Linked List: August 2007

Friday, 31 August 2007

Best Gorilla Movie I’ve Seen All Week ★

Impressive. (Via Steve Delahoyde.)

Python 3.0a1 Release ★

If Python 3.0 ships before Perl 6, I’m going to cry.

Greg Storey on Web Site Design Rip-Offs ★

“First things first, admit it: you suck. You’re a moron and a cheat.”

An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes Store ★

Jeremy Horwitz to NBC:

In other words, the per-episode price people are accustomed to paying for what you show on television is “zero”, or something very close to it.

FastMac ★

My thanks to FastMac — “makers of batteries, power adapters, optical drives, CPUs, LCDs and wireless upgrades for Macs, iPods, and iPhones” — for sponsoring DF’s RSS feed this week. They sell a ton of cool stuff. Use the code “SMJAJ1DF” before next Wednesday and you save 10 percent off any battery or CPU upgrade.

Michael ‘The Beer Hunter’ Jackson Dies ★

My wife bought me Jackson’s Great Beer Guide a few years ago; it’s the bible for beer lovers. Beers in his honor tonight. (Via Andre Torrez, who also points to Jackson’s entry at Wikipedia.)

The Talk Show Featured in iTunes Store New Releases ★

This made my week.

Letterman to Appear on ‘Oprah’ ★

Cool. I can’t remember the last time Letterman appeared on anyone else’s show.

Apple to NBC: Go Fuck Yourselves, You Greedy Morons ★

So NBC and Apple couldn’t agree to terms to sell NBC TV shows for the upcoming fall season. Apple issued a point-blank press release explaining why:

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes Store. The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Five bucks per episode is ridiculous.

New York Post: Apple Set to Sell Ringtones Via iTunes Store ★

It’s The New York Post, so take it with an appropriate grain of salt. If true, though, it’s great news for Ambrosia — why pay a buck (or whatever) for each ringtone when you can spend $15 and convert any non-DRM-protected song you already own into one? This whole “ringtones are something different than songs and you have to pay for them” thing is a racket, and everyone knows it. (Via Mat Lu.)

Update: Ends up iToner works with DRM-protected songs from iTunes, too. Sweet.

‘Creative Leader’, Huh? ★

I love the credit in the footer: “Site concept and CSS by SimpleBits.com”. True, if by “by” he means “ripped off from”.

iToner ★

New $15 utility from Ambrosia Software, lets you add ringtones to your iPhone via a simple drag-and-drop application. It’s that easy — no other hacking required. I wonder, though, whether Apple plans to add custom ringtone support to iTunes in a near-future update.

Thursday, 30 August 2007

Transmit 3.6 ★: Panic’s Transmit gains support for Amazon S3, a mere 14 months after it appeared in Interarchy 8.1.
‘The Beat Goes On’ – Apple Special Event on Wednesday ★: The Cover Flow-style design of the invitation is a pretty strong hint that they’re going to release OS X-based iPods. Moscone West is a big venue, so I’m betting they’ll announce The Beatles’ catalog for iTunes, too — and if so, that Paul McCartney will be there to perform. (In a profile in The New Yorker a few months ago, McCartney said he was set to perform at the iPhone introduction in January at Macworld, but cancelled due to a conflict with his young daughter’s school schedule.)
A Clockwork Lemon ★: Clever theme for issue No. 3 of Lemon. (Thanks to Gord Locke.)
‘If There Is Something Good in the World Then We Copy With Pride’ ★: Innovative industrial design from Nokia.

Wednesday, 29 August 2007

The Talk Show, Episode 7 ★: Mocking the “Fat Nano” iPod rumors, and responding to listener feedback regarding the show.

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

‘Mobile Web Design’ ★

New from Cameron Moll: Mobile Web Design, a $19 PDF e-book regarding the mobile web and using web standards to develop for it. I read it last week and can recommend it wholeheartedly. Well-researched, well-written, and filled with real-world examples and very practical advice.

There’s plenty about markup and CSS, but the heart of the book consists of general design strategies for mobile platforms — and why you should care in the first place about the experience mobile users get when visiting your site.

Put Your Content in My Pocket ★

Craig Hockenberry explains the fundamentals of iPhone-optimized web development in this week’s issue of A List Apart.

Monday, 27 August 2007

Embattled U.S. Attorney General Resigns ★

I still say the most telling thing about the man is that Bush’s nickname for him is “Fredo”.

Not Even All That ‘Sweet’ for Web Apps ★

Craig Hunter on iPhone web app development:

Business aspects aside, the main issue I see as a traditional developer is that iPhone web app development is still very limited. Outside of some viewport settings, a couple special link types (really only the “tel:” link is new), and some new “-webkit” style attributes, there is little about making iPhone-specific web apps that differs from generic web apps. And that’s possibly the most disappointing aspect of all from my standpoint. Apple’s announcement states that “developers can create Web 2.0 applications which look and behave just like the applications built into iPhone”, but that’s not the case.

Amazon.com Category: ‘Bestselling Non-iPod Amazon.com MP3 Players’ ★

How’s this for a sign of the iPod’s continuing market dominance? A contest for second place.

(Thanks to reader Brian Lewis.)

Court Orders Movie Bootlegger to Switch to Windows ★

Guy serves five months in prison for uploading a copy of Revenge of the Sith to a torrent site; as a condition of his parole, he’s required to install monitoring software on his computer. He can choose whatever OS he wants as long as it’s Windows, since that’s the only OS the monitoring software works on.

Sunday, 26 August 2007

Holding a Program in One’s Head ★: Paul Graham:

Mathematicians don’t answer questions by working them out on paper the way schoolchildren are taught to. They do more in their heads: they try to understand a problem space well enough that they can walk around it the way you can walk around the memory of the house you grew up in. At its best programming is the same.
Doing More With Less ★: iMovie ’08 is perhaps the most polarizing product Apple has released in years.
Pantone’s Missed Chance ★: Tim Bray, recalling advice he offered to the CEO of Pantone in 1995:

I said “Give the software away to Netscape and Microsoft (for IE). If it’s good, millions of page designs on the Net will be specced in Pantone numbers. Your upside is huge.”

He looked at me like I was completely fucking nuts.
WTF Mac Store ★: The perils of setting text sideways.
Fill-in-the-Blanks ★: Useful pattern for UI design.
Worst Product Name Ever ★: Hard to believe this is real. (Via Fake Steve.)

Saturday, 25 August 2007

Windows Genuine Advantage Suffers Worldwide Outage ★

What a wonderful idea, centralizing “validation” for the world’s monopoly operating system. Bravo, Microsoft.

New Criterion Collection Release of Terrence Malick’s ‘Days of Heaven’ ★

Lee Kline, on supervising the new transfer:

As we kept moving forward I began to realize how many people just love Days of Heaven. When folks would ask me what I was working on lately, and I told them it was Days, they would light up.

Consider me lit up. (Via Coudal.)

Update: Pre-order from Amazon; debuts on October 23, same day as the Kubrick DVDs. The cover art is beautiful, just perfect.

X-Rite Buys Pantone ★

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer:

X-Rite announced on Friday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Pantone for US$180 million. X-Rite is known for its color measurement and matching products, and Pantone is recognized as a world leader in color design and is also the creator of the industry standard Pantone Matching System, or PMS.

Java Needs an Overhaul ★

Russell Beattie:

I like Jonathan Schwartz a lot, but I think that unless some drastic changes are made to Java, the move to JAVA as Sun’s ticker symbol is going to be as relevant as changing it to COBOL.

Regarding Engadget’s Story on iPhoneSIMfree.com ★

Ryan Block at Engadget:

It’s high noon, Apple and AT&T — we really hate to break it to you, but the jig is up. Last night the impossible was made possible: right in front of our very eyes we witnessed a full SIM unlock of our iPhone with a small piece of software. It’s all over, guys.

Really? What’s over?

The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple’s iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don’t have a copy of the unlock software, so don’t even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they’re officially the first to break Apple’s SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It’s done. Seriously. They wouldn’t tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they’ll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so).

I believe that Block witnessed a demo. But if it’s not released, how does that qualify as “done”? Wake me up when it’s released.

Friday, 24 August 2007

Making Things Up ★

Brent Simmons, in a terrific interview with Shawn Blanc:

Ever since I was a kid I pictured myself working at home. I thought it would be as a novelist rather than a programmer, but it’s about the same thing: I sit in a chair in front of a computer and make things up.

Numbers Rocks ★

Insightful write-up on Numbers from Mac Thought Crime. (Via Michael Tsai.)

Snapz Pro X 2.1.1 ★

Performance and bug-fix update to Ambrosia’s excellent Mac OS X screenshot/screencast recording utility.

Should Do This ★

New service from the Robot Co-Op. Very clever design: the UI for the main form explains what the site is all about. The top items on the Apple Should Do This list are actually pretty damn good.

Guess What? They Just Walked In. ★

Speaking of Palm CEO Ed Colligan, now’s a good time to recall his comments from last November, regarding the prospects of Apple’s then-only-rumored entry into the mobile phone market:

Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Dear Palm: It’s Time for an Intervention ★

Engadget to Palm: Here’s a long list of the many ways you suck and have completely squandered your lead in the mobile market.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan to Engadget: Thank you sirs, may I have another!

Rob Galbraith on the New Nikon D3 Digital SLR ★

So much cool stuff in this camera — Nikon has really jumped back into the high-end SLR market.

FSJ, Image Misuse, and Wikipedia ★

Great post by James Duncan Davidson on Wikipedia’s lousy attribution credits for photographers. The credits are there, but they’re hidden several pages away, leading people like Fake Steve author Daniel Lyons to re-use them without any attribution at all.

17-Year-Old Unlocks iPhone ★

17-year-old George Hotz unlocked his iPhone so it could work on T-Mobile’s network:

The hack, which Hotz posted Thursday to his blog, is complicated and requires skill with both soldering and software. It takes about two hours to perform.

The teen estimates he spent 500 hours developing his technique, sometimes working until 9 am and then waking the next day at 4 pm to resume his work.

Obviously, anything that requires soldering is only going to appeal to a minuscule niche, so this isn’t really huge news. But there’s something admirable about a kid willing to put that amount of time into an obsessive project like this. Someone at Apple ought to line him up for an internship next summer.

For Some Cases of ‘Every’ ★

One more quip regarding Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s weblog entry touting their stock ticker symbol change to “JAVA”:

[…] every major PC manufacturer bundles Java upon shipment, as does every mobile phone manufacturer, and tens of millions of developers touch it every day in the world’s IT shops.

Yeah, sure couldn’t build a good mobile device without Java installed.

It’s just the stock symbol, but it strikes me as so wrong, almost defeatist, to make any sort of branding statement that suggests that you believe one of your products is bigger than the company itself. It’d be like if Apple had changed its symbol to “MAC” or “IPOD”. Foolish.

Sun Changes Stock Symbol From ‘SUNW’ to ‘JAVA’ ★

Apparently they couldn’t find a four-character symbol that stood for “shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic”. (SDCT?)

Tinderbox ★

My thanks to Eastgate, makers of Tinderbox, for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. They bill Tinderbox as a “personal content assistant”. It’s also an excellent tool for writing hypertext; check out Matt Neuburg’s write-up in TidBITS. And note this: Tinderbox comes with a bundled version of Bare Bones’s Yojimbo. Buy Tinderbox, get Yojimbo free.

Deleting iTunes Tracks From Playlists ★

Great iTunes tip from Jason Guthrie: You can delete tracks directly from a playlist listing using Command-Option-Delete. I did not know that. (Via Shaun Inman.) Update: Option-Delete works as well.

Thursday, 23 August 2007

Kubrick and His Sans Serifs ★

Worth a re-link: Jon Ronson’s 2004 story for The Guardian on the archive of material Stanley Kubrick left behind at his estate:

“It’s Futura Extra Bold,” explains Tony. “It was Stanley’s favourite typeface. It’s sans serif. He liked Helvetica and Univers, too. Clean and elegant.”

“Is this the kind of thing you and Kubrick used to discuss?” I ask.

“God, yes,” says Tony. “Sometimes late into the night. I was always trying to persuade him to turn away from them. But he was wedded to his sans serifs.”

Nikon D3 ★

Ian Austen reporting for The New York Times:

The new Nikon D3 is the first camera from the company with a full-size sensor. Well, almost full-size. One side of the frame is 0.1 millimeter short. The sensor has 12.7 megapixels, which is not exceptional. Its light sensitivity, however, is another matter. The camera’s maximum ISO setting is 25,600, about 64 times what was commonly regarded as high-speed film.

ISO 25,600? Holy crap.

Pre-Order Link for New Kubrick Boxed Set at Amazon ★

Pre-order your copy of Warner Brothers’ new Kubrick boxed set using this link to Amazon.com and two good things happen: (a) you save $24 off the list price, and (b) I get stink-ass rich from affiliate revenue.

CBS 5 Report on ‘Faceball Craze’ at Flickr HQ ★

Reporter Allen Martin: “A lot of people would say… ‘Why?’”

Dunstan Orchard: “None of those people work here.”

Game Console Sales ★

“NPD reported domestic sales of 425,000 Nintendo Wiis, 170,000 Xbox 360s and 159,000 PlayStation 3s in July.” But how many Wiis would Nintendo sell if they could actually produce them fast enough to meet demand? They’re bungling a runaway success.

Lunchbox ★

Another “where should I eat?” tool, this one a mashup between Yelp and Google Maps, by James Allgood.

Dine-O-Matic 2.0 ★

Free Dashboard widget from The Iconfactory and Joseph Roback, “randomly selects a place to eat out when you just can’t make up your mind”.

Jeff Atwood on URL Shortening Services ★

Atwood’s title — “URL Shortening: Hashes In Practice” — is misleading, as the whole point of the article is that URL shortening services don’t use hashing algorithms to generate their URLs. To make the URLs as short as possible, they simply use ASCII-encoded counting systems.

New Transfers ★

Jim Coudal gets the scoop that the new Kubrick DVDs are, in fact, new HD transfers.

Tom Yager: ‘Closed iPhone Opens Road for Linux Phones’ ★

Tom Yager:

Linux developers have been dying for a phone of their own ever since Sharp killed the Zaurus Linux-based PDA. Apple’s decision to close iPhone to 3rd-party applications gave the green light to Linux phones and mobile devices. LinuxWorld Expo 2007 basked in Apple’s unwitting generosity, with one booth after another featuring fledgling mobile Linux projects prospecting for funding, direction, and developers.

“Prospecting for direction” is the only part of this I agree with. For one thing, Apple has not decided to “close iPhone to 3rd-party applications”. The iPhone is closed now; Apple has announced nothing regarding whether they intend to keep it so. As for developer enthusiasm, I see more development going on for the officially closed iPhone than for any Linux mobile phone platform I’m aware of. I’m not exactly looking for Linux mobile apps, of course, but still, it seems 180 degrees wrong to say that the iPhone is pushing developers to mobile Linux.

Use Mont Blanc Rollerball Refills in Pilot G2 Pens ★

“Transform a $3 pen into a $200 pen in just seconds.”

Paul Kafasis pointed me to this at C4 two weeks ago. Just tried it out. I’m not sure the Mont Blanc “fine” point is fine enough for my tastes, but it is a damn smooth pen. The heavier Mont Blanc ink cartridge gives the pen a nice heft, too.

Unrated ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ in New Collection ★

The pixelated heads in the orgy scene in the R-rated American release are just embarrassing — I don’t know why they’re even including that version on the disc. Who’d choose to watch the censored version if both are on the same disc?

Rangers Beat Orioles 30-3, Most Runs Scored in Game Since 1897 ★

They might as well have just gone ahead and pantsed them while they were at it.

Warner Brothers to Release New Five-Movie Kubrick Boxed Set ★

Digitally remastered and presented in their original theatrical release aspect ratios. Includes: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut. Each comes with new commentary tracks. Hot diggity damn. Hard to tell from the marketing blurb whether these are new film-to-video transfers or just “remasterings” of the existing transfers. I hope they’re new transfers; I fear they aren’t.

Update: A joint Coudal Partners/Daring Fireball investigative committee has raised some troubling questions regarding the packaging of these discs. E.g. why are the numbers “2001” set in Compacta Black? And worse, what the fuck is up with the type treatment on the A Clockwork Orange sleeve?

Smoothya Later ★

Bruno Fernandes goes long on the differences between Mac OS X and Windows anti-aliasing, and why George Ou is a jackass.

High-Def Versions of New Kubrick Transfers ★

The only reason for anyone not to pre-order the new DVD boxed set of Kubrick films is if you’re waiting for high-def versions. The good news is that all five movies — 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut — are going to be released simultaneously in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. (Those are both make-me-rich links to Amazon.)

The bad news is that the high-def versions are not available together in boxed sets — you’ve got to order each film individually. $20 each, though, so it’s hard to complain.

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Satchmo ★

Open source web store written in Python/Django. What caught my eye was the slogan: “The webshop for perfectionists with deadlines.” (Via Simon Willison.) Update: The slogan is a play off Django’s own slogan, “The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.”

AisleOne ★

Speaking of nicely-designed weblogs: AisleOne, “a blog about design, typography and everything else”, by Antonio Carusone.

Top Speed of a Prius ★

Alexander Micek concludes that the top speed of a Prius is around 105 MPH — meaning Woz, clocked at 104, was pretty much driving the thing as fast as it would go.

(I very much enjoy the design of Micek’s web site.)

iMovie 7.0.1 ★

Bug-fix update to the controversial iMovie ’08.

AT&T to Cease Itemizing Every Data Connection on Paper iPhone Bills ★

Just today at Starbucks, the barista saw my iPhone and asked me three questions: “Is that an iPhone?”, “How do you like it?”, and “Did you get one of those 100-page phone bills that comes in a box?”

Customer Laptops Stolen From Apple Store ★

Casey McNerthney, reporting for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Seattle police, who arrived at the store about 8 a.m. Monday, said there was a large hole in the ceiling of a technicians’ room. A store employee said all laptops that had completed servicing were missing, according to a police report.

HD Trailer for ‘The Nines’ ★

Via John August, who wrote and directed it.

Freakonomics: ‘The Last Word (for Now) on Our RSS Feed: An Excruciatingly Long and Boring Post That Will Please Exactly No One’ ★

Actually, it pleased me greatly to read this, given that I’m thinking about and working through the exact same issues regarding offering full feeds here on DF. What happened is that the Freakonomics weblog used to offer full feeds, but since starting their partnership with The Times, now only has an excerpt feed. Regarding why they don’t just offer a full content feed with ads:

But the Times and its advertisers aren’t crazy about this option. (Nor are they alone, apparently.) Why? This is the fundamental point: many advertisers do not value feed readers as much as they value site readers, since they believe that feed readers are far harder to measure and track.

It’s certainly true that feed subscribers are harder to measure, but, I think this is shortsighted. Subscribers are readers who, by the act of subscribing to the feed, show themselves to be regular readers. I think that’s a valuable audience — and so far, sponsors of the Daring Fireball feed think so too.

Jason Fried on Doing Original Design Work ★

“Whenever I run into designer’s block or just need visual design inspiration I turn to the world of wrist watches.”

BloggingStocks Sees Existence of Refurbished iPhones as Bad News ★

Zac Bissonnette:

You can now save $100 on an iPhone by snapping up a refurbished one on the company’s website. So far iPhone sales have fallen well short of expectations, and there are two possible explanations for the refurbished models. It’s possible that they were returned by speculators who were hoping to resell them on eBay but were disappointed when Apple had enough stock.

That may be part of it, but it seems likely that a lot of people are just unimpressed with the expensive new phone.

Um, how about that they’ve sold several hundred thousand of them, and even a small percentage of defective units replaced under warranty results in a sizable number of refurb units for sale. You know, just like with iPods and Macs.

Word Count of the Day ★

Word count of Craig Hockenberry’s original weblog post regarding the results of his investigation into the iPhone’s RAM and CPU details: 374.

Word count of Jeff Smykil’s post on Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop linking to Hockenberry’s piece: 440.

Woz Gets $700 Ticket for Going 104 MPH in a Prius ★

Speaking of the metric system, Woz got flagged for going 104 MPH in his Prius, went to court and offered the judge the excuse that he’d gotten used to kilometer speeds while traveling around the world.

Priuses go 104 MPH?

What’s a Meter? ★

Good Magazine on the history of the official definition of the meter. Includes this humiliating nugget: “There are only three countries that do not use the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States.”

(Thanks to Rab Bakari.)

Monoscope ★

Just discovered this site. Instant subscription.

iPhone Installer Beta ★

Already updated for 1.0.2 iPhone software. I used it last night to restore OpenSSH, Lights Off, and more after I upgraded my iPhone to 1.0.2. By far and away the easiest way to add software to your iPhone.

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

2008 SXSW Interactive Panel Picker: ‘Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts’ ★

Speaking of the SXSW 2008 panel picker, if you’re going, consider voting for this session from Michael Lopp and yours truly. It’s not a panel discussion; rather, it’s a dual presentation.

Back in March after SXSW 2006, I had this to say about this year’s mix of programming:

Panels are good for an introduction, and they can be entertaining in the way that a talk show is. But there’s no sustained narrative, no way to build a case or leave the audience with a strong impression. I’m guilty as charged; both times I’ve spoken at SXSWi have been on panels. But I feel like I conveyed 50 times more information in my hour-long lecture at C4 in October than I did as one of three panelists in an hour-long session at SXSWi this year — and I thought our panel went well. Panels are dessert, lectures are meals. The mix at SXSWi this year was far too sugary.

Consider this proposal Michael’s and my attempt at adding some meat.

Airbag: Cross ★

Greg Storey:

There are six-hundred-and-eighty-three proposal submissions for next year’s South by South West, and once again it’s up the the Internet to filter through all of them and choose which ones are worthy of becoming real events.

How absolutely absurd.

Be sure to check out Hugh Forrest’s comment.

Getting Things Done in VoodooPad ★

Perfect example of a scriptable application being extended in unforeseen ways.

Groupware Bad ★

Classic 2005 piece by Jamie Zawinski:

If you want to do something that’s going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy.

(Via Anil Dash.)

Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings ★

Jakob Nielsen:

I’ve been reluctant to discuss one of the findings from our eyetracking research because the conclusion is that unethical design pays off.

In 1997, I chose to suppress a similar finding: users tend to click on banner ads that look like dialog boxes, complete with fake OK and Cancel buttons

Mac Gems: HandBrake 0.9.0 ★

Terrific guide by Dan Frakes regarding how to use HandBrake 0.9 to rip DVDs to files usable on Apple TV, iPhone, and iPods.

Apple’s Notebook Market Share Climbs to 17.6 Percent ★

Jim Dalrymple:

According to NPD, Apple’s U.S. retail notebook market share for June 2007 was 17.6 percent, an increase of 2.2 percentage points over the same period last year when Apple posted a 15.4 percent market share.

Craig Hockenberry on iPhone Hardware Specs ★

Craig Hockenberry:

The iPhone technical specifications mention nothing about how much RAM is included nor how fast the CPU is running. Now that I have a toolchain, it was a simple task to take some code from iPulse to investigate.

iPhone Software Version 1.0.2 ★

The entirety of the currently available release notes: “Bug fixes”. Thanks, Apple.

No entry on their Security Updates page yet, either. If any of you notice what’s actually new, let me know.

Financial Times: ‘Apple Secures Europe iPhone Revenue Deals’ ★

Astrid Maier and Volker Müller, reporting for The Financial Times:

The contract, which was signed by three European mobile operators in recent days, requires that the operators hand over to Apple 10 per cent of the revenues made from calls and data transfers by customers over iPhones.

The contract was signed by T-Mobile of Germany, Orange of France and O2 in the UK, people familiar with the situation told FT Deutschland, the Financial Times’s sister paper.

(Via Scott McNulty.)

iPhone-Style On/Off Switching in Leopard? ★

What’s weird to me isn’t the iPhone-style switch button, but that the words “ON” and “OFF” are set in all-caps Helvetica.

Comparison of Photos Taken With and Without Flash ★

The difference is very noticable. (Via Khoi Vinh.)

I Believe Elizabeth Arden Ripped Off Mondonation ★

Shameless. (Via Swissmiss.)

Putting the ‘S’ Back Into SSH ★

Dave Dribin:

Yeah, okay, you can now get into remote machines without typing a password, but so can someone else if they get access to your account. Leaving your private key unprotected without a passphrase is like not having a PIN on your ATM card. It’s just asking for trouble.

Update: Dribin has a follow-up with some caveats regarding SSHKeychain.

Adobe Adds H.264 Support to Flash Player 9 ★

My bet is that it performs like total crap, at least on OS X, but I’d love to be proven wrong.

Thinking Outside the Opera Box ★

Andrew Orlowski interviews Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner on the business of making web browsers.

Monday, 20 August 2007

Font Rendering Philosophies of Windows and Mac OS X ★

Another interesting comparison of the font rendering differences between Mac OS X and Windows.

iPhone Central: The iPhone Hacking Kit, Step by Step ★

Best step-by-step iPhone hacking guide I’ve seen.

First Look: iMovie ’08 ★

Jeff Carlson’s write-up for Macworld on iMovie ’08.

SpamSieve 2.6.4 ★

Michael Tsai’s amazing spam filter gets even smarter about image attachments.

Scott Gilbertson: ‘The iPhone Is Internet Explorer 4 All Over Again’ ★

It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Wired’s Scott Gilbertson writes:

And the more I’ve been thinking about that argument, the more I realize that it’s exactly how Microsoft spun the proprietary, non-standard HTML features in IE 4.

In suggesting that developers use the web to build iPhone applications, what Apple has done (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not) is force the creation of a subset of the mobile web that only works with the iPhone’s unique features — namely the touch-screen interface.

There’s an enormous difference between “built-for-IE4” and “built-for-iPhone” web sites, and Gilbertson himself points it out: the techniques for developing web sites optimized for the iPhone are based on standards. Optimizing for iPhone is, in a way, an accessibility issue.

The Upper Limit on Third-Party iPhone Apps: Five ★

Side note by Dan Moren in his write-up on Nullriver’s iPhone installer app:

One interesting note: if you install more applications than fit on the iPhone’s home screen (five, including the installer), your apps will scroll off the screen and you won’t be able to access them.

In other words, Springboard, the app that presents the iPhone home screen, doesn’t support scrolling if you install more apps than fit in the remaining four icon slots.

Braun Apple ★

Erik Spiekermann suggests more Braun influences on current Apple designs. (Thanks to Aaron Swartz.)

Nickname Support in Apple Mail ★

Sven-S. Porst, back in 2005, on Apple Mail’s inability to auto-complete recipient names based on the nickname field in Address Book:

Whenever I run into that problem I start thinking that the Mail team at Apple are probably orphans who are locked into their offices at all hours — so they don’t have any friends or ominous entities like ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ whom they would send e-mails to.

(Thanks to Matt Deatherage for the reminder.)

Michael Vick to Plead Guilty, Will Go to Prison ★

Not only is he heading to prison (sentence length as yet unknown), but the allegation that he bankrolled gambling on the dog fights could lead to a lifetime ban from returning to the NFL:

Vick’s last two co-defendants, Phillips and Peace, pleaded guilty Friday and said he bankrolled gambling on dogfights at the quarterback’s property in rural Surry County, not far from his hometown of Newport News. One said Vick helped drown or hang dogs that didn’t do well.

What a despicable bastard.

More Raves for Vista ★

Fake Steve on outgoing PC Magazine editor Jim Louderback’s “Vista sucks” farewell column.

Yeah, I’m Sure the Guys at Braun Are Furious ★

Next up on Paul Thurrott’s list: the iPhone Notes app is a rip-off of Mead’s yellow legal pads.

Three New Canon Cameras ★

The 40D sure looks like a nice camera.

Spolsky on Vista ★

From the Tell Us What You Really Think Department:

I’ve been using Vista on my home laptop since it shipped, and can say with some conviction that nobody should be using it as their primary operating system — it simply has no redeeming merits to overcome the compatibility headaches it causes. Whenever anyone asks, my advice is to stay with Windows XP (and to purchase new systems with XP preinstalled).

iphone-sdl-mame ★

“Project to port MAME to the iPhone.”

Why Cell Phones Are Still Grounded on Flights ★

Mike Elgan in Computerworld:

The government’s dirty little secret is that it cultivates uncertainty about the effects of phones in airplanes as a way to maintain the existing ban without having to confront the expense and inconvenience to airlines and wireless carriers of allowing them.

Think about this: if cell phones did interfere with an airplane’s electronic systems, why would they let everyone carry them on, asking for them to be turned off, while you still can’t take more than 3 ounces of shampoo in a carry-on bag. But they may have a good point: I might go nuts if I had to sit next to some jerk loudly yakking on the phone for an entire flight.

(Via Adam Engst.)

Washington Post Story on iPhone Hacking ★

Jailbreak hits the mainstream media with Mike Musgrove’s report in The Washington Post:

The work that Mac programmers and hobbyists are doing here relies on a new class of underground applications designed for the iPhone called “jailbreak” programs. These unlock the file system and give brave users access to parts of the phone’s inner workings that Apple went through some trouble to rope off.

“Underground” is a little over-the-top. “Unsanctioned”, yes, but it’s hard to see something as “underground” when it’s available for the entire world to download, like Lights Off or MobileTerminal.

Last week, an unauthorized game, called Lights Off, was released for the iPhone’s operating system.

What’s with the passive voice there? I wouldn’t write that “an article was written for The Washington Post”; I’d write that Mike Musgrove wrote it. Why not give credit to Lucas Newman and Adam Betts? Passive voice isn’t just weak writing, it’s disrespectful.

Handbrake 0.9 ★

Major update to the useful freeware utility for converting DVD video to other formats, including presets for use on iPhones and iPods.

Update: The Handbrake web site remains misconfigured in such a way that if you download the .dmg using Safari, it’ll be given a bogus “.dmg.bz2” file extension. To mount the .dmg, rename the file to remove the “.bz2”.

Sunday, 19 August 2007

Annals of Reporting ★: Unbelievable:

Perhaps I’m naive. But it surprises me a great deal that a professor of journalism freely admits that he allows to appear under his own name claims about a publication he concedes he’s never read.
MobileTwitterrific ★: Open source proof-of-concept native Twitter client for the iPhone, from the inimitable Craig Hockenberry.

Saturday, 18 August 2007

Mike Lee: ‘How I Became a Programmer’ ★: Best story I’ve read in a long time. Jackpot, indeed.
The Talk Show, Episode 6 ★: Dan Benjamin and yours truly, talking about the new Apple keyboard, iMovie ’08, Stanley Kubrick, and more. Check out our page at the iTunes Store for a taste of our upcoming graphics and branding.
Windows Virtual Machine Performance on the Mac ★: CNet benchmarks show VMware Fusion beating Parallels Desktop handily at multimedia tasks. (Via Paul Stamatiou.)
Worst Rip Ever ★: Template site steals design from Cork’d and doesn’t even bother to remove corkd.com markup — they just commented it out.
The Baseball Test for Journalists ★: Bernard Yomtov, in the comments on Brad DeLong’s journal:

A reporter should not be assigned to cover subject X unless he has as good an understanding of X as a baseball writer is expected to have of baseball.

Friday, 17 August 2007

Ten Days With Lightroom ★

Rui Carmo on Adobe Lightroom and iPhoto ’08:

[…] the bottom line, as far as editing is concerned, is that Lightroom’s Tone Curve and its other tools are light-years ahead of anything that iPhoto is able to do.

He did, however, find Lightroom to be slow with a 3,000-photo library. I’ve got about 1,700 in mine so far, but haven’t seen any noticeable slowdown.

2007 PMC Software Auctions ★

Seth Dillingham is auctioning off some great bundles of Mac software, with the proceeds going to cancer-related charities.

Cover Pessimism ★

Rands on the cover design of his new book, Managing Humans:

Since I signed the contract, I’d pessimistically prepared myself for the fact that I had no idea how much work I was signing up for, I’d end up hating some of my favorite chapters via the editing process, and that the initial covers would suck. I knew they’d suck because I knew the cover had to be great. Knowing that nothing is great in its first iteration meant I didn’t think twice about moving on and calling in reinforcements.

I love looking at rejected designs, especially when they’re rejected because they don’t feel right even though they look good.

We’re in This Together ★

Great piece by Daniel Jalkut on the indie Mac developer community:

Consider the most popular, trendiest retail district in your town. There are many shops whose target markets overlap, and to some extent each shop is competing with the others to attract customers through their doors. But the district wouldn’t exist at all without the collective commitment to quality.

Pogue on iMovie ’08 ★

David Pogue:

Most people are used to a product cycle that goes like this: Release a new version every year or two, each more capable than the last. Ensure that it’s backward-compatible with your existing documents.

iMovie ’08, on the other hand, has been totally misnamed. It’s not iMovie at all. In fact, it’s nothing like its predecessor and contains none of the same code or design. It’s designed for an utterly different task, and a lot of people are screaming bloody murder.

George Ou, Jackass ★

Windows Vista’s ClearType sub-pixel anti-aliasing is indeed very good, and noticably different than Mac OS X’s. Which you prefer is clearly subjective.

But only George Ou would compare Windows’s sub-pixel anti-aliasing to Mac OS X’s non-sub-pixel anti-aliasing and declare that it puts it “to shame”. One minute of Google searching would have shown him that there was something wrong with his example rendering from Mac OS X.

Prototype 1.6.0 Release Candidate ★

Huge improvements to event handling.

The Software Awards Scam ★

Do-nothing text file renamed with .exe extension garners a slew of “shareware awards”. The best part is that the readme file specifically admitted that the “program” did nothing and wouldn’t even launch.

These sham awards are one of the big cultural differences between the Mac and Windows indie software worlds.

Woz and Kathy Griffin, Sitting in a Tree ★

I believe this is the first romantic gossip item to appear in Daring Fireball. (Via Andy Ihnatko.)

Litmus ★

My thanks to Litmus for sponsoring the RSS feed this week. Litmus is a terrific new browser (and email client) compatibility testing service. (It’s a much-improved service from the gang that previously offered a similar service called SiteVista.)

How it works: You give Litmus a URL, and a few seconds later it shows you exactly how it renders in a slew of different web browsers. If you’ve ever tried testing a web site for compatibility against multiple versions of Win/IE alone, you realize how useful this could be. Multiple browsers, multiple OSes, all at once.

Check out the tour and don’t miss the limited edition special offer.

RSS Behavior for Link Blogs ★

Interesting theory for why some DF readers prefer the “point back to daringfireball.net” style for Linked List entries: It works better with NewsFire that way.

New Apple Keyboard Compared to Older Ones ★

Photo comparison of the new flat Apple keyboard next to others, dating back to the Lisa’s. (Thanks to Chris Pepper.)

What Is Art Direction (No. 9) ★

Jeffrey Zeldman:

That connection is content. And the non-verbal information that triggers that content in the viewer’s mind is art direction.

Thursday, 16 August 2007

I’m Doing It Right Here ★

I’ve been waiting for someone to call me on this. Feel free to chalk it up to ego-centricism if you’d like, but I see it more like a distributed, filtered form of feedback. No, I don’t have comments, but if you write something smart about something I wrote, there’s a good chance I’ll link to it.

EA Backtracking on Claims of Simultaneous Mac Game Releases ★

Remember when Electronic Arts announced at WWDC that they were going to release games for the Mac simultaneously with the PC versions? Scratch that:

The Mac OS X versions of two brand-new games, Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods 08, have been pushed back from their announced August releases to September or October, an EA representative told AppleInsider. The company, however, launched Madden NFL 08 for virtually every other platform on Tuesday.

(Via TUAW.)

iPhone + AT&T = Dead Trees and Giant Fees ★

How do you rack up a $600 iPhone bill from AT&T during just 48 hours in Canada, even if you’re being careful not to place unnecessary calls or use the Internet? Forget to turn off the MobileMail auto-checking.

Meebo for Mobiles ★

Meebo, the web-based multi-network IM client, now has a mobile-optimized interface, specifically targetting the iPhone. Works great in my quick testing, given that it’s only a web app. (E.g. you get signed off from AIM if you leave MobileSafari or even switch to a different browser tab.)

(Via Dan Moren.)

TidBITS: Safe Sleep Revisited ★

More from Joe Kissel on Safe Sleep, this time with an emphasis on the security ramifications.

Motherfucker — Mike Lee’s New Weblog ★

World’s toughest programmer (as seen here) has a thoughtful new weblog.

The Onion: ‘Fucking Yankees, Reports Nation’ ★

The Onion:

“Fucking Yankees,” said Marshfield, MA resident and longtime Red Sox fan Lawrence Broberg, echoing the sentiments of thousands of men and woman across the nation. “Every year. Every goddamn year.”

The Cleaners ★

“They’re taking out the Trash and cleaning out the /tmp.”

Numbers and the Next Big Thing ★

Paul Kim is disappointed that Numbers isn’t a multidimensional spreadsheet:

One subtle difference between the 2D and multidimensional models is that in the latter, the data model is expected to be dense. What this means [is that] you don’t really have unused cells; all cells are intended to have meaning in your model. It’s not a freeform grid but a packed model of data. For people used to sticking all sorts of random non-computational stuff into spreadsheets, this can be hard to adjust to. Basically, people are using spreadsheets not so much as computational tables but as a big piece of graph paper.

Indeed, sounds interesting. But I think Numbers’s canvas paradigm is going to prove far more popular than this would have.

Keyboard Maestro on Sale Today for $10 ★

Half off the already low price of $20 for one of my favorite utilities.

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Apple Lays AppleWorks to Rest ★

Moltz pegged this one three years ago.

What Crisis? ★

Jeffrey Zeldman, on the supposed “crisis” in web standards:

Has HTML 4.01 stopped working in browsers? I was not aware of it. Has XHTML 1.0 stopped working in browsers? I was not aware of it. Do browser makers intend to stop supporting HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0? I was not aware of it. Do they intend to stop supporting CSS 1 and CSS 2.1? I was not aware of it.

David Weiss on Numbers ★

David Weiss:

Allowing anyone to read and write your file format is a bold move because it says in essence, “We don’t need a locked down file format to compete. The format can be available for everyone, and we’ll compete on the ease of use and efficiency of our applications. We have what we think is the best interface for reading, creating and managing Office documents, but if someone has what they think is a better way to build Office documents, wonderful, we welcome it!”

What Apple has done with Keynote, Pages and Numbers is exactly this.

I suspect many would argue about just how easy Microsoft has made it to read and write the new Office XML file formats, but the point holds. File compatibility leads to competition, and competition leads to better software.

Benchmarking in Your Pants ★

Craig Hockenberry (with help from Lucas Newman) ran some interesting benchmarks regarding iPhone performance: (a) JavaScript on the iPhone is about 80 times slower than JavaScript running in Safari on a 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo iMac; (b) compiled Objective-C code on the iPhone can run over 200 times faster than JavaScript in MobileSafari.

The New Frontier ★

For those of you too cheap (or too far away) to buy a copy of this month’s Macworld on the newsstand, here’s my latest back-page column:

This history is analogous to that of the automobile industry. In its early years, the state of the art advanced at a remarkable clip. Today, new cars come out each year, but with small refinements. Those changes add up: a 1997 car (even in mint condition) is clearly distinguishable from a 2007 model. But a 2005 and a 2008? Not so much. That’s pretty much where we are with OS X. Tiger is the 2005 model; Leopard is the 2008.

What’s Nu? ★

Tim Burks:

Instead of grafting two mature and overlapping language implementations together, I wrote Nu on, with, and for Objective-C. Instead of being problems to be bridged, the rich set of Objective-C classes became the building blocks of Nu.

Mike Zornek: C4[1] Retrospective ★

Another good C4[1] write-up.

Movable Type 4.0 ★

Long list of new features.

Tumbleweeds and Used Car Lots ★

Great piece from Rich Siegel, forking off from an early subject in the C4[1] panel discussion:

Today, thanks to the many-to-many communications that are possible in this Web 2.0 world of blogs and social networking, it’s very easy for schlock marketing — and as such, the products it pushes — to gain an air of legitimacy. How? Easy: Just start a discussion. By engaging in the debate on a particular subject, both sides in the debate implicitly acknowledge that the subject is worthy of debate; and when one side of a controversy is the side that might ordinarily live on the fringes, the debate works to the advantage of that side regardless of the outcome. That’s because all of a sudden, the fringe side of the debate — the voices and positions that had once rightly been relegated to the periphery — gain mainstream recognition.

This would have been a great direction to steer the panel discussion.

How to Make People Buy Books ★

Chip Kidd, book designer extraordinaire, in Esquire: “I cannot make you buy a book, but I can try to help make you pick it up.” (Via Steve Delahoyde.)

Tuesday, 14 August 2007

The Bouncer ★: Dave Dribin’s third-place entry in C4[1]’s Iron Coder challenge; watch to the end, it’s a beautiful demo (and a clever hack).
Pre-Order ‘Helvetica’ on DVD ★: Pre-order the DVD for Helvetica and save $5, or order the deluxe limited edition package that includes letterpressed mini-posters, a still from the film, and more.
Phil Rizzuto, Hall of Fame Yankees Shortstop and Broadcaster, Dies at 89 ★: Holy cow!

Rizzuto played an integral role on the dynastic Yankees before and after World War II. He was a masterly bunter and defensive specialist for teams that steamrolled to 10 American League pennants and nine World Series championships. He was one of 12 Yankees on teams that swept to five consecutive World Series triumphs, from 1949 to 1953.
Five Years of Daring Fireball ★: Five years ago yesterday, I started Daring Fireball. Things change fast: the first article was on the just-released-that-day dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4s; most Mac users, and most DF readers, were still on Mac OS 9; DF had no Linked List and didn’t offer any RSS feeds. It took me a few months to find my voice, but the early entries aren’t too bad.

Monday, 13 August 2007

Lights Off — First Native Game for iPhone ★

Excellent freeware game for iPhone, programmed by Delicious Monster’s Lucas Newman and with artwork by Adam Betts. It’s a perfect game for the iPhone: simple, fun, quick, and a natural fit for a touch screen.

This is not a web app, it’s a real native iPhone app. The good news about that is the experience is better than any web app running in MobileSafari could possibly provide; the bad news, alas, is that the only way to install it is through the use of unsupported hacks not for the faint of heart. I played the game on Newman’s iPhone at C4, and it’s worth it. (Lights Off finished second in the Iron Coder contest, behind only Ken and Glen Aspeslagh’s two-way videoconferencing app.)

Jason Snell: ‘The “Stickergate” Kerfuffle’ ★

The final word on the saga; well-said.

How to Redesign the Leopard Dock So It Sucks Less ★

Rory Prior proposes an improved design for the Mac OS X Dock, emphasizing clarity and simplicity over special effects.

First Look: Numbers ★

Macworld’s Rob Griffiths looks at Numbers 1.0.

iPhoto ’08 Tagging ★

David Chartier on iPhoto’s new keyword/tagging features.

Dinosaurs with Jetpacks ★

Insightful analysis from Shots Ring Out regarding Universal’s “we’re going to sell DRM-free music but not through iTunes” plan.

Michael Tsai on iPhoto 7 ★

“As with previous versions, the Preferences window looks like a normal window but is actually application-modal.”

Alex Payne’s C4[1] Coverage ★

Alex Payne summarizes just about every session from C4[1] over the weekend; great coverage of a great conference.

Bob Keefe’s ‘Intel Inside’ Sticker Article ★

The article that prompted The Question. There is an interesting story to be written about this topic, but this isn’t it.

Adium 1.1 ★

Brand-new tab interface, better AIM DirectConnect reliability, and more.

FlickrExport 2.0.12 Adds iPhoto 7 Compatibility ★

Even better, Apple has finally released an official SDK for iPhoto plugins; up until now, FlickrExport had to rely on undocumented APIs.

The King of Web Standards ★

The battle for web standards goes mainstream; BusinessWeek certainly gets it.

Pearl Jam Blasts AT&T For Censored Lyrics In Lollapalooza Webcast ★

AT&T censored non-obscene, non-profane anti-George W. Bush lyrics from a webcast of a Pearl Jam concert. Disgraceful.

“If a company that is controlling a Webcast is cutting out bits of our performance — not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations — fans have little choice but to watch the censored version,” Pearl Jam said in a prepared statement. “What happened to us this weekend was a wake up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.”

Thumbs Surgically Altered For iPhone? Think Again ★

There was a story going around last week, originating in The North Denver News, that a man had had cosmetic surgery on his fat thumbs to slim them down to better enable using them with his iPhone. Unsurprisingly, the story was a complete hoax.

Update: Here’s an editor’s note from The North Denver News claiming the piece was intended as “satirical social commentary”.

Conspiracy — Graphing Calculator for iPhone ★

Craig Hockenberry’s C4 Iron Coder contest entry: a graphic calculator web app for iPhones.

International iPhoning Results in $3,000 Bill ★

Christopher Null:

Those little charges add up fast. $0.02 per kilobyte sounds pretty cheap, right? WRONG. Do the math: A 1-megabyte web page (a very common size) costs almost twenty bucks to open. 20. Dollars. Whoa. Seriously.

Sunday, 12 August 2007

Two-Way Video Conferencing for iPhone ★: Wow: Glen and Ken Aspeslagh’s hack for C4’s Iron Coder contest is a working two-way video conferencing app for iPhone. Jiminy.

Saturday, 11 August 2007

The Road to Clarity ★: New York Times Magazine feature by Joshua Yaffa on the typography and design of highway signage, particular regarding Clearview, the new typeface designed to replace Highway Gothic as the standard for signage in the U.S.
If You Were Driving Cross-Country, and Were Forced to Bring a Breakfast Cereal Mascot, Who Would It Be? ★: I too would choose Cap’n Crunch, if only to ask him what the deal is with his eyebrows. (Thanks to Paul Kafasis.)
C4 Dog Tags ★: Best useless conference tchotchkes ever.

Friday, 10 August 2007

Griffin Technology ★

My thanks to Griffin Technology — makers of fine iPod and iPhone peripherals, and the industry’s leading pulsing-blue-light gadgetry — for sponsoring the free RSS feed this week. And if it weren’t for their wonderful iMate, I wouldn’t still be able to use my beloved Apple Extended Keyboard II.

Derek Powazek: ‘The Columbo Technique’ ★

More on Stickergate from Derek Powazek, who offers the best defense of Bob Keefe I’ve seen so far:

To the Apple faithful, sure, it was dumb. But a PR event is not for the faithful (that’s Macworld), it’s for the rest of the world. And to the world at large, it’s not a dumb question at all. Why does Apple get a pass when every other PC manufacturer has those awful logos all over their products?

That is a good question. And I would bet a large sum of money that Apple’s contract with Intel is like no other PC maker’s contract with Intel. But that’s not the question Keefe asked.

‘How Apple May Deal With the Dreaded “Intel Inside” Sticker’ ★

Joy of Tech nailed it back in 2005, when Apple’s switch to Intel chips was first announced.

‘Ridicule Has Its Place’ ★

The Macalope:

To ask such a question is simply to display one’s ignorance of Apple and Steve Jobs. The only stickers that you’ll find on Apple products are those clear ones that protect them on their magical journey to your doorstep.

MacJournals on Stickergate ★

MacJournals disagrees that Keefe’s sticker question was stupid. MacJournals is wrong, but wrong and well-written.

‘And They Call It the Cult of Mac’ ★

Bob Keefe:

I’m the Jackass of the Week.

Ninjawords.com ★

“A really fast dictionary”, lives up to its slogan in my use. Definitions and content powered by Wiktionary.

Stuck on the Enterprise ★

John Siracusa:

Still holding that thought about the Intel stickers? Listen again to Steve’s final words on the subject. “We put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and say, what do we want?”

This is why Apple does not compete in the enterprise market in the traditional sense. This is why no other company created the iPhone. This is why most desktop PCs are pieces of crap. When you don’t focus on the user, the user gets shafted.

New iPhone Commercials ★

“Instead” and “Amazing”, the sixth and seventh iPhone commercials.

Universal Will Sell DRM-Free Online Music, But Not Through iTunes ★

So Universal is going to sell DRM-free music through Amazon, Wal-Mart, RealNetworks, and others, but not through iTunes. Why?

But the music will not be offered D.R.M.-free through Apple’s iTunes, the leading music service. The use of copy protection software has become a major bone of contention in the digital music business, where iTunes accounts for the vast majority of download sales. The record labels generally have required that retailers place electronic locks to limit copying of music files.

But Apple’s proprietary D.R.M. does not work with most rivals’ devices or software — meaning that music sold by competing services cannot play on Apple’s popular iPod. Some record executives say they believe that the stalemate has capped the growth of digital music sales, which the industry is relying on more heavily as sales of plastic CDs slide.

Um, Universal won’t sell DRM-free music through iTunes because they don’t like Apple’s DRM? WTF? Am I even supposed to pretend this makes sense?

Thursday, 9 August 2007

iPhoto ’08 vs. Both-at-Both-Ends Scroll Bars ★

The Appearance panel in System Preference has two options for the arrow buttons at the end of scroll bars: putting up at the top and down at the bottom, or putting both of them at the bottom. But at least since 10.1, Mac OS X has supported a third option via a defaults setting: putting both arrows at both the top and bottom.

iPhoto ’08 uses iTunes 7-style blue scroll bars. Alas, its implementation craps out if you’re using the “both at both ends” option. It works, but it draws visual turds. iTunes 7 doesn’t actually support this option, either — it looks OK but only draws the arrows at the bottom. (The rest of the iLife ’08 apps use standard Aqua scroll bars.)

Netflix Community Blog: Instant Watching on Mac, Firefox, and More ★

Netflix’s Steve Nat on Mac support for their “instant watching” feature:

A key issue for delivering movies online is that the studios require use of DRM (Digital Rights Management) to protect titles. And that’s our holdup for the Mac — there’s not yet a studio-sanctioned, publicly-available Mac DRM solution (Apple doesn’t license theirs). I can promise you that, when an approved solution becomes available for the Mac, we’ll be there. I’ll also say that Silverlight 1.1 looks like a promising candidate — but that its DRM isn’t likely to be fully available until 2008.

Not really Netflix’s fault — they can’t force the studios to let them deliver video without DRM, and they can’t force Apple to let them use FairPlay — but this still stinks, nonetheless. (Thanks to Nat Irons.)

Of Keyboards and Men ★

Bruno Fernandes on Apple’s new default F-key assignments:

The special functions screened onto the F-keys are laid out on both new keyboards to compliment right-handed mouse use. This is clearly a design that will not be as functional to someone using the pointing device in their left hand, to the left of the keyboard, but it’s a purposeful and thoughtful change nonetheless.

Bob Keefe Is the ‘Why Don’t You Booger Up Your Computers With Intel Stickers?’ Guy ★

I hereby nominate Dan Moren for a Pulitzer prize. You must listen to the audio — Jobs really handled the question with aplomb, after taking a few seconds to get his bearings.

Jason Snell: Breaking Down the Apple Announcements ★

Well-considered overview of everything Apple released on Tuesday. Glad I didn’t write something like this, because Snell covers everything I’d have wanted to say.

iMovie ’08 Trepidations