Forget an Apple Watch, iPad Pro, an iPhone mini, an iTV, a Retina display MacBook Air, or the next iterations of Mac OS X and iOS. Apple’s main goal for 2015 to be to fix the myriad problems with its software offerings — problems that are tarnishing the company’s reputation. Apple certainly has the capability to put the resources into place to fix its software and online offerings. The company has about US$160 billion in cash available (at least per its balance sheets). Note to Tim Cook: hire as many of the best and brightest folks out there to deal with these problems. Let’s start with iTunes. I won’t get into whether or not it’s become bloated (though it has); there are plenty of other problems for Apple to address. As noted by iTunes guru Kirk McElhearn on his Kirkville blog, Family Sharing doesn’t seem to be ready for prime time. According to Apple, ““Family Sharing makes it easy for up to six people in your family to share each other’s iTunes, iBooks, and App Store purchases without sharing accounts. Pay for family purchases with the same credit card and approve kids’ spending right from a parent’s device. And share photos, a family calendar, and more to help keep everyone connected.” However, there are too many got-cha’s with it to make it “just work,” as Apple promises us its products will. I won’t get into all snafus; read Kirk’s article for details. Then there’s a problem I’ve faced with an Apple TV not being able to “find” the iTunes library on my Mac. I’m unable to play content on my iMac on my HDTV, something that should be (and used to be, in my experience) simple. It boils down to this: my Apple TV (third generation) won’t connect with the iTunes library on my Mac. Mac OS X, iTunes, and the Apple TV software are all the latest versions. Here’s what I’ve tried to remedy the problem: ° I turned Home Sharing on and off on both my iMac and my Apple TV. ° I quit and restarted iTunes. ° I logged out of and back into my iTunes Store account. ° I restarted my Apple TV. That didn’t work, so I reset it to factory conditions and re-entered all passwords, home network info, etc. ° I rebooted my (Comcast) router. ° I completely removed my iTunes folder from my iMac and replaced it with an older version. None of this helped. I was on the phone with Apple Support for over an hour. They couldn’t help me. On the bright side, they did give me three movie rental credits on the iTunes Store. Oops. I rented a movie — and was billed for the rental. None of my three credits were automatically applied, as is supposed to happen. Then there are issues regarding the syncing of iTunes libraries between Mac OS X and iOS devices, album artwork that just disappears, and more. However, let’s move on from iTunes. Consider the iOS 8 embarrassment of 2014. iOS 8 was released with several bugs. iOS 8.1 was released to fix those bugs — but introduced new problems. Finally, iOS 8.2 was released to fix the bugs of 8/8.1. I’ve heard of folks who’ve had similar problems with Mac OS X Yosemite. However, I have to admit that I’ve had few problems since upgrading. Still, perhaps it’s time that Apple rethought its every-year “major” upgrade of Mac OS X and iOS unless it gets it quality control in order. Then there are problems with iCloud Drive, mainly involving synchronization between devices. Apple says the feature lets you “safely store all your presentations, spreadsheets, PDFs, images, and any other kind of document in iCloud. Documents you store in iCloud Drive will be kept up to date across all of your devices, and you can access them from your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.” Kinda, sorta. But it still needs work. Also, isn’t it time we had the ability to merge Apple IDs, so that all the content from both is connected to just a single account? Someone could easily have ended up with more than one account because he created one Apple ID with an email address no longer used and a second one with a current email address. Would merging Apple IDs be easy? No. But surely it’s something the world’s best tech company could make possible. Speaking of which, yes, Apple is the best tech company out there. Despite the recent software flaws, Mac OS X and iOS are still MUCH better than, for instance, Windows and Android. However, I don’t expect software from Apple’s that’s simply better than the competition. I expect software and hardware that “just work” in tandem.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 17:49:50 +0000
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