Riccardo Mori

Reeling from the removal of the reels

March 25, 2013

Software

Podcasts-112

A couple of days ago, Apple updated its Podcasts app for iOS to version 1.2. Here’s the App Store summary of the new features:

Introducing Podcasts 1.2

Create custom stations of your favorite podcasts that update automatically with new episodes

Choose whether your stations begin playing with the newest or oldest unplayed episode

Your stations are stored in iCloud and kept up-to-date on all of your devices

Create an On-The-Go playlist with your own list of episodes

Playlists synced from iTunes now appear in the Podcasts app

The Now Playing view has been redesigned with easier to use playback controls

Addressed an issue with resuming playback when returning to the app

Additional performance and stability improvements

And this is all fine and dandy, but what it’s not openly mentioned is that the interface you see above, the one simulating a reel-to-reel tape recorder, is gone. I believe it’s been an unnecessary move, that feels more like a removal of the skeuomorphism just for the sake of removing it, rather than a true design improvement. As a result, in my opinion, the whole app has lost a bit of character.

I already expressed my views on skeuomorphism here before, so I’ll just quote a relevant excerpt from an older article:

In my opinion, the real problem, the problem that really concerns the final user, is one of expectations and usability. People don’t mind skeuomorphic designs. They often prefer them over designs which might be more efficient but look bland. What irks a user is a design that sets some expectations and then doesn’t fulfil them. A calendar app that emulates a paper calendar, but with pages that don’t turn or can’t be ripped away. What’s the point of presenting a beautifully rendered replica of a paper calendar, if you have to touch a Delete button to remove a page? True paper calendars don’t have Delete buttons. This is a dangerous mix of analogue and digital, a misleading mismatch of expectations and ultimately a small usability nightmare.

The skeuomorphism present in the Podcasts app until version 1.2 did not constitute a problem, did not mislead the user, did not set interaction expectations it couldn’t fulfil. It wasn’t even imposing towards the users: people who didn’t like the interface (or didn’t get the metaphor) were free to ignore the emulated tape recorder and just leave the ‘lid’ closed. And for those like me who, instead, loved to look at the tape interface while listening to a podcast, the reel-to-reel simulation was also a fun touch to let you see the progress in a podcast: you could look at the position of the playhead and the time elapsed/time remaining counters, but also at the reels themselves, emulating the passing of the tape from one reel to another, just like it happens in a real tape recorder.

Now the Podcasts app looks like this (on the iPhone):

Podcasts-121

Back to the list of new features: The Now Playing view has been redesigned with easier to use playback controls. Their position and functions are basically the same of the old Podcasts app, by the way, and now the app just looks like any other ‘minimal’ media playing app. For comparison, here’s the Music app:

And the Now Playing view in Spotify:

And the Now Playing view in Apple’s Remote app:

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate their practicality and functionality. I appreciate the choice of placing buttons and controls in predictable positions, etc., as it helps usability a lot. But — you will agree — they all look the same and share a rather bland design. Nothing memorable here, nothing that stands out.

Instead, as a counterexample, take a look at the Now Playing view of T3 Player by Eder Rengifo, definitely more distinctive (and easy to use despite the abundance of skeuomorphism):

T3 Player

To reiterate: not all skeuomorphic interfaces are bad per se; and not all clean, minimal, abstract and non-skeuomorphic interfaces are good per se. I can’t help but think that the removal of all skeuomorphic elements in the Podcasts 1.2 update is, above all, a statement to let people know that now someone else at Apple is calling the shots in the software design department; that the unnecessary UI embellishments are on their way out, and so on and so forth. Because considering how the Podcasts app is designed, the emulated reel-to-reel tape could have remained exactly where it was (in the background), and could have very well survived the slight redesign of the playback controls and the addition of all the features that have been introduced, since it was never really in the way, and helped give the Podcasts app a unique (if a bit quirky) look. Find My Friends and Game Centre are two apps where the removal of skeuomorphic elements would have made more sense, if you ask me.

It’s a pity that you can’t ‘mute’ updates in the App Store app, because for now I’m certainly not updating the Podcasts app on my iPad.

Dumping Dropbox? I don’t think so

March 14, 2013

by Riccardo Mori

Software

A reader of my blog has recently informed me about a website that invites Dropbox users to get rid of the service and start looking for better options, and asked me what are my thoughts on the matter. The website in question is called Dump Dropbox. Can you trust Dropbox to secure your stuff? — they ask. Then they offer a list of seven main questions & answers people should read to understand that perhaps Dropbox may not be the best option to secure their data.

And perhaps it isn’t. Honestly, of all the seven questions Dump Dropbox poses, I’m mostly concerned about N°6 and N°7, but in both cases it’s not a situation set in stone: who says Dropbox can’t introduce private encryption keys and expand its storage options outside the USA at a later date?

But maybe a more interesting perspective to look at the whole issue is: are people naïve enough as to trust online cloud services with their most sensitive data? This, I think, is the question that should be asked in the first place. I’m not a typical user, I admit, and I come from what’s probably considered an old-school backup culture. My practices for keeping sensitive documents and data secure may seem quaint, but they never failed me in more than twenty years. The recipe is rather simple:

Identify and collect all the documents you consider sensitive (personal information, financial information, secret projects, etc.). In my case, this kind of stuff takes much less than 4 GB, and can easily be stored on DVD-Rs, USB pendrives, etc. and can also be easily moved around.
Keep this core of sensitive information offline. I use multiple redundant backups on a variety of supports — from recordable DVDs to USB pendrives, from Magneto-Optical discs to PCMCIA cards, from external hard drives to floppy diskettes^[1] — and I keep at least one copy off-site.
Make sure whatever data you move around with any chosen cloud service isn’t sensitive. Make sure anything you consider important is copied, not moved: 85% of the contents in my Dropbox Folder, for instance, is made of files I have copied there from my MacBook Pro to make them available to three other PowerBooks, an iBook and a PowerMac G4 Cube. (The remaining 15% is unimportant stuff I just leave there for convenience and I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if it got lost).
Most importantly, though, the data I leave in my Dropbox is not essential. In my view, this fact alone is itself a security measure.

I use Dropbox for several reasons: it works remarkably well for me, it integrates seamlessly with my systems and devices, the service has always been reliable (for me — I know other people had problems related to past outages), but the main reason is probably Dropbox’s extended compatibility. When I went to download and install the latest 2.0 version, I was afraid it wouldn’t work on my (many) non-Intel Macs, but to my utter amazement it does^[2]. I successfully upgraded my 12″ and 17″ PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.5.8, plus my Titanium PowerBook G4, iBook G3 and PowerMac G4 Cube running Mac OS X 10.4.11. Since I still use all these machines on an almost-daily basis, it’s very important I can keep syncing files and information among them. Similar services simply don’t offer this kind of backwards compatibility: Box.com Desktop sync supports only Intel Macs (Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and higher), and same goes for SugarSync; SpiderOak does indeed support PowerPC Macs, but requires at least Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard to work. I’m sure I’m leaving out other examples of similar services. I’m not so sure there’s a service like Dropbox that still supports PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X Tiger.

I’m not saying that the security concerns raised by Dump Dropbox aren’t legitimate. Some of them are. Although the way the site presents them strikes me as a bit FUD-mongering, so to speak, not to mention another important point Erik Schmidt expressed on App.net: I find it utterly appalling that the very people at Dump Dropbox who ask “Can you trust Dropbox to secure your stuff?” reveal nothing about who they are or what motivated them to create the site.

Sure, if you store sensitive data in the cloud and are particularly paranoid about security, Dropbox may not be your best solution. But then again, if you’re particularly paranoid about security, you’d probably want to avoid putting sensitive data online or trust third-party online services with it in the first place. And once you need and use a cloud service to just sync non-essential information among your machines and devices, then convenience, reliability, and extended compatibility become more important than security per se. At that point it’s a matter of preference, and that’s why I’m very satisfied with Dropbox and I don’t plan to ‘dump’ it anytime soon.

1. You may laugh all you want, but in my experience, properly stored 3.5″ diskettes can hold data for surprisingly long periods. ↩
2. As Christopher Krycho explained to me on App.net, Python is awesome like that. (That’s what the whole Dropbox back end is written in: Python, with the UI widgets done in a combination of wxPython and native widgets.) ↩

No technopanic here, just understandable concern

March 10, 2013

by Riccardo Mori

Handpicked

Jeff Jarvis has written an interesting post about Google Glass over at Medium: I See You: The Technopanic over Google Glass. Most of it is about minimising privacy-related fears expressed by other people — especially by Mark Hurst in his article The Google Glass feature no one is talking about — and Jarvis’s stance could be paraphrased as “Just calm down, guys; like with other technologies with high social impact, we’re all smart enough to figure it out. These fears over Glass are premature and largely exaggerated”.

After reading both Hurst and Jarvis’s pieces, I’m left with the feeling that each tends to be a bit extreme — Hurst in his fears, but also Jarvis in his laid-back minimisation of Hurst’s fears. I share Hurst’s point of view when he writes:

The key experiential question of Google Glass isn’t what it’s like to wear them, it’s what it’s like to be around someone else who’s wearing them. I’ll give an easy example. Your one-on-one conversation with someone wearing Google Glass is likely to be annoying, because you’ll suspect that you don’t have their undivided attention. And you can’t comfortably ask them to take the glasses off (especially when, inevitably, the device is integrated into prescription lenses). Finally – here’s where the problems really start – you don’t know if they’re taking a video of you.

Wholesale surveillance paranoia aside, Hurst expresses a very real and annoying scenario. And it’s undeniable that, should Glass be adopted by a significant amount of people, the device will change certain interpersonal dynamics. In the debate over Glass, I’ve often heard pro-Glass people say that this is just history repeating itself: look at mobile phones in the 1990s. At first they were treated like ‘foreign objects’, but after a few years of increasing adoption, they have become completely integrated in our society. The same is going to happen with Google Glass. Jarvis says something similar, but focussing more specifically on when cameras were introduced in mobile phones:

This is the fear we hear most: That someone wearing Glass will record you — because they can now — and you won’t know it. But isn’t that what we heard when cell phones added cameras? See The New York Times from a decade ago about Chicago Alderman Edward Burke:

But what Mr. Burke saw was the peril.
“If I’m in a locker room changing clothes,” he said, “there shouldn’t be some pervert taking photos of me that could wind up on the Internet.”
Accordingly, as early as Dec. 17, the Chicago City Council is to vote on a proposal by Mr. Burke to ban the use of camera phones in public bathrooms, locker rooms and showers.

His fear didn’t materialize. Why? Because we’re civilized. We’re not as rude and stupid — as perverted — as our representative, Mr. Burke, presumed us to be.

A few things:

1. I’m not so sure Burke’s fear hasn’t materialised. I usually don’t waste time browsing YouTube videos, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of finding candid videos of people in public bathrooms, locker rooms and showers.

2. About us being civilised and not rude, stupid and perverted… Just try searching on Google “YouTube videos of high school student being beaten” (or “raped” or similar searches) for a few samples of ‘civilisation’.

3. I believe there is a certain difference between mobile phones and Google Glass, and I don’t think Glass is going to be accepted and integrated so easily as mobile phones have been. Glass, in my opinion, is a more controversial device because the needs of its users and the impact on surrounding non-users aren’t as well-balanced as with mobile phones and smartphones.

In other words, when I use my iPhone in public, the device can fulfil my needs without affecting other people’s personal sphere or freedom. Sure, I can be rude and talk loudly on the phone in a public place. Or I can try to take candid shots or videos of other people. Both of these acts, though, are blatant enough to hardly go unnoticed. In these cases, my ‘needs’ create enough friction with other people around me that it’s very likely I will suffer the consequences of my actions.

But Google Glass can certainly be a stealthier device than a smartphone in this regard. It can offer a lot of convenience to the user, but make other people uncomfortable. If I am in a public place and notice a guy or a girl fiddling with their smartphone all the time, I may quietly shake my head thinking of how addictive these things have become, but unless he or she is pointing the device in my direction, I will certainly ignore them and their behaviour. But someone wearing Google Glass? Not equally easy to ignore. They may be using the device in the most innocent way, but I will perceive a violation of my personal space.

Jarvis:

How will we deal with the Glass problem? I’ll bet that people wearing Glass will learn not to shoot those around them without asking or they’ll get in trouble; they’ll be scolded or shunned or sued, which is how we negotiate norms. I’d also bet that Google will end up adding a red light — the universal symbol for “You’re on!” — to Glass. And folks around Glass users will hear them shout instructions to their machines, like dorks, saying: “OK, Glass: Record video.”

This looks to me as simplistic and maybe too optimistic a way to treat the issue. From what I’ve understood by watching the “How it feels” video Google posted on YouTube and by reading a few reviews, Glass users can also operate the device by touching its side, so they really don’t need to “shout instructions” if they want to surreptitiously record something or somebody. As for the red ‘REC’ light, it’s very possible that it’ll be added to the final product, but unless it’s as awfully bright as the AF illuminator of certain digital cameras, that too may go unnoticed. And even if you notice someone whose Glass device is recording, you won’t be able to tell for sure whether they’re recording you or only your surroundings and you just happen to be a part of some tourist’s personal video-recording. Google Glass in this instance is better than a camera or camcorder at masking intent.

This is a very delicate, nuanced matter. Perhaps people will just get used to this, but somehow I find it hard to believe: have you ever found yourself on a bus and apparently out of the blue someone asked you What are you staring at? What do you want? just because they thought you were staring at them while you were actually lost in your thoughts? If some people (many people? — I guess it depends on cultural factors) already have problems with slightly prolonged eye contact in public, I really don’t know how well Google Glass is going to be received.

From the lost drawer: “La Lettura” magazine

March 8, 2013

by Riccardo Mori

Et Cetera

Searching among my papers and folders, I found a box full of printed materials from the 1930s and 1940s that belonged to my grandfather (and, gem among the gems, a couple of pages from a 1915 newspaper). One of the best preserved items is the February 1944 issue of La Lettura, an illustrated magazine published by the Corriere Della Sera from 1901 until 1952.

From the Italian Wikipedia entry (translation is mine):

In the early years of the century the magazine, following the principles of the positivist philosophy, aimed to be a magazine featuring comprehensive scientific information, thanks to the collaboration of distinguished academics and scholars. Later, under the direction of Renato Simoni (since 1906) and Mario Ferrigni (since 1923), the magazine became more journalistic and commercial in style, but always within the limits of decorum and keeping a decent cultural standard. One notable scoop was the publication of the photographs of the Battle of Liaoyang (Russo-Japanese War, 1904) taken by Luigi Barzini, Sr. This was the first photographic documentation ever of a battlefield, and copies of the magazine sold out in a few hours. Another scoop was the publication of the first Italian radio programme, the radio drama L’Anello di Teodosio (“The Ring of Theodosius”).

Illustration was a key strength of the magazine: published articles were always accompanied by photographs, and stories and serials by drawings; from 1906 onwards the cover, too, was illustrated in colour by the most famous illustrators of the time: from Enrico Sacchetti to the eminent Marcello Dudovich, from the fantastic style of Umberto Brunelleschi to the caricatural style of Sergio Tofano.

The issue I’ve unearthed is no different. First of all, I really love the cover, which I find surprisingly minimalistic and rather tasteful in the typeface department:

La lettura 1944

And here’s the back cover, with a lovely illustrated ad for a Italian liquor:

La Lettura 1944 back

(Translation: on the top right corner, “Let’s make up”. The tag line on the bottom reads “Cures the ache for foreign liquors”).

Other nice illustrations can be found inside, especially the following three, drawn by Carlo Della Zorza for the story Domanda di Matrimonio (“Marriage Proposal”) written by Milli Dandolo.

DDM illustr 1

DDM illustr 2

DDM illustr 3

That’s it for now. There’s more of this kind of stuff, of course, but the scanning process is slow, mostly due to the fragility of the materials. I also found lots of war-themed postcards my grandfather sent to my grandmother from the front in 1943–44, which I intend to scan and publish here at a later date.

Life after Instagram

March 6, 2013

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

My last ‘real’ photo uploaded to Instagram is this one, dated December 13, 2012. As I wrote here a few days later (in Briefly, on Instagram), I didn’t like how the company handled the whole situation surrounding the change of its Terms of Service, I rapidly got tired of Instagram’s “We’re changing the TOS / Okay, no we won’t” dance, and I was still bitter for the Facebook acquisition. So I stopped being an active user, like I said I would.

At the time it was, I confess, an uneasy decision. I liked using the service. I liked the occasional interaction with other users and the familiar faces. I liked the idea of using Instagram as a sort of visual diary, catching a certain day’s mood with a few snapshots and the aid of a bunch of filters. At the same time, I didn’t like the direction Instagram was taking with their Terms of Service, and I was not comfortable being part of something that is owned by Facebook — a company I utterly and openly detest. But caving after expressing my annoyance and disagreement would have been hypocritical on my part. I’ll look for alternatives, I told myself reassuringly.

And then something happened. After ten days or so without posting to Instagram, I wasn’t missing the experience.

I’m not saying I wasn’t missing the Instagram experience (using the app, using the service) — but the whole experience of happy snapping while on the go. It all came to me with a snowball effect. I realised that it had become more of an Instagram dependence than a form of expression. I realised how mechanical a habit it had been. I realised the cheapening effect it had on my photography in general. Posting to Instagram had turned into a meaningless daily hunt for the cool ‘Instagram moment’. And many people are okay with that; all of a sudden I realised I wasn’t.

That’s why I haven’t looked for an alternative since I left Instagram. I have realised I don’t need one. My Flickr and Momentile activity is enough for what I really need to share. And for what I want to share, which is something more selected and meaningful than quick snaps of insignificant things, hastily taken with my iPhone out of habit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the æsthetics of iPhone snapshots. What I realised is that taking these snapshots had become a habit, an act often performed in auto-pilot. Look at this — click. See that? — click. Street scene — click. Nice indoor atmosphere — click. Close-up of everyday object — click. And on and on in their seemingly-infinite variants. Catch the Instagram moment. Etc.

For me the act of photographing, after Instagram, feels ‘detoxed’. It feels, once again, something carried out more purposefully. It feels less serialised, less trivial. I still take snapshots with my iPhone, of course, but since the instant-sharing part is removed, the overall pace is different, each shot tends to be more careful, and the act of ‘taking a snap for the sake of it’ has definitely vanished.

Needless to say, these observations reflect a very personal experience, and there’s no need to read between the lines. I’m not suggesting you should follow my example and leave Instagram (or other similar photo-sharing social services). I’ve simply realised that what had started as another creative outlet, quickly became just a habit and little more. And habit and creativity are two words that usually don’t go well together in my book.