iOS 8 - Not really an improvement, part 1

Okay, I’ve had some time to play with iOS 8, and unfortunately, I’m not as thrilled as I’d hoped to be.
My iPad (2nd generation) is still seemingly “getting” stuck periodically, especially when using Safari (horrible experience).

I’ll nag about a couple of real annoyances in this and follow-up posts.

One major annoyance is this message, which already tortured me in iOS 7:

podcasts1

This pops up whenever you start or switch to the Podcasts app when Airplane Mode is turned on. This is quite frequently for me, as I tend to listen to podcasts in bed (where I prefer to turn airplane mode on so as not to be bothered with frequent beeps or vibrations when emails come in over night) or on... you guessed it: an airplane!

Okay, I can understand that you’d want to let your user know that, you won’t be able to download podcasts unless you turn off airplane mode or at least turn on Wifi. Once. Users learn... there is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to keep reminding me, every time I use the damn app! Whatever happened to usability, Apple?

I’d really been hopeful that someone at Apple would find this constant nagging annoying enough to get it done right in iOS 8. Unfortunately, not so. In fact, should you not have understood that the app isn’t able to download podcasts without a data connection of some sort (duh!), iOS 8 now presents you with this bit of intelligencia:

podcasts2

It will hit you with this AFTER it shows you the previous message. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the product manager responsible for the Podcasts App (is there one?) is getting paid off by other companies that make podcast players... not to mention any names, of course!

Apple, I don’t
want to use my cellular data plan to download podcasts... I don’t have a flatrate as your programmers apparently do!

I’d really like to get this message through to Apple somehow: in the next update of the Podcasts app, PLEASE make these idiotic messages go away after the first time I’ve seen them!

I’m not the only one with this issue, as
this thread on discussions.apple.com shows...
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