But if its uses have been reduced to remotely monitoring the temperature of a fish tank (or a music player), is it really meeting "needs"?
iOS 11
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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In the beta release that developers get, historically, does Apple not roll out all the shown features on day one? Or do they often pace them out over the few months before the final release. As Sony beta tester, I would always get added features during the first half of the beta test period and then about 2-3 months where we tested the final version. But Sony also would add a number of features during the last week too that we never saw. I discovered after questioning that with the lead engineer at Sony, they had two levels of beta testers. The top tier test sites got the complete software that was also the buggiest. My level got the beta version that had already been vetted by the inner circle guys. I wonder if Apple works the same way. I would imagine if you are not a prolific app developer you would not be in that inner circle.
Anyway, Scott keep us posted as to your observations. My wife is excited about the Toy Story characters. She is getting tired of Minnie.
navychop- I just checked our ipad3 and you are correct it says up to date at version 9.3.5 The original; ipad is back on version 5.1.1
If you want the new features you have to upgrade the hardware. Around here, our original ipad still works for the youngest grandson's favorite games and of course, watching kids movies on Netflix. These mobile Apple products are made so well they don't wear out like other appliances.
If my original Apple watch falls into the end of the road already, then I guess I have some relatives who will get some presents.
Since he said:
Then I would say that if the user only needs it to remotely monitor the temperature of a fish tank then yes, it is really meeting "needs".
When the cost of a sensor that works with an iPad is much more expensive than a dedicated solution that includes an alarm feature that the iPad solution doesn't provide, that goes a much different direction than meeting a need. The real "need" appears to be to justify the keeping of the iPad around and that's silly.
Maybe the user just wants to browse the internet and his current device meets that need. Maybe the user wants to just use facebook and the app currently works so that current device meets that need. Or maybe the user justs wants something to hold his papers down on his desk and his current device meets that need.
Whatever the case, if the current device meets the need of the user that is using it, then buying the latest and greatest just to say you have it, well thats silly.
Of course they do. There are internal people at Apple running iOS 12 on their devices right now, rest assured of that.
This is typical when companies move to annual releases. There's no more "wow" really possible year after year.
Those are alpha test teams. I was referring to beta testers who are not employees but may or may not be under NDA.
Sorry, I didn't mean to mix those together. There will be multiple levels of internal, employee testing groups, including 'alpha' ones like you say. There are no doubt non-employees, under NDA, who are testing beta builds of iOS that you or I can't get by signing up on Apple's beta testing page. They will also provide early, beta builds for software companies, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc, etc.
Years ago, I was involved in beta testing some 3D-modeling CAD software (Autodesk Inventor). They were releasing on a yearly basis and had their feature sets laid out way in the future. If I submitted a feature request today and magically it was approved by them right away for future inclusion, it couldn't (or wouldn't ?) make it into the software for at least (2) versions from the current one (it would be 2+ years before the public saw this feature). By the time a release was made, the next version was already in late alpha/early beta testing internally - a year before the next release. Some outsiders, under NDA, were included at this stage but not many. Then there was a private beta, still under NDA, for a few months and I was involved in that for a few years. Finally, they had a 'public' beta, which quite often, ended up being the release build.
Years ago, I was involved in beta testing some 3D-modeling CAD software (Autodesk Inventor). They were releasing on a yearly basis and had their feature sets laid out way in the future. If I submitted a feature request today and magically it was approved by them right away for future inclusion, it couldn't (or wouldn't ?) make it into the software for at least (2) versions from the current one (it would be 2+ years before the public saw this feature). By the time a release was made, the next version was already in late alpha/early beta testing internally - a year before the next release. Some outsiders, under NDA, were included at this stage but not many. Then there was a private beta, still under NDA, for a few months and I was involved in that for a few years. Finally, they had a 'public' beta, which quite often, ended up being the release build.
I know some companies have released different betas to different people/groups. Different feature sets. Divide and isolate problems, and limit damage from any leaks.
THEN combine all the feature sets into one build, and watch the fun ensue! Another round of "final" beta.
THEN combine all the feature sets into one build, and watch the fun ensue! Another round of "final" beta.
Honestly what more can they really add to iOS ? iOS has almost everything android has except different home screens you can customize.
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Autodesk was the company I was selected to work with too. Specifically it was the Yost Group and the early development of 3D Studio. I was selected not because I was a high profile 3D Studio creator, but because I was the only broadcast engineer in our team. I resigned from the closed beta group when they moved to 3D Studio MAX, and I was making the move as a full time 3D animation business to pursue TV advertising. I was just not making any money in 3D animation at the time. I really wasn't good at it to be honest. Too many companies wanted me to be a shooter and I discovered advertising was where all the money was. I don't know about the "Inventor" product, but one thing that impressed me about Autodesk was, they flew me to California for a meeting of the team, to meet everyone and have a brain storming session. I gave a presentation on broadcast legal colors and luminance limits, frame rates, in the render engine, basically any shortfalls the Yost Group engineers just didn't realize was needed to have a product capable of renders for television.
Sony Creative Software ( Vegas Pro ) was the last beta group I was involved with. They sold the division after v13. Today, I want no part of beta testing. I just want to use stuff that has been vetted. For the most part I have really experienced no Problems with any of my Apple products. Compared to Windows, and Android. Apple stuff is darn near perfect. But the down side is I find it far more difficult to customize and the OS is hard to do some of the most basic things.
dishfan-
Here's an example I wish they would fix. I shoot a video with my ipad using my pilot drone software. It captures all the instrument and GPS mapping images and audio to the Camera Roll while flying. Now I want to copy that file to my computer for use in editing. It took me several hours of research to understand how to do that. You would think I could just connect the ipad to the USB port and copy and paste to File manager in Windows. I found out I had to load the MP4 into an app. Then the app gave me an IP address that I typed into a browser on the computer and then downloaded that file from the IP web page to my download folder. At least the App was free, but why can't iOS 10 just do that? I also have a lightning to SD card reader. Yeah it can read the MP4 video on the SD card, but it can't save an ipad MP4 video to the SD card. Heck, I was doing basic file transfers back with my Radio Shack computer in the late 70's. Also I need a different app for each file type allmost. One does video MP4 and MOV, another for jpgs only, another for pdf file, and open an EXE zip file, forget that altogether!
It is a lot easier than it used to be. Back when, you had to use iTunes to move it to your computer.
I don't think you'll find any app that supports XMODEM protocol on either side of the USB cable.
FTP (today's equivalent XMODEM in a ZMODEM world) is kinda bare metal but it is a step up from the process of finding a suitable app that you've identified.This is one of my biggest beefs with Apple: they don't get that we aren't excited about transferring everything through iCloud or iTunes so we can move it to where we're going to work with it. Give us a mass storage app that has access to everything we've created and be done with it. This is especially problematic for those who don't use Macs to do the heavy lifting and that's making it artificially difficult for a significant majority of the population.
I can only imagine the terror that is sure to come from HEIF employing a four character filename extension. Windows weenies are highly dependent on this silly convention.
Really? Maybe I don't understand your FUD, but we've been using 4 character file extensions for quite some time with media files. m2ts, adts, mp4v, 3gpp, to name a few. No big deal????
I think there is a little concern when more recent windows versions began hiding the file extensions by default. I turned them back on as I need to see that in my work.
More recent ? You've been able to hide them (easily) all the way back to Windows 95, although I don't remember when they were made hidden by default.
Its a big deal since Windows can't figure out what the content of a file is without the appropriate extension and too many assume that three is good enough. The other side of the coin is that lusers used to change the file extension in order to force the file to be loaded in a different application or to try to get the file to load on a less capable device (often media players). This was a real problem with certain video container formats being renamed to MPG or AVI when they were actually FLV or MKV.
Windows supports four character extensions but it may or may not know what to do with the file until you associate an application with it. I remember the early days of JPEG when Windows didn't know how to deal with a .TIFF, .JPEG or .MPEG file out of the box. There's a reason that MP3s are MP3s and not MPEG3s.
Word used to save HTML with an extension of .htm by default and that messed with a lot of non-IIS web servers.
Do you include Windows 95 among the "recent" perversions of Windows? IIRC that's where the system started with known extensions being hidden by default. Of course Windows doesn't hide file extensions that it doesn't recognize but once you associate a type with an extension, it will happily hide those extension until you disable the default (just as the Mac does).
It gets even worse in Windows Explorer as sorting by file type is typically based on what program you associated with the extension. I don't know how many times I've had to re-associate files with odd extensions away from Acrobat Reader (everything looks like a nail if the only tool you have is a hammer).
Ah for the halcyon days of the Amiga where the operating system could look inside the file (using the DataTypes library) to help figure out how best to deal with it. The real answer probably lies in something similar using the MIME file type system that has helped a lot on the World Wide Web. Don't even get me started on Windows Clipboard formats.
Oldest OS I have running here is windows XP in a virtual PC on a windows 7 system because I have several pieces of software that require it. I could upgrade but why go the the expense. I don't recall when the extension was hidden by default but I did have to go in on windows 10 and change it. Not sure about 7 as I haven't done a 7 install in a couple years.
Regardless of your anger over what is being done, I really haven't had an issue with it. More limiting annoyance on Mac OS and iOS problems. Good appliances for the family, but too structured for my work in video production. What is supposed to work works well but it seems strange that when I want to do something different from what Apple wants me to do, there is just no way. I guess that's why some of my friends believe in jail breaking which I don't do.
Regardless of your anger over what is being done, I really haven't had an issue with it. More limiting annoyance on Mac OS and iOS problems. Good appliances for the family, but too structured for my work in video production. What is supposed to work works well but it seems strange that when I want to do something different from what Apple wants me to do, there is just no way. I guess that's why some of my friends believe in jail breaking which I don't do.
I thought iOS 11 had a new Folders App (or Files) that presented all of the local and cloud storage (iCloud, Google Drive, Box, DropBox, etc.) in a single place? And iOS 10 has a cross-device copy and paste (which Windows 10 is supposed to duplicate?) But it shouldn't be this hard to share content between devices. "Low Friction", I think I heard one tech pundit say, should be the goal.
Other platforms long ago proved that it doesn't have to be.
I don't think that is where Apple has been headed all these years. They're more of a "regular floggings will continue until morale improves" kind of camp. They very effectively use small but decided difficulties to get their disciples invested in the platforms in hopes that some day they will become Apple acolytes to preserve their considerable investments (in both learning the obscurities and substantial financial outlay).
Even moving files about on the Mac has been "unnecessary roughness" throughout time. Why don't they implement Finder in iOS? It certainly isn't because it wouldn't be useful in a world with so much bulky data on a platform with too little non-expandable storage. Yeah, you can shoot 4K video but how do you get it where you can actually use it?
