Things I Hate About the Mac App Store

I don't mean to imply with that title — or anything I've written, really — that I think the Mac App Store is all bad. It's not. I like the idea of it quite a bit, and in some cases, particularly that of the Lion upgrade, and also in terms of license handling for individual users, the Mac App Store is quite good. But let's be honest: as a piece of software it's half-baked. It doesn't even seem like a finished application, never mind a system service that will handle core functionality like system software updates. It's sub-iTunes, and that's pretty sub if you ask me. So what are some specfic things I hate?

Unresponsiveness

Launch the Mac App Store and be prepared to wait. Wait while the app loads. Click on a link in the Mac App Store and be prepared to wait some more while whatever you clicked loads. Search for something in the App Store and... Well, you get the idea. I typically wait anywhere from 3 to 10 — you heard me, 10! — seconds for the App Store to fully load on launch. On a new MacBook Pro with 8 Gigs of RAM, no less.

Uncommunicativeness

Not only will you wait after clicking a link, but there will be almost no indication that you've done anything at all. That's right, during the wait time between clicking something and something actually happening, there will be very little to tell you that you've actually initiated an action. The only hint is a small throbber in the toolbar, and it doesn't even always work.

Forgetfulness

Quit the Mac App Store and the next time you launch it it will not return you to your last visited page. No, instead you will see the Featured page, every time, even though Lion is supposed to remember the last state of apps, and even though App Store is a Mac app. This is not only annoying, it's not conducive to shopping.

Unhelpfulness

The Mac App Store in general, in fact, doesn't seem particularly conducive to anything but the most cursory and shallow of shopping endeavors. There is no way to look at more then one item at a time. There is no way to see a list of recently viewed items. There is no way to keep a list of items I'm interested in for perusal and possible purchase later. This is a piece of software that behaves very much like a browser, and, I believe, is even based on WebKit, but has no history or bookmarks. See something you like? Want to save it for later so you can shop around a bit or do some comparison shopping? Better get out a pen and some paper, 'cause this computerized shopping program can't even make wish lists.

Unintentional Humor

I guess the final irony for me is this: How do you expect to sell software with such a shitty piece of software? That just seems like bad salesmanship.

Mountain Lion Sneak Peek

I'm always excited to hear about new OS releases for the Mac. But that excitement is increasingly mixed with trepidation, and the Mountian Lion sneak peek is no exception.

Concerns

Count me among the "Pro" users who fear that the Mac and its OS are quite possibly headed towards an iOS-ification that would relegate lots of the professional functionality we've come to rely on to the dung heap. That's what happened with Final Cut Pro X, it seems to be where the Mac Pro is headed, and I, along with some of my colleagues, worry that that's where Mac OS X (now called, simply — and some might say, ominously — OS X) is headed. Take one look at the latest AirPort Utility — the most blatant example I've seen where Apple has actually removed key features from an app to make it simpler and more iOS-like — and you'll see what I'm talking about. Maybe you'll even start to get worried yourself.

Lion has had its fair share of clues that Apple is headed towards simplification in the OS and is becoming increasingly unconcerned with professional users. Some of the new features are great, or at least could be some day. I think the versioning system, while still problematic, could someday be transformative if a good deal of thought and effort are put into improving the UX. But little things, like the hiding of the user's Library folder, hint at more totalitarian possibilities, ones which lock the user out of the OS to an unprecedented degree. The suggestion that Apple might someday get rid of filesystem access in the desktop OS sends shivers up my spine, but I do consider it a very real possibility. Personally, I don't think this will happen any day soon. But some of my colleagues are less optimistic.

So it is against this backdrop of thought that I consider Mountain Lion.

The Worrisome

As with Lion, we see in Mountain Lion the iOS trend continue. This, in and of itself, might be cause for concern. iOS presents the OS in a simpler, more restrictive way, and more iOS on the desktop could be a sign of greater restrictiveness.

It's certainly worth noting that Software Update will be gone in Mountain Lion, replaced wholly by the Mac App Store. I suspect that this means it will be even harder to save archives of application and OS updates, if we'll even have the ability at all. And if you read this blog with any regularity you have a pretty good sense of how I feel about the Mac App Store in general (hint: it's not good). I suppose if you like iTunes, you'll be tickled pink that App Store will soon be handling core OS functions. But then, if you like iTunes, there is something seriously wrong with your brain.

I'm also a bit perturbed by the fact that X11 — the engine that powers numerous open source software projects, including GIMP and many of the OpenOffice ports — will no longer be included as part of the default install of the OS. It is still being developed and supported and will still be available, for now, from Apple, but as a separate download under the guise of XQuartz. Not a huge problem, per se, but, it could be argued, a sign of things to come.

Finally, it might also be of some concern that this year, for the first time ever, Apple decided not to announce this update with a big event. This year, instead, Apple chose to make the announcement quietly, to a select group of press members. It's almost eerie, the lack of fanfare.

The Promising

For the most part, however, Mountain Lion seems to be less about restrictions as it is about bringing iOS features to the Mac. Less about limitations and more about integration. And that's at least somewhat reassuring.

So mainly what we're seeing in Mountain Lion is the addition of numerous applications and interface trends brought over from iOS to OS X. Messages, Notes, Notification Center, Share Sheets, Game Center and AirPlay Mirroring are all applications or features that are being brought to the Mac desktop from iOS. As a Mac user, this is the kind of cross-pollination I want to see. A cool feature developed for iOS making it into OS X just makes good sense. The fact that Apple is doing this is yet another sign that perhaps they haven't completely given up on the desktop market.

I also think it's very promising that Apple has decided to begin refocusing efforts on the desktop with a commitment to yearly OS X updates. Sure, if the direction they take is bad, this could be a huge negative, I suppose, but at least they aren't letting the desktop languish; they see potential in the desktop market, and are developing for it. I take this as a positive sign.

Also, Gatekeeper, Apple's approach to application security, hits, I think, the right note. Its default mode, which requires all apps to be digitally signed, is perfect for mainstream users. But Apple has given pro users ultimate control and freedom by giving them the option to bypass Gate Keeper. To me, that's just the right balance between security and freedom. In fact, if Apple ever does choose the route of a hidden filesystem, I hope they do something like this, allowing pro users to see and access it easily, with a simple preference.

Final Thoughts

From what I've seen so far, Mountain Lion looks promising. I'm seeing less of the iOS restrictions hitting the desktop OS than I'd anticipated, and instead what looks to be happening is that a lot of iOS-only features are now getting integrated into OS X. I take this trend as a generally positive sign. So I remain hopeful.

If Apple follows a policy of integration and eschews the limitations of iOS on the desktop, I'll remain a happy Apple customer. I hope that's what they do.

Airport Extreme

This year for Xmas I asked for and received an Airport Extreme. Some of you may recall my struggles with the numerous Airport Expresses I own. This is because of the way my home network has evolved over the years, which is to say, completely piecemeal and haphazardly.

A Piecemeal Network

My home network, like many, started simply with a wired router. It then progressed to wireless with my first Airport Express, which, at the time was plenty for me, living alone in my small studio apartment. My next apartment, however, was a duplex, so I extended my network with an additional Airport Express, one capable of 802.11n. Then, as wireless networks in the city exploded and frequencies grew more congested, causing problems with the wireless Netflix streaming I started doing a good deal of, I added yet another Airport Express and built out my network, creating one 5GHz network for my heaviest use-cases, and a 2.4GHz network for my phones and gadgets.

When all was said and done I had a wired router feeding three Airport Expresses, two of which were supplying wireless on 5GHz and one of which provided separate wireless access on the 2.4GHz frequency. It was a total mess: it took forever to set up (like when we recently moved to a new house); it broke often and was horrible to troubleshoot.

Cut To The Present Day

So this year one of my presents was an Airport Extreme. I just wanted to simplify everything. I suppose I could've gotten some LinkSys dealio that would've been faster, but frankly, this is about laziness, and the Airport Extreme is, for me, the easiest option available, if for no other reason than the fact that I already use and am quite familiar with the Airport ecosystem.

And easy it was! In fact, I was able to set it up and completely replace my existing network — a router and three Airport Expresses — in about ten minutes. That's right, what used to take me hours to set up and get working just so took ten minutes with an Airport Extreme. And now, all those boxes are gone, replaced with a single — and quite attractive, I might add — wireless router. It's fantastic!

I have to say, setting up my Airport Extreme was one of the best user experiences I've had in a very, very long time. I'm not used to calling network setup easy, but that's exactly what it was. I entered my settings and it simply Just Worked.

Clearly a lot has changed since I first began building my home network. It's nice to finally be using some current gear, and the Airport Extreme is a great box. Super simple to set up and use. Oh, and it's fast too!

If you're looking to upgrade an aging wireless network, want simplicity and ease-of-use, and don't need a ton of tweakable settings, I highly recommend the Airport Extreme.

So Bucking Fuggy

If there's one thing that drives me crazy about Lion, it's the bugginess of the Finder. I'd mentioned the problem where Spaces clears the Desktop of icons in my initial review. But I've since found additional problems.

For years now I've kept my Desktop organized by file type. I like this because it groups all my files in a way that I find logical and easy to visually parse. One glance at the Desktop and I can find all the PDFs, for instance, and these will be ordered alphabetically. It's a personal preference, and it's worked well for me for years. But it's broken in Lion.

In Lion, sometimes items of the same type group together, but sometimes they don't. The other day, for instance, I downloaded four PNGs to my Desktop. Three of them were grouped together, but one was just put somewhere random. Restarting the Finder caused all the items to group properly. This little trick was repeatable on both my system and on other Lion systems in my facility.

Moreover, eventually the items will group properly, and I'll see, out of the corner of my eye, my Desktop suddenly rearrange itself for no apparent reason.

But here's the thing: without consistency, the feature that allows you to arrange your Desktop by file type is essentially useless. If I can't rely on it to present me with accurate information all the time, then there's no real point in using it anymore.

So I've switched to manually arranging items on my Desktop. That's right, I've now abandoned the method of Desktop organization I've used for years because Lion has broken it. But here's the kicker: manual organization doesn't always work either. Even manually arranged items get disordered from time to time after, say, a logout.

Another thing that happens — less annoying, for sure, but indicative of the sad state of the Lion Finder — is that when I log in there is often one item on the Desktop that's missing an icon. Again, restarting the Finder fixes the issue. But still...

And then there's this:

From an item on my Desktop. Jesus.

At this point, for me, the Desktop is essentially completely broken; it's nearly unusable. I'm not sure how the folks in Cupertino even use this OS without driving themselves up a wall. And I don't know how they can allow these basic and obvious bugs to persist.

The sad state of Lion's Finder really shows Apple's level of commitment to the desktop version of their once great OS. It's just tiresome to have to be wrestling, after ten years, with the most basic piece of Mac OS software: The Finder. But that's where we are today.

Siri Fail

What percentage of attempts at doing a thing must be failures until that thing is deemed unreliable by a user and abandoned for another more effective method? I don't know the answer, but whatever it is, Siri has passed it.

Siri's great when it works, it just so seldom does. The most common thing I want to do with Siri is make calls to restaurants to order food. But restaurants, particularly ones in this town, tend to have odd names. Siri doesn't work well with odd names and it usually fails when I try to use it to call, say, Kouzan. It also fails if I try to call Café Viva by reversing the words of the name and saying, "Call Viva Café." But this sort of intelligence — the ability to parse natural language, even mistakes to some extent — is just what Siri's billed as being great at.

I've pretty much given up calling restaurants with Siri. And since I don't really make many other calls, Siri phone functionality is mostly useless to me. So what else can Siri do?

Well, Siri's great at dictation. I mean really great. So this morning I attempted to jot down an idea for a blog post using the dictation feature. After finishing the input the note was empty. Completely blank. Siri just completely gave up the ghost. Turns out there was a network related problem, and Siri famously fails when it has any problem connecting to Apple's network. Let's be clear: I had connectivity three ways to Sunday; the problem was Apple-side. I think it might be good for Siri to do some network checking before taking requests, because, though it can save you quite a bit of time when it works, when it doesn't, it's a huge time waster. And that just adds to my steadily increasing level of gunshy-ness.

So far Siri's pretty good about setting reminders. Hasn't failed me there yet; I'll keep trying to use it. But I'm pretty close to giving up. I don't know. Maybe the giving-up threshold is simply determined by a loose calculation of how much time you've wasted on a new technology. Maybe once your brain realizes that this thing that's supposed to be saving you time is instead stealing it away, maybe that's when you stop playing guinea pig and get back to work.

Whatever the case, Siri has proven, over the longer haul, to be not particularly useful in real world use cases, at least not yet.

Don't believe the hype. Or at least not all of it.