Why is there no iPhone 5-thread? What's wrong with you people?!

The new App Store app is probably the worst non-skeumorphic design atrocity ever committed by Apple. God forbid you ever try to search for anything; you'll develop carpal tunnel syndrome trying to scroll the results.

How often do you do searches that result in long lists, though? I typically only search when I'm looking for something pretty specific. In fact, I'd say that 99% of my searches are for a specific title. If I want to browse broad categories, I browse the categories. Those are geared more towards browsing, and show you more results on a page.

Also, I would like to institute a ban on using the word "skuemorphic." Prior to the past week or two, I don't think I have ever heard anyone use that word, like, ever. In the past couple of weeks, though, it's become super trendy or something.

I would prefer a ban on skeumorphic designs, which would have the side effect of removing the word from common use, but whatever floats your boat.

Man, I wish I could apply every "like" Elyscape's ever made to that post. I went from not caring to being enraged after seeing this stupid, stupid Tumblr blog that, considering how lame most of the "jokes" are, I'm not entirely positive is using the Field Notes theme un-ironically.

And for the new App Store UI: being able to update without leaving the application -- which is something at least I do 1000x more often than casual browsing for something to buy -- makes up for any other limitation real or imagined. (I like all of it pretty much, although I wouldn't have gone with cards instead of full-screen lists on the iPad).

I think a discussion of UI and GUI design could be interesting, even if it included the 's' word! Someone should start a thread for that, especially with the impending release of love-it-or-hate-it Windows 8 imminent.

I do not see Google taking an active roll in stopping anybody else from creating mapping software even though they have had tremendous market share in the area for quite some time now. I do see Apple actively blocking and restricting what can be done regarding iOS devices now that they've got sufficient market share to wield such power.

Why you think there's an ounce of hypocrisy or equivalence here is beyond me.

To put it plainly, if I want to take my ball and go home, that's my prerogative because it's my ball. I'm not stopping you from getting your own ball or doing what you want. Apple is the kid whose father owns the field, so if you don't play his game his way then nobody gets to play at all.

Yeah, some of the examples they post are legitimate bad design, but some of them are fine. For example, this is an attractive and functional UI:



I don't have a problem with calling out skeumorphs when they are badly done, but that blog author seems to think anything that isn't plain text on flat color is bad.

My personal feeling is that skeumorphs work best when they are subtle and not too literal. For example, Apple's Notes app takes it a bit too far, with the yellow lined notebook and a handwriting font. Just Type does better job, with a sort of implied notebook--you get a subtle paper texture and the header bar looks like the top of the notebook, but they default to a nice, legible sans-serif font and leave out the lines.

Whatever. I'm not going to keep trying to explain or defend a hypothetical argument that I made up and was never genuinely proposing in the first place.

Heh, that example is one of the only ones on the entire site where I'd agree with their criticism -- too many unnecessarily curved shadows going on. But I guess that just proves that it's all entirely subjective except for excessive pinstripes and brushed metal, which we can all agree are awful.

I just saw on the App Store (at least on the iPhone) there's a new "Find maps for your iPhone" category, listing a bunch of 3rd-party mapping apps. That's... interesting.

PROBLEM SOLVED WITH APPLE MAGIC!

MOAR ANECDATA!

My dad had a heart attack yesterday and was flown to Lincoln, NE, because he lives out in the boonies on the other side of the state (he's doing OK). I drove down to see him and though I'm familiar with the town, I'm not that familiar with the part of town he's in as most of it was built after I moved away from there. So when I got in the general vicinity I pulled over to see exactly where I needed to go, and I forgot I was looking it up in Apple Maps.

I typed the name of the hospital and then I remembered I was using Apple Maps because it pointed me towards the center of town, where I knew this hospital wasn't. Worse, the pin above the pin it highlighted as the go-to destination had precisely the same label, and there was another pin with the same label clear off to on the west side of town, so it was spitting out three different approximate locations that definitely weren't in the right direction. So I fired up Safari, searched for the hospital name in Google Maps, and it dropped a pin precisely where I need to go (which was completely in the opposite direction to what Apple gave.)

FOTO PROOF OF APPLE'S FOLLY!

Speaking of Apple apps that suck, what is supposed to be the point of Passbook other than wasting space now that the iPhone has 4 more available icon slots? I got the Fandango app and bought multiple movie tickets with it, but Passbook still just gives me some ad text and a link to the app store where I can download the Fandango app (and the United app, which I also downloaded). Neither of them are aware of each others' existence, and there are no settings I can find anywhere to hook them all up with each other.

Of course, swiping a credit card to see an overpriced movie is considerably more convenient and a billion times less douchey than showing a ticket taker your cell phone, but I just wanted the novelty of it. STEVE JOBS MUST BE ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE.

Also, sorry to hear about your Dad, Baker, but glad to hear he's doing okay.

I think the point of Passbook is that once those apps are updated then the developers just need to tick two boxes and use the rigtht format and their tickets and boarding passes will be stored in Passbook, so you have all that stuff in one place with customer loyalty cards and all that. Seems smart enough, but companies need to support it first.

But speaking of stuff that doesn't work - fucking iTunes fucking up all my fucking music every time I fucking upgrade my phone. Fuck it!

Also:

This is sort of the iOS 6 thread so:

I haven't tried this yet, but apparently if you delete the Podcasts app then the Music app starts showing a podcast section again.

Also, I'm surprised that no one has commented on the fact that pinning a web page to your home screen as a web app no longer makes it self-contained.

Looks like people are once again holding their phones incorrectly and blaming the problems that result on poor old Apple. Hold your phones the same way Apple's engineers do, people!

I was never able to hold my iPhone 4 wrong. There were multiple times I was called into terrible why-am-I-here work teleconferences and holding it as wrong as I possibly could for the antenna issues, and it refused to drop the call.

A - Gizmodo
B - they (Apple) aren't entirely wrong

Yeah, there's being an Apple apologist, and then there's just calling out bullshit as bullshit. Telling people how bright light sources and white balance work with digital cameras has jack shit to do with "holding it wrong."

For a non-crappy (read: non-Gizmodo) take on the Purple Haze, there's DPReview's quick review of the iPhone 5 camera.

This was my reaction as well. Is it a defect? Sure. But since it seems to only affect poorly composed shots, it's not one that I'm going to worry about. Note that the iPhone 4s shots in the DPS Review comparison also have a good bit of "purple haze."

Sure, it's a defect, but it's one that all cameras have to a greater or lesser extent - even a top of the line Hasselblad with ultra-expensive optics is going to have some degree of prominent lense flare if you aren't mindful when composing your shot. Besides which, I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to cameras and don't really rate any phone for this task.

I'm just disappointed that the Apple support agent didn't respond something along the lines of

"Dude,

You're not fooling anyone: we both know that you were going to wankify your photos by adding fake lens flare with Instagram, so let's just nip this one in the bud, right?

Cheers,

Apple Support"

"I really don't see what the problem is.

Sincerely,
JJ Abrams"

Maps question. (oh and count me as THAT GUY that likes the maps. Used 4 or 5 times all over LA and the directions and the UI have been flawless)

THAT said, data...does Apple maps use data? I can't seem to find it on my list of apps and I wonder if that means that since it it taking up minimal space that there are no maps on my phone like Tom Tom and that using the directions will use data on my plan?

The old Google-based maps app used bitmap tiles, meaning that for every zoom level it has to download a new set of more or less detailed images, depending on whether or not you're zooming in or out. The new one uses vectors, so the same data can be used to generate the map at every zoom level. Presumably more data has to be loaded in to cover areas that weren't previously visible (as you zoom out) or to fill in detail that wasn't previously shown (as you zoom in), but not as much. Anyway, the upshot is that yes, the new maps app uses data (as did the previous one) but not as much.

Oh, if you're using the hybrid or satellite views then the likelihood is that there's no real difference in data usage between the two apps. Well, unless you're in Denmark, they probably save a few bits on each tile by making them greyscale.

Huh?

I asked Apple about preloading, when they demoed my review phone - and apparently just looking over a city or more and then shutting off data and you'll still have your maps (apparently the whole of UK is 200 MB) - this was my biggest beef with Google maps and turn by turn navigation when we discussed it in earlier GPS-threads, because unlike you isolationists my biggest use of maps is outside my own country where data is fucking expensive.

My iPhone 5 arrived today. As with all other Apple hardware upgrades I've ever done, all my problems with the older device (an iPhone 4) disappeared. The 4 was chugging when I browsed, chugging in the App Store, and just generally chugging under iOS 6, but the 5 is screaming fast. It's so nice to have that responsiveness back. This is also the first LTE device I've owned, and it's kind of crazy to have real broadband speed on tap when I'm out and about. The battery drained very quickly today, but I'm guessing it's because the wi-fi radio was on constantly getting everything restored. I'll reserve my judgment on that aspect of it for the future.

I am really tempted to use it without a case because it's so light and thin, but it's also pretty slick. If anyone knows of good cases that don't add much bulk, or even grips for the back of the thing, I'd love some recommendations.

Cases are an abomination and you shouldn't be allowed to own an iPhone if you insists on using one.
Sorry, meant to say that I don't know of any.

Oh god, I laughed so hard. Awful Asian stereotyping aside, this was spectacular.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/412897

I've dropped my iPhone 4 probably a dozen times, several times onto concrete. Yes, that's terrible, but it's a fact of life for me that sometimes I will accidentally drop things. If Otterbox didn't exist, I would not dare have an expensive phone. With the Otterbox case, you can't even tell the phone has been dropped.

AnandTech has an absolutely phenomenal review of the iPhone 5, for the tech geek. Interesting-to-me takeaways:

1. The "dynamic range" slide, showing how power usage now depends on idle power, was really interesting. Also showed the huge advantage that Snapdragon S4 has over Tegra 3 (and how A6 is slightly ahead of the S4). It'll be interesting to see how the A15 processors next year compare.

2. The GPU slide finally, finally shows non-Apple vendors catching up with Apple, with the Adreno 320 that's in the LG Optimus G (which is rumoured to also be the basis for the upcoming Nexus 4). This has been an area where Apple has run away with the benchmarks time and again, so it's good to see that performance is converging. (Also, wow, Qualcomm is really just destroying the rest of the industry in 2012.)

3. Atom is surprisingly relevant even today. Intel is very much in the same place as Microsoft -- a former titan unexpectedly in a position where it has to compete as an underdog, but with lots of money and some real ability to execute, if they can find a way in the door. Intel having relevant x86 hardware has to be good for Microsoft, as it makes Win8 (instead of stupid ol' WinRT) tablets more possible; and Win8 being successful would be enormous for Intel, because that's the platform where they have an advantage in compatibility, rather than a major disadvantage. "Wintel" is truer in mobile than in PCs, really.

4. This year's LTE phones are all enormously better than last year's LTE phones (which were godawful bad), and also do significantly better on LTE than on 3G, due to the same "dynamic range" effects as with processors, where they can idle more often.

5. Apple's hardware, overall, is about where you'd expect it to be: A little bit better all around (leaving obvious things like display size/resolution out of the question) than the phones that launched in June, but almost certainly significantly worse than the phones that'll launch next spring/summer. Still, that's not a bad place for Apple to be.

Looking at picking up a pair of iPhones for myself and the wife for Xmas, but I'm absolutely baffled by the family/sharing plans that are out there. There seems to be contradictory information on Apple and Verizon's websites, for example, on the "Share Everything" plans. We could probably get away with as few minutes as we can get, plus we'd use the Messaging app in iOS for texting so don't need to worry about that. Data is kind of a question mark, but I'd like to start at the least/cheapest option and then go up from there depending on usage.

Anyone out there use a family plan and want to share advice?

We have an AT&T family plan--not sure how much help that will be, since we have (grandfathered) unlimited data. We do have the lowest possible minutes package, since we use our phones for data for more than for talking. We have more rollover minutes than we will ever use. We also skipped the texting plan, since almost all of the texting we do is to each other, or to other people that also have iPhones.

My advice for data--start low. Phone companies never complain if you want to add something to your plan, but usually are less accommodating when you want to take something off.

I forget how the math works out but I haven't had an instance where Share everything at ten bucks more or whatever it is was remotely worth switching to. The 2gb/per person bottom tier cap has been more than ample for what I do with my Droid RAZR M, which is mainly email, reading news, and occasionally streaming of Pandora which is surprisingly efficient. You have granularity of usage per app over time with most data usage applications I've seen, which means that you can easily filter out the good costs versus apps that are grotesquely inefficient (like my local NPR station's app). I do sometimes look at videos and the like but not regularly, although again youtube streaming at low quality video has proved surprisingly efficient.2 months in I doubt I will often break 1 gb, and that would have to be with some long car rides.
I guess it depends on unusual apps. I don't think Verizon plans really give a damn about voice anymore or texting, so that's probably a nonissue for the major ones. You'll be surprised how easily and second-nature wifi becomes when available and how easily it is to stagger major downloads, backups, and the like to when you are within range.

[long, boring and barely comprehensible rant deleted]

Imagine you're buying an iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 or similar. You'd like some reassurance that if it breaks down within the warranty period it'll get fixed or replaced without too much fuss and you're willing to pay for this (even though you're really just asking the provider to honor the current consumer protection laws). But you can't. Each and every provider, regardless of what they charge you, will fuck in ear and twice on Sunday if your phone breaks down. Your brand new phone doesn't work? Fuck you. We took your money - we gave you a faulty product - now fuck off so we can count all the money you gave us you stupid fuck. Your best chance of having your consumer protection laws honored is, of all places, Target or Walmart. This is the situation where I live.

Thought this might fit in here. Australian police are officially requesting motorists stop using Apple Maps after having to rescue multiple people getting stranded in the wilderness.

Yeah, I was thinking about posting that, but forgot this thread existed (I even created it) and came off it.
Funny.
(well, not for the people lost, obviously)