Linked List: March 5, 2012

Monday, 5 March 2012

Christian Cantrell: ‘Windows 8: A Giant Misstep Forward’ ★

Christian Cantrell:

In my opinion, the best computing model is one in which all the devices you use have operating systems, UIs, and interaction models that are appropriate for that device’s form factor and for its intended purpose with data being seamlessly shared between them. My interpretation of Windows 8 is that Microsoft tried to anticipate Apple combining their operating systems into one, and tried to beat them to it. However, I think they’ve beaten Apple to something Apple isn’t interested in doing, and that actually represents a big step backwards in computer interaction and productivity.

The recurring theme of these Windows 8 reviews: the brand-new Metro UI is elegant, clever, original and shows much promise; the updated classic Windows desktop is better than ever; the two environments don’t flow well together.

And I think Cantrell is exactly right about where Apple sees things going.

Matthew Baxter-Reynolds on the Windows 8 Experience: ‘Confusing. Confusing as Hell.’ ★

Matthew Baxter-Reynolds:

Since installing, I’ve learnt to regard Windows 8 as being two operating systems. One part I’ve been thinking of as Windows 7.1. The “classic desktop” bits of Windows 8 is just Windows 7, minus the Start orb, with a new theme to replace Aero. This part is frankly superb. I can’t remember the last time I used a beta version of a Microsoft OS and had it work this well six or seven months ahead of RTM [release to manufacture, when the code is final]. Hence I’m thinking of this as Windows 7.1 — it’s really just a service pack. You could actually roll this part out and use it quite happily.

So he likes the updated Windows-as-we-know-it, and he seems keen on Metro, too, but, he doesn’t think they go well together:

What this does for you as you use it is a whole world of “wait … what?!” Trying to deal with Windows when your driving results in it flipping between classic Windows and Metro-style app is like having someone sneak up behind you and flick you on the ear when you’re least expecting it. This massive context switching of “YOU’RE IN WINDOWS WAIT NO NO YOU’RE NOT!” creates an appalling user experience.

There is no such thing as “no compromise”.

Andy Ihnatko on Windows 8 ★

Glowing review:

My overall opinion is so high that it has to be stated right here in the first paragraph: Microsoft has really cracked something here. With the Metro user interface, they’ve created a simple and beautiful design language that’s relevant to a broad range of devices and to the ways that people use computers in the second decade of the 21st century. […]

The Metro app interface is so free of white noise that when I launch a conventional Windows app and return to the world of menus and icons and overlapping windows, it’s jarring. I feel like I’ve switched the channel and landed in an episode of “Hoarders.”

Ihnatko’s response is pretty much exactly what Microsoft is shooting for.

There is a downside, though:

Also, a PC running Windows 8 feels like two entirely separate machines that share the same screen and keyboard via a KVM switch. I feel like I’m in Metro World and make occasional commutes to Conventional Windows World, or vice-versa. I’d like to see a smoother integration.

Who Said It? Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns? ★

Another tough one.

CmdrTaco Joins the Washington Post ★

Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda:

My title will be Chief Strategist, and Editor at Large. I’ll write and work with editorial folks inside the Labs, as well as with the talented engineering team already there to improve existing projects and create new ones. Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli assures me that I’ll also be working with the newsroom where I can contribute words, ideas, and tools that will improve the experience of the journalists doing work that I personally believe transcends the bottom line.

Filing this one under “Headlines I Never Expected to Write”.

Safari 5.2 Beta’s Big-Ass Tabs, For and Against ★

MG Siegler agrees with me that Safari 5.2 beta’s full-window-width tabs are ungainly. (Here’s what they look like with one tab, and with two.)

David Chartier disagrees:

More importantly, using that space for wider tabs, even with just one or two open, means that you can actually see the entire name of the page in each tab. This is one of the interface issues that drives me nuts about Chrome: every tab is the same tiny, useless width, so you never can make out much a page’s name.

A clever compromise that perhaps would make us all happy: If there’s room, grow tabs to be wide enough to contain the longest page title, but no wider. (Bonus points for enforcing a sane maximum width for SEO-drunk websites with crazy-ass long page titles.)

NYT: ‘As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline of PCs’ ★

Nick Wingfield, reporting for the NYT:

In 2011, PCs outsold tablets almost six to one, estimates Canalys, a technology research company. But that is still a significant change from 2010, the iPad’s first year on the market, when PCs outsold tablets 20 to one, according to Canalys.

That’s a hell of a change, year over year.

Dan Frommer: ‘If You’re Still Whining About AT&T’s 3G Data Throttling, You’re Part of the Problem’ ★

Dan Frommer:

If you use a lot of data, it’s only fair for you to pay more than people who don’t. That’s how many other constrained utilities work, and that’s now how wireless broadband works. That shouldn’t be hard to understand. Especially given the sorry state of AT&T’s data network. […]

Here’s the big picture bottom line: If you use a lot of data, you are clearly getting some sort of value out of it. Value isn’t free. The world’s finite resources simply aren’t trending toward free. That isn’t logical. I predict most of you will be spending significantly more per month for wireless data in 5 and 10 years than you do today. You’ll be getting faster and better service, and more value out of it, but it won’t be cheaper.

Not going to be popular with the “unlimited” plan hold-outs, but I agree.

The iPad 3 Claim Chowder Is Already Cooking ★

Roger Cheng, CNet:

Apple should be blowing us away with the iPad 3, but it probably won’t.

The latest rumors call for a higher resolution screen on par with the iPhone’s Retina Display, a possible upgrade to the iOS software, and possibly a few other improvements. That’s certainly enough to draw the Apple faithful and sell a ton of iPads. But with the rapid advances that the competition is making, will it be enough to secure the company’s continued dominance in the tablet business?

Not even sure where to start here. The implication that iPads are only bought by “the Apple faithful”? Or the “rapid advances” he cites in the competition, which include “more CPU cores” and the Galaxy Note 10.1’s stylus?

Valletta: Markdown Editor With Single-View Live Preview ★

You can’t shake a stick in the App Store — Mac or iOS — without hitting a few Markdown-optimized text editors. Valletta (Mac app, $7) offers something I hadn’t seen before and never considered: a live preview but with the current line rendered as raw Markdown. (Via Dan Frakes.)

Learning the Ropes ★

Abdel Ibrahim and Jon Dick, “Microsoft Poised for Tablet Resurgence”:

That’s because the software company isn’t planning to simply share features between distinct operating systems, as will Apple. Rather, Microsoft hopes to introduce nearly identical experiences (or as close as the hardware will allow) to each.

If Microsoft pulls that off, and we have no reason to suspect it won’t, it’ll make a very powerful argument to embrace whatever tablets it simultaneously debuts. And it’ll do that for the same reason consumers have gone gaga for all things iOS: people like intuitiveness and familiarity; they like unwrapping a new product and not having to learn the ropes.

Windows 8 is certainly attractive and original, and it may well lead to success in the tablet market. (Where by “success” I simply mean a statistically meaningful slice of the market, not necessarily “beating the iPad”, which I would in fact bet against.)

But whatever success Windows 8 achieves, on PCs and on touchscreen tablets, certainly won’t be attributable to “familiarity” and “not having to learn the ropes”. What makes Windows 8 so interesting is that Metro is the first-ever complete break in the conceptual design of the Windows UI. (The Mac has never had such a break; even Mountain Lion is conceptually an evolution of the 1984 original Mac.)

I suppose Ibrahim and Dick’s argument is that Windows 8’s success in the PC market is assured, and that those users who start using Metro on PCs will then find using Metro on touchscreen tablets to be utterly familiar. I’m just not as sure as they are that Metro will prove to be a hit on PCs, exactly because people favor the familiar and are reluctant to “learn the ropes” of a new concept.

I think iOS-on-a-tablet would have been an utter failure if Apple had positioned it as Mac OS 11 instead of something separate and new.

Fasting to Beat Jet Lag ★

Steve Hendricks, writing for Harper’s:

The Argonne Anti–Jet-Lag diet, as the putative antidote is known, was devised in the 1980s by the late Charles Ehret, a “chronobiologist” at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois who discovered that our biological clocks are cued in part by when and how much we eat. After experimenting on protozoa, rats, and his eight children, Ehret recommended that the international traveler, in the several days before his flight, alternate days of feasting with days of very light eating. Come the flight, the traveler would nibble sparsely until eating a big breakfast at about 7:30 a.m. in his new time zone — no matter that it was still 1:30 a.m. in the old time zone or that the airline wasn’t serving breakfast until 10:00 a.m. His reward would be little or no jet lag.

Research at Harvard suggests you can get the same results by simply fasting for 12-16 hours.

Edits Quarterly ★

“Short narratives in film and photography”, by Ian Coyle. Do yourself a favor and view it on a big display in Safari in full-screen mode.

Rob Beschizza on the Sony Xperia S ★

Rob Beschizza:

You can tell Sony is trying hard to catch up, however, because the edition of Android on it is only 14 months old.

Apple’s iOS Runs HTML5 Games Three Times Faster Than Android ★

Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat:

Repeated tests show that iOS performed far better at running animations than Android. The newest iPhone 4S scored 252 PerfMarks and the iPad 2 score 327. That compares to just 53 for the iPhone 3GS from 2009. By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone scored 147 and the Kindle Fire scored only 25.

The iPad 2 beat every single Android device tested. The newly released Android Galaxy Nexus was the only Android smartphone that could handle images at 30 frames per second.

Some Android tablets performed poorly despite their powerful hardware. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 scored 65.

I wonder whether they used Chrome or the built-in (slower) “Browser” to test the Galaxy Nexus. Anyway, I suspect the iPad 2 only has about two days left at the top of the list.

The Never-Ending Stream of Experts Who Know Better Than Apple’s Board What to Do With the Company’s Cash ★

Martin Hutchinson, writing for Money Morning, “If I’m an Apple Investor, I Want a Dividend”:

That’s why besides an annual dividend of $15-$20 billion (giving a 3.75%-5% yield on a $400 billion capitalization), shareholders should demand that the cash hoard itself, or the great bulk of it, be paid out to them, by a special dividend of maybe $100 per share.

If I were an Apple investor (I’m not), I’d want Apple to keep doing what it’s been doing the last decade or so.

Kottke Redesigns ★

Looks great, and H&FJ’s Whitney has the perfect feel. (And Jason’s right: Whitney looks good on a regular display, but it looks amazing on the iPhone 4S retina display.)