Linked List: January 28, 2010

Thursday, 28 January 2010

J.D. Salinger, Dead at 91 

The New Yorker has made available all his stories from their archive. So great.

I’ve always hoped against hope that Salinger did not stop writing, that he’d only stopped publishing. And that yes, there’s a vault with a few manuscripts, and instructions for posthumous publication. A secret lonely safe containing one — two, dare we dream? — of the best novels ever written. I don’t want to lose that hope.

It’s Not a Big iPhone 

Marco Arment isn’t quite getting it yet. He’s on the cusp of it, though. He writes:

Most of us had some crazy ideas. John Gruber wanted Apple to reinvent mobile computing. I wanted Apple to reinvent portable input mechanics and novice usability. I think a lot of other people wanted Apple to reinvent the laws of physics.

In reality, none of this happened. The iPad is effectively a giant iPod Touch, which itself is effectively a data-app-only iPhone.

I would say that redefining mobile computing is exactly what happened. It is surprisingly, delightfully, iPhone-esque in many ways. But if you use it for just a few minutes, it becomes obvious that the iPad is not a big stretched-out iPhone, but rather that the iPhone is a shrunken stripped-down version of the iPad. The iPad is what they’ve been building toward all along.

The iWork apps are amazing. Totally usable. Totally new UI for office apps — there’s no menu bar. Maybe the best comparison is the Calendar app. It doesn’t look anything like the iPhone Calendar app. In terms of, say, style and UI grammar, yes, it’s the same vibe as the iPhone. But in terms of scope and ambition, it’s a far bigger thing.

‘A Message to the Internets Regarding the iPad’ 

Michael Pusateri gets it.

Adobe Flash Platform Blog on iPad’s Lack of Flash 

So Jobs’s demo of the NYT’s web site showed the “missing Flash” icon in several spots. If you think Apple didn’t expect that, you’re nuts. Apple is not embarrassed by iPhone OS’s lack of Flash.

Stephen Fry on the iPad 

Stephen Fry:

You know how everyone who has ever done Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? always says, “It’s not the same when you’re actually here. So different from when you’re sitting at home watching.”? You know how often you’ve heard that? Well, you’ll hear the same from anyone who’s handled an iPad. The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class. This is a different order of experience. The speed, the responsiveness, the smooth glide of it, the richness and detail of the display, the heft in your hand, the rightness of the actions and gestures that you employ, untutored and instinctively, it’s not just a scaled up iPhone or a scaled-down multitouch enhanced laptop – it is a whole new kind of device.

I found myself nodding my head in agreement from start to finish.