through software updates are built into the original price you paid for it through deferred revenues and "subscription accounting". [1] In other words, Apple is not subsidizing new feature delivery from other sources of revenue or from debts. This came from the collective AirPod Pro users' pockets.
Accounting (and the related legality) aside, it is great to see hardware products get enhancements and a longer useful life through such means (whenever it happens).
[1]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/01/apple-now-sitting...
One of my favorite new features in iOS 14 is an accessibility setting that allows a double tap or triple tap on the back of the phone to trigger an action. You can set this up in Settings->Accessibility->Touch->Back Tap .
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
> In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
This is super important. People who don't need accomodation sometimes complain about the ADA rules for buildings but at some point everybody takes advantage of things like crash bars to open a door (when your hands are full, or are just on the phone), ramps (perhaps you're pulling something, have a kid, or are on crutches for a few days), handrails (momentary distraction) etc.
And ditto for the phone. I consider the label on the "accessibility" settings just there to make them easy to find; they aren't there for a small number of people (even if most people change at most one default setting).
This is super important. People who don't need accomodation sometimes complain about the ADA rules for buildings but at some point everybody takes advantage of things like crash bars to open a door (when your hands are full, or are just on the phone), ramps (perhaps you're pulling something, have a kid, or are on crutches for a few days), handrails (momentary distraction) etc.
And ditto for the phone. I consider the label on the "accessibility" settings just there to make them easy to find; they aren't there for a small number of people (even if most people change at most one default setting).
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My wife has no disabilities (and is a very light/casual tech user) but uses heaps of the iOS accessibility features. I personally had never really looked at them until she started showing me how handy so many of them are day to day.
Things like:
The triple-tap-to-zoom feature has a “low light” filter that works on top of your brightness setting so you can use it to get a lower-than-lowest-brightness for reading in bed at night (even the lowest brightness isn’t low enough sometimes).
Reachability setting if you have a big phone and small hands let’s you drag the entire interface down with 1 finger and reach buttons at the top of the UI.
LED Flash for Alerts gives you a visual notification if you work somewhere where you need your phone on silent but also can’t use vibration alerts (she works in a medical field and her phone sits across the room on a table).
Lots of interesting ideas in an area of Settings 99% of people never touch.
Things like:
The triple-tap-to-zoom feature has a “low light” filter that works on top of your brightness setting so you can use it to get a lower-than-lowest-brightness for reading in bed at night (even the lowest brightness isn’t low enough sometimes).
Reachability setting if you have a big phone and small hands let’s you drag the entire interface down with 1 finger and reach buttons at the top of the UI.
LED Flash for Alerts gives you a visual notification if you work somewhere where you need your phone on silent but also can’t use vibration alerts (she works in a medical field and her phone sits across the room on a table).
Lots of interesting ideas in an area of Settings 99% of people never touch.
Your “low light” filter is an unneccessary hack: just use the 'reduce whitepoint' feature and add it to power-button menu for quick access.
... which doesn't help the mayor annoyance that safari still doesn't support dark mode! (FF to the rescue)
... which doesn't help the mayor annoyance that safari still doesn't support dark mode! (FF to the rescue)
Reduce white point and low light mode are different and can be combined, at least on my 2016 SE.
"Zoom" settings seems like a very odd spot to put something like a low light filter, which is why I never found it.
Thanks for sharing! (and the same to your other half!)
Thanks for sharing! (and the same to your other half!)
I make use of big text mode on my linux laptop because 1080p on a 13" laptop makes everything tiny and fractional scailing is still a beta thing right now.
I've long used the Mac's ctrl-scroll shortcut for zooming in on the display. Ages ago, when I was working in the same room as the design staff for a company I worked at, they saw me do that and were quick to activate it on their iMacs as it's really handy for checking pixel-level rendering on web interfaces.
Seriously! It's really frustrating that people tend to think accessibility features are just for people experiencing disability. The web, applications, and the whole world at large is made better for _all_ people when we build with a mind toward accessibility.
iOS lets you turn on a red filter that disables the green and blue channels. you can set it to turn on by triple tapping the home button (or I'm guessing the back for new phones). This is the one thing I really miss after switching to Android. The red screen is fantastic for reading at night, really easy on the eyes.
Cf.lumen has this feature (yes, true red colouring, not just a yellow tinge like night shift), but it requires root and it's not updated anymore. (you need to find the 3.72 beta version online for it to work on Android Q)
Android got night light even before Apple did, you could just set it at high intensity, but I’m sure you know this.
That the night-shift mode right? I've been using it for almost 2 years I think. I have the same settings on my iPhone and macbook pro
No, it's a different thing.
Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters
Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters
My Android 10 Realme Pro2 has a option to desaturate screen every day at a fixed schedule.
Yeah Android has some features and apps in this space. This iOS mode is an accessibility feature. I guess for some people a pure red screen helps them see it better?
This feature is not intended as a "night mode", it's very extreme. It also makes anything that has no red channel in its color disappear (although this is rare). I found it's a better night mode than actual night modes. But it's best if you're just reading text, for video or games it's probably too extreme.
This feature is not intended as a "night mode", it's very extreme. It also makes anything that has no red channel in its color disappear (although this is rare). I found it's a better night mode than actual night modes. But it's best if you're just reading text, for video or games it's probably too extreme.
Also fantastic when out star gazing.
This does not appear to be available on the iPhone SE (2016). Interestingly, searching for "Back Tap" does show a singel result for Accessibility -> Touch, but once you're there the option is hidden.
I believe it requires the Taptic Engine, which only appeared on the 7 and later models.
Why is that? Isn't the taptic engine just a miniaturized vibrating unit?
I guess a vibrating unit is an electric motor fundamentally. And an electric motor is also a generator when run in reverse. Maybe the Taptic Engine can also sense vibrations too.
It requires the iPhone 8 or newer, sadly
I take screenshots often as reminders, to annotate, etc. I setup a double-tap as an action to take a screenshot. So much faster then the older methods. You get some false positives, but really handy productivity hack.
i use the power button (which i wouldn't ordinarily use) so it's a single tap on the screen and done
Have you used it? I tried it for awhile during beta and I found it triggering far too frequently by accident.
That's awesome. The ergonomics seem to require a 2 handed phone hold. With 1 hand, holding the phone and trying to tap on the back in quick succession is too difficult for me.
This is really nice. I have my airpod double tap set to pause, play but I miss having siri available for hands free. This makes it easy to have both!
This sounds great, tried it but I have Apple's silicone cover and it needs a forceful tap, which I didn't find confortable..
I'm surprised they still don't have anything that comes close to Live Transcribe that Google has for Android.
i tried it but it's too slow for me. i set it up with backtap for home but it only switch after like a second or so
In 10 years, this is the first time I installed a beta version. It suffered a couple of issues, but they’ve been ironed out in my case.
I really love the new app drawer. My hundred barely-used apps are now neatly stowed there while I keep a single (Yes, one) Home Screen.
Widgets are nice but from what I understand they’re updated only once every 5 minutes, which makes them a lot less useful.
I really love the new app drawer. My hundred barely-used apps are now neatly stowed there while I keep a single (Yes, one) Home Screen.
Widgets are nice but from what I understand they’re updated only once every 5 minutes, which makes them a lot less useful.
I've always arranged my homescreen to be a single screen with folders for each category of app. makes it much easier to find things. I'm always befuddled when I see ppl with 30 pages of apps.
I just swipe down for Spotlight and use that as an app launcher, so I'll probably love the app drawer. I'm equally baffled by people doing it any other way :-) Do you organise your applications on your computer by category as well?
You can also do it by voice. Tell Siri to "open AppName" and it opens the app named AppName.
It does have trouble with some apps, though. Authy does not work at all when pronounced the way I expect it to be pronounced ("auth" as in "authorize"). Siri just says that there is no app named "Offie". And no, I do not pronounce "th" anything at all like "ff".
If I try pronouncing Authy as "oathy" is works maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the time.
For nearly everything else I've tried, though, it is fine.
It does have trouble with some apps, though. Authy does not work at all when pronounced the way I expect it to be pronounced ("auth" as in "authorize"). Siri just says that there is no app named "Offie". And no, I do not pronounce "th" anything at all like "ff".
If I try pronouncing Authy as "oathy" is works maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the time.
For nearly everything else I've tried, though, it is fine.
Did you try training Siri? (Enable siri text) and then tap it when it says this app not found, and change "offy" to "Authie". After a few times, it should recognize your prompt
I'm not sure what setting that is. I've tried hitting the "tap to edit" thingy to edit the command it head from "open Offie" to "open Authy" several times, and it doesn't seem to really help much.
It's not that much of a problem on my phone or iPad, because I can just ask it to open Authenticator (Microsoft's authentication app). When I set up TOTP for a site, I scan the QR code in both.
It's on my Apple Watch that it is annoying. Microsoft Authenticator on the watch doesn't do TOTP. It's just for authenticating with Microsoft sites. So on the watch I need to use Authy if I need a TOTP code for a site.
On the watch, I don't see any option to edit a command that Siri gets wrong.
It's not that much of a problem on my phone or iPad, because I can just ask it to open Authenticator (Microsoft's authentication app). When I set up TOTP for a site, I scan the QR code in both.
It's on my Apple Watch that it is annoying. Microsoft Authenticator on the watch doesn't do TOTP. It's just for authenticating with Microsoft sites. So on the watch I need to use Authy if I need a TOTP code for a site.
On the watch, I don't see any option to edit a command that Siri gets wrong.
Yea “tap to edit” is what I meant. But who knows how many past (mis)recognitions vs manual edits it takes to reform Siri.
I’d try to do it each time, hopefully won’t take too long to get it.
(On iOS 14, enable Siri - Siri Responses - Always show speech. On previous iOS, Siri is full screen and I think tap to edit is always available.)
Not sure about watch. However, I assume it should sync if you enable Siri to sync in iCloud. Settings - your name icon - iCloud - toggle Siri.
I’d try to do it each time, hopefully won’t take too long to get it.
(On iOS 14, enable Siri - Siri Responses - Always show speech. On previous iOS, Siri is full screen and I think tap to edit is always available.)
Not sure about watch. However, I assume it should sync if you enable Siri to sync in iCloud. Settings - your name icon - iCloud - toggle Siri.
Do we actually know for a fact this helps? I had always assumed that correcting voice dictation helps on android and iOS, but over the past couple years I’ve been coming to the conclusion it doesn’t actually do anything and we are just assuming these devices are smarter than they really are
My personal anecdata is that yes, it does help
This post, parent and GP basically describe my evolution for organizing and launching apps.
Taking the time to manually organize all my apps just isn't worth it any more, especially after a few updates/restores exploded it all. Now, I keep the first home page clean with only the essential apps, and everything else is pushed off into the memory hole on the right with spotlight/siri wrangling it all for me.
Excited to see how this might improve with widgets and app library!
Taking the time to manually organize all my apps just isn't worth it any more, especially after a few updates/restores exploded it all. Now, I keep the first home page clean with only the essential apps, and everything else is pushed off into the memory hole on the right with spotlight/siri wrangling it all for me.
Excited to see how this might improve with widgets and app library!
I definitely used to back in Windows 95-2000 days. It was one of those things people like me who cared too much and wanted to share screenshots of their beautiful desktop / wallpaper / skins / etc used to do.
I don’t anymore. Eventually the regular reinstalls became too much effort re-setting all of my endless customisations. Trained me well for the modern era of “photos app not working right? Have you tried erasing all contents and settings and not restoring from backup?”
I don’t anymore. Eventually the regular reinstalls became too much effort re-setting all of my endless customisations. Trained me well for the modern era of “photos app not working right? Have you tried erasing all contents and settings and not restoring from backup?”
I organize them by category and I can tap twice faster than you can swipe, type, tap.
This way is easily faster if you have a reasonable number of apps. Typing to find things would only be faster if you had more than say 220 apps. Even if I have to tap, swipe, tap - that would be faster than swipe, type, tap.
This way is easily faster if you have a reasonable number of apps. Typing to find things would only be faster if you had more than say 220 apps. Even if I have to tap, swipe, tap - that would be faster than swipe, type, tap.
Also this encourages you not to have more than 9 apps in a single category. I break this rule often, but I do try pretty hard not to.
Then you need multiple pages of apps. I keep 15 top apps in thumb hotspots and 11 folders in (mostly) more tucked away spots. One page, all apps. The apps in each folder are alphabetized. The folders definitely go into 3+ pages in some categories, but I often search if it feels like hunting down an app in a folder is more work.
Sometimes, yes, but most of the time I launch them from the taskbar or the "frequently used" list in the start menu.
The difference between a phone and a computer is that one has a keyboard, and the other doesn't. Ever since the end of the BlackBerry era, typing on my phone is a slow, error-prone activity, so searching takes longer than the two taps it takes to just select it manually (typing on a BlackBerry was slow too, but at least it was error-free).
I have all my apps categorized in folders in my app drawer (I use Nova Launcher, which lets you create folders there). Then I have two home screen pages, one with all my most-used applications, and the other with all my media players: podcasts, music, Kindle, Libby, YouTube, etc. I use large icons (4x5 per page), so it makes it both easy to find and select any app.
The difference between a phone and a computer is that one has a keyboard, and the other doesn't. Ever since the end of the BlackBerry era, typing on my phone is a slow, error-prone activity, so searching takes longer than the two taps it takes to just select it manually (typing on a BlackBerry was slow too, but at least it was error-free).
I have all my apps categorized in folders in my app drawer (I use Nova Launcher, which lets you create folders there). Then I have two home screen pages, one with all my most-used applications, and the other with all my media players: podcasts, music, Kindle, Libby, YouTube, etc. I use large icons (4x5 per page), so it makes it both easy to find and select any app.
A use case: all the apps I use for Instagram photo editing in a folder. I don’t always remember what some of them are, or what they’re named, so keeping them together is helpful. Don’t trust App Library to organize those the same way.
That's how I did things but something somewhere during the iOS 14 has broken Spotlight search for me - I can't search for apps any more (well, I can, but it gives me the app store page or a website.)
It is most aggravating and utterly perplexing. Whilst I like the app library for hiding all the stuff I don't use, it's a massive pain to use for finding apps...
It is most aggravating and utterly perplexing. Whilst I like the app library for hiding all the stuff I don't use, it's a massive pain to use for finding apps...
My homescreen is my frequently used apps and then a few subsequent screens are basically like (the now mythical) travel that include a folder for less frequently used apps in the category.
I dislike how you can't (or couldn't - I haven't installed iOS 14 yet) arrange home screen icons like you can on Android. On Android, I would put my four most used icons in each corner, and leave the rest of the screen empty. So, on iOS, I only use the top row for icons, and all the rest are on a second screen.
My motive is that I want to see my beautiful wallpaper, which in this case a picture of my daughter.
My motive is that I want to see my beautiful wallpaper, which in this case a picture of my daughter.
Still not an option, Apple knows better than you.
I'm one of those page-flipping people. I alternate between using Spotlight to launch and just flipping pages. For me, it's a form of spatial navigation. I couldn't tell you the exact number of pages I flip to get to a specific app, or the row&column of where an app's icon lives, but my sub-conscious somehow remembers. It's about as quick to launch, for me, as any other method.
For me, the first page of the home screen are the apps I use the most, with the most used apps in the middle. That way I can get to them in one click quickly with muscle memory. So is the second page, again for quicker access.
I used to keep the third and beyond pages in folders, but on my last phone I got lazy and just use spotlight search as an app launcher.
I used to keep the third and beyond pages in folders, but on my last phone I got lazy and just use spotlight search as an app launcher.
I gave up on folders altogether. I found that my most used apps are still prominently visible either in the drawer or in spotlight’s suggested apps. Before iOS 14 I had more than 14 folders.
I’ve installed most betas and this was the most stable ever.
> updated only once every 5 minutes, which makes them a lot less useful
That's weird, I would expect them to be able to get updates via push notifications. Even so that seems like a pretty minimal limitation. For almost anything other than messaging a 5 minute resolution is probably fine.
That's weird, I would expect them to be able to get updates via push notifications. Even so that seems like a pretty minimal limitation. For almost anything other than messaging a 5 minute resolution is probably fine.
> I really love the new app drawer. My hundred barely-used apps are now neatly stowed there while I keep a single (Yes, one) Home Screen.
I hop between Android and iOS every few years and was quite excited for iOS to check this basic functionality box right as I came back. Shame they had to ruin it by forcing the absolutely nonsensical categories on you with no option for a plain alphabetical list.
Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard. It's right there, the functionality I want is available, but as usual Apple screws it up for power users.
In fact: do regular users like searching their app drawer for a possibly relevant category and hoping it has what they want? It doesn't help that the available categories and their ordering change every few days and/or whenever you install a new app. And worse yet is that the same application can show up in 3-4 different categories crowding out the one app you're looking for that only exists in one.
I hop between Android and iOS every few years and was quite excited for iOS to check this basic functionality box right as I came back. Shame they had to ruin it by forcing the absolutely nonsensical categories on you with no option for a plain alphabetical list.
Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard. It's right there, the functionality I want is available, but as usual Apple screws it up for power users.
In fact: do regular users like searching their app drawer for a possibly relevant category and hoping it has what they want? It doesn't help that the available categories and their ordering change every few days and/or whenever you install a new app. And worse yet is that the same application can show up in 3-4 different categories crowding out the one app you're looking for that only exists in one.
> Shame they had to ruin it by forcing the absolutely nonsensical categories on you with no option for a plain alphabetical list.
Swipe down on the app library screen and you get the alphabetical list. Same gesture you used to do a search from any screen.
Swipe down on the app library screen and you get the alphabetical list. Same gesture you used to do a search from any screen.
Yep, that's what I was referring to here
> Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard.
> Just give me the UI that shows up when you tap the app drawer search button, but as soon as I swipe to the drawer and without showing the keyboard.
I think it's fine. You get default categories which have advantages* or alphabetical order - which you can also get by swiping down in the app drawer. tap and hold scrollbar to get to the position you need.
*in default view, I can tap on the larger icons to open the app right away. Or I can tap on the smaller ones to get all the apps in that category. Then, there aren't that many categories and the predictiveness actually seems quite good
*in default view, I can tap on the larger icons to open the app right away. Or I can tap on the smaller ones to get all the apps in that category. Then, there aren't that many categories and the predictiveness actually seems quite good
> You get default categories which have advantages [snip] in default view, I can tap on the larger icons to open the app right away.
Sure, I've heard of homescreen icons before.
> or alphabetical order - which you can also get by swiping down in the app drawer.
Which means three gestures to get to the alphabetical one including hiding the keyboard.
> tap and hold scrollbar to get to the position you need.
Yep, that's a positive. Just wish I could get straight there.
The app drawer is for the apps I use infrequently. Which means I'm less likely to have internalized their app icons, and I can't view the text in the default view so I have no idea what I'm looking for.
The only text I get is the category name, like Other for Phillips Hue or Creativity for Twitch. YouTube? Entertainment. Twitch? Creativity. And Podcasts goes under Entertainment despite the fact that I have an Education category already.
The categories make no sense to me and I have no way to rectify that, I already use homescreen folders for categorization, and without text it's a pain to find what I'm after, especially if it's hidden inside the "fourth slot".
Sure, I've heard of homescreen icons before.
> or alphabetical order - which you can also get by swiping down in the app drawer.
Which means three gestures to get to the alphabetical one including hiding the keyboard.
> tap and hold scrollbar to get to the position you need.
Yep, that's a positive. Just wish I could get straight there.
The app drawer is for the apps I use infrequently. Which means I'm less likely to have internalized their app icons, and I can't view the text in the default view so I have no idea what I'm looking for.
The only text I get is the category name, like Other for Phillips Hue or Creativity for Twitch. YouTube? Entertainment. Twitch? Creativity. And Podcasts goes under Entertainment despite the fact that I have an Education category already.
The categories make no sense to me and I have no way to rectify that, I already use homescreen folders for categorization, and without text it's a pain to find what I'm after, especially if it's hidden inside the "fourth slot".
I had screentime widget on my home page. I doubt if it's even 5 minute. I had to tap and open the screentime to force update it every time. This was in Beta though, I hope this will work fine in normal update.
I've used the public beta version ever since Apple has started releasing it. Don't remember the exact version, but have used it with iPhone 5s, iPhone SE(the older one) and iPhone XR.
Mind you, all these were/are my sole phones.
Except for a few resprings and a camera app crash(resolved by a restart), I haven't had any issue.
I have been doing the same for my MacBook and things have worked quite well in general.
I am a heavy user and a software developer using it as my main machine. Seeing all other people complain about beta and even general releases, I count myself among the lucky who haven't had any issue (app compatibility aside) with the general release or the public beta.
No sign of it here yet.
I’m curious if it fixed some of the unpleasant behaviour and bugs that were never fixed in iOS 13.
Things like Mail not displaying new emails properly unless your went out and back into the mailbox. The keyboard autocorrecting to random names aggressively and inserting capital letters if you dare move the cursor. All new behaviours introduced with iOS 13 that adversely affect the user experience.
I’m curious if it fixed some of the unpleasant behaviour and bugs that were never fixed in iOS 13.
Things like Mail not displaying new emails properly unless your went out and back into the mailbox. The keyboard autocorrecting to random names aggressively and inserting capital letters if you dare move the cursor. All new behaviours introduced with iOS 13 that adversely affect the user experience.
That mail bug is annoying. I don't get why Apple can't push their apps out to their app store and update them separately so it doesn't take an iOS update. The only reason I can think of is to force people to always stay on the latest iOS version, but that's anti-user, so surely that's not the reason. ;)
They technically are on the App Store, just not updated through that channel.
Seems odd they're not taking advantage of their own app store to update these apps without requiring an OS update. Even Google does it on Android.
With Android, it's not so much that Google does it out of choice but because they have no control of most of the phones and there were (still are?) huge numbers of phones which don't even have access to OS updates or get them very late. Google was forced to pull a lot of functionality out of the OS level to be able to keep people up to date.
Google does that because they aren't able to make sure that every android device gets an update. Since Apple can make sure of this there is no reason to have a second way to update their apps. App store updates won't magically make the mail app devs work faster or produce more.
> Google does that because they aren't able to make sure that every android device gets an update.
Hopefully they'll be able to remediate that in the future and separate the core OS deployment from the vendor-specific files. Let Google pushes the OS, and the vendor could update their own stuff separately / through the Play Store. At least there is "Project Mainline" that helps keeping those devices secure.
> App store updates won't magically make the mail app devs work faster or produce more.
Definitely, but it would make it easier to deploy a patch without having to wait for the next iOS update.
Hopefully they'll be able to remediate that in the future and separate the core OS deployment from the vendor-specific files. Let Google pushes the OS, and the vendor could update their own stuff separately / through the Play Store. At least there is "Project Mainline" that helps keeping those devices secure.
> App store updates won't magically make the mail app devs work faster or produce more.
Definitely, but it would make it easier to deploy a patch without having to wait for the next iOS update.
Most of the code is in system frameworks, not the app that you download.
On the ATP podcast Marco Arment reported that the mail bug you describe has in fact been fixed. He was happy and surprised.
> The keyboard autocorrecting to random names aggressively
Holy shit how many times has my phone thought I was trying to say "Amit" instead of "about"? It's not like there's even anyone named Amit in my contacts.
Holy shit how many times has my phone thought I was trying to say "Amit" instead of "about"? It's not like there's even anyone named Amit in my contacts.
The inserting of capital letters is really annoying.
My favourite is Mail telling me "Message has not been downloaded from the server". And no way to tell it to download it.
Or my favorite, "1 Unsent Message." Yeah, thanks guys, that's super informative.
I mean it’s succinct and expresses the state more.
Reminds me of the old koan:
You step into the river but the water has moved on
Your data is no more
You step into the river but the water has moved on
Your data is no more
Is your outbox empty?
No: https://i.imgur.com/Hsmx5jc.jpg
I swear, if they dumb down iOS any further, I'll have to rent a monkey to troubleshoot it.
(I imagine that what it's really complaining about is the size of the .mov attachment, but I keep it around for amusement's sake and to remind me to be considerate of my own users' needs.)
I swear, if they dumb down iOS any further, I'll have to rent a monkey to troubleshoot it.
(I imagine that what it's really complaining about is the size of the .mov attachment, but I keep it around for amusement's sake and to remind me to be considerate of my own users' needs.)
The autocorrect in iOS 13 is fully worse than what was in 12 or what's available in any of the 3rd party keyboard apps that I've tried. The only reason I stick with it because of privacy issues.
Marco Arment on the ATP podcast said that Mail bug was finally fixed.
Amusingly I'd not noticed either of those keyboard behaviors before today. And then it turned "Darth Vader" into "Daryl Vader" and randomly capitalized a word when I went back to edit and then back to the end to resume writing. The mail issues have definitely been a pain, but I honestly couldn't tell if it was the Mail app or the connection with gmail (which has had issues with other mail clients for me).
Or not being able to permanently disable the stupid handwriting input 'feature' when switching to landscape mode.
Pro tip, Apple: when a Google search for "disable $FEATURE_XYZ" returns over one million hits, it's time to walk it back, and possibly fire the product manager pour encourager les autres.
Pro tip, Apple: when a Google search for "disable $FEATURE_XYZ" returns over one million hits, it's time to walk it back, and possibly fire the product manager pour encourager les autres.
I've had to switch to FastMail app with iOS 14, because Mail.app sends emails from the wrong alias – from an address other than what's selected in the From field. I thought I'd messed up, but no, Mail.app just doesn't work correctly. Befuddling.
I had to disable Auto-Capitalization in the General/Keyboard settings in iOS 13 for sanity, and it's absolutely been a win. I second your hope that it's fixed in iOS 14 but don’t dare update to a .0 release.
My favorite is that calling someone with facetime disconnects you from the wifi unless you go into airplane mode.
or draft imessages dissappearing or not saving when flicking between various other apps.
I believe that that bug was fixed in the most recent beta.
It's up
I hope they start offering something similar to the Android call screening feature https://www.androidcentral.com/how-use-call-screen-feature-p... That has been such a huge quality of life upgrade.
Not quite, but they are finally making the Phone notification a standard notification, and not a giant screaming blocking full-screen YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION NOW modal view.
https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/22/ios-14-incoming-call-ui/
I always hated that. I hate phone calls, period, and I certainly don’t want that phone call to take over my entire phone.
https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/22/ios-14-incoming-call-ui/
I always hated that. I hate phone calls, period, and I certainly don’t want that phone call to take over my entire phone.
I guess that's something :/ A friend of mine went through a horrible support experience with her Pixel 3 and that was enough for me to not want another Android phone after mine dies.
> I hate phone calls, period
We're kindred spirits. That's the only reason why I can't give up call screening.
> I hate phone calls, period
We're kindred spirits. That's the only reason why I can't give up call screening.
Phone calls are rude. They are a Priority 0 interrupt that you must immediately deal with. Which has become extremely frustrating with the volume of spam calls on my 437 area code—to the extent I had to install a phone spam blocker app.
I have no idea why anyone thought it would be a good user experience to be typINCOMING CALL
I have no idea why anyone thought it would be a good user experience to be typINCOMING CALL
Because going back not that long (non-SPAM) incoming voice calls were a priority interrupt. And they still sort of are for the relatively few people who call me in a regular basis.
Phone calls are not rude as a general statement. When my dad calls me it is not rude.
Phone calls are not rude as a general statement. When my dad calls me it is not rude.
If someone is calling me, without texting first, I assume that either (a) my boss wants me immediately, or (b) someone is in the hospital.
Probably a generational thing. I get far more phone calls than texts. I’d think it was super weird if a friend texted me before calling me.
Furthermore, a lot of people still have landlines and that's the number that they give out to service people, etc. That was the case with me until very recently.
There are very few people I'd expect to give me a call out of the blue these days rather than texting or emailing. But for that circle, I'm in the same boat as you.
There are very few people I'd expect to give me a call out of the blue these days rather than texting or emailing. But for that circle, I'm in the same boat as you.
Both seem fine to me. Maybe I'm "middle aged" now.
Awesome. Somehow my spam calls have spiked this year so that some days it’s 10+ calls from permutations of my phone number
The first time I used that I went to hit the accept call icon and accidentally swiped up on it rejecting the call.
I’ve already used this after I got a spam call minutes after installing iOS 14.
It’s fantastic. So much nicer.
It’s fantastic. So much nicer.
Never even heard of this until today. Is it just "AI" voicemail?
edit: callscreen seems to be Pixel only. Can't find it for my S10.
edit: callscreen seems to be Pixel only. Can't find it for my S10.
iOS doesn't even have anti-spam and caller lookup features :(
I need to copy'n'paste numbers (super clunky) to google them (spammy results). And then "Siri" sees I have a number in my clipboard, and assumes we're BFFs now and keeps giving me widget suggestions to call and message the spammer!
I need to copy'n'paste numbers (super clunky) to google them (spammy results). And then "Siri" sees I have a number in my clipboard, and assumes we're BFFs now and keeps giving me widget suggestions to call and message the spammer!
In iOS 13, they added the ability for apps to provide parts of this service. I've been using Hiya and very happy with the spam call blocking.
Faithful iPhone SE (1st gen) user checking in. Thankful to still be in the club. This will likely our last.
I'm glad to see they support it but requiring 3GB of free space on 16GB(minus OS) is gonna take me a few nights to squeeze out. I just wish the iTunes install could use swap on my computer.
If you're hanging onto it, like me, because it's small and not because it's cheap, there are rumours that the launch of the iPhone 12 in October will include a 5.4" model. It would be the smallest they've released since the original SE, and will have flat edges too.
I'm holding onto mine because it still meets my needs, very well I would say. Why upgrade when I really don't need to?
Second, I've grown to know Apple and am sure they will add improvements to the new model, probably fantastic improvements but but they will probably take something away as well, something that I am using now and don't want to be forced to change. I don't know what, maybe the phones jack or something. I am not buying a phone without the jack (no dumb dongles please). However, if all is good after the 12 is released and nothing is taken away I'll consider upgrading when my current SE no longer works.
I'm actually planning to use my phone less and less because I am trapped bad habits and that results in unnecessarily wasted time.
I'm actually planning to use my phone less and less because I am trapped bad habits and that results in unnecessarily wasted time.
I love my original SE. upgraded to latest SE because i needed the LTE bands my carrier, T-Mobile, is broadcasting on more rural sites.
I have the 2nd gen SE version which is the same shell as the iphone 8. Works great, and meets all my needs.
i upgraded to SE 2020 too but only because my SE 16gb space is running out. The SE 2020 is an ok upgrade and since its cpu is pretty good, I expect this one can last with me for another 5 years.
I'm very happy to hear that! I'm on a classic SE 16 GB, my second, and the really tiny amount of space is really a bummer. I'm so glad the SE 2020 is worthy upgrading and holding on to.
Hanging on to my SE not only because it still feels nippy and works great and because the form factor is ideal (my first iPhone was a 5, then a 5S, then the SE) but also because it's the last bastion of the headphone jack.
There are really so many of us in this boat. I'm on the 2016 SE and loving it. For all these reasons. I've been waiting and waiting for something small enough to come, but TBH, this is working just fine for me at this time, why upgrade? The only thing that really is lacking for me is the camera. For that reason, will see what October has to offer vs. the new SE.
Anything larger than the iPhone SE (my current phone) is simply too large. So unless Apple changes course and starts providing smaller phones anytime soon (doubtful), my next one will unfortunately probably be an Android.
Unfortunately it’s slim pickings in the Android world for small phones too, unless you pick up something like the Palm with no software updates from launch and an atrocious battery.
I'm not touching that update with a 10 foot pole. Not until it's been live for at least a week, and developers have had a chance to actually update their apps for it!
Honestly, that's just good policy on all Apple updates lately. It seems that more and more of them have been plagued with issues and are trailed by hotfixes. I've learned to just wait a while. Other people can be the test guinea pigs!
Honestly, that's just good policy on all Apple updates lately. It seems that more and more of them have been plagued with issues and are trailed by hotfixes. I've learned to just wait a while. Other people can be the test guinea pigs!
I’m using developer beta since the first release 0 issues both system and app wise.
I have been using the beta for a while and had a bunch of issues but mostly minor and they seem to have all been fixed a week ago
Last night I did the final iOS 13 update on all of my devices. I no longer trust any iOS or OS X update at launch -- I wait several months.
I'm curious, if you don't trust iOS at launch or even several months down the line, why bother with it in the first place? Pick up an Android and join the dark side. I'm honestly baffled as to how locked-in Apple users let themselves be, even the tech-savvy ones.
Sure, on Android you don't have to worry about updates because you don't get them. (Coming from an Android user)
Pick a manufacturer that gives you timely updates with a support duration you're happy with, and you're fine.
And before you complain "it's insane that I have to do that", you've already done that: just you picked Apple.
The mistake people make is in thinking of Android as some monolithic, consistent thing. It's not, and can't and won't be. Buy a Google phone, or a Samsung phone, or whatever, and stick with a manufacturer you like. At least if they start doing things you don't like, you have options in the same ecosystem. If Apple does something you don't like, you have no other options without jumping ship.
And before you complain "it's insane that I have to do that", you've already done that: just you picked Apple.
The mistake people make is in thinking of Android as some monolithic, consistent thing. It's not, and can't and won't be. Buy a Google phone, or a Samsung phone, or whatever, and stick with a manufacturer you like. At least if they start doing things you don't like, you have options in the same ecosystem. If Apple does something you don't like, you have no other options without jumping ship.
Is there an android device manufacturer that is currently supporting a 5 year old phone? I'm on the iPhone 6s, which released in 2015, and just installed iOS 14.
Android phones seem to be a 2~ year lifespan, even Google's own devices. Having switched from a Nexus 5, which got just two years of major Android updates. (Which also slowed to the point of being unusable, and eventually completely breaking with boot loops and then bricking itself)
Apple updates for 5 years. No Android manufacturer does that. Google offers 3 years and Samsung does 3 years on their high end flagships (which I don't personally like).
Apple is simply on a whole different level in this regard.
When the specs are the same or better on a phone that is $400 less you can actually afford to buy a new Google every 3 years and still save money.
Better specs for $400 less, on a Pixel?
Name one phone built to last with better specs than the iPhone SE please, I'm listening.
I don't care about multiple cameras, OLED displays, 120 Hz or whatever the industry is trying to push these days, I just want a reliable decently built phone with a good SW support.
Furthermore, I don't see how replacing the phone more often would be a positive thing, it just means I would produce more trash.
Yes, have you seen the Pixel 4a? I got a Razer Phone 2 when they first came out for $399. It blows away most iPhones, especially in that price range.
The SE 2020 is using the A13 chip which is about double the performance of the best snapdragon soc available right now. There doesn't exist an android phone with specs comparable to the SE.
You previously said "the specs are the same or better for $400 less", but the A13 in the SE blows away the Snapdragon 730 in the Pixel 4a and the price difference is only $50.
> The mistake people make is in thinking of Android as some monolithic, consistent thing.
Well, the Android branding is all over the place. No one thinks “I’m going to switch to Samsung”. It’s “I’m going to switch to Android”. Android phones are commodity devices.
Well, the Android branding is all over the place. No one thinks “I’m going to switch to Samsung”. It’s “I’m going to switch to Android”. Android phones are commodity devices.
I do say I'll switch to Samsung or a One Plus if I'm looking for a higher end, an OPPO or Vivo if I'm going for a lower end, or a Redmi or Honor, if I'm going for a midrange resilient phone.
I use a Blackberry for my black box phone, so I don't really care about security on my Android stuff - Google or China can have all that's in there. What I do care about are having options, and Android does provide me a lot of options. For instance, my first Android phone was a Samsung and while the phone was awesome and lasted a solid 4 years, I hated the customer service offered. Then thought I'd have a cheaper Android, so decided to go with a Motorola. Then once I joined the workforce, it was the BB + Honor combo, because Honors are so much resilient. Just because Android has so much more options doesn't mean they are commodity devices, unless you look at phones as a status symbol, which is a thinking I've honestly grown out of.
I use a Blackberry for my black box phone, so I don't really care about security on my Android stuff - Google or China can have all that's in there. What I do care about are having options, and Android does provide me a lot of options. For instance, my first Android phone was a Samsung and while the phone was awesome and lasted a solid 4 years, I hated the customer service offered. Then thought I'd have a cheaper Android, so decided to go with a Motorola. Then once I joined the workforce, it was the BB + Honor combo, because Honors are so much resilient. Just because Android has so much more options doesn't mean they are commodity devices, unless you look at phones as a status symbol, which is a thinking I've honestly grown out of.
>* I use a Blackberry for my black box phone*
I don’t think you’re representative of the general market...
I’ve never heard of people talking about the “Samsung experience”, or the “Huawei experience”. These devices are interchangeable. People talk about specs or price or getting longer term support.
I don’t think you’re representative of the general market...
I’ve never heard of people talking about the “Samsung experience”, or the “Huawei experience”. These devices are interchangeable. People talk about specs or price or getting longer term support.
I mentioned the Blackbox phone only because folks here (and mostly here alone) care about privacy. People outside this ecosystem don't give a damn about privacy - it's either the value of the phone at its price or its the capability of the phone which appeals to them.
Appleistas are the only ones who talk about the Apple experience because clearly it's only Apple which came up with that marketing gimmick. There's nothing different or even superbly superior of the Apple experience compared to the Huawei or Samsung experience. On the contrary, it's effectively much easier for most people I've met to get familiar with Android over Apple. Like most people mention here regularly, most people buy Apple only because of the green chat box stigma.
Appleistas are the only ones who talk about the Apple experience because clearly it's only Apple which came up with that marketing gimmick. There's nothing different or even superbly superior of the Apple experience compared to the Huawei or Samsung experience. On the contrary, it's effectively much easier for most people I've met to get familiar with Android over Apple. Like most people mention here regularly, most people buy Apple only because of the green chat box stigma.
> There's nothing different or even superbly superior of the Apple experience compared to the Huawei or Samsung experience.
Absolute horse crap, unless you speak for the market. I don’t have to carry two phones and also don’t have to worry about privacy. In fact I have a phone made by a company who could really give two craps about the ad market and feeding it more data. Second is you can be sure if it’s Apple you’ll get quality. With other android phones you’ll get mostly cheap. The user interface style on android is also ugly, cards are old, material is boring, but this is subjective, just like you saying Apple provides no better experience than Samshit or Chinawei
Absolute horse crap, unless you speak for the market. I don’t have to carry two phones and also don’t have to worry about privacy. In fact I have a phone made by a company who could really give two craps about the ad market and feeding it more data. Second is you can be sure if it’s Apple you’ll get quality. With other android phones you’ll get mostly cheap. The user interface style on android is also ugly, cards are old, material is boring, but this is subjective, just like you saying Apple provides no better experience than Samshit or Chinawei
The privacy of an Apple phone that allowed the Saudi prince to order a hacking into Bezos' phone, which ultimately leaked out info and led to his divorce? Yeah, no thanks.
Being on Blackberry, or any non-Google phone really, allows me to segregate my really important stuff from my every day stuff. Equating Apple's security to that kind of segregated security is a bunch of absolute horse crap.
Being on Blackberry, or any non-Google phone really, allows me to segregate my really important stuff from my every day stuff. Equating Apple's security to that kind of segregated security is a bunch of absolute horse crap.
Here you go, read how this worked: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Expression/SRsSumexFr...
TLDR, if your phone passes network traffic then it can be “hacked” too.
Security through obscurity is also horse crap, but hey carry your two phones if it makes you feel safer!
TLDR, if your phone passes network traffic then it can be “hacked” too.
Security through obscurity is also horse crap, but hey carry your two phones if it makes you feel safer!
Absolutely, lots of people are loyal to certain brands or look for the best value/spec in Android devices and make their choice based on that. If people didn't care, everyone would be buying $50 Android devices. Most people I know now even look at the version of Android it comes with.
>And before you complain "it's insane that I have to do that", you've already done that: just you picked Apple.
So the manufacturer with the longest update period, whose products also retain the most resale price to boot?
So the manufacturer with the longest update period, whose products also retain the most resale price to boot?
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It depends on the manufacturer, Android one users get security updates every month
I own an Android One device (Mi A2) and in the last year updates were complete garbage. The manufacturer clearly couldn't care less about my (2 years) old device.
I'm using LineageOS now and I'm much happier, but I think I'll switch to an iPhone SE when my phone dies
Android One held lots of potential, but Google managed to stuff that up too. They need to wrestle back control over the OS from the OEMs. Until they do, Android handsets will be disposable beyond a life of 2 years.
Ironically, a company that understands that model is Microsoft. It's a pity they aren't competition for Apple in this space yet. As an iPhone/Macbook Pro/iPad user, I am eyeing the Surface Go 2 w/WSL as a potential future replacement for the iPad.
Ironically, a company that understands that model is Microsoft. It's a pity they aren't competition for Apple in this space yet. As an iPhone/Macbook Pro/iPad user, I am eyeing the Surface Go 2 w/WSL as a potential future replacement for the iPad.
Because privacy. I have no illusions that Apple’s privacy stance is permanent, but for now, they’re far superior to Google, Android, and associated vendors in that regard.
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A few years ago they broke the lock screen twice and didn't fix it for half a year or so each time. Made the phone excruciating to use as would take a full minute to get in as the lock screen restarted.
Needless to say I don't update until the last minute with most releases any longer.
Needless to say I don't update until the last minute with most releases any longer.
I still haven't upgraded to macOS Catalina (first time I've not upgraded macOS). I just don't have half a day to spare with whatever weird stuff it's going to break.
The only thing that broke for me with Catalina was a single symlink on my work laptop. Aside from that (fixing it was just issuing a single command and restarting), I had no issues. On the other hand, there were no notable features to upgrade for.
I upgraded to Catalina so I could mute email threads in Mail.app.
Having ditched macOS because of the sshow that is Catalina I promise you you’ll waste a lot more than half a day on that cluster.
Never had any issue with Catalina, so there's that, and I'm quite a heavy user (development and unix userland, and nle, photo, and daw programs).
People often have some bad personal experience and deduce from that the OS is objectively and generally a "sshow", but it can often be some specific third party program, service, extension, or hardware -- or some genuine Apple bug that doesn't affect all devices/users/use cases.
The impact is often about something a user cares heavily about, but might not generalize to the OS. E.g. one might have a problem with Outlook servers (I don't have to use it at work, so never had the chance to have such an issue). But that doesn't mean it's necessarily (a) the OS's problem, or (b) something that affects anyone else who uses Catalina without needing Outlook.
People often have some bad personal experience and deduce from that the OS is objectively and generally a "sshow", but it can often be some specific third party program, service, extension, or hardware -- or some genuine Apple bug that doesn't affect all devices/users/use cases.
The impact is often about something a user cares heavily about, but might not generalize to the OS. E.g. one might have a problem with Outlook servers (I don't have to use it at work, so never had the chance to have such an issue). But that doesn't mean it's necessarily (a) the OS's problem, or (b) something that affects anyone else who uses Catalina without needing Outlook.
> ... but it can often be some specific third party program, service, extension, or hardware...
Which was often also the reason people didn't upgrade Windows. (or try MacOS or Linux)
Which was often also the reason people didn't upgrade Windows. (or try MacOS or Linux)
and has what to do with Catalina being a “sshow”? Unless you’re advocating for MS 2.0 and have Apple never remove anything so we can have bloated OSes in a few years
Same. Whenever Apple announces a new major version, it’s time for me to disable auto-update on all my Apple devices.
iOS 13 was particularly bad and I waited until January. I hope they did a better job with 14.
iOS 13 was particularly bad and I waited until January. I hope they did a better job with 14.
What exactly problems do people have with iOS 13?
I always here some complains here and there. but, as with Catalina, never had any issue. Is it specific apps?
I always here some complains here and there. but, as with Catalina, never had any issue. Is it specific apps?
Catalina is a dumpster fire compared to Mojave.
Waking up a Macbook Pro with two USB-C monitors plugged in, only one monitor comes on. I have to fiddle around by opening the laptop's lid or pressing Ctrl-Shift-Eject and waking it up again from scratch for all the monitors to respond.
Leave Catalina running too long, its Watchdog process times out and it has a kernel panic. During the night every two or three days. After booting and reporting to Apple (again), it's time to rearrange all the windows and reopen all the documents I was working on, again.
Inadequate is the polite way of describing it.
Waking up a Macbook Pro with two USB-C monitors plugged in, only one monitor comes on. I have to fiddle around by opening the laptop's lid or pressing Ctrl-Shift-Eject and waking it up again from scratch for all the monitors to respond.
Leave Catalina running too long, its Watchdog process times out and it has a kernel panic. During the night every two or three days. After booting and reporting to Apple (again), it's time to rearrange all the windows and reopen all the documents I was working on, again.
Inadequate is the polite way of describing it.
I don't have two monitors (I do use one external + the laptop's own), so didn't have the issue either, but the "running too long" problem has not been my experience.
I have uptimes in the months (only rebooting for the ocassional update).
But if "dual monitors have issues" is the biggest issue that comes up when someone is asked to describe their problems with an OS, I wouldn't exactly call it a "dumpster fire". More like "smooth sailing". Doubly so if it's not experienced for everybody hooking two monitors but just for e.g. that specific brand or laptop run / monitor combination.
I have uptimes in the months (only rebooting for the ocassional update).
But if "dual monitors have issues" is the biggest issue that comes up when someone is asked to describe their problems with an OS, I wouldn't exactly call it a "dumpster fire". More like "smooth sailing". Doubly so if it's not experienced for everybody hooking two monitors but just for e.g. that specific brand or laptop run / monitor combination.
It’s ok now. I still have rotation issues on my iPad where it gets confused and the screen is on its side.
I had an issue on my iPhone X where it was connected to wifi without showing the icon. But there’s plenty written on iOS 13’s bugginess and Apple admitted as much. I would not be surprised that iOS 14 is solid. I rather wait a month to see if that’s the case.
I had an issue on my iPhone X where it was connected to wifi without showing the icon. But there’s plenty written on iOS 13’s bugginess and Apple admitted as much. I would not be surprised that iOS 14 is solid. I rather wait a month to see if that’s the case.
From a user perspective, this release is super solid. I'm not going to be updating to Big Sur any time soon, but I'm running iOS 14 everywhere now and haven't had any trouble
I've gone back and forth. I don't entirely regret running Big Sur, but it really doesn't offer any advantages to me. It's seemed more or less stable although I've had intermittent issues with Facetime not connecting to older devices.
I've become more annoyed trying to develop on it though, and outside of iOS, I do my development mainly on Linux now.
I've become more annoyed trying to develop on it though, and outside of iOS, I do my development mainly on Linux now.
My XS is running noticeably slower upon upgrading.
Big Sur was a huge speedup on my 2016 touchbar MBP.
It has some big issues (first hand). Avoid for a while if you do mission/life critical work on your phone. As for some of the devs saying it is great, many of them have crappy apps. The top devs like Rambo are tweeting to avoid.
> The top devs like Rambo are tweeting to avoid.
Who or what sanctioning body determines who is a “top dev”.
I’m using it on my phone, have been for a bit, and have had no issues. Zero. I must be reachable at all times. So whoever Rambo is, is wrong.
Who or what sanctioning body determines who is a “top dev”.
I’m using it on my phone, have been for a bit, and have had no issues. Zero. I must be reachable at all times. So whoever Rambo is, is wrong.
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I've been using the Developer Betas since the first announcement and have had only a handful of minor issues (like my Bank erroneously thinking my device was jailbroken).
I think it's probably one of the more stable iOS releases I've seen.
I think it's probably one of the more stable iOS releases I've seen.
I’ve been running the betas for a few weeks. The only issue I had was the calendar app not updating the month label as you scroll. Some potentially weird performance glitches that didn’t impede anything I was doing and got ironed out in later betas. Overall, easiest iOS upgrade so far. But I totally get where you are coming from. I have a horror story about several conservative versions of iOS that would constantly reboot my phone between 2 and 5 am at least once a month, buzzing and flashing the screen in the process. This followed me across resets and devices until the culprit was finally found and fixed after I put together clues from related issues on Stack Overflow AND got to talk to an actual Apple engineer on the phone. It was a struggle.
Would you mind sharing what the culprit was? This sounds really curious.
Basically it had to do with recurring events in an Outlook calendar. The protocol which was used to connect that calendar to the iOS calendar app would specify the end date of the recurrence as NULL and every night the calendar app would do some kind of processing of future events (I am fuzzy on the details here), and that NULL value would cause a crash that resulted all the way in a kernel panic. Wiping the device clean and trying to isolate which app was the problem was useless since I’d connect all my calendars from a backup automatically and then the resets would start again. It followed from one device to another because I shared my calendar with my wife and so her iPhone and iPad eventually caught this affliction too (which made it seem like my phone infected hers). And it was impossible for me to reproduce since it only happened during whatever the calendar app was doing and when it hit whatever recurring event was causing the trouble. In the end, after countless searches, posts on various social media sites seeing if anyone else had this problem, and bug reports to Apple I came across a Stack Overflow post that described kernel panics caused by the calendar app and said something about Outlook calendars specifically. So I went and disabled that calendar on one of the devices and the issue didn’t return. So eventually I got ahold of higher tier support at Apple and they had me talk to an engineer who took down careful notes. In a few months a point iOS release came out and made a vague reference to fixing calendar app bugs. The issue never recurred after and I never heard anything from Apple about it again, though they did promise to follow up. In either case I’m happy. Having your phone that you use as an alarm flashing and buzzing all night as it reboots every 90 seconds isn’t good for getting sleep.
I am very skittish around iOS ecosystem, and am responsible for keeping a 6+ year old iOS app running. It's not a very complicated app and it uses almost no permissions or services aside from camera & GPS, but we got burned a few times with breaking iOS changes over the years. I think we started w/ iOS 8. That said, I haven't seen a breaking change since 11, and I just got done with some initial test scenarios on 14 without concerns.
I just told my team to go ahead and update to 14 because at the least our app will open and run through some basic scenarios without any issues. Now I just need everyone to exercise all the code paths over the next week to be sure.
To be very clear, our app is not on the public store and is distributed using the enterprise program. This allows us some freedom as the Apple devices running our app are exclusively for the app and we have some leeway in telling our customers to hold off on the latest iOS if we need to. They have MDM and policy which allows for this level of control.
If we had this app on the public store, I would be in a state of total panic right now.
I just told my team to go ahead and update to 14 because at the least our app will open and run through some basic scenarios without any issues. Now I just need everyone to exercise all the code paths over the next week to be sure.
To be very clear, our app is not on the public store and is distributed using the enterprise program. This allows us some freedom as the Apple devices running our app are exclusively for the app and we have some leeway in telling our customers to hold off on the latest iOS if we need to. They have MDM and policy which allows for this level of control.
If we had this app on the public store, I would be in a state of total panic right now.
I'm still on OSX Mojave. I'll be upgrading to Catalina in October, a year after it was released.
Same. iOS 13 was a mess at launch and I’m gonna wait for at least a minor bug fix patch.
I've been using the beta since they put it up and it's been very solid. Not only that, my phone actually got a lot faster. Plus the new privacy features are huge (eg; restricting which photos are accessed, tracking by apps, etc.)
Instagram is already getting around the photos privacy feature: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24505285
I'm surprised that AirPods didn't support automatic device switching until now.
I assumed a lot of people with AirPods would want to switch the audio seamlessly between their iPhone and an iPad or Mac.
Any idea why it took so long to ship this feature?
I assumed a lot of people with AirPods would want to switch the audio seamlessly between their iPhone and an iPad or Mac.
Any idea why it took so long to ship this feature?
I saw this and was surprised because I’m pretty sure I don’t need to do anything to switch between my Mac and my iPhone.
I don’t think this works until the new MacOS is released also.
Because ever since the first Airpods I was able to jump on any of my devices and change it from Speaker to Airpods and it would instantly switch. I didn't need to unpair or disconnect from one device before it was usable by another like I do with my Sony 1000MX3.
Yep. I had this experience. It was for some reason, REALLY good when AirPods just came out, and seemed to degrade with subsequent macOS updates (In particular, I had more trouble switching between phone and laptop later, but not much trouble between phone and iPad).
I recently got some bone conducting headphones which have the dual bluetooth built in, and that is even more seamless - literally just plays the audio from the active device, though it's not perfectly accurate, and gets really confused by Spotify doing off-device play, but it's clearly nicer than even having to choose the output channel.
Looking forward to trying this out w/ my AirPods though.
I recently got some bone conducting headphones which have the dual bluetooth built in, and that is even more seamless - literally just plays the audio from the active device, though it's not perfectly accurate, and gets really confused by Spotify doing off-device play, but it's clearly nicer than even having to choose the output channel.
Looking forward to trying this out w/ my AirPods though.
They've had this with Beats for a while as well, definitely since before Airpods, it works really well.
I am really looking forward to this feature. Maybe I'm alone in this but I have constant connection issues switching between my Mac and phone when using AirPods (especially frustrating when answering calls).
You're definitely not alone. Switching my airpods from phone to laptop is always a frustratingly long process. First have to select my airpods in the audio list, wait 15 seconds until my airpods make a boop noise. They're not connected yet though, my mac will switch back to internal audio almost immediately. Need to repeat the process again before they will actually connect.
At least going the other way I only have to select the airpods once in the phones bluetooth device list.
At least going the other way I only have to select the airpods once in the phones bluetooth device list.
I'm not exactly sure what it does because my Airpods always seemed fairly good at switching between devices as required. We will see.
It wasn't a big deal because manual switching is almost instantaneous, unlike other headphones on other platforms.
My Bose Soundsport and Jabra 75t support simultaneous connections. Faster than "almost instantaneous"...because it's connected to 2 devices. I can watch a video on youtube on my laptop and immediately pickup a phone call. I never understood why Apple didn't support this. My Soundsport also annoucnes on startup which devices it's connected to..which is helpful when you have more than 2. My Soundsport is several years old, and Jabra had it since 65t, at least.
Edit: Also apparently this device switching feature for Airpod Pro is good only for Apple devices, and Apple devices on the same iCloud account.
Edit: Also apparently this device switching feature for Airpod Pro is good only for Apple devices, and Apple devices on the same iCloud account.
Two simultaneous connections unnecessarily drains the battery of whichever device is not currently being used. It would also provide an inconsistent user experience when using more than two devices (say an iPhone, iPad, and a MacBook). I can see why Apple prefers to make actual switching as seamless as possible rather than support simultaneous connections.
Do you have to choose which device you are listening on by interacting with the headset, or is there a way to toggle that from the source devices?
Do you have to choose which device you are listening on by interacting with the headset, or is there a way to toggle that from the source devices?
From the update: "Option to set your default email and web browser".
Finally!
Finally!
It’s a step in the right direction, but honestly, what’s really the point when all browsers are just wrappers around Safari anyway.
That’s a tech-centric view. For most people a browser is defined by its features like tab handling, account syncing, preferences, extensions, etc. Nobody cares about the HTML engine, only developers. The fact that it’s possible to change the default browser is an important user-level feature.
It's true, but I think that's not the point. It's not because people don't care that it won't impact them.
Many people don't care about Privacy, Ecology, etc... yet it will have catastrophic consequences down the line.
Similarly here, yes it's true people don't care about the web engine, yet given Mozilla situation and Microsoft who switched to chromium, the web is seriously not in a good shape and it will have consequences on the long term.
Many people don't care about Privacy, Ecology, etc... yet it will have catastrophic consequences down the line.
Similarly here, yes it's true people don't care about the web engine, yet given Mozilla situation and Microsoft who switched to chromium, the web is seriously not in a good shape and it will have consequences on the long term.
I mean the most likely effect of iOS allowing alternative browsers is even more Chrome dominance than already currently exists. The fact that a major platform forces developers to not just stop once it works in Chrome is probably a net benefit at this point.
Not really... for me, iOS is a hard target, because all the non-default browsers (Chrome, Brave, Firefox) interact in different ways with the underlying engine that Safari provides.
Bugs present in iOS browsers, won't be present in Android browsers even if the browser version is the same which makes debugging harder.
For example, it turns having 3 targets (Chrome, Firefox, Safari...) into 5 targets (Chrome Android, Chrome ioS, Firefox Android, Firefox iOS, Safari iOS).
Differences between mobile/desktop browser are relatively minor in comparison.
On the Chrome side, there's fragmentation from all the browser that just wrap Chrome like Samsung Internet and QQ, but those are greatly mitigated by having up to date apps or are region specific so won't apply if your business doesn't do business in China.
Bugs present in iOS browsers, won't be present in Android browsers even if the browser version is the same which makes debugging harder.
For example, it turns having 3 targets (Chrome, Firefox, Safari...) into 5 targets (Chrome Android, Chrome ioS, Firefox Android, Firefox iOS, Safari iOS).
Differences between mobile/desktop browser are relatively minor in comparison.
On the Chrome side, there's fragmentation from all the browser that just wrap Chrome like Samsung Internet and QQ, but those are greatly mitigated by having up to date apps or are region specific so won't apply if your business doesn't do business in China.
Yes that's a fair point agreed . If every platform were like that then Mozilla would never have even existed, but Chrome gaining even more market wouldn't be great either
It is not remotely a tech centric view. People want things to work. Stuff doesn't work in Safari because it's missing features. User's also want to pay less. PWAs let companies skip the app store and therefore skip paying apple 30% of their transactions which means cheaper prices for users. If apple allowed other browser engines those engines would have PWA support.
> User's also want to pay less.
If that's all they wanted they would buy an Android.
> PWAs let companies skip the app store and therefore skip paying apple 30% of their transactions which means cheaper prices for users.
Exactly, this is what this is all about: companies wanting to milk users for more money and maximize their own profits, not that they actually care about the users.
If that's all they wanted they would buy an Android.
> PWAs let companies skip the app store and therefore skip paying apple 30% of their transactions which means cheaper prices for users.
Exactly, this is what this is all about: companies wanting to milk users for more money and maximize their own profits, not that they actually care about the users.
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> what’s really the point when all browsers are just wrappers around Safari anyway.
I think one of the reasons may be to enforce the global settings for parent controls and privacy etc. which would be hard with third-party engines.
I think one of the reasons may be to enforce the global settings for parent controls and privacy etc. which would be hard with third-party engines.
I'm just guessing here, but since Apple has pretty strict review requirements for apps in the app store, I assume they could list as a requirement that any browser app (or app with similar functionality) needs to hook into these Apple settings and process them correctly.
It’s still not in yet. Been waiting for it all beta as the #1 feature. Going to guess it will be in 14.1
Your favorite apps might just need to get updated to support the new feature.
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14 major versions in ain't so bad
You can finally set a default browser but still can't install an alternative browser. We will get there eventually
I like using iOS on my iPad 3, where websites don't load anyway so I don't need to care ;)
One iOS 14 feature I’m really looking forward to is the use of banners instead of full screen notifications for incoming phone calls.
Unbelievable that they stuck with that design for this long. It was even worse before unknown caller filtering was introduced: I would literally be DDoS'd from my phone multiple times a day from random numbers, iirc with no option to decline if your phone was already unlocked (i.e. using it when it a call came through)!!!
Took them a pandemic worth of phone usage to realize how irritating this was. When lockdown/WFH started, my company was using Google Meet, and everytime there is an incoming call it used to go full screen completely blocking for whatever purpose I was using the phone (or what ever I was hearing or saying). Though Zoom integrates with Call feature (not sure what's the technical term for it), whenever there is an incoming call between a zoom call it used to go in waiting.
Any Android users have insight into the uptake on Instant Apps [1] over the past three years? I’ll be curious how they and the new App Clips [2] in iOS 14 will evolve versus web apps.
[1]: https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant
[2]: https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/
[1]: https://developer.android.com/topic/google-play-instant
[2]: https://developer.apple.com/app-clips/
The last time that I checked, Instant Apps have not been enabled by default on the vast majority of devices.
It's impossible to develop around a feature that must be specifically enabled by digging through settings menus by individual users. As a product owner, there's little way to justify it. As a user, I've run across them less than 10 times in the wild, but they've been delightful and consistently good experiences.
It's impossible to develop around a feature that must be specifically enabled by digging through settings menus by individual users. As a product owner, there's little way to justify it. As a user, I've run across them less than 10 times in the wild, but they've been delightful and consistently good experiences.
minimal to no usage, i expect to see `app-clips` deprecated by iOS 15
Totally disagree, I think app clips are huge and will get tons of traction.
Maybe, but the iOS uniformity and willingness of its users to update is an advantage for trying to get this adopted.
Favoriting this comment to revisit in a year. I hope you will be here too. :)
The “jiggle mode” for editing icons has always been a bit of a mess but it is definitely broken right now and I hope a fix is on deck for 14.0.1.
Try moving — well — anything between home-screen pages that have widgets: there is a good chance that many icons will be shuffled in an indecipherable order. And worse, it’s so easy to get too close to the edge of the screen and accidentally switch pages, which means when you try to move one little icon you might shatter the entire icon layout of two adjacent pages!!
(Also, I really loved being able to edit screens sanely in iTunes and I miss that. It was just easier to set up a few screens of phone icons using a mouse.)
Try moving — well — anything between home-screen pages that have widgets: there is a good chance that many icons will be shuffled in an indecipherable order. And worse, it’s so easy to get too close to the edge of the screen and accidentally switch pages, which means when you try to move one little icon you might shatter the entire icon layout of two adjacent pages!!
(Also, I really loved being able to edit screens sanely in iTunes and I miss that. It was just easier to set up a few screens of phone icons using a mouse.)
Try using two fingers (or both hands). It works really well when you use one hand to swipe and the other to move.
Holy [expletive] I had no idea you could do that, thank you for the tip!
Sent from my iPad
Sent from my iPad
You can also move multiple app icons at once with this method.
Just tap additional icons with your secondary finger while moving an app, and the additional apps will be added to the main finger’s “stack”.
Just tap additional icons with your secondary finger while moving an app, and the additional apps will be added to the main finger’s “stack”.
The same two-handed scrolling thing works great on MacBooks as well. e.g. dragging while scrolling in Finder.
OMG How did I not know you could do this... This makes life so much easier! Thanks!
Actually broke my own record tonight; for having the audacity to move a single widget, iOS 14 rewarded me by effectively randomly shuffling 5 different pages of icons, and putting my widget on the last page (with no Undo of course). What a piece of trash.
Also, I think I figured out why Apple is hoping everyone uses “App Library” and edits their phones down to one page: it is buggy as hell if you do it any other way.
Also, I think I figured out why Apple is hoping everyone uses “App Library” and edits their phones down to one page: it is buggy as hell if you do it any other way.
I can't confirm that issue (although I will say that jiggle mode is super finicky—I'm glad to be down to one home page screen with iOS 14). That said, may I suggest you try the home screen editor in Apple Configurator?
The editor in Apple Configurator 2 doesn’t recognize large-size widgets (they appear as blank, normal-size icons) and it fails to save any changes to the device.
Push notifications on PWAs? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As a user, please no.
As long as you could approve or reject push notifications on a site by site basis, what is the problem here?
Because the majority of people don't know how to adjust app notifications. And the rest of us don't want to adjust it for every single rogue web site.
Apple vets apps for their use of push notifications and will warn/ban them if they use them excessively or for advertising purposes. Obviously they can't do the same for PWA.
Apple vets apps for their use of push notifications and will warn/ban them if they use them excessively or for advertising purposes. Obviously they can't do the same for PWA.
Mixed feelings here, as a developer I would love to send push to iOS, as a user I agree with you, every time I check my parent's android I have to spend a lot of time revoking permissions from websites.
On android these notifications are abused to send shitty content, maybe a change at the OS level to warn the user in a more prominent way? Like these modals that won't allow you click until X secs have passed.
On android these notifications are abused to send shitty content, maybe a change at the OS level to warn the user in a more prominent way? Like these modals that won't allow you click until X secs have passed.
1) I don't want to see the prompts to allow push notifications from a webapp, nor to have to go disable them. I just never want them.
2) Generally I'd rather none of the software I use be webtech, so anything that makes it easier to deliver webtech to my phone/tablet is a step the wrong direction. Yes I'm willing to have less total software in exchange. The point is that I don't want apps that are or will be native, to be webtech instead, which may happen as more features are added to webapps. IMO allowing stuff like React Native and Phonegap is something I'd even rather they didn't do (and I've been paid to develop both native and React Native apps, plus worked on a very early and somewhat successful Phonegap-but-more-native solution that ultimately fizzled out). My ideal situation is that if anyone tells me to try out some app or to use some app to communicate or share something with them or whatever, personal or business, it's a webapp 0% of the time. It's either native or it doesn't exist, so no-one can bug me about it or cajole me into using it.
In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible, so why would I prefer they be allowed?
2) Generally I'd rather none of the software I use be webtech, so anything that makes it easier to deliver webtech to my phone/tablet is a step the wrong direction. Yes I'm willing to have less total software in exchange. The point is that I don't want apps that are or will be native, to be webtech instead, which may happen as more features are added to webapps. IMO allowing stuff like React Native and Phonegap is something I'd even rather they didn't do (and I've been paid to develop both native and React Native apps, plus worked on a very early and somewhat successful Phonegap-but-more-native solution that ultimately fizzled out). My ideal situation is that if anyone tells me to try out some app or to use some app to communicate or share something with them or whatever, personal or business, it's a webapp 0% of the time. It's either native or it doesn't exist, so no-one can bug me about it or cajole me into using it.
In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible, so why would I prefer they be allowed?
Web notifications are one of the worst things to happen to the modern web. Ever look at your grandma's Samsung phone? She's probably got 5 spam ads saying you won a contest or to claim some offer. Most users are conditioned to just accept whatever popups are shoved in their faces, ESPECIALLY since the EU laws a few years ago that forced every website to tell about their cookies policy. And hell, I've accidentally accepted push notifications from sites throwing a popup in front of me while I was trying to click something else or scroll.
Apple was completely right to not allow web push notifications on iOS. They're 99% abuse. I don't even like them on desktop either.
Apple was completely right to not allow web push notifications on iOS. They're 99% abuse. I don't even like them on desktop either.
We're talking about PWA notifications, not pure web notifications.
The P in PWA comes from the word progressive. So, we don't need to enable every native feature immediately for every website.
People who want PWA notifications would be absolutely fine with not being able to send them until the user added the PWA to their home screen and opted into notifications.
The P in PWA comes from the word progressive. So, we don't need to enable every native feature immediately for every website.
People who want PWA notifications would be absolutely fine with not being able to send them until the user added the PWA to their home screen and opted into notifications.
> 1) I don't want to see the prompts to allow push notifications from a webapp...
You wouldn't have to get them unless you proactively installed the PWA to your home screen.
> 2) Generally I'd rather none of the software I use be webtech, so anything that makes it easier to deliver webtech to my phone/tablet is a step the wrong direction...so no-one can bug me about it or cajole me into using it.
That's your only reason? Because people ask you to use web apps? Perhaps that's because you want the wrong thing for some reason. You haven't explained what that reason is very well at all.
> In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible...
You have never experienced this, so how could you possibly know? Also, no it wouldn't.
> so why would I prefer they be allowed?
Because you haven't listed any good reasons why you're right, which usually means that you're wrong.
You wouldn't have to get them unless you proactively installed the PWA to your home screen.
> 2) Generally I'd rather none of the software I use be webtech, so anything that makes it easier to deliver webtech to my phone/tablet is a step the wrong direction...so no-one can bug me about it or cajole me into using it.
That's your only reason? Because people ask you to use web apps? Perhaps that's because you want the wrong thing for some reason. You haven't explained what that reason is very well at all.
> In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible...
You have never experienced this, so how could you possibly know? Also, no it wouldn't.
> so why would I prefer they be allowed?
Because you haven't listed any good reasons why you're right, which usually means that you're wrong.
> You have never experienced this
Actually we have.
In the early days of iOS, Apple never regulated push notifications. And so I remember many apps using them as a reminder pushing notifications daily and sometimes even multiple times a day. There were also companies selling "notification space" within their apps to third parties for use as an advertising channel.
It was pretty awful and it degraded the overall experience of using the iPhone since notifications appear whilst your using other apps.
Apple was right to regulate them. And I hope Apple continues to look after consumers and not allow PWA to use them.
Actually we have.
In the early days of iOS, Apple never regulated push notifications. And so I remember many apps using them as a reminder pushing notifications daily and sometimes even multiple times a day. There were also companies selling "notification space" within their apps to third parties for use as an advertising channel.
It was pretty awful and it degraded the overall experience of using the iPhone since notifications appear whilst your using other apps.
Apple was right to regulate them. And I hope Apple continues to look after consumers and not allow PWA to use them.
Actually, you misunderstood the response.
They said "In short, my UX on iOS is better without them (web notifications) even being possible".
How could they know when Apple never implemented it?
The fact that apps had unregulated push notifications and now they don't pretty much settles the debate in my favor. Apple can regulate push notifications for PWAs in all sorts of ways outside of barring them altogether, just like they did for native apps.
They said "In short, my UX on iOS is better without them (web notifications) even being possible".
How could they know when Apple never implemented it?
The fact that apps had unregulated push notifications and now they don't pretty much settles the debate in my favor. Apple can regulate push notifications for PWAs in all sorts of ways outside of barring them altogether, just like they did for native apps.
The point is that Apple only managed to reign in push notifications because they were able to warn/ban apps.
They can't do this with PWA.
They can't do this with PWA.
They absolutely can.
You’re acting like there’s zero way for them to throttle what’s going on in Safari.
How do you think Google warns you when you’re going to some malware website? They keep a list somewhere. Apple could do that very easily.
Computers are very good at keeping lists.
You’re acting like there’s zero way for them to throttle what’s going on in Safari.
How do you think Google warns you when you’re going to some malware website? They keep a list somewhere. Apple could do that very easily.
Computers are very good at keeping lists.
> Perhaps that's because you want the wrong thing for some reason.
I can't really parse this but from the best sense of it I can get, I reckon the most correct response is, "no, u".
[EDIT] Oh and also:
> You have never experienced this, so how could you possibly know? Also, no it wouldn't.
It's really incredible how often relatively straightforward conversations on HN end up veering, pointlessly, into theory of the mind and epistemology.
I can't really parse this but from the best sense of it I can get, I reckon the most correct response is, "no, u".
[EDIT] Oh and also:
> You have never experienced this, so how could you possibly know? Also, no it wouldn't.
It's really incredible how often relatively straightforward conversations on HN end up veering, pointlessly, into theory of the mind and epistemology.
That's not an HN thing, that's an internet thing (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...)
If you find yourself getting sucked into a "no, u" dynamic, the only thing that works is to step away. That's hard in the moment (because it feels like ceding the field to the obviously-wrong, obviously-inappropriate other) but then you win. And we all win.
Certainly when an internet thread becomes so generic as to reach "theory of mind and epistemology", it was time to walk away a long time ago. It's hardly likely that any internet forum will ever generate anything new or valuable to say about such things, and certainly not in the middle of a tit-for-tat activation.
If you find yourself getting sucked into a "no, u" dynamic, the only thing that works is to step away. That's hard in the moment (because it feels like ceding the field to the obviously-wrong, obviously-inappropriate other) but then you win. And we all win.
Certainly when an internet thread becomes so generic as to reach "theory of mind and epistemology", it was time to walk away a long time ago. It's hardly likely that any internet forum will ever generate anything new or valuable to say about such things, and certainly not in the middle of a tit-for-tat activation.
> I can't really parse this...
Allow me to make it very simple: You didn't give any reasons for your opinion. You just gave your opinion.
> ...I reckon the most correct response is, "no, u".
If you're used to that sort of argumentation, I suppose that is what you'd reckon.
> It's really incredible how often relatively straightforward conversations on HN end up veering, pointlessly, into theory of the mind and epistemology.
Apple has never enabled notifications for PWAs on iOS. Therefore, you couldn't possibly know that your "UX on iOS is better without them even being possible" because you have nothing to compare to.
What about that speaks to "theory of the mind and epistemology" in your opinion?
Perhaps you're confusing web notifications with PWA notifications. Perhaps you're thinking that Apple couldn't possibly do it any differently from Android where every website can prompt you to give notifications.
Gee, I wonder if your whole problem couldn't just be solved by letting you opt into the whole idea of PWA notifications? Then you could never turn on that switch and happily live your life without ever thinking about them again.
Somehow, you'd rather force everybody else to do it your way instead of giving them a choice and I find that to be rather deplorable.
Allow me to make it very simple: You didn't give any reasons for your opinion. You just gave your opinion.
> ...I reckon the most correct response is, "no, u".
If you're used to that sort of argumentation, I suppose that is what you'd reckon.
> It's really incredible how often relatively straightforward conversations on HN end up veering, pointlessly, into theory of the mind and epistemology.
Apple has never enabled notifications for PWAs on iOS. Therefore, you couldn't possibly know that your "UX on iOS is better without them even being possible" because you have nothing to compare to.
What about that speaks to "theory of the mind and epistemology" in your opinion?
Perhaps you're confusing web notifications with PWA notifications. Perhaps you're thinking that Apple couldn't possibly do it any differently from Android where every website can prompt you to give notifications.
Gee, I wonder if your whole problem couldn't just be solved by letting you opt into the whole idea of PWA notifications? Then you could never turn on that switch and happily live your life without ever thinking about them again.
Somehow, you'd rather force everybody else to do it your way instead of giving them a choice and I find that to be rather deplorable.
You explicitly claimed it wouldn't be worse. Consider applying your own standards to that claim.
Consider also that it's possible to assert something without perfect knowledge of its truth. Usually context is sufficient to gather the level of certainty being expressed, or the implicit perspective from which it holds true, without hedging and defensively weakening every little statement.
> > Perhaps that's because you want the wrong thing for some reason.
> Allow me to make it very simple: You didn't give any reasons for your opinion. You just gave your opinion.
I'm glad you translated it because I'd never have gotten the second claim from the first. Phew.
> What about that speaks to "theory of the mind and epistemology" in your opinion?
Your entire objection, which seems to carry some unusual assumptions about the power and utility of thought experiments and the extent of the value of comparing similar, but not identical, things. Notably, it appears to reject them as being to any useful degree, even for evaluating a user-facing OS feature valid or enlightening.
> Gee, I wonder if your whole problem couldn't just be solved by letting you opt into the whole idea of PWA notifications?
Making them opt-in and off by default, ideally with no way for the app to tell whether they're enabled, would be an improvement, but allow me to repeat my reason from my post which, you claim, contained no reasons: I do not want features that make webapps more viable on iOS, because I do not like webapps and prefer an environment that makes me less likely to encounter them for any reason. So simply not having the feature would be even better.
[EDIT] nb. I entirely get disagreement with my position on a variety of grounds, but I find such apparent failure to even engage with it, and rejection that it is a position, harder to understand.
Consider also that it's possible to assert something without perfect knowledge of its truth. Usually context is sufficient to gather the level of certainty being expressed, or the implicit perspective from which it holds true, without hedging and defensively weakening every little statement.
> > Perhaps that's because you want the wrong thing for some reason.
> Allow me to make it very simple: You didn't give any reasons for your opinion. You just gave your opinion.
I'm glad you translated it because I'd never have gotten the second claim from the first. Phew.
> What about that speaks to "theory of the mind and epistemology" in your opinion?
Your entire objection, which seems to carry some unusual assumptions about the power and utility of thought experiments and the extent of the value of comparing similar, but not identical, things. Notably, it appears to reject them as being to any useful degree, even for evaluating a user-facing OS feature valid or enlightening.
> Gee, I wonder if your whole problem couldn't just be solved by letting you opt into the whole idea of PWA notifications?
Making them opt-in and off by default, ideally with no way for the app to tell whether they're enabled, would be an improvement, but allow me to repeat my reason from my post which, you claim, contained no reasons: I do not want features that make webapps more viable on iOS, because I do not like webapps and prefer an environment that makes me less likely to encounter them for any reason. So simply not having the feature would be even better.
[EDIT] nb. I entirely get disagreement with my position on a variety of grounds, but I find such apparent failure to even engage with it, and rejection that it is a position, harder to understand.
> You explicitly claimed it wouldn't be worse. Consider applying your own standards to that claim.
Having a choice is always better than not having one with regards personal preferences. That's my standard. What's yours aside from "I don't like web apps"?
> Your entire objection, which seems to carry some unusual assumptions about the power and utility of thought experiments and the extent of the value of comparing similar, but not identical, things. Notably, it appears to reject them as being to any useful degree, even for evaluating a user-facing OS feature valid or enlightening.
For example?
You are needlessly complicating the conversation with all this meta-drivel. It's pretty simple really: You want everybody to have no choice. I want people to have a choice. I stated my position pretty clearly. You're just giving opinions and philosophizing.
> Making them opt-in and off by default, ideally with no way for the app to tell whether they're enabled, would be an improvement...
Good - we've moved from zero choice, to some choice. We're making progress!
> because I do not like webapps and prefer an environment that makes me less likely to encounter them for any reason.
That's not a reason. That's an opinion and a personal preference. You didn't state the reason for your opinion that nobody should be able to get PWA notifications.
> I entirely get disagreement with my position on a variety of grounds, but I find such apparent failure to even engage with it, and rejection that it is a position, harder to understand.
You still haven't stated anything other than your opinion.
Having a choice is always better than not having one with regards personal preferences. That's my standard. What's yours aside from "I don't like web apps"?
> Your entire objection, which seems to carry some unusual assumptions about the power and utility of thought experiments and the extent of the value of comparing similar, but not identical, things. Notably, it appears to reject them as being to any useful degree, even for evaluating a user-facing OS feature valid or enlightening.
For example?
You are needlessly complicating the conversation with all this meta-drivel. It's pretty simple really: You want everybody to have no choice. I want people to have a choice. I stated my position pretty clearly. You're just giving opinions and philosophizing.
> Making them opt-in and off by default, ideally with no way for the app to tell whether they're enabled, would be an improvement...
Good - we've moved from zero choice, to some choice. We're making progress!
> because I do not like webapps and prefer an environment that makes me less likely to encounter them for any reason.
That's not a reason. That's an opinion and a personal preference. You didn't state the reason for your opinion that nobody should be able to get PWA notifications.
> I entirely get disagreement with my position on a variety of grounds, but I find such apparent failure to even engage with it, and rejection that it is a position, harder to understand.
You still haven't stated anything other than your opinion.
> You still haven't stated anything other than your opinion.
That's all either of us have been doing. [EDIT] and an opinion can be a reason! They're not mutually exclusive. Do you need an itemized list of problems I have with webapps, with figures backing them all up (else they'd be opinions again, I guess)? I figured that'd been discussed to death, especially on HN.
> Having a choice is always better than not having one with regards personal preferences. That's my standard. What's yours aside from "I don't like web apps"?
I like being able to choose a platform that makes it hard for developers to get by with a webapp, pushing them toward native apps. See? I like choice too.
That's all either of us have been doing. [EDIT] and an opinion can be a reason! They're not mutually exclusive. Do you need an itemized list of problems I have with webapps, with figures backing them all up (else they'd be opinions again, I guess)? I figured that'd been discussed to death, especially on HN.
> Having a choice is always better than not having one with regards personal preferences. That's my standard. What's yours aside from "I don't like web apps"?
I like being able to choose a platform that makes it hard for developers to get by with a webapp, pushing them toward native apps. See? I like choice too.
wayneftw(2)
> I don't want to see the prompts to allow push notifications from a webapp, nor to have to go disable them. I just never want them.
Surely Apple could implement a setting to disable all requests for push notifications?
> In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible, so why would I prefer they be allowed?
Because not everyone agrees with you and web apps have many advantages over native.
Surely Apple could implement a setting to disable all requests for push notifications?
> In short, my UX on iOS is better without them even being possible, so why would I prefer they be allowed?
Because not everyone agrees with you and web apps have many advantages over native.
> Because not everyone agrees with you and web apps have many advantages over native.
But I don't care about those advantages (to the extent that they exist for users they're secondary effects of webapps being very cheap to make as cross-platform apps, so more likely to be made in the first place if cross-platform is a requirement) and like being able to choose a platform where it's hard to deploy a webapp instead of a native app, forcing the choice of "native app" or "no app at all" on the part of the developer, because I think it leads to fewer total apps but way more native apps than there'd otherwise be.
So why would I prefer PWAs become more capable on the platform? I see why PWA developers and maybe some users would.
But I don't care about those advantages (to the extent that they exist for users they're secondary effects of webapps being very cheap to make as cross-platform apps, so more likely to be made in the first place if cross-platform is a requirement) and like being able to choose a platform where it's hard to deploy a webapp instead of a native app, forcing the choice of "native app" or "no app at all" on the part of the developer, because I think it leads to fewer total apps but way more native apps than there'd otherwise be.
So why would I prefer PWAs become more capable on the platform? I see why PWA developers and maybe some users would.
> Surely Apple could implement a setting to disable all requests for push notifications?
That’s an option in macOS. Ultimately it doesn’t make the UX any better though, as web developers still present JS-based dialogs asking for notification permissions
That’s an option in macOS. Ultimately it doesn’t make the UX any better though, as web developers still present JS-based dialogs asking for notification permissions
The problem, to me, is being prompted to approve or reject push notifications on a site by site basis. Unless I can have a blanket "shut off" option that applies to anything in a webview, I'd prefer none at all. It'd also be preferable if that blanket shut off option came shut off by default.
Because for every useful site, there are 99 abusing the feature for advertising. Same as for location.
A friend the other day thought their laptop had a virus because they had inadvertently turned on notifications for some spammy website. Took me a while to work out how to turn it off.
A friend the other day thought their laptop had a virus because they had inadvertently turned on notifications for some spammy website. Took me a while to work out how to turn it off.
I've seen an increasing trend of sites showing modal popups immediately upon page load asking for permission to send notifications. This type of behavior is extremely obnoxious.
Being able to approve or reject notifications is not enough - we should take the additional step of not allowing sites to show these kinds of prompts unless the user specifically clicked a button and asked for it.
Being able to approve or reject notifications is not enough - we should take the additional step of not allowing sites to show these kinds of prompts unless the user specifically clicked a button and asked for it.
Because it’s bad enough every site has a pop up “we use cookies”. Now every site has “allow notifications so we can spam you”.
I hope that they come, but only after an app has been installed. I don’t want yet another thing to tap NO on when surfing.
+1, for PWAs to succeed, they need feature parity with native apps for fundamental things like notifications. But outside of PWAs, web notifications are mostly just spam, so requiring installation seems like a good middle ground.
XCode 12 is also out, taking up over 30GB of space apparently. For reference, XCode 11 was about 10.
What's the reason for the size increase? ARM support?
I am not sure. The download is about 11GB, maybe file system block size plays a role but why would be multiple times larger than before?
Because there's nobody around to say "no" anymore.
Finder says it's 28 GB but du says 15 GB. The compressed size went from 8 GB to 11 GB, so I suspect Finder's number is just wrong for some reason?
The overwhelming bulk of Xcode's footprint is the simulators. Xcode 12 went from two iOS simulator architectures to three (previously i386 and x86_64, arm64 added), one watchOS architecture to three (previously i386, x86_64 and arm64 added), and one tvOS architecture to two (previously x86_64, arm64 added), which naturally increases the size quite a bit.
The overwhelming bulk of Xcode's footprint is the simulators. Xcode 12 went from two iOS simulator architectures to three (previously i386 and x86_64, arm64 added), one watchOS architecture to three (previously i386, x86_64 and arm64 added), and one tvOS architecture to two (previously x86_64, arm64 added), which naturally increases the size quite a bit.
Dont they support app thinning on macOS?
APFS supports on-disk compression, and the Mac App Store uses that when installing Xcode, so it can be tricky to compare storage amounts.
Xcode 11: 10.3GB on disk / 17.1GB apparent
Xcode 12: 16.9GB on disk / 30.0GB apparent
Xcode 11: 10.3GB on disk / 17.1GB apparent
Xcode 12: 16.9GB on disk / 30.0GB apparent
Apple seems to be at least 3 hours behind schedule as there's no sign of it here on the East Coast, yet.
Got it about an hour ago in the UK.
Working for me, might be a staged rollout where they tell some devices it's not available to reduce the server load
It's been available for developers who were on the beta track for nearly a day now.
I suspect they are just progressively rolling it out.
I suspect they are just progressively rolling it out.
I just tapped the "Download and Install" button. Now the settings app freezes when I try to tap on "Software updates" and iOS 14 even downloaded yet. getting nervous...
Been using since the first developer beta. Alas, still a few bugs and half-baked features, like the inability to re-add apps back to the Home Screen from the pull-down search.
If you have a ton of Home Screen pages like I do, you have to tap/drag a long way to the App Library to be able to restore the "hidden" apps.
Translation is still wonky for EN↔JP: "Test" gets translated into Japanese as "Testament", okay...
If you have a ton of Home Screen pages like I do, you have to tap/drag a long way to the App Library to be able to restore the "hidden" apps.
Translation is still wonky for EN↔JP: "Test" gets translated into Japanese as "Testament", okay...
One thing similar to Catalina with iOS 14 is the “over” security. It does nice to have scoped location permission or scoped photos access. But sometimes those permissions just pops up at a time when you’d click on them by mistake.
For less techie people it would be impossible to go to settings and change it.
It's actually not available on device as of this writing...
Got it here on my phone 10 minutes ago. In Denmark.
Currently not available in Germany. I wonder how their rollout mechanism works like.
The translation feature sounds amazing. Any ideas how it works?
It’a much more usable than Google’s but limited in number of languages.
Also Safari’s ability to translate websites seems to be geolocked to the US.
Also Safari’s ability to translate websites seems to be geolocked to the US.
Is it?
I'm seeing iOS devs on twitter complain about multiple builds and redundant versions. I'm waiting for Xcode 12.1 the launch seems to be a mess.
I'm seeing iOS devs on twitter complain about multiple builds and redundant versions. I'm waiting for Xcode 12.1 the launch seems to be a mess.
Not yet available in SF Bay Area and looks like others not seeing in Pacific time zone.
Edit: iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 are available now as of 1:08PM.
Edit: iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 are available now as of 1:08PM.
iPadOS doesn't have the app drawer :-(
In Ontario Canada. It's available.
Thanks for letting us know. I'm in Toronto, so I appreciate it.
So, you still can't disable the pointless and annoying "message sent" tone in iMessage.
I've kept my phone on silent via the physical toggle switch for the last four years and it's been a real game changer. I'm still notified via vibrations but receive zero audible notifications. It seems very odd at first but I'd have it no other way at this point.
What about the low battery nags?
When will the huddled high-device-usage masses be free of 10 of these a day?
When will the huddled high-device-usage masses be free of 10 of these a day?
Seems to be available now, you might need to kill the Settings.app to make it show up immediately.
Looks like Windows Phone tiles )
Is there any mechanism to rollback to older versions if newer ones break ?
PS. non iOS user here
PS. non iOS user here
No, once you upgrade with iOS, you're stuck on it as an user
Only for as long as apple signs a given release.
Nope. At least nothing trivial.
Now run and update your app... we're caught by surprise on this release
I've seen this a lot lately. I'm not an app developer, so forgive the ignorance. What was the surprise? The actual release date? Does Apple normally send out an email to devs saying you have 1 week until it drops? From my experience with Apple, the GM was always a closely held secret and divulging knowledge was grounds for loss of Apple privileges. Just curious what is so different this time.
[deleted]
apple never gives us the release day, so we are always biting nails
when fatal bugs, or issues are reported, there is little communication from apple... alot people/companies depend on what apple is doing here
hisotrically, they announce new stuff, then ios is released about 1 week later (conveyed at the annnouncement)
this time, it was one day.
alot of us had apps already in testing and preparation, but depending on what features you might have used, some bugs occur that have either no workaround of nasty workarounds, and we need the GM release to confirm certain things and how to proceed
i cant talk about the issues i have faced in my job, but this 1 day notice has not gone off well
-- as an aside --
personally, my feelings towards apple has soured very much, and anecdotally, many friends who work in industry who have to deal with apple (apps, app store, safari etc) have soured on them too
when people say "apple doesnt care about developers" i can understand thier feelings somewhat...
when fatal bugs, or issues are reported, there is little communication from apple... alot people/companies depend on what apple is doing here
hisotrically, they announce new stuff, then ios is released about 1 week later (conveyed at the annnouncement)
this time, it was one day.
alot of us had apps already in testing and preparation, but depending on what features you might have used, some bugs occur that have either no workaround of nasty workarounds, and we need the GM release to confirm certain things and how to proceed
i cant talk about the issues i have faced in my job, but this 1 day notice has not gone off well
-- as an aside --
personally, my feelings towards apple has soured very much, and anecdotally, many friends who work in industry who have to deal with apple (apps, app store, safari etc) have soured on them too
when people say "apple doesnt care about developers" i can understand thier feelings somewhat...
I guess my response would be should Apple hold off releasing a major OS update until it has received thumbs up from every single developer? Of course not. The betas for iOS 14 have been out for a long time now (not sure of specific dates). If your app wasn't ready for GM today, then was it really ever going to be? I would assume Apple expects that after each beta version is released, developers update their code for that version with the hope that it is promoted to GM.
Even if zero app changes are required, you must still:
1. Download, extract, and run the new version of Xcode.
Note: you cannot upload builds for production App Store with pre-GM builds. You _must_ use the GM or production Xcode.
It's a 12 GB download, and extracting takes 20 minutes. Factor in about an hour here. Especially around when it's posted you can expect a very slow download.
2. Build, execute and validate the app at least _launches_.
Maybe another 30 minutes.
3. Create and upload an archived build to Apple.
Maybe another 30 minutes.
4. Wait for the uploaded build to finish processing.
This takes somewhere between 1-3 hours.
5. Submit the finished-processing build.
Manual inspection of metadata, screenshot uploading, etc. Let's call it 20 minutes.
6. Wait for approval from Apple.
Who knows how long.
7. Release.
So this is somewhere around 4-5 hours at _minimum_ of work to get the build uploaded.
When you're told at 11am that users will have it in their hands the next day, even if you are incredibly prepared, there's simply very little time to actually do the above in a safe way. And if you're not on Pacific Time, you're going to miss this window entirely.
Not to mention Apple uploaded a GM build of Xcode around noon, and then silently replaced it with an updated version sometime later without explaining what the difference was. Fun stuff.
Also: the GM build has regressions.
1. Download, extract, and run the new version of Xcode.
Note: you cannot upload builds for production App Store with pre-GM builds. You _must_ use the GM or production Xcode.
It's a 12 GB download, and extracting takes 20 minutes. Factor in about an hour here. Especially around when it's posted you can expect a very slow download.
2. Build, execute and validate the app at least _launches_.
Maybe another 30 minutes.
3. Create and upload an archived build to Apple.
Maybe another 30 minutes.
4. Wait for the uploaded build to finish processing.
This takes somewhere between 1-3 hours.
5. Submit the finished-processing build.
Manual inspection of metadata, screenshot uploading, etc. Let's call it 20 minutes.
6. Wait for approval from Apple.
Who knows how long.
7. Release.
So this is somewhere around 4-5 hours at _minimum_ of work to get the build uploaded.
When you're told at 11am that users will have it in their hands the next day, even if you are incredibly prepared, there's simply very little time to actually do the above in a safe way. And if you're not on Pacific Time, you're going to miss this window entirely.
Not to mention Apple uploaded a GM build of Xcode around noon, and then silently replaced it with an updated version sometime later without explaining what the difference was. Fun stuff.
Also: the GM build has regressions.
Thanks for that walk through. Again since I'm not an app dev, I have no insight into this process.
Do certain vendors get pre-release access that smaller vendors do not? Does Twitter/Facebook/etc have to do the same thing you just described? If it was truly as bad as you are making it out to be, how in the world does the eco-system survive? There's no way Apple could expect to be able to handle reviewing every single app in this manner. Surely something is missing?
Do certain vendors get pre-release access that smaller vendors do not? Does Twitter/Facebook/etc have to do the same thing you just described? If it was truly as bad as you are making it out to be, how in the world does the eco-system survive? There's no way Apple could expect to be able to handle reviewing every single app in this manner. Surely something is missing?
I do not believe they distributed the GM build of Xcode to anybody early. This is the first time they've ever pulled "also tomorrow it's out" -- they usually give 1 week to get app submissions in.
I also believe that, right now, they're just rubber stamping all app reviews. They cannot handle this volume.
I also believe that, right now, they're just rubber stamping all app reviews. They cannot handle this volume.
Still no way to make Maps put north at the top while you're driving.
Grumble, grumble.
Grumble, grumble.
You can with CarPlay
Do we have to fear that some of our apps might not work on iOS 14?
It’s always possible, but people (including me) have been running beta versions since June or July and have already reported any issues with third-party apps. Even my bank app worked the very first time on iOS 14, even though it didn’t on the iOS 13 betas.
Oh, shoot, didn‘t think about my banking and authenticator app. Mission critical software.
This was what worried me before installing the beta, but I had zero issues with third party apps.
Excited for the widgets
Software engineers don't let others install major releases. They make them wait till at least x.1.
As usual you're probably better off waiting for iOS 14.1 that will be out next week to clear up whatever UX breaking bugs they didn't catch during beta in this version.
Can we please stop posting dozens of clones of this exact same comment from people who haven't actually used iOS 14?
Even if it wasn't simply low-effort and repetitive, I haven't seen a single instance of a person who's used the beta corroborate this pessimism. Quite the opposite: every single one of these comments has replies by users of the beta that haven't noticed significant problems and generally seem to believe it's a solid update.
Even if it wasn't simply low-effort and repetitive, I haven't seen a single instance of a person who's used the beta corroborate this pessimism. Quite the opposite: every single one of these comments has replies by users of the beta that haven't noticed significant problems and generally seem to believe it's a solid update.
I've been using 14 beta for a while now, and have to say I am impressed at the low number of bugs I encountered so far.
For earlier releases I would go back to the main release only a few days after trying the beta due to bugs.
My impression is that 14 beta had fewer bugs than the first official 13.
For earlier releases I would go back to the main release only a few days after trying the beta due to bugs.
My impression is that 14 beta had fewer bugs than the first official 13.
This is the first iOS release where I decided I wasn't going to update immediately. I'm really looking forward to some of the new features but I'm tired of dealing with Apple's day-one bugs.
And this is the first iOS release where I decided to get the beta on my primary device—I haven’t noticed any significant bugs or regressions. While it’s a perfectly reasonable decision to wait a bit, this has been the most stable beta I’ve used in years.
Have they fixed the regression with background apps being aggressively killed introduced in iOS 13.2? I still run into it daily even on iOS 13.7 with e.g. Yelp and Google Maps.
Which device are you on? This basically never happens to me on XS but does quite a lot on iPad Pro 9.6. I’m almost certain it’s just a result of how much memory your device has.
Latest iPhone SE
"Powerful Updates to Messages", lol. Apple hasn't put an ounce of power into messaging. It's been 10 years, and they haven't innovated at all in the message space in any meaningful way (no, Memoji is not a meaningful extension of the messaging space). It's sad to see the lack of energy to actually create powerful and useful software, rather than to doing the bare minimum to compete in the smartphone market.
Huh?
It can run other apps inside of it, You can @people inside a group message, pin people to the top, etc..
You may not care for the app, but they update it relatively frequently!
It can run other apps inside of it, You can @people inside a group message, pin people to the top, etc..
You may not care for the app, but they update it relatively frequently!
"Update" which includes the most basic of iterations. I mean 95% of the current offerings could be completed in a few 2-week dev cycles. Its been almost 500 weeks of existence....@'ing people and pinning...c'mon!!! That's default stuff. The "iPhone" should be called the "iMessage" if it was true to it's purpose.
What's something you wish existed/suggest?
A couple things I would love to see in iMessage having used WhatsApp as my primary messaging app for the past several years: (1) Direct replying/quoting to a specific message. (2) More granular group chat controls (eg ability to add/remove/leave group message threads. (3) Ability to rename group chats so that I don't have 3 chat threads that contain the same first two people plus someone else
Unless I'm mistaken, all three are available on iOS right now. You can reply to a specific message, you can add/remove/leave a group iMessage, and you can name (and emoticon) group chats.
Seems like (1) is included in iOS 14?
“Inline replies You can reply directly to a specific message in a group conversation. See all related messages in their own view to easily keep track of a thread.”
“Inline replies You can reply directly to a specific message in a group conversation. See all related messages in their own view to easily keep track of a thread.”
search that actually works.
It baffles me that I can't search someone by firstname lastname and have our messages thread come up 100% reliably.
Sure it works some of the time, but not for older threads.
Im ok with waiting 10 seconds as long as it returns the results I know are there. I am forced to go to Contacts and find the person, then click the new message button linking into messages.
Contacts app has a similar issue. I have < 1000 contacts, yet I can't search reliably for a contact I know is there by first / last name. I have to scroll through the list of all my contacts to get to it.
Maybe this is a bug, but its been an issue for me for years.
It baffles me that I can't search someone by firstname lastname and have our messages thread come up 100% reliably.
Sure it works some of the time, but not for older threads.
Im ok with waiting 10 seconds as long as it returns the results I know are there. I am forced to go to Contacts and find the person, then click the new message button linking into messages.
Contacts app has a similar issue. I have < 1000 contacts, yet I can't search reliably for a contact I know is there by first / last name. I have to scroll through the list of all my contacts to get to it.
Maybe this is a bug, but its been an issue for me for years.
Threading, better search, tagging, sharing message bits with others, temporary group messages, better in-message features (polls, lists), better ways to send multiple pieces of media in a singular unit, ways to spend "live" time within imessage, higher-level walkie-talkie, ways to schedule messages, ways to send longer forms ("bursting the bubble"), sending rich text in messages,......
Okay. That's a lot of features.
You do understand that the iPhone is designed for the widest of audiences from children to elderly. I don't think making Messages significantly more complex is a good thing.
You do understand that the iPhone is designed for the widest of audiences from children to elderly. I don't think making Messages significantly more complex is a good thing.
I feel like imessage takes up too much space to my computer hdd. It's like 25gb. Seems like a lot.
So move/delete your old messages and attachments... I don't understand how is this an iMessage issue?
iMessage (blue bubble) conversations are fairly good and well-featured, but I wish they would bring some kind of improvements to SMS text messages (green bubbles).
I wonder how much of it is competitive advantage to push people to switch to iOS vs. Apple executives literally never texting people with Android phones.
I wonder how much of it is competitive advantage to push people to switch to iOS vs. Apple executives literally never texting people with Android phones.
I just want to disable the pointless "message sent" tone in iMessage.
Innovations such as ....?
Threading, better search, tagging, sharing message bits with others, temporary group messages, better in-message features, better ways to send multiple pieces of media in a singular unit, ways to spend "live" time within imessage...i could go on for awhile
Oh how exciting - now if they only removed their restriction of OS installations on old devices then maybe I could make use of it. As it is it's just another nail in the coffin for me ever being able to download an app ever again because their app store doesn't do backwards compatibility well and everything needs to go through the app store.
The App Store will indeed let you install previous versions of an app if you have an older device.
This needs an asterisks, unless something has changed recently, the steps needed to get an app on an old device are annoying.
If I want to install an app on my 3rd gen iPad, I try to install it directly in the app store, it tells me it requires an updated version of iOS.
I then have to install the app on my iPhone that's running the latest iOS version, then switch back to the iPad, change the app store account from my partner's to my account, and only then am I allowed to install the previous version of the app.
If I want to install an app on my 3rd gen iPad, I try to install it directly in the app store, it tells me it requires an updated version of iOS.
I then have to install the app on my iPhone that's running the latest iOS version, then switch back to the iPad, change the app store account from my partner's to my account, and only then am I allowed to install the previous version of the app.
Not sure why this is getting lots of downvotes.
EOL devices should be opened up for whatever software a user wants to put on it. Jailbreaking seems like a somewhat viable option, though, but even that comes with its own issues.
EOL devices should be opened up for whatever software a user wants to put on it. Jailbreaking seems like a somewhat viable option, though, but even that comes with its own issues.
https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-13/features/ new redirects to https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-14/features/, which seems like an unnecessary hacky way to get your SEO up.
Separately: is it just me or has Apple lost its innovative edge? Widgets and app drawer, that's the huge new update? Android has had these for, like, 5+ years.
Not that android has had anything super exciting lately, either. Maybe phone OSes have kind of implemented most of the obvious great features, I guess.
Separately: is it just me or has Apple lost its innovative edge? Widgets and app drawer, that's the huge new update? Android has had these for, like, 5+ years.
Not that android has had anything super exciting lately, either. Maybe phone OSes have kind of implemented most of the obvious great features, I guess.
I'm pretty sure Android has had widgets and an app drawer from the very beginning.
Apple continues to invest in the user experience and potential privacy. Unlike Android, the features that require data processing and ML are not offset into the cloud. This means that if Apple finally moves to encrypting the iCloud storage, users won't loose semantic search over their photo library, health data, and other similar features.
(I particularly like the new option to pre-select the photos that you want an app to see, rather than giving complete access to my photo library)
(I particularly like the new option to pre-select the photos that you want an app to see, rather than giving complete access to my photo library)
I haven't tried iOS 14 yet but historically Apple is almost never the first to release a feature. Their supporters will say that Apple prefers to wait until they can release a more fully baked version. iPhone was not the first smartphone, but it was the "best" (for most people) when it was released, etc.
I could say the same for android 11: screen recording, and centralized home automation control are old news for iOS users.
Serving a 301 redirect from an outdated page to a new one the way they are doing with the iOS 13 page is the exact way you're supposed to do it, and is part of Google's guidelines. It's not an SEO trick, it's how you get rid of old pages without creating a poor user experience.
I hardly think Apple has to worry about getting their SEO up, ha! :P That's a good one.
They introduced widgets via the Dashboard on Mac long before Android was a thing. They’ve had widgets in iOS for years as well - what’s new is that they’re not confined to the notifications slide-down any more.
...and it's stunning. Seriously. It's actually three separate features in one. First, all the audio is outside of you rather than stuck between your ears. Second, it's surround sound so that dialog actually comes from your iPad, while music comes from all around. And third, it tracks, so if you look left the dialog all comes from your right AirPod -- and it's positively disconcerting it's so real. I thought for a second all the sound was actually coming out of my iPad and, oh crap, I have to turn it down not to bother the neighbors! Before realizing... oh my god it's actually that realistic.
So not only does it blow me away technologically, but also that I got it as a free upgrade almost a year after buying the headphones! People love to criticize Apple, but man do they do some wonderful things for their customers.
Now I'm just so disappointed the feature is iOS-only, and not for Macs. I watch all my TV on a projector hooked up to my Mac, and man... if I had spatial audio while viewing that... I can't even imagine. It would beat any movie theater I've ever been to. (And sadly, iPad HDMI output is low-quality, as it heavily compresses the output.)
My understanding is they don't support Macs because they don't have accelerometers/gyroscopes so the AirPods wouldn't know what they were relative to spatially. But man, I'd be happy just for a button I could click that says "my head is looking directly at the screen now". Wouldn't that be enough? But there's no mention of it being in Big Sur, so oh well...