What is wrong with Apple?

Apple make easy things very very hard

Sharing photos is easy with google

If I want to share my photos with someone who has a google account, I just name them in the share dialog, and then they can see my photos, via their own google account from any web browser.

Or if they don't have a google account, I can share the "link" to the album so that any one who has the hard-to-guess link can see my photos.

Anyone with a vaguely modern web browser.

That's all that's needed for 21st century communication.

But not with Apple

A family member uses an ipad and wants to share photos with me from her "photo stream".

So they send me an invitation to subscribe to their  photostream.

Luckily I have an icloud account from when I tried to use itunes to buy music (that's another story).

And I click on the link, to be greeted with:

To subscribe to ... photo stream on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac, open your invitation in the Mail app and click the Subscribe button in the message.

To subscribe you need to be signed in to iCloud on:

• an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 6 or later or
• a Mac with macOS 10.8.2 or later and iPhoto 9.4 or Aperture 3.4 or later

I actually need to possess an apple device to view some photographs that someone has taken using their apple device!

I get my paws on an apple device

I manage to lay my hands on a MacBook Air. I give it all the updates. It's running Lion, the latest release of MacOS that it can run.

I install iCloud.

Do you want to guess if I can subscribe to the photostream?

I can't -- I need iPhoto 9. Free upgrades to iPhoto 9.4 are available if I have iPhoto 9, but I don't. It has iPhoto 8.

I can't buy iPhoto 9 from the Apple app store because it has been discontinued.

Apple won't let me pay them the money that they are extorting from me because... it isn't enough.

I track down iPhoto 9

I find that I can get iPhoto 9 if I buy a CDROM containing iLife 11. (iLife 11 has also been discontinued from the app store).

iLife 11 typically sells for $50 or £50 on Amazon, but I track down a copy for around £20 on ebay.

I'm not confident, and neither is my wife.

And then I notice, iPhoto 9 could possibly not be enough.

The small print in the email says: with macOS 10.8.2 or later
and I only have macOS 10.6.6 (Lion) and this MacBook Air  won't take a newer version.

So now I'm an apple user (with this MacBook Air I got hold of) and I still can't view the photostream. I need to shell out a few hundred pounds to but a newer macbook or ipad.

But iCloud is available for Windows.

iCloud for Windows

I install iCloud for windows.

It doesn't work.

After logging in (authenticating me successfully against the apple authentication servers) it then declares that I am not connected to the internet. c_a_murphy4 comments:

I hope you receive more professional support than I did. Their senior team took more than a week with this issue and then blamed Microsoft (in a rather backhand way by saying there was nothing more they could do from an Apple standpoint). I called up Microsoft, and they in turn blamed Apple. If you ever do find a solution to this problem, please let me know. Apple and Microsoft just aren't coming through with the goods - at least not for me.

Some people seem to suggest that it is only the windows 10 anniversary edition that has this problem. Well I'm not downgrading.

Windows 7

So I try again on an old windows 7 laptop and get exactly the same problem.

I suppose I can blame Apple that now it's not just windows 10 but apparently no version of windows can run the latest version of their software, and it's not there fault.

Taking advice, I downgrade to the previous version of iCloud for windows.

This time  get the Error occurred during authentication error.

So I try the previous version of iCloud for windows.

Surely one point Apple have managed to produce working software for windows? And it works.

But no photostream

Now iCloud works but isn't any use. The photostream subscription has to be accepted as describe in the sucks-be-to-you message I had when I originally tried to subscribe from an unclean non-apple system:

a Mac with macOS 10.8.2 or later and iPhoto 9.4 or Aperture 3.4 or later

So I lookup virtual mac machines in the cloud. I could pay a few dollars an hour and perhaps get it working. Or pay $20 a month with the first day free and then cancel right away.

Via a friend, I get long distance access to a mac, with all the right software, and the photostream subscription is accepted.

Back to windows

Now the photostream subscription is accepted I can begin to download it on the windows 7 PC and then use google photo uploader to sync that folder to a photo album.

Back to google

And so now I can share the google photo album with other non-apple family members.

But this is normal for Apple

They break your stuff on purpose

If a you sacrifice at the wrong altar and have a non-Apple vendor repair your phone, Apple prevent your phone from working.

If you jailbreak your phone so that you can install software that you didn't pay Apple for, they will brick your phone on the next firmware update.

I showed here how an Apple user with a MacBook Air is prevented from subscribing to the photostream of another Apple user, because they didn't sacrifice recently enough at the Apple altar.

But Apple made a mistake 

Their new much-cursed top-of-the-range laptop that is missing a load of ports -- no HDMI, no USB2, no sdcard, etc

Now some independent developers funded by kickstarter have put together The HyperDrive.

It’s a $100 dongle that slips neatly into both USB Type-C slots to give you a whole lot more connectivity. Not only do you get your two USB Type-C ports back, but you gain a couple of USB 3.1 ports; a microSD and SD slot; and an HDMI video port.

Did you notice? "slips neatly into both USB Type-C slots"

Because of a stupid Apple oversight in providing standard USB-C ports users have overcome Apple! How are they going to stop that?

Of course the most annoying thing is that there will have been room inside the case to fit this dongle.

Afraid of perfection

Did you ever know a company so afraid of perfection that they spent so much time and effort deliberately lousing things up for their customers?

Or a bunch of captive customers so suffering from Stockholm Syndrome that they keep paying over much money for such rubbish?

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon first described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.

And we are not seeing that much lack of abuse.

The FBI's Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly eight percent of victims show evidence of Stockholm syndrome.

And yet Apple market share is quite a bit more than 8%, around 12%.

I wonder, what is the excuse of the other 4%?

Corollary to Hanlons Razor

Hanlon's razor is an eponymous adage that allows the elimination of unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. It reads:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The corollary is: The malicious will hire stupid fools to do their bidding.

Which then leads to: The first rule of choosing a a good stooge is to find one who for reasons of his own already wanted to do whatever it is you were to ask.

And therefore: Watch out for those who appoint stupid fools without a sound justification

Positive discrimination for the reckless

There is a stretch of road I find very distracting. There are a few miles of speed cameras and varying speed limits.

I find speed cameras to be like the ruby eye in King Solomon's Mines, and when I see one I doubly make sure that I am within the speed limit. This is a distraction.

The bigger distraction comes from the fact that the speed limit signs are not easily visible around the camera areas. I think the back of a forward facing camera should display a speed limit on the rear which faces the driver.

Such camera deployments cause me to alter my priorities and to take abnormal action in order to avoid, at any cost, a fine or points on my license.

While such distraction and such abnormal action may be dangerous to some drivers, the effect of the cameras and hard to spot speed limit signs might cause reckless drivers to slow down.

So I wonder if the overall consequence is a decrease in accidents among reckless drivers and an increase among the less reckless drivers - a sort of positive discrimination. To make it fair.

The sad state of buying sheet music online

I've been trying to buy some sheet music online. I've found a few places who will sell me the music if I will download and install their special sheet music viewing software.

What?

I want to buy something from them I don't want to start a relationship with them. Why would I want to download their software just to be able to buy something from them?

I think the software is designed to stop me printing more copies than I pay for...

What?

Like I don't know how to print-to-file and then do as many copies as I like. As if I don't have a "print-to-pdf" printer driver as well.  As if I didn't have a document-feeder-printer-scanner-fax-machine-copier right next to me like most of us have these days (and a simple scanner would have been enough).

I finally bought my sheet music from Freehandmusic.com and instantly regretted it - as far I was able to tell their distinguishing feature was that they don't warn about the special software until AFTER the music has been paid for. It's possible they do warn about it but I didn't see any warnings, even at checkout time.

But I didn't use it. I did get a refund.

Of course their special treat-everyone-like-a-thief software doesn't run on my computer anyway.

Without too much trouble and while looking for someone who would sell it in pdf form able to find some illegal pdf-scans of the music I was trying to buy.

So my choice is illegal music or nothing. And I'm trying to pay.

So I chose nothing.

Remind me why the music industry is struggling again...

Good intentions / good actions

This analysis highlights the difference between good intentions and good actions.

Oxfam's 'Grow' world hunger plan: More peasants • The Register

Oxfam's latest campaign, "Grow", seems so lovely and cuddly that to criticise it is almost like torturing puppies. What could be wrong with trying to feed the hungry and thus make the world a better place? Alas, if wishes were kings we could all be monarchs for the day and what's wrong with the campaign is not the initial wish but the list of damn fool things it intends to do.

Rationality?

Rationality... hmm... it affects more than just the individual. See link, with the hidden message (hover over the image) quoted here:
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

The other placebo effect...

It seems like sugar-water can make anti-biotics infinitely more effective... maybe a placebo is real-medicine too.

Add sugar to your antibiotics and crush superbugs

Doctors may be able to kill off persistent staph infections using a cheap and easy method. A little boost of sugar can help kill the type of bacteria that regular antibiotics miss.

FOIA inquiry ducks FOIA

Freedom of Information Act inquiry ducks FOIA requests • The Register

An academic inquiry which recommended that scientists respond more honestly to FOIA requests has found a creative way to evade FOIA requests.

We must do something

"We must do something" is good intention speaking, but it shouldn't be confused with knowing what to do. Are the elite "greens" hi-jacking climate change in order to impose their societal view on the world? Read on... amazingly there are over 170 comments on this story already! http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/04/27/climate_change_thorium/

Save the planet: Stop the Greens • The Register

Comment I find myself in an uncomfortable position over this climate change thing. I've no problem with the existence of man-made climate change, no problem with the idea that we ought to do something about it. But what we are actually trying to do about it seems bonkers, counter-productive even.

Are we the genie in the bottle?

I've heard that a genie should be sure to give you what you ask for but never what you want. This is what "incentives" and "targets" do. Someone else's slashdot comment follows:

    If you reward students for high grades in exams, you'll get just that. High grades. Not understanding of the subject, just high grades. If you reward bankers for making profits, you'll get just that. High profits. Not financial stability, just high profits.

    The problem with incentives is that exceedingly few people are capable of setting them correctly.

I wonder if an incentive for correct incentive setting would fix things or make the problem worse...

A well known quote from Thomas S. Monson is: "When performance is measured, performance is improved. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates"

However the less quoted statement that prefixed that is: "When we deal in generalities, we shall never succeed. When we deal in specifics, we shall rarely have a failure."

(http://education.byu.edu/ncate/)

And the problem is with targets that are general proxy measures of performance. So if you want more unemployed people on training courses, lots of training courses will spring up. If you want shorter waiting lists, people will be made to wait somewhere else.

The need to be specific so the genie has to give what is wanted instead of what was asked for...

110%

HP Cynic said:

I recently got into an argument with some "online folk" who genuinely believed that "giving 110%" was a valid statement and worthy goal.

They were soon smashed down with something called "reality" and maths but not before one of them pointed out that he won't recruit someone "who only gives 90-100%" because that means "they are cruising". I weep for humanity

The BigYin quotes someone saying: "It is in our company's DNA to give 110%" and then goes on to explain:

1. Your company is not organic, it has no DNA
2. Over-unity is not possible.

More dreadful observations at...

Fired-up eco-boffin gives it '180 per cent' • The Register Forums

Old school football managers are often heard to confess they're "as sick as a parrot" because despite the lads "giving it 110 percent", their team has just taken a severe pasting. The problem is, 110 per cent just isn't enough of an overcrank for the modern world we live in.

Rule by Corporation

International media industries abuse an emergency session of the New Zealand parliament intended to deal with the Christchurch earthquake as a means to support their business by having the NZ government criminalize citizens on behalf of the music industry.

(And if you think your UK vote counts for anything read this).

New Zealand to sneak in Internet disconnection copyright law with Christchurch quake emergency legis

The government of New Zealand is sneaking in its controversial "3-strikes" Internet disconnection law tonight as part of its emergency legislation dealing with the Christchurch earthquke. Bill 92A was passed once before and then rescinded after massive popular demonstrations, letter writing campaign

An 8 minute response in NZ parliament of a green party representative:

If nuclear were dangerous it would be free

Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster! • The Register

It is a total certainty that no child has or will suffer any such exposure. Occasionally, radio-iodine levels in water have been sampled at a rate which, if babies drank such water constantly for a year, they might achieve that one-in-a-million chance of dying decades down the road.

...

If nuclear were allowed to be as dangerous as gas – that is, perhaps somewhere in the region of 400 times as dangerous in terms of deaths per terawatt-hour – there can be little doubt that electricity would become extremely cheap, maybe indeed too cheap to bother metering it for most users. Waste could be dealt with and supplies extended by many times by simply reprocessing fuel, something which the fearmongers have already managed to ban in many countries.

The Foolish Fight For Efficiency

This is why I fear efficiency savings in the NHS. The efficiency drive may cost more than the savings but reduce the "inefficient" spare capacity in the NHS. I don't want an efficient NHS, I want one with the capacity when it's needed. I don't want to spend in reducing the spare capacity the same that has been saved by reducing that capacity.

BBC IT project to save £17.9m cost it £38.2m net • The Register

MPs have given the BBC a kicking over its Digital Media Initiative, a technology development programme that was meant to deliver a "benefit" of £17.9m but ended up costing it a net £38.2m.

beware of mob rule

More reasons to beware of mob-rule - sometimes (some of) the police are part of the mob. Note that others of the police also opposed the mob, were vigilant, alert and challenged the flawed evidence. Lives were still ruined in the effort to save the children.

Operation Ore was based on flawed evidence from the start • The Register

Exclusive Britain’s biggest ever computer crime investigation, Operation Ore, was flawed by a catalogue of “discrepancies, errors and uncertainties”, disclosed reports of two national police conferences seen by The Register reveal.

More background here: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed/2

The case resulted in 33 suicides of those investigated. I don't know if we'll know how many right thinking folk would say deserved it or how many were victims of bad policing. Many accept plea-bargains but may have been innocent.

Road congestion is the solution

Road congestion is not a problem, it's a democratic solution.

Pricing citizens off the roads reduces congestion to the sole benefit of those who can still afford to drive. Surely that is an even worse problem.

Congestion is the democratic arbitrator, if a citizens journey is so important that they are willing to brave congestion, perhaps their journey really is important!

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore comments

Page 2 is the best. This interview with Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore is not the astronomer.

Greenpeace co-founder talks biotech, nuclear and climate • The Register

We do not have a problem growing enough food today. We have a distribution issue, and poverty – but if they could distribute it better there'd be no problem providing it. Then there are issues of corruption and civil disorder, wars, that prevent the food getting through sometimes.

Try trading with pirates?

Sony and Universal normally release music two weeks after everyone who wants it has pirated a copy. They've now realised that this hurts sales, and they have decided to start selling music to people who want to buy it right away.

If it's on air, it's on sale, say majors • The Register

Two major labels are giving up one of their most powerful marketing tools - because they say it's "out of date". Universal and Sony have said they'll give make digital songs legally available the day they're first played on radio - moving to an "on air, on sale" policy from next month.

Striking terror somewhere

Read the story. Read the boot-note. Go back to bed.

Ombudsman slams DWP, HMRC data dumbnesses • The Register

Parliamentary Ombudsman Ann Abraham today slammed bungling government departments for a series of systemic failures that left one of their clients distressed, fearful and out of pocket.

A good friend from Ireland tells me that at some point he realised that the public in England had no idea what was going on in Ireland - and why would they - and so there is no sense in blowing them up.

So when terrorists want to cause terror in a country, do they take political thought where to aim? Do they blow up civilians who also don't like the government? Do they blow up the government (including the opposition). I wonder how hard it is for them to "aim".

What it means to co-operate with the police

If you know you didn't commit the crime, would you want to submit to DNA screening?

All men in Bristol should be DNA-tested, says MP - Crime, UK - The Independent

DNA samples from every man in Bristol should be screened as police continue to hunt for the murderer of Joanna Yeates, one of the city's MPs has urged.

No - it cannot help you, it can only make things worse for you, it cannot make things better.

The policeman agrees - even if you are innocent and know you are innocent and know you can prove it, speaking up can get you a conviction. Watch the video to see how. (The policeman speak out in part 2).

I will admit to not following his advice many times since having watched it. I recognise the principles, but I also recognise that police who I have had occasion to speak to me have had no or little interest in prolonging the conversation, so my strategy was to avoid changing that. i.e. shut my mouth, listen, and say sorry and thank-you.

In abstract, the lawyers advice is the same, but he explains how often you won't know how to encourage disinterest on the part of the police.

I realised that the OTHER video is missing, the one that shows you the trouble people got into for not talking to the police in cases where you were innocent. We can only speculate what it would contain if it were made.

This guy helped police with DNA and had slight problems. The conversation with the police was funny: http://www.circulartriangle.com/blog/?p=41