Linked List: March 23, 2020

Monday, 23 March 2020

Convergence on the Laptop Form Factor 

Nick Heer, responding to arguments that, with the upcoming Magic Keyboard, Apple is moving the iPad in the direction of Microsoft’s Surface lineup:

I’m going to irritatingly self-quote here from a piece I wrote a couple of years ago:

If there is a smartphone-to-desktop continuum, with the tablet somewhere in the middle, Microsoft has long approached it as skinning Windows with touch drivers and bigger buttons, while Apple chose to start by making a touchscreen phone and build up from there.

The addition of real mouse and trackpad support to the iPad is not just a slapped-on version of the MacOS cursor, but a clearly considered rethinking of what that should be on a system that is still primarily used by touch. I expect to see plenty more changes like this as Apple continues to add more advanced features to iPadOS — features that will probably be similar to aspects of MacOS, but reconsidered for a touch-based operating system.

See also: Tom Warren’s take for The Verge: “Apple Finally Admits Microsoft Was Right About Tablets”, which is a borderline jacktastic headline.

I think Heer gets this right. It’s not about iPad moving closer to Surface conceptually; it’s about moving closer to the laptop ideal. For certain tasks nothing beats the laptop form factor, and quite possibly never will. All computing platforms that are used for such tasks inevitably take on that form. What’s new this decade is the detachable 2-in-1 form — one device that serves as both a laptop with keyboard and trackpad and as a handheld tablet. Microsoft got there from one direction, Apple from another.

Facebook Donates Emergency Reserve of 720,000 Masks to Health Workers 

Reuters:

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Sunday that the social media company has donated its emergency reserve of 720,000 masks to provide health workers with more protective gear. “To help, Facebook donated our emergency reserve of 720,000 masks that we had bought in case the wildfires continued,” Zuckerberg said in a post, adding that the company is also working on “sourcing a lot more to donate.”

Next up: Zuckerberg donates his emergency stash of do-it-yourself haircut kits.

Inside the Xbox Series X 

I’m not into the whole Xbox-PlayStation console scene, but I found this detailed look at the internals of the upcoming Xbox Series X from Austin Evans to be fascinating. The only thing I found surprising is that it’s still going to contain an optical drive. It takes up so much space.

Update: I totally get the practical reasons for including the optical drive — compatibility with older Xbox games (going back several generations — very Microsoftian), helpful for people without fast broadband connections (modern games are huge), reselling games and buying used ones. I get it. Just saying that as an outsider, it looks archaic, especially amidst how cutting-edge the rest of the hardware is architecturally.

Foxconn Gives a Thumbs-Up 

Nikkei Asian Review:

Taiwan’s Foxconn, the top assembler of Apple’s iPhones, said it has secured enough workers to meet “seasonal demand” at all major Chinese plants, stressing a steady recovery from the labor shortage caused by the novel coronavirus epidemic on the mainland. The company issued a statement Sunday night saying recruitment goals have been reached “ahead of schedule at the plants.” This signals progress from early March when Chairman Young Liu told investors that Chinese plants were operating at roughly 50% capacity of normal.

The company also stressed that it has instituted rigorous measures to prevent infection. A total of 55,000 workers received PCR coronavirus tests, and over 40,000 people underwent chest X-rays, according to Foxconn.

I don’t know whether this is good news or terrifying.