Linked List: January 20, 2012

Friday, 20 January 2012

BBEdit 10 

My thanks to Bare Bones Software for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote BBEdit 10, the newest version of the preeminent HTML and text editor for the Mac. I’ve used BBEdit every single day I’ve worked on a Mac since 1992. I expect to continue using it every day for the next 20 years, too.

BBEdit 10 has more than 100 new features. Download the demo and see for yourself.

Cameras on Japanese Phones Cannot Be Silenced 

Leander Kahney, back in 2008:

In Japan, upskirt and downblouse shots have become increasingly popular with the advent of high-resolution camera phones.

As a result, all cell phones sold in Japan make a conspicuous shutter sound, or say the word “cheese” when a snap is taken, according to Nobuyuki Hayashi, a tech reporter based in Tokyo.

In other strange-iPhone-camera-restrictions-in-Asia news, Singapore now has camera-less iPhone 4’s and 4S’s, because members of their military are not allowed to carry cameras.

The Effectiveness of iPad Textbooks 

Speaking of AppleInsider, this is promising:

On the heels of Apple’s e-textbook announcement in New York City this week, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced the results of its “HMC Fuse: Algebra I” pilot program at Ameila Earhart Middle School in California’s Riverside Unified School District. The Algebra I digital textbook is touted as the world’s first full-curriculum algebra application developed exclusively for Apple’s iPad.

In its test run, the “HMH Fuse” application helped more than 78 percent of students score “Proficient” or “Advanced” on the spring 2011 California Standards Test. That was significantly higher than the 59 percent of peers who used traditional textbooks.

It would be pretty cool if digital textbooks aren’t just cheaper and more portable, but are actually more effective.

Push Pop Press vs. Apple 

Daniel Dilger, writing at AppleInsider:

According to an unverified report from a source who worked with Push Pop Press co-founder Mike Matas, Jobs met with the fledgling company and warned Matas that if he pursued building dynamic books targeted at the App Store he would risk intellectual property claims.

Matas, a former designer at Apple, reportedly used a variety of patented technologies developed at Apple to deliver his plans for Push Pop Press. His company intended to give publishers a way to develop smoothly interactive titles that blurred the line between book and app.

The story I’ve heard is a little different, and a lot less dramatic. What a well-informed little birdie told me is that it wasn’t a legal threat over patents or technology, but rather something more like Panic’s classic story about iTunes and Audion (or maybe you more like Jobs’s hint regarding the then-upcoming iPhoto at the end of that tale). I.e. that Jobs more or less warned Push Pop Press that Apple was going in the same direction, in a big way. A competitive warning, not a legal threat.

xScope 3.0 

Excellent update from The Iconfactory to this essential tool for designers and nitpickers. Lots of great new features, like mirroring a window on your Mac to an iPhone or iPad display, and simulating vision defects (e.g. colorblindness).

Video of Yesterday’s Apple Event in New York 

In case you haven’t seen it. Update: Or, subscribe to Apple’s HD keynotes podcast.

A Mute Point 

Speaking of The Talk Show, this week’s episode is out, featuring a detailed discussion of the iPhone’s ringer (a.k.a. mute) switch, and volume controls and hardware buttons on smartphones in general.

Brought to you by two excellent sponsors: Vidmeup and Stripe.

All the Way to Zero 

Dov Frankel, explaining something that confused me during the week’s episode of The Talk Show:

Basically, the iPhone has two different volume levels: your ringer volume, and your audio playback volume. When audio is playing, or when an audio-centric app is open, the hardware volume buttons change the volume of the audio. When at the home screen with no audio playing, the volume buttons change the ringer volume. The audio level can go to 0, but the ringer volume can only go to 1. To turn the ringer off, you have to use the hardware switch.