Riccardo Mori

La pagina di aiuto dell'Apple Store in italiano

March 11, 2011

Lo so, ultimamente questo spazio è diventato quasi un pretesto per parlare degli svarioni di traduzione da inglese a italiano che mi capita di incontrare mentre lavoro. Abbiate pazienza, ma questa merita davvero.

Andate alla pagina di aiuto dell’Apple Store in italiano e inorridite. Aggiungo qui una schermata per archiviazione futura:

Osservate soprattutto il riquadro centrale: Mange il vostro ordine. Sì, è proprio scritto così. Per non parlare della confusione delle persone: in un punto si dà del Lei, in un altro si dà del voi, a volte anche nel contesto della stessa frase (Annulli e cambi il vostro ordine). Facendo clic e leggendo nelle varie sottosezioni, l’italiano che si trova è di questo tenore.

Ritengo assolutamente vergognoso che un’azienda come Apple, che in molti altri contesti dimostra di curare con estrema attenzione il proprio sito, tratti la localizzazione in altre lingue in questo modo.

Apple, se ti serve un consulente io sono qui.

Just Smart

March 7, 2011

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

I was awaiting the Apple event on March 2 with great anticipation. It was obvious that it would be all about the new iPad, and when the iPad 2 was finally unveiled, most of its features had been already anticipated. Yes, it is faster than its predecessor. Thinner. A bit lighter, also. Yes, front and rear cameras. No high resolution Retina Display. No new ports: neither Micro-USB, nor Thunderbolt, nor an SD slot. Same battery life. Same storage capacities and same prices as the previous iPad line.

Talking about the iPad 2 this way, the upgrade might look rather boring and underwhelming. But as I was following Macworld and Engadget’s liveblogging (alas, no live streaming from Apple this time — a shame, considering how seemingly important this event was for Apple) and new information and new photos were coming in, I sat and pondered:

The iPad 2 is not just ‘faster’, it’s not a mere speed bump, it has a new A5 1GHz dual-core processor. The graphics performance is said to be 9 times faster, and although I haven’t tried the device for myself yet, I’m rather satisfied by the impressions of those who did. Andy Ihnatko writes:
The processor, particularly, makes a huge impact. I activated the Photo Booth app and discovered that the iPad 2 was peppy enough to maintain nine different live video previews, each applying a different filter or warping effect, and update them all in real time at full video frame rate.
Some people on Twitter and on the Web seemed a bit disappointed by the fact that battery life was just like the first iPad. It doesn’t look like an improvement, right? Well, to me it is. Two things: one, the iPad 2 has a different, more powerful processor, potentially more power-hungry (yes, tech specs say high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip, but it’s always a dual-core chip); two, the iPad 2 is thinner, which means potentially less space than before for its components. I imagine that the iPad 2’s entrails have been re-engineered to maintain a huge ‘battery estate’, but still. But perhaps more importantly: thanks to its new processor and performance, and thanks to new apps like iMovie, GarageBand and PhotoBooth, the iPad 2 has likely more tasks to carry out than the first iPad. Being able to do all this new stuff while retaining the same battery life as the first iPad, in my opinion, is a great improvement.
The iPad 2 isn’t just thinner than the iPad 1. It’s thinner than the iPhone 4. 8.8 mm is thin indeed. If you haven’t got an iPhone 4 in your hands, let me give you an idea: a CD jewelbox is 11 mm thick. Three stacked CompactFlash cards are roughly 9 mm thick. If you have a MacBook Pro, look at the thickness of its lid: it’s about 8 mm. Basically the new iPad is like holding a detached MacBook screen, depth-wise.
Thinness, coupled with the small weight loss (around 680 grams before, little more than 600 grams now), makes for an even more portable, practical device. You just drop it in your man-bag or backpack and it virtually disappears. And again, I haven’t touched an iPad 2 yet (I’ll have to wait until March 25 here), but judging from the reactions of those who could try it at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, this new iPad should feel much lighter in your hands than what that 80-gram difference can convey on paper.

Smart things indeed

In addition to my first impressions listed above, there are a couple of smart things to talk about.

First is that Apple Digital AV Adapter that, together with the new video mirroring feature, lets you mirror whatever it’s on the iPad on an external, bigger screen. This is much better than the video-out capabilities of the first iPad, because it’s not limited to a bunch of applications that support the video out feature. It works more like video mirroring on Macs, i.e. you constantly see on the bigger screen what happens on the iPad. As Apple aptly explains, Video mirroring doesn’t just turn your iPad into a big screen. It actually turns the big screen into your iPad.

This transforms the iPad 2 in a great tool for business presentations and it makes the iPad an even more useful tool for educational purposes. Fraser Speirs, who teaches Computing at Cedars School of Excellence and who has successfully implemented the iPad in class, has written:

I don’t know whether I or my Apple reps in Scotland will be more delighted that iPad 2 supports full video mirroring. I’ll be happy to have it, they’ll be happy that they no longer have to hear me beg for it. I strongly suspect that this has been, by some distance, the #1 most-requested feature from education markets. Thanks for listening, Apple. Really.

The second smart thing, well, at Apple they’re so confident about how smart it is that they called it Smart Cover. And it has its own page on Apple’s Website. Everything’s smart about this cover for the iPad: the simple idea behind it, the implementation, the fact that the iPad locks the screen when it detects the cover and unlocks it when you remove the cover, the use of magnets to keep the cover in place, the use of microfiber lining that keeps the iPad’s screen clean while you carry the device around, the foldable quality that makes the Smart Cover a multi-purpose accessory (it works as a stand, too, both for typing and for watching videos and photos).

It’s hard not to concede that those Smart Covers are, indeed, smart. So why do I dislike them? Here we enter the realm of subjectivity, but let me write it anyway: I don’t find them elegant at all. Smart, well designed, that’s for sure. I will probably buy an iPad 2, but I won’t cover it with those things, not even if they give me one for free. This is not a matter of “You’ll change your mind as soon as you see them in person”, sorry. The iPad is not only a well-designed device, it’s also very elegant (at least for me). The iPad 2 even more (but that white model… I don’t know really). An iPad 2 with one of those Smart Covers on top, in my opinion, just loses elegance. It looks like something that wants to look ‘young’, ‘cool’, ‘fun’ but ultimately doesn’t. In my eyes, the iPad 2 is truly cool without them.

What’s more, they only protect the iPad’s screen. Considering how I’m going to use the iPad, the Smart Cover solution is simply not (good) enough. I guess I’ll wait and see what third party case manufactures have to offer. I liked a lot Scosche’s FoldIO case for the iPad, and it seems they already offer the iPad 2 version. I’m also looking forward to what Twelve South may bring, especially in the stand department. I’m planning to use the iPad a lot in a desktop configuration with the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and a separate stand that lets me keep the iPad un-covered, and both the Compass and the BookArc seem to be the perfect solution for me — we’ll just have to wait and see if they can be used with the iPad 2 or if they need specially designed variations.

There are a couple more observations I wanted to share about the iPad 2 and, more generally, about the event and what Steve Jobs said, but I prefer to go over my notes in the next days and combine them in a separate piece to be published later on.

Ancora sviste di localizzazione

March 2, 2011

by Riccardo Mori

Mele e appunti

Questa è la schermata delle preferenze Tastiera su iPhone (Impostazioni > Generali > Tastiera). Purtroppo, rispetto all’inglese, l’italiano non è una lingua sintetica, e quando lo spazio è poco e bisogna ficcarci una descrizione, beh, qualche lettera finisce con l’essere sacrificata — in questo caso la t di tocca. E anche barra spaziatrice ha dovuto essere abbreviato.

In realtà lo spazio per una terza riga di testo ci sarebbe. A volte una riga in più aiuta a far bella figura. È sempre la solita storia: Apple ci ha abituati alla cura per i dettagli, ma quando si tratta di localizzare un’interfaccia, i risultati lasciano a desiderare. Qui non è tanto l’effetto di comicità involontaria di quel occa due volte, è proprio la sensazione di sciatteria che trasmette una localizzazione fatta così.

Retrocompatibilità

March 1, 2011

by Riccardo Mori

Mele e appunti

Con la recentissima introduzione dei nuovi modelli di MacBook Pro, Apple ha anche aggiornato la pagina relativa a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion e ha reso disponibile un’anteprima per sviluppatori, scaricabile dal Mac App Store stesso (no, se il vostro account non è Premier o Select, ossia se non è a pagamento, non potrete scaricare Lion dal Mac App Store).

Cercando informazioni in rete, mi sono imbattuto nella notizia secondo cui Rosetta non sarà parte di Lion (qui uno dei tanti link che ho trovato, in inglese). Rosetta, lo ricordo, è quel pezzetto di software che permette di eseguire dentro l’architettura Intel quelle applicazioni più datate, scritte in codice PowerPC. La mossa era prevedibile — già in Snow Leopard Rosetta è un elemento opzionale, installabile solo se necessario — ma ciò non vuol dire che sia una mossa gradita, almeno per quanto mi riguarda.

Giusto per capirci, non c’entra nulla l’appassionato di Mac vintage che è in me. Non è questione di essere affezionati a un passato che non c’è più, o una reazione capricciosa alla filosofia del ‘guardare sempre avanti’ estremamente caratteristica di Apple dopo il ritorno di Steve Jobs nel 1997–98. È questione di non poter più utilizzare comodamente tutta una serie di applicazioni che a suo tempo ho regolarmente pagato (e non poco), e che non ho mai avuto l’esigenza di aggiornare, perché semplicemente vanno benissimo così. Non sto parlando di vecchi shareware (anche se ve ne sono), ma di software come Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Acrobat Professional 6, FileMaker Pro 6, Microsoft Office 2004.

Acquistare versioni aggiornate di quei software è una spesa ingiustificata per l’uso che ne faccio, e al tempo stesso mi trovo a utilizzarli con sufficiente frequenza che non è fattibile (almeno per ora) abbandonarli. Con quel che verrebbero a costare la Creative Suite CS5 + Microsoft Office 2011 probabilmente mi ci comprerei un iPad 2 — e ora ha più senso che mi compri un iPad 2.

Non aggiornare a Mac OS X 10.7 Lion quest’estate sarebbe una mossa un po’ sciocca. È vero che teoricamente potrei benissimo andare avanti con Snow Leopard (forse persino con Leopard), ma una parte del mio lavoro richiede che io rimanga aggiornato con queste tecnologie. Per scrivere di Lion devo necessariamente provarlo e usarlo in prima persona sulla mia macchina principale. Certo, se nuotassi nell’oro come Zio Paperone, una cosa davvero utile per il mio lavoro sarebbe acquistare un Mac portatile nuovo come macchina per prove e test delle applicazioni più varie.

Invece, la mancanza di Rosetta in Lion mi spingerà ad adottare una di queste soluzioni:

Prendere tutte le applicazioni scritte per l’architettura PowerPC che uso tuttora (più di una dozzina) e spostarle su un Mac più datato, magari il Cube o uno dei miei PowerBook G4.
Installare Snow Leopard su una partizione in uno dei miei dischi esterni, e riavviare il Mac da lì quando devo utilizzare quelle applicazioni.

Entrambe le soluzioni mi consentono di continuare a servirmi di quei programmi. In entrambi i casi, tuttavia, il flusso di lavoro ne risente pesantemente. Nel primo caso devo tenere a portata di mano l’altro Mac, nel secondo c’è l’ovvia scomodità di dover riavviare in Snow Leopard per poi ritornare in Lion. Penso di optare per la prima soluzione, però, e di appoggiarmi a Dropbox per lo scambio veloce dei dati fra le macchine.

Che seccatura, comunque. Ripeto, comprendo e in parte condivido questo continuo muoversi in avanti di Apple. È quella forza che la mantiene davanti agli altri, in fondo. Però trovo un po’ gratuito il pensionamento di Rosetta. Da un punto di vista tecnico sarebbe comprensibile se il mantenere la compatibilità all’indietro fosse un ostacolo serio allo sviluppo del sistema, oppure se significasse un tale decadimento delle prestazioni del Mac da essere un problema non ignorabile. Ma questi nuovi MacBook Pro, per fare un esempio, sono dotati di una potenza di calcolo eccezionale, superiore a quella di un Mac Pro di tre anni fa; Rosetta potrebbe continuare benissimo a funzionare così com’è senza compromettere l’esperienza utente. Già il mio ‘vecchio’ MacBook Pro di metà 2009, un Core 2 Duo a 2,66 GHz, fa girare applicazioni PowerPC con una velocità e reattività pari ad applicazioni Universal Binary o solo Intel. Ritengo quindi, per esclusione, che si tratti di una scelta ‘politica’ più che tecnica.

Io ho già inviato ad Apple il mio feedback di rito, e in fondo spero che da qui all’uscita ufficiale di Lion il destino di Rosetta possa cambiare; ma, come si suol dire, non trattengo il fiato.

The point of no return

February 23, 2011

by Riccardo Mori

Tech Life

My wife Carmen owns a 16 GB, first-generation iPod touch, and as you know it can’t be updated to iOS 4; the maximum firmware version supported is iOS 3.1.3.

The other day something quite annoying happened for the second time. There was an update available for one of the apps she has purchased and installed on her iPod. Along with other app updates, she downloaded it in iTunes. Then, as soon as she connected her iPod, iTunes performed the usual synchronisation process. When it was all over, she disconnected the iPod and went to use that app, which refused to open. After some attempts, we both figured out that the problem was that with the latest update, said app dropped support for iOS 3.x. Having now iOS 4 as a minimum requirement, it obviously can’t work on her iPod anymore.

That app cost her 3.99 Euros, but what really annoys me isn’t just a matter of money. I simply think there’s something wrong with this process.

One: iTunes should prevent installing app updates on unsupported devices, to avoid this kind of situation.^[1]

Two: there should really be a solid failsafe procedure in case you install an app update that breaks backward compatibility. The trick of looking for the old .ipa file in the Trash and restoring it in iTunes may work, but it’s not an easy and reliable solution (case in point: she uses a PC and her Trash is set to automatically erase files that are moved into it). There should be some sort of Revert to Previous Version button or command.

Three: when an app update ceases to support iOS 3.x, developers should at least emphasise the change in the app description field in the App Store. This is really an instance in which I don’t mind READING A WARNING IN ALL CAPS. In this particular case, unfortunately, the developer’s website does not have updated information (it still says that the app requires iOS 3.1 or above), and the change in requirements wasn’t properly advertised.

Four: this is a general consideration, but another very welcome feature, in my opinion, should be the ability to manually turn off further update notifications for iOS apps. I have more than twenty apps that I chose to remove from my iPhone, and I’m not interested in downloading their updates for the time being, and at the same time I don’t want to remove them completely from iTunes either. Just a simple “Enable updates for this app” switch, turned on by default for all apps (the most reasonable setting), that I can turn off as I see fit.

It’s really a ‘point of no return’ situation. Carmen had to remove the app from her iPod touch, and won’t be able to use it again unless she upgrades the hardware, which is kind of ludicrous considering that her iPod touch still works perfectly (and lately looks even snappier than my iPhone 3G with iOS 4.2.1). If you’re going to comment something like She should have been more careful, please spare the advice. When there are more than 10 updates queued in iTunes people understandably just press “Update all”. A good interface design puts barriers in place to protect the users and avoid situations that inconvenience them, like this one.

1. What’s puzzling is that sometimes iTunes does so: when I downloaded the free VLC Player app for iPhone, it refused to install it on my iPhone 3G. I had downloaded it without knowing that it wasn’t compatible with my hardware (it needed at least an iPhone 3GS if I remember correctly). So perhaps there is some kind of hardware check, but evidently not a firmware check before installing an update. ↩