Apple recently announced their iCloud ( fancy for "i store shit on the internet, but cloud sounds cooler" ). One of the promises of that - that you stuff should be all synced up on apple services and you can operate with your files regardless which device you using. I would totally expect for Apple at least sync up their stuff too, just as user trial if anything else. Basically following has nothing to do with iCloud, but for company that promotes cloud computing it would be nice to be integraded internally on the same level.

How my morning was ruined by apple today.

I have a trial version of Aperture 3, and needed to upload some photos from my camera. Once i connected camera, Aperture started with message "Your trial is expired " and prompt either to buy it or export master files to something else. I've clicked that buy button and completed the purchase via online apple store. As you can see, Aperture developers apparently not aware that now their product is sold via app store. At the time i didn't know that as well. So i've paid the money and upgrade key arrived with description: APERTURE 3 TRIAL UPGRADE ACTIV KEY-INT. 

So far - we're good. I've entered the key and product asked to enter original key - and that fail. Tried different combos of copy-paste/typing - nada.  Off to google search i go, where i learn that Aperture 3 is available via app store for 20$ LESS then i've paid for that key. Not only i've got they key that doesn't work, but also i've got up-charged 20$ for being a trial user.

Next step - phone support - 10 minutes through voice recondition prompts and got "We're closed, pls called during business hours, goodbye".

Next step - apple store. Dude in blue shirt understood the problem and thought it's fucking ridiculous as well, but, fancy this, he can't do ANYTHING about because order was placed online.

Basically apple online store, app store and just a store are different departments and if you bought something online - you just have to deal with online support. Question is simple - why in the world you can just sync this shit in your new and shiny iCloud/iLoveMyCustomer/or any other iThings and stop behaving  bunch of dumbasses where one department has nothing to do with another. Fucking Walmart provides better expererience. I'm not event gonna try to compare to somebody like Zappos.

Bottom line for me : pictures are still in camera. money are gone. and i've spend about hour and a half trying to make it work/going to apple store etc. Plus god knows how much time i'll spend tomorrow on the phone. Based on today's experience i think it gonna cost me another 30 min - hour.

For apple : In app purchasing ( i've clicked buy from the app ) failed. Their developers don't know how they suppose to sell product. Store(s) experience is pathetic.

So dear apple if you're so proud of your user experience and app store - shit like this make you look really bad. 

 

 

 

Yesterday Google announced release of next google experience phone Nexus S. I'm a big fan of google experience phones and I do think that Nexus One was the best device on the market. Do i think that Nexus S is better than Nexus One ? Um, yes and no . Why don't i like Nexus S ? I do like it as a phone. However, i do believe it's not gonna sell well enough. And then it doesn't, next time OEMs show up on device portfolio meetings at the carriers they will have an armor to sell Sense/TouchWiz/Blur and other custom experiences. And if carrier will ask something along the lines "Can we have this one in white and pure google experience?" OEM will argue that - Look do you want to sell phones or no ? Google tried it twice. They both sold really really bad compare to our experience phones. How many Galaxy S we sold - a lot - Nexus S - is a tear drop in the sea. Why ? Because our UI is better and customers are voting with their wallets. 

Week of 10/18 turned out to be pretty eventful.

If you want your widget to be able to focus on individual views inside it you need those views be clickable and focusable  AND have background/or images to support state. Nice example of such drawable in Jeff's Sky widget.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Copyright (C) 2009 Jeff Sharkey, http://jsharkey.org/
     Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
     you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
     You may obtain a copy of the License at
          http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
     Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
     distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
     WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
     See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
     limitations under the License.
-->
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_window_focused="false" android:drawable="@drawable/widget_bg_normal" />
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@drawable/widget_bg_pressed" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@drawable/widget_bg_selected" />
    <item android:drawable="@drawable/widget_bg_normal" />
</selector>

 

Good design is innovative.
Good design makes a product useful.
Good design is aesthetic.
Good design makes a product understandable.
Good design is unobtrusive.
Good design is honest.
Good design is long-lasting.
Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Good design is environmentally friendly.
Good design is as little design as possible.

Copyright Dieter Rams, amended March 2003 and October 2009

Hey i got iPhone !  Step away from that "unfollow" button twitter friends. Here is the story.

I needed to scroll the list ( ExpandableListView to be exact ) to position.I found this thread where Romain Guy said it got fixed in Froyo. And it is. There is a smoothscrollToPosition in SDK8 and up. As i needed to go lower than 8 here is mine workaround. If anybody knows better way let me know

class ScrollList extends Thread {
        final int position = mListView.getFlatListPosition(ExpandableListView
                .getPackedPositionForGroup(mListAdapter.getTestGroupPosition()));
        View itemView = mListView.getChildAt(position);
        int yPos = itemView.getTop();
        public void run() {
            while (yPos >= 20) {
                try {
                    yPos -= 5;
                    sleep(20);
                    mListView.post(new Runnable() {
                        public void run() {
                            mListView.setSelectionFromTop(position, yPos);
                        }
                    });
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }
    };

It seems to me, to work in the startup and make it successful  you need dedicate all the time you have to this goal. It's fun then you're single, no house ( mobile ) and have tons of free time. Now if you add little bit of age and couple of kids to the mix i wonder if it's too late. As much as like code, i probably prefer spend sometime with kids. Which by itself is a job, very rewarding, but hard job. So finding time is a challenge. Plus if i do have an hour or so - i'd rather go for a ride. And then other stuff like :  last week i wanted to look at the project that seems to be interesting and i can feel my evenings helping out.  Result :

Somebody just sent me this: