There are some excellent suggestions here. It just feels like the people at Apple making the decisions don't even use it regularly like most of us. There are some fundamental improvements that should have been addressed a long time ago. Hopefully they get there soon.
I wish they had a landing page for tv seasons. So for example, when I have to find season 4 of the Walking Dead, I have to type in "Walking Dead", click on whatever seasons it brings up, then scroll down to "related" and hope season 4 is considered related to season 3 so I can click on season 4. It's going around my *ss to get to my elbow.
I like the idea of keeping media (movies, TV, music) together in a single app: Makes the network/interface to appleTV cleaner. Those are the things people want to share over the network. Podcasts and Radio could certainly be separate. iOS backup/restore/sync/apps also makes sense.
IMO, it's not feature bloat that's the problem - it's lousy user interface and messaging to the user (which used to be quite good).
I downloaded a movie to my Mac and then I wanted to copy it to my iPhone so my mother could watch it in the car.You get a message on the Mac that you can start watching the movie, but it no longer tells you that it's still downloading (unless you go back to the store). You don't get the screen that enables you to copy it to the iPhone until after it's completely downloaded. I was going nuts trying to figure out how to copy it because I didn't realize that it hadn't finished downloading (because it doesn't tell you). What you should get is that screen, but inactive with a message that it can be moved after it's completely downloaded.
That screen itself, once it appears, is very well designed and is totally intuitive to use. It's easy to move the file from one device to another and back.
When you download an iOS update via iTunes, it no longer shows you how much longer it will take to download with iTunes at the top.
Backing up the iPhone shouldn't be a radio button choice between iCloud and "this computer". It should be checkboxes so you can backup to both in one action.
In iOS, it took me forever to find that you have to pull the screen down to get to Shuffle All.
Music sync is still funky...the way it used to work, if you unchecked a playlist or artist within iTunes on the Mac, it removed those tracks from the iPhone on the next sync. But it doesn't seem to do that anymore.
If I go to sync, it looks like this (note John Williams unchecked):
But John Williams tracks are on my device (and it's not because I synched before I unchecked the boxes):
Now even if this is user error, it shows a weakness in the UI, IMO.
Another long term bug in iTunes iOS is that if you're in Shuffle mode, certain actions (and I'm unsure as to what they are) will cause Shuffle mode to incorrectly start playing tracks in alphabetical order by track title. You have to stop the player and pick Shuffle again to put it back in true Shuffle mode.
In the above image, Music has a play, shuffle and "etc." button. Fine. But Books has it too. Why?
And there are other issues, but I now forget what they are. Apple used to be really amazing at user-interface and messaging. They've largely lost that skill, perhaps because they've become so big that there's no one with that expertise who is monitoring what they do in every app and install process.
I've worked with tech my entire life. If I have problems with some of this stuff, how does the average non-tech idiot deal with it?
IMO, it's not feature bloat that's the problem - it's lousy user interface and messaging to the user (which used to be quite good).
I downloaded a movie to my Mac and then I wanted to copy it to my iPhone so my mother could watch it in the car.You get a message on the Mac that you can start watching the movie, but it no longer tells you that it's still downloading (unless you go back to the store). You don't get the screen that enables you to copy it to the iPhone until after it's completely downloaded. I was going nuts trying to figure out how to copy it because I didn't realize that it hadn't finished downloading (because it doesn't tell you). What you should get is that screen, but inactive with a message that it can be moved after it's completely downloaded.
That screen itself, once it appears, is very well designed and is totally intuitive to use. It's easy to move the file from one device to another and back.
When you download an iOS update via iTunes, it no longer shows you how much longer it will take to download with iTunes at the top.
Backing up the iPhone shouldn't be a radio button choice between iCloud and "this computer". It should be checkboxes so you can backup to both in one action.
In iOS, it took me forever to find that you have to pull the screen down to get to Shuffle All.
Music sync is still funky...the way it used to work, if you unchecked a playlist or artist within iTunes on the Mac, it removed those tracks from the iPhone on the next sync. But it doesn't seem to do that anymore.
If I go to sync, it looks like this (note John Williams unchecked):
But John Williams tracks are on my device (and it's not because I synched before I unchecked the boxes):
Now even if this is user error, it shows a weakness in the UI, IMO.
Another long term bug in iTunes iOS is that if you're in Shuffle mode, certain actions (and I'm unsure as to what they are) will cause Shuffle mode to incorrectly start playing tracks in alphabetical order by track title. You have to stop the player and pick Shuffle again to put it back in true Shuffle mode.
In the above image, Music has a play, shuffle and "etc." button. Fine. But Books has it too. Why?
And there are other issues, but I now forget what they are. Apple used to be really amazing at user-interface and messaging. They've largely lost that skill, perhaps because they've become so big that there's no one with that expertise who is monitoring what they do in every app and install process.
I've worked with tech my entire life. If I have problems with some of this stuff, how does the average non-tech idiot deal with it?
Unless they are going for the direction of 'augmentation simplification' - if I didn't misunderstood their intention - such as removing any "default computer language" i.e download bar and just make it magically appear in you system i.e you could start watching the movie anytime without bohering the knowledge of the download progress, then I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Comments
I downloaded a movie to my Mac and then I wanted to copy it to my iPhone so my mother could watch it in the car.You get a message on the Mac that you can start watching the movie, but it no longer tells you that it's still downloading (unless you go back to the store). You don't get the screen that enables you to copy it to the iPhone until after it's completely downloaded. I was going nuts trying to figure out how to copy it because I didn't realize that it hadn't finished downloading (because it doesn't tell you). What you should get is that screen, but inactive with a message that it can be moved after it's completely downloaded.
That screen itself, once it appears, is very well designed and is totally intuitive to use. It's easy to move the file from one device to another and back.
When you download an iOS update via iTunes, it no longer shows you how much longer it will take to download with iTunes at the top.
Backing up the iPhone shouldn't be a radio button choice between iCloud and "this computer". It should be checkboxes so you can backup to both in one action.
In iOS, it took me forever to find that you have to pull the screen down to get to Shuffle All.
Music sync is still funky...the way it used to work, if you unchecked a playlist or artist within iTunes on the Mac, it removed those tracks from the iPhone on the next sync. But it doesn't seem to do that anymore.
If I go to sync, it looks like this (note John Williams unchecked):
But John Williams tracks are on my device (and it's not because I synched before I unchecked the boxes):
Now even if this is user error, it shows a weakness in the UI, IMO.
Another long term bug in iTunes iOS is that if you're in Shuffle mode, certain actions (and I'm unsure as to what they are) will cause Shuffle mode to incorrectly start playing tracks in alphabetical order by track title. You have to stop the player and pick Shuffle again to put it back in true Shuffle mode.
In the above image, Music has a play, shuffle and "etc." button. Fine. But Books has it too. Why?
And there are other issues, but I now forget what they are. Apple used to be really amazing at user-interface and messaging. They've largely lost that skill, perhaps because they've become so big that there's no one with that expertise who is monitoring what they do in every app and install process.
I've worked with tech my entire life. If I have problems with some of this stuff, how does the average non-tech idiot deal with it?