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Linked List: September 23, 2008

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Walt Mossberg:

In sum, the G1 is a powerful, versatile device which will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied alone.

HTC G1 Specs ★

Update: I’ve updated the link to point to HTC’s official page. Corrections below.

At $179, it costs $20 less than an 8 GB iPhone 3G, but the G1 only comes with a 1 GB SD card. ~~It also only has 64 MB of RAM.~~ The G1, however, comes with 192 MB of RAM; the iPhone has just 128 (although Apple doesn’t publicly state how much RAM it has). The overall size is about the same, except the G1 is 16mm thick, vs. 12 mm for the iPhone. The display has the same pixel count (480 × 320), but is smaller at 3.2 inches vs. 3.5 for the iPhone.

Some limitations are much like the iPhone’s: it’s SIM-locked to the carrier, has no VOIP app yet, and doesn’t allow tethering the data network to a PC.

The G1’s Achilles Heel: T-Mobile’s Network ★

DSL Reports on the G1:

T-Mobile insists that they’ll have HSDPA up and running in 21 markets by mid-october when the phone officially launches — and 27 markets by year’s end. AT&T got a pretty sound beating for releasing the iPhone 3G with more than 200 HSDPA-enabled markets

And, worse, “unlimited data usage” means “limited to 1 GB”. From T-Mobile’s fine print:

If your total data usage in any billing cycle is more than 1 GB, your data throughput for the remainder of that cycle may be reduced to 50 kbps or less.

I just checked, and for my last AT&T billing cycle, I used 360 MB of data on my iPhone 3G. That cycle includes five days at the Jersey shore and three days in Chicago for C4, both of which trips I used the data network for as long as the battery would allow. Other than that, though I spent the rest of the month at home, where I use the AT&T data network just a few times a day. I can see how someone who uses the cell network for data every day would go over 1 GB a month easily.

Apple ‘Solves’ Problem With App Store Rejections ★

Arnold Kim:

Aparently, Apple has now started labeling their rejection letters with Non-Disclosure (NDA) warnings:

THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS MESSAGE IS UNDER NON-DISCLOSURE

I.e. if you’re a developer whose app has been rejected from the App Store, you are not allowed to say that your app has been rejected from the App Store.

(Via Paul Kafasis.)

G1 Overview ★

Rob Beschizza has a nice overview of today’s HTC/T-Mobile/Google G1 announcement. Highlights include that it doesn’t do any sort of desktop syncing; it syncs only with Google servers. It costs $179 and requires a contract with T-Mobile, so it’s only $20 cheaper than an iPhone.

I’m still rooting for it to be good.

The World, Justified ★

Typography meets cartography.

T-Mobile G1 Has No 3.5mm Headphone Jack ★

Given how many complaints there were about the original iPhone’s recessed headphone jack, it seems weird that HTC would make this decision with the G1. The accompanying photo also serves as a good illustration of how much thicker than an iPhone the G1 (which features a slide-out keyboard) is.

Good Ideas and Lies ★

This strikes me as a very good rule of thumb:

Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.

Cheap, Easy Audio Transcription With Mechanical Turk ★

How Andy Baio used Mechanical Turk to get a 36-minute audio interview transcribed for just $15.40.

Field Notes Brand Calendar Pre-Order ★

From my pals at Coudal Partners and Drapin Design Co., the best-designed calendar you’re likely to see. Update: The site was down for a bit, but is back up now.

NetNewsWire for iPhone Stats ★

Over 200,000 users; average user subscribes to 26 feeds.

I subscribe to far fewer feeds in NetNewsWire on my iPhone than I do on my Mac. On my Mac, I use NetNewsWire to track feeds for everything I’m interested in. On my iPhone, I use it only for those feeds which are the most important and/or most interesting.

Five iPhone Racing Games Reviewed ★

I bought Freeverse’s Wingnuts Moto Chaser. Pretty good game.

‘Reverie’, Sample Video From the Upcoming Canon 5D Mark II ★

Short from by Vincent Laforet, shot using a pre-production EOS 5D Mark II. Unbelievable quality. No jelly movement here. This is film-quality motion picture footage in a $2,700 camera. Update: With regard to jelly movement, several readers point out that the film doesn’t feature much panning, and what panning it does feature is slow, so jelly movement may well be a problem.

CS4: Sweating the Details ★

Adobe’s John Nack:

I’m a perfectionist, and I deeply, viscerally want to smooth & polish every aspect of Photoshop. Doing it all in any one cycle is impossible, but I’m proud to say we’ve put a ton of effort into sweating the details in CS4.

You’re going to see tons of flashier features in other write-ups, and of course I’ll cover them here, but for this cycle I want to lead with the little stuff — things you might not read about otherwise, but which can make a big difference while working.

I love weblog posts like this. Some good news for Mac users, too, such as:

Cmd-~ (tilde) is now assigned to switching among open documents, as is Ctrl-Tab, meaning Photoshop is now consistent with both Mac and Windows conventions.

(Not sure why Nack’s post is riddled with underlined phrases that aren’t links, though. I keep trying to click on them. The use of underlining for any purpose other than indicating hypertext links died a decade ago. Update: Perhaps it was a formatting error; the underlines are gone now.)

Adobe Creative Suite 4 ★

Maybe I’ll finally upgrade from CS1 this time.