Apple Consistency

One of the reasons that I continue to use Macs happens to be iPhoto.  It's probably the Apple program that I use the most.  I work with other photo programs on Windows and Linux, but my main photo library is on my Macs.  I made a special stop by the Tyson's Store to get my copy of iLife 06 the day after the MacWorld keynote.

I've put the new iLife on my laptop and desktop system without any problems.  Most of the changes I see as improvements.  I am hoping that just maybe the user interface will settle down a little now.  The first picture in the post is the "Share" menu in the previous version of iPhoto.

As you can see from the shot to the left, the "Export" command has moved back under the "File" menu in the new version.  I'm actually happy with that since it was that way in the version before the most recent one.  The shot below shows the old "File" menu.  There are plenty of changes.  I am happy to see that the "Print" command has disappeared from the "Share" menu.

I still get the feeling that Apple no longer has any hard user interface guidelines. They seem to try things and switch back and forth with little thought.  There are literally too many changes from version to version.

I was reminded of that since I grabbed an image on my desktop which is running 10.4.4.  The default way that the image is saved is in a "png" format.  I went over to my wife's iMac to grab an image of the old iPhoto.  She is running 10.3.9, and the default image capture is "pdf."  When I went to save the captured image as a jpeg, I was reminded that you cannot do it that way in the version of Preview that comes with 10.3.9.  You have to go to the file menu and use the "Export" command.  I went to the trouble to change the default image capture on my 10.4.4 laptop to "jpeg."

I guess the biggest change in the new iPhoto is that getting a simple web page of photos up now takes some more time.  My impression is that iWeb is a little slower, but it is the first version.  There are some more things you can do, and the page ends up looking very nice.  I'm not sure that the new web slide show is an improvement, but there might be some preferences that can be changed that I haven't figured out yet.

It's a little strange that all the old dot Mac photo pages can't be managed through the new iWeb.  I already had sites set up that I used regularly to publish photos.  At this point it's going to take some thought to figure out how to either migrate those sites or find a way to publish to them from iWeb.

Sometimes I think Apple going it's own way creates more challenges than is necessary.  I did do my first one hundred percent pure Apple blog, "David's Dot Mac Spot." My first impression is that Apple's blog software is a work in progress.  I believe there is better blogging software out that is actually free, but maybe iWeb will grow on me. 

Apple products usually get better with time, patience, and updates.

Comments

[Stephen]

Launch Terminal, and depending on what file type you want outputted, type (or copy and paste) the appropriate line below followed by return:

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type png

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg

defaults write com.apple.screencapture type tif

Quit Terminal. One caveat: You must restart your computer for the change to take effect right away. To revert to the default png format, type 'defaults
write com.apple.screencapture type png' as shown above (no single quotes), or delete the com.apple.screencapture plist file in your user preferences folder (again, you need to restart).
You can test out different formats,
just remember to restart your computer when you are done or after each test.
Quick and easy (except for the restart annoyance). Hope this helps. Note:
You can swap in jpeg instead of jpg depending on your personal preferences
for file extensions. The same is true of using tiff instead of tif.

[ocracokewaves]

Well for those of us who like to avoid terminal, there another way to accomplish the same thing. You can download SCIT 1.0. It's free and available at the following link. It does have the advantage of the change being instant.

http://www.daniele.ch/downloads.html

It's one of the things that I listed in my post about the way I have customized OS X to my tastes.

http://viewfromthemountain.typepad.com/applepeels/2005/09/some_of_my_favo.html

You need to tell me why you like terminal. I've forgotten. I measure the success of my computing life by the relative absence of visiting terminal in any OS.

[Stephen]

>you need to tell me why you like terminal. I've >forgotten.

Same reason I prefer a manual transmission...fine tuning of the controls.

[Mike]

iWeb produces very illogical markup. It's not invalid code like one gets out of Microsoft Frontpage, but it is has no structure. The code validates (which means it should display all right in most browsers) but it is such a mess, that it would be difficult and time-consuming to fine-tune it by hand. This guy analyzes the markup and says:

"I'm sure iWeb is a very polished and easy app to use on the desktop, but the code it creates will be a nightmare for any intermediate web designer looking to customize the appearance."

http://whatdoiknow.org/archives/002582.shtml

Also, Dave Winer and others have been complaining about the invalid RSS that iPhoto produces. Most aggregators simply can't process it. Another quote:

"The long and short of it is that Apple’s new iPhoto 6 produces invalid RSS that most feed readers will be unable to process. In order to hide this fact, Apple has put up the equivalent of a “best experienced in Internet Explorer” page to turn its own ineptitude into a marketing opportunity."

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2006/01/17/apple-photocasting-mac-only-uses-invalid-rss/

So, while it's nice to have this web stuff integrated into iLife, it does have serious problems. At least TypePad produces clean markup. At least Flickr has RSS feeds that people are going to be able to subscribe to in non-Apple products.

[Roger Swafford]

I like the information I am learning from this site. I am a grad student doing a paper on Apple Computer, Inc. and I need information on the company's own (not their software) productivity as a company. Certainly any trends or benchmarks (past 5 years) or comparisons with other computer companies would be great.Do you have any idea where one could get this information?
thanks!