Month: November 2012

Define “Win” ⇥ techcrunch.com

Mike Butcher of TechCruch chatted with Elon Musk. Most of the conversation is insightful and articulate, but this question seems out of place for how blatantly stupid it is:

Finally, I asked Musk who he thought would come out on top, out of Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook?

“It’s the grudge match,” he said. “It’s good for consumers that there is this battle. I think probably Google will win on the phone because Jobs is out of the picture.”

At what point do we call the match? Is it now? Next year? Three years from now?

Or does the competition end when only one company remains in business? In that case — given that Apple takes the vast majority of industry profits, with Samsung taking most of the rest — why would Google be the winner of the mobile phone space?

Apple Doesn’t Own the Page Turn ⇥ theverge.com

Big surprise: it takes a patent attorney like Matt Macari to properly explain patents, not a blogger:

Think of the D’713 patent as a very basic flip book depicting the type of virtual page turn claimed (shown below). It may be tempting to look at all of this as essential to emulating physical page turns on a device, but the patent simply isn’t that broad.

The stupidity of this patent is only challenged by the stupidity of the initial coverage of it.

Disappointing Usability for Both Novice & Power Users ⇥ useit.com

I don’t always agree with Jakob Nielsen (for example, his praise of the “ribbon” UI convention), but I think his criticisms of Windows 8 are spot on:

I do think Metro/Modern has more elegant typography than past UI styles and that the brightly colored tiles feel fresh.

But the new look sacrifices usability on the altar of looking different than traditional GUIs. There’s a reason GUI designers used to make objects look more detailed and actionable than they do in the Metro design.

There’s a reason buttons should look like buttons, and that text areas should look like indented wells. It’s a convention that has been established to let users know what they can and cannot interact with.

Then again, most of those conventions have been established through precedent. Perhaps they are outdated, and there’s simply a shift required. On the other hand, why does the responsibility for adapting to that shift fall on the user?

The Quiet Ones ⇥ nytimes.com

Tim Kreider:

We’re a tribe, we quiet ones, we readers and thinkers and letter writers, we daydreamers and gazers out of windows. We are a civil people, courteous to excess, who disdain displays of anger as childish and embarrassing. But the Quiet Car is our territory, the last reservation to which we’ve been driven. And we can be pushed too far.

A couple of years ago, I was on a Swiss train from Lausanne to Lucerne. I was travelling in a quiet car, as it was late and I needed some rest. The guy in front of me, however, decided that it would be totally acceptable to loudly play whatever was on his iPod, to the point where he was disrupting those around him. But, like so many people, nobody in the car really said anything because, in our minds, that would also be impolite. Looking back, that seems like an odd sentiment.

Craft ⇥ notes.unwieldy.net

Joshua Gross:

It is the deep knowledge of why something is done in such a way. It is the art of perfection through understanding. It is the best knife for a particular purpose. It is the relentless obsession with learning, iterating, and improving without forgiveness for others. It is the desire to create something unequalled for its purpose.

Beautifully written.

Wozniak Opens Mouth Again ⇥ crazyapplerumors.com

Woz said something about Apple again, which means I get to link to this vintage John Moltz gem:

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has opened his mouth again today setting off the latest barrage of analysis over what it could possibly mean. Long-time Apple followers will remember that Wozniak frequently opines about the company, usually causing people to confuse his opinions and misperceptions with fact or the company’s official position.

A Fresh Season of Apple Television Rumours ⇥ allthingsd.com

John Paczkowski of AllThingsD:

Jefferies & Co.’s James Kisner says at least one major cable operator is conducting tests to determine if it could handle the sort of bandwidth demands that a full-fledged, connected Apple HDTV might generate.

I’ve been skeptical of an Apple own-brand television set for a long time now. This was going to be another one of those posts, and I was going to point out that the market is kinda small (only 43 million LCD TVs sold annually), and that they’re necessarily expensive products, and that it wasn’t really a growing market (slightly shrinking, in fact), and that people don’t replace their television sets annually, or even every few years.

But then I remembered that Apple sells computers designed to last for about five years (maybe more, if you’re lucky). These computers are as expensive as an LCD TV. And that the personal computer market, as a whole, is shrinking. Yet Apple sells more and more Macs every quarter, and they’re growing, even in a shrinking market. And current market stats aren’t indicative of what a new entry from Apple could sell (remember tablets before the iPad?). All the frequently-cited reasons for why Apple won’t produce their own television set are wrong.

Twitter’s Descent Into the Extractive ⇥ 37signals.com

David Heinemeier Hansson has a dramatic reading of the new Twitter:

While the original rules were simple and fair—140 characters for all—the new rules were complicated, opaque, and easy to bend for the favored.

Sadly so. In order for Twitter to reposition themselves as a large company capable of making money and supporting their nearly 1,000 employees, they are offering preferred treatment to those who will pay them. Why not offer a premium user option?

Apple’s Institutional Slingshot ⇥ seekingalpha.com

Jason Schwarz updates the slingshot for Seeking Alpha:

After 56 days in which Apple has sold off $200, it’s easy to fall prey to the noise in the media. At this stage of the correction most Apple investors don’t know which way is up or which way is down. They’re questioning the very air that they breathe. This kind of confusion is normal in the absence of an accurate explanation of the irrational stock action.

Twitter is Pivoting ⇥ daltoncaldwell.com

Smart observations from Dalton Caldwell, creator of App.net. This is the result of a shift from a user-oriented platform to a brand-oriented business.

Making Things for the Web ⇥ theoatmeal.com

Matthew “The Oatmeal” Inman has some thoughts on what it means to make things on the web, and the perception of others on the same. Plus, he illustrated copulating beavers which, incidentally, would make a great name for a band (I’ve already registered the Tumblr URL, sucker).

iMacs Delayed Until 2013? ⇥ 9to5mac.com

Seth Weintraub of 9to5Mac translated the original French story:

The source blames a welding process for the delays, which would push the iMacs into 2013. The new iMacs also have a redesigned display that features a new thinner lamination process.

Earlier this year, I heard separately that one of the reasons the third-generation iPad didn’t get a laminated display was because of manufacturing challenges at such a large scale. There are a few recent 10-inch tablets which do have a laminated display, but the fourth-generation iPad still does not. However, these other tablets aren’t selling at anywhere near the same rate as the iPad, which means that the challenges of mass-producing large laminated panels might not apply as much.

It appears to be a similar story with the iMac.

Tungsten ⇥ typography.com

The brand new light weight looks absolutely wonderful in every width. Fantastic work from Hoefler & Frere-Jones.

Apps or Food? ⇥ emanuelsa.tumblr.com

Smart post from Emanuel Sá:

Every time someone voices discontent about an application price they often provide a simple comparison: food. Do they take more value from a $2.99 application or from an equally priced latte?

When I buy an app, I buy it because I think it will improve the quality of the iPhone I bought. I may not use that app daily, but whenever I need it, I know where it is, and what it can do for me. But if it isn’t compatible on the OS i’m running, I need to find an alternative — and I’d love that alternative to just be a newer version of the same app, even if it means purchasing an upgraded version.

Please Stop “Fixing” Font Smoothing ⇥ usabilitypost.com

Dmitry Fadeyev:

So here is yet another plea for designers to stop “fixing” WebKit font smoothing by disabling subpixel rendering. Feel free to use it on light text on dark backgrounds, feel free to use it to fix custom font rendering on Windows or to style specific bits of text on the page to make it look more slender, but for main portions of text where readability is paramount please leave the default setting alone and let the operating system handle the smoothing.

Due to the way subpixel anti-aliasing works, it makes small light text on a dark background look really bold, and quite blurry (which is why the footer of this site has standard, non-subpixel antialiasing). But this is the only exception to this rule. For everything else, please use subpixel rendering. It makes the web more beautiful. Via everyone on Twitter today.

Living With Lumia ⇥ mashable.com

Christina Warren of Mashable is putting her iPhone 5 in her desk drawer for the next 10 days and is switching to the Nokia Lumia 920 for that time. It’s an experiment I’ve long wanted to do, but without the PR power of a big blog, it’s going to have to wait. Her first day’s results are live, and you can follow along to see how it pans out. I know I’ll be watching intently, because Windows Phone looks very appealing to this iOS user. Via Harry Marks.

That Bitter Pill ⇥ shawnblanc.net

Shawn Blanc explains why he’s not buying an iPad Mini (at least, not yet):

In part because I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten used to my Retina devices — and here I mean the “good” kind of not getting used to them. In that the crisp and sharp displays of my iPhone and iPad screens still seem uncanny to me even though I’ve had a Retina iPhone since the summer of 2010.

Just because Gruber, Arment, Ritchie, Hackett, and Siegler are totally cool with the non-retina display, it doesn’t mean you have to be. It doesn’t mean I am. Your mileage may vary. Blanc has a good plan, and it’s the same one I have: wait for the iPad Mini with a retina display and, barring any significant weight or battery issues, buy it then.