Ulysses' Companions' Odyssey (provisional app review)

Posted by MadaboutDana
Apr 20, 2022 at 09:47 AM

Nice one, Dormouse – I’m grateful for the reference to Inspire Writer, which I’d never heard of but is clearly inspired by Ulysses. Great for Windows users!

22111: I’m still working my way through your summary of your first couple of posts, but am immediately struck by a rather extraordinary assertion: “Whilst Mac users can trial Windows software on their Macs, prospects for Mac-only software are to first buy a Mac, then they may trial - by provision by the Apple management who by all legal means available close their system”.

How can I trial Windows software on my Mac? Unless I happen to have invested in (a) some kind of virtualisation environment (e.g. Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox) and (b) Windows itself.

Without this (rather expensive) software, I can’t possibly run Windows trials.

But perhaps you mean that Windows users can’t emulate Macs in the same way? That’s a fair point, but I’m not quite sure why you’re so annoyed by this. These are commercial operations, applying large-scale/long-term business strategies. As has been pointed out many times before, Microsoft took one route, Apple took another (apart from Michael Spindler’s rather disastrous attempt to license the Mac operating system to third parties back in the early 1990s). While Apple aren’t perfect, Microsoft certainly isn’t an angel either (just check out their latest attempts to introduce advertising to the Windows platform – remember, fully licensed by users, we’re not talking about an unpaid platform).

Apple has been compared to a cult/religion many times, but any cultish aspects have been largely negated over the last few years by their stubborn refusal to listen to user feedback on their hardware in particular. Believe me, this didn’t go down well in the Apple-using community. More recently, they’ve started listening again, but even so, you’ll still find plenty of critical voices out there (check out this article in MacObserver, for example: https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/tests-show-m1-mac-thunderbolt-ports-dont-live-up-to-full-potential/).

I’ve just had to replace my ageing MacBook Pro 15” with one of the new M1 MacBook Pros (14”). And all I can say to you is, it’s the best notebook I’ve ever used, with an astonishingly solid build, high-quality screen, battery life (12-15 hours, depending), keyboard and, of course, macOS. Even so, it’s not perfect, and there are plenty of irreverent Mac users out there who are happy to say so.

More exciting, I think, are Linux-based movements to produce totally independent software/hardware environments that liberate the “average user” (whoever that is) from the dominance of the giant tech companies, whether that’s Microsoft, Apple, Google or Amazon (interesting how IBM has pretty much vanished from the scene, no?). There’s already an alternative Android phone available (fully modular design, so you can replace faulty components yourself; uses a non-Google-reliant version of Android: https://www.fairphone.com/en/). Some manufacturers (Dell, Lenovo) sell notebooks with Linux distributions installed, and despite the Intel-Microsoft duopoly’s efforts, some notebooks are still sold without the licensing locks in firmware that have deliberately blocked users’ attempts to install Linux. Now that, I suggest, is a tactic worthy of your anger! As is HP/Canon/Epson’s “hire-a-printer” tactic that more or less forces users to subscribe to monthly ink deliveries in exchange for being able to actually use their printers.

Your analysis of software, while interesting, is – I think – too wide-ranging and doesn’t explore the UX systematically enough to be really useful, although I appreciate your efforts. Software, like websites, is beginning to show signs of building up to a new UX revolution. I for one can’t wait, because too many of the currently popular application interfaces are still based on very outdated models (starting with the whole file system thing). But that’s not confined to Apple – that’s true across the board.

Just my thoughts!