...and just about everyone else's these days is that no companies seem willing to make the investment in having serious documentation written.
I've got IOS 7 on my iPhone 5, and I've had a lot of questions, some of which were answered clearly and completely here, for which I am thankful.
But Apple's user manuals (the IOS 7 one for the iPad and iPod are up on its site already) don't cover a third of the sorts of questions that arise, and there are no charts showing the various connections between its software, its operating system and its devices. You pretty much have to guess much of the time what impact a particular toggle has in another area. I've been using iPhones, iMacs, and Macbooks for a long time, and I find this is true throughout the product line.
In the 1980s, I wrote documentation for a major manufacturer of desktop printers, and that documentation and much of the documentation I saw for other products, was complete. Not 100% complete, because no documentation ever is, but it was at least 75% complete. Today's documentation for high-tech personal devices is no more than a third complete, I would say. To find answers, you have to jump through hoops in many places.
Documentation for the third-party apps sold on the App Store is even worse, or, worse than worse, non-existent.
Vendors assume too much knowledge of product intricacies on the part of their customers.
A plague on their houses.
I've got IOS 7 on my iPhone 5, and I've had a lot of questions, some of which were answered clearly and completely here, for which I am thankful.
But Apple's user manuals (the IOS 7 one for the iPad and iPod are up on its site already) don't cover a third of the sorts of questions that arise, and there are no charts showing the various connections between its software, its operating system and its devices. You pretty much have to guess much of the time what impact a particular toggle has in another area. I've been using iPhones, iMacs, and Macbooks for a long time, and I find this is true throughout the product line.
In the 1980s, I wrote documentation for a major manufacturer of desktop printers, and that documentation and much of the documentation I saw for other products, was complete. Not 100% complete, because no documentation ever is, but it was at least 75% complete. Today's documentation for high-tech personal devices is no more than a third complete, I would say. To find answers, you have to jump through hoops in many places.
Documentation for the third-party apps sold on the App Store is even worse, or, worse than worse, non-existent.
Vendors assume too much knowledge of product intricacies on the part of their customers.
A plague on their houses.
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