Linked List: July 30, 2008

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

More on MagicPad’s Text Selection UI 

Ah-ha, I misunderstood when watching the video demonstration of MagicPad:

Oh yeah, MagicPad also has copy and paste support within the app. To select text, simply do a double tap hold, wait for the loupe, and drag. This is the easiest way to select text on the iPhone and you only need a single finger.

So single-tap dragging for placing the insertion point with the loupe isn’t completely overridden, as I assumed, and so this is better than what I thought. I still wonder about the shelf life on this design, though — if Apple adds text selection and copy/paste to the system-wide UI, I don’t think this is going to be how it works. (For one thing, double-tap means “zoom” in Safari.)

Yankees Trade for Pudge Rodríguez 

Starting to smell like another AL East title in the Bronx:

In a move that was conceived and completed in less than six hours, the Yankees acquired Rodríguez from the Detroit Tigers for reliever Kyle Farnsworth on Wednesday. Five years after leading the Florida Marlins to a title, and two years after lifting Detroit to a pennant, Rodríguez becomes the regular catcher for the Yankees.

I have no idea what Detroit was thinking.

MobileMe: Important Steps for MobileMe Sync Issue Resolved on July 28, 2008 

Apple:

Apple identified and resolved an issue with MobileMe Sync on iPhone and iPod touch. Although no action is required for most members, some may need to reset their data from MobileMe to sync normally again. To do so, follow the steps outlined in this article.

If your iPhone (or iPod Touch) seemingly deleted all your contacts or calendar events, but you still see them in your online MobileMe account, this should help you get them back.

Dell Getting Back Into MP3 Player Market? 

The Wall Street Journal (I’m linking to Google News, because the link from them gets you past the Journal pay wall):

In recent months, Dell has been testing a digital music player that could go on sale as early as September, said several Dell officials. Launching the player — along with an online download service and related software — would be part of a strategy that Dell Chief Executive Michael Dell hopes will move the company into a broader range of consumer markets than it has served before.

And:

Rob Enderle, an industry analyst whom Dell hired to consult on the new entertainment strategy, said he is still discussing with Dell whether profits would come mainly from the subscription service or from devices tied to it.

I don’t see how things can go wrong for Dell with Rob Enderle on board.

Update: Reader Julian Lawton, via email: “I’m thinking of the episode of The Simpsons where they let Homer design a car.”

Two Neat New iPhone Things 

Adam “Sandwich” Lisagor links up two new iPhone projects: MagicPad, an iPhone note apps that offers multiple fonts, text selection, and cut/copy/paste; and MultiTouch.framework, an upcoming Mac OS X framework that lets you use an iPhone as a multitouch input device for your Mac.

I think MagicPad has gone in the wrong direction. I don’t really care about the multiple typefaces and font sizes, but their UI for text selection is wrong. The gesture they’ve chosen is single-tap-and-drag — but that’s the standard system-wide gesture for just moving the magnifying glass around. So it’s both inconsistent with the rest of the system, and it prevents you from moving the insertion point with the magnifying glass in any way. (Also, they could just do text selection a whole word at a time, like when you double-click and drag on the Mac. That way you wouldn’t have to worry about character-precise accuracy with your way-bigger-than-a-single-character fingertip.)

iPhone OS 2.0 More Like a Public Beta? 

Chuq von Rospach, speculating on why the iPhone SDK NDA is still in effect:

Apple is using this as a quiet hammer to limit developers’ ability to talk about problems with the new iPhone, MobileMe, the App store, etc, etc, until Apple fixes the worst of the problems.

It’s pretty clear that 2.0 was a subset of “the real 2.0” and that stuff was left out and not really ready for prime time, and OS 2.1 seems to be adding most of the functionality that should have been in 2.0, and hopefully pushes all of this out of “you’re really beta testing our stuff, we just didn’t mention that” mode.

PerversionTracker: The Dark Knights Return 

I have glorious news to report: After a brief four-year hiatus, PerversionTracker is back, with their sights set on the lower depths of the App Store.