Ryan Cash:
For people with mild OCD we’re always trying to make sure the volume level is set at an even number – say 14 or 28. Some people need it to feel even “more even” at 10 or 20.
It’s amazing how many times we do this — set the volume based on a number instead of how it sounds. But what happens when your new car doesn’t show you the volume level?
Rene Ritchie wrote a very in-depth piece on some of the things Apple could improve on with iOS 6. He didn’t just look at elements of the current OS, but also what Apple could learn from Android, webOS and Windows.
Earlier today Cricket Wireless announced that it would bring pre-paid plans to the iPhone 4s and iPhone 4.
“By making iPhone available on pre-paid plans through Cricket Wireless, we are making the best smartphone more accessible to an even broader market in the US,” Apple representative Natalie Harrison told The Loop.
Cricket is the first company to make pre-paid wireless plans available for the iPhone. According to Cricket, the plans cost $55 per-month and include unlimited talk, text and data plan. The data plan does contain a fair use policy of 2.3GB 1.
Personally I think it’s wrong for companies to advertise unlimited data plans, but then cap them. ↩
Dustin Curtis transcribed one of Jobs’ keynotes where he described the cloud 15 years before it happened.
Steve Jobs was a frequent guest over the years at the D: All Things Digital events – six times, to be precise, from 2003 to 2010. Now they’ve assembled video and audio podcasts of his appearances in a single place for you to download, if it interests you.
I joined Gene Marques and Chris Stanton on their Geek It Up Radio podcast this week. The episode is entitled “Bloody Sock Blues.”
On it, we rant about the failure of game developer 38 Studios (founded by former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who famously pitched with a bloody sock, hence the title). We also talk about about the return of Toonami on Cartoon Network, the pending zombie apocalypse and more.
It was a fun diversion from the usual Apple tech-centric podcasts I do – I had a great time and hope to talk with them again soon.
Matthew Lasar for Ars Technica:
This month, I glanced at my historical watch. HyperCard will soon be 25, I noticed. What ever happened to it? I searched around and found venture entrepreneur and coder Tim Oren’s 2004 eulogy for the program, written the week that Apple withdrew the software from the market. HyperCard’s problem, he argued, was that Apple never quite figured out what the software was for.
HyperCard, for the uninitiated, was an early software app for the Mac created by Apple programmer Bill Atkinson that enabled users to create stacks which could contain everything from fields of data to pictures, buttons which could execute scripts and more. Part database software, part multimedia system, the software predicted hyperlinking on Web pages and many techniques that we take for granted today.
Quotebook is a notebook for your quotes.
The app syncs quotes between the iPhone and iPad using iCloud, which I love. For me this app would be used just as much for capturing song ideas and lyrics as it would for quotes.
“Our customers want the best products available and we are excited to bring iPhone to our pre-paid consumers with an industry leading $55 per-month service plan,” said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer, Leap Wireless International, Inc. “Launching iPhone is a major milestone for us and we are proud to offer iPhone customers attractive nationwide coverage, a robust 3G data network and a value-packed, no-contract plan.”
A couple of cute wallpapers available in a variety of sizes from Designmodo. I like the dog myself.
Mikey Campbell:
Tuesday’s filing saw Apple categorically dismiss accusations from the class, which now includes 31 states, stating several times that the evidence will “speak for itself.” The response breaks down the complaint paragraph by paragraph, challenging the charges by either citing a lack of “sufficient evidence and belief” or denying them outright.
Dan and Jim read the tea leaves from Tim Cook’s D10 interview. They also discuss Facebook phone rumors, guitar pedalboards, and more!
Sponsored by KAYAK, Sourcebits, and MailChimp.
Steve Knopper for Rolling Stone:
Mastered for iTunes unofficially began last year, when producer Rick Rubin was frustrated with his inability to make the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ I’m With You sound as dynamic in the AAC format as it did on a CD. Working with Apple, he tinkered with the master recording, landing on a higher-than-usual bit rate – so when he sent it to iTunes for encoding, it sounded considerably better than a typical compressed audio file. “It’s much closer to the sound of the CD and it took several weeks of additional experimentation and mastering to reach the final iTunes master,” Rubin told MTV News at the time. Some interesting nuggets in here, including news that legendary jazz label Blue Note is reissuing its entire catalog in the new format.
Jim Dalrymple offered his own thoughts on the Mastered for iTunes program back in March. If you missed it, make sure to check it out – Jim explains how the process works.
If you haven’t already checked out Mastered for iTunes albums, chances are there’s something in there for you – already 300 albums (new releases and reissues) have gotten the treatment, with more coming all the time.
Micah Lee and Peter Eckersley for the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Apple’s recent products, especially their mobile iOS devices, are like beautiful crystal prisons, with a wide range of restrictions imposed by the OS, the hardware, and Apple’s contracts with carriers as well as contracts with developers. Only users who can hack or “jailbreak” their devices can escape these limitations.
“Join us now and share the software, you’ll be free, hackers, you’ll be free-ee-eee!” – Some crazy-eyed old neckbeard.
Seriously, EFF, just shut up.
AllThingsD:
Tim Cook learned a lot from Steve Jobs, and one of the big takeaways seems to be: Don’t tip your hand. The Apple CEO was unwilling to tackle questions about any future product plans during his first appearance on the D10 stage Wednesday night.
Shawn Blanc:
When I redesigned this site I considered every element and asked myself why it was there and what purpose it served.
I did the same thing when I redesigned The Loop last September, but I kept the Tweet and Google+ buttons because I thought readers used them. If nobody is using the buttons on the page, I’d gladly get rid of them.
This is a great app that I use every day. Now it has reminders too.
Om Malik:
However, its position at the top isn’t cemented. There are dozens of upstarts who want to eat into Skype’s future growth.
I don’t think there was ever a time when I liked Skype. It’s necessary sometimes, but I’d gladly use a startup that knew how to build software.
A very nice Apple-like product.
The folks at Macworld have a great story summarizing Tim Cook’s conversation at D10 last night. Cook talked about Steve Jobs, the Apple TV, Macs, iPad, and a number of other topics.
Mac Rumors is providing a live update of Tim Cook’s interview at the D10 Conference. The talk started at 9:00 ET.
Update: Macworld’s Jason Snell is also liveblogging Cook’s talk.
Digital Trends:
It’s no secret that branding is powerful: Fonts, shapes, colors are all part of what we associate with certain brands. Without the words, we can tell the swoosh is part of the Nike franchise, and a yellow M is a straight sign to your local McDonald’s. But can you recognize these brands and objects if you take the colors and logos away? That’s the idea behind the project Brand Spirit by Andrew Miller.Every day for 100 days, Miller has taken a random object and paint it completely white to strip it of the branding we’ve come to know like the back of our hands. By removing the visual branding, Miller says this ”reduc[es] the object to its purest form.”
Many of these are utterly generic but it’s interesting to see how many you can identify simply by their shape.
Brent Simmons looks at the way Web sites display ads and how it relates to Facebook.
The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter. We are continuing to be aggressive as we compete for our customers’ business – both enterprise and consumer – around the world, and our teams are working hard to provide cost-competitive, feature-rich solutions to our global customer base.
Translation: We’re fucked.
I definitely want this.
John Kell and Kaitlyn Kiernan for the Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Inc. shares continued to show weakness Tuesday amid a swirl of uncertainty and rumors, with the social network’s stock sliding below $30 and now more than 20% off from where it debuted less than two weeks ago.
The article notes that option trading on Facebook started today, in which investors can bet on the future of the stock. According to the report, “The largest option trades, however, bet on Facebook seeing more downside this summer, pegging a $25 share price by mid-July.”
The folks at Flattr describe what happened and why apps including the functionality are being rejected from the App Store.
Marcelo Somers:
Facebook is no better at advertising than ValueClick or any other online ad network. They just happen to be able to correlate their customers slightly better than everyone else. That’s not the formula for a $100 billion business, just click through rates closer to 1%.
There are many great points in this article.
Mike Rose for Gamasutra:
Elsewhere, Schilling said that Governor Chafee’s public remarks about the studio’s issues were “devastating,” and he claims that a publisher pulled out of a $35 million deal to finance a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning as a result of the comments.
Ex Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling is in hot water because his video game company, 38 Studios, failed spectacularly after taking a $75 million relocation deal from the state of Rhode Island, then being unable to pay it back on time.
Schilling should know better than anyone about running one’s mouth off, because he’s famous for doing it – but that’s not the only reason he’s a hypocrite. Schilling has preached the small government mantra for years, yet he was only too happy to take government money to relocate his business from Massachusetts to Rhode Island when then-governor Donald Carcieri cemented the deal.
I feel badly for the employees of 38 Studios and their families, as well as the Rhode Island taxpayers who are on the hook to pay for this pig, but I have nothing but enmity for Schilling, who’s been hoist by his own petard.
Maybe next time Schilling should take his own advice and seek to succeed in business on his own, rather than suckling at the government teat like a greedy little piggy.
Weldon Dodd has a look at Marketcircle’s new Daylite 4 for Mac and iOS. Marketcircle is one of those companies that I really like — they care about their products and customers.