> He doesn't say it doesn't download things in the background. He excplicitly says it does that.
Where does he explicitly say it downloads things in the background, or even vaguely imply it?
At no point does he acknowledge it downloads anything after the initial spinner. "Watching a splash screen rotate a “Loading…” spinner for 80 seconds isn’t it."
Full quote: "I’m not saying The Daily needs to magically make an entire new issue download to an iPad in 10 seconds or less. I’m saying they need to engineer the app so that it can start showing something interesting in 10 seconds or less — and then keep downloading the rest of the issue, piece by piece, in the background."
He's specifically not -- and neither was I -- talking about downloading in the background when the app isn't running: "I realize", he says, "that iOS has no mechanism that would allow The Daily to have issues download automatically in the background, overnight."
Instead, his last two paragraphs are asking for them to "engineer" a mechanism to show something quickly and download more after. He points out other apps that have such a mechanism, and accomplish it in varying amounts of time. This app also has such a mechanism, but no phrase acknowledges that. If he knew it was doing that, he could have said, "Like Flipboard and others, The Daily is downloading most of the issue in the background, but since they already have that mechanism built in, they need to get the new issue's cover shown in 10 seconds instead of 80."
Instead, he says, "they need to engineer the app so that it can start showing something interesting ... then keep downloading the rest of the issue piece by piece", as though it weren't already "engineered" to do such a thing, just choosing to get too much.
As an aside, something's up with his broadband. I'm in NYC. Not sure what's wrong with his connection, but here's how long it takes on my iPad which is slow on WiFi with the 4.3 beta 2 dev build:
0 - 10 seconds: splash screen (app itself is loading)
44 seconds: cover image and adjacent pages viewable, interactivity enabled
Note that this is roughly half the time he's experiencing.
45 seconds to completion: spinner changes to 0% - 100% progress pie chart, issue can be browsed while this is downloading the rest of the issue.
He may in fact mean what you're saying, but that's not what he wrote. He wrote a lot of copy about engineering a mechanism to show something and download more later, without once acknowledging it has such a mechanism already.
Final proof I'm not misreading:
"I noticed yesterday that it took way too long to load the day’s new issue. From the time I tapped the icon on my home screen until I could read a single page, today’s issue took one minute and twenty seconds."
No. At the time you can read a single page, it has not downloaded "the day's issue". It has downloaded enough for interactivity to begin. It downloads most of "today's issue" after he stopped the timer.
> Where does he explicitly say it downloads things in the background, or even vaguely imply
Sorry, I was mistaken about that.
Still, everything else I said still stands. It's not downloading in 10 seconds and letting you use it. It's downloading in 80 seconds and letting you use it. Both cases allow for continued downloading. You asserted that currently the app downloads and is usable in 10 seconds. It is not. That's my contention, based on DF, and that is where the confusion lied in your comment.
More precisely, it's not the downloading in the background that's important, rather, the interactivity within 10 seconds that is.
> You asserted that currently the app downloads and is usable in 10 seconds. It is not. That's my contention, based on DF, and that is where the confusion lied in your comment.
On the contrary, my first comment was:
"He's right it's slow to let you interact. He's dead wrong that it doesn't download in the background."
Furthermore, I provided my own timings, none of which "asserted" it's usable in 10 seconds.
Again, I agree with Gruber it's slow. I disagree with you that I read him wrong. He did fail to acknowledge the app is engineered to download most of the issue in the background after (too slowly, whether 45 seconds or 80) allowing interactivity to begin.
Discussing this any further risks becoming circular.
Where does he explicitly say it downloads things in the background, or even vaguely imply it?
At no point does he acknowledge it downloads anything after the initial spinner. "Watching a splash screen rotate a “Loading…” spinner for 80 seconds isn’t it."
Full quote: "I’m not saying The Daily needs to magically make an entire new issue download to an iPad in 10 seconds or less. I’m saying they need to engineer the app so that it can start showing something interesting in 10 seconds or less — and then keep downloading the rest of the issue, piece by piece, in the background."
He's specifically not -- and neither was I -- talking about downloading in the background when the app isn't running: "I realize", he says, "that iOS has no mechanism that would allow The Daily to have issues download automatically in the background, overnight."
Instead, his last two paragraphs are asking for them to "engineer" a mechanism to show something quickly and download more after. He points out other apps that have such a mechanism, and accomplish it in varying amounts of time. This app also has such a mechanism, but no phrase acknowledges that. If he knew it was doing that, he could have said, "Like Flipboard and others, The Daily is downloading most of the issue in the background, but since they already have that mechanism built in, they need to get the new issue's cover shown in 10 seconds instead of 80."
Instead, he says, "they need to engineer the app so that it can start showing something interesting ... then keep downloading the rest of the issue piece by piece", as though it weren't already "engineered" to do such a thing, just choosing to get too much.
As an aside, something's up with his broadband. I'm in NYC. Not sure what's wrong with his connection, but here's how long it takes on my iPad which is slow on WiFi with the 4.3 beta 2 dev build:
0 - 10 seconds: splash screen (app itself is loading)
10 - 22 seconds: black (what's that about?)
22 - 44 seconds: Loading... spinner (initial pages loading)
44 seconds: cover image and adjacent pages viewable, interactivity enabled
Note that this is roughly half the time he's experiencing.
45 seconds to completion: spinner changes to 0% - 100% progress pie chart, issue can be browsed while this is downloading the rest of the issue.
He may in fact mean what you're saying, but that's not what he wrote. He wrote a lot of copy about engineering a mechanism to show something and download more later, without once acknowledging it has such a mechanism already.
Final proof I'm not misreading:
"I noticed yesterday that it took way too long to load the day’s new issue. From the time I tapped the icon on my home screen until I could read a single page, today’s issue took one minute and twenty seconds."
No. At the time you can read a single page, it has not downloaded "the day's issue". It has downloaded enough for interactivity to begin. It downloads most of "today's issue" after he stopped the timer.