January 2010
27 posts
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Land Ho! The New World of computing →
@stevenf gets the iPad.
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On the iBookstore
The iPad is billed as an eBook reader. Apple built a very pretty, Classics-like reader app for the iPad called iBooks. But more importantly, Apple created a new eBook distribution system based on the previous successes of the iTunes and App Stores: the iBookstore. It seems to me that Apple would be crazy not to make a version of iBooks for the iPhone, ideally one that syncs like the NYT reader app...
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Japanese web browser preferences →
From What Japan Thinks. By no means a definitive sample, but the 31% Firefox marketshare is encouraging.
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Obsessive compulsory iPad observations
When I watched the iPad keynote this morning, I waited for an aha! moment that didn’t come. This device didn’t turn out to be revolutionary, as depicted by the cynical (yet funny!) pic above. I knew Steve’s aim would be lower than the ballooning expectations of the punditocracy. It just turned out lower than even I thought. But I don’t want to sell the iPad short....
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“The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic...”
– Richard Pryor, 1971 (via)
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“Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole...”
– Ray Bradbury
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Consumer product-oriented
The fact that Apple does not reveal prototypes but shipping products is the fundamental difference between their entire business strategy and that of the rest of the industry.
— Joel Johnson via DF: Products, Not Prototypes
An excellent example illustrating how Apple is a consumer electronics company rather than a tech company. As Joel points out in his article “show and sell”...
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A rare glimpse of the cave of crystals →
Mexico’s Cave of Crystals stunned geologists when it was first discovered in 2000. The underground chamber contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found - some of the selenite structures have grown to more than 10m long. Professor Iain Stewart got a rare glimpse of the subterranean spectacle while filming for the new BBC series How the Earth Made Us.
ADDENDUM: Post title I...
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It Works!
Go to http://bi/ in your browser and chances are you will get the above message. Works in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on Mac. Some sort of browser diagnostic?
ADDENDUM: Not reproducible on a PC. A Mac OS X DNS diagnostic?
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Defining an iPhone killer
Excellent point made by Julien Cayzac made in three tweets:
1 SH-01B (Sharp’s Aquos Shot: 12.1M cam, 3.4” WVGA display, BluRay compatible) still top selling phone in JP Jan 4→10. iPhone 3GS is 2nd & 3rd
2 It’s been quite a while since iPhone hasn’t made it back to 1st position in rankings, despite being given away w/ a 2-yr plan…
3 That does qualify...
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First person Tetris! →
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A fourth Mac OS
Think of it like this: Google has Android for mobile devices, ChromeOS for Internet appliances, and runs on full-fledged desktop OSes through the Internet (and their own Chrome browser).
Apple has it’s own full-fledged desktop OS, and an OS for mobile devices. As an appliance device, the RAT will have it’s own OS.1
Keep in mind that this is completely the opposite to the Windows...
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"It's not a computah!"
marco:
But for The Tablet to be a useful general-computing device, text input needs to be faster and easier than what even the best on-screen keyboards have been able to offer so far. [My emphasis]
Paraphrasing John Kimble above, and like I said before, I don’t think the Tablet will be a “general-computing” device. I expect it to be an “appliance computing” device.
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A short review for Free
Many critics were let down that Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson was not The Long Tail: Part 2. I understand the disappointment, but this book takes a different tack. Rather than the unknown future, Free is more about the unknown past. It is an analysis of “free” pricing and non-monetary markets since the 19th Century. Cataloguing and categorizing the usages of...
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A basic guide for debating atheists
This short...
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WatchWe decided to ring in the new year at the top of the world! Here is a vid taken from Nagoya’s TV Tower. It is a 360 degree pan of Nagoya from the center of the city, then a short trip down the elevator. Watch it in HD at Vimeo.
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December 2009
13 posts
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"Pure simplicity": Apple in the 2010s
In 1984 the Macintosh was introduced as a computer “For the rest of us.” It never really lived up to that potential. In 1989 Douglas Adams wrote an article for MacUser detailing his frustration with modern computing. Back then it was overly complex, riddled with software and hardware compatibility issues, too many cables, too many filetypes, too many applications. Understandably his...