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!

The one thing in common with most articles and their comments are the basement-dwelling booger eaters that feel compelled to compare the lack of [insert some stupid god damn feature here] on iOS that has been available on Android for years.

One of the topics always seems to be Apple and its ‘walled-garden’ approach to not allowing you to cure freaking cancer and run Adobe Photoshop in the Notification Center with a widget. Apparently, Android users simply must have the god damn train schedule for every subway system in the country show up in Notification Center or they’ll simply get lost going from the basement of mom’s house to the bagel shop 3-door down on the right. Heard enough? Too bad, here’s more

If you’re an iPhone user, it is also inconceivable to make it through your day without seeing the full details of all 758 reminders you have set up every day for things like, wake up, go to work, take a lunch, go home, and root your stupid frigging phone OS for the 213th time. You’re also left out in the (literal) cold because you can’t see weather radar that is updated in real time. And for the love of god, how the hell can you be expected to function without a full-featured word processor, spreadsheet and scientific calculator available next to your ‘don’t forget to breath’ reminder?

Removable batteries (with 147 hour battery life), SD card slots, curved screens, and pixel-perfect streetview flyovers of every hooker-infested alley in the most remote town in America. They’re all missing on iPhone. And it’s apparently the end of the world, or at least the end of Apple.

Look, I realize that Apple sometimes leaves out simple little features that would be nice to have. But the reality is that the vast majority of the smartphone users in the world simply don’t need them. They don’t even know they don’t need them, because it never occurred to them that they could possibly want them, or that the feature even exists.

When you leave out the tech-geek bloggers, and the people like me (and probably you) that read these articles on tech sites, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who craves what most of these writers think is a must-have feature. But if you read the comments left by readers, they make it seem as though everyone on the planet has such a complicated life that they would be lost without every doodad available on Android.

It’s simply frigging mind-blowing to me that so many mouth-breathers out there care enough about what kind of phone someone on the other side of the world uses. The fact that they’ll take the time to leave comments berating someone because they don’t see the need to have every app on their phone available to use on the god damn lock screen approaches the comically absurd.

My advice to you, dear reader, is to not make the same mistake I do (over and over). Don’t read the comments section on articles about the iPhone and iOS on tech blogs. You live a happier, more stable life if you don’t.

A “mockup” cannot be leaked. In order to be a leak, the item in question must actually be real (from the company that actually makes the item) – not a computer generated or plastic molded concept image. A mockup is generally created for the specific intent of sharing with other people.

And while we’re on the subject of bullshit headlines used by every blog looking for page views, a product cannot be delayed if a date for its release has not been given by the company that makes the product.

And, you don’t need an analyst’s supply chain check to tell you that Apple will almost always announce a new iPhone every September. It amazes me how many sites manages to publish articles that use 200-500 words, quoting “analysts” and the ever popular “anonymous source,” to tell you what everyone already knows.

Since I’m off on a rant here, allow me to lay a digital smack-down on sites that offer a list of 10 things Apple MUST add to the next iPhone. Without exception, every one of these stupid articles list at least eight things that nobody but the biggest tech nerd gives a crap about.

I’d like to hire The Rock to lay a real-life smack-down on all their candy asses!

Photo by Matt Brink.

You can’t go to a single tech site without reading the same crap about Apple, the iPhone 5, iOS 6, Maps app, and the Lightning connector. I’ve actually been avoiding even launching my web browser for the last week as much as possible because I’ve grown so tired of it. So what happened this morning? I see an article from BGR.com titled “Apple working on wireless solution to the annoying 30-pin adapter problem.”

I should have just moved on right there, but instead I thought I would subject myself to a little self-inflicted misery by clicking the link. The first sentence in the article was enough to push me over the frigging edge. Are you ready? This is mind-blowing stuff.

“A quick survey of BGR readers last month showed that many people aren’t very happy about having to pay Apple $29 for an adapter that will allow their iPhone 5 to work with accessories featuring the older 30-pin dock port.”

F#$k me… did BGR really need a survey of readers to find out that people don’t like to spend money?

We’ve been hearing about the iPhone 5 sporting a new connector for several months, yet tech blogs are soiling themselves over the fact that it was actually true. They’ll have you believe that people who spend a minimum of $300 on an iPhone and around $1,200 a year for the service are going to fail to put food on the table because the $25 speaker dock they bought from RadioShack 3 years ago will now require a $30 adapter to continue to work with the new iPhone.

Fresh on the heels of the iPhone 4’s Antennagate, and iOS 6 Mapgate, it’s Connectorgate!

This is technology we’re talking about. Things change. Rapidly. We’ve had the same connector on the iPhone for five years; that’s ancient in the technology world. Frankly, I’m glad to see Apple change the connector, if for no other reason than it will force accessory makers to at least re-think their designs — since most of them are truly ugly and cheaply built garbage.

But it comes down to that $30 adapter, doesn’t it? These whiney little spoiled jerks just can’t accept that they aren’t owed something for free, can they? When I got started with computers, one single megabyte of RAM cost around $1,000. Had I know that all I had to do was whine about it a little, I could have saved myself thousands over the years!

These teary-eyed turds are buying and using a phone that can nearly replace a $1,000-plus laptop, and they’re complaining about a $30 adapter that will allow them to use some crappy $25 speaker dock. Think about that, maybe they will while whining about the $4 app that 10 years ago would have cost them $50.

I took an informal survey of people who have a little perspective and a firm grasp of reality. The results clearly show that many people simply aren’t happy about anything, and most of them want to make sure the world knows about it.

In the end, we’re buying a phone/internet communication device. We’re not buying a map app that comes with a free smartphone. We’re not buying a connector that comes with a free smartphone. A little perspective here can go a long way.

I’m not even going to link to the article, because quite frankly it doesn’t deserve even a single pageview this site might send it. Instead, I’ll offer some quick commentary on this dipshit’s list of reasons not to buy a new iPad. It should also be noted that at the end of this stupid piece of crap article the author admits he has never seen the new iPad, but has ordered one so as to ensure his journalistic integrity.

Reason 1: You already have an iPad

Well no shit, Sherlock. I don’t buy a new house or car when I already have one either. Why is this an iPad-specific problem?

Reason 2: The retina display is mostly marketing hype

He used the word “phanbois” (hey dipshit, it’s FANBOI, not phanboi) in the first sentence, so it’s hard to take this point seriously. Apparently this moron feels that the iPad’s retina display isn’t worth it because the screen is still nine inches. As you’ll see later on, this dude is obsessed with the small size of his penis iPad.

Reason 3: High-res apps will take more memory

This one is about his only valid point. Yeah, apps will take up more space, so you may not be able to get away with the 16GB model.

Reason 4: 4G/LTE is expensive

Android apologists spent the last year complaining that Apple didn’t offer a 4G device, now all of a sudden 4G is bad because it costs more?

Reason 5: 4G/LTE doesn’t work in a lot of places

Yet another one where I ask, what the hell does this have to do with the iPad? Apparently he didn’t know that it still works on a 3G network when 4G is turned off or not available, because he claims you’ll have to string twine between two iPads and shout into the microphone.

Reason 6: The porn issue

Yeah, clearly porn has been a real problem for Apple. Fat Hawaiian-shirt boy says that Apple blocks porn apps from the app store, so you won’t be able to view it on the retina display. Maybe he’s never heard of a web browser.

Reason 7: The size

Here we go again with his penis iPad size. He just finished complaining in Reason #2 that the iPad is only 9 inches and needs to be bigger, now he’s complaining that it’s too big and needs to be smaller like the Kindle Fire.

Reason 8: iPad 2 accessories won’t necessarily work

I’m not sure what accessories he’s talking about other than the cases and sleeves he refers to. The new iPad is a bit larger than the iPad 2, so yeah, you’ll need to buy a new case if you already have one for your iPad 2. The ultimate “no-duh” moment, this one.

Reason 9: It’s still not 16×9

Yeah, cause the ONLY thing people do with an iPad is watch porn movies.

Reason 10: There’s still no USB port

And I need one why?

Reason 11: You still have to use iTunes too often

We have an iPad 2, I’ve never opened iTunes on it beyond the first day to set it up

Reason 12: There’s still no removable storage

What, you want a SCSI drive in there or something? Ever hear of iCloud, Dropbox, BOX, or any of the other services out there? Again, why would I need it?

Reason 13: Kindles are still much less expensive

Fords are much less expensive than a BMW, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t buy a Ford. Dipshit.

Reason 14: You can still only run software approved by Apple

And clearly that has proven to be a poor choice by Apple, eh? I’ll bet in between sessions of counting their money, they take time to ponder the regret for that decision.

Reason 15: It still can’t be used as a standalone computer

Neither can my digital watch, dipshit. If you were trying to replace your standalone computer with a tablet, you’re dumber than your byline photo.

Reason 16: Apple still won’t let you write or run programs that execute programs

Oh dear Lord, he just doesn’t appear to get it, does he…

Ugh…

I give this gonad props for managing to use the words draconian and Big Brother in one sentence when describing Apple, though. The millions of Fandroid readers will surely cheer for that.

Most of his points apply to all tablets, or virtually all tablets. And the rest are just plain stupid. Having written for numerous other blogs over the years, I know most authors get paid by the article – sometimes even by the article length. In this case, his article was so long they broke it up into three pages so it would generate more pageviews if you could actually tolerate reading it all the way through. I’ve always hated “list” articles, but this stupid crap raises the bar for shitty, lazzy, money-grab blogging to a new level.

Dear Adobe,

I’ve been a long-time user of Adobe products, and I feel like you’re not listening to all your users with this latest release of Creative Suite 5. I’ve outlined the reasons that I, your most valuable customer, will not be upgrading my single copy of Creative Suite Premium of CS1 I got off Limewire, because it runs just fine.

First of all, I think it’s pretty damn stupid of you to leave all us non-Intel Mac users out in the cold. I purchased a G4 about 10 years ago and don’t see any reason why I should upgrade my hardware just so I can run your new software. You clearly don’t care about your most important customer.

But that’s enough about hardware that you have no control of… let’s move on to your software.

Your new software is buggy. CS1 runs just fine. I have nearly every piece-of-crap shareware, freeware and OS hack available installed on my Mac G4 with 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive, and your software crashes constantly. Your engineers clearly do absolutely no quality control whatsoever. How hard could it be to build a program that does as much as just Photoshop does and make it run on every piece of ancient hardware out there? I have lots of designer friends on MySpace and they tell me that their copy never or rarely crashes, but they’re not very computer savvy. You suck in this area, and obviously don’t care about clean coding. You should have the Googles people write your software.

Even if I could afford to upgrade to an infinitely more powerful Mac Mini to run your Intel-only CS5, and triple the RAM for $100, I cannot justify the $599 price tag for the Design Premium suite upgrade. I realize that every serious and rational designer on the planet charges enough for a single brochure design to nearly pay for the full $1,899 Suite, I choose to low-ball my competition by working day and night on a corporate logo for $100, and only charge roughly $200 for a brochure. How do you expect me to pay for this professional software?

Speaking of the price of CS5 Design Premium Suite, why do you force your most important customers to pay so much for a bunch of apps they don’t use or need? I only use Illustrator and Photoshop, so I don’t need InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, Bridge and all that other garbage you throw in to inflate the cost of the suite. Nobody needs that stuff. If you stopped building InDesign and Dreamweaver alone, you could lower the cost of the Design Premium Suite to a more appropriate $299, with a $49 upgrade. And please don’t tell me to only buy upgrades to Photoshop and Illustrator, I like having all the other stuff just in case I need it. But I don’t want it, cause nobody uses it.

What is this icon?
I don't know what it is.

You’re supposed to be a “creative” company, yet you are not smart enough to keep the 10-year old icons from the older versions of the software. How am I supposed to remember what icon is Photoshop in my Dock. I have over 60 icons in my Dock and in the last 10 years you’ve changed the icon three times now, twice where you simply changed the color of the letters PS in the icon. This is very confusing. You need to hire someone like me to design your icons. You obviously don’t even use a Mac or you would not do something like change an icon, even slightly. And speaking of design, I know the splash screen only appears for about 3 seconds on a modern computer, but why must you make it bold and so overly recognizable? Why not use all the filters in Photoshop on a photograph and use that for the splash screens? That way people know all the filters you can use when they see the splash screen.

One more thing about design. What’s up with those boxes? I realize that some designers buy software on the intertubes, but every designer I know buys the boxed version and those new boxes don’t stand out on the 6-foot long software shelf at my local Computers-R-Us store. If you made better boxes, you would sell more copies, and then you could actually afford to print the instruction manuals so I can has better design work.

The Creative Suite 5 boxes SUXORZ! You should have me design them next time!

Now let’s talk about features. You keep adding all these features, making all the apps bloatware. I think you should stop adding all these features, except for a button in the toolbar to [type your request here]. This is most important to your customers, yet you add things like the ability to remove an object from a photo and have it automagically fill in the gaps. I don’t need that, and neither do any of my designer or photographer friends on Digg or Facebook. It’s all these useless features that make the apps run so slow on my G4.

In fact, you really should combine Illustrator and Photoshop to be more like CorelDraw – that way you don’t have to build so many separate features in two different apps because they’ll all be in one. Then you could take the extra time you save by not having to work on Illustrator and add all the features from Freehand that made it so much better than Illustrator. Freehand was much more popular and useful than Illustrator, so I’m not sure why you bought Freehand and killed it anyway. I assure you that if you listened to me and added the feature I want, more people would buy your overpriced software.

If you could just fix all these things in the next few months with a free update, that would be great. But also, you need to add some more features that make it worth upgrading to as well.

Sincerely,

[Insert your name here]

If you’re the type of designer or photographer who doesn’t agree with this letter, please continue to enjoy the anticipation of using all the great new features of CS5 when it’s released next month!

The Expert

The number one way to spot an Internet @$$hole (referred to in the rest of this article as I.A.s) is to look on the potential turd-burglar’s Twitter page in the Bio section. If you see the word “expert” or “S.E.O.” or my favorite “S.E.O. Expert,” you have struck gold. You’ve come across the highest order of I.A. there is. If you follow them, drop them. If they follow you, block them. But for cryin’ out loud, don’t engage them – you’re just feeding wild animals that will eventually knock over your trash can and spill your garbage all over the driveway! Keep reading. There’s plenty more I.A.s out there to learn about.

The Lister:

The Lister

Situation: You come across a great looking blog that claims to be the “place to be” for Mac users. If you’re unsure if the site is run by a potential I.A., scroll down the home page. If you see more than two articles/posts with the words Top, List, or the first thing in the post title is a number, then you’ve most decidedly guessed correctly that the site is indeed run by an I.A. How many times do you really need to see the top ten list of Mac utilities, when every one of them has the same apps? Quicksilver (which has always sucked), Adium, Transmit, 1Password… the list goes on. 25 great blah, blahs. Top 10 widgets. 3,974 reasons to blah, blah. These I.A.s are doing this because “list” posts generally get a ton of hits, which they hope leads to a ton of ad-clicks. They’re also doing it because they don’t have a spec of writing talent, have no opinion of their own to share, and are just looking for link love from poor unsuspecting Tweeters. All they do is take other people’s work and put it in list form with a screenshot. God I hate this particular type of I.A. – they’re ruining the blogosphere for creatives and Mac users.

The Gatherer:

The Gatherer

You’ve probably seen it before if you’ve spent any amount of time on Facebook. You friend someone and take a look at their FB Wall. You notice they have 357 friends, so they must be interesting, right? You’re busy, you don’t have time to waste looking at another avatar do you? Make sure you’re not friending an I.A. Check their Wall. If it’s filled with updates informing you that they joined this fan page or that, and a slew of [potential I.A.] is now friends with [poor unsuspecting slob] updates and nothing else for the last two months; you’ve definitely come across an I.A. This particular form of I.A. is only interested in feeding their own ego by friending as many people as possible, but they generally have nothing of interest to say; thus, they’re a waste of your time. Drop ’em like their hot.

The Hype-o-matic:

The Hype-O-Matic

If you’ve been a Mac user for at least a couple years, you’ve probably heard of an app a while back called Disco. It was hyped-up to be the great freakin’ thing since the invention of the computer. In fact, even better! The hype machine started with a simple screen shot of an empty black window. That’s it. A few blog postings about how cool it was going to be, and some comments from a few trolls about how awesome it looked. Before you could roll your eyes, an animation appeared on the developer blog showing you that animated smoke appears on the top of the window as your CD is burning. AWESOME! I immediately smelled an I.A., but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. After what seemed like 568 years, the app was finally released. It was offered all over the place, in bundles, discount sites, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t long before everyone realized what many intelligent Mac users suspected. You were paying for little more than a simple CD burning app that did little more than any of the free apps available – other than it smoked. Of course, once we all realized the developer was an I.A., we found out why it smoked – cause it was going down in flames just as quickly as it went up. Beware of applications that get hyped-up before they’re even released to the public. More often than not, it’s the I.A.’s buddies who are doing all the hyping to begin with, and you’ll be out $15 and stuck with an I.A.app that never gets updated again. Evaaaaar!

The poor complainer leaving comments:
I don’t mean poor as in “oh you poor boy, you hurt your knee.” I mean, poor. As in the guy apparently doesn’t have two ever-freaking dimes to rub together, yet MUST have the latest OSX and Adobe Creative Suite upgrade, but spends what appears to be every waking moment of his life complaining about the price and how it should be half of whatever the price is, if not free!

This pathetic I.A. has apparently never been informed that you’re not forced to upgrade. It’s not a requirement, nor is it a owed to him. It’s simply an offer that the rational Mac user can determine is necessary or worth the money, then act on his or her decision. The complainer I.A. is easy to spot because no matter how much the shareware app costs, they think it should be about $10 to $5 million less. No matter what! If you have difficult spotting them, just look for their closing comment which is usually “if it were $XX I would buy it!”

The “I can’t make up my mind” blogger:

The Re-Designer

Ever see a link on the Web and you click it and it turns out to be a pretty good article? What do you do? You bookmark the site of course. For a while you check out the page weekly or even daily. You quickly notice though that this person seems to be more interested in re-designing their Web site or blog than actually writing anything worth while. It isn’t long before the header graphics are getting updated every week, buttons move, and post after post talking about how very special the new design will be. This I.A. apparently doesn’t know how valuable your time is, nor do they seem to grasp the concept that content (even in this day & age of fancy blog designs) is still king.

The “Twagger”:

The Twagger

This I.A. uses Twitter to do nothing but brag; thus, the name “Twagger.” They brag about their 1,000th follower, they brag about who’s following them, they beg (and then brag) when they’re 10 followers away from whatever the freak next big number is on their follower list. Newsflash jerkoff; nobody cares that you have 1,237 followers. Nobody cares when you’re only 10 followers away from 1,300. And nobody cares that you got your 1,500th follower while you were sleeping last night. You’re an I.A. Brag about that! And now that I’m on a roll about your particular type of I.A., let me just say that nobody cares that you just sold another ad spot on your blog, either. Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, nobody cares that Guy Kawasaki is following you. In case you didn’t notice, Guy Alltop Kawasaki Alltop follows Alltop everybody Alltop.

The “it’s free, but don’t use it” catch:

The Indian-Giver

I love free stuff. Especially when it comes to stock photos, background textures, vector art and Photoshop brushes. So when I see that someone is giving away something that looks great and I think I might use someday, I jump on it. If it’s really cool and I KNOW I’ll use it, I don’t mind paying for it either. Unfortunately, it only takes a few seconds to see that when they said it was FREE, they weren’t being totally honest. You spend a lot of your hard-earned time deciphering just what you’re really allowed to use it for. So here’s a little tutorial on what exactly these I.A.’s consider “free:”

• You’re free to seek written permission to use the icons before you use them – that is, if you can find my email address and it actually works
• You’re free to not alter them in any way
• You’re free to not resize them
• You’re free to link back to their site, or else!
• You’re free to not remove their stupid dog’s name from the icon
• You’re free to not use it commercially

That last one is my particular favorite. What the hell else would I use it for? Do you really think I’m going to decorate my desktop with your stupid icons? And what exactly constitutes commercial use? If I have Google Adsense ads on my blog, is that commercial? Do us all a favor, if you’re going to offer something free because you want to “share with the community,” then just make it free. Period. No catches. Otherwise you would make it much easier on us by just putting a big fat I.A. badge at the top of your Web site and charging a buck or five for it.

Class dismissed
I hope this little tutorial has assisted you in spotting the ever-present Internet @$$hole. If you come across a new breed of I.A., please feel free to add a description of them in the comments.

I have a host of apps that I use on a regular basis, and they offer menubar apps/icons to make it easier to work with. The problem is, the damn things are ugly, and I can’t configure the order in which they appear. Adding to my frustration is the fact that the load order appears to change on a whim every time I log-in or restart. Thus, my menubar madness rant…

I used to be able to move them around holding down the Command key and dragging the icons, but that ability got removed long ago. Now only Apple-provided menubar apps like Time Machine, Bluetooth, Volume, etc can do it. 3rd party menubar apps are just screwed. OSX’s Dock allows me to add icons for my favorite apps, move them around in the Dock in the order I want them, and I can paste custom icons on the app, file or folder itself so it’s easily identifiable to me in the Dock. So why the heck doesn’t the menubar offer the same flexibility?

In the screenshot above (sorry it’s so small), most (not all) of the apps I have displayed in the menubar are loaded in no particular order. Some of those menubar items I use more often than others. Some I really don’t use at all, but I’m forced to have the icon displayed up there or the service doesn’t work, such as StuffIt Deluxe’s MagicMenu. Why the hell can’t I move them around? It can’t be that hard to allow us to do that, can it Apple? In fact, we know it isn’t because they allow it for their menubar apps. What gives???

Now I know I could quit them all, then launch them in the order I want them to appear. But then I would have to do this every time I restart the computer or log-in (which I admit, I don’t do that often). Stupid!

As far as the ugliness goes. I guess I could spend several hours digging through the individual app’s package file for the icons, draw my own, then replace them. But that’s a pain. I really would like them all to be black – to match Apple’s icons. Some apps give you the option, such as DropBox, of using a color or Leopard-style black icon, but they’re in the minority. It should be a rule that all icons that go in the menubar are all the same size, and all offer a black only option. Ok, end of silly rant!

Alpha

Back then:

• The stage of development where there is no user interface, just a file full of code. Features are there, just not usable at this point.
• The application is only used by the developer himself.
• Generally, the existence of the app is only known by the developer.
• No time-frame is set, therefor no expectations are had by anyone.

Now:

• This is the stage of development where nothing really exists beyond a Photoshop mockup and a not-to-well thought out idea.
• The developer gets all his buddies to start hyping up the application.
• A ship date of “soon” is promised to the general public.
• Little details are given at this point, other than it’s the coolest thing anyone will ever see.

Beta

Back then:

• Application is released to a small control group of users.
• Features and user interface are complete.
• A time-frame for the beta is set.
• Bugs are reported by users to the developer.
• The developer is busy fixing any remaining bugs, or visual imperfections in the interface.

Now:

• Application is released to the entire world. Everyone on the planet downloads the heavily-hyped application and begin using it in their every-day work.
• The application is FREE – as in: if it doesn’t work, it’s not our problem because you didn’t pay for it.
• Beta time drags on for months, or even years.
• The developer begins adding this feature and that because a single person said “they would buy it, if only it had…”

Release Version

Back then:

• After months of thorough beta testing, the product is finally released.
• Application is bug-free and feature complete.
• Developer starts working on new features to add to next version of application.

Now:

• The application, though it made it through the beta stage and didn’t get discontinued, sucks horribly and is filled with bugs and missing most of the hyped-up features.
• The application is overpriced by at least 30-70% – at least, according to the vocal minority of users.
• Developer announces he doesn’t provide support because he can’t charge enough (because you guys said you wouldn’t pay more than $5 for it when it was in beta) – instead, we direct your to our “support forums” where we hope another user can help you for free.
• Application breaks two days later after a minor OS security patch.

Discontinued or EOL (end of life)

Back then:

• After years of active development, the application either no longer makes the developer money, or it has been made obsolete by other technology.
• Developer posts the application on his site for free, possibly even including the raw code for others to pick-up development.
• Developer notes that he will no longer develop the application, but will continue to support it for X amount of time.
• Application dies a slow but dignified death.

Now:

• Developer is tired of the misplaced user expectations and complaints and simply stops working on the app.
• Developer still charges for the half-done application.
• Developer announces that the current version will be the last release due to “technical problems” that are the fault of the OS.
• Developer announces there will be no bug fixes, so you’re on your own.
• Developer literally disappears off the face of the earth – with your $29.95.

I hope this clears up any questions you may have had about some of the terms you see in regards to software development. The next time you come across a Web site that’s hyping some application and has a giant Web 2.0-style Beta badge at the top in a bright orange burst, you can refer back to this post to remind yourself what it means.