Technovangelism

After the iPhone/iPod Touch 2.0 firmware was released, I had fun searching for and downloading apps from the App Store. I initially downloaded them via iTunes and everything worked fine. Then I tried downloading them via my iPod itself. When it was time to sync my iPod, I plugged it in the my computer and walked away, hoping to find it properly synced in time for work. When I came back to pick it up, I was very annoyed to find that a dialog had popped up and required me to click through it before the sync would begin. The dialog asked me if it was ok to sync my apps that were not downloaded via iTunes.

I’m a big advocate of opinionated software and convention over configuration, and by these principles it seems one could make the assumption that most, if not all, users would like to sync their apps. But I’m willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and let them ask users if they would like to sync their apps, but wouldn’t a compromise work? If the dialog asking for permission had a time limit on it and gave the user 60 seconds to answer, it would work fine for those who don’t want the sync to happen automatically, and would please users like me who use the default setting and should not have to answer a question that Apple already knows the answer to.

This kind of dialog can be found when trying to shutdown the OS. This dialog understands that when I choose “Shut Down” I probably mean I want to shut down my computer and it can answer the question without any further interaction from me, saving me the hassle of having to double-check that my computer did indeed shut down.

A dialog that knows your answer