Q: How to disable Versions completely

DChord568 wrote:

 

we continue to express our frustration, as people in like communities have done since time immemorial. In times past, it was over the back fence. Now it happens to take place here.

And people should keep on doing so. Apple does not post in these forums, but they certainly do mine them for consumer responses.

surfsoft wrote:

 

Well I posted a relatively long, well-argued (IMHO) and balanced (also IMHO) reply about your comparison between Versions and Office autosave which you completely ignored. Silence speaks just as loudly as a petty attack.

I didn't ignore it out of malice. It was well-argued and balanced. It wasn't anything new however. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't attack people who diagree with me. I try to help the people I can and I try to correct misinformation when I find it before unsuspecting people might see it.

Is it possible for Apple to add a switch to turn Lion features on or off? Certainly. Is it possible for Apple Mail to allow full control over the internal structure of e-mails? Of course. Both actions are against Apple's philosophy. Apple wants to make the system easier to use, not more difficult. What happens to old-timers who can't adapt to the change? They get left behind. Apple can't please everyone and they don't try to. They try to make the best products they can. They make the products they want to use.

surfsoft wrote:

 

Interesting...

There hasn't been any debate in this thread for s long time. It has devolved into petty, personal attacks. That is fine with me because such arguments speak volumes about the character and logic of the person making them.

 

Well I posted a relatively long, well-argued (IMHO) and balanced (also IMHO) reply about your comparison between Versions and Office autosave which you completely ignored. Silence speaks just as loudly as a petty attack.

Indeed, the silence from this party and others here when legitimate points are raised is deafening.

Either argue the specific points and why they are wrong, or concede that maybe we've got something. Don't just clam up and slink away and imagine no one notices.

etresoft wrote:

 

Is it possible for Apple to add a switch to turn Lion features on or off? Certainly. Is it possible for Apple Mail to allow full control over the internal structure of e-mails? Of course. Both actions are against Apple's philosophy.

Interesting example, given that Apple has given Lion users the choice of using the new Mail layout or sticking with the classic one.

Apple wants to make the system easier to use, not more difficult.

How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be "more difficult to use"? And for whom would it be "more difficult"?

What happens to old-timers who can't adapt to the change? They get left behind. Apple can't please everyone and they don't try to.

In this instance, Apple could please everyone — just as they have pleased all users of Apple Mail.

DChord568 wrote:

 

etresoft wrote:

 

Is it possible for Apple to add a switch to turn Lion features on or off? Certainly. Is it possible for Apple Mail to allow full control over the internal structure of e-mails? Of course. Both actions are against Apple's philosophy.

Interesting example, given that Apple has given Lion users the choice of using the new Mail layout or sticking with the classic one.

That is just the screen display. There are very limited options on how to control the actual formatting of the message. In Lion, Apple reduced the number of different formats that Mail can generate so that they will have a greater likelihood of appearing correctly in Outlook.

How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be "more difficult to use"? And for whom would it be "more difficult"?

Anytime you add an option the system becomes more difficult to use. By default, Autosave and Versions are actually turned off. Developers have to make a special effort to enable them. Only Preview and TextEdit support them. Those are Apple's "sandbox" applications to show off various new technologies. Both are handy applications but unsuitable for serious work. It is entirely up to 3rd party developers to choose if and how they implement Autosave and Versions. Apple doesn't give you the option to turn it off in their own iWork suite. Lemkesoft does. Who knows what Microsoft will do. Maybe they will make it optional and make that a selling point.

In this instance, Apple could please everyone — just as they have pleased all users of Apple Mail.

Apple did almost the identical thing in Mail and there are almost identical threads complaining about it. People are now complaining that they don't have the option to construct e-mail messages that will not display properly in Outlook 2003. In Lion, Apple only gives them the ability to send a message that displays correctly in all versions of Outlook. The problem is that now the poor Outlook 2007 users have to deal with a bug that makes it slightly more difficult to save images in an e-mail message.

etresoft wrote:

 

 

Anytime you add an option the system becomes more difficult to use.

That's just naivety. Complexity is itself a complex (and relative) function that doesn't necessarily depend on quantity. A device with 10 options isn't necessarily more difficult to use than one with 5 — it depends on what the options are, the knowledge of the user, the aims of the user, and the 'fitness' of the options to the users aims. If none of those 5 options quite match what the user wants to do, the system becomes difficult or even impossible to use. Adding an option that matches the users aims makes it, by definition, less difficult.

Try driving a car without a reverse gear and one with, and then tell me that the second is more difficult to use...

etresoft wrote:

 

 

DChord568 wrote:

 

etresoft wrote:

 

Is it possible for Apple to add a switch to turn Lion features on or off? Certainly. Is it possible for Apple Mail to allow full control over the internal structure of e-mails? Of course. Both actions are against Apple's philosophy.

Interesting example, given that Apple has given Lion users the choice of using the new Mail layout or sticking with the classic one.

That is just the screen display. There are very limited options on how to control the actual formatting of the message. In Lion, Apple reduced the number of different formats that Mail can generate so that they will have a greater likelihood of appearing correctly in Outlook.

The point pertinent to our discussion is that Apple thought it wise to provide its users with a choice in this instance, and managed to implement both display options.

This discussion involves behavior that crosses the borderlines of individual apps and applies to something that every Mac user who does anything beyond Email and surfing the web has to be concerned with every single day: how his/her documents are saved.

Right now, the discussion centers only on the Apple-produced apps, but others will surely follow. So the concern is whether users will be straightjacketed into Auto Save/Versioning, or will have a choice to use or not use it.

How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be "more difficult to use"? And for whom would it be "more difficult"?

 

 

Anytime you add an option the system becomes more difficult to use.

Lets see…so the answer to the question…

"How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be 'more difficult to use'?"

…is "Anytime you add an option the system becomes more difficult to use."

OK. And why is this true in this instance? Apparently the answer is "Because I say so." Care to try again? Does it help that I underlined "How" this time?

Meanwhile, the question "And for whom would it be 'more difficult'?" remains unanswered.

By default, Autosave and Versions are actually turned off. Developers have to make a special effort to enable them. Only Preview and TextEdit support them. Those are Apple's "sandbox" applications to show off various new technologies. Both are handy applications but unsuitable for serious work. It is entirely up to 3rd party developers to choose if and how they implement Autosave and Versions. Apple doesn't give you the option to turn it off in their own iWork suite.

And this is my concern, as I use Pages every single day of my working life. I hope you're not arguing that Pages, Numbers and Keynote are "unsuitable for serious work," because I'm quite sure that Apple isn't.

I have not upgraded my work Mac to Lion for the precise reason that doing so would, on balance, make the "serious work" I do in Pages more difficult.

In this instance, Apple could please everyone — just as they have pleased all users of Apple Mail.

 

 

Apple did almost the identical thing in Mail and there are almost identical threads complaining about it. People are now complaining that they don't have the option to construct e-mail messages that will not display properly in Outlook 2003. In Lion, Apple only gives them the ability to send a message that displays correctly in all versions of Outlook. The problem is that now the poor Outlook 2007 users have to deal with a bug that makes it slightly more difficult to save images in an e-mail message.

 

All very interesting, but this does absolutley nothing to contradict my statement that if Auto Save and Versioning were the default in Lion but capable of being disabled by the user, then 100 percent of the Mac user base would be happy when it comes to this aspect of working with their Macs.

Hi Tom: I've downloaded Graphic Converter a number of times over the years, going back to OS 9 days if my memory serves.... I know many people like and use it, so I felt I needed to know what it was all about. But I was never impressed enough with its interface and capabilities to actually pay for it, or do more than try it out, compared to the numerous other options I've always had for working with graphics files. Right now I have Xee, iPhoto, Preview, Aperture (which I quite like, just wish it did layers), PS Elements, Pixelmator and the GIMP. And, of course, the solution I actually use: I just boot into Snow Leopard most of the time.

Francine

softwater wrote:

 

That's just naivety. Complexity is itself a complex (and relative) function that doesn't necessarily depend on quantity. A device with 10 options isn't necessarily more difficult to use than one with 5 — it depends on what the options are, the knowledge of the user, the aims of the user, and the 'fitness' of the options to the users aims.

It is experience with real-world users who understand nothing about saving or versions and just want it to work. It is important to remember than only a tiny percentage of the most savvy Mac users are sophisticated enough to post a question here in Apple Support Communities. Autosave was designed for people who don't know they need to save early and often, don't really know what a document is, and don't know why they should save in "Documents" as opposed to /System/Library. There isn't anything wrong with not being a geek. Apple thinks they deserve great computers too and has tried to build a system that will help everyone. There is no reason for the operating system to force users to save their work.

etresoft wrote:

 

Autosave was designed for people who don't know they need to save early and often, don't really know what a document is, and don't know why they should save in "Documents" as opposed to /System/Library.

You've just provided your own argument for why there should be an option to turn it off — for the millions of people around the world who do possess this basic knowledge.

DChord568 wrote:

 

The point pertinent to our discussion is that Apple thought it wise to provide its users with a choice in this instance, and managed to implement both display options.

Implementing multiple display options is easy. Nothing changes underneath. The display is just a facade. The displays on a PowerPC and Intel machine are identical, but they are radically different underneath.

This discussion involves behavior that crosses the borderlines of individual apps and applies to something that every Mac user who does anything beyond Email and surfing the web has to be concerned with every single day: how his/her documents are saved.

That's right. That's why there is a display option in Mail and no option in the low-level, critical system.

Right now, the discussion centers only on the Apple-produced apps, but others will surely follow.

Not here they won't. If you wish to discuss how third party software implement the document saving methods, use their support forums.

"How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be 'more difficult to use'?"

Any time anyone had a problem with data loss or a crashing program, people trying to help (Apple or us) would always have to ask about this setting. Most users would have no idea what it was for. Some of them would have turned it off at the request of some third party software vendor that couldn't get their software to work with it. The developers who did understand it would have to do extra development and testing work to ensure their software works with the setting on or off.

And this is my concern, as I use Pages every single day of my working life. I hope you're not arguing that Pages, Numbers and Keynote are "unsuitable for serious work," because I'm quite sure that Apple isn't.

iWork is a separate software package you have to pay extra for. I explicity said I was talking about the applications that come with Lion such as TextEdit and Preview. iWork is a separate group at Apple. Sometimes they implement new features (like Autosave and Versions), and sometimes they don't (like iCloud).

I have not upgraded my work Mac to Lion for the precise reason that doing so would, on balance, make the "serious work" I do in Pages more difficult.

I'm quite pleased with Pages for doing serious work. I used the early versions, wasn't impressed, and went back to Word. The current version of Pages seems to have all of the powerful features of Word that I enjoy. I haven't used Pages for a 300 page document yet, but so far, I really like it. Autosave and Versions are two of the features that I like the best.

All very interesting, but this does absolutley nothing to contradict my statement that if Auto Save and Versioning were the default in Lion but capable of being disabled by the user, then 100 percent of the Mac user base would be happy when it comes to this aspect of working with their Macs.

At no point did I ever contradict that statement. I said Apple doesn't care if 100 percent of their Mac user base is happy or not. Apple's focus is making great products, not pleasing everyone. If they just wanted to please people, they would have never stopped making Apple IIs. Had they done that, the few people who remembered Apple would certainly remember them fondly.

softwater wrote:

 

You've just provided your own argument for why there should be an option to turn it off — for the millions of people around the world who do possess this basic knowledge.

Don Quioxte had nothing on me.

etresoft wrote:

 

softwater wrote:

 

 

That's just naivety. Complexity is itself a complex (and relative) function that doesn't necessarily depend on quantity. A device with 10 options isn't necessarily more difficult to use than one with 5 — it depends on what the options are, the knowledge of the user, the aims of the user, and the 'fitness' of the options to the users aims.

 

It is experience with real-world users who understand nothing about saving or versions and just want it to work. It is important to remember than only a tiny percentage of the most savvy Mac users are sophisticated enough to post a question here in Apple Support Communities. Autosave was designed for people who don't know they need to save early and often, don't really know what a document is, and don't know why they should save in "Documents" as opposed to /System/Library.

This is hilarious!

For 27 straight years, Mac users have managed to figure out what saving is. Even if they sometimes forgot to save as often as they should have, they still eventually got it. If they couldn't, how could they go on using their Macs at all?

Now suddenly in 2011, the world has apparently been hit with a stupidy ray gun that renders its inhabitants totally incapable of grasping the concept of saving their documents. Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Can you seriously muster any reports that large numbers of people have been simply giving up using Macs at all because they just can't wrap their minds around the concept of saving?

It's one thing to argue that Auto Save is needed because people are careless about saving and consequently lose work. It's quite another to offer the above as a justification for it.

DChord568 wrote:

 

It's one thing to argue that Auto Save is needed because people are careless about saving and consequently lose work. It's quite another to offer the above as a justification for it.

And this post has been going on since July 22nd with two Lion updates in that time and no change to versions. Either no one here is reporting it in feedback to Apple, or it is here to stay, either way, get over it and get used to it. Old news. Most are adapting, except the few stubborn ones living in the past in these non productive threads.

Cheers

etresoft wrote:

 

 

DChord568 wrote:

 

 

The point pertinent to our discussion is that Apple thought it wise to provide its users with a choice in this instance, and managed to implement both display options.

 

Implementing multiple display options is easy. Nothing changes underneath. The display is just a facade. The displays on a PowerPC and Intel machine are identical, but they are radically different underneath.

 

This discussion involves behavior that crosses the borderlines of individual apps and applies to something that every Mac user who does anything beyond Email and surfing the web has to be concerned with every single day: how his/her documents are saved.

 

That's right. That's why there is a display option in Mail and no option in the low-level, critical system.

 

Right now, the discussion centers only on the Apple-produced apps, but others will surely follow.

 

Not here they won't. If you wish to discuss how third party software implement the document saving methods, use their support forums.

OK, if you like, we'll shift the discussion away from system-level changes and bring it back to individual software developers.

As you are wont to do in so many instances, you ran away from your earlier assertion that the burden is too great on individual developers to give users a choice to Auto Save or not, once I pointed out that a one-man shop did it within a few weeks of Lion's initial release.

If he can do it, others can do it — and most importantly, Apple can do it with its iWork suite, which is my primary concern. I'm fairly confident in saying Apple has a few people on staff who are at least as handy at coding as the developer of Graphic Converter is.

"How would a system in which Auto Save and Versioning were the default but could be disabled at the user's choosing in System Preferences be 'more difficult to use'?"

 

Any time anyone had a problem with data loss or a crashing program, people trying to help (Apple or us) would always have to ask about this setting. Most users would have no idea what it was for. Some of them would have turned it off at the request of some third party software vendor that couldn't get their software to work with it. The developers who did understand it would have to do extra development and testing work to ensure their software works with the setting on or off.

Oh, the horror! Software developers have always had to meet standards if they want to bring their products to market. Again, the Graphic Converter example proves that this apparently isn't so onerous a burden.

Meanwhile, you've posited some extremely improbable "what if" scenarios above. With one breath you state that users are so clueless they can't even figure out how to save a document. In the next breath, you have them mucking about with System Preferences, even though the default system behavior does exactly what you say they need in order to work on their Macs.

If I put these scenerios on one platform of the balancing scale, and the prospect of letting ALL Mac users work in the way that best suits their workflow, I know which way the scale will tilt.

All very interesting, but this does absolutley nothing to contradict my statement that if Auto Save and Versioning were the default in Lion but capable of being disabled by the user, then 100 percent of the Mac user base would be happy when it comes to this aspect of working with their Macs.

 

 

At no point did I ever contradict that statement. I said Apple doesn't care if 100 percent of their Mac user base is happy or not. Apple's focus is making great products, not pleasing everyone. If they just wanted to please people, they would have never stopped making Apple IIs. Had they done that, the few people who remembered Apple would certainly remember them fondly.

When in the past has Apple ever displeased as many people as it appears this fundamental change has done?

I repeat that you cannot point to another change in the history of the Mac OS that so completely breaks with past practice (of 27 years duration) in an area that is fundamental to the actual day-to-day process of working on a Mac.

Several here have given the facile answer that there are always complaints when a new version of system software comes out. I've asked them to point out a change that resulted in a volume of complaints comparable to this one.

That challenge remains unanswered.