Linked List: June 30, 2014

Monday, 30 June 2014

Moto 360 Display Is Not Actually Round ★: Maybe they should have called it the Moto 270?
The Talk Show: ‘Diddling Your Feeds’ ★: This week I’m joined by special guest Dave Wiskus. Topics include the new look and feel in OS X Yosemite (10.10), Google’s new “Material Design” look and feel for Android, smartwatches (including the new ones Google showed at I/O last week), and Dave’s new behind-the-scenes role at The Talk Show.
Dan Frommer: ‘These Are Not the Wearables We’ve Been Waiting For’ ★: Dan Frommer, Quartz:

So perhaps Google is on the right track, and we’ll all be using smartwatches someday. But we’re not there yet — not in the software, hardware, design, or ecosystem. And Apple is going to have to do better than this if it expects the fabled iWatch to dominate.
Pre-Release Look at BlackBerry Passport ★: Now that’s an original form factor — I say this with admiration. Take the logo off the front (please) and you’d know instantly that this is a new BlackBerry. Too little too late to save the company and platform, I suspect, but maybe if they’d come out with something like this in 2010, they might have had something.