Linked List: October 11, 2011

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Video of Jason Snell using Siri. Matches my experience. Mostly amazing, sometimes just doesn’t get you, but even when that happens, it’s usually easy to correct/clarify what you mean. (See the rest of Snell’s iPhone 4S review here.)

Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator, Only One Month Late ★

Andy Baio:

So, 24 years ago, Apple predicted a complex natural-language voice assistant built into a touchscreen Apple device, and was less than a month off.

iPhone 4S Benchmarks Start Leaking Out ★

As promised by Apple, graphics performance is up about 7×.

You Are Underestimating the Future ★

Michael Lopp, on Steve Jobs’s 1997 WWDC closing keynote:

I was an Apple employee for eight and half years and I didn’t see the video until after I’d left the company. For those who worked there and for those who have watched Apple’s success, what resonates from this crackly old video is that it was clear that Steve could see the future. He may have given features, products, and strategies different names at the time, but so much of what Apple has become is described in a video from almost 14 years ago.

BBM Server Takes a BM ★

Charles Arthur, reporting for The Guardian:

Smartphone maker Research In Motion (RIM) is facing a user revolt after tens of millions of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa suffered a second day without services such as BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), as the company struggled with problems at its hub in Slough, Berkshire.

The company also revealed that the areas affected now include South America, with users in Brazil, Chile and Argentina suffering loss of service.

Starting to feel bad for RIM.

‘That’s What I Wear. I Have Enough to Last for the Rest of My Life.’ ★

Gawker has an excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s imminent Jobs biography, regarding his iconic wardrobe.

Completely Broken, All Right ★

Speaking of Paul Thurrott, here’s a prediction of his from just before last week’s event:

I have one prediction of my own. And that is that Apple will completely revamp the very much broken external antenna design that it saddled iPhone 4 users with.

Good call — the 4S antenna looks totally different.

Oh, Wait, THIS Is What Explains the iPhone 4S Preordering Success ★

Paul Thurrott:

Apple’s lackluster iPhone 4S garnered more than 1 million preorders in its first 24 hours of availability, though much of that is likely tied to the delayed launch.

Sure, so I guess when Apple announces its quarterly results next week, they’ll say that iPhone 4 sales dropped precipitously over the last three months. Right?

CSS Shaders: Cinematic Effects for HTML ★

John Nack:

So, yeah: Adobe’s using Flash-derived technology to make HTML5 more competitive with Flash.

Crazy, right? Not at all: this increases your ability to present visually rich experiences, and that increases Adobe’s ability to sell you tools for creating those experiences. The different playback technologies are just means to those ends.

More like this, please.

‘Your Heart Running Around Outside Your Body’ ★

Eric Schmidt on Steve Jobs:

Steve and I were talking about children one time, and he said the problem with children is that they carry your heart with them. The exact phrase was, “It’s your heart running around outside your body.” That’s a Steve Jobs quote. He had a level of perception about feelings and emotions that was far beyond anything I’ve met in my entire life.

Update: Love the sentiment, but it’s not original to Jobs. It’s from Elizabeth Stone.

Did You Hear They Invented Indoor Plumbing? ★

Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson:

I do not own an iPad, an iPhone, an iPod or a Mac. I abandoned my typewriter only recently. In short, I have not enlisted in the digital revolution. […]

By history’s measure, [Steve] Jobs’s achievements are tiny.

[Jobs’s] modest legacy will fade with time. A century from now, historians and ordinary Americans will still remember Edison and Ford. Jobs will be a footnote, if that.

Guy who admits he only recently gave up his typewriter thinks Steve Jobs’s achievements are “tiny”. Stay relevant, pal.

Oh, That Explains the iPhone 4S Pre-Ordering Success ★

Wendy Li, writing for The International Business Times:

However, when iPhone 4S was launched, Apple fans were disappointed somehow, for they were expecting the redesigned iPhone 5 as rumors suggested. Naturally, many analysts had predicted a subdued response to iPhone 4S.

But no one foresaw that the tech genius Jobs would suddenly pass away, only one day after iPhone 4S was released. Jobs’ demise stirred sadness and grief around the world and it’s believed that Jobs’ untimely death has rocketed demand for iPhone 4S from consumers.

Sure, that’s the explanation. It certainly couldn’t be that people love what they’ve heard about the iPhone 4S and simply want to buy one and would have done the same even if Steve Jobs hadn’t died, and that the “4S is disappointing” naysayers are the same bunch of dummies who dismissed the iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS as well.

The initial disappointment was replaced by fans’ strong desire to remember Jobs, according to Barbara Sullivan, Managing Partner of Sullivan, a branding and marketing agency. “The preorders may also be part of respect for what Jobs has done,” she said. “It’s almost like putting flowers by his headquarters.”

Almost.

Apple iPhone 3GS Disappoints ★

Twice as fast and an improved camera? That’s it? Hmm, sounds familiar.

Peter Sichel: ‘When Market Share Is Used to Mislead’ ★

Peter Sichel:

Many reviewers don’t even realize what the product is. They still believe the iPhone or iPad is mostly a hardware product defined by its specifications. Apple has invested 10 times more R&D resources to create the iOS software and supporting eco system than its hardware. Apple didn’t design the hardware to match some feature checklist, they designed it to make their software amaze and delight customers, to create an emotional connection that effects peoples lives. To compare the iPhone or iPad to other products primarily on their hardware specifications is not representative of the quality of experience users are likely to have with the product.

I suspect most people will read the above and either think that it correctly describes everything that’s wrong with the rest of the industry, or, that Sichel exemplifies everything that’s wrong with Apple users and developers. There’s no middle ground here.

5by5: Thank You, Steve Jobs ★

Likewise, from 5by5:

A collection of stories, thoughts, and memories about Steve Jobs and Apple by 5by5 hosts and friends, expressing how their lives have been changed for the better by Steve and Apple.

Your Mac Life: Steve Jobs, In Memoriam ★

Speaking of Shawn King, he put together a nice episode of Your Mac Life with a dozen Apple writers’ memories of Steve Jobs.

iPhone 4S Rumor Accounting ★

Shawn King’s Stupid Apple Rumors site tracks the accuracy of Apple-related rumor sites. The results over the last 10 weeks: terrible.

Long before I started Daring Fireball, I often wondered how hard it would be to run an Apple rumor site with a high degree of accuracy. The answer is obvious in hindsight: it’d be easy. Wait until you get something you know to be accurate, and run it. The problem is the waiting part. What happens if you go a week, a month, or even months between any accurate information? The site goes dry. So the choice facing rumor sites is this: they can be accurate, but publish only sporadically; or they can publish random sensational bullshit on a frequent basis. There is no way to publish accurate Apple rumors on a frequent basis.

Prison ★

Harry McCracken, on accusations by Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond that Steve Jobs built freedom-sapping digital “prisons”:

Tyranny? Nope, sorry. People who use Apple products considered their options, and chose Apple. If they regret their decision, they can dump it at any time. If you call Apple tyrannical, you’re using a definition of the word so loose as to strip it of any real meaning whatsoever.

It’s ridiculous. In a real prison, you can’t choose to leave.

Charlie Stross Argues for a Bigger iPhone ★

Charlie Stross, iPhone-user, makes the case for a 4-inch display.

I disagree with his assumption that one-handed usage is mostly about voice calls. I use my iPhone one-handed, as a communications device, all the time. It is true that typing works far better two-handed, but Siri should alleviate that problem too, particularly for tweet/SMS-length input.

Good argument, though.