The Challenge of Just Fine
But the user me? I don’t care. I have an expensive Apple TV an expensive 4K monitor, and an expensive HomePod speaker, and I just want it all to work, because my expectation of Apple is to sweat the details and make it work.
And here I am, telling the TV that yes, it should use the HomePod as speakers again. For the fourth time today. That’s one of those small usability friction point that keeps me from wanting to use the Apple TV and leaves me feeling frustrated that it’s just not as good as it really is. It seems like a minor point — and again hashtag first world problems — but it’s the kind of thing that turns someone from a massive fan of a product into an “oh, it’s okay” person.
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A big part of what made Apple successful in its turnaround was a commitment to sweating the details and living or dying on “it solves your problem, and it just works”. And over the last few years, Apple’s lost that level of detail and commitment to quality. It’s all about sweating the details, and bluntly Apple’s not doing a great job of that right now.
Previously: Anker SoundSync Drive Bluetooth Car Receiver.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
It just seems sloppy and yes, not 'sweating the details.'
Yeah, well, as a long[er?]-time Mac user, I can tell you we're still no worse than par with OS 7 system extensions. ;^) At some point, I think we went from dealing with Macs' weird foibles as a badge of honor because we still liked Mac OS [sic] more to considering Apple as a company we think should do no wrong.
I think Apple's earned this extra scruntiny, but it's worth remembering that they earned it after being the lovable loser for nearly as long (longer?) as they've been the 800 lbs. gorilla.
"Every time I navigate to the Music aoo (to be clear: it is open in the background--I'm not opening it cold; all I've done is previously hit 'Pause' in the app) & play the paused song or playlist, I have to open Airplay to tell it to play to the same HPod speakers it was playing to last time (it always defaults to the phone's speakers). I'm talking about even if I paused the Music app, like, 5 minutes ago."
This happens to me every time as well. Except in my case I'm connecting to an Airport Express to my home stereo (S/PDIF) via AirPlay 2. It's super annoying. Like in what universe would I want to stop sending audio to Airplay (without explicitly switching back to my iPhone) just because I paused the music for a few minutes?
I'm having similar experience with my iPhone XS (but it was the same with my X) using Airplay (1 or 2) with my Homepods.
Every time I navigate to the Music aoo (to be clear: it is open in the background--I'm not opening it cold; all I've done is previously hit 'Pause' in the app) & play the paused song or playlist, I have to open Airplay to tell it to play to the same HPod speakers it was playing to last time (it always defaults to the phone's speakers). I'm talking about even if I paused the Music app, like, 5 minutes ago.
I'm a *very* long-time Apple user, and this required extra navigation step irks me every time (more, of course, because now I'm thinking it about it). I cannot work out a way that this could be considered a feature. It just seems sloppy and yes, not 'sweating the details.'