Linked List: June 19, 2007

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

I’m Speaking Wednesday Night at the Soho Apple Store ★

As part of AIGA New York’s Design Remixed series, I’ll be giving an updated version my talk from C4[0], focusing, ostensibly, on the differences between consistency, uniformity, and convention in user interface design, but really more of a roundabout way of suggesting a fundamental theory of UI design. But don’t tell anyone that, because it sounds far too ambitious for an hour-long talk.

Outlook Web Access ★

According to several DF readers, the webmail interface to Exchange works just fine in Mac OS X Safari, and so quite probably works in iPhone Safari, as well.

Update: Now I’m getting emails (and tweets) from readers saying that while OWA works, any browser other than Win IE gets a crummy second-tier experience. (Win IE uses an Active X-only “premier” web interface.)

Sony Connect to Close Music/Video Services ★

Another one bites the dust.

Backlash ★

I’m not the only one who thinks there’s something fishy about the spike in anti-iPhone FUD in the press.

Forbes: ‘Is The iPhone Insecure?’ ★

Andy Greenberg, writing for Forbes:

“It seems Apple is releasing a device with no thought to enterprise security,” says Andrew Storms, director of operations of the computer security firm nCircle. “It’s going to be entering enterprise networks whether we like it or not, and it’s a nightmare for security teams.”

Storms, like most everyone else anticipating the iPhone launch, admits that his worries are largely limited to speculation […]

“Largely” speculation? How are these concerns not wholly limited to speculation? Then he goes on to link to this David Maynor weblog entry about exploits against Safari for Windows and describes it as “a bug in the new version of Safari browser that will be used on the iPhone.” Jiminy.

Robert Scoble Is Not (Always) an Idiot ★

Speaking of The Macalope, he spotted a pretty good piece by Scoble regarding iPhone development. I’ve been of a similar mindset all along — some sort of “software on the iPhone” development kit is inevitable, but Apple’s in no rush.

My gut feeling is that we’re never going to see Flash on iPhone, though.

Jackass of the Week: Robert Vamosi ★

Playing up “security” concerns regarding the iPhone for CNet, Robert Vamosi writes:

For the moment, iPhone will be running a version of the current Mac OS 10.4; in the fall, Apple will presumably upgrade its phones to the newer Mac OS 10.5.

Really? How does he know this? He could be right, but as far as I can tell, there are very few people who know anything specific about the iPhone’s version of OS X, and I highly doubt Vamosi is one of them. And I met a bunch of smart speculators at WWDC last week who think the iPhone takes advantage of Core Animation, which isn’t coming to the Mac until 10.5.

When flaws [in OS X] are patched, Apple does not acknowledge the researchers who actually brought the vulnerability to its attention.

It’s hard to see this as anything other than willful ignorance. It took me 30 seconds to find Apple’s security updates page, open the release notes for the most recent update, and find a credit for outside researchers who reported an issue. In fact, it’s hard to find a security update from Apple that doesn’t give at least one credit to an outside researcher.

Al Ries, iPhone Doubter ★

Al Ries in Advertising Age: “Why the iPhone Will Fail”. His argument is based on the mushy idea that the iPhone is a “convergent” device, and that only “divergent” concepts are successful.

$20 says Al Ries owns an iPhone by the end of summer.

Rob Waugh, iPhone Doubter ★

Amazing. If you didn’t know any better reading this, you’d think the iPhone was already out and that his complaints stemmed from actually using one.

Don Herbert, TV’s ‘Mr. Wizard,’ Dies at 89 ★

He died a week ago, but I missed the news while I was at WWDC. His mission was to show how much fun science can be, and he succeeded wonderfully. I loved his show growing up.

Non-Transparent Menu Bar ★

Simple freeware app from Peter Maurer; puts a plain white rectangular window underneath the Leopard menu bar to eliminate the goofy translucent effect.

Update: New version today with a minor tweak to the layering (so that the window appears above icons on the desktop, but still under the menu bar).

The Macalope Sells Out ★

Re-adjust your RSS subscription; he’s now blogging for CNet. Congratulations.

Secret Pref for Pie-Chart Progress Indicator in Safari 3 Beta ★

I complained about it when Safari first appeared, but I was wrong: I adore Safari’s regular inside-the-location-field progress meter. Interesting that this pie-chart option is there, but it doesn’t appeal to me.

Enabling the Debug Menu on Safari for Windows ★

Command-line option, or just hack the preferences plist file manually.

Gallup: Majority of Republicans Doubt Theory of Evolution ★

Gallup poll indicates more Americans believe in creationism than evolution. This explains why I get so much nasty email whenever I link to things like this. (Via Kottke.)

Yahoo Search Option Only in Safari on Windows ★

On Windows, the Safari 3 beta’s web search field lets you choose between Yahoo and Google; on Mac OS X Tiger, it’s like previous versions of Safari and your only choice is Google. My guess is that Apple has an exclusive contract with Google covering Mac OS X 10.4, and that Yahoo will appear as an option in Safari under 10.5.