Many thanks again Glenn. I've unchecked that other box, since that's not what I wanted. You're very helpful.
Now for one of my pet gripes. Back in the eighties, I worked with technical documentation for Boeing and Microsoft. Later, in the early nineties I did the same thing for the maker of medical ultrasound equipment. I've put that behind me to write and publish books for the general population as Inkling Books.
One role of a tech writer is to fix the communication blunders that software developers make. A clumsy but pretty UI often only shows up when someone has to sit down and describe it. Badly named options are obvious when a tech writer finds he has to explain what "Open Photos for this device" means. And in one case, with medical instrumentation, my 'how does this work' question turned up a serious flaw in how an instrument that urologists would be using worked, a flaw that could have put patients at risk.
It's not that software developers and engineers are stupid. It's that communication isn't what they're trained for and often they're so close to a project, they can't see what's clear and what isn't. It's having to explain something to a mere user that exposes flaws.
Unfortunately, and in no small part due to Apple, the mindset is now that software can be so user-friendly that it doesn't need extensive documentation. The detailed sorts of manuals that I once did are rarely being done today, particularly for consumer software. Instead, there's a far less extensive and rambling collection of web pages that may or may not serve a user's need. The result is often a messy product and one whose eccentricities aren't easy to work around.
And yes, eventually third-parties do write that missing documentation. But because it isn't done in-house, it's often out-dated by the time its published. When I worked on documents for those companies, I wasn't just seeing what the software did. I was asking the developers who were creating it what it would do and hearing from them the limitations. That made for better documentation.
This little incident and my gripes merely illustrates that.
And quite frankly, as a tech writer who once did documentation for medical instruments, I'm bothered by the poor quality of some iOS apps that claim to provide information for physicians. Some are good, but others are so dreadful, they're dangerous.
One was awful. I worked for over two years with children and teens who had leukemia, so I know that disease very well. It's the most common childhood cancer and yet, because all cancers in children are thankfully rare, it's not the first thing a pediatrician will think when a child presents with a typical symptom, a cold that doesn't go away. Any app that claims to be a guide to pediatricians should stress the usual presenting symptoms.
One that Apple sells to pediatricians doesn't do that. It makes a big deal about children with leukemia being white and having radiation exposure. Both are risk factors, but they're meaningless in the real world. Most children in this country are white and so few children get radiation, that while it increase their risk, few who get leukemia will actually have a history of radiation treatment. That app looks like it was written by a poorly paid premed student who simply slapped together material from various manuals. It shows no understanding of the disease.
But that's not the worst of this story. Frustrated that no one was giving a detailed review of this app's weaknesses, I've submitted two comments, citing my expertise. Neither was posted. Apple not only doesn't vet for accuracy and applicability these medical apps, it is hostile to detailed criticism of them. Last time I checked, the only posting about it were mere like or dislike spasms, as if this were a mere game.
That's bad, bad, bad. The treatment available for the the most common variety of leukemia, ALL, is extremely effective, but it needs to be prompt. Delay can be deadly. That badly done app means delayed treatment.
Does Apple care? I don't know. I don't think it even understands the problem. It'd rather posture about game apps that have a gun as an icon than ensure that apps intended for medical decision-making are written by competent people. And in comparison to that failing, my fussing about Photos autostarting is nothing.
[Gets off soapbox. Picks up soapbox, and walks away, gesturing wildly in the air.]
--Michael W. Perry, author of My Nights with Leukemia: Caring for Children with Cancer.