Month: April 2013

Google Glass UI Guidelines ⇥ developers.google.com

Oddly, Glass doesn’t support Google’s own WebM video format — only H.263 and H.264 videos are supported. These cards seem extremely easy to create, since they’re basically web pages.

The Default Narrative ⇥ tracks.ranea.org

The astute-as-ever Watts Martin:

The “iOSification” of OS X surely leads to OS X either becoming just as locked down as iOS or simply merging with iOS in a few years! Again, no real evidence supports this—the iOS elements that have been migrated to OS X have not resulted in OS X becoming more locked down. And there’s no reason to think that more OS X technologies won’t move to iOS, making it less locked down.

No reason, except that wouldn’t fit the default narrative.

In a similar vein, Cabel Sasser reflects on Apple’s relatively recent status as a giant company:

With keynotes still watched closely, but constant flying-car expectations mellowed out. Innovating constantly, but at a possibly more relaxed pace, so that those innovations can truly stand out. Still pushing the industry, but still with something to prove.

Driving a Prototype Porsche 959 ⇥ jalopnik.com

Michael Ballaban, Jalopnik:

The Porsche 959 is one of the most legendary cars to ever hit the street or the track. It changed the supercar game forever and redefined what a Porsche could do. Now, you can go inside one of the first ones ever built.

The 959 is easily one of my all-time favourite automobiles. This particular 959 is insanely special — even more so than a “standard” 959.

I’m With Stupid ⇥ allthingsd.com

What happens when a guy who likes to stretch the trust of shareholders of his company quotes an idiot in a memo to shareholders? Peter Kafka, AllThingsD:

We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers. One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said, “We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon.” Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: “Amazon ‘noticed that I experienced poor video playback …’ And they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow … Talk about putting customers first.”

I don’t know why Bezos didn’t want to identify Blodget as “the industry observer” by name.

Because it’s embarrassing to quote a guy who was banned from the securities industry by the SEC in an SEC-approved memo as to why you’re an awesome company.

Anyway, Blodget scratched Bezos’ back. So what’s Bezos to do? Invest in Blodget’s company, that’s what.

Henry Blodget Reads the iPhone Manual ⇥ businessinsider.com

If you’re like me, you had no idea you could easily turn your phone’s screen off. But you can! All you have to do is quickly click the button on the top of your phone that (if held down for a couple of seconds) turns your phone on and off. If you click it quickly, your screen will turn off! Then just click it quickly again to turn the screen back on. Importantly, this does NOT turn your whole phone off. Just the screen. I was astounded when I discovered this trick.

In-fucking-credible.

New Facebook Home Ad ⇥ mashable.com

Charlie White, Mashable:

The 60-second spot, which Facebook says was shot on location and features the actual product team, brings up a key feature of Facebook Home: Its mission is to distract you from anything else you might be doing.

I was surprised when I saw ads for a social networking app on television — they’ve been a sponsor of “The Daily Show” all week, too. The ad’s pretty good, though.

Amazon Investors Give CEO Bezos Room to Run ⇥ businessweek.com

Danielle Kucera and Roben Farzad of Bloomberg Businessweek:

Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos has the kind of investors any chief executive officer would envy. While others must contend with restive shareholders who demand steadily increasing profits or bigger dividends, Bezos has nearly free rein to pursue his strategy of ignoring earnings and spending heavily to expand into new businesses.

I’m consistently amazed at the special treatment investors give to Amazon. No other company can get away with what they do; there’s no way that Amazon Prime and same-day delivery are making a profit, but investors don’t expect them to (yet).

Google’s New Android Math Doesn’t Add Up ⇥ techpinions.com

John Kirk, of Techpinions:

If we’re going to use numbers as a proxy for determining the strength of various operating systems, then we have to use meaningful numbers. Perhaps we should be comparing the units running the latest version of iOS with the latest version of Android. Perhaps we should be counting the Amazon, Google, and the various Chinese portions of Android as distinct and separate entities. Perhaps we should even be counting that portion of the Android phones that run Facebook Home separately too.

What we most certainly should NOT be doing is lumping all Android sales and activations together and pretending that they’re one and the same and that their total numbers are advantageous to all of Android’s separate participants, such as Samsung, HTC, Amazon, Google, developers, etc. If an activation or a unit sale doesn’t count towards the strength of the whole operating system, then it shouldn’t be totaled. Totaling Android’s numbers together doesn’t make sense because there isn’t a single, unified Android platform.

On Chasing the Right “Zero” ⇥ kungfugrippe.com

Merlin Mann:

Put to best use, Inbox Zero is merely a philosophical practice of learning to be parsimonious about which and how many inputs we allow into into our lives — and, then, to responsibly but mindfully tend to those inputs in a way that is never allowed to hinder our personal commitment to doing the work that really matters to us.

This “inbox zero” stuff isn’t about the number zero, necessarily. I have seventeen messages in my inbox, all of which are currently important to things I am working on. There’s no clutter — no old newsletters, no press releases, no mailing list updates, and no follower notifications — and that’s what this is about. Do you need all that crap in your inbox, or can you be honest with yourself and realize that you don’t need anything from Banana Republic this week, so you can delete that message?

Status Board ⇥ panic.com

Nice new iPad app from the wizards at Panic. I’m surprised they got it into the App Store at all:

10.4 Apps that create alternate desktop/home screen environments or simulate multi-App widget experiences will be rejected

Mind you, there’s also this rule:

7.3 Apps that are designed predominantly for the display of ads will be rejected

Which should have rejected this app from Apple.

A Snobbish Canadian’s Review of Tonx

As regular readers will be well-aware, I have something of an affinity for well-prepared coffee. I chase a wide variety of great beans which have been roasted with care, at reasonable prices.1

I first heard about Tonx last May, but I waited until early this year to give it a try. I signed up for the free sample offer in January but, unfortunately, I was told that it was only available in the US. I figured that it couldn’t hurt to ask if I could get a bag anyway. Delightfully, they emailed back in the same day and said that due to the cost of shipping, they don’t usually offer it; however, they’d make an exception in my case. Fantastic.

The bag arrived a couple of weeks later and I tried it almost immediately. The beans were evenely roasted to somewhere between an American roast and a City — an ideal roast for my taste — and were moderately fragrant. I used a fairly standard inverted AeroPress method to brew a cup.

The resulting cup was, frankly, underwhelming. Individual flavours were subtle and muted, like the beans were hitting the end of their shelf life. But I had heard nothing but great things about Tonx’s coffee, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to subscribe to their $24 per month half-sack offer.2 There aren’t any contracts and I could cancel at any time, so I figured it was worth a shot.

I received a shipment notification the day after I signed up, advising me that my coffee would be at my house in a week. I’ve had a few things shipped by USPS, and I can tell you with some certainty that it would not be at my Canadian house in a week.

Sure enough, two weeks later, my first half-pound bag arrived. I can’t remember exactly what country the beans were from — I think it might have been Indonesian. Not a good start; I’m not typically a fan of Indonesian coffee. Then, a few weeks later, another bag arrived from a different country. Rinse and repeat, for several shipments.

Until I cancelled my subscription last month, that is.

All of the coffee I received from Tonx — whether it was from Ecuador, or Rwanda, or Bolivia, or wherever — was merely okay, and that’s a big problem when you’re charging $24 per pound. Granted, it’s automatic, carefree, and shipping is included in the price. It’s certainly better than most mass-roasted coffee, too. But it simply doesn’t approach the best coffee you can drink for that price. I tried a bunch of brewing techniques, times, and grinds, but the beans tasted generically of coffee. They didn’t have much acidity, nor did they have decent body, both of which are necessary for intriguing flavours.

Based on the rave reviews I hear from people living within California, this may simply be a function of the shipping time from Los Angeles to Calgary. If it is, that’s disappointing — I wanted desperately to like Tonx because I enjoy having a variety of different beans to try. But I’m very lucky to live in a city with a few world-class roasteries. For the price of $14, plus a brief walk, I can buy twelve ounces of vibrant, freshly-roasted coffee. It simply doesn’t make sense for me to subscribe to Tonx.

  1. Though, like any addict, I will pay for quality. I dare you to ask me how enamoured I am with the Panama geisha varietal. ↥︎

  2. If you want, you can sign up using my affiliate link, but I’d keep reading. ↥︎

“S” Is for “Complicated” ⇥ kensegall.com

Ken Segall makes the case that the next iPhone should be called the iPhone 6, not the 5S:

The Apple designers tried their best with the product graphics, but there is an inescapable reality: 4S will never be as simple as 4.

More important, tacking an S onto the existing model number sends a rather weak message. It says that this is our “off-year” product, with only modest improvements.

Sound reasoning. Marco Arment chimes in:

Since they’re not going to meaningfully improve their PR momentum anytime soon, they might as well at least avoid trying to make it worse. This is not the time for Apple itself to suggest to the world that it’s slowing down innovation on its most important product.

It’s truly incredible how powerful a simple number can be. The significance of the S branding is that it reads as a perfunctory improvement, even if it’s a reasonable upgrade to everything except the case. But even if it’s branded as the iPhone 6, I think the press will still snidely call it the 5S if it’s in the same box. Look at their reaction to Samsung’s Galaxy S4.

John Siracusa thinks Apple can justify this rebranding if they introduce colours. I think multiple colours are unlikely — partially because they’ve been able to ship a multicoloured iPhone since the 3G and they haven’t, and partially because it significantly increases production complexity on a product for which Apple already struggles to meet demand — but it could be enough leverage for the perception of a full version number upgrade.

iDiot ⇥ bigstory.ap.org

In a research note Wednesday, Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets says the “iTV” will be 60 inches on the diagonal, but could also come in 50- and 55-inch versions. Apple will also release a small “iRing” that fits on the viewer’s finger, allowing the user to control the screen by pointing, White says.

Brian White is the guy who said that a new iPhone will be available in May, a month in which Apple has rarely announced new products for the past ten years. He also thinks that the next iPhone will be available with multiple display sizes.

Please note Brian White’s place on this chart of the best and worst Apple analysts.

Microsoft Thinks Android Is the New Windows ⇥ nytimes.com

A group of companies have filed an antitrust complaint in Europe against Google with regard to Android’s dominant market share. James Kanter, New York Times:

The complaint was filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group of Google’s competitors, including the mobile phone maker Nokia and the software titan Microsoft, and by other companies, like Oracle. It accuses Google of using the Android software “as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today,” said Thomas Vinje, the lead lawyer for Fairsearch Europe, referring to Android’s share of the smartphone market.

For example, phone makers that agree to use Android — and that also want Google applications like YouTube — face contractual requirements to place those applications and other Google-branded applications in prominent positions on the mobile device’s desktop, Mr. Vinje said.

The irony of Microsoft filing an antitrust complaint in Europe isn’t lost on anyone. Remember, though, that Microsoft sold Windows to manufacturers, while Google gives Android away. Much like Microsoft with Windows, this has allowed Google to operate Android at a dominant and impactful scale. But unlike Windows, Android is being sold well below cost in what Fairsearch Europe alleges is a predatory way.

Any way you cut this, Google needs to take responsibility for the market they dominate in terms of percentage of smartphone users. Remember that monopolies aren’t illegal in most countries; however, they must follow laws that attempt to curtail their influence.