Mac Store Coming

October 22, 2010

Is this a good or bad thing? The Mac store will be the OS X analog to the iPhone App Store. If it’s as shoddy and poorly organized with no real ability to sort through the store like it is on the iPhone, then it’s going to be just another excuse to drink the kool-aid. I suspect that it will be just that though. Given that they are marketing thing like, “Buy and download. And even redownload.”, there’s really no hope. That’s an extremely basic feature that is widely prevalent all over the Internet. Yet in the Mac store it’s a feature? Something is very wrong.

But the hype doesn’t stop there.

The easiest installation ever.

The Mac App Store revolutionizes the way applications are installed on a computer — it happens in one step. Enter the same iTunes password you use to buy apps on iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. And within seconds, your new app flies to your Dock, ready to go.

Huh? Ahem… “Revolutionizes”??? This is a serious WTF moment. Didn’t you mean to say, “We’re copying the Ubuntu Software Center and hyping it as innovation!” That software goes back to 1998 in one form or another. 12 years later?

My biggest worry is that this will end up locking down the Mac the same way the iPhone is locked down. Given the changes in the new OS X (Lion), I don’t think my fears are totally unfounded. Apple has a good history of greed and contempt for its users and developers.

Apple has a lot of ground to cover if they plan on releasing something that’s actually good, and not just a kool-aid excuse like so much of what they do. They’ll need to compete with stores that have been in business for a very long time.

To top it all off, they’re going to be competing with businesses that have been strong supporters of Apple like Download.com (which absorbed VersionTracker.com, one of the top Mac download sites). It seems like Apple is determined to eat every portion of the “apple pie” and not share anything. This is in stark contrast to other companies that have thrived on encouraging third parties to participate. It looks like Apple just wants participation until such a point as they can take over themselves.

But they are doing a good job of it. They’re focusing on taking over retail and limiting access. This really is the best way to choke out competition. Got to hand it to them, for a bunch of greedy pigs, they’re smart greedy pigs.

I have a hard time believing that this is truly going to be a good thing in the long run.

Leave a Comment » | Apple, OS X | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

Yet Another Finder Crash

September 28, 2010

Finder has to be the single worst file management tool ever created. It’s horribly unstable. Worse still, once it hangs or dies or pukes or however it decides to make your life miserable, you must reboot the machine to back up again. And that’s IF you can reboot cleanly. Chances are you’ll need to do a hard shut down on the power button for 4 seconds.

I utterly fail to understand how people can rave about Apple and “user experience” when they can’t even get the most basic tools right. Let’s face it, a file browser and a command line are the 2 most important things to have. Really! How does having to reboot all the time constitute a great user experience?

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Mac, Rant | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

Multiple Instances of MonoDevelop on a Mac

September 26, 2010

Yet another shortcoming in OSX: multiple instances. Who thought that it would be a good idea to by default only allow 1 instance of a program? In Windows, that decision is made by the software author. If you think your users might want/need multiple instances, then you do nothing. If you need the application to only have 1 instance, then you restrict it. It makes sense. But that’s just another example of the control-freak mentality that comes out of Cupertino. Apple just screws things up with their freakish need to limit what you can do on an Apple device.

So, opening up multiple instances of MonoDevelop… I found a good set of posts about it at StackOverflow here. Here’s the summary:

1) In a terminal run:

open -n /Applications/MonoDevelop.app

2) Open multiple solutions in 1 instance by unchecking the “Close current solution” checkbox.

NOTE: I cannot see that in MonoDevelop, so I don’t know how accurate that is. I have not found any preferences for it either.

3) Create multiple copies of MonoDevelop. You need to open subsequent copies 2x to get them to run. A hack.

So, that’s the summary.

It’s just infinitely annoying to only have 1 instance of MonoDevelop open. Sigh… Back to my iMac for more iPain…

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Mac, Microsoft, MonoDevelop, Rant, Windows | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

iPhone OS Documentation Errata

September 23, 2010

Well, looks like more par for the course stuff for Apple… Just completely sub-standard…

When trying to setup a device to test software on, the Apple documentation is obviously out of date, as they’ve changed the UI around. Go figure. They have such a wonderful record for maintaining backwards compatibility. HA!

So, from the docs here, under “Provisioning a Device for Generic Development” in step 5, you need to right-click on the device and add it as you may not get what they say you do unless you’re using an old SDK or something.

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Posted by Ryan

App Store Review Guidelines for iPhone/iPad Apps

September 15, 2010

Well, Apple finally grew up a tiny bit and published their review guidelines for people to see. It’s about time. I’d post it here, but Apple is sue-crazy, so here’s a quick summary of their “broad mindset”. The full guidelines can be found here once you are logged in as an Apple developer.

  • No porn or nasty stuff
  • “We don’t need any more Fart apps.”
  • No practice apps.
  • Nothing that’s “over the line”.
  • There is a review board.
  • The rules are subject to change.

Perhaps one of the most telling things that there is change going on inside Apple is here:

If it sounds like we’re control freaks…

Hey! They’re getting it! They’ve slacked off just a teeny-tiny bit, and that’s a very good thing!

I think their motivations are actually quite sincere, despite my vicious rantings, and that they do want their platform to be a superb experience for their users. That being said, they’ve come off like a pack of rabid dogs and only recently started to realize just how nasty they’ve been. i.e. They’ve been overly zealous to the point of insanity. There’s some good mitigation going on now and making the guidelines known is a very good first step. Keeping them secret was simply over the top.

But I do have 1 question… What about Queef apps? =p

Leave a Comment » | Apple, iPad, iPhone, Legal | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

Credit Card Info Required for Free Stuff…

September 6, 2010

The title says it all. iTunes app store. Go figgers… Fucking cunts.

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Licensing, Rant | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

Mac Monitor Issues

September 6, 2010

While my demonic hatred for Apple has subsided greatly, there is still no end the to frustrations of dealing with a Mac. This time… Monitors again.

So, I only have 3 other monitors. One is VGA, so that’s a no go with a Mac unless I want to get raped at the Apple store again for a 10x overpriced adapter… But I’d like to use my portrait monitor as it’s great for long pages.

No go. Can’t do it. Mac won’t display anything on it. Windows? No problem. Instantaneous and automatic. Mac? Sees it. Won’t display anything. Stubborn bastard!

Sigh…

Now I have to rearrange my whole fucking desk again for that piece of shit Mac… Fuck I hate this…

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Mac, Rant, Windows | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

UI Building is So Much Less with Apple Platforms

August 27, 2010

Sigh… Yet another rant…

UI building with the Apple model is just so much less than it is with decent tools like Visual Studio.

In order to load a song into an application for the iPhone the amount of work just to wire up the very basics is astounding. You must have several components loaded and each requires you to fuck around in no less than 5 or 6 different places. Compare that to Visual Studio where you can get it all done in 1 place in only a few lines of code, and you have a recipe for suicide, because that would be less painful.

Seriously. In Visual Studio you just write the code and get the file. For an iPhone… You must use an MPMediaPickerController that requires a NavigationController. You need to set those things up in the UI designer, using the inspector,  the library, the view connector, as well as having it in code, and on top of all that, you need to drag everything around different places to wire it up.

If you did want to do that in Visual Studio, all you need to do is drag a FileOpenDialog onto the design surface, double click it, and enter your code. But you can do it without dragging anything onto the form. Just write the code and you’re done.

The level of complexity is simply far more with Apple. To get the same thing done. Basic things. Simple things.

I truly, honestly, from the bottom of my heart hope that at some point I can stop ranting about the primitive and shitty fucking tools available for Apple OS development, and instead focus on other things. However, the learning curve and amount of work required to do even the most basic things is simply retarded. I am always amazed at just how fucked up everything is on a Mac/iPhone.

When I initially bought my Mac, I expected at least some of the fanboy bullshit to be true. I expected that some things would be easier. I expected that there would be some easy tools and easy ways to get things done. All of that has been shattered utterly and completely. I have no hopes of anything being remotely simple or easy on a Mac. I now fully and painfully understand that everything on a Mac is much more difficult than on other platforms. I understand that the fanboys are nothing more than a bunch of fucktards that do nothing on their computers other than email, surf, fuck around in iTunes, and rant about how they can do those 3 things. Jesus Christ…

Seriously. Tools and everything on a Mac are totally deficient.

I encountered an error trying to run the absolute simplest shit you can possibly do:

MPMediaLibrary: Unable to launch iPod library server: application not found

Well, guess what. You must use a live device in order to load a file. Like what the fuck is the iPhone simulator supposed to do? Throw errors for simple shit isn’t one of them.

How does Apple manage to fuck everything up like this? Samsung does a far better job, and their shit is only at version 1! Loading files in bada is so much easier. Cupertino could sure as fuck learn a few things from the guys in Suwon.

I will be rooting for Android, bada, and Windows Mobile, because there’s no way that anyone could fuck shit up more than Apple does, and I’d rather develop for a platform not designed by fucknuts.

Leave a Comment » | Apple, bada, iPhone, Mac, Rant, Visual Studio | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

New Tag Line for OSX: Expect Less…

August 26, 2010

As I’ve ranted before, I’ve been largely ignoring my Mac because it’s simply impossible to be productive on. It’s a piece of shit, and here’s yet more on the topic.

Single instances of applications, only.

Huh? Like WTF? Jesus Christ! How the fuck does anyone get anything done on a Mac? A single instance of an application might be fine if you’re a turtle and used to a mile a day, but when you’re used to a mile a minute, well, a single instance just doesn’t cut it.I utterly fail to see how anyone can actually like working on a Mac with so many utterly insane limitations.

I found out about this insanity here while doing some reading on MonoTouch and MonoDevelop to get myself up to speed. Incidentally, I’d been trying to get another instance of MonoDevelop running so that I could actually work… The part that made me shit my pants was shit this:

…in OSX you can’t have multiple instances of MonoDevelop (or any application, for that matter) open without annoying workarounds…

Like who the fuck figured that was a good idea?

I already expected less from a Mac, but THAT much less? Holy FUCK!

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Mono, MonoDevelop, Rant | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

$45 for a $4.50 Part…

August 26, 2010

So what’s the rant this time? Paying $45 for a part that I should pay $4.50 for, and that I shouldn’t need in the first place.

My piece of shit, i.e. my iMac, needs a fucking adapter for a second display because, well, probably because Apple figures it’s a good way to milk its customers. Any other system would let you do it for free. But not on a Mac.

The worst part is having to go into the Apple store. I hate the place. I hate fanboys. I hate stupid people. Christ…

It’s really just a kick in the fucking face having to pay $45 for a pieces of shit that isn’t worth $4.50. How the fuck do so many people get suckered into buying Macs? They just don’t work half as well as any other system. Jesus! Ubuntu is free, and it’s much better and easier out of the box than a fucking Mac!

And there’s really no other option either. This is the same company that blocked all its hardware and software APIs for video for years, and then complained that 3rd party software running on a Mac wasn’t up to par with the same software running on Windows! Jesus fuck people! This isn’t that hard to figure out! If you make it impossible for something to run on your platform, it likely won’t run all that well. Who the fuck do you have to blame other than yourselves! (BTW – the reference there is to Apple blocking all the necessary APIs for Adobe to get Flash running with hardware acceleration so that it could function properly.)

Leave a Comment » | Apple, Linux, Mac, Rant | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Ryan

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