Linked List: October 26, 2011

Wednesday, 26 October 2011

Program games for the iPad — on your iPad.

Neven Mrgan:

Some time later, I worked on a twitter client with my pal Buzz. A friend of his who worked at Apple told us this little story. One day while riding the elevator at Infinite Loop, he found himself in the freakiest scenario any Apple employee can imagine: alone, with the elevator door opening to let Steve in. Being a well-adjusted individual, Buzz’s friend promptly disappeared into the tap-world of his iPhone, lest he say or do something wrong in Steve’s presence. It was still the early days of iPhone apps, and Steve did something that had apparently become a habit with him. He reached for the iPhone and asked,

“What app is that?”

“Birdfeed”, came the reply.

Steve tapped here and there, flicked the scrollview a bit, then handed the phone back. “The background needs more texture,” he said.

I’ve heard similar stories regarding other apps, particularly within Apple. This is why Aqua debuted with those horizontal stripes. This is why Brushed Metal became a rock star. This is why iOS’s default UI theme features those vertical background stripes. This explains the proliferation of dark linen. And I’m definitely not saying it was Steve Jobs alone who held this opinion.

I’m just saying there’s a very strong line of thought within Apple, which came (and I’ll bet still comes) from the top, that distinctive in-app textures are important.

‘Don’t Buy a Parrot Figuring That It Will Be a Fun Surprise for Me.’ ★

From Richard Stallman’s 9000-ish-word rider for speaking engagements:

I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

It’s a lot to read, but worth it. If you have to skim, don’t miss the sections on hospitality and music. (Via Jacqui Cheng.)

On Apple’s Skeuomorphic UI Textures ★

James Higgs, on the stark contrast between Apple’s minimalist hardware and often exuberantly-decorative software:

It should probably be obvious that my own preference is for design without ornamentation, certainly without a hint of sentimentality, and that I detest these new apps. Why?

Simply put: it’s because they are lies. They attempt to comfort us (to patronise us) by trying to show how they relate to physical objects in the real world when there is no need. How are we helped to understand what Find My Friends does by the addition of “leather” trim? And how difficult can it be for someone, even a relative digital newcomer, to understand a list of books? Difficult enough that the only possible way they could understand it is to present them in a “wooden” bookshelf format?

My record as a critic of Apple’s use of over-the-top UI textures speaks for itself. And I’ve long noted something that Higgs emphasizes: that the use of these software skins today —rich Corinthian leather, dark linen, etc. — seems in contrast with the minimalism and truth of Apple’s hardware. The iPhone 4 and iPad are made of glass and aluminum, and they look like glass and aluminum. That’s truth. A decade ago, Apple’s exuberant software skins — candy-colored Aqua and brushed metal — always struck me as being designed as natural counterparts to Apple’s hardware of the day. Aqua was like the candy-colored iMacs, brushed metal the PowerBooks and Mac Pros.

I think Higgs is overthinking this, though. These themes aren’t lies. They’re not designed to help users understand how these apps work. They’re just decoration. They’re per-app branding. Apple no longer endorses system-wide visual uniformity. Special apps are supposed to look special. Why is Find My Friends wrapped in rich Corinthian leather? Because someone at Apple likes (and, sadly, if my guess is right, better said liked, past tense) how it looks.

And as for the dichotomy between Apple’s hardware and software designs: I think Apple sees the hardware as the universal frame, the software as dozens of diverse pictures.

Sprint Talks iPhone ★

Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke, reporting for Reuters:

Sprint, which started taking iPhone orders on October 7, said it would pay Apple a subsidy that is 40 percent higher, or $200 more per device, than what it pays for other phones.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse told analysts on a conference call that the iPhone would be worth the extra cost as it has already lured record numbers of new customers to Sprint.

I’ll bet that’s true for all iPhone carriers, not just Sprint. This is how Apple soaks up a majority share of the industry’s profits while only selling 3 percent or so of the total handsets.

21-Month-Old Nexus One ‘Too Old’ for Android 4.0 Upgrade ★

The Nexus One was released in the U.S. in January 2010, and in Europe in May 2010. (The iPhone 3GS was released in June 2009, and just got an upgrade to iOS 5.)

Nokia’s First Windows Phones: Lumia 710 and 800 ★

The Lumia 800 looks like the Windows Phone Mango device to get.

The Apple-Fication of Everything ★

Dan Frommer:

Go to the “thermostats” page on the Home Depot website — I’ve sorted the results to put the most expensive ones at the top of the page — and see a bunch of white plastic boxes with black-and-green LCD displays. And now you see why the Nest thermostat is exciting people today.

More than anything, this reminds me of the slide of 2006-era smartphones — Motorola Q, BlackBerry Pearl, Palm Treo, Nokia E-something-something — that Steve Jobs displayed before he introduced the iPhone for the first time. Night and day.

Apple’s priorities — simplicity, beauty, excellence — are becoming the industry’s priorities. You don’t have to be a former Apple employee to get on board this train, though.

Two-Thirds of Google’s Mobile Search Traffic Comes From iOS Devices ★

Seth Weintraub, last month:

But as part of the testimony, Creighton said briefly (before she was cut off) that 2/3rds of mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices. That’s pretty interesting considering the share of Android devices in the market.

Keep this in mind, both regarding Siri as a threat to Google, and with the whole “Android is winning because there are more Android handsets than iPhones” thing.

I’ve speculated for years that by making Apple into an enemy, Google could wind up losing money with Android, long-term, compared to a hypothetical world where they’d kept Android as a BlackBerry-ish OS rather than an iPhone-ish one. iPhone users are the cream of the crop, demographically.

The Limits of Human Rationality ★

Jonah Lehrer, writing for The New Yorker on Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow:

It’s impossible to overstate the influence of Kahneman and Tversky. Like Darwin, they helped to dismantle a longstanding myth of human exceptionalism. Although we’d always seen ourselves as rational creatures — this was our Promethean gift — it turns out that human reason is rather feeble, easily overwhelmed by ancient instincts and lazy biases. The mind is a deeply flawed machine.

Depressing, in a way, but it explains so much of our collective behavior. (Via Kontra.)

How Siri Disrupts Search ★

Rich Mogull, at TidBITS:

Siri doesn’t replace search, but in many cases it circumvents it by directing users straight to integrated partner services. When you ask for the nearest Indian restaurant there’s still a search taking place, but it’s through Yelp, not a generic search engine that would include Yelp plus various other results.

By skipping the search engine and going straight to a designated source there is no place to insert advertising.

‘That Is All’ ★

Fabulous book trailer for John Hodgman’s That Is All, the finale in his trilogy of complete world knowledge.

Lex Friedman Reviews Eight iPhone 4 Battery Cases ★

On any typical day, my iPhone battery lasts all day, easily. And my new 4S seems to get about the same battery life as my old 4 did. But when I’m traveling and depending on my iPhone for my net access all day long, I need more power. Previously I had one of those external battery dinguses, but last year I bought a Mophie Juice Pack Air, and I’ve found I greatly prefer a battery case over the external battery packs. It’s like having a much thicker iPhone with somewhere around 1.6 times the battery life.

But it seems to me like my Juice Pack doesn’t hold as much juice as it did when new, and, I figure, if I’m going to buy another battery case that fits the 4/4S form factor, now is the time to do it, when I’ll maximize the time I’ll be carrying a phone that fits it. I like my Mophie, but I’d rather have something slimmer than either of the Mophie models, even if it packed a bit less capacity. Put a Juice Pack-encased iPhone in your jeans pocket and it feels like you have a Samsung Galaxy Battleship in there.

The two most tempting ones, judging by Lex Friedman’s survey of the field: the Incipio OffGrid (.5 inches thick, vs. .7 inches thick for the Juice Pack Air) and the Third Rail Slim Case. I’ll probably just stick with my Juice Pack Air, though.

Robot Barf ★

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