The Daring Fireball Linked List

Friday, 3 Jul 2009

Delicious Library 2.1 is out, along with a free iPhone companion in the App Store. My thanks to Delicious Monster for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote it. The iPhone app syncs with the Mac version and lets you view everything in your library, with the same intricate attention to UI design and experience that has made Delicious Monster famous. It’s good.

If you need further convincing, check out the adorable guided tour video they made to promote the iPhone app’s release last month. Hand-crafted stop-motion animation. If this video doesn’t make you smile, you’re not hooked up right. Imagine how much work went into the app if they put this much work into the video.

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Icon Set ★

Nice set of icons by Mischa McLachlan.

‘Edge’ Is Back in the U.S. and U.K. App Stores ★

Remember Edge, the iPhone game that was forced out of the U.S. and U.K. App Stores after some jackass claimed a copyright on the word “Edge”? Well, Edge is back. I bought it last night and I highly recommend it, as does my five-year-old son. Very fun.

Comments on Comments on Zeldman’s XHTML WTF ★

There are a lot of misunderstandings out there regarding HTML 5.

The Setup: John Siracusa ★

Another great entry in Daniel Bogan’s excellent The Setup.

Using Automator to Create a Simple Interface for ffmpeg2theora ★

This lets you transcode video to Ogg Theora right from the Finder, either via the contextual menu or by drag-and-drop. Personally, I don’t mind using the Terminal for this, but Automator is a great solution for wrapping command-line tools.

Email Full-Resolution Photos From the iPhone ★

Good tip: If you use copy-and-paste instead of the “Email Photo” button in the Camera app, you can email the full-resolution version of the photo.

Thursday, 2 Jul 2009

Modes, Quasi-Modes, and the iPhone ★

Lukas Mathis has been writing some of the most insightful essays on UI design I’ve read in ages. He has a great piece today on modes and “quasi-modes”:

Quasimodes require the user to do several things at the same time, such as holding down the Shift key while typing. Modes, on the other hand, allow users to do things sequentially — hit Caps Lock, type, hit Caps Lock again. Sequential actions, especially if guided well, are often easier to execute than parallel actions.

And he argues (correctly, I say) that the iPhone’s new modal interface for selecting text is superior to the WebOS’s quasi-modal interface.

XHTML 2 Is Dead, Long Live HTML 5 ★

The W3C’s XHTML 2 effort is (thankfully) now officially dead, not just effectively dead. This is good news for HTML 5, as there’s no longer any dispute over which standard is the future of HTML.

Getting Pretty Lonely ★

Smart essay from Daniel Jalkut on how the GPL discourages participation from many (if not most) developers.

Apple Retail Stores Can Now Replace Broken iPhone Screens ★

Speaking of fixing cracked iPhone screens, Jim Dalrymple reports:

The Loop has confirmed that if your iPhone has a broken screen and you take it to an Apple retail relocation, they have the capability to fix it on the spot. The machine, which is located out of customer view in the back of the store, reportedly separates the iPhone from the screen, allowing a new one to be installed.

Of course, your screen doesn’t have to be completely smashed to need some sort of replacement done. Some users have reported dust particles on the inside of the screen as well.

How to Replace a Cracked iPhone 3G Screen ★

Step-by-step instructions, with photos, from Jeff Carlson.

Leaked AT&T Memo: iPhone 3GS Generated ‘Best Ever Sales Day’ ★

MacDailyNews has obtained an internal AT&T memo:

On this year’s launch day, iPhone sales exceeded sales recorded on 2008’s iPhone launch day, Black Friday 2008 and Dec. 26, 2008 — all heavy-volume sales days. In fact, this year we surpassed 2008’s launch day sales at about noon Central time, and sustained our previous peak hour record, also set in 2008, for 11 straight hours.

Wednesday, 1 Jul 2009

Kroc Camen: Video for Everybody ★

No-JavaScript HTML 5 markup from Kroc Camen that works across browsers and platforms and requires only two video source files: H.264 and Ogg Theora. (In browsers that don’t support HTML 5’s <video> tag, it falls back on Flash, QuickTime, and Windows Media.)

Ian Hickson on Codecs for the HTML 5 ‘audio’ and ‘video’ Tags ★

The goal was for there to be at least one standard video codec that would work across all HTML 5 browsers — one format that would work across browsers and platforms with no plugins.

But, alas, the result is an impasse. Apple won’t support Ogg Theora, and Mozilla and Opera won’t support H.264. (Google, admirably, is willing to support both in Chrome, but they don’t consider Ogg good enough to use for YouTube.) So there will be no standard HTML 5 video codec. So it goes.

(Let it be said that Ian Hickson is the Solomon of web standards; his summary of the situation is mind-bogglingly even-handed and fair-minded.)

PragPub ★

The Pragmatic Programmers’ new free monthly programming magazine, edited by Michael Swaine, former editor of Dr. Dobb’s Journal (and, once upon a time, an excellent columnist for the old MacUser magazine). Available in PDF, mobi, and epub formats. (Via Michael Tsai.)

Chris Anderson’s ‘Free’ Contains Numerous Uncredited Passages From Wikipedia ★

Waldo Jaquith, at The Virginia Quarterly Review:

In the course of reading Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, $26.99), for a review in an upcoming issue of VQR, we have discovered almost a dozen passages that are reproduced nearly verbatim from uncredited sources. These instances were identified after a cursory investigation, after I checked by hand several dozen suspect passages in the whole of the 274-page book.

Jaquith includes half a dozen incriminating examples. Plagiarism is a strong word, but there’s no other way to describe some of these passages.

Anderson has responded, acknowledging it as a “screwup”, on his Long Tail weblog.

An Ant, Close Up ★

GigaPan:

This ant is composed of 400 pictures, and it’s magnified 400x using a scanning electron microscope. The ant was given to us to image by Brian Fisher an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences.

The intersection of horrifying and wonderful.

Layer Tennis 2009 Finals ★

On the one side: Gregory Hubacek, who played his way out of the qualifiers and had the toughest draw in the playoffs. On the other: defending champion Shaun Inman. In the commentary booth: Jason Santa Maria and yours truly.

See you next Friday, July 10.

The Em and En of iPhone 3.0 ★

Jeff Richardson wonders why Apple didn’t also add the en-dash when they added the em-dash to the iPhone OS 3.0 keyboard.

Meg Hourihan on the iPhone as a Computer ★

Gina Trapani asked her Twitter followers if they were planning to buy a 3GS, and she compiled the 175 answers into a single post for her weblog. I love the first one, from Meg Hourihan:

Yes, iPhone = my computer, and $399 is worth it. Haven’t bought new laptop since late 06 and don’t plan to for long time.

This, to me, gets to the heart of the revolution at hand. A decade ago, my first PowerBook was a secondary machine to the desktop anchored at my desk. Now, my main machine is my MacBook Pro, but it feels a bit like an anchor now. My mobile secondary computer is my iPhone.

iPhone 3GS TV Ads ★

The iPhone’s new copy and paste is so good they’ve made a commercial about it.

App Store WTF of the Week (App Store Link) ★

New iPhone game named “Mariolife”, featuring Mario. What makes it a WTF is that the game is clearly neither from nor licensed by Nintendo. It boggles the mind that this made it into the App Store.

Can’t wait for the sequel starring Mickey Mouse. (Via Brian Ford.)

Update: Ends up the App Store review team simply doesn’t deal with copyright and trademark verification (with the exception of enforcing Apple’s own trademarks, of course). Any beef Nintendo has (and trust me, they’re going to have a beef with this app) is between Nintendo and Mariolife’s developer. Makes sense.

Tuesday, 30 Jun 2009

Speaking of DF Advertising and Sponsorships ★

A heads-up to anyone considering sponsoring the DF RSS feed: July is sold out, but most weeks in August are still available. If you have a product or service you’d like to promote to the DF audience, get in touch.

(And if display advertising is more your bag, this tweet from my friend Jim Coudal may be of interest.)

Seth Godin Says Malcolm Gladwell Is Wrong ★

Godin says he disagrees with Gladwell’s review of Chris Anderson’s Free, but it’s unclear to me exactly what he thinks Gladwell is wrong about. What I took away from Gladwell’s review is that Anderson is wrong that free media alone will satisfy our demand, not an argument that existing not-free media institutions must somehow be preserved.

On a related point, several readers have asked why I seem opposed to Anderson’s view, given that I’ve made a nice career for myself by giving away my own writing for free here on Daring Fireball. My answer to that is that Daring Fireball is decidedly not free. It’s simply a question of who gets charged. Readers don’t, but sponsors and advertisers do. What makes it work so well (so far) is that this makes everyone happy. I’m earning a nice salary. Readers get to read my writing in exchange for a small portion of their attention which I direct toward ads. And sponsors and advertisers are happy to pay a fair price to reach an audience of good-looking, intelligent readers such as yourself. But there’s nothing free about it.

Clipstart 1.1 ★

Update to Manton Reece’s $29 video library app for the Mac adds support for importing clips directly from your iPhone 3GS. As I wrote in May, it’s like iPhoto or iTunes for the video clips you shoot with your camera.

Craigslist Map Thingie ★

Genius from Poeks:

Craigslist Map Thingie slurps housing listings from Craigslist and plots them on Google Maps, with a panorama view of the property, if available.

Update: It’s news to me, but a slew of DF readers emailed to point to Housing Maps, which does something similar.

WSJ: Dell Working on Android-Based iPod Touch Competitor ★

John Paczkowski:

The consumer electronics wizards at Dell who brought us the now defunct DJ Ditty MP3 player and the Axim handheld are hard at work on another gadget, a mobile Internet device. Sources tell The Wall Street Journal that the MID uses an ARM-based chip, runs Google’s Android operating system and has been in development since last year.

It’s funny, of course, because the DJ and Ditty were huge failures, but when they debuted, many pundits predicted they would topple the iPod. But I hope this rumor is true. I’d consider buying an iPod Touch-like Android device — something for $200 or so, without any sort of monthly phone contract.

Update: To be clear, the reason I’d consider buying a $200 non-phone Android device is so I could use, try, and write about Android apps. Same goes for WebOS, by the way.

Jackass of the Week: Joe Wilcox ★

Issues “personal challenge” to Steve Jobs to return to work in his “full capacity”; declares that Apple accomplished little during his medical leave:

Across product lines I see a consistent trend: More of the same, only better.

With insight this deep it’s hard to believe Wilcox was laid off from eWeek.

On the ‘Wall-E’ End Title Sequence ★

The Art of the Title Sequence has a wonderful interview with Pixar’s Jim Capobianco and Alexander Woo, regarding the fantastic end titles for Wall-E. (Via Kottke.)

John Nack on Adobe’s Closing for the Week ★

John Nack:

Let me first mention that these Adobe shutdowns are nothing new. I’ve worked here for 9 years, and the company has done the shutdowns off and on throughout that time — at least since ’01 or ’02. I didn’t hear the news of this one and say (as DF does) “Uh-oh.”

He also says (and I’ve heard the same thing privately from a friend who works at Adobe) that there’s no pressure to work through the break. Company-wide vacation.

Update: Company-wide vacation, that is, for Adobe employees with vacation time. For those without vacation time, it’s a company-wide unpaid vacation. Next week, free shit sandwiches in the cafeteria.

The Potential of Web Typography ★

Mozilla-hosted demo page showing the potential of web typography with the @font-face CSS rule, using typefaces licensed for use just on that page. Looks great in both Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4.0.

Firefox 3.5 for Developers ★

Firefox 3.5 is out, and, among a slew of major improvements, it now supports the HTML 5 <audio> and <video> tags. I don’t post many video clips to Daring Fireball, but henceforth, when I do, it’ll be with the <video> tag. IE users can suck it.

Update: Whoops, not so fast. The only video format Firefox 3.5 supports for use with the <video> tag is Ogg, which almost no one uses. And so it can’t play H.264 MP4 files like the one in YouTube’s HTML 5 demo page.

PC World’s Nationwide 3G Network Testing ★

PC World commissioned an extensive nationwide 3G test in the U.S.:

The AT&T network’s 13-city average download speed in our tests was 812 kbps. Its average upload speed was 660 kbps. Reliability was an issue in our experience of the AT&T system: Our testers were able to make a connection at a reasonable, uninterrupted speed in only 68 percent of their tests.

Reliability is the single most important factor, and AT&T’s network is clearly the least reliable. “Sorry about your complete inability to get a connection at all, but if you did have a working connection, you’d have a good upload speed” is little solace.

Monday, 29 Jun 2009

Adobe Shuts Down for a Week ★

Uh-oh:

Adobe Systems has shut its North American operations for the week as part of a cost-cutting effort that the company said it will repeat at least once more this year.

This strategy has never made any sense to me. In a manufacturing business — like an auto factory — I get it. But at a software company, shouldn’t every week be a productive week? And I can only guess that on some, if not most, teams, there is subtle (or even not so subtle) pressure to keep working from home on whatever your current project is.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a blog post from John Dowdell explaining how this is a positive sign for the future of Flash.

Update: Apparently this is old news, but it’s still bad news.

Microsoft’s New Ads for Internet Explorer ★

What strikes me about these spots is that even Microsoft’s own ads use Helvetica rather than Arial.

Jakob Nielsen Calls for an End to Password Masking ★

Jakob Nielsen:

Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn’t even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.

The iPhone strikes an interesting middle ground here — it shows you each letter you’ve typed in a password field for a second or so before turning it into a bullet.

Birdfeed ★

Excellent new $5 iPhone Twitter client from Buzz Andersen (with design by Neven Mrgan). I’ve been beta-testing Birdfeed for a long time, and it is truly worth your attention. It looks good and feels smart, and it has some features which, once you get used to them, you can’t believe aren’t in every iPhone Twitter client. Among my favorites:

Scroll to the bottom of a list of tweets and Birdfeed will start loading more, from further back chronologically, automatically.
Update timestamps in tweet lists.
Your last loaded tweets are stored locally in a database, so you can fire up Birdfeed on an airplane and read what was there when last you launched it with a network connection.

Comparing Birdfeed to other good — but very different — Twitter apps like Tweetie and Twitterrific is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote “Twitter Clients Are a UI Design Playground”.

Sputnik ★

Christian Plesner Hansen announcing Sputnik, Google’s new open source JavaScript test suite:

The goal is not that all implementations should pass all tests. V8 set out with that intention and we learned the hard way that sometimes you have to be incompatible with the spec to be compatible with the web. Rather, we want Sputnik to be a tool for identifying differences between implementations.

(Via John Siracusa.)

Speaking of the Two-Year Anniversary of the Original iPhone ★

Palm investor Roger McNamee, back in March:

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”

Two Years Ago Today, This Was Still My Phone ★

Here’s a photo of the old Nokia freebie I was using before I got my first iPhone, two years ago today.

Free ‘Free’ (Or: Who’s the Blowhard Now?) ★

Regarding my link earlier today to Gladwell’s review of Free, I got the following gracious (and interesting) email from Chris Anderson:

I may be a blowhard, but I’m not a hypocrite. “Free” will be free. Ebooks free for first week, web book (Google Books) free for first month, abridged audiobook free to all hardcover purchasers and unabridged audiobook (the whole thing) free to everyone forever. All starting on pub date (July 9th).

BTW, I made those audiobooks free by reserving the rights to myself. I paid for the studio time (and recorded it myself), the abridging and the audio editing (more than $25,000, all told), so that the audiobook could be free to all.

I stand corrected, regret the error, and very much appreciate the note from Anderson.

There, I Fixed It ★

“Epic kludges and adventures in home ownership.” (Via Rands.)

Mariano Rivera Records 500th Save, First RBI ★

The best closer there ever was.

Speaking of Walkmen ★

The BBC Magazine had 13-year-old Scott Campbell swap his iPod for a Walkman for one week:

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Fake Steve: Jon Rubinstein Now Says He’ll Get a New Liver, Too ★

If you haven’t re-subscribed to the Fake Steve RSS feed, you should. It’s been great all week.

Malcolm Gladwell Reviews ‘Free’ by Chris Anderson ★

I’ll preface my recommendation of this book review by telling you that I’m a big Gladwell fan, and that I think Chris Anderson is a hypocritical blowhard who tells you to give your work away for free while he earns enormous sums selling decidedly-not-free books. Anyway, love this bit from Gladwell on Anderson’s “free” poster child YouTube:

YouTube is a great example of Free, except that Free technology ends up not being Free because of the way consumers respond to Free, fatally compromising YouTube’s ability to make money around Free, and forcing it to retreat from the “abundance thinking” that lies at the heart of Free. Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube will lose close to half a billion dollars this year. If it were a bank, it would be eligible for TARP funds.

Sunday, 28 Jun 2009

Sony to Apple: ‘Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?’ ★

Reuters:

Sony Corp is considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid in a bid to better compete with Apple Inc’s highly popular iPod and iPhone, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday.

That Sony is only now “considering” this epitomizes everything that’s wrong with them. They’ve been making both cell phones and handheld video game systems for years, and yet it didn’t occur to them to fuse the two until after the iPhone became a smash hit. It’s as though they learned nothing after watching the iPod kill the Walkman.

Jeff Atwood Buys an iPhone ★

Jeff Atwood:

The original iPhone was for ~~suckers~~ hard-core gadget enthusiasts only.

Good for him; he’s going to love it. But the idea that the original iPhone was only for suckers/enthusiasts brings to mind my observation regarding what recent switchers mean by “Apple fanboy”: someone who bought a Mac before they did.

iPhone 3GS Availability Chart ★

Selling very well.