Linked List: December 13, 2013

Friday, 13 December 2013

Everything Is a Remix Case Study: The iPhone ★

Nice work, as usual, by Kirby Ferguson. Like a time capsule for the changes wrought by the iPhone — iOS went from revolutionary to kind of stale-looking in a remarkably short period of time.

On the Design of Conference Badges ★

Michael Lopp:

I can write this because over the years, I’ve developed a strong opinion regarding badges.

Anil Dash: ‘What Medium Is’ ★

Anil Dash, back in August:

So what does Medium resemble more, with its organization-by-collection, diminished prominence of the creator’s identity, and easy flow between related pieces of content? It’s simple: YouTube. Though some subset of YouTube users subscribe to channels, most of us just graze through the site when someone sends us a funny video, only barely aware of who even posted a video. Medium is evolving to be the same; We get sent an article that someone wants us to read (or in the case of the recent spoiled-startup-boy essays mentioned in Madrigal’s piece, we get sent an article someone wants us to hate), and then hopefully we click around to check out a few more things.

Medium doesn’t (yet?) support the embedding of its content into other sites, which was essential to YouTube’s wide adoption, but in the core experience by which content is created and discovered, Medium is much closer to “YouTube for Longform” than it is “Blogger Revisited”.

This is the first explanation of what Medium is that actually makes sense to me.

The EFF: ‘Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claiming Its Release Was Accidental’ ★

Peter Eckersley, writing for the EFF:

Yesterday, we published a blog post lauding an extremely important app privacy feature that was added in Android 4.3. That feature allows users to install apps while preventing the app from collecting sensitive data like the user’s location or address book.

After we published the post, several people contacted us to say that the feature had actually been removed in Android 4.4.2, which was released earlier this week. Today, we installed that update to our test device, and can confirm that the App Ops privacy feature that we were excited about yesterday is in fact now gone.

When asked for comment, Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.

Shocker.

Video of Kevin Systrom Introducing Instagram Direct Yesterday ★

Two things:

I was there for this event, and I thought it was nicely done. I continue to be impressed by the thoughtfulness and care put into Instagram, and the same care was put into the staging of the event itself.
At the 12:35 mark, right in the middle of demonstrating the workflow of sending direct messages in Instagram, Systrom had to dismiss the “Rate Instagram” alert. Right in the middle of a public demonstration.

App Store Review Skimming ★

Derek Zumsteg:

Part of the frustration is much deeper than that, and goes to a deeply scummy tactic Apple’s let proliferate. I’m going to call this skimming reviews: you pop up a request for a dialogue, but in a way that encourages only people who are going to leave good ones to do it. OkCupid’s app is the clearest example of this.

App Store Review Prompts ★

Chris Gonzales’s advice to developers on “Rate This App” prompts:

Let us opt out. If you simply must have an App Store review prompt in your app, be sure to give users the chance to say “no thanks”. Don’t pull the kind of bullshit where the only options are “yes” and “remind me later”. That’s scummy and you know it.

Respect the users’ wishes. If a customer chooses to opt out of leaving a review, your app had better not continue prompting them about it afterward. I can live with a one-time popup, but there are some apps that ignore opt-out requests and that is definitely not okay with me. It might even be a good idea to respect opt-outs across app updates, if possible. If I didn’t want to review your app two updates ago, I’m no more likely to do so today.

I’ve been researching this topic, and from what I see, a lot of apps are using the Nick Lockwood iRate open source project, which I think is more than half the problem. iRate might be well-meaning, but it’s a hamfisted approach with poor (that is to say, annoying) default settings. The default alert has three buttons: agree to write a review, “Remind Me Later”, and “No, Thanks”.

That last one, “No, Thanks”, does not mean what you think it means. It really means, “No, but go ahead and ask me again every single time there is an update to the app”.

There is no option to never be prompted again. And even if you agree to leave a review, you’ll get prompted again the next time the app updates.

Choices and Consequences ★

Daniel Jalkut, on my proposed backlash against “Rate This App” alerts:

It’s smart to take it as given that something should be done to encourage users to leave positive ratings and reviews. That’s good business sense. But also take it as given that the farther you tread in the direction of badgering and disrespecting users, the more you chip away at the meaningful non-monetary benefits listed above.