The news isn’t that the Apple Store is down (system maintenance, people!)—the news is that there’s no yellow sticky note any more. It’s been replaced with That Damn Linen texture.
Having said that, Apple resellers are reporting that they are out of stock of many of the 15″ MacBook Pro models.
However, soon after this flagship device began selling, we identified a software issue. In short, a memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity.
The newest update to Google’s Chrome OS is bringing the browser-based operating system a lot closer to a traditional windowing environment.
Sorry, what was updated? Didn’t quite catch that. Must’ve been the three years of nothing that I heard.
In the past ten years, Sony has struggled to stay relevant, and their latest finances reflect that downturn. A simply staggering ten thousand jobs might be cut.
Aside from Sony itself, the article contains a peculiarity:
Following the announcement by Sony, the Japanese credit ratings agency R&I put Sony on watch for a downgrade, saying that the manufacturer would require time to bolster profitability. The agency currently rates Sony at A+, […]
An A+ should be good, right?
[…] five notches down from its top rating.
What?
Jason Snell:
If Apple’s going to embrace the cloud wherever possible, it needs to change iTunes too. The program should be simpler. It might be better off being split into separate apps, one devoted to device syncing, one devoted to media playback. (And perhaps the iTunes Store could be broken out separately too? When Apple introduced the Mac App Store, it didn’t roll it into iTunes, but gave it its own app.)
Snell is right to complain about today’s bloated iteration of iTunes, but I disagree here. Every time I’ve thought about this, I’ve been struck by how much more complicated this would be for users. Buying music in one app, using another to play it, and a third to put it on your devices is convoluted at best. Using iTunes in the cloud, you could eliminate the third step, but you would need to download hundred-megabyte-plus content multiple times, which is even slower. This is without even considering the Windows version.
I do agree, however, that iTunes needs to be fixed. I think a potential solution might include a Mac App Store-esque tab view in the title bar, splitting the app into its various functions. When browsing through movies, for example, one rarely needs playlists. Certainly playlists are not necessary when viewing applications. Why are they visible? Can’t the sidebar serve a higher purpose of navigating within a specific function?
Colin’s idea was to keep the shorter side of the iPhones screen the same, i.e. 640 pixels at 1.94 inches. With that in mind how much would the longer side need to increase so the that diagonal measurement was 4 inches. The answer, derived using simple algebraic rearrangement of Pythagorus’s theorem, 1152 pixels and 3.49 inches. That leaves the the diagonal length measuring a little over 3.99 inches, I’m sure Apple PR could round this 4.
For those of you who are good with numbers I’m sure you’ve noted that 1152 x 640 has an aspect ratio of 9:5 and the 1152 pixels is and increase of 192 from 960 and that’s 20% more than on the iPhone 4 and 4S.
Interesting theory. This is something that’s been thrown around before, and I think it’s the most likely solution for a larger iPhone display. John Gruber doesn’t just think it’s the most likely solution; he’s convinced that Colin knows something:
Methinks “Colin” wasn’t merely guessing or idly speculating.
Sebastiaan de With thinks it’s not going to happen:
Apple won’t do this with the iPhone. It’s completely impossible to use with one hand.
Marco Arment isn’t weighing in on the likelihood, but dislikes the idea:
I’m not sure I would like this. An almost-16:9 aspect ratio looks weird in portrait orientation, like the many 16:9 Android tablets. And the iPhone is primarily used in portrait.
Stephen Hackett, the guy behind 512pixels.net, wrote a short collection of stories from his experiences as an Apple Genius. In amongst the heartwarming stories of over-and-above customer service, and the gut-wrenching stories of data loss, my favourite is entitled July 11, 2008:
July 11, 2008 was the day I knew I was going to quit my job at the Apple store. That was the day that Apple released the iPhone 3G, iOS 2.0, the iOS App Store, and MobileMe, all at once.
This is an exceptional story of how Apple has transitioned from “the Macintosh and iPod company” to “the iPhone company”, and how the Geniuses reacted.
The book is just $4.99 (though I was charged $8.99, for some reason). You should buy a copy.
Marco Arment created a cute mug with a fictional, yet typical one-star Instapaper review. He put it on Zazzle, and 116 people also decided it was hilarious. Then:
After receiving 116 orders for these mugs today, Zazzle canceled all of them, telling every customer (but not me, yet) that it’s an acceptable-use violation: “Design contains an image or text that may be subject to copyright.” This was just something fun, and I don’t have time to battle them on this. Now I just know that Zazzle sucks, and I’ll never do business with them again.
“May” be subject to copyright? What does that even mean? Marco owns the copyright on the text.