Linked List: August 21, 2012

Tuesday, 21 August 2012

Android Police: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Review ★

Ron Amadeo reviews the Samsung Galaxy Note for Android Police:

The hardware is pure, unadulterated garbage. The build quality is so bad, I think it gave me cancer.

Twitter should hire this guy, with his clear crisp succinct style, to write their company blog posts.

Twitter App Makers Trying to Figure Out the Future ★

Lex Friedman, writing for Macworld:

Macworld has spoken with several developers behind third-party Twitter apps — or at least, we’ve tried. Some developers are notably hesitant to speak on the record, lest they incur Twitter’s wrath; the fear seems to be that since Twitter is now exerting more control than ever over access to its API — which developers leverage to make their Twitter apps work — that irking Twitter too much might result in a developer’s API access getting revoked.

If you worked at Twitter, wouldn’t this give you pause? Does Twitter really want its developers to fear them? Fear breeds resentment.

Explaining his optimism, the developer referenced existing developers’ ability to double their user bases, and highlighting the fact that “Twitter left the door open” for developers by saying that, once they hit their user caps, they would need explicit permission from the company. That’s better than saying that once you hit the cap, you’re entirely out of luck — though Twitter hasn’t said under what circumstances, if any, it would grant third-party developers increases in those user caps.

“I don’t know what the end-game is, and I’m not sure [Twitter does] either,” the developer said. “We’ve all known for a while they don’t want third party clients; I’d love to know why.”

Wouldn’t we all?

FF Chartwell ★

Speaking of interesting typefaces, FF Chartwell is kind of mind-blowing. (Via Mark Wilson.)

Twitterrific: New Rules, Same Road ★

Gedeon Maheux of The Iconfactory:

For the past several months, we’ve been working on a major update to Twitterrific that we’re very excited about. There were concerns that this new version might end up on the cutting room floor prior to Twitter’s announcement, but after reviewing the new restrictions and speaking with the team at Twitter, we’re pleased to report that our development plans remain unchanged.

Sounds like good news.

On the Ugliness of Non-Retina Apps Running on the MacBook Pro With Retina Display ★

Aaron Pressman thinks I should have spent more time in my review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display complaining about third-party Mac apps that haven’t yet been updated with retina-caliber UI elements, and particularly those which don’t even support retina-quality type:

The program in the upper left corner is Microsoft Word. Look at the jaggies in that 12 point type. Ugly. Now look over to the top right. That’s Apple’s own Pages program with the same words in the same font also at 12 points. Yummy. Likewise, in mid-screen is Apple’s TextEdit program. Smooth as a baby’s bottom. And in the lower foreground, Adobe’s Dreamweaver with text that looks like, well, like ass as Gruber might say.

But, hey, the guy at the Apple store tells me everything will look a lot better as soon as other software makers update their apps to take advantage of the Retina display.

No doubt, that’s one of the significant downsides to buying a MacBook Pro with Retina Display today. And no surprise, Microsoft Office and the Adobe Creative Suite apps are among the apps which don’t even support retina-quality type. (That list includes my beloved BBEdit as well.) I’m not sure what Pressman’s argument is, though. It’s no different than any previous transition — PowerPC to Intel, classic Mac OS to Mac OS X, etc. Apple ships first; developers like Microsoft and Adobe catch up later.

Update: It ends up Word’s text rendering engine is already resolution independent, but you need to hack some metadata in the current app bundle to enable it. It’s just the UI chrome Microsoft needs to work on.

How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy ★

David Pogue, writing for Scientific American:

The people want movies. None of Hollywood’s baffling legal constructs will stop the demand. The studios are trying to prevent a dam from bursting by putting up a picket fence.

Good article, but don’t waste your time loading the second “page” — it inexplicably only contains two sentences.

Pitch ★

Speaking of typewriters, I adore this typeface by Kris Sowersby. It’s a better Courier than Courier.

I Like My Clicky Keyboards, but This Is a Bit Much, Even for Me ★

I still think it’s cool, though.

Windows 8 Pro to Be Priced at $199 Following $69 Promotional Pricing ★

Tom Warren, The Verge:

Microsoft’s Windows 8 Pro software will be priced at $199 after a promotional price of $69.99 expires on January 31st 2013, according to one source familiar with Microsoft’s plans. The software maker will also offer a Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro upgrade option at retail stores for $69.99 until January 31st when the price reverts to $99.99.

Microsoft previously announced its $39.99 Windows 8 Pro upgrade pricing for existing Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 users — a price available exclusively online for those wishing to download the software without a DVD option.

What decade are we in?

‘A Denser Star for Lesser Planets to Orbit’ ★

Speaking of David Foster Wallace, Newsweek has an excerpt from D.T. Max’s Wallace biography, regarding the run-up to and writing of Infinite Jest.

(Thanks to Chris Long.)

David Foster Wallace’s ‘Word Notes’ in the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus in OS X’s Dictionary App ★

Dave Madden (posted a year ago, but news to me):

A couple years ago, I blogged about my beloved Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, and how it includes little bits of copy about words and their usage by writers like David Foster Wallace, Francine Prose, Zadie Smith, Simon Winchester, and the composer Stephin Merritt (among others). I bought a copy online and keep it always near my desk.

Did you know everyone already has a copy on his or her Mac?

It’s part of the built-in dictionary. Type in a word, click on “Thesaurus” in the little bar above, and you’ll get the word-for-word entry from this book I paid money for.

Better yet, it also has all the “Word Notes” by these writers.

Madden includes a list of Wallace’s entries, but several of them are hard to find, (all of is at all), and there are several I could not find at all: as, beg, bland, dialogue, dysphesia, fervent, individual, loan, toward, utilize. But the ones that are there are a joy to read. (Thanks to Jacob Rus.)

Update: Several readers have pointed out that the missing words are available in the Snow Leopard (10.6) version of Dictionary, but are no longer available in Lion or Mountain Lion.

Leaked Official Apple iPhone 5 Promo Video ★

Looks like an even better camera lens than the aforelinked Android-based Nikon.

Upcoming Android Nikon Coolpix Camera ★

Think about Instagram on this. Or Dropbox. Or something like iPhoto for making adjustments. The digital camera need not be a computer peripheral — it could be its own standalone device. Snap photos, tweak them using apps on the camera itself, and upload them to Dropbox or Flickr or whatever for long-term storage.