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The new version of iTunes, iTunes 5 was release on the 8th of the month. I’ve been using YME primarily lately, so I’m just checking it out now.
iTunes let’s me know that there’s a new version, and asks if I’d like to get it. The problem is, I don’t know what it has to offer. I wish companies would be better about offering change logs clearly detailing what’s new, what’s different, and what all’s happening.
It’s not only because they are sometimes unintended riders on upgrades, or even because newer is not always better, but because it should just be the standard practice.
Communication fosters user learning and understanding. Transparency builds trust. Documentation encourages exploration. Knowledge is comfort.
Things like that.
As I’ve shown before, letting the users know what you’ve done is a great way for them to get excited about your products.
(But please don’t assume that I only want the PR-spun release notes that make it into your marketing. That’s cool, but not comforting, exciting or encouraging.)
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pate September 19th, 2005 - 3:38 am
find old itunes softwares………….
on this site
http://www.oldapps.com
Ravi Dronamraju September 24th, 2005 - 8:51 am
This is a great Idea! At the very least they can have a button that says “learn more about iTunes 5.0″ and have that go to a website that showcases the new features.
Along the same lines, i wish people seperated out bug fixes from a new feature release where ever possible. Since it is all downloadable anyway, why don’t they just release auto-installable patches on the net? I wish i can have the choice of getting bug fixes without getting upgraded to new features.
On the other hand, what can be done about non-installable software apps (er.. websites)? I mean, if i wanted to choose a older version of google or yahoo! home page can i? I wonder if it’s important to provide that choice to users. I wonder what it takes to build/support multiple versions
natek September 28th, 2005 - 1:43 am
You bring up some really good points Ravi. A key advantage of web-based apps is that the latest and greatest is always in use. But, breaking free of longer release cycles introduces it’s own challendes: An every-evolving product creates presents a “moving target” to those writing documentation, Customer Support, QA…. Ultimately though, I think the user benefits because they get advancements sooner, and the easy distribution incourages the product team to iterate faster.
I think it’s a good idea to separate bug fixes and features. I hadn’t thought about that before, but it makes sense (especially for software - as you say, it’s more confusing when the product is web-based and free to update continuously.
To your point about older versions, I’m not sure what the answer is. One idea is to leverage the notion of a continuum of support that we use when we’re talking about Graded Browser Support. Since the snazzy bells-and-whistles interface can’t be the only one — a low-tech, just-the-facts interface must exist otoo — they maybe we have infrastructure that lets peope choose where on the continuum they wish to be. Making it fluid and letting users choose v4.3 instead of v4.5 is tricky, but letting v1 exist with V5 is more straightfoward perhaps.
Anyways, thanks for the comment Ravi.
/nate
Nate Koechley’s Blog » Blog Archive » Safari Browser Continues to Improve October 4th, 2005 - 9:54 am
[…] Finally, since I’ve said before how I’d like all product releases (not just browsers) to provide detailed change logs, I have to give them props for doing so this time. In their notes they include the disclaimer that “[we] don’t necessarily promise to do this for future updates”. I understand not wanting to make public promises, but please Surfin’ Safari, please keep it up! […]
Kevin Henrikson » Archive » Graded Browser Support February 14th, 2006 - 12:33 am
[…] Nate posted an article which coincided with Yahoo’s launch of their UI Library titled "Graded Browser Support". It appears he first coined the phrase in 2004. Subsequent google hits all point to Nate. I must admit it’s quite novel. He also posted a matrix of browser’s that Yahoo domain applications support. It’s quite refreshing to see an age old problem explored in a new way and with a catchy new phrase to help coral the thought going forward. It reminds me of some work in a previous life around WAP browser capabilities. The first generation of tool kits and support for WAP devices included huge switch statements and hacky User-Agent regular expressions. The second generation and what I belive is still in use today was a framework that detected capabilities. Rather than look for browser X and apply hacks X, the code would detect capabilities. For example the ability to support pages greater than 15k (remember we were in the mobile world), or the ability to support a password input field. The capability matrix kept the code much clearer. Instead of complex decision trees with User-Agent’s, code was clean with simple if/else statements for a particular capability. The hard part was contained in a single matrix that maps capabilities to various browsers. A quick update to the matix and a new handset could be added with little or no code changes. […]