How To Train Your #Apple 2.0
It’s hard to believe I worked on this graphic all by myself.
Tim Cook struts out on stage. Music plays. He holds up a device which has 99.9% of the same DNA as a device you already own.
You update that device to the las test and greatest operating system which is essentially the same except it provides more ways for money to flee your wallet and join up with the mothership wad of cash at Apple.
That update makes your device no longer worky.
What does Apple call a person who updates their software on the same day a new version is released? An unpaid beta tester.
Now I ride in like the Lone Ranger 2.0 to save the day. Here’s how to survive an iOS update.
First, take a deep breath. The principle of patience must come into play. Life is short but if you update too quickly it’ll be even shorter.
So you wait. At least one day.
For the one reader who has stuck with me until now, what then?
Go to Twitter and figure out the hashtag for the update. For example, this week it was #IOS81. Click on that hashtag. Read up.
What’s the general consensus? What’s the mood? If you see a lot of statements like, “Thanks a lot, Apple, now my iPad is a brick,” waiting might feel just a little easier.
Repeated this procedure when they release the incremental in the next two hours. Did they just throw fuel on the fire?
Avoid zero day released and the first incremental or two. By the point three it just might be time to start taking it seriously. Are batteries lasting longer again? Does wifi actually work?
During the wait time you’ll feel very along. You’ll feel abandoned. There will be no official word from Apple. They won’t be on the forums. They won’t send you an email. They won’t reach out with a tweet. So you’ll sit and wait. I recommend during this period of time that you invest in a bottle of Templeton Prohibition Era Recipe Rye.
After several months of waiting it’ll be congratulations. Your long term strategy has paid off. You’ll be the proud owner of a working device. Just in time to watch the next Tim Cook floor show, too.
Top Ten Ways To Kill With The iPad 3 And iOS 6
iPad: It’s what’s for dinner. Don’t forget your appkin.
Tonight’s top ten list straight from the home orifice in the green room below the only functional outhouse in downtown Abyss:
Top Ten Ways To Kill With The iPad 3 And iOS 6
Here we go…
10. Hurled (as if like a shuriken) directly into the temple.
9. Used to prop up 50-gallon drum of ACME Goo above front door at Road Runner’s house.
8. Slideshow of Lindsay Lohan’s face using Photos app.
7. Replace home button with trigger to AK-47.
6. Cover with catnip, load “exotic cats for sale” page on Craiglist and offer to any lion tamer at work.
5. Mix up a smoothie containing mango, kiwi and iPad.
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Graphic video: Mouse eaten by Lion
An anachronism under Lion?
A new version of Apple’s operating system called OS X Lion is afoot. It will be out by the end of the month.
I’m no expert, but as far as I can tell, Apple is using Lion to make the desktop computer more like an iPhone. I think they want to confuse the user. “Am I sitting at a desk using my home computer or is this my iPod? I can’t tell the difference!”
One thing I noticed when I switched from Windows to OS X earlier this year was that my right arm was getting tired. I’m not wanting to say anything good about Windows, but it did do one thing right: There was very little that you couldn’t do with the keyboard. Almost everything you could do with the mouse could also be accomplished with a keyboard shortcut, if one was willing to learn.
I have a keyboard in front of me and my hands are already there. I find it convenient. Might as well make use of it, eh?
Sadly, it was not so with the Mac. To this day I still don’t know keyboard shortcuts that will allow me to access application menus. (Maybe they exist. If they do, I haven’t found them.) True, most things in the menu have their own shortcuts, but that can be a lot to remember. Accessing menus with the keyboard was very convenient. And some menu options don’t have options. In those cases you have no choice: time to take a ride on the mouse.
If there is one thing I hate, it is moving my hand from the keyboard over to the mouse (and back again) when I don’t have to. This particular gesture (if you’ll allow the term) is extremely annoying. Extremely.
I noticed right away on my brand new iMac that my right hand was traveling more than it ever had before. You’d be surprised, but in only a few short months the forearm girth of my right arm now doubles the left. I got lopsided guns! If I could be ambidextrous and use a left-handed mouse half of the time I would be totally ripped.
I’ll provide two telling examples of where I think Apple’s OS X is weak on the mouse.
First, try doing something like emptying the trash. You move the mouse down the the bottom of the screen and right-click and select “Empty Trash.” Viola! The dialog box opens up miles away, vertically centered, near the top of the screen. Hey, Apple! Why not have the dialog open near where the mouse pointer already lives, thus reducing the distance I have to move to get there? Any of you brainiacs ever have that bright idea?
My second example is the “Your Changes Will Be Lost” dialog. This is just one example of a problem that exists throughout the operating system. This particular dialog box gives you three choices: Don’t Save, Cancel, and Save. By default “Save” is already highlighted and you can hit the RETURN key if you wish. If you want either of the other choices, though, you’re screwed. You can’t do anything like type the first letter or use the LEFT ARROW and RIGHT ARROW keys to navigate to a new choice. You guessed it! Your right hand kisses the keyboard goodbye and heads for the mouse. You are simply given no other choice.
It’s the Apple Right-Handed Back and Forth game! Only in this game there are no winners. Apple just loves it some freakin’ mouse.
Well, it used to. Cue OS X Lion.
I just watched a four minute video about Lion on the Apple.com website and guess what? Apple is “gesture” freaks now. The mouse was almost entirely left out of that video.
Gesture is the new mouse!
The video primarily featured the Macbook Air for most of the happy shots of people using OS X Lion. Occasionally they did show a desktop. In those cases a touch pad was prominently featured, either sticking off the right side of the keyboard or as a separate shot. In only a single shot did they should a desktop computer with … gasp … a mouse.
The mouse’s days appear to be numbered. And here I was hoping that Lion would finally address the long-standing issues I’ve had with Mac OS X and my right-handed workout. I’m getting keyboard shortcuts aren’t going to be prominently featured, if there are any at all.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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