Samuel Bierwagen:
It would save 118kb? But wait, judging from the filename, that’s a 40×40 avatar image!
Turns out, in total, it’s one hundred and twenty one fucking kilobytes. Running it through PNGsquash takes it down to 3.54 kilobytes. The old file is thirty four times bigger.
I think I know why Tumblr is down so very frequently.
Papyrus is the font you use to spell out the word “Egypt.”
With seven more typefaces of dubious quality designed by professionals and high-end firms.
This renovation makes for what is quite possibly one of the most beautiful pieces of modern architecture in the world. A commenter named “briantology” found a comparison photo from a similar angle. The larger panes of glass really make it a more refined, less “glittery” object.
Chris Bowler:
It’s the end of one era, but the beginning of another. On two fronts. As of today, Fusion Ads is now under the ownership of BuySellAds.
Fusion Ads are in a similar vein to Carbon and The Deck. Sites where you may have seen their ads (and therefore why you should care about this) include Shawn Blanc, Ignore the Code, Droplr, Minimal Mac, The Brooks Review and The Loop.
This is the best analysis of the upcoming sandboxing requirements that I’ve read so far.
Examples of Mac Apps that will be affected include iTunes controllers (Tagalicious, CoverSutra), inter-app communication (Fantastical), apps that browse the file system (Transmit), system-wide keyboard shortcut utilities (TextExpander), file syncing, and backups utilities.
This is, in a nut, the biggest problem these requirements will cause. It affects more applications that I think anybody knows so far.
The App Store is, of course, Apple’s distribution channel. They set the rules there. But the exposure it provides to independent developers is priceless, and these sandboxing rules prohibit broad swathes of applications from the store.
It’s also worth noting that iCloud will probably only be allowed in applications distributed through the Mac App Store. Say, for instance, that Panic were to release a version of Coda for iPad, and that they wanted to enable the Coda family with the ability to sync Sites across devices. Coda has access to the entire system — it arguably needs access to a system’s worth of directories — so Panic would either have to restrict the directories it can access or they would have to roll their own syncing solution and distribute exclusively through their website. Neither outcome is ideal for Panic or for users.
[T]he legislation provides an exception which allows bullying based on “moral convictions.”
The full language of the insert is: “This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil and parent or guardian.”
Outrageous.
Pauli Ojala:
One side-effect of the sandbox model which makes me particularly sad and nostalgic is that it kills the notion of plugins. This will also affect many of Apple’s own pro apps on the App Store.
This is what kills me. I rely on a few plugins for Aperture and Photoshop, and losing those will be incredibly tough. The good news is that Adobe isn’t selling Photoshop on the App Store, so they don’t have to play by the sandboxing rules. But Aperture is sold on the App Store, and it has a small plugin ecosystem of its own. Some of these plugins are extremely valuable to photographers, and to lose them would make their job rough for a great period of time as they figure out various workarounds.
Card Case doesn’t let you pay with your phone; it lets you pay with your name. With this app, you go into a store, choose what you want to buy, and then tell the cashier your name. That’s it—you’ve just paid. You don’t have to pull out your phone, you don’t have to open the app, you don’t have to sign, swipe, or wait for change.
This is the promise of some utopian future and it’s finally here. Elegant, beautiful and smart. I can’t wait until this becomes more prevalent, and finally makes its way to Canada.
John Knox:
I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, and I think that the answer is usually NO. Your business probably doesn’t need an iPhone app.
Tangibly related to the Gmail app. Certainly related to all those apps that are barely-repackaged RSS feeds.
Update: Google’s confirmed on its blog that the Gmail app contains a bug that breaks notifications, and it’s pulled the app while it fixes it. A new version is promised “soon.”
Seems overly buggy for a website in an app wrapper.
To be honest, I’m not sure what this is beyond a push-notification-enabled version of the mobile site. One thing of note is the splitting of the main view to reveal the menu, a la Facebook, etc. It’s weird how much this looks like an Android app though, or like an app designed five years ago (there’s a floppy disk to represent saving a draft).
You’ll note that when you go to download the app, you’ll see a horrifically bad icon. Maybe they gave that job to an intern or something.
Edit: Peter Cohen raises a good point:
Wow, a Gmail app for my iPhone, how awesome. Next I’d like to see individual apps for every single RSS feed I read.
This is exactly like all those apps that embed an RSS feed and a WebView in an application wrapper.
Samsung has requested the source code for the iPhone 4S, as well as details on Apple’s subsidy deals with Australian carriers.
Casey Johnston:
The Motorola Xoom 2 tablet is arriving in Ireland for the holidays, according to a flyer from Carphone Warehouse posted by Engadget. The WiFi-only device sports a different body style than the first Xoom tablet, and will not be participating in the Ice Cream Sandwich revolution, as it runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb.
The hardware manufacturer Google is trying to buy is releasing a new iteration of their tablet and it won’t ship with Google’s new OS. The manufacturer Google isn’t trying to buy got first dibs on Ice Cream Sandwich. This sounds well-considered.
Google is trumpeting Gmail’s new look as “cleaner and more modern”, but Neven Mrgan points out that all is not well:
Page 1 of 12 pages of Gmail settings http://cl.ly/BTBX #ui #clean #minimalist
Link goes to the screenshot. Twelve pages of settings, one page of which is for the now-defunct Google Buzz.
Spoiler: about $400. Most of that came from one game, which had about 200,000 ad impressions per month. The paid version of that game is $1 and has 10-50 installs, but the free version has between 10,000 and 50,000 installs. That’s bleak.
Glad to see Google is taking design more seriously. Not only do their products look and work better individually, they’re now a cohesive constant. The new search box is extremely well-integrated.
Erica Sadun has a great list of things that can be done with a combination of Siri and Wolfram Alpha. My favourite:
Visualize colors. Okay, I’ve saved the best for last. If you work with colors, this can save you a lot of time. Say, “Wolfram pound sign E 9 7 4 5 1” (for Burnt Sienna / Tangerine) or “Wolfram pound sign 2 9 A B 8 7” (for Jungle Green). This will also convert the colors to RGB values and look up closely-matching brand colors from Benjamin Moore. Make sure to scroll down to catch all the helpful information.
Anandtech’s 4S review, posted today, shows some glaring limitations with Siri, though. Anand asked it “when is it customary to tip?”, and it looked for meetings called “customary to tip”.
Still, it’s in beta, and these real-world cases are undoubtably helping Apple refine Siri’s AI.
(via Shawn Blanc)
It’s a band in your pants for five bucks. Also, I’m thrilled that they added support for 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures.
Within a few weeks, Courier was cancelled because the product didn’t clearly align with the company’s Windows and Office franchises
This is the biggest hurdle Microsoft has to overcome if it wants to move forward. They have to stop letting new products be cast into the net of old. Courier, Metro and the Vision of the Future video all show aspirations of where Microsoft could go, but won’t dare to.