John Gruber talking about Microsoft’s Frank Shaw:
Betting against the iPad as a device on which people can work, for any meaning of “work”, is a bad bet in the long run. Shaw though, is doubling down on just that bet.
Shaw would do better by getting Microsoft to make a product that people actually want to buy.
For more than four decades, “Beggars Banquet” has remained one of the most acclaimed and popular Rolling Stones albums. Released in 1968, it marked a return to swaggering rock ‘n’ roll, and gave the world enduring classics such as “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Street Fighting Man.”
Wow, nice!
Designed for iPhone and iPad.
For science geeks.
I just downloaded this app—it looks great.
Homage to William Higinbotham:
Fifty years ago, before either arcades or home video games, visitors waited in line at Brookhaven National Laboratory to play Tennis for Two, an electronic tennis game that is unquestionably a forerunner of the modern video game. Two people played the electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer and used an oscilloscope for a screen. The game’s creator, William Higinbotham, was a physicist who lobbied for nuclear nonproliferation as the first chair of the Federation of American Scientists.
John Siracusa dives deep into Mavericks
While I’ve posted on this topic before, the rules and the solutions are evolving. While the NFL remains committed to their deal with DirecTV, the public remains determined to watch the games on line in real time.
The only Americans who are technically allowed to watch NFL’s live streams are those customers who purchase DirecTV’s (DTV) all-access Sunday Ticket package, a deal worth $1 billion to the NFL.
What’s a cord-cutting fan to do? For just a couple of dollars you could digitally pretend to be from somewhere overseas, which would give you access to every single NFL game, live and in high definition, through your Internet connection. And while doing so almost certainly violates the NFL’s terms of service, it might not be otherwise illegal.
That’s the promise of Canadian startup Adfreetime.com, one of a handful of providers to offer what’s called a DNS-switching service.
Pixelmator 3.0 FX is the most advanced version of Pixelmator to date, introducing lots of new features and improvements, including the following:
- Layer Styles: Thanks to non-destructive Layer Styles, creating polished and advanced compositions is now so much simpler, faster, and more enjoyable
- Liquify Tools: Shape images in multiple ways—slightly twist an element, add an artistic detail, or completely distort an entire image
- New Image Editing Engine: The new state-of-the-art image editing engine harnesses the full power of the latest OS X technologies making Pixelmator feature rich, yet blistering fast
- OS X Mavericks support: Tags, Multiple-Displays, App Nap support and more.
Another great looking release from the Pixelmator Team. This is easily one of my favorite apps on the Mac. Ever.
Serenity Caldwell
Some users (including yours truly) are reporting issues where the Mac App Store doesn’t recognize their copies; when they click on an iLife or iWork app’s price, they receive the following alert: “[App] is already installed and was not purchased from the Mac App Store. Do you want to buy [app]?” Macworld spoke with an Apple spokesperson who noted that there’s currently an issue with some legacy customers, and the company is working on a fix.
I’ve been asked quite a few times today which Apple announcement I thought was the biggest—the blockbuster release that people would be talking about for days and weeks to come. That’s actually a very difficult question to answer, given the scope of the announcements.
If there was any event in recent memory that demonstrated the depth and scope of Apple’s products, it had to be this one. Every new product tied into the last and the next announcement in one way or another. Whether iOS or Mac, software or hardware, the connection was there.
The new iPads were clearly the products that everyone was waiting on throughout the event. I had some time after the event to play around with the new devices and gather some quick thoughts.
The iPad Air is everything you would expect from something with that name. Clearly an iPad in looks and functionality, but it’s also so light and seems less bulky than the previous generation iPad. It’s hard to imagine that Apple could make the iPad any thinner and lighter than it was, but they did. You can tell just from picking up the iPad Air that it’s different—it’s that obvious.
The iPad mini has been my most used iPad since it came out and I don’t see that changing. The most requested feature for the mini is here—a Retina display.
I never found the display on the iPad mini to be bad at all, and I used it all the time. However, there is no doubt that having the Retina display will make the reading experience1 much better. Of course, having the new A7 chip means the iPads are really powerful too, so no apps are going to be able to slow them down.
I was kind of surprised that neither iPad included the new TouchID fingerprint sensor. I must admit, I thought they would have it.
The new Mac Pro is just a beast of a machine. Much smaller than previous generation Mac Pros, but packing so much power. Everything about the Mac Pro, from the processors to the GPU and the I/O screams professional. I can’t wait to get this thing in my studio—it will be the first “desktop” Mac to actually sit on my desk in many years.
What’s amazing about the MacBook Pro is not that they made it faster or that it has faster graphics or that it has better battery life. What’s amazing is that they did all three.
For me, battery life is becoming one of the most important considerations for my portable computer. I’m tired of trying to find a plug wherever I go to top up the battery and I’d be willing to sacrifice a bit of power for better battery. Luckily, it doesn’t look like I’ll be making any sacrifices with the new MacBook Pro.
The last item on the list from the presentation is software. You may look at the software announcements and think they aren’t that significant, but this is huge.
Apple took iLife and iWork on iOS and Mac, and made them free when you get a new device. Then they took the new version of OS X Mavericks and made it free too.
Everything you need to operate a Mac or iOS device is free. Spreadsheet, photo, music, presentation, word processing, and movie-making software, all free.
Huge.
I can’t wait to get my hands on all of these products to test them out, but I think Apple really made a statement today about doing what’s best for its customers. That’s what it’s all about.
I use my iPad mini mostly for reading emails and surfing the Web for work, so sharper text means a lot to me. ↩
With their revolutionary Voyage-Air patented hinged necks, each guitar folds in half at the neck heel and fits comfortably into a specially designed gig bag.
Cool.
iRig BlueBoard is the first wireless MIDI pedalboard for iOS and Mac that allows you to control your music apps and more from the floor. Now control parameters of your MIDI-compatible apps like AmpliTube wirelessly from the floor. Switch between presets, change patches, turn effects on and off and control effects like volume wah pedals all from the stage floor without worrying about tripping over wires. Setup is as simple as turning the iRig BlueBoard on and telling it what you want to control. iRig BlueBoard features four backlit soft-touch pads housed in a sturdy, stage-worthy chassis, two TRS expansion jacks for connecting additional MIDI controllers like expression pedals, and is powered by four standard AAA batteries.
IK Multimedia’s iRig BlueBoard allows guitarists, vocalists and keyboard players wireless control of Core-MIDI-compatible music-making apps running on an iPhone (4s or later), iPad 4, iPod touch (5th gen) or Mac (models from June 2012). The pedalboard has four backlit pads up top, which can each be assigned controls to switch between presets and banks, tweak parameters or change patches on the fly. Expression, volume or wah pedals can also be connected to the two 0.25-in jacks on the side of the device for control of onscreen dials and knobs.
Lots of good stuff in this update, including a calibration fix for the iPhone 5s accelerometer.
Click the link.
Live Streaming video requires Safari 4 or later on OS X v10.6 or later; Safari on iOS 4.2 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 5.0.2 or later.
Very excited.
Once I started watching this, I found it hard to tear myself away. Crazy.
Blank on Blank works with journalists to dig up dusty cassette interviews and collaborate with animators and video artists to bring them to life. Here’s a great example:
A configurable world clock, with statistics like births, deaths, each divided into various categories, and lots more.
Not too surprising, considering BBM has an installed base of 60 million users. But still, an interesting datapoint.
Good tutorial. Two takeaways:
Official Travel Guide to Norway:
Rjukan is situated deep in the narrow Vestfjord Valley in Telemark. Due to the high mountains surrounding the valley, among them The Gaustadtoppen Mountain at 1,883 metres above sea level, there is no sunlight six months of the year (from September to March).This winter, the darkness will finally come to an end.
I live in Vancouver, BC and it can be bad enough here in the winter with all the dreary rain we get but can you imagine six months of no sun?
Grantland:
The Stanley Cup is the most beautiful of sports trophies. It shimmers. It’s big. When ancient peoples returned from the hunt, they held their prize aloft. When players today win a championship, in a timeless gesture of triumph, they throw their hands above their heads. And in sports, nothing fits better between a player’s hands than the Stanley Cup. It is perfect.It didn’t begin that way.
Ken Dryden was not only a great goaltender (in the Hall of Fame for my beloved Montreal Canadiens) but he is also a great writer. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his amazing book, “The Game” (Widely acknowledged as the best hockey book ever written and lauded by Sports Illustrated as one of the “Top 10 Sports Books of All Time”), he’s written another chapter. If you’d like to see why Canadians love hockey so much, pay particular attention to the small town aspect of the chapter.
The New York Times:
Men in lifting belts wheel hand trucks stacked high with food from across the globe: 80 pounds of ground beef, 700 pounds of top butt, 175 shoulder tenders, 1 case of New York strips, all from the Midwest; 5 pounds of chicken livers, 6 cases of chicken bones, 120 chicken breast cutlets; 30 pounds of bacon; 300 littleneck clams, 110 pounds of mussels from Prince Edward Island, another 20 pounds from New Zealand, 50 trout, 25 pounds of U10 shrimp (fewer than 10 pieces per pound), 55 whole dorade, 3 cases of escargot, 360 Little Skookum oysters from Washington State, 3 whole tunas, 45 skates, 18 black sea bass, 2 bags of 100 to 120 whelks, 45 lobster culls.That’s just the fish and meat order.
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant?
I drove down to Santa Cruz with some friends on Sunday and got my first tattoo on the inside of my forearm. Thank you all for helping to make The Loop the success that it is, and thanks to Jenn and Tim for putting up with me.
If you need a tattoo, I highly recommend seeing Tim at Good Omen Tattoo.
Can Cher Wang, billionaire co-founder of HTC, keep them from following in the footsteps of other beleaguered smartphone manufacturers? She faces a tough putt.
My favorite part of the article:
It’s worth noting that the 55-year-old, Berkeley-educated Wang personally managed HTC’S relationship with Microsoft during the time when its phones primarily used the Windows Mobile operating system. “Once a year,” the Times noted in its profile, “she flies to Seattle and meets with Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer, the company’s chief executive.”
The last mobile-phone chief with close ties to Microsoft was Nokia’s Stephen Elop, who recently presided over the sale of the Finnish firm’s handset business to Microsoft. With Wang taking the helm, will HTC find itself similarly drawn into Microsoft’s orbit?
Graham Nash tells the story of how, back in 1972, Neil Young played him his brand new album Harvest. Fantastic way to demo your music. More barn!
Back in November 2007, Google had zero share of the mobile market. They watched the original iPhone rollout and could see it was going to be a game changer. To protect their search turf, Google released the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).
In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption—any shred of market share—was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the “moat” around the Google Search “castle”—it would exist to protect Google’s online properties in the mobile world.
Fast forward to today, and Android owns a significant market share. But a true open-source Android means other companies can release their own versions of Android (à la Amazon with the Kindle Fire) with Google getting none of that particular revenue stream.
The linked article digs into that problem, shows one example of Google’s move from an open source proponent to an ambitious protector of market share. Interesting read.
Hold onto your beard, JimD.
Manufactured by Krups, The Sub is, in Newson’s words, “a giant pressurised vessel” and “a male-oriented object made of anodized aluminium.” Consumers can purchase what they’re calling “Torps,” metal cylinders filled with brew, that they then load into The Sub like a torpedo into a firing tube. But instead of sinking an enemy U-Boat, The Sub then chills the beer down to two degrees Celsius, which is four degress colder, Heinken reckons, than your ‘fridge can get it.
Start of a big week for Apple. Love the Spirit in the Sky riff laid under the mix.