A short OS X new feature wish list

OS X has been great to work with. But like any piece of software, it can be improved. Here are seven features that would let me work more efficiently.

• Autocorrect typos in any text field, in any application. I use TextExpander to partially solve this problem. But it’s autocorrect algorithms don’t work as well as Microsoft Office, its dictionary is tiny (a few thousand words — sounds like a lot, but not nearly enough), and it has some frustrating bugs.
• Resize windows from any edge or corner, not just the lower right. Especially frustrating since Microsoft Windows has had this ability since at least 1991. Would let me resize windows faster, probably by a factor of five.
• Automatically consolidate duplicate dates. If there are two dates referring to the same event, combine their respective information. There’s an AppleScript to delete iCal duplicates, but since this isn’t the same as merging near-matches, it doesn’t fully solve the problem.
• Automatically consolidate duplicate contacts. Address Book has functionality that partially solves this problem, but still misses out on many contacts.
• Automatically augment contacts with directions to and from my home and office, and along with short URLs to corresponding Google Maps. I use Google Maps dozens of times a week, spending maybe half an hour a week at the site.
• Automatically fix red eyes in photos. (But save the original picture, just in case the red-eye fix didn’t quite work out.) iPhoto can manually fix red eyes, but when you have thousands of pictures, this is very time-consuming.
• Search for text within pictures. I use Evernote to do this for handwritten meeting notes that I’ve scanned in as jpegs. Their OCR works amazingly well, and Evernote is an incredibly useful way to keep track of what’s happened in meetings. But it’s awkward to fire up Evernote just to view a meeting note jpeg. I’d like to be able to do everything in the Finder and Preview.

One can  hope that Apple implements these sometime in the near future. And if they don’t, this provides an opening for Microsoft, Ubuntu, or some other OS.

Hate Office 2007? Try Search Commands.

If Office 2007 has been as frustrating for me as it has been for me, check out a new feature from Microsoft Office Labs called Search Commands.

The problem that Search Commands solved for me is this: even after using Office 2007 for a few months, I still can’t easily find what I’m looking for, and still get frustrated having to look at many toolbar icons that I’ll never use. The way I solve this problem today is by either digging through the Ribbon and cursing, or using Google. Surprisingly, the latter method is often faster.

Search Commands solves that problem, by letting you "google" your Office 2007 commands, and find the right one. It might seem kind of odd to search for commands rather than use a menu, but consider that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint each have at least several hundred commands. It’s a lot faster to type a few keys than it is to browse and scan through a dozen drop-down menus.

If you like QuickSilver, Firefox search keywords, YubNub, the Unix command line, or other keyboard-oriented ways of working, you’ll probably find Search Commands a welcome addition. It’s not perfect, but it’s a big step forward.

One last thing: Search Commands is still considered by Microsoft to be an experimental feature, meaning that it might not be rolled into the Office 2007 code base. This is surprising given the positive feedback this feature has received, and we’ve known for over a decade that the majority of users like to search, not browse. So, if you like Search Commands, express your support here.

What early adopters really do at their computers

TechCrunch has a great post on how early adopters spend their time on their computers. What’s fascinating about this is the time usage stats are based on actual behavioral data, so it’s very accurate, relatively speaking.

No doubt people are drawing all kinds of conclusions from this. I thought I’d share mine, which revolve around how this data affects market share, revenue, and valuations:

• Gmail is used 3x more than Google.com. Not surprising when one considers their own workday activities. But, assuming clickthroughs are more or less equal for both (valid assumption?) — that means Gmail generates the bulk of Google’s Adwords revenue. Pretty amazing considering that Gmail originally came out of a developers "20% time" project. This supports the notion that sometimes the best projects come out of skunkworks.
• Facebook is accessed 50% more than Google.com. Maybe that $15 Bn valuation is justified after all!
• Outlook is, unsurprisingly, the most used app. Now, think about Xobni. If you got it installed, whenever you use Outlook, you’re using Xobni. That means Xobni could soon become one of the most widely used apps around. That presents some interesting monetization opportunities when you have that many user attention minutes. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for those guys.
• It’s surprising that Yahoo Messenger has such low usage. Last time I’d looked, a few years ago, Yahoo had many instant messenging users. One more thing for Jerry Yang to worry about. I’m also surprised that Meebo is at the bottom of the list.
• OpenOffice and Google Apps have very low usage. For instance, Google Docs has 3% the usage of Word. If even the early adopters aren’t using them, I guess it will be some time before they start to challenge Microsoft in terms of market share. And it will be some time before Microsoft profitability, largely driven by the Office suite, starts to suffer and drag down Microsoft’s valuation.

A note on accuracy: I’m sure some will quibble about the accuracy of the numbers given that
the sample was self-selected, But market research is an inexact science.
Not to go all Rumsfeld, but you need to use the data you have, not the
data you wish you had. This, as far as I know, is the best data we have on what people actually do on their computers. (If you know of a better data source, please let me know.)

How to lose friends and upset customers

Office 2007 has not been the easiest transition for me. Don’t get me wrong — I love learning new software products and services. I’ve used Office nearly every work day since the early 90s, too, so I’m familiar with a lot of its functionality.

The biggest issue is that I’m seeing a *decrease* in my productivity versus Office 2003, and by far the biggest single contributor to this is Office 2007’s "Ribbon".

It’s not the changes that Microsoft made to the layout of the commands. Change is a form of experimentation, which is a great way to learn what works best. I’m happy to invest the time to learn new functionality if it will save me time later on.

The problem is the fact that I can’t customize the ribbon. Because of this, commands that I always use are buried and require multiple mouse clicks to get to. Conversely, commands I never use first-class citizens with single button access.

Now, one of Microsoft’s goals for the ribbon as a way to expose to users the vast range of functionality within Office, so they could more fully utilize the suite, and be more productive. This is a laudable goal.

So, I have no problem with the ribbon per se. (In fact, I find the Style section of the Word 2007 ribbon to be very helpful.) What I have a problem with is that Microsoft made the ribbon not customizable, and there are dozens of commands on the ribbon that I will never use.

For example: I’m never going to use the Word Art, Research, and Translate buttons. Word Art is unprofessional, Wikipedia and Google are way better research tools, and for at least the next ten years, I’ll use a human for translation of important documents. I don’t need translation tooltips to display Saudi Arabian Arabic.

I could go on and on, but the point is: why can’t I hide these commands, and show commands for Insert Table Column, Remove Column, Insert Row, and Remove Row, which I use dozens of times daily?

I could do exactly this kind of customization in Office 2003, and it made me much more productive by saving me literally thousands of mouse clicks per month.

But it gets worse…

In an effort to learn more about how to work around these Ribbon issues, I viewed an article on Microsoft’s website, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the ribbon". (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102553291033.aspx)

The tone of the article is amazingly arrogant. Here are some quotes:

This Ribbon replaced the menus and toolbars — yes, the self-same menus and toolbars that you constantly griped about and yet were suddenly so attached to. You cannot imagine how much whiny feedback I received about the change

(Actually, as someone who remembers the rollout of the toolbars in the early 90s, I can attest that there was no griping about toolbars when they were introduced.)

Expand your mind, dude

(This from one of the most respected companies in America, if not one of the most loved.)

…you certainly cannot switch to toolbars and menus from a previous version of Office (as if).

(Actually, past versions of Microsoft products have carried over older user interfaces. Windows 95 included the Windows 3.1 File Manager, which was a smart insurance policy in case users hated the (then new) Windows Explorer. Windows XP allowed users to display the Start menu a la Windows 2000, another, similar smart insurance policy.)

It’s just that there are so many of you unique snowflakes out there that we can’t possibly anticipate what everyone is going to need all the time.

(Um, isn’t this precisely why one should allow the Ribbon to be customizable?)

Now, granted, the article is intended to be funny. But, to me anyway, it doesn’t come off as entertaining, and instead sounds condescending and arrogant. You have to wonder how this piece of writing was allowed to be posted on Microsoft’s website.