Nov 30
JustinPersonal beta, developers, Glitch, reset
Roughly seven months ago, I posted about what I called Sonyfication, a term I created to describe the acts of a company that promises and delivers features, then, out of nothing more than pure greed, removes them. The namesake of this term was, of course, Sony’s removal of the OtherOS feature of the PlayStation 3. My first usage of the term was aimed at Spotify, who initially offered free (but with advertisements) unlimited listening, then altered their free plan to enact severe limits on listening after six months of membership.
Today, Glitch has announced that it’s “unlaunching.” That is, they are returning to a beta stage. As an end-user, and as a developer who understands (at least to some small extent) his responsibilities to the end user (oh, and let’s not forget, a huge fan of Glitch), I figure I have a few things to say about this.
Before I begin, let me make one thing clear: I am not comparing Tiny Speck (the developers of Glitch) to Sony, or to Spotify. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Tiny Speck, and nothing but the utmost of loathing for Sony and Spotify. Tiny Speck is not doing this unreleasing of Glitch for profit, but to make the world of Ur a better place (unlike Sony and Spotify, who clearly performed their actions as a malicious act of greed). I applaud their motive, but I’m worried that the results may still be disastrous. So I’m not entirely confident that the term Sonyfication is appropriate here. However, for lack of a better term, it’s what I’m using.
Quoted below is my comment on the Glitch forum topic on the issue, verbatim, and in its entirety (but with some formatting added):
I’m going to add myself to the list of “please no reset” people. As much as I’ve always wanted the honor of “being in the beta” and getting a pickle and all that jazz, I’ve realized something. None of that will make up the 99 hours I’ve devoted to accomplishing stuff in the last three-ish weeks. I’ve more or less renounced real life in favor of spending more time on Glitch, although if I lose all I’ve got on here, I may not come back. I feel really sorry for those who are up at levels 50-60. The amount of time they’ve had to spend doing rather menial tasks in the game (I’m looking at you mining) is incomprehensible to me. The previous resets (while I can’t actually speak for those who had to deal with them, as I had not yet signed up) made sense. If people sign up knowing it’s in beta, then they sign up expecting the worst. However, many people, myself included, signed up after this period, and expected smooth sailing (I’ve written about this kind of thing before; companies like Sony and Spotify have promised features then later removed them, in an act I’ve termed “Sonyfication”). While I’m a developer myself, and certainly acknowledge the fact that software can have bugs after launch, as I am also an end-user, I realize my responsibilities toward the end-user as a developer (e.g. making it a priority to cause as little disturbance to users as possible when there are indeed bugs).
One possible solution (I realize I’ve never developed anything on as large a scale as Glitch; so correct me if I’m wrong on this) would be something like what Chrome does. Have a “stable channel” (e.g. Glitch as it is now), and a “beta channel.” Then, completely informing them of the possible repercussions (resets included), allow them to opt into the “beta channel.”
That said, and to attempt to end on a somewhat positive note, I’m glad to see that things like housing and the ability for more player control over the world are being addressed. Remove the ability for players to kill each other by splank fight, and I think Glitch has the opportunity to become the perfect game (the lack of violence as a core gameplay element is key, in my opinion, and I applaud Tiny Speck for making such strides in this arena; also, I realize that the term “perfect” is subjective). For what it’s worth, I’m not offended by or opposed to violent games. It’s just not my cup of tea.
You already posted that there. Why repost it here?
A couple of reasons. First is visibility. My comment will quickly be buried in that forum post. Here, it will remain at the utmost level of visibility for, at the very least, the better part of a month. Second, is out of my respect for Tiny Speck. The Glitch forums are theirs, not mine. I have a bit more I’d like to say on the topic than what I said there, but I respect that the Glitch forums are their home turf, so I’ll instead post the extended version here.
So I’ve always wished I were in the Glitch beta, as I felt, until today, that in order to really be part of the community, it’s a prerequisite. Furthermore, and partially for the same reason, I’ve always wanted the Special Item That Only Beta Testers Get (aka Señor Funpickle). However, what I never really gave much serious thought, is that sure the pickle says you were in the beta. But that’s not much of a real accomplishment. It’s actually just a stroke of luck, being in the right place at the right time. What really struck me in light of this was my reconsideration of a Glitch who was level 59 for as long as I could remember, then finally accomplished reaching level 60 (by comparison, I’ve attained level 30 at the time of this writing), and another Glitch who was in the beta, but has only attained level 8. Let’s assume the level 60 Glitch wasn’t in the beta. Still, it’s obvious as to which one was more devoted to the game. So really, a special item doesn’t properly make up for resetting one’s level, as it isn’t an accurate indicator of the amount of effort and time one has put into the game. Upon giving this some consideration, my advice to Tiny Speck would be to provide an additional piece of information on each player’s profile, stating “Pre-Reset Level: [level number].”
In addition to level number, the other thing I’m most concerned about is cubimal collections. I’ve, admittedly, only recently started collecting cubimals (for those who do not play Glitch, just know that a cubimal is a collectible in-game item, often of excruciatingly high value). However, I have a little over half the different kinds of cubimals in my collection (sadly, the more common half of the cubimal spectrum, in general). Of these, a couple were obtained from Cubimal Boxes, and the rest were obtained by trading with other players. This is cause for alarm. What if, after post-reset, these other players are no longer able to trade cubimals at the same prices I paid for them the first time?
At this time, I’d like to reiterate the ultimate moral of this post: the responsibility of developers toward users. Especially after launching my first paid iOS app, I’ve learned some of these responsibilities quite well. Like see that “App Support” link up top? In my opinion, it’s unnecessary clutter. It’s also the first time that my blog contains content that I don’t really want. But Apple requires that I offer a support page (maybe in the future, I’ll create a support page separate from my blog), so I have to put it there. Returning to Glitch, the subject of this discussion, I understand the previous resets. As far as I am aware, it was made quite clear to users that they were part of a beta, and that there would be resets. However, for those of us now, who signed up to what we thought was a finished product, the ethics of the situation have changed. A beta was not what we signed up for. Stuff like resets wasn’t part of the deal. So I leave Tiny Speck with this challenge: No more resets, please. And I do understand that you’re working for the good of the community (and I’m deeply sorry that I had to mention the likes of Sony and Spotify in this post along with the good guys). Even if you do have to perform a reset in the course of this (and I’d also like to remind the reader at this point that they said it’s extremely unlikely, and to apologize for my “the sky is falling” tone), I won’t lose any respect for you. Will it perhaps preclude my return after such a hypothetical reset? Yes. But that’s more so my fault than theirs. I simply can’t bring myself to spend the many hundreds of hours to get back to where I was. Ultimately, Glitch is a free game, and I suppose Tiny Speck doesn’t really have an obligation to go out of their way to avoid a reset. But I challenge them to go above and beyond what’s expected, as they’ve already more than proven that they can, and to ensure a seamless user experience by avoiding a reset. I have faith in them, and until some terrible reset comes, I shall continue to play Glitch in every possible minute I can find.
Jun 07
JustinApple, iOS, Review 5, Apple, beta, home screen, iOS, iPad, iPhone, newstand, preview, review
At the beginning of WWDC 2011 yesterday, Apple announced iOS 5 and iCloud, along with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion (again).
Apple claims iOS 5 includes over 200 new features, previewing ten of them yesterday.
Let’s look at a few of these features, as well as a few of the bugs that I hope will be fixed by the next beta release.
Warning: iOS 5 betas supposedly cannot be downgraded to iOS 4.x, particularly on devices that have a baseband (iPhone, and iPad 3G). While I have not tested this, and I have written an article about how to downgrade betas in the past, there is no guarantee that my method will work this time. Download and run the iOS 5 beta at your own risk.
With that in mind, I’ve only upgraded my iPad 2 to the iOS 5 beta. My iPhone remains on iOS 4.3, and as such, this post will only cover iOS 5 as seen on the iPad.
The iOS 5 home screen, as seen on my iPad 2
There are a few things to notice here. First, a new app called Reminders (no, it’s not an App Store app, it’s built-in; I have no need for a to-do list app and would never install one =/). There is also a new app/folder called Newsstand. I’m not entirely sure which one it is, as it appears in the multitasking tray (probably a bug), but it opens like a folder.
My Social folder, containing the new Messages app
In iOS 5, Apple is introducing the new iMessage service. Apple is also adding the Messages app to the iPad and iPod touch in order to allow usage of this service (however, iPads and iPod touches still cannot send regular SMS messages). iMessage is an instant messaging service provided exclusively to users of iOS devices, that gives SMS-like messaging, with the ability to send media, receive read receipts, and see notifications that indicate when the other user is typing. It feels a lot like the old iOS Messages app, while adding a lot of features similar to those found in Windows Live Messenger.
Game Center in iOS 5
In iOS 5, Apple has enhanced Game Center, adding the ability to have an avatar for your profile. Furthermore, they are also adding official support for turn-based games, which will probably bring many promising offerings once iOS 5 is released this fall. Until then, games that leverage this functionality most likely will not appear in the App Store, as Apple does not accept apps written using a beta version of the iOS SDK (much like how Game Center was utterly useless in the iOS 4 betas since no games supported it).
Newsstand
Much like the new functionality in Game Center, there isn’t much to see here either. No apps support the functionality offered by Newsstand yet, and the Store button is disabled. Newsstand is supposed to be a collection of newspaper/magazine apps. It is also supposed to be capable of pushing updated content to these apps. Most likely, there won’t be much to do with this until after the official release either.
A couple of screenshots of the Reminders app
In what I consider to be a questionably stupid move on Apple’s part, iOS 5 now includes a built-in to-do list app called Reminders. Considering something of the sort could exist perfectly fine on the App Store (and, in fact, many things of this sort already do), I’m really wondering why Apple bothered with this one. Nonetheless, you can see a couple of screenshots of it in action above. You set up tasks that the app can remind you about either by time, or, in what may be the one interesting thing about this app, by place. Supposedly, when you’re at a certain location, it can deliver a reminder. Anyway, the first screenshot above shows my list of reminders, and the second shows those tasks which I have completed (even though I just threw that up on the spot, it’s pretty accurate about what I do and don’t get done).
The emoji keyboard on iPad… finally!
As seen above, Apple has finally enabled the emoji keyboard for iPad (well, they’ve enabled the ability for you to enable it). Just go into your keyboard settings, and add the Emoji keyboard like any other. Then annoy your fellow iOS users to death with emoticons. 
The split keyboard
While on the topic of the keyboard, Apple has added the ability to split the keyboard in iOS 5. Hold the keyboard dismiss button to access the option to do so. Some people I’ve spoken to love this feature. I, however, find it dismally annoying. It makes me really prone to typos, by both making the buttons smaller, and by putting them in unusual locations. I hate it, and will still be using the regular keyboard, but your mileage may vary. Also of note, you can undock the keyboard to move it up or down the screen as you wish, while keeping both halves attached and the buttons their usual size. This feature may be useful for some, but I will be leaving the keyboard in the tried and true location of the bottom of my screen.
The About menu in General Settings
Okay, there’s a few important things to notice here. First off, the build number of this beta is 9A5220p. Second of all, there’s an option to change the device name… on the device itself. In addition, there is a Diagnostics and Usage menu, which gives you the ability to turn the option to send such data to Apple on or off (something normally done in iTunes).
These next two observations are quite significant. Why would Apple give you the option to do these things on the device itself?
Apple has finally dropped the requirement of having a PC or iTunes. iOS devices are now completely independent. When you open the box of an iOS 5 device, it will no longer greet you with the familiar “Connect to iTunes” screen. It will instead prompt you to set up the device… on the device itself. As pointed out in the keynote, this is the logical conclusion to their theory that we are living in a “post-PC era.” To enhance the independence of the device from iTunes, you may also delete music directly from the device in the Music app. There is also a Usage menu in General Settings that provides an overview of the amount of storage used by a given app, along with the ability to delete a given app outright, or to dump its data (I greatly appreciate this feature; I commonly download videos using Terra Web Browser then have it open them in VLC. VLC can play the videos just fine, but it gives no way of deleting the copy of the video that Terra dumped in its documents folder. And considering some giant douche forced Apple to pull the VLC app, that’ll never be fixed either).
Over-the-air updates
As seen above, Apple has also introduced over-the-air updates in iOS 5. Supposedly it will also be more efficient than the previous update mechanism, as it will only download that which has changed, as opposed to an entire firmware image. It does, however, seem to be somewhat buggy at this point. While I don’t know if it’s even really enabled in this beta, or if it’ll allow you to update between betas, it claims I’m not connected to Wi-fi, even though I am.
As a side note, as much effort as Apple has put into removing the dependency on iTunes, I wonder why they’ve also added Wi-fi syncing with iTunes now.
While I think it’s broken in this build as well (either that or the iTunes 10.5 beta is broken), there is an iTunes Sync option in General Settings that allows you to sync over Wi-fi, although it claims that iTunes is never available to sync to.
iCloud
Furthering the theory that we are living in a “post-PC world,” Apple has introduced iCloud, their cloud storage service. As seen in the Mail option above, Apple is now giving away @me.com e-mail addresses for free. It also includes the former MobileMe service of Find My iPad. It also introduces the ability to sync your bookmarks, notes,contacts, calendars, and reminders, as well as Photo Stream, a way to store your photos in the cloud (why it gives Photo Stream a separate menu, I don’t know; the only option that menu gives is yet another on/off slider). By the way, did anyone notice that Apple changed the slider images? Personally, I liked the old ones better. As seen immediately above the big red Delete Account button, you can also back up your devices straight to iCloud. However, this disables automatic backup with iTunes, so I left it disabled.
Twitter integration in iOS 5
iOS 5 now features direct integration with Twitter, allowing single sign-on for all Twitter apps, a most welcome addition after Twitter’s basically made developers of Twitter clients bend over and take their crappy web-based authentication. Apparently iOS will be spared the awful experience, as you can add accounts directly in the Settings app.
Posting to Twitter from Safari
You can also post to Twitter directly from certain apps, including Safari (pictured above) and Photos. However, photos tweeted from Photos seem to be in highly reduced quality.
While I find this functionality both well-implemented and convenient, I’m slightly worried about the precedent that it’s setting. If Apple is this accepting of third-party software out-of-box, this may eventually introduce Facebook support in iOS. Considering I do not use Facebook, I would find this to be unnecessary bloat. And for those that do, if I really need to scare you with what may happen, this could lead to crapware in Macs down the line. What I’ve always enjoyed about Mac OS X is that Apple makes both the hardware and the software, therefore wants to make both work well together, not loading a ton of crapware onto Macs out of box. While this is somewhat different, it is setting a precedent that I’m concerned may lead to such things.
A notification in iOS 5
As was probably the most (over-?)hyped feature of iOS 5, Apple has included a revamped notifications system. While I’ve never used MobileNotifier, I’ve seen screenshots/videos, and the fact that Apple has hired its developer, Peter Hajas, is apparent (while talking about Apple hiring a jailbreak developer, let me add a bit to my rant on Sony by saying Apple is setting an excellent example of how Sony should’ve handled their argument with Geohot).
Notification Center
Apple has also provided Notification Center, a summary of recent notifications. It allows you to open the app that created them, or to clear the notifications created by a given app.
Lock screen notifications
Notifications on the lock screen have also been improved. You can swipe across one to go to the app that created it, and it now handles multiple notifications better.
Notification options
Notifications in iOS 5 are also incredibly customizable. You may select whether they appear in Notification Center, whether they appear on the lock screen, and even how many messages appear in Notification Center. Furthermore, it is also of note that Apple has not completely removed the old notification system. You can configure an application to use the old notification style by setting it to use “Alerts” instead of “Banners.”
Thank you for reading my review of some of the many changes in iOS 5. While not pictured, a couple of other things are of note, such as the music app having been split into two on all devices. The music app on iPad has also been redesigned. The one thing that really, really peeves me about iOS 5 thus far, and I really hope is a bug that Apple plans to address, is the “lock out of device upon X incorrect passcode attempts” functionality. For one thing, syncing with iTunes no longer resets this lockout. Furthermore, even if it did, if Apple really plans to cut the cord and sell to users who don’t own a PC or a Mac, they’ve gotta at least make that functionality an option. My password would take millions of years to bruteforce, and I’d rather some stupid kid playing with my devices not prevent the person intended to access the device (me) take millions of years to get into the device owned by the person who actually knows the password. I don’t need a software-enforced lockout to keep my stuff safe. Besides this (hopefully once again a bug that will soon be addressed), my only real disappointment with iOS 5 is that it hasn’t provided a unified way to access files across apps (as opposed to the Open in… functionality that gives me a mild measure of trouble in VLC). Storage space is finite, and having to make a copy of a large movie just to watch it, as opposed to being able to just watch the copy that I downloaded from its present location, is quite annoying.
In summary, while iOS 5 has a couple of critical bugs, and lacks one feature I really wanted to see, it’s certainly moving even further in the right direction. The best mobile OS on the market today, and most likely for the entire foreseeable future, has gotten better with messaging across devices, sexy new unobtrusive notifications, finally gaining complete independence from the PC, and built-in free cloud backup and syncing.
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