Apple September 2015 post mortem

Assuming there will not be any more big announcements this fall, I like having them all at one event.

My midnight blue watch band has been ordered.

I will order the new Apple TV. We already use our Apple TVs a lot, and this one is better.

No new 4-inch iPhone. No anodized “iPod touch” blue iPhone. sigh No new feature that I’m not willing to live without.

With the old subsidy from AT&T, upgrading every two years was a no-brainer. My bill would not go down once my phone was paid off, so I would be paying for a new phone whether I bought one or not. But that’s not the case anymore.

(Actually, it isn’t entirely clear to me whether the subsidy with 2-year contract is still an option or not. Apple doesn’t show it as an option, but AT&T still lists that option with the current phones.)

The AT&T Next program—the payment plan that replaces(?) the subsidy—seems unnecessarily complicated, and I’m not sure I like it. Since I usually hand my old phones down to someone, I don’t want to be locked into a trade-in. And what if something happens to my phone so it isn’t in acceptable trade-in condition? It may be great for someone who upgrades every year, but it doesn’t look great to me...yet.

And now there is Apple’s iPhone Upgrade Program, which I haven’t seen enough details about.

So, at the moment, I’m not planning to get an iPhone 6s.

I think I will get an iPad Pro. For graphics editing and music, I think I’ll find the larger screen useful. For running RPGs and some other things, I think side-by-side apps on the iPad Pro will be useful. I am confident it won’t replace my iPad Air 2. It will just occupy use-cases between my iPad and my iMac.

For me, I’d rather have an iPad Pro than a MacBook Air. After all, my favorite drawing app (InkPad) and my favorite word processor (UX Write) are iOS apps without Mac equivalents.

(And after comparing the size of the iPad Pro to my clipboard—see previous post—it seems like the size I’ve always wanted a tablet to be.)

I’m also planning on getting an Apple Pencil. The iPad Pro + Apple Pencil looks to be about the same price as a 13-inch Cintiq. But a Cintiq is just an accessory to a computer, not a stand-alone tablet. (There are certainly advantages to a Cintiq over the iPad Pro, but still...)

The new Smart Keyboard...I’m not currently interested in. I’ve been pretty happy using a Bluetooth keyboard with my iPad. I’ll try it out the next time I get to an Apple Store.

What I hope to see from Apple (Fall 2015)

What I hope to see from Apple this fall:

A new 4-inch iPhone. While the iPhone 6 may have brought new customers to the iPhone (and brought some old customers back), it would be foolish to, at the same time, lose the customers that were happy with the smaller phones. So far, I have upgraded my phone every “s” year. I don’t want a bigger screen, but—depending on what else is on the table—I may still upgrade. I’m hoping, though, that I won’t have to weight a bigger screen against other factors.

Better colors. The iPhone 5c was a success by any sensible measure. Imagine how much better it could have been with decent colors. Even among the people I know who have and love their 5c, nobody seems to really love any of the colors.

I’m very curious about a bigger iPad should one finally appear. I tend to agree with John Siracusa that, in many ways, the iPad represents the future of personal computing. While conventional personal computers will always be around (and I’ll always have one), more and more of our personal computing should move towards appliances like the iPad.

There are so many creative endeavors that don’t require a keyboard. That said, using the on-screen keyboard isn’t so bad. A few weeks ago I wrote an actual, useful C++ program on my iPad using the on-screen keyboard, Textastic, and codepad while at my daughter’s martial arts class. I didn’t feel as if I was doing this in spite of the system. The only slightly frustrating part was the process of copying the code, switching over to Safari, and pasting it in codepad. (A fully solvable issue.) I, personally, would have been much more frustrated trying to balance a laptop on my lap and hunch over it. And I think we’ve only scratched the surface of the kind of code editing we could do on an iPad.

Of course, a real keyboard works beautifully with my iPad. For me, the ability to add a keyboard when I want it trumps having to deal with one when I don’t.

I’m not convinced there is ever any need for an iOS mouse. Even on my iMac I have (surprisingly) found I prefer Apple’s track pad over their mouse, and an iOS touch screen can do pretty much anything a track pad could. Tyype has long done a great job of this. I hope iOS 9’s “Easy text selection” brings that to most apps.

A bigger screen could be great for some games, music applications, and graphics applications. And iOS 9’s long-awaited Split View would be even better with a larger screen. But being bigger could be more awkward for a hand-held device. At what point does it make more sense as a drafting-table-like desktop device rather than a hand-held?

I don’t think a bigger iPad would replace my 9.7-inch iPad, which increases the chance of the data I want not being on the device I’m using. The “cloud” helps with that some, but it doesn’t make it go away.

While I’m excited for a new Apple TV, I also fear Apple going overboard with it. I often find the gesture-based Remote app more frustrating than the simple buttons of the physical remote... (although the app beats the remote for text entry) ...so I’m not excited about a touch-enabled remote. And as much as I like Siri on my phone and watch, I’m not so sure about it with my TV.

But I’m prepared to recant all of this once I see what they have to offer and get to play with it. ☺︎

IPhone and sentences

The word “if” is not normally capitalized. If it comes at the beginning of a sentence, however, it is.

The word “iPhone”, despite being a proper noun, is not normally capitalized. IPhone, when it is the first word of a sentence, however, ought to be capitalized.

Apps for RPG judging

Here are some of the iOS apps I have used when running role-playing games.

Goodreader: Good reader is a PDF (and other types of files) viewer. You can have several PDFs open at the same time and easily flip between them. It now even lets you have multiple tabs viewing different pages in the same PDF. You can add your own bookmarks to PDFs that lack them.

I have even used the annotation features to stock a map, which works OK.

Evernote: I have an RPG notebook in Evernote. I have tags for monsters, encounters, treasures, house rules, campaign ideas, setting ideas, preparation tips, and more.

UX Write: All my campaign notes are stored on Dropbox. UX Write is my word processing app of choice for viewing/editing them on iOS. One of the nice things about UX Write for this is its automatically populated outline that makes it quick to jump to the part of a document you need.

Dropbox: Besides keeping all my campaign notes in Dropbox, I also use it to share documents and images with my group. e.g. When the PCs discover a map, I may hand them a paper copy, but I also pull up the Dropbox app and copy it from my campaign notes into the shared folder.

Battle Map 2: I’ve experimented with using Battle Map 2 on a TV. Also used it a few times when one or two players were telecommuting to a game. It worked OK, but it wasn’t great.

Hex Map Pro: I’ve tried using this one on a TV too. Also wasn’t great.

Old School: This is an app for planning and running classic D&D combat encounters. I have only actually used it a couple of times, but it worked well.

Lotto Machine: This was created to randomly pick lotto numbers. You tell it the range of possible numbers and how many to choose. You have six PC and need them in a random order for some reason? You can make everyone roll a die and reroll ties. Or you can tell Lotto Machine that you need 6 numbers from 1 to 6. Need to randomly pick three of the PCs for some reason? Ask for 3 from 1 to 6.

InitiativeBoard: I haven’t actually used this one yet, but it looks handy for tracking individual initiative in any game.

Role app

Role is an iOS app (Android version “coming soon”) designed to aid in the playing of a traditional role-playing game.

The app is based on its own system. You can download a copy of it off their web site, and you could easily play it without the app. You can get a bit lost with just the app, so it may be worth reading it before trying to play with the app. (Although, it may be more likely that you get lost in the app because you’re expecting more than is there rather than not understanding the system.)

This system is very light. It is very similar to Risus without the emphasis on humor. So no complaints there.

The app itself doesn’t really do much, though. About all it does is “roll the dice” for you; determine failure, success, or critical success; and track XP. As it currently lacks the ability to save your characters or adventures, it is really hard to see the point. And you might think that the app would communicate and coördinate with the other players’ apps, but it doesn’t. It does nothing to make the GM’s job easier that Notepad doesn’t do. There may be potential here, but it is severely unrealized thus far.

(And rolling actual dice is a huge part of the fun for me.)

They are positioning it as a “party game”, though I don’t think that excuses the lack of saving. That does seem to be one of the features they are working on, though.

It has a few character templates and more that can be purchased. There is very little to making a character here (make up three skills) so the templates don’t really seem to be much value. On the other hand, a free-form system like this really benefits from examples. shrug The templates seem so intent on supporting any genre that they come across as supporting only a very specific kitchen-sink genre. I personally didn’t find them inspiring.

There are also a few adventures and a few more to purchase. They have, however, too much setting and not enough adventure. Especially considering the apparent aim towards one-shots over campaigns.

It is nice to see an app that aimed to support very traditional role-playing in the “no miniatures” mode. But basic functionality (e.g. saving) is missing, what they have needs to be refined (e.g. genre-specific character templates and a bit more depth to the adventures), and they need to figure out how such an app could really help the GM.

Nagware

Instead of painting all in-app purchases with the same brush, let’s call the problem by name: Nagware. (“Pay to win” is also acceptable.)

Even then, though, it is hard for me to get too worked up about it. While the nagware model might be making Rovio (e.g.) more money, they’re getting less of my money than they used to. Yet I still get to enjoy their games.

The funniest bit to me is where they want me to pay or take a break from playing. For me, that’s a feature. I need a reminder to take a break. I’ve stayed up way too late playing Angry Birds several times. Why would I pay to eliminate a feature?

Flappy bird

Yesterday’s post about Threes and 2048 reminded me of some things I wanted to say about Flappy Bird. Maybe Flappy Bird is a horrible game that doesn’t deserve the popularity it garnered, but I do think there are a lot of lessons game developers could take from it.

A couple I can think of: It starts up fast. You get to playing fast. There is as little as possible between launching the game and playing the game. There is no point at which the gameplay that the player has been enjoying changes to gameplay they may not enjoy.

There is also an idea out there that players today will not accept a difficult game. Flappy Bird soundly refutes that. While I greatly enjoy some games that are basically “no lose”, it is satisfying to have games that are significant challenges too.

Threes and 2048

One of the creators of Threes: The Rip-offs & Making Our Original Game

What the creators of Threes don’t realize is that—just as subtle differences between Threes and 2048 makes Threes a better game—some of the subtle difference also make 2048 a better game.

The biggest is perhaps start-up time. In a quick one-sample trial, Threes took 12 seconds from launch to play; 2048, 2. For a mobile game, that can be the difference from getting in ten seconds of play versus not playing at all.

As much as I appreciate the personality of Threes (and I appreciated the catchy soundtrack enough to buy it from iTunes), I also appreciate the austerity of 2048.

Threes is deeper, and it shows.

I can’t say it comes easy to me, but I think we’d be better off if we could get past this ownership of ideas concept.

If so, then people would also be more likely to openly credit their inspirations.

The apps called Paper

So, FiftyThree had an app called “Paper” before Facebook, and someone else had an app called “Paper” before FiftyThree. Forget the posturing and legalities. Just don’t give your product such a dumb name.

Arena of War

I look at Warhammer Quest and Conclave, and I think Wizards could have partnered with someone to create a really great D&D4e iOS game. Instead, there is Arena of War: A confusing, boring iOS game whose only relation to anything D&D is a Forgotten Realms storyline.

BlueBoard

A couple of things you might want to know if you are considering the IK Multimedia BlueBoard. This information comes from IK’s video about the BlueBoard, answers they provided in the comments to that video, and playing with the app.

The BlueBoard is primarily in either program change or control change mode. So, you can not use the foot-switches to switch presets while also using an expression pedal to control volume, wah, etc.

There is a mode that can do program changes via the bank switching feature while otherwise being in control change mode. Bank switching, by the way, is done by holding down the A or B foot-switches.

Also, you can not use two BlueBoards with one iOS device. So dedicating one to program change and one to control change is not an option.

Overall, this is pretty disappointing. Since my Griffin StudioConnect has MIDI, I’m going to be looking into conventional MIDI foot-controllers. Still, the BlueBoard would be useful even with its limitations.

iRig Pro

I ranted about the iRig HD, but I think the iRig Pro looks like a winner.

Customer versus user

I really appreciate Reeder and Feedbin because I know I can leave them at any time and, when I come back, they’ll still be in the same state. They’ll still know what I’ve read and what I haven’t. They’ll show me things in order instead of via some “top stories” silliness.

The thing is, I shouldn’t appreciate those things. That should be expected. These things were mastered decades ago. Yet they are beyond Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+.

Of course, the biggest difference is that I am a Reeder customer and a Feedbin customer. I pay them. While I use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+; I don’t pay them. They won’t even let me.

Doesn’t do Word

Yes, the iPad doesn’t do PowerPoint. It also doesn’t do Word.

When I wrote these posts, Office Mobile for Office 365 hand’t been released.

It does do Pages.

More interesting, however, is that it does UX Write. UX Write is my favorite word processor. I wish there were a Mac version. It may not work for you, but it works for me.

There are lots of other word processing apps for the iPad.

Oh, and Pages and UX Write both work on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad.

Doesn’t do Excel

Yes, the iPad doesn’t do PowerPoint. It also doesn’t do Excel.

When I wrote these posts, Office Mobile for Office 365 hand’t been released.

It does do Numbers. There are lots of other spreadsheet apps for the iPad.

More interesting, however, is that it does Soulver. Soulver sits somewhere between a calculator and a spreadsheet. (It’s similar to a old Mac app I used to love called MathPad.) You may find that Soulver replaces any calculator app you might use. You may also find that it replaces many of the more straightforward uses of spreadsheets.

Also of possible interest here: Permanent. (I haven’t gotten to trying it out yet.)

Oh, and Numbers and Soulver both work on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad. (Although Soulver for iPhone is a separate app.)

Ramblings about skeuomorphs

Amid the revealing of iOS 7, I started using a new app call Do It Tomorrow. This app is very skeuomorphrific. It not only looks like hand-written notes in a paper notebook, it also includes the desk, pen, coffee, coffee stains, &c.

During the WWDC keynote, Apple suggested that the most important thing about a product is “How it will make someone feel.” I argue that skeuomorphs are not about usability but about how they make some users feel. Indeed, I don’t think the skeuomorphs in Do It Tomorrow make the app more usable, but they do make it—for me—more enjoyable.

Rene Ritchie says iOS 7 is most skeuomorphic iOS yet.

One of the key aspects of Apple’s iOS devices is that they become each app.† The app takes up the full screen. The screen is how the user interacts with the app. The hardware beyond the touch-screen is designed to not distract from the app. In iOS 7, there are system things that can temporarily intrude—notification center from above and control center from below—but these are translucent overlays that emphasize the the device is still primarily the app. Well, Apple is actually emphasizing content now, but sometimes the app itself is content. Skeuomorphs can be content.

Speaking of notification center and control center in iOS 7, they appear glass and plastic, respectively, to me.

Guitar effects apps are an area where skeuomorphs are common. While I’d certainly like to see some more entries in that category that take a skeuomorphless approach, the look of guitar gear can be an important part of the feel.

So, despite Apple’s move away from skeuomorphs, I hope that some apps will still provide skeuomorphic options for those users who enjoy them.

†It occurs to me that this works directly against the sort of split-screen mode I have always wanted in iOS.

Not doing PowerPoint

Yes, it is true that the iPad doesn’t do PowerPoint.

(See “New Microsoft video slams the iPad on multitasking, PowerPoint and price”)

(Ironically, since I started the draft of this post, Microsoft has actually released an iOS app that allows—perhaps limited—PowerPoint editing as well as presentation.)

It’s also true that it does do Keynote. There’s a good chance you’ve seen a presentation that was powered by Keynote instead of PowerPoint. I’ve used Keynote on my iPad to edit and present a presentation that was originally created with PowerPoint. (There were some issues but nothing that kept me from getting what I needed done done.)

More interesting, though is that the iPad does Haiku Deck. Haiku Deck doesn’t have all the features of Keynote or PowerPoint, but what it does, it does well.

And that’s only two of the presentation apps for the iPad.

Oh, and Keynote works on the iPhone and iPod touch as well as the iPad.

App Store Genius

John August, “Topping the charts and racing to the bottom”:

What you really want is a list that shows what apps that people like you are using and enjoying. That’s the kind of information that companies like Amazon and Netflix are terrific at leveraging.

Um...isn’t that what that Genius option does?

The iOS 7 redesign, second impressions

My first impression was that the iOS 7 redesign was all about coherence. Here are my second impressions...

There have been a lot of complaints about the iOS 7 icons for Apple’s apps. shrug I can’t get too worked up about them. I generally don’t care for many of them, but I could’ve probably complained just as much about the iOS 6 versions.

Only using color to differentiate interactive elements is something I have concerns about. Firstly, how will this work for color blind users? Secondly, I’ve seen differentiating things only by color be a problem for users who aren’t color blind in many situations. Thirdly, in user interfaces redundancy is a feature. I’d expect that Apple has taken these concerns into account. Sometimes a well thought out implementation of something that goes against the guidelines can work fine. But that’s the one aspect of the redesign that I’m doubtful about.

Apple and Google maps at NTRPGC

No, the Old San Antonio Road wasn’t involved in me getting to or from NTRPGC, but its sign seem appropriate to the topic.

My experience with the map apps while attending the North Texas RPG Con this year...

Apple maps did it great job of getting us near the hotel. It thought the hotel was a couple blocks from where it really was, but at least I could see it. (And, yes, I submitted the mistake to Apple.)

For nearby points-of-interest (i.e. restaurants), it failed. It didn’t show them all and was mistaken about the locations of those it did have. On the POI side, the Google maps app proved flawless. It appeared to show all the nearby restaurants, and it had their locations spot-on.

So, when we left and headed out to pick up my daughter from her grandmothers’, it was Google maps’ turn to fail. First off, the app just gave me a text list of the route choices, which didn’t give me a good way to judge between them. It told me to get off a highway only to get back on to it a few miles later, which added a lot of unnecessary extra time. To exacerbate things, construction meant I couldn’t get back on that highway. After adding about a 20 minute extra delay to a 30 minute trip, I switched back to Apple maps to help find an alternate route.

The road construction in the D/FW area seems out-of-control. It’s a real mess. Apple maps tripped up on it once as well, but it luckily recovered quickly. So, the delay was perhaps not completely Google maps’ fault, but it picked a screwy route even if there hadn’t been construction to exacerbate things.

Of course, this is just one anecdote that I wouldn’t want to generalize too much from. The lessons I’m taking away from this are:

• It’s a good idea to check both Apple and Google maps when possible.
• Start with Apple maps for guided turn-by-turn directions.
• Start with Google maps for POIs or finding the exact location of the destination at the end of an Apple maps route.