

Why aren’t Apple’s error messages written by marketers? - aresant
http://www.conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/06/why-arent-apples-error-messages-written-by-marketers/

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JasonFruit
Side note: I don't think error messages should ever start with "Whoops!" It
sounds condescending and unprofessional, at least to me.

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jrajav
Agreed. I'm reminded of point 3 in the Android guide to good UI messages, a
little gem of technical writing style:
<http://developer.android.com/design/style/writing.html>

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akldfgj
^ Left hand.

Right hand: "Aw, snap" when the software fails:
[http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...](http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95669)

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Lagged2Death
Apple's Windows apps have traditionally been less polished than their Mac
counterparts. I don't suppose there's a team at Apple deliberately sabotaging
the Windows versions, but Apple has every reason in the world to focus on the
Mac versions at the expense of the Windows versions.

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jrajav
I'm not convinced that allowing their Windows software to slip in quality -
software they force you to use if you buy an iPhone - will improve their brand
image or prompt consumers to go purchase an iMac instead.

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denzil_correa
Interesting point. Apart from error messages what other features in Apple
products are un-Apple like?

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nameiscarl
Bloated application : itunes. Clunky user experience : finder. Bug ridden OS
updates : you know the ones. And best of all, offering two ways to run Windows
on your Apple branded hardware : bootcamp and parallels :p

Fortunately, there are also upsides. The ios app store (even if all the major
mobile app stores launched in 2008) was a godsend and lifted from linux
package managers. At least, that's how I see it.

Black and white is boring. Shades of grey are more interesting. Unless there
are 50 of them.

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mikeash
How was the iOS app store lifted from Linux package managers? The main
characteristic of Linux package managers, as I see it, is dependency
management. Third-party iOS apps aren't allowed to have any external
dependencies outside of the OS, so there is no dependency management.
Installing an iOS app is just a matter of downloading it and unpacking it.

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akldfgj
From dpkg to Ubuntu Software Center, update managers have provided a list of
installable software that can be downloaded from a repository, similar in
functionality to the App Store UI. (Ubuntu's UI is most like Apple's, but I
don't know which came first.)

