Link Posts
David Sleight:
The question now before platform makers is whether they will begin exploring alternatives or will pass the pain along to users in the form of unsustainably large issue sizes. The three likely options on the table for them are: 1) Do nothing; 2) Start building dynamic layout and text rendering engines; or 3) Begin basing their platforms on Web technologies.
And maybe I’m missing something here, but wouldn’t iBooks Author also work as a magazine publishing tool?
Kyle Baxter:
The iPad is quickly becoming the only “computer” many people need, and it’s going to be a much better experience than it ever was on a computer. It’s this 1.5 pound notebook-sized thing that you can pull out anywhere, anytime, and write, create art, take and edit photos and video, or make music. You don’t have to worry about drivers or viruses or defragmenting the hard drive or any of that other computer crap you had to think about before. All you have to do is create. Or just watch a movie.
Sean Sperte:
The idea was that we’d create a browser that we would want to use, market to all our internet buddies, hopefully get featured on Daring Fireball or Macworld or MacBreak Weekly or TUAW or some other hugely populated website full of enthusiasts, be spotlighted by Apple as an example of innovation on the iPad (despite competing toe-to-toe with Safari), and make millions. Then we’d keep making apps and stuff. From our yachts.
Our friend, Dr. Drang, gives a high-level look at these two stellar calendar applications for the Mac. I use Fantastical and BusyCal on my Mac. The former is my primary calendar app (since I work for myself from home now my life is not nearly as rigidly full of meetings and appointments as it once used to be). And for the times when I need a different view of my week or month I bust out BusyCal.
So long as we’re on the subject: I use Agenda on my iPhone, and Apple’s native Calendar app on my iPad.
Written almost 300 years ago and still relevant today. (Via Tory Briggs.)
Jacqui Cheng chronicled her trip to San Francisco last week for Apple’s new iPad event and her liveblogging of it for Ars Technica:
Usually, the words being said on stage go into my ears and out my fingers without any human processing involved, and the only things I “see”—aside from my computer screen, that is—are the pretty colors being filtered through my camera lens.
In an article on GigaOM, Tom Krazit reports that SrcribbleLive (the service The Verge uses) sees a spike of between 50 – 100 times their normal activity during Apple events. And Cover It Live (the service Macworld uses) sees between 50 – 75 times their normal traffic. That’s like getting 2 – 3 months worth of pageviews in around 90 minutes.
Even still, posting live updates of Apple event doesn’t sound enjoyable to me. If (when?) I get invited to an Apple special event I don’t think I would do a live blog for this site. For one: there are other sites which do a far better job of incorporating images and text updates. And secondly, I’d prefer to give my full attention to what was happening on the stage and to enjoy the show — Apple special events aren’t just announcements, they’re carefully-planned presentations.
I mentioned this in my post earlier today on daily schedules, but Michael Lopp’s article is so good and convicting that it deserves a link of its own.
Patrick Rhone:
In my recent emergency trip this past week […], my iPhone 4 became my most used and primary computer for many reasons. This despite the fact I had both my iPad and MacBook Air with me and close at hand. It was the one best fitted to almost every situation I found myself in. Unobtrusive, agile, and the one with a constant and reliable internet connection.
For those who travel, more and more the iPad and the iPhone are proving to be not just worthy companions but valiant work horses as well.
For my trip to Macworld this past January, I took my MacBook Air but didn’t even use it. Nearly all of the reading, writing, linking, emailing, and tweeting I did was via my iPhone, and the rest was on my iPad. And so, with a 4G-equipped new iPad en route, I see no reason not to leave the Air at home on my next trip to San Francisco at WWDC.
(Well actually there is one fear holding me back: what if something were to go terribly wrong with my site while I was away? Something that couldn’t be fixed from the iPad? Of course, the chances of that happening are slim to none, but still… what if?)
Ryan Block on why the new iPad’s Retina display is a big deal:
The core experience of the iPad, and every tablet for that matter, is the screen. It’s so fundamental that it’s almost completely forgettable. Post-PC devices have absolutely nothing to hide behind. Specs, form-factors, all that stuff melts away in favor of something else that’s much more intangible. When the software provides the metaphor for the device, every tablet lives and dies by the display and what’s on that display.
I haven’t even seen the new iPad yet, but I have no doubt Ryan is exactly right. Think about it this way: one of the key engineering feats of iOS is its responsiveness to touch input — it’s as if you are actually moving the pixels underneath your finger as opposed to pinching or swiping and then waiting. Inasmuch as that matters, so too does the quality and realism of the screen itself matter.
Those who care about software should make their own hardware.
Pretty sure that makes it one of the largest mobile-only social networks in the world. Impressive for being iOS-only (so far). And but so, at what point does Instagram plan to start trying to make a buck? 50 million users? 100?
Today’s episode of The B&B Podcast is our first one on the world-class 5by5 network. It’s an honor to join the ranks of my favorite nerds.
In this episode Ben and I talk more about the new iPads, retina Macs, big batteries, and more.
A note to all those who are already subscribed to the show via Instacast, iTunes, or something else: you don’t have to do anything. All the feed settings have stayed the same. Thanks for listening.
And a huge thanks to Dan Benjamin for inviting us onto the network and helping make the migration look easy and painless.
Here I thought I was pretty savvy with LaunchBar, and yet I just learned several new tricks. Including the fact that if you press and hold Command+Space LaunchBar will “grab” the selected text or Finder item! Where have you been all my life?
Great piece by Matt Alexander.
Horace Dediu:
The new iPad now exceeds the total display resolution, has similar speed and storage capacity while having twice the battery life of the thinnest laptop of four years ago. It also has very high quality cameras and GPS and cellular network connectivity which have yet to appear on mainstream PCs. It’s still a lot smaller and half the price and has a larger selection of available software titles at prices a fraction of its elder cousin.
This is simultaneously fascinating and telling.