Linked List: April 28, 2009

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

WWDC Sold Out ★

Last year it took two months to sell out (March 13 to May 14). This year: one month (March 26 to April 28).

Visually Indicating the Selection Anchor Point ★

Josh Schoenwald suggests visually indicating the anchor point of a selection.

Chase Jarvis’s iPhone Photography ★

Chase Jarvis:

The best camera is the one that’s with you.

Excellent photography using only the iPhone camera and software.

On Anchored Selections in Windows, Gnome, and Mac OS X ★

Dmitry Chestnykh agrees that the HIG (and Cocoa’s standard text editing behavior) is the right way to handle using the keyboard to extend a selection created using the mouse.

The Other ‘Pink’ ★

Apple had an OS project code-named “Pink” in the 80s, which eventually turned into Taligent, which burned up a lot of money and effort and went nowhere.

Vine ★

What a fabulous idea: an emergency notification system based on proprietary software and which only works with one operating system.

Pink ★

Amol Sharma and Nick Wingfield, reporting for the WSJ:

Microsoft Corp. is in discussions with Verizon Wireless to launch a touch-screen multimedia cellphone on the carrier’s network early next year, in a bid to compete with Apple Inc.’s iPhone, people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft’s project, which is code-named “Pink,” is aiming to produce a phone that extends the tech giant’s Windows Mobile cellphone operating system, adding new software capabilities. It would also likely include Microsoft’s new Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a mobile application store along the lines of Apple’s, these people said.

Also includes this nugget, which echoes the report today from BusinessWeek:

Apple has had discussions with Verizon in recent months about its product roadmap, including a mobile multimedia device that is bigger than the iPod Touch but smaller than a laptop, one person familiar with the situation said. However, the talks have not become advanced, the person said.

(Linking to Google search results to get around the Journal’s stupid pay wall.)

The HIG on Extending Text Selections ★

The text selection behavior Pierre Igot is complaining about in the aforelinked piece is exactly the behavior recommended by the HIG:

If no text is selected, the extension begins at the insertion point. If text is selected by dragging, then the extension begins at the selection boundary. For example, in the phrase stop time, if the user places the insertion point between the “s” and “t” and then presses Shift–Option–Right Arrow, top is selected. However, if the user double-clicks so the whole word is selected, and then extends the selection left or up, it’s as if the insertion point were before the “s.” If the user extends the selection right or down, it’s as if the insertion point were between the “p” and the space after the word.

In other words, if you create a selection using the mouse and then extend the selection using the keyboard, it doesn’t matter whether you created the selection by (a) dragging left-to-right, (b) dragging right-to-left, or (c) double-clicking. In all three cases, the selection is unanchored in terms of extending it using the keyboard. I agree with this.

BusinessWeek: Talks Between Verizon and Apple ★

Spencer E. Ante and Arik Hesseldahl, reporting for BusinessWeek:

Verizon Wireless is in talks with Apple to distribute two new iPhone-like devices, BusinessWeek has learned. Apple has created prototypes of the devices, and discussions reaching back a half-year have involved Apple CEO Steve Jobs, according to two people familiar with the matter.

One device is a smaller, less expensive calling device described by a person who has seen it as an “iPhone lite.” The other is a media pad that would let users listen to music, view photos, and watch high-definition videos, the person says.

Shrinking and Expanding Selections in Mac OS X ★

Pierre Igot on the inconsistencies between different selection interfaces in Mac OS X.

Five Tips for Reading Mac Security Stories ★

Rich Mogull in TidBITS:

As someone who spends most of his time reading, writing, and speaking about security, there are five things I tend to look for in Mac security news to cut to the heart of the story. After all the hype in recent days over the “Mac botnet,” I thought it was time to share some of my tricks.