December 13, 2012
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer in the US:
OK, so think about Apple compared to Samsung. I use a Mac, actually, at home. I’ve always used Mac, an iPhone, and an iPad. I also have the Galaxy. So I’m a great example.
If you look at the strengths of Apple, in a way it’s not the product per se. It’s that consumers like their ecosystem such as iCloud. I like that my family 6,000 miles away in Korea is able to see my schedule and see all of my contacts and photos. It is sticky, but it is a proprietary architecture.
The anticipation for the arrival of Google Maps last night was incredible and rightfully so. However, after using it, I’ve decided I’m sticking with Apple Maps.
Google’s interface for Maps isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. I like the interface on Apple Maps a lot better — the little Apple-esque touches that they put in their apps is second to none.
Interface aside, it’s how the app works that makes the real difference. Like millions of other people, I downloaded Google Maps last night and decided to get directions to one of my favorite restaurants, just a few miles from my house.
After typing in the name of the restaurant, Google Maps took me to India, which is on the other side of the world from where I am.
This morning, I took my daughter in town and used Google Maps to find our location. It found the place just fine and gave me a route close to what I would normally take. On the way, I ignored some directions to see how it would handle being re-routed.
It did okay, but there was a long lag as it figured out where to take me next and instead of finding the best route from where I was, it kept trying to take me back to the original route.
I used Apple Maps on the way home and it did a much better job of alerting me to upcoming turns and being quick to recognize when the route had changed.
I recognize that Apple Maps needs some work — there is no doubt about that. However, I have said from the very beginning that Maps worked well for me in the cities I’ve tried it. That continues to be true.
I’m glad Google released maps on iOS, even though it was a dick move to not give iOS users turn-by-turn navigation until Apple threw them out.
Competition is good for users and I support that, but I’m not about to throw out an app that works great for me.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I’ve been testing out the new version for the past couple of weeks on my iPhone and it’s great. 1Password has become one of my favorite apps.
December 12, 2012
Written by Jim Dalrymple
You wanted it, here it is.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Gabe Weatherhead runs through all the changes involved in his big computer move. As a side note: It always surprises me how clean people’s desks are. Mine is a disaster.
The Loop reader Craig Storm sent these images. Two different stores, two different days, two different devices, same result.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Jim and Dan interview Jeff Hawley of Yamaha and later discuss Apple TV, Tim Cook’s interview with NBC, and Angus Young.
Written by Peter Cohen
If my annual tally of plagiarism and fabrication incidents is the depressing part of “Regret the Error”‘s year-end coverage, then this annual collection of the best of the worst in errors and corrections is the highlight.
That’s not to say the mistakes detailed below are minor or purely amusing; many are serious failures.
But it’s important to acknowledge the amusing and outrageous, and to collect them to help journalists avoid making the same mistakes.I also want to celebrate the correction writers who went beyond the call of duty to offer something special.
I’m not a huge fan of year end retrospectives, but being in the media some of these howlers have me laughing, cringing, and wondering what the hell happened.
Until I got to the entry entitled “Best Explanation of Missing Information.”
That’s when I started slow-clapping.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Digging specifically at Android, McNamee said that it is akin to “having a motor scooter at the Indianapolis 500.”
“I watch what they have done with Android and I’m flabbergasted because their market share in units is so high but look at the profit share,” McNamee said. “Apple’s profit share is 75 or 80% because Android has been managed essentially to make it a profitless prosperity. Right now, if Google is not careful, Android will be Samsung or Samsung will be Android.”
I laughed. Hard.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Speaking to V3, the firm’s product management director at Google Apps, Clay Bavor, said that due to what it sees as a lack of interest from its clients on the systems, it is holding back on any work at present.
“We have no plans to build out Windows apps. We are very careful about where we invest and will go where the users are but they are not on Windows Phone or Windows 8,” he said.
And the shots go back and forth.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
The firm notes that the number of Android devices infected with malware increased by 41% in the second half of 2012 with individual malware reports increased 75%. In fact, 94.35% of unique malware samples in 2012 were found to be Android trojans.
And it’s going to get worse? Yeah, Android is definitely winning.
A friend of mine sent me a song he was working on and complained that the drums sounded awful. This was surprising to me since I recommended he use Toontrack’s Superior Drummer or Steven Slate Drums, my goto apps for drums.
What was more surprising was that when I listened to his song, he was right, they sounded horrible. However, it didn’t take long to figure what he did wrong.
For example, one of the fills he had going into the chorus of the song was especially messy at the beginning. Then I counted the hits: tom, snare roll (multiple hits), crash, tom, kick.
The kick is fine. One foot, one kick hit. But how is a real drummer supposed to hit two toms, a cymbal and do multiple hits on a snare all at the same time? He can’t.
When you program drums in MIDI in Pro Tools or Logic remember that a drummer only has two hands. Everything you program should take that into account.
Drum samplers have come a long way in the past few years, but they can’t make stupid shit you do sound better or more realistic.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Wade at Panic did an experiment and included an Xcode demo project that you can download.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
When you are willing to pay this level attention to detail you can be as great as Apple, and not a moment sooner.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Felix Salmon wrote a very smart article on Tablet-native journalism. I don’t agree with everything he said, but it’s worth a read.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Now police in Colac, west of Melbourne, say faults with Google maps are putting people’s lives at risk along the Great Ocean Road and in the southern Otways.
So it’s not just Apple after all.
Written by Peter Cohen
Matthew Handrahan for Gamesindustry.biz:
Google chairman Eric Schmidt believes Android is now emerging as a clear winner in mobile, racing past Apple’s iOS in a manner similar to Microsoft in the desktop software market in the Nineties.
In related news, Donald Trump thinks that Trump Steaks are the best-tasting steaks in the world and Jim Koch thinks Samuel Adams beer is the best beer.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Squarespace Note helps anyone record their ideas on the fly. Writers, bloggers, and others can use the app to record inspiration and ideas as they happen; notes can be sent via e-mail, or synced with a range of popular services including Squarespace, Evernote, Dropbox, and more.
Until yesterday I thought this app was just another way to interact with the Squarespace Web site, but it’s more than that. It can be used as a notes app. Oh, and if you shake the iPhone when the app is active, it changes from day to night mode.
If you’re hankering to relive some good old fashioned gaming fun on your Mac this week, check out GOG.com. They’re giving away Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition for free.
GOG.com – originally Good Old Games – is a gaming service for people with a taste for older computer games. The service provides a large library of classic video games that have been reworked to run on modern computers, and this year they began supporting the Mac too – already they have a ton of games available, with more planned for the future. They’re also selling new games from current Mac game publishers like Virtual Programming. When you sign up, you’ll get access to a bunch of additional free games to help get your GOG game collection off the ground.
Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition is the 1996 release from 3D Realms that helped put the gun-wielding flat-top muscleman in the forefront of gamers’ consciousness. Along with Doom and other games of the era, Duke Nukem 3D helped make to define the then-burgeoning first person shooter genre. In it, you play a wisecracking action hero saving the world from vile alien scum. The game’s ribald humor and risqué content (levels featuring strippers and porno shops) earned it no small measure of controversy when it was originally released, though it’s positively tame by today’s standards.
Bear in mind that this isn’t the MacSoft port of the game – like many other GOG offerings, this is the tried-and-true DOS version running inside an emulation layer on your Mac – but it’s the same game you might remember from the mid-90s, for sure, and it still holds up well.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Dave Caolo has a rundown on how to buy gift cards from Facebook in case that’s on your wish list this year.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
“After 126 years of printing ink on paper with weekly, biweekly or monthly frequency, Sporting News will officially become a digital brand as of January 1, 2013. … Having spoken with many of our longtime subscribers, we recognize this is not a popular decision among our most loyal fans.”
Unfortunately, there aren’t enough loyal fans to pay the bills. Time to move on.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Om Malik:
I asked a Twitter spokesperson to describe Twitter’s core design, product and engineering capabilities — stuff they are really good at. What is Twitter’s core competency? So far, no comment.
I don’t expect an answer, but I had to ask. In fact, it is a question that Twitter should ask itself. Because in doing so it will be able to confront the deeper issues that have plagued its relationship with who used to be its customers — people.
Written by Peter Cohen
Associated Press:
Later this month, Redbox will offer an unlimited streaming-video plan that includes movies from Warner Bros. and pay TV channel Epix, along with four nights of physical DVD rentals, for $8 a month, or $9 a month if customers want Blu-ray discs.
The service will stream video on iOS and Android devices, along with select products from Samsung and LG, according to Redbox’s press release.
The service is designed to augment Redbox’s existing offering; the company provides automated kiosks that allow customers to rent recent top movie releases on Blu-ray and DVD for as low as $1 a day. The service also provides video game rentals, though that isn’t included in the streaming-video service.
December 11, 2012
Written by Shawn King
SFGate:
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give pint-size apartments a try, approving legislation that would allow for the construction of hundreds of 220-square-foot residential units.Up to two people will be allowed to live in the micro-apartments that are estimated to go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month.
How much space do you think you really need to live in? Would you give up a lot of space in order to live in a desirable area – say downtown San Francisco or New York City?
Written by Peter Cohen
Microsoft Corp. today announced plans to make Microsoft Surface available at additional retailers as soon as mid-December. In addition, the company announced the extension of the Microsoft holiday stores, including the transition of several of the stores into permanent Microsoft retail outlets.
So far the only place to buy a Surface has been online or at Microsoft stores, so this means the Surface will be coming to a regular retailer near you soon.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
You have to appreciate the honesty.
Written by Shawn King
We’ve all seen the famous “Earth at Night” composite image showing our planet at night and how much light there still is, sometimes in unexpected places.
Now Google has a new global view of Earth’s city lights that is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite.
With this version of the image, you can even zoom in to get a better (if not necessarily higher resolution ) and closer view.
Written by Peter Cohen
Jeff John Roberts for GigaOM:
Popular viral news site BuzzFeed this week slammed a cartoonist as an amoral hypocrite. Unfortunately, the story turns out to have been based on a grievous factual error — leading the cartoonist to issue a savage counterattack that has stoked popular anger at BuzzFeed and the author.
BuzzFeed quickly corrected the story, and editor-in-chief Ben Smith offered an apology of sorts on Tuesday — but the response still feels inadequate.
BuzzFeed should never have posted the original piece without much more carefully vetting it, and their attempt to smooth over their mistake after the fact smacks of second-rate New Media Douchebaggery – a weak correction tacked on to the end of the original smear piece.
Written by Peter Cohen
Jón Gnarr, Mayor of Reyjavík, Iceland has posted an “Ask Me Anything” thread on Reddit. His responses are entertaining and interesting. No surprise – we’re talking about a guy who was diagnosed with mental retardation as a child, was a teenage punk rocker, drove a taxi, had a career as a comedian, and entered politics as a joke.
He offered questioners suggestions on cool Icelandic bands to check out, info on some of his favorite video games, and answered some serious questions about politics.
There is an ongoing debate about whether Apple will release a physical television or an enhanced box similar to what we have now. People on both sides of the debate square off every few weeks and rehash the same arguments. Ultimately, we get nowhere, but I think that’s because nobody is asking the right question.
There is no doubt that Apple is interested in the television market. While it is a hobby, they have kept it around for quite a while. That says to me that they see something in the future, we just don’t know what that something is.
Tim Cook has already said that Apple has an intense interest in the market, but while everyone is arguing about what size Apple’s television will be, I can’t help thinking what problem Apple will solve. For me, that is the key question.
Apple has transformed itself into a problem solving company. They did it with the iPhone, iPod and iPad and I think that’s what they will do when they enter the television market in a serious way.
Here’s the thing. Apple will not enter a market unless it feels it can make a significant impact on the current state of the industry. They will want to provide something different than what’s currently available, something that nobody else can do. Apple has the power to do that because they think about how to solve problems first and making money second.
Some have speculated that an Apple product will have Siri integration or maybe television channels as apps. You could argue that both of those ideas have some value.
There are significant problems to overcome in the television industry, but one of them is not what size TV will be released. Having content available for the consumer whenever they want it is a problem we would all like to see solved.
But that’s just one problem — there are many others.
The impact of Apple entering the television market will not be whether they release a physical television or a box — those are only the vehicles1 that will deliver the innovation that Apple will bring to the industry.
