In macOS 13 Ventura, Apple introduced something called, Stage Manager to macOS. I will be talking almost exclusively about Stage Manager on the Mac even though Apple introduced a very similar (but not identical) feature called Stage Manager on iPadOS.
Stage Manager is a great concept. In fact, as executed, it's almost good. Almost. If it was better executed, it would be great. As it stands now, it's a very frustrating experience.
<h2>The State of Window Management</h2>
For many years I've been annoyed with the state of Window management on the Mac. During the years of 2017—2020 I spent a lot of time working on Windows (10), and window management over on that side of the computing OS world has its own issues. Oh, Microsoft solves some of the problems that Apple doesn't seem to care to solve, but not many of them, and not to my satisfaction. Overall, my experience in modern Windows was that Microsoft has "caught up" to Apple in many ways, but I still prefer the Mac (and I'm back to using the Mac full time in case anyone is wondering).
The problem neither Microsoft nor Apple have been very interested in solving (up until Apple's Stage Manager) is the "window sets" problem. When I'm working on something, I tend to have multiple apps and multiple windows involved in that "something." And very often, I'll reach a point where I want or need to switch to something else for a while, but I want those window and app states preserved.
<h3>Multiple Desktops</h3>
For some time, Windows and macOS have both had a concept called "multiple desktops" (Apple calls it Spaces, but it's the same concept. The problem is, as implemented, neither option really solves the problems well<a href="#user-content-fn-1" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-1" aria-describedby="footnote-label">1</a>.
With Spaces on macOS, each display gets its own space, and you can have many spaces per-display. When you open an app that wasn't previously open, it opens in the current space. The trouble is that it "bounces" around a lot. Let's say I open a Safari window in one of my spaces, then open a Safari window in another space. When I <code>cmd + tab</code> to Safari, it will switch to the space with the Safari window that was most recently active. It's not great. And the only way I can see or switch spaces is by activating mission control, or swiping from side to side in a linear fashion
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/macos-spaces.jpg" alt="macOS Spaces">
With multiple desktops on Windows, each "desktop" spans all your displays, and (usually) each desktop acts like its own computer context. As far as that desktop knows, no other apps exist besides what's currently in that desktop. If you click a pinned app in the task bar, or open an app that may or may not be open in another space, it will also open an instance in your current desktop. I said "usually" because some apps seem incompatible with this. There's the occasional app that is limited to one window, and it will only ever open on one desktop. Which isn't great. I also found that, despite that fact that my Windows computer was very beefy, using two desktops made the computer feel a lot slower. Using three brought the computer to its knees.
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/windows-10-multiple-desktops.jpg" alt="Windows 10 Multiple Desktops">
So as you can see, I've been a little nonplussed by that window grouping landscape.
<h2>Enter: Stage Manager</h2>
When Apple announced Stage Manager, and demoed its abilities, I was really thrilled and impressed with what I was seeing. It looked like, more or less, what I was looking for, conceptually. Windows can be arranged in sets, and you can switch back and forth between sets of windows arranged exactly the way you like them.
Well, the reality has been something of a glass of icy cold water in the face. When I first installed Ventura, I immediately enabled Stage Manager, and for a bit, maybe even a day, I really enjoyed it. But eventually, I had to turn it off. And even though I try it again once in a while, I eventually have to turn it off again.
Thankfully, disabling stage manager appears to return everything to the previous, long-running, tried and true window management behaviors. And while I may be frustrated with that status quo, I know how to navigate and get along with it very well.
<h3>Terminology</h3>
In order to talk about Stage Manager, I must define the terms I'll be using to talk about things. <a href="https://daringfireball.net/">John Gruber</a> observed on an episode of <a href="https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/">The Talk Show</a> (I don't remember which one so I can't link it directly, sorry) that the lack of clear terminology by Apple itself regarding Stage Manager may be an indication of what's gone wrong with Stage manager. I tend to agree.
Regardless, here's the terminology to understand:
<h4>Stage</h4>
A stage is where a window (or a group of windows) are.
<h4>Strip</h4>
<img src="/images/blog/2022/11/20/mac-stage-manager-strip.jpg" alt="Stage Manager Strip">
As far as I can tell, there is no official name for the thing on the left side of the screen(s) where the thumbnails/piles are visible. However, the common nomenclature bing used around the web seems to be strip so that's what I'll call it.
<h4>Thumbnails</h4>
In the strip, you see thumbnails.
In <a href="https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213315">Apple's official support document</a>, Apple refers to the things you see on the left side of the screen as "thumbnails." But when this document does so, it's only referring to a single app being present on each stage. The document does cover the ability to drag from the "thumbnails" to create groups of windows on your current stage and never re-labels the thumbnails in the strip on the side. However, the internet seems to be calling those…
<h4>Piles</h4>
A pile is a group of windows in the strip.
<h3>What are the issues?</h3>
<ol>
<li>It has a problem I would describe as "bouncy"</li>
</ol>
What I mean by this is, by default, every time you open a new app, it gets its own stage, which causes it to "bounce" to a new stage. Very often, most of the time in fact, I want an app to open in the current stage. There is currently no way to prompt this behavior. If you click on an app in the Dock, or <code>cmd + tab</code> to it, one of two things happens: 1. If the app is not running, a new stage is created and the app is placed in that stage, or 2. If the app is already running and has a window, the stage of the most recently active window for that app will be bounced to (sound familiar, Spaces users?)
And Finder has a problem whereby it might spawn a window for, say, decompressing a zip file. And guess what, that little bitty window gets its own stage, and that stage is brought to the fore for that tiny little window. Not fun.
Additionally, sometimes, for no discernible reason, the stage you're currently working in will "bounce" away and another stage will become active. This is almost certainly a bug, but it's a huge, frustrating one. And even if they fix this one bug, there's still the myriad other problems.
<ol start="2">
<li>It behaves a bit strangely on multiple displays</li>
</ol>
Actually, it behaves a lot strangely on multiple displays. That may be the primary reason I have disabled Stage Manager, actually.
Sometimes trying to drag a window from a pile or thumbnail in the strip on one display to a stage on another display results in that window disappearing entirely. Getting it back can be frustrating or impossible. Often I have to quit the app and open it again. Sometimes invoking Mission Control to show all Windows and clicking on the window will bring it back in a state where it's half-on one of the displays. Sometimes not.
Sometimes, when clicking on a pile to make it the active stage on one display, causes the stage to switch on another display too. That is never what you want.
Sometimes clicking on a thumbnail or pile does nothing. I put this issue here in the multiple displays section because I've never had it happen when using Stage Manager on a single display.
<ol start="3">
<li>It's nearly impossible to move a window of an app to a new stage if there are no other app's windows in the current stage</li>
</ol>
The problem is that Apple conceives of stages as being for an app. The idea that you could have multiple windows from various different apps grouped together seems almost an after-thought.
Let's use Safari as an example. Let's say I have Safari, and only Safari open in a stage. I click <code>cmd + n</code> for a new Safari Window and I want to put that window in a new stage by itself. Impossible. The "Remove from set" item in the "Window" menu is grayed out. Since Apple doesn't allow you to have empty stages, you can't go to an empty stage and drag that window's thumbnail to an empty stage. You simply cannot separate multiple windows of the same app into multiple stages. If you're working with one app, you must always be in the same context, according to Apple, I guess 🙄.
<ol start="4">
<li>Unplugging displays, then plugging them back in results in a HUGE MESS</li>
</ol>
I know <a href="https://hypercritical.co/">John Siracusa</a> frowns on this whole idea of using a laptop as your primary computer, plugged into displays sometimes, other times not. But I think the entire reason he objects to the concept so much is because Apple is SO BAD at remembering multiple display state. And Apple has not departed from the status quo here. If you are using multiple displays at your desk with stage manager turned on and arranged just the way you want it, and you leave your desk and disconnect your computer from the display(s), when you plug back in in 1 second, 5 seconds, or 1 day, your piles will be a completely scattered disaster. Assuming Apple will never fix this issue, because Apple has always had problems of this nature with multiple displays, it would be nice if you could drag piles from one display to another, but…
<ol start="5">
<li>Stages/Thumbnails/Piles can't be dragged to different displays</li>
</ol>
Like, seriously, what the heck? Such a basic, basic, basic feature. Non-existent. Because no one ever wants to use a group of windows an a different display, right?
<ol start="6">
<li>There's no way to see all the piles you have if they don't fit in the strip</li>
</ol>
So, if you have 7 piles, but only 4 fit on your display, tough noogies.
<ol start="7">
<li>Thumbnails/piles cannot be labeled</li>
</ol>
This, by the way, has been a long standing complaint of mine with Spaces/Multiple Desktop as well. And Apple has carried that baffling decision forward. And why not? No one knows, I suppose.
<h2>So, What Now?</h2>
I don't know where we go from here. Apple has a long history of shipping partially baked window management features on the Mac, then never returning to them to polish them up or make them work properly. Stage Manager has a lot of promise. It's so close to doing what I want and need it to do. Quite frankly, it's baffling that it's shipped in the state it's in. My list of complaints here can be considered a wish list of things I want Apple to address or fix. Will they? Who knows?
Funnily enough, many of these issues don't exist with Stage manager for iPadOS<a href="#user-content-fn-2" id="user-content-user-content-fnref-2" aria-describedby="footnote-label">2</a>. It's not "bouncy" on iPad, multiple displays currently aren't supported by iPadOS, so no worry about dragging piles between displays, and moving apps into and out of stages is quite easy on iPad.
If Apple can work out these issues that I've outlined, I'd love to return to Stage Manager. I pine for a solution to the issues Stage Manager is trying to address.
Help us, Apple-wan Kenobi, you're our only hope.
<h2 id="user-content-footnote-label">Footnotes</h2>
<ol>
<li id="user-content-user-content-fn-1">
Microsoft's implementation of multiples desktop's, I do find to be a little better than Apple's. <a href="#user-content-fnref-1" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
</li>
<li id="user-content-user-content-fn-2">
Of course, Stage Manager on iPad OS has it's own set of issues. <a href="#user-content-fnref-2" aria-label="Back to content">↩</a>
</li>
</ol>

Stage Manager on the Mac

So you see what it takes to get me to write. There have been many things I wanted to write about over the last little bit. But I've been so doggone busy. The Google Reader imminent shutdown really made me want to write. But this... this makes me write. You can see what's near and dear to my hard: Podcasts.
The internet is abuzz with the the news of Podcasts 1.2. <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/2031574/hands-on-podcasts-1-2-is-the-one-apple-should-have-shipped.html">Chris Breen has a good rundown</a> of the new app. And I agree that this is the version that should have shipped in that it is far better than the previous app. But it still has some serious flaws that make it not worth using for me. Believe me, I want to use it, I want it to work. I was genuinely excited for the update. The addition of playlists stations is nice and brings it on par with Instacast in that way. And the stilly and quaint reel to reel playback screen is gone, for better or worse (I sort of liked it, but it was a wee bit hard to use).
Here is my biggest frustration. The reason I want this to work is because I spend as much time working at my Macintosh computer as I do out and about with my iOS device. iTunes, with which my phone syncs every night when I plug it in, has podcast subscription capabilities. But I rarely plug my phone directly into my computer. It syncs overnight and so podcasts could sync that way, but I might work at my computer for a couple hours, then head out in my car and want to pick up my podcasts where I left off. Without a physical sync this was impossible. And what if I subscribe to a new podcast on one of the devices? It's cable (or Wi-Fi sync) time to get everything on the same page.
Apple is touting full subscription sync for this version of the app, but here, as I have found, is the rub: that subscription syncing is only between iOS devices, NOT between iOS and it's sync master, iTunes (isn't that quite odd? iTunes syncs with the iOS, but only iOS devices can sync podcasts with each other over the air). This is growing beyond frustrating. Let me explain my experience.
Being excited as I was for this new version of the app, I went and downloaded it, and added a couple of my favorite podcasts to the app. I let the latest episodes download, then I fired up iTunes and waited, and waited, and waited. No podcasts were added to the podcasts section of iTunes. This must be some sort of mistake. So I closed iTunes, forced the podcasts app on the iPhone to refresh and tried again. Still nothing. So I manually subscribed to the podcasts in iTunes and played the latest episode for a few minutes. To my great delight (perhaps the only delightful part of this experience), even though the subscriptions don't sync over the air, the playback position does IF both devices have subscribed to the same podcast and downloaded the same episode. Yay.
So then I subscribed to a couple podcasts on iTunes. As expected from my experience trying it the other way, these podcasts did not automatically show up in the podcast app on iOS. A manual sync with a cable did make them show up. But here is the rub. THE SUBSCRIPTION SWITCH IN THE IOS APP DID NOT GET TURNED ON. You have to manually do that. So even though the podcast was synced over from the iTunes library, the podcast app does not consider that a subscription, it's just sort of parked there.
<img src="/images/uploads/IMG_9178.png" alt="">
LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME!
This does not seem that hard to get right. I don't understand why Apple is making this so painful? I don't get it. I want the features to work as advertised.
Here is what else I would be giving up to switch away from Instacast:
<ul>
<li>Push Notifications for new episodes</li>
<li>Show notes (why does Apple refuse to support this when this is such a standard now?)</li>
<li>More robust media management</li>
</ul>
I must admit that I am not thrilled with Instacast 3's slightly more dumbed down media management, but it is still way better than what Apple's app offers.
And I am excited because Instacast has teased that a Mac client is in the works with full sync. As a podcast geek and power user that will make me extremely happy. I will finally have what I have been longing for these many years.
But the real bottom line for me is that there are still not good and easy podcast solutions for the average person. Apple's app still adds complication by not working quite as advertised, and by trying to hard to make things easy. Sometimes trying to make things easy adds unexpected complication. And solutions like Instacast simple are not easy for mainstream consumers to grasp. Podcasts remain just out of reach for many average consumers in my opinion.
What is so maddening is that Apple could make this so easy and so good, but they just can't seem to manage it.
P.S. That icon is still hideous.
<hr>
Here is the orginal article I wrote about podcasts, and a quick follow up to that.
<ul>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/27/podcasts">Podcasts »</a></li>
<li><a href="/blog/2012/06/28/podcasts-a-quick-follow-up">Podcasts - A Quick Follow Up »</a></li>
</ul>

Apple's Podcast App Revisited


Let me tell you a little bit about something I like and enjoy.
(Warning: spoilers for Portal and Portal 2 follow)
One of the things I have been enjoying in my precious few spare moments after my work is done for the day and the kids go to bed is Portal and Portal 2. A friend of mine had our family over for the evening a few weeks ago and he introduced me to Portal. Of course I had heard of it before. But in my mind somehow it was linked to first person shooter games and the like. I'm not into those so I never thought to check out Portal.
But Portal is not a first person shooter. Sure it's played in the first person, which I don't usually care for. But that's about as far as the similarities go. Portal and its successor, Portal 2, are essentially puzzles that must be solved with differently positioned portals. The portal gun you carry can shoot two differently colored portals, orange and blue. Think of the colors as corresponding to sides. If you go in an orange portal, you come out of a blue portal and vice versa.
Portal is actually a fairly short game, especially when you play it the second time around, but it's been a long time since I had so much fun with a game. The plot is fairly simple. Your character, Chell, wakes up from what is apparently some sort of stasis sleep, and an AI tells you that testing is ready to begin. A portal opens, you go through it and begin advancing through the stages of "testing". As you go, the AI (if you know Portal's story and lore you know her name is GLaDOS) seems to get more and more menacing until finally, she leads you to a chamber of fire where she intends to kill you. But you portal up and go behind the scenes, eventually finding the nerve center of the AI and destroying her.
Words cannot do this justice, solving the puzzles, advancing, figuring out how to kill the AI is so much fun.
Portal 2 is a much longer, and even more fun and satisfying game. In Portal 2, GLaDOS is resurrected from her destroyed pieces. Wheatley, another AI we meet, is trying to help you get to GLaDOS control room. When you get through GLaDOS' testing with Wheatley and show up in her chamber, another computer voice announces that a corrupted core has been detected, but a new core has also been detected and would you like to install it.
After installing Wheatley and ousting GLaDOS, Wheatley seems to be corrupted by the power, and drops Chell down a shaft all the way to the bottom of the facility. Now you have to make your way back up to the top and face off with Wheatley. This is the heart of the gameplay and it is even more fun than the original Portal. Along then way you meet up with what's left of the GLaDOS core, now powered by a potato battery. You and her ascend back to the top to face off with Wheatley. Wheatley has gone stark raving mad and once you get back up to the facility proper, he begins testing you in a similar manner to GLaDOS, only much more deranged.
In the end, after a battle with Wheatley, he is sucked into space by firing a portal at the moon.
None of what I am writing here can convey just how much fun both of these games are. They are available on a variety of different platforms, including <a href="http://store.steampowered.com">Steam</a>, and I can't recommend the game highly enough.

Portal

Even though I’m not installing Mountain Lion on my primary boot drive just yet, I did install it on an external drive for testing purposes. I need to make sure Final Cut, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, Coda, and many other applications are working as expected and not somehow broken by the update.
I should be working on a website, but the server is having some issues so I’m taking some time to test out Mountain Lion today. Here are some of my initial thoughts (this is just a collection of random musings and not a focused review).
<h2>First Impressions</h2>
It is clear that after the buggy release of Lion, Apple didn’t want to go down that road again. There seems to be far less bugs so far than I had encountered with Lion by this time. So we are definitely off on better footing on that front.
Having started my computing life proper with Windows 2000, I am always amazed at just how little effort and time modern versions of OS X take to install. I didn’t time it exactly, but it was roughly 35 minutes from click on installer to Mountain Lion desktop. This of course was a clean install on an external drive so your mileage may vary, but I remember when that process was longer and took more steps to get there.
<h2>Final Cut 7</h2>
Because I’m an editor, and still need access to Final Cut 7, the first thing I did was test this application which Apple is no longer updating, to make sure we weren’t on the short road to complete obsoletion. To my relief I would say Final Cut 7 functions better on Mountain Lion than it did on Lion. There were some minor annoying bugs with FCP 7 on Lion that are not present on Mountain Lion.
<h2>Other Pro-Level Apps</h2>
As expected, Final Cut X functions fine in Mountain Lion, as does Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Motion 5, and After Effects.
<h2>iCloud</h2>
During the shorter then ever before set-up process after the install, but before getting to the Desktop, I was asked if I wanted to set up iCloud. I entered my iCloud ID and password, and almost everything to do with iCloud was set up for me. Strangely Mail was not set up, but a quick trip to System Preferences and a tick of a checkbox corrected that problem. It was strange that Mail was not turned on by default, but not a huge deal.
I look forward to more and more settings carrying over through iCloud. I’m thinking here of wallpaper, dock icon arrangement, <a href="#fn:dockarrange">1</a> general system preferences such as mouse speed, keyboard key repeat speed settings and more.
<h2>Notes</h2>
The new Notes application is exactly what I have been wanting for many years. Simple, easy notes, with folders and completely cloud syncing. And it actually works very well. Of course I changed the font to something manageable (the default is Noteworthy, which is utterly horrible).
One minor annoyance, there is a nag dialog every time I want to delete a note and no preference to disable it.
<h2>Space Theme</h2>
Seriously, the space themed default wallpaper is getting ridiculous and old. I changed it to something much more manageable almost right away.
<h2>Twitter</h2>
Tweetbot uses Twitter’s official authorization API of course, which means sending me to the website, logging in to Twitter and authorizing. Upon successful authorization, OS X asked me if I also wanted to add the account to the system preferences. This I felt was a nice touch.
<h2>Reminders</h2>
Moving Reminders out of iCal Calendar and to it’s own app is great. And of course still synced with all devices via iCloud.
Medium annoyance: I wish there was a way to view all reminders — in both iOS and OS X. Only being able to view them by list is a little annoying.
<h2>iCal Calendar</h2>
The calendar list sidebar makes a triumphant return and thank goodness. I <a href="/blog/2011/07/25/lion-day-one-in-actual-working-environment">complained</a> about the pop-over introduced in Lion so I am very glad they fixed it.
<h2>The Dock</h2>
The new, more subtle, almost blurred look is welcome. The reflections, the gloss, everything about the Dock is much more subtle, and that’s good. I liked the new 3D dock when it was first introduced, but it soon started to feel a little too garish. In fact I find that a lot about things like this. Don’t get me wrong, I love polish and beautiful interfaces, but it can be overdone. This is just more of the refinement process that OS X has been going through to tone down the more garish aspects of the interface and it’s welcome change.
One interesting and nice refinement to the Dock is that you can’t just drag apps out of the Dock by accident anymore. You have to drag up a little further from the Dock than you would expect, and hold for a moment before the “poof” cloud appears and you can let go to remove the icon from the Dock. This will save me a lot of frustration and headache, as I imagine it will most users.
<h2>Notifications</h2>
Great to see native, Growl-like notifications coming to OS X, but as with notifications on iOS, I wish there was a way to see when there are unread notifications. A badge on the icon in the menu bar or something.
Notifications did bump spotlight from it’s place of glory in the coveted left hand space of the menu bar, and that feels little odd. Somehow it feels off that spotlight hangs out so close to the side, but not docked to the side. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
<h2>Total Finder</h2>
<a href="http://totalfinder.binaryage.com">Total Finder</a> brings some great enhancements to the Finder and I like it. It seems to work fine in Mountain Lion.
<h2>Safari</h2>
The loading progress bar is… interesting…
<h2>Software Updates</h2>
All software updates that previously went through the stand alone “Software Update” application now go through the App Store. I think this mostly brings unity to the user experience, but there’s still “some” strangeness. Like getting my Final Cut Pro 7 updates through the App Store was a little weird from the stand point that the software didn’t originally come form there.
System updates coming from there make total sense however.
That’s all I have for now. More will follow in the weeks to come I’m sure. Still not sure when I’ll update my primary boot drive.
<hr>
<ol>
<li>Yes, I realize that Dock syncing was a part of Dotmac and Mobile Me, but it was so poorly executed as to be useless. I kept it turned off because it would frequently re-arrange my dock or remove icons that I had placed there. It was nightmarish. <a href="#fnref:dockarrange">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Here Kitty Kitty

Yesterday, Apple released a new app for iPhone and iPad called <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/podcasts/id525463029">Podcasts</a>. Several people whom I respect have heaped praise upon it and honestly I’m not sure why. I can see how this is a major improvement if you have been using iTunes to manage podcasts and syncing them from iTunes to your iDevice. But while this is a major improvement over that scenario, this is by no means a good app.
Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects of the interface that I love. The player screen itself is really awesome.
<img src="http://buzzingpixel.com/images/uploads/IMG_0254.jpg" alt="IMG 0254" title="IMG_0254.jpg">
However, there are some problems.
<h2>Subscribing to Podcasts</h2>
It’s just a bit clunky and confusing for an Apple designed interface. I’ve seen worse, but it’s definitely clunky. That said, I was able to find a couple of the podcasts I listen to and subscribe to them.
Now one of the big features I was looking forward to:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Optionally sync your favorite episodes from iTunes on your Mac or PC</li>
<li>Sync your episode playback for seamless transition between devices</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
The wording here made me think this was all going to be happening over the air in the way that Instacast syncs over the air between iOS devices. So I waited for the podcasts I had subscribed to, to show up in iTunes. After a while I realized that wasn’t going to happen. So I told iTunes to sync my phone. Sure enough, the podcasts then showed up in iTunes. However, my playback position was not synced. What in the world? I tried everything to get playback position to sync between iTunes and iPhone. No dice. So far, Apple is having a hard time delivering on their promise here.
Well I was determined to give Apple the benefit of the doubt. I went ahead and subscribed to all my favorite podcasts in iTunes and synced them over to my iPhone.
<h2>Dichotomy</h2>
This is where I should stop and talk about the dichotomy that iTunes has always made between being subscribed to a podcast, and simply having some episodes of a podcast in your library. The dichotomy is so confusing it’s hard for me even to explain, but I’ll try. You see, if you put an episode of a podcast in your library, it will show up in the podcast area of iTunes as a podcast, but if you were not previously subscribed to that podcast, you still will not be after dropping that episode manually into iTunes. And telling whether you are or not is hard unless you are specifically looking for the signs. This means that you will not receive new episodes.
Well the same dichotomy is made when you sync podcasts that you subscribed to on the iPhone. Even though you subscribed to them there, and they synced to your iTunes library, you are not subscribed to them on your computer. This means episodes will not download in iTunes when they are available.
Okay, whatever, I can deal. It seems like a lot to ask from the average user, but I’m not an average user and I can deal.
But… this is where things get frustrating. After subscribing to several podcasts on my Mac and then syncing them over to my iPhone I made an interesting discovery. The same dichotomy is made on the iPhone that I just described for iTunes on the Mac. Those podcasts had all been synced over to the iPhone, but I was not subscribed to them on the iPhone.
<img src="http://buzzingpixel.com/images/uploads/IMG_0255.jpg" alt="IMG 0255" title="IMG_0255.jpg">
The fix is to go into each individual podcast’s settings and turn on the subscription button and enable automatic downloads. I’m subscribed to about 15 podcasts so this is quite frustrating. It’s about 6 taps per podcast.
This is perhaps the most frustrating user experience I have ever had the misfortune of seeing Apple design. They normally excel at user experience.
<h2>Playback Syncing</h2>
It’s pretty much nonexistent. I hear that it works between iOS devices so it appears that it simply does not sync playback position between OS X and iOS. This is downright silly and a major oversight on Apple’s part.
Even worse, played/unplayed status appears to only sync one way, from iTunes. This is far worse than what we previously had in this area. At least before played/unplayed, and playback position would sync between iTunes and iOS, even if only manually, via a standard iTunes sync. Now I can mark something as played, or listen all the way through, thereby marking it as played on iOS, and iTunes will not acknowledge that. Ever. Not over the air, not with a manual sync over Wi-Fi, or over sync cable.
<h2>Strange Interface Quirks</h2>
As much as I like some of the interface elements, there are some strange things going on. For instance, in tile mode you can’t access the “Unplayed” area that shows only episodes that have not been played. Sure you can switch to list view, but this seems like a major oversight. What’s more, when in tile view, which is a nice, and beautiful view, you cannot see which podcasts have new and unplayed episodes. Again, an amazing and egregious oversight. This makes tile view beautiful, and completely non-functional.
<img src="http://buzzingpixel.com/images/uploads/IMG_0256.jpg" alt="IMG 0256" title="IMG_0256.jpg">
(in this screen shot, Amplified has an unplayed episode, but I would never know in this view)
<h2>How do you refresh?</h2>
I will often see in my Twitter feed that a show that I love and am looking forward to listening to is available. When I see this, I usually immediately go to Instacast and refresh. Instacast pulls down the new episode. When this happened earlier today, I opened up the new Podcasts app and tried to find a way to refresh the feed. I couldn’t find a way to do it. Furthermore, the feed did not update on it’s own. I went over to Instacast, refreshed the feed, and sure enough, the new episode started downloading right away. Went back to the Podcasts app. Nothing. Another alarming oversight in the new app.
<h2>What I would be giving up</h2>
If I went with Apple’s “Podcasts” and switched away from Instacast I would essentially be gaining nothing. Because the reason I would have considered switching was if playback position would sync between iTunes and iOS. I spend as much time on my Mac, at my desk, as I do with my iPhone. Being able to seamlessly sync playback position between these two devices would be awesome. Since this doesn’t work as advertised, I get no features that Instacast does not now offer me.
But I would be losing several features that I love about Instacast.
Push Notifications. Instacast lets me know when new episodes are available via push, and the new app doesn’t have it.
Custom Subscriptions. Sometimes I want to subscribe to a podcast that is not in the iTunes directory, which requires me to copy and paste the feed URL. There is not a way that I could find to do this in the new app. Sure, you could wait until you were back at your computer and do it through iTunes. But this is another remarkable oversight.
UPDATE:
I <a href="https://twitter.com/chris4holland/status/218479355683287040">received a tweet letting me know</a> about a tip for subscribing to custom podcasts. I tested it and it does work, still clunky and unintuitive, but if you really want to use Podcasts to subscribe to a custom podcast URL, you can type or paste the URL into the search field of the library - not the catalog search - and you will be subscribed
Download Magagement. Instacast makes it amazingly simple to manage downloaded episodes. There’s a list called downloads. You go there to see what episodes are currently downloaded and you can delete them and whatnot. I could not find a way to do this in the new app. Sure, you can tell the app to auto delete older played episodes, but I actually couldn’t get this to work at all. The played episodes still stubbornly remain on the device.
Show Notes. Almost every podcast I listen to has show notes (usually a collection of links referenced throughout the show). And I often want to reference them during the show. Instacast displays them right in the app. I didn’t realize how often I used this feature. The new app does not have show notes/links.
Searching and Subscribing. I find Instacast to be far less clunky for this purpose, and it connects to the same podcast directory as the new app.
<h2>Still looking</h2>
I’m still looking for a better solution. If Instacast were available on the Mac with full syncing features that are available between iPad and iPhone Instacast, I think that would be what I need. As it is, I’m still looking. Podcasts is definitely not the app I was looking for.

Podcasts

<blockquote>
Upon opening Coda 2 for the first time I was pleased to see that, though obviously different, there was something fairly familiar, if slicker looking. The sites that I currently had set up in Coda 1 were all right there, waiting for me and ready to go. One really nice touch though, and one I have personally wanted for years, was the ability to organize sites into groups. I immediately did a preliminary organization. It works very simply and is quite discoverable, especially if you have ever used an iOS device. Drag a site icon onto another site icon and a group is instantly created.
</blockquote>
Just a taste of my review of Coda 2. It’s not all roses though. Click through to read all 2,693 words of the good and the bad.

Your Truly writing at Mac Appstorm

My Coda 2 Review

<blockquote>
If, like me, you maintain a multi-terabyte hard drive of your ripped media, how do you get everything to look pretty, embed artwork, add the proper metadata for proper display in iTunes, make HD-SD pairs play nicely, and so on? Well, there is a way, and that way is called Subler. Let’s check it out.
</blockquote>
My review of Subler on Mac Appstorm.

Yours Truly on Mac.Appstorm

My Review of Subler

Messages for Mac Beta debuted today. You can <a href="http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta/">download it here</a> in case you missed the link I posted earlier today.
I was <a href="/blog/2011/10/27/imessage-for-lion">definitely hopping for something like</a> this so I am relatively excited. I downloaded the beta first thing this morning and installed it.
Messages completely replaces iChat. All the functionality of iChat is still there, but de-emphasized. When you first start messages, you are asked to enter your Apple ID for for iMessages. If you have set up your iPhone (or iPad) properly <a href="#fn:messages1">1</a> as I have done, messages will now come to all your devices, now including your Mac. It’s a beautiful thing. No more irritating and frequent IM disconnects (I’m looking at you Google Talk), no more not being unable to reach my wife because her phone is tucked away somewhere and her Gtalk account has inexplicably disconnected, no more buddy list management. Just messaging, everywhere.
I should clarify, all the previously supported IM protocols are still supported, and you can still access those buddy lists. But the main window of the new Messages app looks a little something like this:
<img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/messages.jpg" alt="Messages" title="messages.jpg">
And while you can access the buddy list(s) for your IM accounts, it is not necessary. If you want to message someone, and they aren’t currently in your conversation list, you can click the little button up on the left to start a new conversation, start typing their name, press enter as soon as they show up and start messaging. This is clearly the way, in my opinion a messaging app should be designed.
This being a beta, the app is not without bugs, but I found that the bugs have not affected usability. Basically, it just seemed like things jumped around a little randomly once in a while.
This is pretty much exactly what I was hoping for — an integrated messaging app with one integrated window of conversations and conversation sync between devices — and I think Apple nailed it.
<hr>
<ol>
<li>I cannot for the life of me figure out why the default iMessage set up on an iPhone is this way, but it does not automatically associate itself with your Apple ID for iMessages. Instead, it associates itself with your iPhone’s phone number. You must go into ”iPhone Settings > Messages > Receive At“ and make sure your Apple ID is entered there. Then go into “Caller ID” and change it to your Apple ID. Only after doing this will you be able to receive your iMessages, via your Apple ID, at all your devices. It’s very un-Apple like and I hope they fix this in the future. <a href="#fnref:messages1">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Messages for Mac

My review of Audiobook Builder. It’s a great Mac application and I gave it a 10/10 rating because, quite honestly I can’t think of a single way I would improve upon a great application.

Yours Truly Reviews Audiobook Builder for Mac

My Review of Audiobook Builder

I have discovered something wonderful… at least if you are geeky like me and use a Mac of some sort as your media center. I have been using a <a href="http://www.apple-history.com/mac_mini_mid_07">Mac Mini</a> as my media center for some time. I use <a href="http://www.plexapp.com/">Plex</a> as the media center software. All in all it is a good solution for us. I’m techy enough to get it set up properly, and once the hard part of setting everything up is done, it’s easy to use and navigate so my wife has no problem using it.
But I’ve never been completely happy with Apple’s remote. I did like the aluminum version a little better than the white plastic version, it seemed to have less problems getting IR signal through to the Mac. But even so it is basically the same remote with the same controls and so at times woefully inadequate.
But I just discovered something really cool. With <a href="http://www.iospirit.com/products/remotebuddy/">Remote Buddy</a> — third party remote software — you can <a href="http://www.iospirit.com/products/remotebuddy/hardware/#nintendowiiremote">pair a Wiimote via Bluetooth to a Mac</a>. This is brilliant because there’s no more problems with IR and needing line of site. The Wiimote has more buttons that can be fully customized with Remote Buddy.
For instance, I have the Wiimote’s home button permanently mapped to bring up the Remote Buddy menu. The “1” button activates Plex, and the “2” button activates DVD player. And best of all, unlike the Apple IR remote, it will wake the computer from display sleep (previously my biggest frustration with Lion and remote control behavior). I highly recommend this to anyone who uses a Mac in such a way that requires a remote.

Wii Remote on a Mac

My Star Trek: The Next Generation — The Next Level disc arrived yesterday and I took the opportunity to watch the first episode on the disc — Encounter at Farpoint — last night.
<img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/IMG_1221.jpg" alt="IMG 1221" title="IMG_1221.jpg">
Let me just say that, after only having the horrible transfers to DVD for years (especially horrible are the first couple of seasons) the image quality looks absolutely amazing! I mean it’s really incredible! The colors are much more true, the clarity and vibrance are breathtaking. TNG has really never looked this good.
<a href="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-01.jpg"><img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-01_1.jpg" alt="Tng eaf 01" title="tng-eaf-01.jpg"></a>
This is the flyover at the end of the title sequence. Remember that this is the original model work, rescanned and re-composited in HD, but still the original work. Now notice the attention to detail. There are actually people in the observation lounge! That was never apparent before in the SD releases of TNG.
<a href="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-02.jpg"><img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-02_1.jpg" alt="Tng eaf 02" title="tng-eaf-02.jpg"></a>
The whole look of the Q fence/forcefield thing may have been a bit odd, but you have to admit, the re-composite looks really good.
<a href="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-03.jpg"><img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-03_1.jpg" alt="Tng eaf 03" title="tng-eaf-03.jpg"></a>
The ever annoying Wesley Crusher. But while we’re here, man do those color tones not look better than the old DVD transfers?
<a href="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-04.jpg"><img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-04_1.jpg" alt="Tng eaf 04" title="tng-eaf-04.jpg"></a>
Mr. Troublemaker himself.
Of course, no amount of remastering of the image quality is going to make up for the horribly overwritten pilot. Or the bad acting that plagued the first season (and to a lesser extent the second season) of TNG. Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry had some strange ideas about what the 24th century would be like, or how uniforms would look in the future. Despite how great the image looks the quirkiness of Encounter at Farpoint remains, for good or for ill. The storyline still doesn’t make a lot of sense, and the seats at ops and conn still look stupid in that silly half reclined position. But to those of us who love TNG, and who know that it got soooo much better after season 2, I suppose it’s part of the charm.
Of course there is a lot of good to be had here. Encounter at Farpoint is rendered much easier to stomach now that the quality of the picture is vastly improved. And unlike with the remastering of The Original Series in HD, the effects and models have, for the most part, not been replaced with CGI. In fact the team has said that they are using original film elements and effects wherever possible. <a href="#fn:tngfarpoint1">1</a> In the case of TOS it was necessary to replace all effects and models with CGI since the model work and effects from the 60s simply would never hold up (they were in fact looking really really bad for a long time), and the original film elements had not been preserved, only the composites. In the case of TNG, the effects work was actually ground breaking. All the model shots were done on 35 mm film, of which most of the original elements are available in the archives, so the remastering team is able to simply transfer the original shots and re-composite it all with today’s technology. The result is pure awesomeness. It is my opinion that low budget CGI work simply can’t compare to the excellent model work originally done for TNG so I’m glad that is being preserved. There are of course some exceptions, and there will be some CGI work throughout the remastering of the series. For instance, Mike Okuda has said that over the course of the series many different techniques have been used for phasers and photon torpedoes (for instance). Often times those elements exist only in SD video resolution and so will need to be redone in CG. Mike Okuda has also referenced that occasionally a planet will need to be redone in CGI, such as in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708775/">Sins of the Father</a> because the planet only ever existed in video resolution. And they do have a digital CGI model of the Enterprise D because they know at some point in the series it will be needed when the occasional occurrence of a film element not being found happens. All in all, if Encounter at Farpoint is any indication, the model work and original effects hold up very well even by my stringent standards.
There were some things that were more noticeable. Data’s make up for instance just isn’t quite right. I’m not sure if they were using some sort of lipstick on him, or if it’s just that the pale skin makeup makes the lips stand out more. But whatever it was, it was way more noticeable how bad it was in that first episode. There were times when camera moves were shaky and not well executed which was made more noticeable due to the quality of the images being so much better.
Of course there are nerdy things to like too. Such as this: <a href="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-05.jpg"><img src="http://appleuserpro.com/assets/uploads/tng-eaf-05_1.jpg" alt="Tng eaf 05" title="tng-eaf-05.jpg"></a>
The original composite of this shot had the energy beam feeding the creature coming out of The Captain’s Yacht (the center portion of the underside of the saucer section) instead of the (later well established) phaser emitter bar. This remastering process provides the opportunity to correct things like that. This is, from a nerd’s perspective, much better! The beam is emanating from the proper place on the ship.
I did want to address something that I read in <a href="http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/30/star-trek-the-next-generation-the-next-level-review/">TrekMovie.com’s review of this sampler disc</a>.
<blockquote>
While there is more detail, it is important to remember that this show is 25 years old and so things were shot differently back then. The look can be a little soft (partially because of the purposefully slightly soft style common in the 1980s), and they have varying levels of film grain (again an indicator of the era), though nothing overly distracting.
</blockquote>
Personally, I found the look of the remastered TNG to be most pleasing. As far as I’m concerned, a very little hint of film grain is a desired quality. And I found no part of it to “look soft” to my eyes. It was not harsh looking by any means, but rather pleasing to look at. I’m a big fan of the filmic look, and as one who is often not a fan of the look of today’s movies and TV shows, I am very pleased with the look of TNG remastered.
I can’t wait for whole seasons to be released in HD. The teaser is just that and I’m excited to see the work being done.
<hr>
<ol>
<li>Most of my info and facts come from <a href="http://trekmovie.com">TrekMovie.com</a>’s interview with Mike and Denise Okuda. <a href="http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/24/interview-mike-denise-okuda-talk-star-trek-tng-the-next-level-part-1/">Interview Part 1</a> and <a href="http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/25/interview-mike-denise-okuda-talk-star-trek-%E2%80%93-tng-the-next-level-part-2/">Interview Part 2</a> <a href="#fnref:tngfarpoint1">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Encounter at Farpoint in HD

<blockquote>
After I started using Time Machine in Leopard, I quickly found one major drawback. Every hour, regardless of what you are doing, Time Machine starts a backup. It slows the system down, if you back up to a Time Capsule as I do, it slows the network down, and it’s unnecessary. I really only want one incremental backup per day, but this isn’t possible by default. This is where TimeMachineScheduler comes into play.
</blockquote>
My review of TimeMachineScheduler on Mac.Appstorm.

Posts tagged “Reviews” from the blog