Linked List: June 4, 2015

Thursday, 4 June 2015

Apple Watch Production Catching Up With Demand 

Apple PR:

“The response to Apple Watch has surpassed our expectations in every way, and we are thrilled to bring it to more customers around the world,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations. “We’re also making great progress with the backlog of Apple Watch orders, and we thank our customers for their patience. All orders placed through May, with the sole exception of Apple Watch 42 mm Space Black Stainless Steel with Space Black Link Bracelet, will ship to customers within two weeks. At that time, we’ll also begin selling some models in our Apple Retail Stores.”

So space black stainless steel is one exception. Another — unmentioned by Apple in this press release — are the 38mm Modern Buckle bands. In the online store, they’re listed as “Currently Unavailable”. You can get the watches that come with the Modern Buckle (right now they’re quoting “June 18–25” as the delivery window), but not the standalone bands.

Uber and Carnegie Mellon’s ‘Partnership’ Sort of Like That Between Fox and Henhouse 

Mike Ramsey and Douglas MacMillan, reporting for the WSJ:

Carnegie Mellon University is scrambling to recover after Uber Technologies Inc. poached 40 of its researchers and scientists earlier this year, a raid that left one of the world’s top robotics research institutions in a crisis.

In February, Carnegie Mellon and Uber trumpeted a strategic partnership in which the school would “work closely” with the ride-hailing service to develop driverless-car technology. Behind the scenes, the tie-up was more combative than collaborative. […]

Uber and Carnegie Mellon have yet to work jointly on any projects.

The Misunderstanding of 3D 

Daniel Engber, writing for The New Yorker:

But the secret of 3-D — its central irony, let’s say — is that it isn’t any good for spectacle. Adding a dimension often serves to shrink the objects on the screen, instead of giving them more pomp; trees and mountains end up looking like pieces in a diorama; people seem like puppets. Action, too, suffers in the format, because rapid horizontal movements mess with the illusion and fast-paced edits in 3-D tend to wear a viewer out.

I spoke about this on last week’s episode of The Talk Show, with Rene Ritchie. I find when I watch 3D movies in the theater, when I walk out, I can’t remember half of what happened. I like 3D in short doses, like on attractions at Disney World, but for feature films I find it ruins the whole experience.

See also: Legendary film editor and sound designer Walter Murch, explaining why “3D doesn’t work and never will” in a 2011 letter to Roger Ebert. (Previously linked here.)

GitUp 

Remarkable new GUI Mac client for Git by Pierre-Olivier Latour (one of the founders of the late, great Everpix photo service). If you use Git, you need to check this out.

Om Malik: Google Should Buy Twitter 

Om Malik and Josh Topolsky on Bloomberg TV with Emily Chang, discussing Chris Sacca’s epic post regarding what Twitter should do.

Brent Simmons Resigns From Q Branch 

Brent Simmons on leaving Q Branch, the company he co-founded with me and Dave Wiskus to produce Vesper:

I decided to leave because I wasn’t working on the software that I’ve been obsessed with for more than a decade.

I turned 47 a little while ago, and I’ve had some reasons to reflect on the shortness of life, and I realized how very important it is for me to work on the software that I think about every day. I kept putting it off, but every day that I put it off hurt more than the previous day. I realized that I couldn’t continue — I have to do the work that I need to do.

I’ve known Brent since before I was writing Daring Fireball, and he’s always been on my short list of “people I’d love to work with”. And, he still is. He’s a good friend and one of the most amazing developers I’ve ever encountered.

For Q Branch and Vesper, life goes on. We don’t have anything to announce today, other than that this is not the end. In the meantime, I simply want to publicly wish Brent well. He’s still full-time at The Omni Group, which means Q Branch work had been relegated to nights-and-weekends time. Nights-and-weekends time is for your passions, not for obligations.

James Bond Cars Through the Years 

Another clever HTML5 site, this one from U.K. car dealer Evans Halshaw. (Can’t believe they left out the Ford Mustang Mach 1 from Diamonds Are Forever, though.)

Fantastical 2 for Apple Watch 

Speaking of updates to my favorite apps, the new version of Fantastical for iPhone now has a Watch app, and it’s good. In addition to providing a “list of upcoming events” calendar view that makes way more sense to me than the built-in Calendar app, Fantastical on the watch also gives you access to your system-wide reminders and provides a more useful glance.

Update: Turns out the built-in Calendar app does have a list view — you can switch to it with a force tap. I’ve obviously violated my own second rule of Apple Watch: Try force tapping everything. (My first rule of Apple Watch: Re-read the Getting Started pamphlet that came with the watch after a day or two.)

Tweetbot for Mac 2.0 

Sweet Yosemite-style update to my favorite Twitter client.

Margalit Fox, writing for the NYT:

Jerry Dior, a graphic designer who created one of the most instantly recognizable logos in the history of American marketing — the silhouetted batter that has long symbolized Major League Baseball — but who received official credit for it only 40 years after the fact, died on May 10 at his home in Edison, N.J. He was 82.

Truly one of the best and most enduring logos in the world.