Category: Apple

Apple-related news and opinion.

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Apple

An Insp-Apple-Executive-Assistant-ector Calls

On Tuesday this week I emailed Tim Cook after I read about Mat Honan’s Mac being wiped via iCloud’s Remote Wipe feature. I pointed out that Apple has tremendous control over my data now, partly via iCloud but especially Remote Wipe. What happened to Mat is an example of why people warn about over-reliance on the cloud.

A member of the executive assistant team, Philippe, called me back today and we spoke about my concerns in light of Apple’s response later in the week. He was a nice guy, friendly and open to constructive criticism from a customer’s point of view and promised my comments would be read.

My concerns when I wrote were that no amount of technical safeguarding on the customer’s part would have prevented this particular trick from working. Having a backup would have made it a mere inconvenience, but it would still have happened. Even Apple were caught by surprise, claiming their protocols should not have allowed it. But it did happen, because of human error at customer support in the face of an ingenious manipulation.

Apple said they were taking that facility offline for 24 hours to examine what went wrong and fix it. iCloud is Apple’s future so I have to trust that this is pretty serious shit for them and it’s Going To Get Fixed; Philippe didn’t explicitly disagree with that observation.

Of course, somehow eliminating human error for password reset won’t make iCloud impenetrable; I expect individual accounts get hacked via other techniques as often as any other world class online service, so back your stuff up. But if Apple starts to allow password reset over the phone again, whatever they’ve done we just have to trust them if we want to keep using the service.

I told him I understood why Apple don’t make many statements about stuff like this until they know what they’re dealing with but that when they do know I’m going to want to be reassured that it’s fixed.

I’m still using iCloud but this week I turned off Remote Wipe for my Mac. If something this avoidable and out of my control happens again, I’ll have to review how I use it again and it’ll start to feel like when I had a Facebook account and I had to keep checking my Privacy settings every time they tweaked something. Using an Apple service shouldn’t feel like managing Facebook.

Philippe didn’t give anything juicy away, obviously, as he was calling to listen and reassure. I cheekily asked how the Executive team found out about the hack and what the feeling at Apple was about something this serious; but, you know…

Finally we talked about the security of Find My Phone and how a savvy thief knows now that if you can turn the phone off you’ll disable the signal. If the option were available to disable shutdown or maybe even Airplane mode without a PIN, I’d use that if it bought me a couple more hours tracking time.

So if you see that turn up in iOS 6, that was my idea.

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Apple Editorial Other

The astonishing entitlement issues of (some) App Store customers

This week Tapbots released a long-awaited iPad version of what is easily my favourite iOS Twitter client ever, Tweetbot. I haven’t yet tried it because I’ve been trying to limit my access to Twitter to just one device so that it’s effectiveness as a time-waster and a distraction is somewhat mitigated, but I suspect I’ll buckle shortly because I just love using Tweetbot.

They have put it on the App Store as a standalone iPad app for $2.99, same price as Tweetbot for iPhone. It is not a Universal update; if you have the iPhone version and want the iPad version, you need to buy it.

This seems absolutely fair to me and to many other people around the world, all of whom are eagerly putting their cash down for a bespoke iPad version of one of the top iOS Twitter clients. Unfortunately, there exists a group of people for whom a $3 purchase when they already bought the iPhone version is just offensive, and they’ve taken to Twitter to express their disgust that Tapbots are trying to scam them, nickel-and-dime them, extort them out of 299 cents.

How incredibly childish

There’s plenty of people expressing their own opinions of these whiners. A couple of choice tweets that are pushing through to the top of the pile are these from Matt Gemmell and Chris Herbert:

Matt Gemmell:

Tweetbot for iPad isn’t universal. I have to pay TWICE and am ANGRY. Also I am INEXPLICABLY POOR despite having both an IPAD and IPHONE.
(link)

Chris Herbert:

Tweetbot is ‘Universal’, spend $6 and it works on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad; now quit complaining.
(link)

Now, there are a few apps that have standalone iPad versions where I feel a little aggrieved paying for the iPad version, especially if they charge significantly more than the iPhone version, because all it seems they’ve done is up-scale the graphics without any re-designing to make better use of the larger screen space.

Fieldrunners was an early app that eschewed a Universal version and charged a fair bit more than the iPhone version without any immediately obvious re-design. Fieldrunners HD seemed to be all but identical to running the iPhone version pixel-doubled on the iPad, but with less blocky graphics. I realise that producing higher res graphics takes time, but I didn’t feel there was much value in the iPad version so I simply didn’t buy it.

I didn’t go bitching on the internet about how I was entitled to a free iPad version, though.

Similarly, there are plenty of apps that have graciously offered Universal updates at no extra cost at all – if you have the iPhone version already, the iPad version is essentially free to you. This is very generous and while it’s something to hope for we should have no expectation of this happening; I often wonder how much money might be lost by a developer who puts a specific iPad version into a Universal update.

On the other hand, maybe developers are considering the pricing culture that has sprung up and are more afraid of alienating potential customers by daring to charge separately for the iPad version.

In Tapbots’ case, they’ve crafted what looks to be a superb iPad Twitter client that makes use of the extra screen space. It is not simply a pixel-doubled version of their iPhone app. They deserve to be paid and there is nowhere that I can think of except the App Store where customers of one version of a product would expect to get a new version designed for entirely different hardware for free.

Bellowing into a gaping chasm of indifference

The above phrase is an apt description of the futility of engaging with people on the internet who have differing opinions to your own, unless you’re already friends or colleagues with some modicum of respect for each other.

Nevertheless I had a wee look through Twitter to see for myself what people were really saying and the entitlement is just incredible. I’d link to choice examples but it would probably be easier for you to go to Twitter and search for ‘tweetbot universal’ and scroll through the hits.

(the link will take you to realtime search results which may not be relevant if you’re reading this in the future!).

Despite being well aware of the futility of internet arguments, I did engage with around 6-10 such tweeters, asking why they felt entitled to a free Universal update, or why the developer shouldn’t charge for their work. I tried to keep my tone as non-aggressive as possible but who knows how they were read by the recipients.

Most people engaged me without resorting to snark or insults (proving, unscientifically, that how you word something is crucial to how it is received); many defended their position, frustratingly, although one chap (@rakhmad) completely rethought his opinion when I tweeted that I thought developers deserved to be paid for their hard work, acknowledging that put like that yes, they should be.

But of course there’s always one guy who considers an unsolicited challenge to his opinion to be nothing short of abuse, and responds in kind. Today, that guy was @OmniChinChilla. Mr Chilla says that he hates:

…apps that don’t make a universal one so they can charge you double. Guess I won’t be getting @tweetbot, oh well. (link)

I asked him why he hates developers that want to be paid for months of work, to which his response was not to answer my question but to query how I knew how long it had taken. I explained that I’d read allusions to this app being in development months ago and it was a poorly kept secret in the iOS development community.

At this point, Mr Chilla decided the best way to explain or defend his point was to not explain or defend it, but to bombard me accusations of spamming, trolling, and being a cry baby. Sadly I was unable to continue a civilised discussion with him as I was distracted by my ACME Irono-meter disintegrating in my pocket as the needle rocketed off the scale…

The fact that the majority I tweeted stood by their opinion was disappointing although not surprising, but one chap I got talking to, Marc Schlüpmann (@schlupmann), went a little further. Marc believes that the App Store Guidelines must be changed so that apps with an iPhone and iPad version must be Universal, and must not be charged extra for. I suggested that an iPad version took development time that costs money, and it is reasonable for Tapbots to charge for that.

sure it is the decision of @tweetbot, but the idea is different and I would welcome a change in the App Review Guidelines
(link)

I asked if he meant a change in the App Store rules to force Universal apps.

Yes, exactly that rule: iPad/iPhone apps with the same service must be universal. Because: To get rid of all this * HD apps
(link)

As I mentioned above, it’s true that a customer may feel some ‘HD’ apps don’t deserve the asking price, but preventing developers from setting their own price is not an acceptable practice.

Marc pointed to how Apple charge for a service once, not per machine. I guess he’s thinking of something like iCloud where you pay once and use it on every Apple device you own that is signed into that account. And of course it’s true that purchasing an app from any Apple App Store lets you install it on multiple devices after purchasing once.

I don’t think that’s relevant to this though. A third party Twitter client is not a service. And an app downloaded once and then available to all other similar devices running that OS is still just one app. That some developers are unprecedentedly generous in creating Universal apps that you buy once and run on two different classes of device does not mean that all developers should charge similarly, no matter how great it is for our wallets.

Remember, you’re already getting updates to these apps for free, and coming to expect those to be eternally forthcoming as well. And despite a long history in the Mac/PC software world of free point releases but paid major version releases, because Apple still doesn’t provide paid update functionality in the App Store, some developers that entirely overhaul their apps for a major update are forced to release them as new paid apps, and boy does that start an internet shitstorm.

All this expectation and entitlement, we have no right to it.

If you begrudge a developer charging for working on an iPad version then your best option is not to buy it and instead just run the iPhone version pixel-doubled. After all, it’s the same app. What’s that, the iPhone UI is clunky and weird-looking when you pixel-double on the iPad? But… it’s the same app, so what’s the problem? Perhaps an iPad-focussed design is worth something to you after all.

What other options did Tapbots have?

As it happens, Tapbots have always said that an iPad version of Tweetbot would not be Universal (kudos, Federico Viticci at macstories.net), so all this stupid whining is rather impotent. But just for argument’s sake, let’s look at the pricing options open to a developer with a $2.99 iPhone app that they’ve redesigned for the iPad:

  1. Release an iPad version as a Universal update and keep the price the same; this would appeal to more potential new customers, but would mean that every time someone with the existing iPhone version installed it on their iPad (or vice versa), the developer would not get paid for their work creating the second version. Furthermore, if the original iPhone version has been out for a long time as Tweetbot has, a free Universal update represents a fairly significant loss of deserved earnings as those users with both devices install the app to their iPad for free.
  2. Release as a Universal update and pump up the price to, say, $6; a fair few people complaining about the lack of Universal are asking why this option wasn’t chosen, as if buying one app for $6 is somehow less offensive to them than buying either app for $3 each or both for $6. However, this would effectively punish all those new customers who have only one device as they are being made to pay double what everyone so far has paid for their own iPhone-only version. The developers of the iOS version of Carcassonne (which is great, by the way) did exactly this when they released the iPhone version first, but they always made it clear that when the iPad version was ready the app would go Universal and the price would double.
  3. Release a Universal version for $6 (or whatever), as well as an iPad only version for $2.99 alongside the existing iPhone only version for $2.99; on paper you might think this would satisfy everyone, but I think it would just cause confusion as there would be two Tweetbot apps listed in both iPhone and iPad App Stores (the device specific version at $3, and the Universal at twice the price). Can you imagine how many people will buy the wrong one and then demand a refund or accuse Tapbots of confusing them? I believe there’s a lot more people that would make this mistake than you might think.
  4. Release an iPad-only version at $2.99, alongside the existing iPhone version (also $2.99); this is the least confusing way of doing it that allows them to charge seperately for the new app and also gives customers the choice of which version to buy – the iPhone version, the iPad version, or both (the ‘Universal’ option). Finally, by not hiking up the cost of the iPad version they’re being rather generous with the pricing where other developers have charged more.

First world problems

There will always be people who expect an iPad version of an iPhone app they’ve already bought to be free. It’s no leap to say this situation has arisen almost entirely because of the race-to-the-bottom pricing culture that the App Store has inadvertently created in just a few years. But Apple doesn’t drive this culture. They made a wide range of pricing tiers available but it’s developer who are dropping prices lower and lower and that has led to wholly unrealistic expectations in the minds of App Store customers.

I would just echo Matt Gemmell’s perfect tweet from above: if you bought an iPad and an iPhone, what the fuck are you doing complaining about spending $3 on a newly-developed iPad version of a world class app that you really, really want?

Please, support developers who make stuff you like by paying them the asking price for it. And if you’re really so desperately skint, maybe just don’t have that Starbucks today instead?

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Apple Editorial

I like going to an Apple Store

I went to the Apple Store in Westfield today to have a Genius look at the faulty Sleep button on my iPhone. When I got to the Store twenty minutes early I nodded and smiled to the waiting groups of assistants near the door, none of whom tried to get in my way beyond saying hello as I passed. I made my way to the MacBook Airs to have a play, and launched the Apple Store app on my iPhone. The app noticed I’d arrived for my appointment and offered to check me in. Yep, thanks.

Back to those Airs. So thin, so light; they are so choice. If I had the means I very probably would pick one up. Although, perhaps a 15″ would be better for me. There’s no hurry. And, to be fair, I have no need whatsoever so I’ll just wait and see what comes out next year and then find another reason to put it off again.

However, before I can start poking through About This Mac there’s a buzz in my pocket and a notification lets me know they’re ready for me at the Genius Bar where Jonathan will be helping me. And fifteen minutes early too; that’s a first, although the whole of Westfield seems a little quiet today.

As I head over to the Bar to seek out Jonathan I’m easy to spot but nonetheless a red-shirted Genius hanging out at the end of the bar catches my eye and calls out my name, waving me over.

“The system works!” he jokes, catching my smile.

Jonathan has a look at the phone, verifies the issue, ticks some boxes on his iPad and heads off to get me a shiny new handset.

What impressed me about this trip was not the resolution to the issue itself, but how Apple keep you involved in the appointment process and create a bond directly between you and the Genius before you even see each other. Personal touches like this are why I enjoy going to Apple Stores, even when it’s just to get a repair done on a faulty bit of kit. Are there many other companies whose retail experience leaves you feeling this way?

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Apple Editorial Photographic

Pixelmator: they’re not ripping you off

With the launch of the Mac App Store recently, Pixelmator, amongst a few other existing Mac apps, went Mac App Store Only. This means that eventually (once the application reaches version 2.0) users that already bought it from their website will stop getting free updates through the app, and will need to ‘transition’ to the App Store version to upgrade to 2.0 and continue getting point-release updates.

Buying it on the App Store currently costs $29 (£17.99 in the UK), due to rise in around two months to $59 according to their Twitter feed, @pixelmator. If you already own the app, having purchased from their site or on disc over the last couple of years, you can’t get an App Store version for free, you have to pay.

Confusing the issue, some apps that people already own and which now have App Store versions show up as ‘Installed’ in the Store, even though the user did not buy the app from the Store. This leads some users to believe that their apps are going to be updated via the Store even though they didn’t buy them there, and, therefore, that it must be possible for people like Pixelmator to provide them with free updates too and that they are choosing not to for financial reasons.

This is due to a misunderstanding between the Store and the app you already own. Here comes the science bit: there’s a bit of code in the application that identifies it to the hard drive and which the Mac App Store searches for when it’s working out if you already have an app installed. Think of it as sort of like a nameplate outside your house. The App Store version of an app should have a different identifier to the same app bought elsewhere – even if they are otherwise identical. Where such apps are showing up as Installed, the developer hasn’t used the correct identifier in their App Store app.

Bottom line – unless you specifically buy an app in the App Store, even ones you already own, it will not update via the App Store. Apple will probably make this clearer soon, or require that developers fix their identifiers.

Back to Pixelmator. Some existing users are claiming they’re being made to pay twice to continue getting the latest version while new users that buy from the App Store are paying once and what’s more, getting it at half price. It does seem that way at first glance, but it’s not the case at all, and while the guys at Pixelmator have got a page up explaining why, a lot of people still don’t get it.

Here’s how Pixelmator isn’t ripping existing users off:

If you already have Pixelmator, you’ll continue to get free updates to your non-App Store version until 2.0. The release of 2.0 would have cost you an upgrade fee (probably around $39 but that’s a guess). Therefore, if the App Store did not exist, you would have had to ‘pay again’ to continue using the latest version of the app anyway.

If you ‘pay again’ now from the App Store, up until around March-ish, 2011, you’ll get the current version of Pixelmator for $29. Yes, you are paying a second time to receive exactly the same version of the app that you currently have and yes, this does seem like you’re being had, but because of the nature of the App Store update process, you’ll get 2.0 for free – remember, you’d have had to buy that upgrade anyway. You’re essentially buying your update to 2.0 several months in advance (no word on when it’s due out yet).

So, if you are an existing user of Pixelmator and don’t expect to want 2.0, don’t buy it again from the App Store and continue to get free updates to 1.x. If, however, you decide you do want to upgrade and you wait until it’s actually released, the only place to get it will be the App Store and it’ll be $59 again.

There’s no hiding the fact that brand new users can currently buy once and get it for $29, a whole $59 less than existing users will have paid, but that’s life, the market changes – look at it like this: they’ve not had the pleasure of using Pixelmator since it was launched, and if they’re not quick they’ll have to pay $59 anyway.

Compare Pixelmator’s approach with what’s happening with Coversutra 2 where the developer has also gone Mac App Store Only, but for her own reasons (which I sympathise with) has had to go back on her similar pledge to existing customers to provide free updates until 3.0 – she’s ceasing support for the non-App Store version, which will not receive the 2.5 update currently on sale on the Store. This means all current users that wish to continue to 3.0 will have to pay again, albeit only $5, but the principle of the promise made is under heavy attack. It’s a bit of a mess all round with the absolute worst examples on internet rage spewing forth all over her blog. Unpleasant for everyone.

Well, I hope Google picks this up and that even a few people giving Pixelmator a bad name on the social network will realise that, if anything, they’re probably saving a bit of cash on their eventual upgrade to 2.0 if they buy now.

UPDATE, January 11th, 2011:

I just want to add that I’ve seen a lot of calls for Pixelmator to give us some kind of development roadmap to version 2.0 so that existing users can gauge for themselves if the update is going to be worth the cash and hence worth buying now while it’s cheaper.

I’d echo those calls. If the Mac App Store didn’t exist I’d say a roadmap would be nice but by no means essential, but given the way this whole thing has had to go down, and given the understanding that Pixelmator seems to me to have about how their users feel, I think they should get something out there pronto that gives at least an idea of some of the major new features planned to be included.

I’d like to think that if they did that, the vast majority of this fuss would die away pretty quickly.

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Apple Editorial Photographic Pictorial

the new apple store, covent garden

I had a bit of an accident with my iPhone – sort of shattered the back glass panel. I booked a Genius Bar appointment and the soonest was at the new Covent Garden store. I’d heard it was beautiful inside, so took my camera along and got some nice shots as well as having the iPhone completely replaced for free! I think I was rather lucky there.

I decided to stick with JPG when shooting and found that perhaps this might have been one time shooting RAW would have been worth it. Getting the white balance right in there was a case of checking in each different room as there’s just about every light source imaginable going on – fluorescent-style panels and tungsten is everywhere, and daylight pours through the glass ceiling in the courtyard and stairwells. Getting them home, I wanted to change the white balance on a bunch of them so some these have had some Levels and Curves tweaks just to get them looking sort of okay. I think a few of them would take really well to further processing but here’s my ‘raw-ish’ favourites.