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iPhone Timeline: Media Account vs. Affidavit
Nice piece by my cousin Brian Ford detailing differences between media accounts and the recently-released affidavit in the saga of the lost fourth-generation iPhone prototype.
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Fraser Speirs: Back In
I think Fraser nails it, here.
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Ben Ward: Understand The Web
A pretty great piece by Ben Ward discussing “web apps,” and how much of what is being talked about aren’t really “web apps” at all, because they’re a very different beast than the “interconnected bits of information” that make up the web. I think it’s fair to say that “web app” may not be the best name for these things — although I’m not sure what to call them, instead. I’m in full agreement with most of what Ben says — but this last line just doesn’t fly with me: “The idea of undermining the core function of the web to achieve that is detestable.” I fail to see how building native-like apps using web technologies “undermines the core function of the web” at all. To me, it simply adds another function. Just as Cocoa apps aren’t part of the web, but rather tangential to it, I would say native-like apps that live in the web are also not part of the web, but tangential to it. They sit alongside it, not hurting the web one bit.
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On Flash
In the days since the iPad’s announcement, there’s been an ongoing discussion going on in web circles about what its lack of support for Flash means for that technology, for Adobe, for video on the web, and frankly, for the web as a whole. I’m not really sure why this debate didn’t rear it’s head when the iPhone was introduced, or when Android was introduced, or when Palm’s WebOS was introduced (since all three didn’t include Flash support), but whatever. The iPad is here and we’re talking about it now, so here are some off-the-cuff, not very well-thought-out thoughts on the matter.
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iPad thoughts
I’m not going to front: when I saw the iPad introduction today, I was initially disappointed. I was really hoping for revolutionary way to interact with a device — a whole new multi-touch interface. I was expecting this, and the fact that the iPad is, really, just a big iPod touch was a bit, well, underwhelming. Then I remembered something: the way we interact with the iPhone and iPod touch is fucking awesome. Like, best-UI-ever-created awesome. Why fuck with it?
It’s totally cliche and douchey to say so, but the fact is, the iPad is just a big iPod touch. Seriously. That’s all it is.
But is that so bad?
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Restoring Spring to iPhone Springboard
Bruce Tognazzini has some ideas for improvements to Springboard (the app that runs what you probably call your iPhone’s “home screens”). Not exactly thrilled with his visual design, but from a usability perspective, most of these make sense. A good read.
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mxcl’s homebrew
Interesting-looking alternative to MacPorts and Fink.
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Daring Fireball: Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline
Gruber has an insightful piece on Microsoft’s position in the market. There’s no debating it anymore: Microsoft is irrelevant (at least in the PC world — it still has plenty of relevance in video games, for example). Sure, they’re still selling a bazillion copies of Windows every year, but they’re lost any semblance of the mindshare they once had. No one believe Windows PCs are better than Macs, anymore. Some still buy them, because they’re cheaper, but no one argues that they’re better. And when everyone in the world believes Apple makes a better product, the difference in price is much, much easier for people to swallow. And even though Microsoft still sells plenty of Windows every year, they’ve just reported quarterly results which revenue fell $1 billion short of projections and declined 17 percent year-over-year. So even the argument that they’re still relevant because they being in so much cash is falling apart. No ones cares anymore. No one.
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Whiners of the World: Shut Up About the iPhone 3GS’ Upgrade Price
Here’s the flip-side of the iPhone 3G[S] pricing debate, for argument’s sake. The guy makes a lot of good points, but he still doesn’t address my concern: Apple and AT&T; set and expectation when the 3G came out that existing iPhone owners would be able to upgrade at the two-year contract price. Now, they’ve reneged on the implicit contract created by that expectation. If the expectation had never been set, none of us would be complaining. It’s a good lesson for everyone: be very careful about what expectations you’re inadvertently setting, lest they come back to bite you in the ass.
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Apple iPhone Users Cry Foul Over AT&T’s Upgrade Policy
Basically, if you have an iPhone 3G now, you can’t upgrade to a 3G[S] for the $199 and $299 prices Apple and AT&T; are touting. Rather, you have to pay $218 more ($399 or $499, plus an $18 activation fee) — and you’ll have to sign a new contract. This is the way carriers have always operated when it comes to upgrading your device mid-contract, and it’s always been one of the most egregious offenses of customer disrespect we see anywhere. However, when the iPhone 3G came out, AT&T; and Apple worked out a deal in which owners of the original iPhone were able to upgrade to the 3G for the same price as new customers, in exchange for signing a new two-year contract. Because they did it last time, most people expected they’d have the same deal this go ‘round. Here’s my take: you can charge me more for a phone if you don’t make me sign a new contract. But asking me to pay $218 extra and sign a new two-year contract is akin to bending me over your kitchen counter and raping me anally.
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Authentic Jobs: Creative Director, Information Architecture, Apple.com
Sounds like a great gig for the right candidate!
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Brian's bathroom
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Photoshop for iPhone
Sweet! Via Emily, on Twitter.
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Whatcha-Mac-allit
Agree with Khoi completely here: The Apple TV is a wonderful device. I love mine. If you’re like me and you’ve pretty well bought into the iTunes ecosystem, I’m not sure there’s a better way to get your content to your TV. It works really, really well.
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As a Brand, Barack Obama Is a Lot Like Apple
Although it feels a bit biased against Obama, I enjoyed this short piece comparing Obama to Apple, as they both are “challenger brands” which seek to impart a message of change, rebellion, and newness.
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iPhone Developer NDA Dropped
Apple:
> We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.
Sweet. I’m hoping this results in a slew of how-to blog posts and the like.
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Garrett: Why does it take so long to update iPhone applications?
I’ve wondered the same many times. Most apps are smaller than a typical MP3 — and yet it takes probably 10 times as long to install an app than it does to copy over a song. Why?
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CounterNotions: Why Apple doesn’t do “Concept Products”
A really nice piece on “concept” products, such as those we see all the time from car companies, Nokia, Microsoft, and the like:
> It turns out that when capable designers are given real constraints for real products they can end up creating great results. In Apple’s case, groundbreaking products like the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone. Constraints have a wonderful way of focusing the mind on the fundamentals, whereas concept products can often have the opposite affect.
Design is all about constraints, and concept products inherently remove most of them. Apple seems to spend most of its time focusing on products I can build today (or in the near future), rather than on what might be possible 10 years from now.
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Out with the old…
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aTV Flash
A very interesting-looking product that adds a ton of codec support and some other features to your AppleTV. I’m a little scared to try it, but it looks awesome. Very tempting…
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iPhone native Apps - the great leap backwards?
John Allsop wonders aloud whether or not most iPhone native apps should be web apps, instead. Although I don’t really share John’s lack of enthusiasm for native iPhone apps in general, I definitely think he has a point. Many of the best apps on the iPhone are simply interfaces to web content. Many of them don’t offer any real advantages over a similar web app. Developers would be wise to still consider the web app direction as a possibility, unless they specifically need to access native functionality such as the camera or location data — web apps are more compatible, more distributable, and arguably easier to develop.
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I didn't play it, the computer did.
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Apple apologizes for its MobileMe mess, offers 30-days free
Apple has publicly apologized for the disaster that was the MobileMe launch, as well as the misleading use of the word “push,” and given subscribers a free 30-day extension to their service. A nice gesture for what was, indeed, an ugly string of screw-ups. I especially like the letter’s copywriting: no-bullshit, sincere, to the point, and personal. We all know a lot of companies would have taken a “our Terms of Service clearly indicate that we can not guarantee our services,” sort of approach. Well-done, Apple.
Now that things are running smoothly, I’m really liking MobileMe a lot. Not having to put my iPhone in its dock all the damn time to ensure I’ve got my latest contacts and calendar events on all my device is really a sweet thing. There’s no doubt this is a better service than .Mac for iPhone owners. I’m not sure it’s an improvement for those who just want to keep multiple Macs in sync — but, whatever.
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Apple changes MobileMe “features” page
Apple has changed the text on it’s MobileMe “features” page, indicating that sync from computer to cloud aren’t really “push” at all, but rather standard interval-based syncs. The textual change comes after a lot of folks complained about “false advertising” and “deception” on the part of Apple. The page previously stated:
> MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date.
As of today, it says:
> MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and keeps them in sync across your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change in one place, MobileMe pushes the new information up to the cloud, then pushes the change down to your other devices. Choose a sync interval for your Mac or PC. On your iPhone and the web, sync happens continuously.
It’s good that Apple has made this more clear, but it doesn’t change the fact that they absolutely did misrepresent how the service works — not only on their site, but also during the WWDC keynote demo.
Form talking to someone inside Apple, it sounds as though “true” push is likely to come to the Mac with updates to iCal, Address Book, Mail, and Safai, but who knows when that will be. It’s good to hear it may be coming though, and is not entirely a lost cause.
Thanks to Bret for letting me know about the text change.
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MobileMe doesn’t push from Mac to Me.com and handheld devices
Turns out, MobileMe doesn’t “push” changes to calendars and contacts made on your Mac to the Me.com web apps and your handheld devices. From an Apple Knowledgebase article:
> Changes made on your computer will be synced to the MobileMe “cloud” once every 15 minutes (or every hour in Mac OS X 10.4.11).
Changes to calendars and contacts made on Me.com or on your iPhone will be pushed to your Mac immediately, but the reverse is not true. Strange. From Apple’s MobileMe features page:
> MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars in the cloud and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Push happens automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone and syncing manually — to stay up to date
Emphasis mine. For many people, including me, a 15 minute sync time is probably just fine in real-world usage. But, it definitely seems contrary to how the service was promoted and demoed at the WWDC keynote, and I can definitely understand why so many people are complaining about it on the MacRumors forums and across the Internet. This sort of reeks of deception.
A couple things worth pointing out about this, for those wondering why it’s a big deal:
- It’s an especially big deal for laptop users, who are prone to opening their laptop, adding a calendar event or contact, and then closing it again. If MobileMe really “pushed” from Mac to the cloud, then this behavior would be fine — the update has already made it to the cloud by the time the laptop is closed. If a user has to sit there, laptop open, for at least 15 minutes, to ensure the sync takes place, that sucks.
- MobileMe isn’t all about the iPhone. It’s supposed to keep all your devices instantly in sync, including multiple Macs. Someone who doesn’t have an iPhone but has two Macs might want to keep their laptop in sync with their desktop. The old .Mac did this at a 15 minute interval, and MobileMe was promoted as an improvement that made the sync near-instantaneous. In reality, for this user, MobileMac is not an improvement at all — and that also sucks.
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MobileMe doesn’t support calendar subscriptions
There are a lot of things to complain about when it comes to the launch of Apple’s MobileMe service, which is still in an on-again-off-again state more than 40 hours after it was supposed to be available. I’ve done my fair share of complaining, though, and I’m done bitching about the launch. For now, I’d like to move on and talk about the product itself. Overall, I’m pretty impressed, but it does have one missing feature that’s kind of killing me right now: calendar subscriptions.
If you’re a heavy iCal user, as I am, you are probably subscribed to several remote .ics calendars. At Blue Flavor, we use 37signals’ Backpack for several internal calendars, for schedules, holidays, meetings, and more. I also subscribe to several .ics calendars from social networking services like Upcoming and Dopplr.
A few days ago, before .Mac was turned off, these calendars synced to my iPhone without issue. Now, with MobileMe, they don’t.
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Twitter users reporting problems with iPhone in-store activation
According to a growing number of people on Twitter, Apple is having problems with its in-store activation process. Couple this with the botched MobileMe rollout, and this launch isn’t looking good for Apple right now. Here’s hoping they get it all resolved in short order.
Update: Engadget on the activation problems.
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.Mac migration to MobileMe hits some roadblocks
It’s now been 24 hours since the start of the six-hour downtown window Apple gave for the .Mac to MobileMe migration. I’m frustrated. A lot of people are frustrated. But a lot of other people, in forums around the Internet, are saying, “Oh, get over it. You’ve waited this long for MobileMe, you can wait another day or two.” Those people are missing the point. I pay for .Mac, and I rely upon its services (notably Sync, Back to My Mac, and iDisk). I’m not upset that MobileMe isn’t ready yet; I’m upset that Apple has taken away my .Mac services. MobileMe can take six months for all I care, but I need my syncing and iDisk.
Apple has another problem at play, too: a lot of the hype surrounding the new iPhone 3G is directly related to its integration with MobileMe. The iPhone went on sale hours ago on the other side of the world, and will go on sale in less than 10 hours here in America. If the push e-mail, contact, and calendar functionality Apple has been hyping for the past couple months isn’t available when these people get their iPhones home, the media is going to have a fucking field day — and RIM’s stock is going to look pretty darn good.
Update: Media frenzy has begun. AP article on .Mac/MobileMe transition woes. And a new article on ComputerWord.
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How to Get the iPhone 2.0 Upgrade Right Now
Ever since I tweeted that I have installed iPhone 2.0 and downloaded apps from the app store, I’ve gotten countless IM’s, DM’s, and e-mails asking me how. It’s been all over the Internet all morning, so it’s no secret, but Wired has now published a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that is probably the simplest to follow that I’ve seen. So, get on it.
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Authentic Jobs: UI Engineer at Apple
Sounds like a good gig for the right person!
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iPhone Clone Battle: Which One Is the iPhoniest?
Short story: the Samsung Instinct on Sprint is the best “iPhone killer” made to date, and it also happens to b the cheapest (at just $129, after this week’s price reduction to compete with the iPhone 3G). Being from the Kansas City area (where Sprint is headquartered), I know a lot of people locked into Sprint contracts. While it’s still not an iPhone, the Instinct does seem like a solid buy for someone stuck on Sprint — especially at just $129.
All that having been said, I sort of suspect phones like the Nokia N95, Samsung Soul, and Garmin Nuviphone are more likely to take business away from the iPhone — even if they’re not as directly positioned to compete with it.
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Daring Fireball: The iPhone 3G Upgrade Question
Gruber walks through the “should I upgrade to the new iPhone,” dilemma, one I’m currently having, myself. He correctly points out that the only real noteworthy advantages are faster networking and GPS. He doesn’t mention the flush headphone jack, which isn’t a big deal to me personally (I’ve already gone and bought V-Moda iPhone earbuds), but may be to some audiophiles who’ve been avoiding the iPhone because they can’t use their favorite headphones with them.
For me, I think it’s going to boil down to this: Will the location-based SDK apps work with the triangulation functionality of the original iPhone, or will they require GPS? And if they do work: how well? I’m excited about the location based services more than the 3G networking, myself. If these work reasonably well on the original iPhone, then I may not have much incentive to upgrade this time around.
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Qik Video Streaming Finally Comes to iPhone
Qik, which is totally rad, is now on iPhone. It looks like it’s just a demo of an unofficial app for jailbroken iPhone, but it’s probably safe to assume a more “legit” version will be coming soon. Awesome.
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Apple Says White Is Cool Again… But Is It?
I’ve been saying it all along: white rules! I never got the facination with the black MacBook, and all my iPods have been white. If I get the new iPhone (which I haven’t fully decided on, yet), it’ll be white. White FTW!
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iPhone 3G must be activated in-store
There’s a lot of good news about the new iPhone today, but it’s not all gravy. One thing that saddens me is that you can no longer activate the iPhone using iTunes in the comfort of your own home, like you did with the first generation Jesus phone. You now have to activate in-store — a process which takes 10-15 minutes. Man, that launch day line is going to suck.
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Sizing it up: iPhone 3G vs. the rest
According to Engadget, the new iPhone is slightly thicker than the old one. Now, we’re talking about .7mm, so it’s not something that is going to make a difference in real-world usage. I just think it’s interesting that it’s thicker, considering that Steve Jobs apparently said it was thinner during the keynote today, where it was introduced.
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CNN thinks flash memory is owned by Adobe.
> Just how will Apple meet expectations? Using the patent application as a guide, Apple appears to be making room on the iPhone for flash memory, which means an end to Apple’s standoff with Adobe (ADBE) that’s kept iPhones from easily viewing a plethora of Internet videos. Apple has said that Adobe’s flash media player, which is on hundreds of other phones, doesn’t perform up to Apple’s standards for the iPhone.
Wow. Just, wow.
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NYTimes: Those Intense iPhone Users
A handful of stats, according to Nielsen Mobile, about how iPhone owners use their phones. Most interesting bit to me? 33 percent said they use their iPhone for “instant messaging” — despite the fact there is no IM client on the phone. Weird. Or wrong.
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Macworld: The new rules for buying a Mac
Great Mac-buying advice from the guys at Macword. There definitely are still a lot of people out there who seem to think you need a Mac Pro or Macbook Pro for even moderately heavy use, such as that a typical web designer does. In reality, a Macbook or iMac is plenty of computer for 90% of users out there. General rule: unless you’re a hardcore Mac gamer or doing professional-level video editing or 3D modeling, you probably don’t need a pro-level machine.
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Apple’s WebKit now supports CSS Reflections
Talk about scratching your own itch…
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Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with nGen Works, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
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