The Registration Process: Flow vs. CoverScout
2010 May 04
I picked up the MacHeist nano bundle yesterday and finally got around to registering the apps that I downloaded. Two of the apps, which I registered one after the other, took two completely different approaches to registration. Bear in mind that this is my first interaction with the apps and the companies that develop them. Is this a fair assessment of how they handle and view customer support?
First CoverScout
In a nutshell, CoverScout enables you to get all the missing cover art for your prized music collection within minutes. Make those ugly gray gaps in iTunes a thing of the past.
Sounds awesome, and it is. With serial number in hand you will:
- Open Reg in Preferences
- Have an account?
- Click yes. I bought it. I should have an account.
- equinux ID/Password? Check email from MacHeist. I have a serial number!
- Fail. Visit website
- Forgot my equinux ID. What'cher email?
mine@domain.com - You don't have an account. Grrh...
- Create an equinix ID
- Give us your personal information.
- I live at 123 Fake Street, and I prefer English. Create New Acount!
- Kthxbye
- Open Reg in Preferences
- Have an account?
- Click yes.
- equinux ID/Password?
arduous/•••••• - Enter Serial.
Success!
Next was Flow
Flow has been built from the ground-up to take advantage of the latest and greatest Mac OS technologies, so it feels like a natural extension of Mac OS. Sporting a simply gorgeous user interface, and supporting all of the file transfer protocols youâ??ll ever need, youâ??ll immediately notice the difference from any other outdated file transfer app.
Been waiting for something like this, can't wait to get started. With registration xml doc you will:
- Open Reg in Preferences
- Drag xml doc to reg window
Success!
The moral of the story here is that I'm already annoyed with CoverScout in spite of the fact that it's a really cool, useful app. Here's to them taking a page out of the playbook of the folks over at Extendmac . Kudos to them!
❧
UPDATE: As a trial CoverScout allows you to search and apply cover art to your nekked albums before you register. The hook is that none of your changes are applied to you iTunes library. Fair enough, but once you do register, all of the album art you've found and applied is swiftly wiped out and you're left to begin again from square-one. This breaks Jef Raskin's first law of interface design, which states,
A [system] shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm.
So, word to the wise, register the app first, or don't bother using it.