Riccardo Mori

The all-new Twitterrific 5

December 7, 2012

Software

#alttext#

I was really looking forward to the new major update of Twitterrific for iOS. Not that there was anything wrong with version 4.4.10 — I was simply curious to see what the Iconfactory guys would come up with this time. And they didn’t disappoint. (They didn’t disappoint me anyway).

This isn’t going to be an in-depth review of the app: MacStories and Macworld did a good job at that. I only want to share a few observations as a long-time Twitterrific user.

As you can see in the images above, Twitterrific’s visual path from version 2 to version 5 has been a path of progressive de-cluttering. It is also evident how the latest version introduces significant changes in the UI. The details I really like are the new colour palettes of the light and dark themes, the improved customisation options, and something I was missing since version 2: the row of buttons for Tweets, Mentions and Messages, that can ‘light up’ when there are new items. I’m glad they’ve reappeared over the main timeline: they’re both faster to access and are useful status indicators, as I can see at a glance if there are new replies or private messages waiting for me.

Thanks to the improved customisation options now you’re not limited to just choose a dark/light theme and specify a Text Size as in version 4.x, but you can also choose the size of the avatars in the timeline, the amount of line spacing and — last but not least — your preferred font (Helvetica, Proxima Nova, Signika, Museo Slab, Calluna). There’s also the nice option of having the Dark theme kick in at night.

These things may look trivial on the surface, but they really help make reading Twitter a pleasant experience both on the iPhone and the iPad. I was happy with Twitterrific 4’s somewhat fixed settings, but now that the visual elements can be tweaked a bit more, I found out that, for example, I prefer the Light theme with Proxima Nova and a tight line spacing on my iPad, while I favour the Dark theme with Helvetica and a more generous line spacing on the iPhone (see the images of Twitterrific 4 and 5 above, which are actual screenshots from my iPhone).

The little animations are also a lovely touch: pulling to refresh is more fun, as you’ll see an egg hatching and Ollie (the Twitterrific bird) pop out and fly away. And yes, gestures are another welcome detail. I’m usually a button guy when it comes to user interfaces, since I believe that buttons are more obvious and accurate, but as more and more iOS apps are implementing the very natural pull-to-refresh gesture, it was something I was really missing in Twitterrific. I’ve also got used to sweeping left to reply and sweeping right to show the related conversation.

All this makes for a great user interaction and experience. The new Twitterrific feels light, snappy, responsive. This is an obvious result of the reworking that has taken place behind the scenes. This process of rebuilding an app from the ground up has also resulted in the loss of certain other customisation options, like the ability to choose the Media Upload service, Link shortener and Bookmark service (although if you have Instapaper or Pocket installed on your device, Twitterrific will let you use those to save links). This ‘lightness’, feature-wise, seems to have annoyed more than few people, from what I could see in my Twitter timeline, and I noticed certain destructive criticism towards Twitterrific that I consider unwarranted. If you wanted a Twitter client with all the features of, say, Tweetbot, just go buy Tweetbot. Different apps bring different choices to the table: that’s diversity, and that’s a good thing. In the afore-linked post, Craig Hockenberry has explained what’s behind some of the design choices the developers have taken for this new version of Twitterrific, and I happen to agree with a lot of them^[1].

I’m not a casual Twitter user, yet I don’t miss some of the features other people seem to be awfully missing. Push notifications, for example. I didn’t imagine it was such a deal-breaker. I didn’t imagine that there were so many people who wanted to get notified every time someone mentions or messages them. To me, push notifications are mostly annoying, and I’m with Hockenberry when he writes: Personally, I find myself actively disabling notifications in most of the apps I install these days. Notifications are great when used in moderation, but it’s very easy to use them to the point of distraction. These days, the only notifications I really pay attention to on my iOS devices are work-related emails.

Others are annoyed by the lack of inline photos: do you really want to see every picture put up by the people you follow? I prefer to read tweets and see the pictures I want to see after deliberately clicking on their links, so I actually appreciate that Twitterrific isn’t shoving images in my face like other clients or web interfaces do. (If by ‘inline photos’ people mean the ability to expand a photo in place inside the timeline, then I don’t understand what the big deal is in having pictures displayed in an overlayed window like Twitterrific does. Or am I missing something obvious here?)

That people aren’t happy for the lack of mute filters is a bit more understandable, considering the noise level of auto-tweets generated by external services. But these and other things, as the developers themselves have admitted, are on their radar and on Twitterrific 5’s roadmap. In rebuilding the app, their choice has been to start with a core of basic features and to create a solid ground to build upon, and I respect their decisions. Overall, I’m really pleased by Twitterrific 5 and if you want a clean, fast application that delivers a pleasant reading experience, then I suggest you try it. If you’re a long-time Twitterrific user, version 5 won’t disappoint. If you want more customisation under the bonnet, if features like a streaming timeline, support for editing lists, push notifications, or timeline filtering/muting are a deal-breaker for you, then you’ll be happier with other clients like Tweetbot.

(Image of Twitterrific 2 and 3 taken from 148apps and slightly modified)

1. The only thing I don’t get is why the in-app browser doesn’t take the whole screen in the iPad version of the app, like before. Having to navigate a website in a smaller window can be impractical.↩

Let iTunes be

December 4, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Software

Firstly, to those who were waiting for yours truly to write an in-depth analysis of iTunes 11: don’t despair, it will eventually come. I simply need more time with the latest version, because some changes are significant, and I’m still deciding whether I like or not certain UI decisions. That is not something you can decide after spending ten minutes with an application, especially an application such as iTunes, with lots of features and a major redesign after 10 versions of generally looking the same.

Then there are people like Farhad Manjoo who bash iTunes 11 completely, probably without even trying it extensively — you’ll notice that his article, iTunes 11: It’s time for Apple’s horrible, bloated program to die, was published the same day iTunes 11 was officially introduced.

I’ve expressed many times my negative point of view about iTunes. Too bloated. Too overwhelmed by features. A minefield, UI- and UX-wise. But let’s get some facts straight. Manjoo writes:

Anyway, so iTunes 11 finally hit the Internet today. If you start downloading it immediately, you might be able to get it up and running by the time the ball drops over Times Square. People always wonder why this is — why a simple music player weighs in at around 90 megabytes and requires many long minutes to install and “prepare” your library before it becomes functional.

This is simply wrong. I have two sizeable iTunes libraries on two different Macs (around 60 and 90 GB respectively), and on each version update iTunes took only a few seconds to update the libraries. There was nothing to “prepare” and no long waits before being able to access my music collection or play some songs. (And I even keep my iTunes libraries on external USB 2.0 drives, which should slow things down a bit.)

Don’t ask questions — this is just what you get with iTunes. Each new upgrade brings more suckage into your computer. It makes itself slower. It adds three or four more capabilities you’ll never need. It changes its screen layout in ways that are just subtle enough to make you throw your phone at the wall. And it adds more complexity to its ever-shifting syncing rules to ensure that the next time you connect your device, you’ll have to delete everything and resync. At this point, you shake your fists and curse this foul program to the heavens…

That’s not strictly true, either. Granted, I’ve never understood why if I decide to sync my books or ringtones at a later moment, iTunes will have to delete the music and videos I have manually synced. But these ‘rules’ have never shifted, either. It’s been this way for a long time. It’s also not true that “[with] each upgrade [iTunes] change[d] its screen layout in ways that are just subtle enough to make you throw your phone at the wall”. iTunes has retained the original UI scheme for 10 versions! There has been visual polishing through the ages, but the placement of the media buttons, ‘LCD’ display, view buttons, search bar, sidebar, main window and bottom controls has basically remained unchanged since version 1. iTunes 11 is actually the first iTunes version where things start getting visibly rearranged.

Now, instead of a pane of options on the left side, you click between functions using buttons and menus on the top. Is this a genuine improvement, or just a face-lift masking the rot beneath? I suspect the latter: While some parts of iTunes move a little bit faster (the iOS app management screen, for example, used to be unusably slow; now it’s OK) most of it still feels lumbering.

On my machine, a mid-2009 MacBook Pro, with the main iTunes library hosted on an external USB hard drive, I can say that iTunes 11 is overall noticeably snappier than previous versions. Not only as regards to iOS app management, but also when it comes to basic navigation and browsing through sections — music, video, books, apps, etc.

What’s more, the new version doesn’t solve the key problems plaguing iTunes. First, it still does too many different things — it’s a media player, a store, and a sync manager. Second, it remains a local file manager in a connected age. The new software does have deeper integration with Apple’s iCloud service, but at its core iTunes is meant to manage “your” music files—that is, stuff you’ve purchased or burned—on a single computer. That’s an outmoded model, one that’s being replaced by subscription systems like Spotify, which feature no distinction between stuff you own and stuff you don’t. Instead you have rights to play everything, all the time, whenever you want.

I’m a satisfied Spotify Premium customer overall, but I’d never let the Spotify application manage my local music and media files. I really like to keep things separate on this front. I treat Spotify as a (premium) radio, while iTunes is my personal hi-fi stereo, so to speak. Anyway, I really don’t get this latest cloud mania. Sure, having access to a service that acts like a giant juke-box and streams all the music you choose whenever you want is definitely handy, I’m not denying that. But what’s so horribly wrong in managing local files? In wanting to ‘own’ music and have an application which, despite its flaws, is perfectly able to handle all the albums I’ve ripped from my CDs (and some vinyls) and the music I’ve purchased?

Streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, represent a huge advantage for the listener, and perhaps they’ve outmoded the ‘old’ model of purchasing single albums (or songs) so that now you just buy access to a service. As I said, I’m a happy Spotify customer and the 10 Euros per month are a good investment in listening convenience. But I also wonder: is this the best model for everyone involved? Considering how little artists earn from these streaming services, I’d say no. And one of the reasons I still buy records and CDs and music files online is because I also want to support the artists. Just because one particular way of enjoying music is fashionable now (or represents ‘the future’ according to some), doesn’t mean: a) that’s the best for everybody, and b) that we should ditch an application which enables us to enjoy music in another way.

Another reminder: these streaming services are, at the moment, available in just a bunch of countries worldwide. This might be “the connected age”, as Manjoo says, but certainly not for everyone everywhere. (The iTunes Store is available in many more countries, at least for music purchases.)

So even if the new iTunes is an improvement, it’s not a permanent solution. The only way for Apple to fix it would be to throw it out and start all over again. Perhaps — as Macworld’s Jason Snell has suggested — iTunes should be split into multiple programs: One to play your media, one to sync your devices, and one to buy or subscribe to stuff from Apple. Or maybe it could be replaced altogether with a quicker, lightweight Web-based system.

I’ve thought about that too, every time I criticised iTunes’ apparent feature creep. But it’s not an easy solution like it seems on paper. Sure, iTunes takes care of too many tasks, but how would a suite of three separate media software applications work? Each one of them should have access to a central music library, for obvious reasons. A segmented workflow, though, sounds as cumbersome as iTunes as a whole: in such scenario, the app that syncs media content across my devices or the other app for purchasing stuff on the iTunes Store wouldn’t be able to also play such content (there’d be the ‘media player’ app for that), which is ridiculous. And, despite all the bad things we can say about iTunes, I’d really love to hear what pundits and people would say if Apple really split iTunes in a three-app ‘iTunes Suite’.

A Web-based system also looks like a nicer option, but its speed, reliability and responsiveness would depend on the speed (and availability) of an Internet connection. Not everyone lives in downtown Manhattan.

Whatever Apple does, it shouldn’t aim merely to fix iTunes but instead come up with a brand new system better suited to our age. iTunes 11 is enough. Please don’t let there be an iTunes 12.

Looking at iTunes 11, I have the impression that Apple is trying to get to a new system by transforming iTunes from within. iTunes 11 isn’t perfect, for sure, has its quirks and everything. Still, I’m fairly impressed by the general rework, and it’s better than I expected for a .0 release. It may be a horrible, outmoded and awkward software, but it still has a purpose.

Bean no longer actively developed

December 3, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Software

Bean html web

James Hoover, the developer of Bean, writes:

The venerable Bean word processor has been around since 2006, evolving while keeping a focus on speed, stability and simplicity. Folks liked the live word count (thanks again to Keith Blount for the code), the full screen mode, alternate editing colors, and the zoom slider. Later versions added features that continue to make Bean distinctive, such as split window editing and a tabbed document interface.

After the release of Bean 3.2.2, active development of Bean will cease. Bean will remain available for download at the bean-osx.com website. It may even be updated as necessary to keep the app running on future versions of OS X. Also, I’ll try to continue technical support at the usual email address.

Bean has been my word processor of choice for all my PowerPC Macs, and I’ve been keeping an up-to-date copy on my MacBook Pro as well. It is really a great tool and it’s a pity it won’t be developed in the future, although I fully understand Hoover’s reasons. Free tools of this quality are a rare find, so I’ll keep relying on it when I have to handle documents on my PowerBooks and other PowerPC Macs running Tiger or Leopard.

This line in Hoover’s announcement saddened me in particular (emphasis mine):

Also, fewer and fewer people will use Bean in the future since I do not publish Bean on the App Store (which sells numerous closed-source rip-offs compiled from the GPL v.1‑licensed Bean 2.x source code).

And on a closing note, I want to publicly thank James Hoover for all the time and efforts he has been putting into this project for the past six years.

Decommissioning the original Apple Wireless Keyboard

December 3, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

Apple keyboards old and new

The original Apple Wireless Keyboard, while not perfect, is definitely my favourite Apple keyboard after the Apple Extended Keyboard and Apple Extended Keyboard II. It’s the model A1016 and was introduced in 2003. I’ve been using it since 2005, and for me it combines the best of many worlds:

It’s mechanical
It’s extended
It’s wireless

When Apple updated its standalone keyboard lines in 2007, and introduced the thin, aluminium models still in use today, made a choice that presented a problem for me (and, I presume, for people with my same typing habits): the new Wireless keyboard was not extended. Model A1255, later updated to A1314, had the same key placement as the keyboards in Apple’s laptops. If one wanted an extended keyboard, the only option (from Apple) was the wired A1243 model.

I actually purchased a new, non-extended Apple Wireless Keyboard last year, to see if I really missed the numeric keypad and special keys after some use. I quickly discovered that I did, so I passed that keyboard to my Power Mac G4 Cube along with the Mighty Mouse, so that I could free another USB port and go totally wireless with the Cube. As for my main setup, I decided to keep the original Apple Wireless Keyboard (alternating with the ADB Apple Extended Keyboard II every time I needed to recharge the batteries).

But recently things got worse when suddenly the right Shift key started being unresponsive. And then two days after it was the turn of the Up Arrow key. Then the right Ctrl key. Then the Esc key. Then the right Option and Command keys. Then the F15 key (assigned to a frequently used shortcut). I tried to go on for a while even with this loss of functionality, but eventually I had to give up. The problem, of course, was: which would be its successor?

I thought of some candidates. The first coming to mind were mechanical keyboards, because I type a lot and prefer their feel. So, the Mathias Tactile Pro and the Das Keyboard were the first off the top of my head. A further Web search brought more results in the mechanical keyboard department: you can see a lot of them summarised in this forum post called The Mechanical Keyboard Guide. But the funny thing is, none of these keyboards has the three features of the original Apple Wireless Keyboard mentioned above. All of them are mechanical, most of them are extended, none of them is wireless. Additionally, it seems quite difficult to find a modern wireless mechanical keyboard with Italian layout.

The Italian layout is another strict requirement for me, because that’s the layout I’ve mostly typed with in the past 25 years or so. I write in Italian, English and Spanish mostly, and a US keyboard layout is problematic because the accents aren’t readily available: I’d have to memorise two different shortcuts for the acute and grave accents, and then type the vowel I need accented. It’s doable, mind you, but it really slows my typing speed. On a keyboard with Italian layout, instead, there are specific keys for accented letters (ì, è, é, ò, à, ù).

Since I needed a new extended keyboard quickly, my temporary solution has been to ask my wife to get me a modern Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (pictured above) for my birthday, ordering it from the Apple Store online because you can specify the layout when you choose it. The next day the DHL courier was already at my door with the keyboard. As I said, this solution is temporary while I keep looking for possible candidates (I’m open to suggestions if I missed something): this keyboard is not mechanical and is not wireless, but at least it’s extended and with an Italian layout. The media keys are rearranged but their placement is very similar to the MacBook’s keyboard, so I got used to them rather quickly.

As for typing on the keyboard itself, it’s actually better than I feared, though I’ve found out that after long typing sessions my fingers get more tired than with the previous Apple Wireless Keyboard and with other mechanical keyboards I have used in the past. A great feature of these new flat Apple keyboards is that they’re really easy to clean and they don’t get as horribly dirty as the previous Apple Pro Keyboards (especially the white models) and the original Wireless Keyboard. That it could get very dirty and visibly so — especially in nooks and corners that are almost impossible to clean properly unless you wash the entire keyboard — was the only single downside I found in the original Apple Wireless Keyboard. Something I attempted to mitigate by covering the keyboard with a silicone skin, but it turned out to be a poor workaround because it didn’t take me long to wear out the silicone skin over the most used keys. And it tended to slow me down while I typed.

A few months ago, Mathias told me over Twitter they were working on a mechanical Bluetooth keyboard, and I’m really looking forward to such a product, although the lack of Italian layout could still be a deal-breaker. Looking for another Apple Wireless Keyboard on eBay could be another option, although I’m not particularly eager to deal with a used (read: dirty) keyboard. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll found some new-in-box model. But really, is it too much to ask for a wireless, mechanical, extended keyboard also available with an Italian layout? So far, it would seem so.

Correction

A few people have pointed out that the original Apple Wireless Keyboard isn’t an entirely mechanical keyboard, but rather a Dome-switch keyboard. It’s true and I stand corrected. My point, however, is that even a dome-switch keyboard like that is preferable to the current Apple Keyboards (wired and wireless) and similar keyboards which have a scissor-switch mechanism. Long typing sessions are much less fatiguing, plus the original Apple Wireless Keyboard has a nice ergonomic arching of the six rows of keys. Compare its profile with the newer Wireless Keyboard in this picture:

Apple wkeyboards sideview

And I’m still looking for a (good quality) wireless, mechanical, extended keyboard with an Italian layout.

Esprimersi in bianco e nero

November 28, 2012

by Riccardo Mori

Mele e appunti

Leggendo il blog di Fabrizio Rinaldi, ho notato un articolo con cui mi trovo particolarmente in accordo. Si intitola Se non è perfetto fa schifo, e in esso Rinaldi condivide alcune riflessioni sulla progressiva semplificazione — o impoverimento — del metro di giudizio che molte persone manifestano online, partendo da Twitter, ma non solo.

La conseguenza tanto estrema quanto frequente è che la discussione finisca – se ha avuto modo di iniziare, si intende – con un asettico «c’è il tasto defollow». [Per dire: puoi smettere di seguirmi.] È deprimente. Anche quando non si arriva a tanto, la scarsità dei caratteri a disposizione e anche il modo in cui ci rapportiamo a questi strumenti per comunicare, rischia sempre di far sì che si finisca per dire bianco o nero, dimenticandosi della scala di grigi che giace dimenticata nel mezzo.

Oltre ad aver notato lo stesso fenomeno, aggiungo che più si va avanti, più questi strumenti per comunicare mi sembrano essere nient’altro che strumenti per trasmettere. È un paradosso di cui ho già avuto modo di parlare: oggi abbiamo a disposizione una varietà di strumenti di comunicazione impensabili soltanto cinquant’anni fa. Abbiamo dispositivi, tecnologie, protocolli grazie ai quali possiamo scambiare messaggi, fotografie, video, istantaneamente con più persone all’altro capo del mondo. Eppure è come se, in fondo, finissimo con il comunicare peggio. C’è una frattura che tende a separare sempre più l’ascolto e l’espressione, la ricezione e la trasmissione. Si ‘comunica’ di più e ci si comprende meno. Se pensate che sia un’esagerazione, un esempio banale: vi è mai capitato di fraintendere qualcuno per aver letto un suo messaggio troppo superficialmente, o per aver decontestualizzato una sua frase che a tutta prima ‘stonava’, saltava all’occhio e vi irritava al punto da non fare caso alle sue spiegazioni o giustificazioni, o magari semplicemente perché mancava dell’emoticon giusta al posto giusto?

E se avete mai partecipato a qualche estenuante discussione su forum, mailing list e affini, vi è mai capitato di pensare Mi sembra di star parlando un’altra lingua quando l’interlocutore di turno travisava persino i vostri passaggi più chiari e apparentemente banali?

Ho sempre considerato la comunicazione come qualcosa di veramente costruttivo: un ascoltarsi reciproco, innanzitutto; un mettersi in gioco mentre ci si confronta su un argomento qualsiasi, per imparare qualcosa gli uni dagli altri. In teoria, questo è arricchito quando a confrontarsi sono interlocutori con specialità differenti: la competenza dell’uno può aiutare l’altro a colmare lacune, a correggere preconcetti, e così via. Io ho appreso moltissimo da persone che evidentemente ne sapevano più di me in certi ambiti, e mi auguro che la cosa sia stata reciproca. L’elemento chiave è l’ascolto, la ricezione. Oggi, online, è evidente come siano la trasmissione e l’espressione ad avere la meglio. Tutti scrivono, tutti dicono, tutti hanno un’opinione e te la devono propinare a qualsiasi costo e di fronte a qualsiasi obiezione. E alla fine di una discussione, se di discussione si può parlare, ognuno rimane fermo nelle sue posizioni. Non c’è arricchimento, solo sfinimento e irritazione.

Continua Rinaldi:

Mi sto accorgendo sempre più spesso che in generale c’è qualcosa che non va nei nostri metri di giudizio, e mi sono accorto che se io cerco sempre di valutare le cose in modo equilibrato (molte volte, inevitabilmente, senza riuscirci), la maggior parte delle persone si accontenta più o meno di qualunque cosa senza preoccuparsi troppo, limitandosi ad un “Mi piace” o “Non mi piace” (anche se siamo in un momento storico che sembra volerci far piacere tutto a prescindere).

Sì, siamo in un momento storico in cui la presenza di Internet nelle nostre vite sembra agire negativamente sulla nostra capacità di discernere, di giudicare in maniera articolata. Finiamo con l’impigliarci nelle dicotomie forzate delle reti sociali, e le nostre espressioni per giudicare diventano pulsanti “Mi piace” / “Non mi piace”, o il pollice su / pollice giù di YouTube. O anche le valutazioni con le stelline sugli App Store vari: qui è utile leggere le critiche, perché malgrado il giudizio sia esprimibile con sfumature che vanno da una stella (“orrendo!”) a cinque stelle (“fantastico!”), le critiche degli utenti sono molto più polarizzate (e ingiuste: vedasi i giudizi a una stella dati perché un’applicazione venduta a 89 centesimi viene considerata un furto).

Ma non è questo atteggiamento a crearmi disagio – anzi, si potrebbe dire che è assolutamente legittimo accontentarsi di tutto – bensì quello di una minoranza di esperti che pretende che ogni cosa sia stupefacente oppure una merda, come se non potesse esistere nulla nel mezzo. E con esperti intendo esperti in qualunque cosa, dalla cucina al filmmaking. […] Non voglio dilungarmi oltre, ma il punto è che ritengo che non esista un livello di expertise che renda legittimo il considerare qualunque cosa che non sia perfetta, un disastro totale.

È vero, e la cosa ancora peggiore è che spesso a muovere certe critiche trancianti condensate in una frase (o in una sola parola) non sono nemmeno esperti, ma persone che si credono tali solo per aver letto un paio di libri su un determinato argomento. Giusto un anno fa scrivevo in Siamo tutti bravi:

…Mi riferisco al liquidare il lavoro altrui in quattro parole, in un commento magari condito con quel pizzico di acidità per fare il figurone con la propria cerchia di conoscenze (online e offline). È ancor più irritante quando la critica è rivolta a un prodotto che nemmeno si è provato, o che si è provato per un intervallo di tempo assurdamente breve. Intendiamoci: capita di imbattersi in quell’applicazione, servizio, dispositivo che sappiamo da subito non ci sarà utile. Purtroppo, dalla preferenza personale al sentenziare che l’oggetto in questione è inutile, sarà un flop, è progettato da schifo, il passo è sempre più breve. Ultimamente pare che sul Web tutti diventano ingegneri, designer, progettisti, tipografi, sviluppatori e — soprattutto — punti di riferimento del buon gusto dall’oggi al domani, nel giro di un post o di un tweet. Mi stupisco che non si viva già in un mondo migliore, vista la quantità di gente così in gamba nel giudicare in un istante quel che è buono e ciò che va scartato.

Anche qui, in un mondo ideale l’esperto, quello vero, è qualcuno dotato appunto dell’esperienza necessaria che dovrebbe permettergli di non vedere il mondo o bianco o nero. L’esperto, quello vero, dovrebbe essere una figura dotata della raffinatezza necessaria a esaminare le sfumature di grigio, ad apprezzarle, e a esprimere un’opinione o giudizio che riflettano tali sfumature. Ho avuto la fortuna di incontrare persone così (in carne e ossa o attraverso Internet), ma sembrano ogni giorno più rare.

Oggi sembra che il successo e la popolarità abbiano più valore dell’esperienza vera e propria in un determinato campo. Ho assistito tempo fa a una discussione su Twitter fra un Web designer sicuramente in gamba, e piuttosto popolare e un altro Web designer molto meno noto ma evidentemente più competente in materia. La sua maggiore competenza sarebbe risultata evidente a qualsiasi persona che si fosse presa la briga di andarsi a leggere una serie di articoli che questo tizio aveva pubblicato sul suo sito. La discussione, invece, ha coinvolto svariati fan del designer più noto e più carismatico, e quando costui ha detto all’altro che sostanzialmente non aveva capito un accidenti del suo punto di vista, i fan hanno fatto il coro e l’altro designer ha semplicemente lasciato perdere perché era evidente che non si andasse da nessuna parte.

Perché ho fatto questo esempio? Perché ritengo che fattori come il successo e la popolarità incidano negativamente su determinate figure di esperto e che contribuiscano a farle diventare quegli esperti dal giudizio veloce e sentenzioso — “Se non è perfetto fa schifo”, appunto — che mettono a disagio Fabrizio Rinaldi e me, e chi la pensa come noi. Speriamo che l’umiltà torni a trovarci prima o poi.