Damn You, WHICH Auto-Correct?

If you've had a smartphone for any length of time, you're no doubt intimately familiar with the concept behind the site Damn You, Auto Correct! even if you've not yet visited it. (But you should.) :-)

Perhaps more subtle than the humorous mismatches between intent and attempted repair is the philosophy behind various implementations of auto-correct. I've recently been using a Samsung Galaxy Note exclusively after having had various iPhones for several years, and for all the similarities between the two, one thing is glaringly different: the way auto-correct works.

At first I was just drying out from the familiarity Flavr-Aid, thinking that the iOS spell-checker was simply better. And then I started to notice that the Android spell-checker followed a predictable pattern. The iOS spell-checker, as on iPhones and my current iPad 2, follows another. If you aren't aware of that, you'll be very frustrated when moving from one to another.

The iOS spell-checker, when it can't match your registered key-taps to a complete word in its dictionary, assumes that you've fat-fingered a misspelling, and so the (one and only by default) suggestion it offers is based on that assumption. There are linguistic principles that determine how it makes that decision. While those have been understood for some time, it's been only relatively recently that a real-time-capable implementation has been both (relatively) affordable and easily portable. Auto-correct on the iPhone has been steadily improving, likely due both to improved algorithms and more powerful processing capabilities. OK, fine; that's what people who've only used iOS lately expect; it works reasonably well as expected, what could possibly be different?

Android hasn't always had the top-tier processing capability or memory of an iPhone 4 or 5 to throw at anything, let alone spell-checking. (Recent high-end phones are extremely competitive, but that's a whole other post.) If they can't or shouldn't throw enough resources at spell-check to actually correct in real time, then what can be done?

Take the other fork in the road, of course. Don't assume auto-correct to be spell-checking; instead, use it to reduce the number of key-taps needed to type longer words, à la TextExpander. Of necessity, this will involve a fair amount of "real" spell-checking. Android's spell-checker seems to assume that any typos are typos in the first few letters of a longer word. Further, it seems to assume that the first letter typed in a new word is always correct, and rarely if ever shows alternate words with a different first letter. (Android, unlike iOS, shows a list of candidate words, allowing the user to select among them with a single tap — further speeding rapid [if initially correct] typing.)

Which is "better" depends on your preferences and the accuracy of your typing on the device you are using. With my Lincoln Log-like fingers, I could maintain an effective 2-3 wpm rate on an iPhone 4; nearly double that on an iPad. After my iPhone 4 was stolen (apparently for parts as it was never again turned on), I bought the cheapest 3G hotspot-capable phone I could find at Lucky Plaza, which turned out to be a grey-market HTC Explorer. That was easily one of the two most painful experiences I have ever had in over 15 years of using mobile phones. A very, very kind and loving soul loaned me a Samsung Galaxy Note running Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich"). Comparing the Explorer to the Note was slightly more comical (and less fair) than putting a 1976 Chevy Chevette onto a track next to a Bugatti Veyron and seeing who can finish 20 laps before the other. (If the Bugatti gives the Chevette a 15-lap head start, my money's still on the Bugatti. I've owned a Chevette.)

I now find that I type comparably fast on the (~5.3-inch) Galaxy Note as on the 10-inch iPad. I'll be returning the borrowed Note soon (geologically speaking, at least); I'm just waiting to be able to have a good demo of an iPhone 5 to compare, and see which I really prefer. The new iPhone is going to have to be at least as good as the fans and reviews say it is; this Galaxy Note is sweet…

The App Store: I Get It, but...hmmmmm...

Apple's "post-PC," "new media" iDevices are selling quite nicely, thank you. Millions of people have become enthusiastic, loyal, even evangelistic customers without ever clicking a mouse on an Apple desktop or laptop computer. Given that Apple's profit from a laptop or desktop computer is several times what it is for an iDevice, it's almost imperative for them to find ways to make the Mac desktop/laptop user experience support the traits that have been most successful on iDevices. This includes, especially, the App Store.

Fans of the App Store, either on the iDevices or the Mac, point to the fact that you can have several different devices (iPad/iPhone, iMac/MacBook) using the same Apple ID, and thus can install "content" that you "purchase" on several devices; all you need to do is register them under the same ID.

But the Mac, historically, has had a rather different model. You would (and still can, fortunately; at least for now) either purchase a disk with software on it, or download a "disk image;" a file which appeared to Mac OS to be a disk. As soon as you did that, a window would open with the program icon in it and an icon for your Applications folder, and you'd drag the icon over onto the folder. The software would be copied to your hard disk, and you'd be able to then run it like any other program. Want to uninstall the program? Drag its icon to the trash.

Another benefit of that latter model is that you have actual media — either physical or virtual — which you can use to reinstall the program on your computer or, license permitting, on other computers you personally or corporately own. You're very aware during the "normal" installation process that you're working with some sort of artefact which contains the program you're installing. That artefact either is or tries reasonably successful to simulate a physical object.

We've built up certain expectations about physical objects. They exist; though they can be destroyed, they don't generally disappear without direct action by you or another person. With very few exceptions, they can be used more than once. These and other expected traits give the object some value — economic, sentimental or otherwise.

The App Store for the Mac does away with the artefact; it replaces it with an abstraction that's not "real" in any sense you can point to afterwards. To a degree that some find disturbing, it turns the product with which you previously dealt into a service. That service can become unavailable for any number of reasons, not all of which are necessarily a result of your actions or intent.

Put another way, it turns the old "software as a product" notion, and in particular the notion of free software, on their heads. Most free software licenses (try to) make clear that the user is In Charge of his or her own system, including use of the software being licensed. The copyright holder retains certain rights, but yields the remainder to the user under conditions designed to make sure that the software remains "free" in the sense that it was originally licensed. The user may examine the software, redistribute it as he got it, (under most FSF-approved licenses) can create modified or derivative works so long as they are licensed compatibly to the original, and so on. Above all else, the user has the unquestioned right to make as many backup copies of the software as desired in case the original installation becomes unavailable (hard disk crash, extreme weather event, etc.) The user has rights, and has the means to safeguard those rights by virtue of the fact that he has a physical copy of the software in its original, usable form.

The App Store says "Mr User, you don't have to worry your pretty little head with any of that. You just point-and-click your way through the store, and when you check out, the software will be installed automatically on your system." That's great — so far as it goes. But there's no option, at least none that I have yet found, to retain a copy of the disk-image file(s) for the software you just licensed. If your drive goes south for the winter and doesn't come back, you "just" replace the drive, reinstall Mac OS X and install all your apps from the App Store.

That's fine for small programs, especially if you have a high-speed Internet connection using a properly managed ISP. But, unlike the App Store for iDevices, several programs licensed through the App Store for the Mac are in the hundreds-of-megabytes-to-gigabytes range. Try downloading Xcode 4 on a 128K ISDN line. And iLife. And iWork. And... you see the problem. Wouldn't it be much better if you at least had the option to manage all that locally, yourself, the way it's traditionally been for the Mac? And that doesn't even take into account Apple's well-documented "control-freakery," where software available one day — or even already installed on your system — may not be available the next. Even if we give Apple the benefit of all doubt, ascribing to them motives as pure as the driven snow, there's still a real problem here.

The iTunes Music Store has now moved away from "protected" DRM-encumbered music, because customers made it clear that they wouldn't stand for the inconvenience and loss of control over product that they had paid for. I can back up my iTunes library however I wish, and be reasonably confident that should anything happen to my Mac, I'll be able to restore the library on my new replacement Mac without downloading it all again from the ITMS.

Why can't I have that same confidence with the software products I license through the App Store? Apple aren't the only ones who think they should have a fair amount of control over "their" "stuff."

Comments?

Companies Lose their Minds, Then their Partners, Then their Customers, Then...

Following is a comment which I posted to Jason Kincaid's article on TechCrunch, "Why Apple's New Ban Against Sexy Apps is Scary". I don't know why Apple seem to be deliberately shooting themselves in so many ways on the iPhone recently; I am sure that they are leaving golden opportunities for Palm, Android and anybody else who isn't Apple or Microsoft.

Even if you're not developing for the iPhone or even for the Mac, this whole drift should concern you — because its most likely effect is going to be that you have fewer choices in what should be a rapidly-expanding marketplace.

Thanks for reading.

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Exactly; they're pulling a Singapore here. They're saying "we're better than anybody else" because they've got this App Store with hundreds of thousands of titles, and hundreds of useful apps. Then they turn around and say "we're the only game in town; we're not going to let you sell your apps to customers any way except through us — and oh, yeah, we can be completely arbitrary and capricious before, during and after the fact."

Let me be clear: up until very recently, I've been an unalloyed Apple fan; the only sensible response to 25+ years of Windows development and user support and 10 years hitting similar but different walls in Linux. I'm typing this on one of the two Macs sitting on my desk. I've got logs and statistics that prove I'm far more productive on my worst Mac days than I ever was on my best Windows days. And I've had several Switcher clients over the past few years who say the same thing.

I can write and sell any app I want on the Mac; Apple even give me all the (quite good) tools I need right in the box. I can use any app I want to on my Mac; the average quality level is so far above Windows and Linux apps it's not even funny. In neither of those do I need the permission of Apple or anyone else outside the parties to the transaction involved. Apple do have good support for publicising Mac apps; browse http://www.apple.com/downloads/ to see a (far earlier) way they've done it right. But developers don't have to use their advertising platform.

With the iPhone, and soon the iPad, they're doing things in a very untraditionally-Apple way: they're going far out of their way to alienate and harm developers. You know, those people who create the things that make people want to use the iPhone in the first place. And a lot of us are either leaving the platform or never getting into iPhone development in the first place.

And that can't be healthy for the long-term success of the Apple mobile platform (iPhone/iPad/iWhatComesNext). As a user, as a developer, as a shareholder, that disturbs me, as I believe it should disturb anyone who cares about this industry.

Piling On: More Kibitzing about the iPad

What do I think about the new iPad? Glad you asked. What's that? You didn't, really – or not many of you did. But that's OK, really; at least two other writers argue that we're going from an era of "nearly universal literacy" to "nearly universal authorship", so here's my two rupiah worth.

John Gruber, the blogger behind Daring Fireball, is a justly respected voice on a variety of topics, notably all things Apple. Two of his posts on the iPad, The iPad Big Picture and Various and Assorted Thoughts... are a good starting point if you've somehow just managed to crawl out of a bubble that protected you from hearing anything about it for the past, oh, six months or so, or more crucially the last three days. I also enjoyed reading Stephen Fry's thoughts on the device.

But one bit I would recommend above all to anybody who is thinking about "what does this iPad thing/phenomenon really mean?", or anyone who just cares about free expression, open societies, and all the other progress that humanity has made these past few centuries, should seriously ponder Alex Payne's thoughts On the iPad. Al3x makes some very good, if deeply disturbing, points.

As many people have pointed out, the iPad differs in one critical respect from every personal computing device as computing device that Apple have ever built, from the Apple I on up to the iMac that I am typing this on. The iPad is a device, first, foremost and specifically, for the consumption of digital "content". As James Kendrick says, Apple just want us to push the 'Buy' button, in an endless, mindless Pavlovian dystopia.

"Hang on," you say, "it can't really be as bad as all that. You're just pushing histrionics!" I truly hope so. But consider: Apple has sold every Mac, as well as all their earlier models, on the basis of a small group of generally positive, empowering ideas:

• "It just works better."
• "The power to be your best."
• And, of course, "Think different".

One of the (many) things that make the Mac special is the fact that every single Mac sold comes with a copy of the full development toolset for Mac OS X, right in the box. Anybody who wants to invest the time and effort can become a Mac developer. (The money involved, of course, is in buying a Mac in the first place, but you were going to do that anyway, right?) You. The smart-aleck kid down the street. Your Aunt Tillie. Anyone. That has been one of the core strengths of the Apple Mac platform and product; the ability for anyone, without genuflecting before any sort of gatekeeper, to write anything they can conceive of, using some pretty great tools. And thousands, dozens of thousands have. You don't need to be a big corporation. You don't even need to ask Apple's permission, or use Apple's site to market your creation. All you need is an idea, some persistence, and the willingness to learn.

Apple made a radically different statement with the iPhone. If you want to write a "real" app for the iPhone, you need to submit your bits to the App Store, a process that is the seeming antithesis of open, collaborative or fair. As a practical matter, you need to join the iPhone Developer Program, and pay a fee. Doing so will subject you to various license agreements, limitations of what can be developed, and so on.

Apple justified this by saying "hey, the iPhone is a phone, an appliance. We have to keep some control over things, to make sure that our (non-technical) customers have the best possible experience — and incidentally to ensure that we continue to honor agreements we've made with carriers like AT&T." And the developer community grumbled and moaned, but large numbers went along. And the App Store, by almost any measure, is a raging success in the aggregate — even though most individual developers aren't making much at all.

Now comes the iPad, which has been widely, often dismissively, described as a "super-sized iPod Touch." Which, in several senses, it is. But whereas the "iTouch" is an accessory in one's life, being a combination PDA, music player, and (ostensibly) simple application platform, the iPad promises to be all that and more. Specifically, it's being pitched as this "magical" piece of technology which you'll "always" have at hand. Why? Well, you can listen to music on it, or watch videos, or run the same apps you ran on your iTouch or iPhone along with a new generation of "super-sized" apps. Oh, and Apple did announce that their office-software packages would be available on the iPad — so you can use it for "work stuff."

What about the kind of creative outlets that have been highlighted at each Mac introduction since the 1980s? Well, um, good luck with that. Because, even though this is a "real" computer, it's "really not"; it's an up-sized iPod Touch, which is (officially, mostly) a passive device.

The iPad is being pitched as a "magical", but inherently passive, device that consumers will use to buy (or, usually, rent) "content". There'll be "social media" like Facebook, Twitter and so on; the iPhone already supports those. Anything that can be done entirely over the Web, without the use of plugins like Java or Flash (like blogger.com, is kosher, too. But anything truly creative, "revolutionary", "game-changing", is going to have to survive the App Store gauntlet — which means that it's going to have to be consistent with Apple's view of how the iPad "should" be used. As a passive device which consumers use to buy access to content.

Think "57 Channels and Nothing On," a million times over. Perfect for the top-down, don't-make-me-think society. (I'm sure it will be very popular here in Singapore, for precisely that reason.)

Apple, you can do better. We know, because you've mostly done much better before, and encouraged us, developers and users, to do great things with what you've built for us. The iPad isn't so much a step in the wrong direction, it's a leap of faith worthy of Wile E. Coyote — but we know how far off the edge of the cliff we've gone. And the only way to go from here, is down.