Month: November 2013

iPad Mini First Impressions ⇥ shawnblanc.net

Shawn Blanc on the new iPad Mini:

Here is a device that will fit inside my wife’s purse or the pocket of my peacoat. And it’s ideal for all the most common personal computing tasks of doing email, surfing the Internet, and checking Facebook and Twitter. And we all know the iPad can do so much more — there’s no reason why the iPad mini couldn’t be someone’s only computer.

And that fascinates me. Who knew that one day our uncompromising personal computers would cost a few hundred dollars and would comfortably fit inside a woman’s purse?

A print-quality touch screen on a lightweight, mobile, always-connected device which gets insane battery life, for a few hundred dollars. The “magical” stuff that was tossed around when the original iPad was introduced is, I think, appropriate again.

Coin Is Trying to Be a Card That Replaces Every Swipeable Card in Your Wallet ⇥ thenextweb.com

Nick Summers, the Next Web:

It looks just like any other credit card and can be processed by the vast majority of credit card terminals. The low-key device has a small display and a button for cycling through all of your stored cards. Select the one you need for that given moment and then swipe your Coin through the terminal to make a payment.

It looks super intriguing, and I’d give one a try. There are a couple of drawbacks to it, though: it doesn’t support chip and pin cards yet (both of my cards are chip and pin), and it appears not to support Interac either. Finally, it has a non-rechargeable, non-replaceable battery which Coin says will last two years — when it runs out, the entire card must be replaced to the tune of $100.

Still, if you’re someone who has several credit cards that you wish could be consolidated, Coin might be what you’re looking for.

iBooks and iTunes U Updated With iOS 7 Redesigns ⇥ macrumors.com

These updates are really beautiful in their subtlety (though I not-so-secretly loved the wooden texture of iTunes U, but that’s just me). iBooks now looks pretty much like Newsstand, but the onscreen controls within a book are well-designed. They’ve retained the page curl, too.

Legroom Becomes Equal

Benedict Evans, on the characteristics of smartphone buyers at various price and quality points:

Something that people often don’t realise, especially in the USA, where even high-end phones are free, is that high-end Android phones are not what are outselling the iPhone. It’s the mid and low end that’s making up all the volume.

Even the budget phones are pretty good, as was made apparent with today’s announcement by Motorola of the Moto G:

In the U.S., a version of the Moto G with eight gigabytes of memory will be cost $179 without a wireless-carrier contract, while a 16-gigabyte version will go for $199. Motorola says the phone, which comes with a sharp 4.5-inch display, will have all-day battery life and soon be able to run KitKat, the latest version of Google’s Android mobile-operating system.

A high-resolution display, a pretty decent processor, and 8 GB of internal storage for $179 with no contract. This isn’t cutting-edge technology — the processor is an updated version of a year-old design, and a 4.5-inch 720p display isn’t a breakthrough — but it’s a pretty good deal. I certainly find the willingness by Google and Amazon to release products with little to no profit margin intriguing, owing to their different business models.

Apple continues to sell the iPhone 4S and it runs iOS 7 beautifully — take my 16,000 words for it. Consider, too, the iPhone 5C, which is mostly an iPhone 5 in a new shell. The advances made in the past year or two have been immense, but there aren’t a substantial amount of apps that require technology so far advanced. Components which are a year or two old are still pretty damn good at running new apps, and will continue to be pretty good into the near future.1

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to a piece titled “The Extra Legroom Society” by Frank Bruni, as published in the New York Times:

It’s not that pecking orders or badges of affluence are anything new. Our homes, cars, clubs and clothes have long been advertisements of our economic clout, used and perceived that way.

But lately, the places and ways in which Americans are economically segregated and stratified have multiplied, with microclimates of exclusivity popping up everywhere. The plane mirrors the sports arena, the theater, the gym. Is it any wonder that class tensions simmer? In a country of rising income inequality and an economy that’s moved from manufacturing to services, one thing we definitely make in abundance is distinctions.

The smartphone world, by contrast, is remarkably level. Yes, there are budget phones like the Moto G, which cost considerably less than a top of the line iPhone, but both ends of the spectrum are so commonplace that there’s nothing showy about a higher-end product. The iPhone is still cool, but it isn’t ostentatious or vulgar. It’s accessible luxury.

I’m therefore reminded of this quote with which John Gruber closed his review of the iPhone 3G:

“What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.” — Andy Warhol

So too with the iPhone. A billionaire can buy homes, cars, clothes that the rest of us cannot afford. But he cannot buy a better phone, at any price, than the iPhone that you can have in your pocket today.

It’s as true today as it was then, if not more so. The Moto G is a remarkably capable product for its price point, even if I’d never own one. The iPhone 5S is a substantially better product — its build quality is superlative, its camera is spectacular, its materials are better, and so on — and it still isn’t outrageously expensive.

Critically, both products are mass-produced goods. The smartphone world, then, is not an exclusive club. That’s not to say it’s affordable for every single person, but it has become more available for more people. These great leaps in technology have levelled the playing field, and it’s benefitting more people constantly.

Need proof? How about the latest report from Ericsson (PDF), which says:

Total mobile subscriptions up to and including Q3 2013 are at around 6.6 billion, including 113 million new subscriptions added during the third quarter. Global mobile subscriptions have continued to grow seven percent year-on-year and two percent quarter- on-quarter. The actual number of subscribers however, is lower, at around 4.5 billion. This is because many people have several subscriptions.

Throughout the world there is continued momentum for smartphone uptake. These devices accounted for around 55 percent of all mobile phones sold in Q3 2013, compared to around 40 percent for the full year in 2012. And it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. Of all mobile phone subscriptions, 25-30 percent are associated with smartphones, leaving considerable room for further uptake.

Cool, right?

I didn’t write this to cheerlead Apple’s strategy, or to belittle Motorola’s (or the inverse of that). I’m just in awe of how the smartphone has become so settled and common around the world. Owning a high-end smartphone doesn’t feel vulgar and they last for a long time, and affordable phones have become pretty good. It’s extra legroom for everyone.

  1. Consider how far advanced the iPhone 4S was compared to the iPhone 4. Now consider that the 4S runs pretty much all of the features of iOS 7 that the iPhone 5 and 5S do, but also consider how many features had to be omitted from the iPhone 4 build of iOS 7, and what features they were: the 4S boasted a huge bump over the 4 in both CPU and GPU performance. ↥︎

Apple Spending Big on Robots and Lasers ⇥ bloomberg.com

Adam Satariano, Bloomberg:

The spending, which Apple outlined in its fiscal 2014 capital-expenditure forecast, underscores how the world’s most valuable company is diving deeper into designing and inventing technology for its manufacturing process. Apple is increasingly striking exclusive machinery deals, said the people familiar with the work, outspending peers on the tools that it then places in the factories of its suppliers, many of which are in Asia.

“Their designs are so unique that you have to have a very unique manufacturing process to make it,” said Muthuraman Ramasamy, an analyst with consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, who has studied the use of the machinery. “Apple has so much cash that they can invest in cutting-edge, world-class machinery that is typically used for aerospace and defense.”

There are some fascinating details in this story about the custom machinery Apple buys — and even builds — in order to create products with superlative fit and finish.1 This is one of the things which separates Apple from the rest. Innovation is not purely about coming up with new features, but also implementing those features, and Apple (typically) excels in the execution of their ideas.

  1. See also this scoop over at Cult of Mac showing the techniques Apple uses to repair iPhones in-house, including several custom tools. ↥︎

Microsoft Does Away With Stack Ranking ⇥ zdnet.com

Last year, Vanity Fair ran an article titled “Microsoft’s Lost Decade” by Kurt Eichenwald:

At the center of the cultural problems was a management system called “stack ranking.” Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees. The system—also referred to as “the performance model,” “the bell curve,” or just “the employee review”—has, with certain variations over the years, worked like this: every unit was forced to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.

“If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review,” said a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

Mary Jo Foley, for ZDNet:

Stack ranking — considered by a number of current and former Microsoft employees as a major detriment, both career- and morale-wise — is no more at the company.

Microsoft is announcing to its full-time employees on November 12 that there will be no more curve and no more reviewing “on the curve” at the company. Lisa Brummel, head of human resources for the company, sent an e-mail to employees notifying them of the change today, according to my contacts.

I can’t think of better news for the internal culture of the company. I certainly hope this change finds its way into better products and services which are less reliant on the internal office politics of Microsoft.

NMPA Sends Takedown Notices to 50 Sites, Including Rap Genius ⇥ billboard.com

Alex Pham, Billboard:

The [National Music Publishers Association] said it has sent take-down notices to 50 sites identified in an October report by University of Georgia researcher David Lowery as likely not having licenses to publish lyrics. The notices demand that the sites obtain licenses or remove copyrighted lyrics from their sites.

While most of the sites targeted are crummy sites filled with ads, Rap Genius explains the lyrics they publish in depth. It’s a more scholarly resource, annotating lyrics and segments with meaning. If anything, it adds value to a work; it certainly doesn’t subtract value. You’d think that would be covered under fair use.

Introducing Custom Timelines ⇥ dev.twitter.com

Storify has been Sherlocked, in a sense. Brian Ellin of Twitter:

Custom timelines are an entirely new type of timeline –– one that you create. You name it, and choose the Tweets you want to add to it, either by hand or programmatically using the API (more on that below). This means that when the conversation around an event or topic takes off on Twitter, you have the opportunity to create a timeline that surfaces what you believe to be the most noteworthy, relevant Tweets.

This functionality only works with Tweetdeck right now — you can’t even create a custom timeline from the Twitter website — but there’s a developer API available. This isn’t really an end-user feature, though, but it will certainly help me engage with my favourite brands.

Was that convincing, or should I do another take?

Hot and Fresh Claim Chowder ⇥ pxlnv.com

Remember this from literally five days ago?

According to the industry on November 7, Apple is delaying its launch because it could not solve the burn-in problem in the LCD panel, to be applied to the iPad mini retina product, which is caused by the malfunction of the TFT.

Okay, sure.

iPad Mini With Retina Display Available Now ⇥ apple.com

It’s currently running at availability times of 5–7 days (I ordered about ten minutes ago and it was 1–3 days, so I’d hurry if you want one soon). Very strange rollout on these: it’s a Tuesday, and their availability was announced with little fanfare.

Progress Shouldn’t Mean Regression ⇥ 512pixels.net

Stephen Hackett is not a fan of the new iWork suite:

Progress is not the same thing as regression, and the latter keeps being an issue with Apple’s non-system software. Updates to applications shouldn’t drop features without good reason. Apple double-back to re-add features is clear proof that these regressions aren’t as intentional as some would believe. (Not to mention the fact that the company will keep old copies of software on users’ disks or provide old installers.)

Neither is Jean-Louis Gassée, as demonstrated in this week’s Monday Note:

[W]hat does this new fiasco say about the Apple’s management culture? The new iPhones, iPad and iOS 7 speak well of the company’s justly acclaimed attention to both strategy and implementation. Perhaps there were no cycles, no neurons, no love left for iWork. Perhaps a wise general puts the best troops on the most important battles. Then, why not regroup, wait six months and come up with an April 2014 announcement worthy of Apple’s best work?

Both of these articles are scathing, but I think they’ve both hit the nail on its head with their sentiment: Apple rushed iWork out the door and it bit them in the ass. Even the language the company used for the knowledge base article affirms this:

In rewriting these applications, some features from iWork ’09 were not available for the initial release.

I wouldn’t have minded waiting another few months for them to get iWork together, but I think their shipping target date was determined by the narrative of the October event: Mavericks, iLife, and iWork became free, at least for new owners in the case of the latter two. This was an important strategic move, but it handicapped their software delivery.

Technological Optimism, but Only Just ⇥ stratechery.com

Ben Thompson:

Apple, unlike Google, or Facebook, or even Microsoft, is not a services company (as long-suffering iCloud/MobileMe/.Mac/iTools customs can attest), and so, to prescribe any sort of goodness to their decision to not retain user data is much less useful than an examination of what actually matters to their bottom line. And, as a hardware company, that means the supply chain.

This is such a good piece. Apple may not be the only company using their pool of suppliers, but they are arguably the most influential company with those suppliers. While there are products made in far worse conditions, and while it is a delicate matter of imposing Western-style labour expectations on these factories, the Businessweek article Thompson refers to underscores the need for Apple to make changes.

As one of the most influential companies in the world, they will get their share of negative press, but they can also own the positive changes they make to their contract factories. Yes, they already audit more factories than any other technology company, but it seems pertinent and pressing for them to do more.

Take Those Retina iPad Mini “Burn In” Stories With a Grain of Salt ⇥ english.etnews.com

Speaking of the retina iPad Mini, Korea IT News published this rumour from the supply chain:

According to the industry on November 7, Apple is delaying its launch because it could not solve the burn-in problem in the LCD panel, to be applied to the iPad mini retina product, which is caused by the malfunction of the TFT.

This has been picked up by loads of blogs and news sites, but take it with a grain of salt. For one thing, supply chain rumours are notoriously unreliable unless they’re actual parts; for another, a product can’t be delayed unless its release date is known. Apple’s website still says that it will launch in November and, unless that changes, that’s when it will be released.

Desktop Class ⇥ speirs.org

Fraser Speirs reviews his new iPad Air:

I use an iPad literally every day and, when I’m teaching, as my main work computer. I am finely attuned to every aspect of the performance profile of the apps I use.

I know exactly how long Safari takes to bring up the keyboard when I want to search. I know exactly how quickly Tweetbot will resume and refresh the feed. I know how long Explain Everything will take to render a five-slide presentation. I know how long it takes for Keynote to open a particular file.

What I know about the iPad Air is that I’m constantly being surprised by these apps being ready and waiting for me as soon as I try them. I’m having to speed up my muscle memory as the iPad is ready sooner than I anticipate.

This bodes well for the virtually-identical iPad Mini with retina display. I’m very excited to get my hands on one of those.

Five Years in the App Store ⇥ david-smith.org

David Smith:

For years prior, I had looked at the indie developer as a mythical creature: something you could read about, but out of reach for most people. The road I’ve traveled has been long. I’ve had countless late nights, disappointments and trials balanced almost exactly with elations, successes and growth. I’ve met some of my best friends during this process. I don’t know what the next 5 years will hold for me but if it is anything like that last I can’t wait.

It’s pretty obvious that the past five years of the App Store — first on the iPhone, then the iPad, and then the Mac — have forever changed software sales and distribution. What Smith makes clear is just how much the Stores have changed software for indie developers, whether they’re a small company or a single person.

Olloclip 4-in-1 Review ⇥ imore.com

Allyson Kazmucha reviews the new version of the Olloclip for iMore:

The new 4-in-1 system is supposed to bring with it some better quality when it comes to the overall optics system itself. It also adds a new macro option. The old system only had a 10x macro option while the new system comes with a 15x as well. Olloclip also says the refreshed 10x macro on the new 4-in-one system should take brighter and better focused images than its predecessor.

I took the new 4-in-1 system around with me for a few days and was extremely happy with the results. I did notice I had to exert less effort with the new and refreshed macros in order to get a shot I was happy with.

Sounds great. If I pick up an iPhone 5S, I’ll definitely buy one of these at the same time. I don’t want my Instagram followers to think I’ve given up on spamming their feeds with ultra-close-up pictures of leaves covered in snow.