Have I Been Too Willing to Give Apple a “Pass” for Flawed Apps, or Do I Just Need Coffee? ☕️

Same. Man, did that paragraph speak to me!

2 Likes

Siri is turned off on my Mac and iPad, and I am thinking about turning it off on my iPhone. “It doesn’t just work” and it may not for years. :frowning_face:

1 Like

if it werent for Carplay I’d keep it off.

1 Like

I do all my voice task adds through “remind me to…” and the OF import from reminders. Adding to specific apps has been too brittle and I don’t add enough per day to remember specific wording.

(Not saying @Bmosbacker should switch. These kinds of email links wouldn’t even import into OF.)

1 Like

I may not be understanding you, but to clarify my process when using OF, I do two things, depending on the need:

  1. If I need an email linked to OF, I bcc my OF email address.
  2. If I’m using voice to capture a reminder, I typically just do as you indicated, I tell Siri to “remind me…” which is then captured by OF.

The above works great. “So, all things considered, why not just use OF?” he asked himself? :thinking: There really is one main reason, which I may be placing far too much emphasis on:

  • When I try to send a note from AN to OF, I get the text of the note, but no link to it. This requires me to get the AN link and then add it to the task. If I share the note to OF, all I get is a blank OF window, which is pointless.

In contrast, if I share a note to Reminders, I get this:

I keep all my project notes in AN, which is why this is a more significant issue than it would otherwise be.

The other issue is I don’t want my personal tasks in OF because ultimately, I will want those in Reminders, and I don’t want to have to re-enter them–I have a lot of recurring personal reminders.

So, my options are:

  1. Ignore the friction associated with OF and just deal with it.
  2. Separate my personal and professional tasks into two task managers: OF and Reminders.
  3. Change my note app.

I am genuinely open to feedback and suggestions!

1 Like

:+1:

(20 characters…)

Was going to try to test, but I may be missing something very obvious: how do you add a link to a mail message to Reminders or Notes? I see no “Share” option in mail!

Thanks for testing! There are two ways:

  1. Select the subject line, right click, and then share

  1. Drag to Reminders

I did a quick test with my iCloud personal account, here’s what I found.

The mechanism works on my Mac even after moving the linked message to another folder. So yes, it works locally… but if you switch to another device (for example your phone) the link embedded in the Reminder will not work until Mail has synced the target folder so it knows that the message has changed its location (and in my case this meant visiting the new folder in my iPhone until I saw the moved email appear there). Otherwise, you either get no mail, or you get to see the parent message in the thread (this happened while reproducing the scenario in my iPad)

2 Likes

In other words, after sync is up to date, you are finding the links continue to work across devices even if the message was moved?

I KNOW I’m not crazy, but until just recently, this has not been working.

Yes. But in my opinion, this shows some fragility and I would use caution, not that anything is lost (only one’s sanity) but can be confusing.

I also have no idea why you didn’t spot this behavior in Notes, because the same issue should happen across different devices (it depends on Mail fetching changes to your mailboxes in your mobile device, not Reminders or Notes). But we are talking about three different apps each with its own syncing policies, perhaps Reminders syncs in “more real time” than Notes, so Mail doesn’t have time to catch up. Or perhaps it depends on the Mail client policy for fetching new changes, or depends on the mail server (Gmail, Exchange, iCloud…). Again, any OS update can have “solved” the issue or masked it.

I don’t know, but I really appreciate you taking the time to test this!

Didn’t you all see the checkbox for “minor software quirks take up space in my brain” when signing up for this forum?

minor software quirks take up space in my brain

Indeed! I never had these issues before joining this forum and listening to tech podcasts. I may need to detox. :slightly_smiling_face:

Hey there. Been enjoying (commiserating?) with your posts for awhile, and feel your pain! I tend to get on a periodic merry-go-round of trialing email apps (Apple Mail, Outlook, Spark, Airmail, what new ones are there?) and task managers (Things, Apple Reminders, Todoist, Microsoft To-Do, Omnifocus). There is. no. perfect. combination. No matter which one I pick, or which combo, I gain functionality and I lose functionality. In my case, I also have the fact that my work email is Office 365 and my personal is gmail. Links to emails are definitely one of the big things I like having if I can.

2 Likes

I’ve done this a lot also.

Why is that?

Are these apps always inherently flawed? Or do we just get bored?

Back in the day, we had software to do a task. We had one or two (EXPENSIVE!) options, maybe, and so we had to adjust our actions to fit the software. It didn’t matter if there was a weird bug in WordPerfect that meant you had to type a key command twice - we just internalized that we had to type the key command twice, and went on with our day. We almost never opened support tickets with the developer, because that just wasn’t a thing.

Now we still have software to do a task, but we frequently have hundreds of options. The mental model of users is thus, generally, that we should be able to find software that fits our workflow - not the other way around. “With over a hundred options, why can’t I find one that’s exactly what I need?” We also (theoretically) have a more direct relationship with the developer, and expect them to be more responsive to bug reports, feature requests, etc.

I don’t think most software is inherently flawed, although bugs are bugs. The issue with Reminders is absolutely a bug, and should be fixed.

But as software becomes ever more niche, the odds of the dev’s intended workflow matching up EXACTLY with ours in any given piece of software are significantly reduced.

1 Like

Indeed! I’ve come to that point several times, thinking I was finally stepping off the merry-go-round—only to find myself hopping back on again. :slightly_smiling_face: I really just need to move on and accept the compromises.

1 Like

2 Options:

One way off the app merry-go-round is to embrace the simplicity of learning one set of good enough apps REALLY well. You have workarounds that are built into muscle memory or you even change how you do things to accommodate the SW that comes closest to your ideal.

The other way is to pick an open source system that is closest to what you want. The either adapt it yourself or hire someone to make a bespoke app just for you.

2 Likes

I think this is all correct. I think, also, that we all just really like messing with computers and apps! It’s cool and fun! It probably gives us dopamine hits! I know personally I like the thrill of trying out a new app, or one I haven’t tried in a while, to see what improvements have been made. It feels “fresh” and has the potential of improving our workflow. I assume most of the people on this forum are like me, and have liked always fiddling with this stuff. Or, maybe I have just outed myself and need to get on some kind of psychological help ha ha. I remember a time where I just used certain software (WordPerfect 5.1 on DOS back in the day was a great example) – that was it. That was what you used. There was no thought of tinkering and trialing different stuff.