Maybe the Apple Product Managers shouldn't "Just say no!"

Alright, so some of you may have seen my earlier post Apple Product Manager? Just say No! but I am starting to think that perhaps, they need to listen to their engineers occasionally. It hasn't come out yet but there has got to be an RF engineer somewhere around Cupertino that is sitting there at the moment thinking

"I told you so!"

In case you've missed it, I am referring to the "debacle" surrounding the funky antenna design on the new iPhone (I am guessing that the "funky" new design hasn't been used with any other phones because, well as we can see, holding the antenna directly causes attenuation issues.)


It would appear that the culture of saying no has spread to the customer service and PR ranks of the company, now it isn't just the Product Managers saying no, the PR flacks are now saying

 "There are no reception issues with the iPhone4"

 And in the latest blow to the companies image the Boy Genius Report has managed to get some leaked documents for how Apple Care representatives are to deal with calls regarding the antenna issues. The full text is:

1. Keep all of the positioning statements in the BN handy – your tone when delivering this information is important.

a. The iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped. Our testing shows that iPhone 4’s overall antenna performance is better than iPhone 3GS.

b. Gripping almost any mobile phone in certain places will reduce its reception. This is true of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, and many other phones we have tested. It is a fact of life in the wireless world.

c. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 3GS, avoid covering the bottom-right side with your hand.

d. If you are experiencing this on your iPhone 4, avoid covering the black strip in the lower-left corner of the metal band.

e. The use of a case or Bumper that is made out of rubber or plastic may improve wireless performance by keeping your hand from directly covering these areas.

2. Do not perform warranty service. Use the positioning above for any customer questions or concerns.

3. Don’t forget YOU STILL NEED to probe and troubleshoot. If a customer calls about their reception while the phone is sitting on a table (not being held) it is not the metal band.

4. ONLY escalate if the issue exists when the phone is not held AND you cannot resolve it.

5. We ARE NOT appeasing customers with free bumpers – DON’T promise a free bumper to customers.

Which certainly does seem bad, but really that is pretty much how I would expect them to react. Two things surprise me the most about this issue, one is the fact that Steve Jobs doesn't give a shit and the second is the vehemence that people have reacted to the problem. I am not surprised that that there are issues with the new phone, its a new hardware platform, the only thing mature about the iPhone is the OS. The Evo has a 12 second battery life but we haven't seen the same level of vitriol surrounding the issue. I guess the main difference is that they have at least made a noise about attempting to fix it in the next revision.

I can't help but think if Steve had said something more along the lines of we'll investigate the problem instead of hold the phone like you're a contortionist on a lunch break then we wouldn't see this level of reaction.

At the end of the day, the new iPhone has much better reception than the 3GS and most people will probably shove the phone in a case anyway, rendering the whole issue moot. Of course, if AT&T's network didn't suck balls then this whole issue may not even have been noticed.

IE8 Close Dialog Usability Fail

I am willing to admit that it could just be me but I am going to put this out there anyway. I don't like the close dialog in IE8.

I don't think it is designed very well. Where is the "Whoops I didn't actually want to close anything!" option? It's there it is just not immediately obvious even to someone that spends way too much time in web browsers everyday.
It is the "X" in the top right corner. I know it is consistent with how you close windows across the board. But how do you know if you click on it whether it'll close that dialog box or randomly choose one of the two options displayed with the dialog buttons.
Seriously how hard would it have been to put a "Cancel" button or a "Don't Close Anything" button.

I'll crawl back under my rock now.

Why Engineers Suck at Usability

This post actually follows on a bit from my earlier post Apple Product Manager Just Say No where I discussed how some of the success that Apple enjoys flows from their ability to deliver core product well without all the extra crap. The problem is

Engineers Love Features

They crave the latest technology, they need the latest widget and given the option an engineer that is developing a product will go all out to solve all the technical challenges that they can think of and incorporate them all into the product.

The problem here isn't really that the Engineers want to solve as many cool problems as possible and jam it into whatever product that they are developing, it is rather that they don't recognize that most end users don't want them all. And also to pick up on my earlier post, that the Product Managers don't exercise enough control over their product.

The paradox here is that when the Engineer is a consumer of a product they recognize well designed products over badly designed ones and will probably choose the former rather than the later. I say probably because there could always be that one kick arse feature that they want in some crappier product (Div X support in a DVD player for example).

The reason that Engineers don't see a problem with the product or program is

They have a much higher Threshold of Complexity.

Basically they don't tend to be bothered by a device having 48 buttons instead of 4. One example that springs to mind is a washing machine. Before the advent of fancy control circuitry a washing machine probably only had one controller, a knob you turned to the desired wash cycle, now you can get ones with LCD displays and a menu system and 20 buttons all controlling different specific features. Now while the Engineer may not be bothered with this display of controls the average user (my mother for example) would look at it and have a slight panic attack.