Linked List: January 28, 2013

Monday, 28 January 2013

Oxo Responds to Rip-Off Accusation From Competitor ★

File under “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”.

HP to Announce Its First Chromebook Next Month? ★

Could be a worrisome trend for Microsoft.

John August, introducing a new typeface he commissioned from Alan Dague-Greene:

Today, we’re introducing a new typeface designed for screenwriters. It’s called Courier Prime.

It’s Courier, just better.

Better numerals and punctuation (e.g. the parentheses), real italics, a better bold weight. Oh, and it’s free of charge.

iOS 6 Adoption ★

From Apple’s PR this morning, announcing iOS 6.1:

“iOS 6 is the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, and with nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in just five months, it may be the most popular new version of an OS in history,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

300 million devices in five months seems pretty good.

Roger Moore on the Best James Bond ★

Speaking of James Bond and Roger Moore, Glen Levy has a nice interview with him for Time.

James Bond Portraits by Ross Burt ★

Terrific work; all six are flattering, but I think I like the Roger Moore one best.

Chrome OS in the Real World ★

Ian Betteridge:

Even if Chrome OS devices had accounted for 10% of all computers sold in the last year (which no one would claim, as they’re not even available in many markets), that would still amount to a tiny proportion of the total number of installed computers worldwide. Neither shipments nor sales tell you the story of installed base, and installed base is what visitors to a site is a measure of.

I should have been clearer. When I pointed out that Chrome OS accounts for just a wee sliver — 0.04 percent — of DF web traffic, I didn’t mean to imply that that number should correlate to monthly sales. I was simply pointing out that if Chrome OS devices are starting to catch on, it’s still early days.

Betteridge points to a Dixons employee who claims Chrome OS devices (well, to be precise, “Google products”) account for 10 percent of their notebook sales in stores with dedicated “Chrome Zones”.

‘Design Cannot Cover the Mistakes of Bad Management, but Styling Can’ ★

Massimo Vignelli on American Airlines’s new identity.

A 128 GB iPad 4? ★

Mark Gurman at 9to5Mac:

With developers finding code in the soon-to-be-released iOS 6.1 that points to 128GB iOS devices, and with recent findings of 128GB references in Apple’s recent iTunes 11 release, speculation naturally points to Apple releasing a 128GB iPad in the very near future.

Seems a little weird, insofar as I could not recall Apple adding a new storage capacity midway through the product cycle of an iOS device. But I had forgotten about the 16 GB original iPhone and 32 GB original iPod Touch, both introduced in February 2008. (I had also forgotten that the iPod Touch used to have larger storage capacity than the iPhone.)

If this 128 GB iPad 4 thing is true, I take it to imply that the iPad 5 isn’t coming until later in the year, and that this is a way for Apple to make a little news, keep the lineup fresh, and raise the bar on tablet storage capacities.

J.J. Abrams to Direct New Star Wars Movie ★

I think he’s a good pick. Two of my favorite aspects of the original trilogy, both sorely lacking in the second trilogy, are camaraderie and mystery. Abrams does both those things well. To that point, as well, is good news on the writing front: the screenplay is being written by Michael Arndt, who wrote the excellent (and camaraderie-rich) Toy Story 3.

(The worrisome part of this announcement isn’t who Lucasfilm has chosen to make the movie, but the “kick-started with dynamite” headline. Who wrote that?)

Nilay Patel Reviews the Pebble Smartwatch ★

Lots of potential, not much there yet. Interesting contrast between the iOS and Android experiences.

Acer and Chrome OS, Sitting in a Tree ★

Tim Cuplan and Debra Mao, reporting for Bloomberg:

Chrome-based models accounted for 5 percent to 10 percent of Acer’s U.S. shipments since being released there in November, President Jim Wong said in an interview at the Taipei-based company’s headquarters. That ratio is expected to be sustainable in the long term and the company is considering offering Chrome models in other developed markets, he said.

Sounds like Chrome OS is starting to get some traction, but I do wonder if actual sales match the “shipments”. Looking at my stats here at DF, Chrome OS accounted for 0.04 percent of traffic over the last four weeks.

“Windows 8 itself is still not successful,” said Wong, whose company posted a 28 percent drop in fourth-quarter shipments from a year earlier. “The whole market didn’t come back to growth after the Windows 8 launch, that’s a simple way to judge if it is successful or not.”

Gone are the days when PC OEMs feared Microsoft’s wrath.

iOS 6.1 Released ★

Minor update to Apple TV, too.

Imagining a 5-Inch iPhone ★

Rene Ritchie:

If Apple considers a screen size of 4.5- or 4.8- instead of 5-inches, the basic premises stay the same. Either way, if Apple stays at 2×, interface elements wouldn’t be blown up as much at 4.5- or 4.8- as they would at 5-inches, nor would density decrease as much. At 4.5-inches the current 1136x640 display would be 290ppi, and at 4.8-inches it would be 272ppi. 3× would be 435ppi or 408ppi. 4× would be a silly 560ppi or 543ppi.

3× or 4× isn’t happening any time soon. The most likely scenario for a bigger-display iPhone would be to keep the same pixel count as the iPhone 5 (1136⁠ ⁠×⁠ ⁠640) and use the 264 ppi density of the retina iPad. My arithmetic is a little different than Ritchie; I got 4.9 inches diagonal for a 264 ppi 1136⁠ ⁠×⁠ ⁠640 display.

Think about what Apple did when they made the iPad Mini. They kept the pixel dimensions the same as the non-retina 9.7-inch iPads, and used a display with the exact same pixel density (163 ppi) as previous devices (the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 3GS). From an operations standpoint, they’d be re-using a component they’re already familiar with. From a software standpoint, existing apps would just run, and everything would just look bigger on screen.

I haven’t heard even a whisper about such a device actually being in the works (but Jeremy Horwitz has), but if it is, that’s how I think Apple would do it.