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Linked List: September 14, 2006

Thursday, 14 September 2006

Boy, do I enjoy the Macalope.

Sven-S. Porst:

There are three view modes which are available through this new set of buttons – and it appears through this new set of buttons only. Strangely there are no corresponding items in the View menu, and thus no handy keyboard shortcuts – I’d suggest Command-1,2,3 just like in the Finder – for these new commands.

I agree that they should be menu commands in the View menu, but those shortcuts might conflict with user habits — ⌘1 and ⌘2 used to be the shortcuts for the main iTunes window and Equalizer windows, respectively. These shortcuts were removed when they moved the Equalizer command to View menu in iTunes 7.

How to Steal an Election With a Diebold Machine ★

It’s outrageous that even a single one of these Diebold voting machines is still in use.

Michael Tsai on Showtime ★

Amongst a half dozen or so other observations (and a bunch of good links to commentary elsewhere that I’m about to steal), Michael Tsai points out this change in iTunes 7:

The right-pointing music store arrows are now shown only for the selected tracks. This makes it look a bit cleaner, but it’s an odd UI precedent.

I noticed this right away, and I think it’s a poor decision. Too cute. The circled arrows weren’t overly distracting in iTunes 6, so hiding them does not, in my opinion make the lists any less cluttered-looking. But because they’re now hidden, they’re also less obvious.

WiiDay ★

Who better than Cabel Sasser to enthuse about Nintendo’s Wii announcement? That’s right, no one.

Philanthropy Google’s Way: Not the Usual ★

They’re funding it with $1 billion to start, and as a for-profit company instead of a tax-exempt non-profit organization.

Nintendo Wii to Ship in November ★

Hoping to capitalize on Sony’s delayed and much more expensive PS3 (which is shipping in the U.S. in November, but not in Europe until 2007).

Microsoft ‘Launches’ the Zune ★

Where by “launch” the mean “pre-announce with no estimated ship date or pricing”.

The white and black ones look like rubbery iPod knock-offs. The brown one, though — good god the fugliness just hurts. Who in the world is going to buy that one?

One tech spec I noticed is that while the screen is physically larger than the iPod’s, it offers the same 320 × 240 resolution for video playback.

Thurrott on Zune Wi-Fi Support ★

Funniest Zune line of the day goes to Paul Thurrott:

The gimmick appears to be wireless interaction with other Zune users. Since I expect there to be about six of these by the end of the year, this could be sort of a waste of time.

iLounge Reviews New Nanos ★

Excellent comprehensive review of the new iPod Nanos by Jeremy Horwitz. Includes this interesting tidbit:

In a direct comparison between current and past 4GB iPod nanos, however, we discovered that the new nano transfers at around one-half the speed of its predecessor: it took 4 minutes and 35 seconds for the old nano to transfer a 2.58GB file - incidentally, a full DVD image of Windows Vista - while the new one took 9 minutes and 15 seconds for the same file.

Horwitz also links to this gallery of photos from a disassembled new Nano, which shows that, as rumored, Apple is no longer using components from PortalPlayer. I’m wondering if the USB transfer performance hit is related to the switch away from PortalPlayer.

New at Apple: Smaller iPods, Bigger Ideas ★

David Pogue covers Apple’s “Showtime” announcements, and he explains just what the deal is with the new earbuds that Jobs kept raving about:

On all of the iPods, Apple has done away with those easy-to-lose foam-rubber earbud mittens. Now the earbuds are ringed with rubber, which is supposed to form a better seal with your ear. Most people will find that the new earbuds sound better as a result. (Audiophiles will continue to sniff disdainfully.)

Jobs Just Doesn’t Care Anymore ★

Crazy Apple Rumors Site:

Apple, obviously, did not decline to comment for this story.

Apple Waiting for 802.11n for iTV? ★

Speculation that iTV’s “first quarter 2007” release date is a consequence of Apple’s desire for it to support 802.11n networking, an upcoming version of Wi-Fi that’s faster than 100 Mbit/s Ethernet.

2001 CNet Coverage of the Original iPod ★

Some of these comments are a real hoot in hindsight.