I have a pretty darn fast Internet connection. Much faster than any streaming video service requires, and plenty fast enough for me to download large files with little eye-rolling and finger-tapping. But the thought of updating my iPhone makes me cringe.
When Apple pushes an update to iOS, you have two miserable choices.
Miserable choice #1:
You can render your phone completely useless for as long as it takes to download the OTA (over the air) update, unpack/prepare, install and restart your iPhone. The annoyance is compounded by the fact that you must keep the phone from “sleeping” while the update downloads, otherwise it just stalls. So you basically have to sit there like a jackass flicking the screen every minute or so to keep it active. Unless you have a death-wish, you definitely don’t want to do this while driving.
Miserable choice #2:
You can render your entire home network useless for hours by downloading an enormous iOS installer. It’s like downloading the entire OS just to get the updated components. Everyone in the house will hate you, because your Internet service slows to a crawl while you download what appears to be something the size of the entire Amazon video library just so your Apple Music app gets improved playlists, old photographs stop showing up in Photos app as new every time you connect your iPhone to your Mac, and your Email app works the way it should have to begin with.
…And as is always the case…
I decided to update to iOS 9.2 this morning. At 4am, to be exact. Nobody in my neighborhood is awake, so there is no internet traffic from other users in the local pipe. I made sure no other downloads of any kind were occurring. I decided to ‘download only’ the iOS update via iTunes on my Mac. The 2GB file download offers me the wonderful news that it might be finished downloading by the time I get home from work tonight. That doesn’t include actual install time.
So I decide to go the ‘quick’ route by doing the OTA download. A much smaller file, my iPhone claimed it only need ‘about 15 minutes’ to update. So after 40 minutes of downloading, another 15 or so minutes of updating, and 5 or so minutes of excruciatingly slow restarting, my phone is finally ready to use again.
In contrast, I downloaded and installed the entire Mac operating system from scratch in less time than it takes to do a run-of-the-mill iOS update. And I didn’t have to sit there and babysit the download—–as the Mac is smart enough to not fall asleep while downloading/installing.
Seriously, Apple. FIX THIS SHIT!
With the recent announcement of Creative Suite 5 by Adobe this past week, and the subsequent complaining that always seems to accompany such an announcement, I thought I would type-up a quick complaint letter that interested people can copy & paste into an email and send off to Adobe. Perhaps if those of you who aren’t happy with the direction Adobe is going in send this letter to them, they’ll completely toss 20+ years of successful software into the bin and start over from scratch!
Design contests, it’s a hot topic in the design community. Most designers frown upon these online design contest sites where designers compete against each other designing logos, ads and Web sites for the chance to win a few hundred bucks. For the record, I have no problem with these design contests. It sharpens your skills and provides the opportunity to earn some extra cash in these tough times. If you’re willing to put in the work for a chance at winning a small fee, so be it. In my opinion, it’s not only not worth the money, but it really belittles the skills of designers everywhere. We’re not talking about spec-work for a potential big client. No, this is just some stranger on the Web looking for the cheapest, fastest work – basically preying on junior designers. But the other day, I came across a site that made my stomach turn. No, it’s not yet another design contest site like 
There was a time, “back then,” when a piece of software that was in Beta meant that the application was feature complete, and the developer was simply releasing the software to a small group of users in order to fix any remaining bugs before releasing the app to the general public. Google changed all that a few years ago when it released GMail to the general public as a beta. To this day, it’s still a beta – even though there are millions of users. That being said, I thought it would be nice to take a look at the definition of some typical software development terms, and what they meant “back then,” and what they really mean “now.” Read on for the definitions.