Okay, so Apple announces some stuff about iPhone OS 4 (now called iOS in order to frustrate people who can use Cisco routers on a command-line level). These things include Multitasking and FOLDERS for APPLICATIONS.
It’s the latter that had me laughing. Not because they announced it, but because of the way in which it was announced.
The video, in typical Apple style, has a guy who’s a Vice President of Some Division Or Other talking about what “we all” want. Which is, apparently (and correctly) the ability to have more than 4 Applications on our iPhones, iPads, iPods and iTables (what, you haven’t gotten that one yet?) without having a simple way to categorise them.
“FOLDERS!” he screams. “FOLDERS!”
Pretty impressive stuff. I mean, we’ve had it since Q-DOS. Oh, wait. No. Since CP/M. Oh, no, wait. Since Unix systems before that.
I literally laughed. I mean, I love lots of the stuff that Apple do. They make my online life a metric fuckton easier most days (an imperial fuckton on others) because they know how to make things Work(tm) iEfficiently(r).
But Jeebus H Psykes that’s silly. Why make a big deal about something we’ve had for ages? Like, say, Video Calling? You wouldn’t make a big deal of that, right?
But anyway, I digress. Folders.
Apple: “You can just drag two applications on top of each other, and it makes a folder…”
Me: “Oh, cool. That’s actually pretty simple and intuitive. I can get why that’s worth smiling about once you’ve updated your iDevice.”
Apple: “… and it intelligently names the folders based on the app types within!”
…
Okay, now that just fucking rocks. I mean, it’s obvious – the iApps are already iNamed and iCategorised. They have to be in order to go through the iRelease process. So why not just use the meta-data you already have in an intelligent and useful way?
My only question is this: Why in FUCK not start with the cool shit, instead of sounding like a iWanker who doesn’t understand the strengths and weaknesses of their own products, much less what innovations have happened in the last 65 years?
Let me re-write that pitch for you.
“… we’ve noticed that people are using a lot of the many useful and cool applications available for the iPhone, and as the number of applications on your iPhone increase, the harder it becomes to find things. So in order to help you find and sort through your applications better, we’ve introduced an intelligent and intuitive folder system.
Just drag applications on top of each other, and you’ll get a folder describing what sort of apps you’ve thrown in there. Easy!”
Probably too long-winded, but eh… I’m too tired to be concise. Which is why a facebook status update became a 500 word blog entry, I suppose.
One Comment
I was amazed about how excited Jobs got at all the incredibly old technology in the iPhone 4. Seriously, five years ago you could get a $50.00 prepaid Nokia that was capable of making video calls. And multitasking? Folders? Email threading? White boy please.
The only thing anyone gives a shit about in the iPhone 4 is the improved processing and resolution, and yes, those two features do make the new model worth the asking price, but why did it take so long to get to these two sale-able improvements? Steve Jobs is a man who believes too much of his own hype.
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