Posts Tagged ‘apple’

The Apple Maps screw up at WWDC 2021

June 8th, 2021

When the initial release of Apple Maps was so botched it led to widespread mockery (and a hilarious video from The Onion) Apple opted to play the long game, slowly improving the Maps app with better data and numerous new features.

Today at Apple’s virtual 2021 Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) they announced among many other things improved public transit directions in Apple Maps. Seems pretty nice, right?

But there was just one tiny problem — one of their example slides shows directions using the J-Church line of Muni Metro and getting off at Embarcadero — a route that has been terminating at Church & Market since August of last year.

There are three possibilities here, and I’m going to enumerate them from least likely to most likely:

  1. This screenshot is a year old or so, and Apple has been working on this feature since then but the UI hasn’t changed much so they went ahead and used it. Apple working on a new feature and not changing the UI for so long doesn’t pass the sniff test for me.
  2. Apple Maps is just so bad that it’s somehow displaying route information that’s wildly out of date. Of course this is possible, and it does happen with even the best mapping apps out there. But I checked just now and when getting transit directions from the Ferry Building to an address on Church Street, sure enough it knew that I’d have to transfer to the J-Church at Church & Market.
  3. This isn’t a screenshot at all: it’s just a mockup. This would also explain why someone would have 5G service (see “screenshot” above) in the Market Street tunnel, something that’s not scheduled to be completed until 2022. In a way this is also the most worrying possibility because if this is just a mockup, what else are they promising us at these events that may never see the light of day? Aside from that AirPower charger, of course. Perhaps Apple should go back to doing live demos in their presentations, even if those sometimes caused Steve Jobs to get pissed off at the audience for ruining them.

Silicon Valley takes on Steve Jobs acid trip

April 23rd, 2014

This exchange in Silicon Valley’s 3rd episode may sound familiar:

Erlich: Richard, take Aviato. That’s not a name that I found, it’s a name that found me — on a vision quest. Something that you should do.
Richard: No, no, I’m not going to eat a bunch of drugs and sit out in the desert and hope a name randomly pops into my head.
Erlich: Then I question your leadership.

For those who aren’t familiar with the gossip (or haven’t read Isaacson’s Steve Jobs) the scene contains not-so-subtle fruit clues:

What I learned from my HyperCard middle school digital portfolio

November 15th, 2012

In middle school we were all required to build a “digital portfolio” of our work. They taught us HyperCard so we could link each essay we wrote and our photos into a personal HyperCard stack. It was a portfolio that “we’d add to until we graduated” because computers were the future, or whatever.

But what really happened is that HyperCard was discontinued and most of our essays and photos were saved in unreadable formats. Even the floppies themselves that we’d saved our data to were obsolete. After a couple of years the project was scrapped and never spoken of again.

What did this all teach me? Here’s what I got out of it:

  1. If you’re going to work with technology, you have to keep your skills sharp. Today’s computer skills are tomorrow’s distant memory. It might sound cliche but it’s true.
  2. Care about your digital data? Then keep an eye on it. Make backups. Don’t keep it one place. Data can become unreadable for many reasons.
  3. Not all change is for the better. HyperCard was an app that made it easy to create your own software. (Remember Myst? Built in HyperCard.) There’s nothing like HyperCard these days that novice geeks can pick up and play with. Good ideas can be forgotten.
  4. Paper is still hard to beat for longevity. But then again, do you care about the reports you wrote in your seventh grade social studies class? Not sure I give a shit.

There you go. Sometimes the lessons we learn aren’t the intended lessons; but they’re still valuable nonetheless.

New iPhone 5 “Lightning” connector predicted in 1999

September 15th, 2012

If you follow tech news at all, you know that Apple is replacing their large iPod connector with a new smaller connector for the iPhone 5 called “Lightning.”

Most folks who follow Apple would assume that the name Lightning is a reference to Apple’s new Mac connector port called “Thunderbolt.” But is it?

The above screenshot is from the 1999 film Fight Club, which depicts the Apple logo in a store window next to the word “Lightning.” Coincidence? Sure, it probably is. But still, it’s odd to see the connection in a thirteen year old film.

Think Ironic.

April 6th, 2011

Notice anything funny about the cover of the manual for Apple’s “Color”?

Color

Yes, only Apple would “think different” enough to make a manual for a product called Color with a black-and-white cover.

The Apple iBrik

June 23rd, 2010

Copy and paste? Multitasking? Folders?

These are old concepts; even on phones. But don’t tell Apple fans that the “new” features on their precious JesusPhone were on your Treo half a decade ago.

Likewise, Turkish coffee is over one thousand years old. But slap an Apple log on it and it’s exciting and new!

Behold the new Apple iBrik. It’s shiny and has an Apple logo, that’s all that matters.