Linked List: November 2, 2011

Wednesday, 2 November 2011

‘If You Release Shit, You Look Like Shit.’ ★

MG Siegler, regarding his scoop the other day on the iOS Gmail app, which called it “pretty fantastic”:

My sources are very good. Unfortunately, they apparently do not have very good taste.

I was wondering how he got that so wrong.

Kevin Fox’s Offer to Google Reader ★

Kevin Fox:

As the former lead designer for Google Reader, I offer my services to Google, rejoining for a three month contract in order to restore and enhance the utility of Google Reader, while keeping it in line with Google’s new visual standards requirements.

Is there anyone, anywhere, who thinks the new Google Reader is an improvement?

Ian Hex Compares UI Typefaces ★

Interesting comparison, but fundamentally flawed. I think Hex overlooks something essential: how the fonts are rendered by the OS. Each of these operating systems uses different anti-aliasing algorithms — even Mac OS X (which uses sub-pixel anti-aliasing by default) and iOS (which never uses sub-pixel anti-aliasing). A proper comparison should show these fonts as they are rendered on each system.

His criteria are too analytical. You want to know why I think Helvetica Neue is a great UI font for iOS? Because it’s beautiful. And the problem with the font that “wins” his comparison, Droid Sans, is that it’s ugly. You know it’s ugly when even Google thinks it is.

Update: Also not considered: the displays of the devices in question: resolution, IPS/LED vs. AMOLED, etc. Apple, for example, uses Helvetica, not Helvetica Neue, as the system font on non-Retina displays. Why? Because it renders better at a lower resolution.

Defending Android’s Hardware Buttons ★

Steven Van Bael makes the case for Android’s hardware Back button. Only fair to give the other side a voice.

Here’s one thing I don’t like about the Android Back button that I’ve never seen a counterargument for: it presumes that you, the user, remember the activity stack. If you turn your phone on and you’re looking at a web page in the browser, if you don’t remember what you were doing immediately before opening the web page you’re looking at, you have no idea where you’re going to go if you hit the Back button. Could be another app, could be another web page, could be the home screen. And if hitting the Back button takes you somewhere you didn’t want to go, there’s no Forward button to reverse it. It’s like leaving a breadcrumb trail in the dark — you have to remember where the breadcrumbs are because you can’t see them. Drove me nuts.

Scaling Down the Mac Pro ★

Marco Arment:

It’s impossible to significantly change the Mac Pro without removing most of its need to exist.

But I think it’s clear, especially looking at Thunderbolt’s development recently, that Apple is in the middle of a transition away from needing the Mac Pro.

I concur.

Gold Standard ★

Nicholas Kolakowski, reporting for eWeek on a “research note” by analyst Jack Gold:

Apple will lose its overwhelming dominance of the consumer tablet space within the next three years, according to a prediction from analyst Jack Gold.

His research note also predicts that Microsoft will own roughly 10 percent of the consumer tablet market by that 2014-2015 timeframe, beating out Research In Motion’s QNX operating system with less than 10 percent but losing out to iOS (30 percent) and Android (50 percent).

That’s the same Jack Gold who wrote the following regarding the iPhone in 2007:

Can it succeed? Frankly, and contrary to the reactions of Apple fans and the stock market, I am pretty skeptical. I don’t think this device will meet the fantastic predictions I have been reading. For starters, while Apple basically established the market for portable music players, the phone market is already established, with a number of major brands. Can Apple remake the phone market in its image? Success is far from guaranteed.

Why am I not impressed?

I don’t know, but I know why I’m not.

PlugBug Charger ★

How in the world did no one think of this before?

Apple Seeds iOS 5.0.1 Beta ★

Just out the door:

iOS 5.0.1 beta contains improvements and other bug fixes including:

Fixes bugs affecting battery life

Adds Multitasking Gestures for original iPad

Resolves bugs with Documents in the Cloud

Improves voice recognition for Australian users using dictation

Contains security improvements

I can’t think of a good reason why the multitasking gestures weren’t enabled for the original iPad in 5.0.0.

Mark O’Connor Swapped His MacBook for an iPad and Linode ★

Fascinating, really. What enables him to work solely from an iPad is that he does all his work in Vim. So it’s the fact that he’s a code-writing Unix nerd that allows him to use the seemingly least-Unix-nerd-friendly computer ever as his sole work machine.

Mobile Web Browser Market Share ★

Interesting mobile web browser market share numbers from Net Applications. iOS continues to grow, now accounting for over 60 percent of mobile web traffic; Android’s share of mobile traffic is at 18 percent. BlackBerry is way down at 2 percent.

Also interesting, in contrast, are the mobile share numbers from Ars Technica for October: 40 percent for iOS, 37.5 percent for Android. So web-wide, iOS has more than three times the web browsing usage of Android, but on a site like Ars, Android shows far larger usage.

(DF’s OS share numbers for October, according to Google Analytics: 54% Mac OS X, 27% iOS (17/10 iPhone/iPad), 16% Windows, 1.6% “Linux”, 1% Android.)

Apple Confirms Battery Life Issues in iOS 5 ★

Apple, in a statement to Jim Dalrymple at The Loop:

“We have found a few bugs that are affecting battery life and we will release a software update to address those in a few weeks.”

On the Google Reader Redesign ★

Brian Shih, formerly a project manager for Google Reader:

After I left Google in July, I heard that there was renewed effort around the project and that a new team was bringing some much-needed attention to the product. I expected them to give the product a facelift, and integrate G+ — both things that needed to happen.

But killing off functionality that could have easily been built on top of G+, and missing the mark by so much on the UI… and then releasing them under the guise of improvements?

Twitter Stories ★

Lovely new site from Twitter, about how we use it.

AT-AT Dog Costume ★

The armor plating is too thick for blasters.

RIM’s Stock Falls Below Book Value ★

Hugo Miller and Matt Walcoff, reporting for Bloomberg:

RIM fell 3.3 percent to $18.66 at 1:31 p.m. in New York, below the book value per share of $18.92 at the end of last quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Book value comprises a company’s assets including cash, inventories, real estate and intellectual property minus its liabilities.

How do Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie still have jobs?

Google’s New ‘Native’ Gmail App for iPhone and iPad ★

“Native” in quotes, because the app is just a wrapper around a UIWebView — the UI is pretty much just the mobile Gmail web app. Most of the text is set using Arial, but some is in Helvetica, showing Google’s typical attention to detail. People are loving it.

Sony Forecasts $1.2 Billion Loss for the Year ★

Thomas Ricker, reporting at The Verge:

When the fiscal year is done, Sony will have lost almost $8.5 billion from televisions over the last eight years. And while Sony has executed upon plans to restructure its TV business in the past, it has yet to successfully return the division to profitability. As such, there’s little reason to trust management’s latest “TV Business Profitability Improvement Plan” which aims to return the business to profitability by March 31, 2014.

How does Howard Stringer still have a job?