February 2012
2 posts
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70 percent of all smartphones sold by AT&T and... →
Via Daring Fireball.
So it seems in my previous analysis of the Android userbase, I left out “people who couldn’t wait for the iPhone to come to their carrier of choice”. It seems Android’s meteoric rise was due at least in part to limited availability of the iPhone. Going forward the smartphone landscape will get very interesting.
I’d be very interested to look...
January 2012
9 posts
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iPhone design
In my Apple predictions I went against the consensus and predicted that Apple would not significantly alter the design of the iPhone in the next iteration.
You may recall that before the release of the iPhone 4S, rumours of a tapered, asymmetrical design with a bigger screen popped up. Some case manufacturers even gambled on this being the new design.
Yet I was skeptical as soon as I saw the...
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The brilliant "Don't Be Evil" bookmarklet →
MG Seigler (parislemon):
Kudos to Facebook (with some help from Twitter and MySpace) for having the balls to do this. It’s a bookmarklet that replaces Google’s new “People and Pages” area, the hardcoded social search area, and the search completion drop-down, with organic results.
In other words, it makes the new Google behave more like the old Google.
Though as Watts Martin put it in his...
WatchHello
via Daring Fireball
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Apple predictions for 2012
Macworld’s recent 2012 Predictions article rounds up a few Apple-inclined blogosphere members and gets them to predict Apple’s moves for the coming year. I thought I’d give the game a try myself.
Mac OS X
While OS X itself won’t get any big changes this year, what with Lion having just arrived last year, Apple’s Mac software may get some attention. We’re...
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We Are The 0.6% →
parislemon:
Hard to pick the most ridiculous element of these updated numbers.
Is it that just 0.6% of Android users have Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) two months after it launched?
Is it that of the remaining 99.4%, only 55% are upgraded to Gingerbread (2.3), which came out over a year ago?
Is it that over 30% are stuck on Froyo (2.2) which is 20 months old?
Is it that 8.5% (something like 10...
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Alan Moore's alternative Thought for the Day →
mrgan:
If you’ve got a spare two minutes, give this a spin: Alan Moore succinctly explains his made-up religion on BBC Radio 4. Or, check out this transcript from the Forbidden Planet blog:
“Hello everybody, my name’s Alan Moore, and I earn a living by making up stories about things that have never actually happened.
When it comes to my spiritual beliefs that’s perhaps why I worship a second...
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2011: the year in pictures →
I am still amazed at what an eventful year 2011 was. So much happened that really changed the world, for better or worse.
Boston.com’s Big Picture series shows a lot of the historic (and not so historic) events.
The Year in Pictures: Part I
The Year in Pictures: Part II
The Year in Pictures: Part III
They don’t have any photos of the local historic event, the Queensland floods. In...
December 2011
7 posts
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Amazon Kindle Fire vs iPad 2 →
http://www.marco.org/2011/12/19/amazon-kindle-vs-ipad
Marco Arment makes some adjustments to Amazon’s marketing to reflect his experiences.
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The abuse of the computer desktop
My Living Desktop:
My Living Desktop brings a whole new dimension to your computing experience by turning your Mac’s desktop into a beautiful, moving environment…. even complete with soothing sounds.
Jim Dalrymple:
Always thought this was kind of cool.
I really have to disagree with you there, Jim. Ever since I first saw a similar feature in Windows Vista I’ve thought...
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Definition of an ‘Apple fanboy’ and those that use... →
http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/12/12/definition-of-an-apple-fanboy-and-those-that-use-the-term/
By Jim Dalrymple, via Marco Arment.
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OnLive launches iOS client for gaming-on-demand →
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/07/onlive-launches-their-ios-client-for-gaming-on-demand/
Interesting concept. I’ll be keen to see how well it responds to input… if it has to send your touches to a server and back I can’t imagine it will be too responsive compared to native apps. I’ll have to check it out.
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Kindle Fire usability findings →
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/kindle-fire-usability.html
Spoiler: It does not sound good. (via Daring Fireball)
Also, check out Marco Arment’s comparison of the Kindle Touch.
November 2011
5 posts
1 tag
The Android userbase
There’s been a number of good articles in the last few weeks illustrating my reservations about developing software for the Android market.
As part of Andrew Kim’s visualisation I linked to previously, he makes the following comment that I tend to agree with:
I’ve always categorized Android users into two key segments; nerds and budget buyers.
I’m going to assume...
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A brief rant on the future of interaction design →
Another link via Daring Fireball (I do enjoy Gruber’s work).
This article from Bret Victor really struck a note with me. Although it’s from a few weeks ago, I hadn’t read it until today, but I’d been thinking along the same lines myself.
The future isn’t just thinner lighter versions of iPads with built-in Kinects. The iPad and Kinect are just the first steps down...
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Market share vs profit →
Another bit of catch-up blogging, again via Daring Fireball.
Andrew Kim does some analysis of the old market share vs profit argument when it comes to the smartphone market. Scroll down to see his visualisation of the Apple and Samsung product lines.
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Everybody wins →
I’ve been holidaying for the past three weeks and am slowly catching up on the blogs I regularly consume. One of the big items of news to break while I was away was Adobe’s decision to kill mobile Flash. This can only be a good thing for the future of the Internet. As John Gruber writes:
Apple didn’t win. Everybody won. Flash hasn’t been superseded in mobile by any sort of Apple...
October 2011
22 posts
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Microsoft Office's vision of the future →
http://www.microsoft.com/office/vision/
I suppose the point of this video is to convince us to stick with their current mediocre products with the hope that they will some day be enjoyable to use. If we don’t, we’ll regret Microsoft’s incompatibility with competing standards when we want to switch!
Considering how little progress Microsoft have made in the last ten years, it...
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Siri meets Eliza →
http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2011/10/siri/
Jordan Mechner introduces Siri, Apple’s new personal assistant app, to ELIZA, the old psychoanalyst impersonator.
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The Voynich manuscript →
Today’s entry on Letters of Note has introduced me to a fascinating thing: the Voynich manuscript. From Wikipedia:
The Voynich manuscript is a handwritten book thought to have been written in the early 15th century and comprising about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations. Although many possible authors have been proposed, the author, script, and language remain unknown. It has been...
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Star Wars: Revisited: reviewed
At the end of my analysis of the benefits and drawback of the Star Wars blurays, I mused that perhaps Star Wars: Revisited would be my only hope for a decent version of my favourite movies. This fan edit of A New Hope was a massive endeavour, undertaken by “Adywan”. While the end result is very impressive, it probably still isn’t the right version for me either.
The edit isn’t the easiest thing...
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Four months with Android: reflections, grievances...
dinnerwithandroid:
That’s not to say I didn’t learn a lot. I have a solid grasp of what makes Android Android, the ins-and-outs of the OS, and, yes, there are even a few really great features I will miss as I transition back to iOS.
But at the end of the day I’m left with mostly a bad taste in my mouth. What follows is a summation of four months exclusively using Android.
Read More
Ryan...
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The Electric DeLorean →
http://delorean.com/2011/10/electric-delorean/
The DeLorean Motor Company has announced they’ll be producing an all-electric version of the classic DeLorean for release in 2013. Great Scott!
I better start saving now. Hopefully my future self will visit and give me a copy of Gray’s Sports Almanac to help with the finances.
A particularly nice touch is the built-in iPhone dock. Perfect for use...
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Enable Siri for iPhone 4S
When I opened my new iPhone 4S, the first thing I wanted to try was Siri. I held the button as it says to in the booklet, but was dismayed when I was shown the old Voice Control interface.
After trying the button again several times in a state of confusion, I ventured into the Settings. There I discovered Siri was turned off by default. I assume this must be because Apple is still calling Siri...
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“The use of that last phrase, “style over substance” has always been, as Oscar...”
– Stephen Fry, from his tribute to Steve Jobs.
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iPhone 4S available in Australia 14 October
I wrote this just after the iPhone 4S announcement, but with Steve Jobs’ death it got left in my draft pile. I may as well publish it now with the iPhone release just a day away.
My “predictions” for the iPhone models turned out to be pretty much correct. Admittedly I was just reading the rumours and agreeing with the ones that sounded the most realistic, so not really much...
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Here's to the Crazy One →
http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/07/steve-jobs-the-crazy-one/
MG Siegler describes the significance of losing Steve Jobs at this point in history.
Also on TechCrunch, the best lesson we can take from Steve Jobs’ life: #LiveLikeSteve
(via Daring Fireball)
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Stephen Fry's tribute to Steve Jobs →
http://www.stephenfry.com/2011/10/06/steve-jobs
I will not be so presumptuous as to mourn the loss of Steve as a personal friend, but I will mourn his loss as a man who changed my world completely.
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Steve Jobs has passed away →
So long, Steve. All the eulogies the internet wrote when you stepped down as CEO are now appropriate.
You were a visionary and you were thankfully able to share that vision with us. You will not be forgotten.
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"Let's Talk iPhone" rumour round-up →
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/03/lets-talk-iphone-rumor-roundup/
MacRumors runs through all the speculation ahead of Apple’s event tomorrow.
I think a tapered iPhone 5 is extremely unlikely, and that Sprint would get exclusive access to it is even less likely. John Gruber pretty much obliterated the concept of a teardrop design in last week’s Talk Show, and on Daring Fireball. I...
September 2011
13 posts
1 tag
Rebrickable →
http://rebrickable.com/
Rebrickable lets you enter in which Lego sets you own, then shows you a bunch of others you can build with the bricks you have.
(via ohdeedoh)
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The dilemma of the Star Wars blu-rays
With the release of the Star Wars trilogy/saga on blu-ray, George Lucas has had yet another fiddle with the masterpiece. And once again I face the quandary that is repurchasing my favourite movies again.
While in the past I’d humoured Lucas’s “enhancements”, and maybe even supported some of them, I definitely think he’s crossed the line now. Making Greedo shoot first...
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Lightsabers on Japanese subways →
http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/index.php/2011/09/22/lightsabers-spotted-on-japanese-subways/
Advertisements for the blu-rays. Awesome geek posing opportunities.