From 28177e00c79fbd518ba7d83081695767ecb68256 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Blue Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2021 03:52:24 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] #196 --- drafts/iOS15FamilyReviewDep.md | 156 --------------------------------- 1 file changed, 156 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 drafts/iOS15FamilyReviewDep.md diff --git a/drafts/iOS15FamilyReviewDep.md b/drafts/iOS15FamilyReviewDep.md deleted file mode 100644 index 10a5f4c6..00000000 --- a/drafts/iOS15FamilyReviewDep.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,156 +0,0 @@ -# iOS 15 Reviewed for My Family - -![iOS 15 is Not His Year](https://i.snap.as/X3rV4nPq.png) - -## It's been a tough summer for the *Always Feature-Focused* Tribe. - -Eighty days ago, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering ~~stood up in front of a crowd of~~... - -No!... It was just me... Alone, in my mother’s basement, on a Monday morning, contorted at stupid angles, typing to my phone with a physical keyboard and unapologetically scarfing as much as I possibly could of the Apple community’s unbelievably unreserved, almost *spiritual* volume of **pure hype** from as many simultaneous sources as I could manage. (Hilariously, *all* of said sources are/were Discord servers, now, as in that “gamer” communications service I launched my little indie mag on in 2015 and kept comparing to Slack, but like an actual madman.) - -Anyway, said Senior Vice President of Software Engineering (who we are encouraged to hold accountable for basically all technical changes to iOS) is named Craig, and these are his first few sentences: - -> For many of us, our iPhone has become indispensable. And at the heart of iPhone is iOS. iOS powers the experiences we've come to rely on. This year, we were inspired to create even more meaningful ways iPhone could help you. Our new release is iOS 15. It's packed with features that make the iOS experience adapt to and complement the way you use iPhone... - -I’m dwelling on them because they are **patently meaningless**. Very little to nothing coming in iOS 15 is what I would call *ease-of-use-centric*. Some of it - namely controversial (and now backpedaled) changes to the user interface of Safari - feels almost maliciously quartered in the opposite direction. Most of the changes in the subheadings of the full feature list are simply irrelevant in the use for all but the dorkiest iOS users, like myself, and I find the fact unacceptable, at the very least. - -![The Foundation Image](https://i.snap.as/t2IieKLq.png) - -This is why I would like to try something different, this year, and focus on an entirely different audience: my family, as representatives of the vast majority of the iPhone’s billion-something demographic (read: customers.) That is to say, who Craig *should* be referring to with the phrase “most of us.” Not because I believe them to be “dumb” or “end users” (in the tech bro derogatory sense,) but because they are busy, working people who depend on their iPhone as a *utilitarian* device, above all else. They don’t have the time to dive deep into Apple documentation or watch the whole WWDC presentation to gain an understanding of where to look for new features or (unfortunately) how to turn them off. Realistically, they don’t even have time to read this whole Post, though I hope they will (sorry fam.) - -Regardless of how we feel about it, Apple has made it clear that our phones are going to be further and further inundated with automated processes in the background. Whether you like it or not, your phone is going to be used to help find other users’ devices over the Find My network, your travel information is going to be used to inform Apple Maps’ live traffic statistics, and so on. For the more conservative members of my family, related truths about their phones are going to continue to feel like we are continuing to give up “ownership” of our devices. There are definitive alternatives, but they involve giving up a whole lot of conveniences. I will do my best to address this a bit later on, drawing from much more articulate critics than I. - -What I *will* dwell on, myself, are the more menial, tactile implications of these abstract changes in design philosophy. A general theme of my own use/writing about iOS has been re-finding or jury-rigging the “buttons” which are gradually being obscured or eliminated entirely in the assumption that Apple’s automation knows better than us users when something should happen or change. A great example: using [a simple Siri Shortcut](https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/ac6a4587d5b54abc934631c214d81c0c) to completely disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth instead of trusting the [unnecessarily complex conditions](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208086) of doing so with the buttons in Control Center. I have sought out these “hacks” (as other iOS powerusers have rather absurdly called them) for very selfish reasons. - -Quite simply, the more automated iOS has become, the less comfortably in control I have felt. For myself, at least, every single functional automation Apple has introduced has drastically failed to simply my own using life, and the vast majority have in fact complicated it dramatically. Apple-adjacent publications and greater tech media have ceased all-out criticism and instead resorted to justifying and explaining (or attempting to, anyway) just about all of Apple’s subtle retractions of user control over the years, but apparently, I am too much of a control freak to let it go. I have been here since the very beginning, have bitched loudly all along, and do not plan to go quietly into that automated night. This theme pervades throughout this review, so for any of you who *do* feel like iOS’ automations fit comfortably into your life, please keep this in mind. - -![Safari Settings in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/oHqejXq1.png) - -## The Gist - -Rounder, still! From the first time you enter your passcode immediately after installing iOS 15, you’ll notice that Notifications and other elements have had their rounded corners *further* rounded, for some reason. Assuming Safari ships with its new look turned on by default, the screenshots embedded above show two locations (subject to change) where one can switch it off. (Your best bet is to visit its settings menu as displayed on the right in `Settings ⇨ Safari`.) As of this writing, at least two of iOS 15’s “headlining” features have been pushed to further iterative updates: [SharePlay](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ios-15-apple-shareplay-tv-delay-b1904548.html) and [iCloud Private Relay](https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/25/icloud-private-relay-ios-15-public-beta/). I suspect you will be prompted to explore Focus Modes upon initial installation, which I will eventually analyze in relative detail. Ideally, you’ll also be prompted to explore “Shared With You,” which I personally believe to be the release’s most significant addition for most people, by far. - -As far as "meaningful ways iPhone could help you," I see little more than glimmers. Focus Modes would be promising were they not so complex to set up, and Notification Summaries are (as of this moment) a pretty hopeless implementation of a theoretically useful concept. Some additional filters in Apple Maps search will prove useful so long as the associated metadata has been updated for locations *other* than San Francisco (say, mid-Missouri.) Optical Character (text) Recognition has been implemented “system wide” under the feature Apple terms “Live Text,” and translation has finally been extended to the places where it’s most useful (think: Safari.) - -In general, though, most of what’s coming with iOS 15 has little real value in the day-to-day experience for most iPhone users. A complete inversion of Craig’s phrase feels significantly more accurate: *This year, we were inspired to create even more superficial ways iPhone could temporarily dazzle tech media*. - - - -And now, I’d like to take you through what I feel are the considerations I’d like my family to know - namely my 70-year-old mother, who depends 100% on her iPhone and MacBook Pro every day to run her private practice - but also my ~8 nieces and nephews spanning 6th grade-graduate school, who all - if I’m not mistaken - have iPhones. - -(Worthy of note: this “review” is very heavily focused on *iOS* - which is to say *iPhone* - to the point where any overlap with iPadOS/MacOS/WatchOS/HomeOS/any other goddamned operating system are purely coincidental. For coverage of those changes, please seek your regular sources.) - -![Shared With You - Photos App in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/5otqrdNU.png) - -## Photos - -### Shared With You - -The single most important/welcome feature addition to iOS 15 for most people, I believe, is found in Apple’s native Photos app and entitled **Shared With You**. This view - found in the second tab in the bottom navigation row (“For You”) - is a reverse-chronological timeline of every bit of media (photos & videos) you’ve ever been sent over iMessage. For those with a lot of iOS-using friend (unlike myself,) I would imagine the list will take quite a while to populate. - -### Memories - -I find Alex Guyot’s bit on changes to Memories (from [his iOS 15 overview for *MacStories*](https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-and-ipados-15-the-macstories-overview/)) much more concise than what I’d written, so here it is almost in full: - -> Memories can now be set to your favorite songs from Apple Music, and can be customized with color filters. Setting different filters will result in different song choices and transition effects to nail a wider variety of vibes on Memories videos. - -> While watching a video generated by Memories, you can tap and hold at any time to freeze a photo so that it doesn’t transition away. The song playing over the video will not pause when you do this, but when you let go the remaining video transitions and timings will be automatically altered to match back up with the song’s beat. - -> If you don’t want to go with the song that was chosen automatically, you can tap the new Music button to get a pop-up interface into Apple Music, allowing you to choose a song manually. This interface will include smart suggestions for other songs that Apple thinksd you’ll like which would also fit the vibe of your video. - -https://youtube.com/watch?v=7uFR_bSxhTg - -Yeah. I hope you’re at least half as amused as I have continued to be by algorithmic video generation. [The above result](https://youtu.be/7uFR_bSxhTg) was created with absolutely zero modification from an album of images and videos which Photos automatically created via face recognition. The only other coherent option from my own limited set of photos is really the only one that matters, I think you'll agree. "Pet Friends" yielded [inevitably uplifting results](https://youtu.be/-1bA7-oslkc) in all three of my test renders, but - given a crop of cute dog photos - little intelligence is necessary to produce. - -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1bA7-oslkc - -If you're experiencing any sort of deja vu from the idea of auto-generated slideshows with rights-free soundtracks in the Photos app, it's because Apple has made several distinct attempts to implement very similar iterations of the feature throughout iPhone's history. - - - -![Visual Lookup Indicator in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/74HOlnLP.png) - -### Visual Lookup - -Perhaps the most unjustifiable background use of your phone’s resources introduced in iOS 15, “Visual Lookup,” seeks to identify “popular art and landmarks around the world, plants and flowers out in nature, books, and breeds of pets” present in your photos so that you might… identify them more swiftly(?) The only means of distinguishing photos on which Visual Lookup has been applied is to look for the modified ⓘ symbol at the very bottom of your screen in the photo browsing view (see the screenshot embedded above.) As you might notice in the screenshots *below*, not one of its analyses on my own images was usably accurate. - -![Visual Lookup in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/AtxzN45h.png) - -### Metadata - -Hooray! You can now view an image's basic details in the "Info pane," by swiping up on an image or using the ⓘ button. This includes its the extension and size of the image file, camera identification and configuration details, and - as part of Shared With You - from whom/where you got the image. Bizarrely, the "Adjust" tool also lets you alter a given image's timestamp and location information. While I can imagine infinitely many reasons why you'd want to *omit* or *delete* such information, I cannot conceive of a single wholesome reason why one would chose to *change* it, instead. - -![Photo Stacks in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/93BGmX4I.png) - -### Messages - -Just a few weeks shy of [iMessage's tenth birthday](https://web.archive.org/web/20120308031950/https://www.apple.com/ios/features.html), Apple has finally added a button to save incoming photos directly in Messages conversations. It's about as blatant as Apple interface design gets - you'll spot it opposite others' images. Tapping it saves the appropriate photo(s) directly to the Recents folder before a silly animation vanishes the button itself. - -Once again, from Mr. Guyot: - -> Groups of photos that you send will now be shown as stacks instead of in a long list, allowing you to more easily swipe through the images without losing track of the conversation around them. Tap on a stack to open a grid view where you can see and select multiple photos at once. - -I took the above screenshot in iOS 15 Developer Beta 5, and… Do “stacks” not look hilariously janky as fuck? - - -https://youtube.com/watch?v=hiCICEx3Egk - -## Audio - -### “Spatial Audio” - -Just to be clear, I strongly believe that normal users should basically ignore all mention of Apple’s “Spatial Audio” (read: don’t worry about it) for a few reasons, most of which aren’t all that interesting. Since [one of my very first written works on tech](https://bilge.world/mono-audio-playback) was/is directly related to the subject, though, indulge me for just a moment for an attempted explanation. Firstly, I must note that only two audio channels (the stereo experiences in various forms you’ve certainly had in your life, regardless of who you are) are necessary for audio to become “spatial.” If you’re curious about this, [my favorite all-time web experience from *The Pudding*](https://pudding.cool/2018/02/waveforms/) is an absolutely impeccable next destination. Secondly, the actual technology behind Apple’s title was not developed by Apple, but by Dolby. It’s not that Apple doesn’t acknowledge this thoroughly in [their explainer docs](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212182), nor is Dolby by any means a wee organization in need of my amplification, but this is one of those Apple habits that’s become a particular peev. If you’re interested, [here is the actual spec sheet for Dolby Atmos in PDF](https://professional.dolby.com/siteassets/cinema-products---documents/dolby-atmos-specifications.pdf). - -`![Control Center Decibel Meter](https://i.snap.as/1vGTW0Iz.png)` - -If you happen to have either AirPods Pro or AirPods Max devices, an iPhone 7 or later, *and* an Apple Music subscription, you might want to disregard my cynicism at least long enough to try "[dynamic head tracking](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212182)." - -### SharePlay - -*The Verge*’s Chaim Gartenburg did [an excellent - if a bit precocious - job of explaining](https://www.theverge.com/22577178/shareplay-how-to-apple-facetime-ios-15-ipados-macos-monterey-apple-tv-video-music) what he describes as iOS 15’s “headline feature,” called SharePlay: - -> It’s a new software feature on top of FaceTime that allows you to watch and listen to movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, and more with friends and family while video chatting. - -In my opinion, SharePlay represents one of those great, well-thought solutions to some notably youth-specific challenges which nobody (even the youth) will see as more worthwhile than their own. By that I mean, one ear bud per person… now, an ancient tradition. I’ve deprioritized it, in contrast to Chaim, because I’d bet it’s also one of those things one can only learn themselves. - -https://youtube.com/watch?v=YZCx-9wF3ow - -## Notifications, Focus, and Attention - -https://soundcloud.com/gas-station-memes/background-sounds-in-ios-15 - -### Background Sounds - - - -Yes, notifications have gotten *even rounder still* for some reason in iOS 15. Contact photos and “larger app icons” also “make them easier to identify,” according to Apple. (This is the one point in my whole writing life where the phrase *well I’ll be the judge of that!* is 100% valid and applicable.) There’s also a new feature called **Notification Summary** which is an absolutely useless and unnecessary complication, at least at the moment. Honestly, the one bit of solid advice from *The Social Dilemma* was… Just turn all Notifications off, or at least as many as possible. Notifications Summary feels like a near direct response to that one goddamned film, and its new Focus Modes do even more so. - -https://youtube.com/watch?v=YZCx-9wF3ow - -### Focus(es) - -The most glaringly standout parallel between Microsoft’s Windows upcoming Windows 11 release (which I have also been beta testing much less dutifully for most of this year) and Apple’s stated life improvements for iOS 15 centers around the design supposition that maximum malleability of the “spaces” in which one dwells on their operating system - namely, the “desktop(s)” and/or “home screen(s)” - lends toward a more healthy digital occupancy of them, especially in terms of attention. Unfortunately, the former bet big on automation as the framework upon which to build their solution - literally just entitled *Focus* - which has made it a challenge for *me* to understand in a usable way, certainly. I was originally going to largely skip over discussing it, too, as anything more than ***Do Not Disturb, Extended*** (still apt, in my opinion,) until I came across [the explainer video embedded above](https://youtu.be/YZCx-9wF3ow), by Matt Birchler. - -![Focus in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/mxwVtN7p.png) - - - - - -![Safari in iOS 15](https://i.snap.as/14Xf21CA.png) - -## …Safari - -I’m sorry, Mom… I really did ask just about everyone I know how on Earth I was going to explain what the fuck happened to Apple’s web browser. I don’t have any explanation and I find little validity in [Apple’s](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/10029), but Safari is absolutely fucked, and that’s essentially all that is useful to say. I have personally grown to accept it, but I have been groomed by a penchant for experimental mobile browsers like Cake, and this sentence simply does not stand up for my family members who have depended on Safari to… just work well. For them, I have a (personally unbelievable) alternative, after having tried literally every single browser available on iOS. I wish I could say Edge was the all-around winner, but - bizzarely - it’s [Brave](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brave-private-web-browser-vpn/id1052879175), hands down. For better or worse, turn off all the stuff that makes Brave actually unique in any way (all iOS browsers are actually built on the exact same platform that doesn’t have anything to do with their desktop counterparts,) and it is my pick for the best balance of speed and competency. - -## Video - -![Facetime in The Browser Comedy](https://i.snap.as/vBw0CNhW.png) - -### Facetime in The Browser - -Yes, you can *technically* Facetime with non-Apple devices thanks to iOS 15's changes. In fact, you'll be able to "Facetime" any device with a web browser! *However*, in doing so you will be forgoing every single one of Facetime's advantages: call quality, "privacy," ecosystem integration, etc. Without these, it would be silly to use Facetime over literally *any* other video calling service. What an immense waste of time, eh? - -https://twitter.com/NeoYokel/status/1430679850399014912 - -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJCRzOclrxQ \ No newline at end of file