Blog Standard Stuff

I’ve mentioned on this site before about some of the problems I’d had when
moving from Windows (in all its different flavours) to OS X. Now I’d like to
present some of the things I’d love to see on the Mac, particularly the iLife
suite. If the Apple developers could just consider some of these, I’d be a happy
man.

By the way, I am using SQL-like queries to demonstrate some points in the posting
below. Note - SQL-like.It’s only pseudo code, so please, no comments
on the syntax!

Anyway, I wonder how many of these features you’d like to see introduced?

• Address Book
  • Better integration with iCal for birthdays/anniversarys.
    You enter everyone’s birthdays into your contacts … then have to re-enter
    the whole lot in iCal. One checkbox in Address Book could do this for
    you - [] Automatically enter birthdays/anniversaries into iCal (and perhaps
    option to select which diary if you have several on the go)
    [UPDATE: I received a note from Sarah - no surname! - who wrote:
    “a bizarre oversight by the developers but until they put it in you can always use iCal Birthday Shifter http://www.scotlandsoftware.com/products/icalshifter/]
  • Smart contacts facility: Like the groupings that you
    can assign arbitrarily, it would be great if Address Book let you automatically
    create groups by certain attributes, e.g. select all contacts where (country
    = (US OR United States OR America). This could also be used to identify
    gaps in contact details, e.g. select all contacts where country=null
  • Shared contacts between profiles: An option on each
    contact to allow it to be shared for all users on the computer (to save
    having to recreate on another profile from scratch or exporting then reimporting
    in the other profile, and to avoid changes to contacts being updated on
    one profile but not on another)
  • Shared addresses for couples/families: perhaps you
    have a family with mother, father and three children, all living under
    the same roof. Currently, if you want a contact for each of them, you
    would need to create 5 separate contacts and complete each one. If the
    family moves home or changes telephone number, you have to update 5 cards
    again. My idea - have an option on addresses to ‘use home/work/other address
    belonging to [list of contacts]’. You set the first card, then get the
    next four to refer to that one. Update one and you update them all.
• iPhoto
  • Return key opens photo for editing: why do I always
    have to mouse over and double-click? I can use arrow keys to navigate
    around, but cannot use Return key or Command+O to open in Edit view. Irritating
    and so easy to put right!
  • A search that works: it’s easy to search in Address
    Book, Mail, iCal and iTunes, but in iPhoto you have to create lists of
    keywords and double-click on that. Trouble is, it never works
    for me, and it’s very unintuitive. Guys - just add a frickin’ search field
    already - and make sure that it works!
  • Smart photo albums that can access dimension info:
    I want a way of being able to identify any photos that were taken at stupidly
    high resolutions so that I can open them in PhotoShop and rescale/save
    to save on disk usage, e.g. select all photos from library where (longest
    dimension >2000px). Once I have that list, I can rectify the problem.
    Currently, though, I have to go through each one and read the sizes off
    screen.
  • Name multiple files at once: you know the drill, you’ve
    taken 20 photos of the same thing and don’t want to think of 20 different
    titles for each. You want to highlight all of them and then type: "A
    cow in a field looking pensive" and for all of them to be labelled.
    But, oh no, you will have to go through and apply it to each one of those
    flaming cows, my friends.
    [UPDATE: there is such an option, but it’s not obvious from the UI (the title field grays out when you select more than one photo suggesting that multiple updates are not possible, but you can use Command-Shift-B to to batch titling/commenting. It seems that a lot of Apple software is like this, and by that I mean they hide a lot of functionality for the sake of a simpler UI. Is that the right or wrong approach? Who knows?]
  • Flexible sizing options for email: rather than having
    three predefined sizes when you choose to send a picture by email, why
    not offer a sliding scale? You choose how big the darn thing should be.
  • Some attractive styles for book designs, because frankly
    it’s rubbish at the moment. I’ve not considered ordering a book yet (no
    can do, am travelling anyway)
    but I hope to God that when I get back I’ll have something more interesting
    than a plain white background to play around with!
• iTunes
  • Facility to create custom smart playlists that use more detailed,
    nested SQL-like queries, e.g. select * from library where (((artist="Dido")
    OR (comments like "featuring Dido")) AND (myrating >= 4)).
    Presumably this could be accessed in a text file on the OS somewhere?
    Hand-rolling smart playlists would need to be hidden from amateurs, though!
  • Ability to create smart playlists that refer to other playlists,
    e.g. select songs from playlist["funkyfaves"] where last played
    is > 2 months ago
  • Flag missing artwork: I’d like to create a smart playlist
    that identifies all music that does not have any artwork attached, so
    that I know what images I still need to track down, but the artwork data
    is not available to smart playlist queries.
  • A maximise button that maximises the window,
    not shrinks it. Is it just me, or does that just suck?
  • A way of focussing on the search field quickly. In
    iCal, hitting Command-F places the focus on the search field, and I can
    quickly find a contact. In iTunes, Command-F is used for the Visualisations
    Full Screen mode. Do you use that? I never do, I’m usually using the darned
    computer. So, relegate the visualisations command to Command-Shift-F (or
    similar) and get consistency back into your iApps, Appledudes! Command+F
    for search, please.
  • Better album artwork display behaviour: When the song
    currently playing changes, iTunes should also change the artwork displaying
    in the bottom left corner (if you have opted to show that panel). Currently
    it continues to display the artwork for the last item you happened to
    click on. That might have been ten or more tracks ago. Makes no sense
    at all as it stands.
  • Burn disc without first creating a new playlist: why
    can’t I just Command-click to select 10 tracks - from the library or an
    existing playlist - that I want to burn? Why am I forced to create a playlist,
    burn it, then delete the playlist?
  • Alternative colour schemes: light blue and white is
    not exactly a high-contrast setting for alternating colours in the main
    panel. Could there not be some level of customisation? Scalable
    fonts, too, would be good (rather than the simple choice of ’small’ or
    ’smaller’!).
• iCal
  • Closer integration with Address Book (see above re
    birthdays)
  • Actually, truth be known I’m not a big iCal user … but I’m working
    on it! However, my overall feeling is that it is very poor when
    it comes to keyboard access (tabbing around etc) and moving appointments
    around is not necessarily intuitive (for example, I have an appointment
    on a certain day that I want to move to five days later, I’d like to grab
    it, drag it over to the calendar and drop it on the correct day, but this
    won’t work). [UPDATE: This is possible when you drag from one day to another in week or month view, but I was trying to drag on to the calendar that sits bottom left, just as I would in Outlook - maybe that’s my problem! Anyway, here’s an image explaining what I mean:
    ] I’m going to force myself to use iCal more over the coming
    weeks or months, so this section might be updated later - watch this space.

So, that’s my ‘little’ wish-list. If I had got my act together (and my wallet
out) a long time ago, I might have got this blog running on Movable Type or
something similar that allowed comments. Alas, there is no comments facility,
but if you feel like dropping me a line, email me at sneakytweak AT yahoo CO
UK. You can fill in the blanks on that last part.

If you ever find yourself in Auckland,
New Zealand, and are looking for excellent B&B accommodation near a beach,
I can strongly recommend Ted & Barbara’s place!