iPhoto is a bit rough around the edges. Take Places as an example. It’s a great feature idea that needs some more shaking out.
I visited a beautiful lake on a motorcycle ride yesterday and took some photos. Then, I used your iPhoto Places and tried to locate the photos using GPS coordinates of the form N45.24835 W78.89166 that Garmin’s Roadtrip software uses. That’s acceptable to the web version of Google Maps, even though it gets the position on the wrong side of the road and doesn’t show part of the lake. But, that coordinate format is not acceptable to iPhoto’s integrated Google Maps locator. When I enter the coordinates, I get the spinning gear and then — nothing. Nothing changes at all. Wouldn’t it be better to give an invalid coordinate format error message?
So I tried the format 45.24835, -78.89166. That works, but again shows a terrain without all of the lake. That’s a Google/Tele Atlas problem, not yours.
Once I got the pin, I tried to zoom in and set the circle diameter that controls the relevant area, but I could only zoom in so far and was not offered the circle controller. Yet, if I switched to Satellite or Hybrid modes, I could at least zoom in. We need consistency, guys!
I figured out that the circle could not be set because it was a place name already in the database. Fair enough, but why then do you let me move that pin???
So I used the Drop Pin to get a new location and then I could control the circle diameter and name the location.
As with all of your products, you need to have a concerted effort to ensure consistent behaviour of the application so we’re not left to wonder why this works but that doesn’t when we expect them to be the same.
Not only test that your software is working as designed, test the design to ensure it works the way people need it to.
