{"id":680,"date":"2008-04-07T19:23:59","date_gmt":"2008-04-07T11:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/http:\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/archives\/2008\/04\/2008_04_07_1923.php"},"modified":"2008-04-07T19:23:59","modified_gmt":"2008-04-07T11:23:59","slug":"apple-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/04\/07\/apple-talk","title":{"rendered":"Apple Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

DJ<\/a> and I were shooting the breeze and we got to talking about GTD… and ultimately what potential role Apple apps could play in getting your life organized.<\/p>\n

I personally don’t use the GTD method, as I usually get things done either way. I’m probably not as streamlined\/efficient as people who actually use<\/em> GTD methods, but I’ve always thought that those methods were for people who needed to get things done<\/em> – so if you’re getting things done anyway, why bother? But I digress.<\/p>\n\n

My point was from GTD, I ended up talking about some of my rants about Apple’s [excellent] software \ud83d\ude09 It wasn’t really a rant about bugs but the simple fact that given how Apple is particular about the user experience and having stuff that is well designed (and not only in the visual sense), I couldn’t ignore some “inconsistencies” that their software slowly developed over time.<\/p>\n

iTunes, the music<\/em> app that tries to do everything<\/h1>\n

I personally think that’s exactly what’s wrong with iTunes right now.<\/p>\n

When you hear the word “iTunes,” you think about music, or the iPod. But we all know that nowadays, it’s not exclusive to music. Now we’ve got movies, series, and soon to be applications. It’s also the place where you sync your contacts\/calendar\/bookmarks\/etc. to your iPhone or iPod Touch.<\/p>\n

Simply put, iTunes,<\/strong> has now become a misleading name. The only reason why people aren’t confused is because it has become a household name, (plus Apple seems to be grooming it to handle just about everything). Which is exactly my point; if we were to split hairs about it (which Apple, by nature, should<\/strong> be doing) you know the name doesn’t fit.<\/p>\n

If they really intend iTunes to handle the Apple experience to users in its entirety; music, entertainment, enterprise, and all – then call it something else, something more appropriate to fully encompass the applications’ intended purpose. Otherwise, iTunes should be that, for tunes<\/em>… for music<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Break it down<\/h1>\n

They could also just make its modularization more apparent. Remember iSync? I recently had a syncing bug with the iPhone and one of the solutions I found was that you had to reset something in iSync. This obviously reinforced the fact that iSync may ultimately<\/em> be handling all syncing, which makes perfect<\/strong> sense right?<\/p>\n

But like I said, it needs to be more “apparent.” I want to have the choice of configuring my sync preferences without having to open iTunes<\/code> (given my huge music library, it can take quite a while). In fact, all settings\/options for syncing non-music elements shouldn’t<\/strong> be in iTunes<\/code>. Why don’t they put those menus in iSync… or if you really want to be proper about it, put the calendar settings in iCal<\/code>, the addressbook settings in AddressBook<\/code>, and bookmark settings in Safari<\/code> or better yet, put ALL settings in iSync, and have it possible for the individual applications load and display those settings plug-in style.<\/p>\n

Again, this isn’t to say that the current iTunes implementation is wrong or right; it’s just that its counter-intuitive<\/strong> which kinda goes against Apple’s design principles.<\/p>\n

What we need is basically what iTunes is doing now, but only independent<\/strong> of iTunes. iSync should be able to access the required resources these applications use even if the applications themselves aren’t open. These applications in turn should only serve the purpose of manage their respective contents. And should you have the option to display sync functions within each app, have them all access it through iSync (and let the user know that that’s exactly what it’s doing) so you know that you’re ultimately going through the same terminal even if you’re riding different busses \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

While I’m at it<\/h1>\n

Here are other possible suggestions:<\/p>\n

First, we could integrate iCal<\/code>, AddressBook<\/code> and Mail<\/code>. Basically do it like MS Entourage\/Outlook did. Because seriously, as far as usage goes; e-mail, calendars, to-dos, notes, contacts; those all productivity tools – and should go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

But I can ride with the less bloat<\/em> approach; so fine, lets not<\/strong> integrate them. Instead, make the note taking feature a separate<\/em> application in and of itself; take it out from Mail<\/code> – and give Mail<\/code>, iCal<\/code>, and AddressBook<\/code> the ability to access\/modify its database.<\/p>\n

In fact, since notes can be anything; lyrics for music, notes on a trip (for your photos), etc.; you can probably have all<\/strong> applications access it. Unlike To-dos, which are “planned events” which naturally go with the calendar, notes could be anything.<\/p>\n

Again, I’m not belittling the sheer software engineering feat that made it possible via iTunes, I’m just saying that from a pure usability standpoint, it’s quite a half-assed effort, and the only reason I mention this is because Apple is known to take great pride in creating apps that “make perfect sense” – sadly, while iTunes certainly is still<\/em> the king of the music file managers, it makes increasingly less sense as the overall “portal” for the Apple user experience which it seems to be growing into.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DJ and I were shooting the breeze and we got to talking about GTD… and ultimately what potential role Apple apps could play in getting your life organized. I personally don’t use the GTD method, as I usually get things done either way. I’m probably not as streamlined\/efficient as people who actually use GTD methods, …

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