Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Sep 30, 2012
Sep 19, 2012
Skeuomorphism Is Bad
Will Apple's Tacky Software-Design Philosophy Cause A Revolt? | Co.Design: business + innovation + design
The issue is two-fold: first, that traditional visual metaphors no longer translate to modern users; and second, that excessive digital imitation of real-world objects creates confusion among users.
Aug 30, 2012
Myth of pinch-to-zoom: Apple doesn't own it
The myth of pinch-to-zoom: how a confused media gave Apple something it doesn't own | The Verge
yeah, media and is't Apple dedication. And worse, people starting to believe everything they read ...
yeah, media and is't Apple dedication. And worse, people starting to believe everything they read ...
What Killed the Linux Desktop (so far)
What Killed the Linux Desktop - Miguel de Icaza
... (a) First dimension: things change too quickly, breaking both open source and proprietary software alike; (b) incompatibility across Linux distributions. ...good and valid points raised. This needs to be addressed somehow...
Jun 23, 2012
Software isn’t Dead
DoctorMo's Blog » Blog Archive » Software isn’t Dead
he's got a good point there. I like the cathedral metaphor :). And it's interesting that Microsofts "Metro" UI makes programming simpler by making the UI simpler (=more mobile like). Less feature bloated, less to code. But also a lot needs to be reinvented for this "new" UI. From this point of view half of it feels like a step back to the 90s. Thank God they didn't reintroduce the commandline.
he's got a good point there. I like the cathedral metaphor :). And it's interesting that Microsofts "Metro" UI makes programming simpler by making the UI simpler (=more mobile like). Less feature bloated, less to code. But also a lot needs to be reinvented for this "new" UI. From this point of view half of it feels like a step back to the 90s. Thank God they didn't reintroduce the commandline.
Apr 19, 2012
Apr 6, 2012
Fallout free on GOG
Fallout - GOG.com
Fallout is a great old game! And you can get it for free on GOG.com! With that you can play it legally on Windows, Mac and Linux! using DOSBox :).. enjoy!
Fallout is a great old game! And you can get it for free on GOG.com! With that you can play it legally on Windows, Mac and Linux! using DOSBox :).. enjoy!
Dec 28, 2011
My Mobile Phone Choice
Choosing the right mobile phone is a
time consuming task. In the end it all depends on how you plan to use
your phone. Here a list of the most important things I care about on
my mobile:
Making phone calls and writing text messages is a pretty obvious one. Also a decent webbrowser supporting current standards is an important feature. Useful Apps to add features and customize the phone to ones likening is great. Apps like Shazaam, Grooveshark, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, aso. are all great to have on your phone. Usually I settle around 40 Apps on my current Android mobile. Especially Dropbox is a very essential App to me as it makes exchanging files between devices very easy.
- make phone calls and send text messages
- a usable webbrowser
- a good selection of useful Apps
- capable of replacing a mp3 player
- being able to take quick pictures
- a map application (not necessary route planning)
- replace any USB Pendrive (being able to mount it on every device)
- capable of sharing an Internet connection (USB, optionally WiFi)
- use it as a remote for other devices (DLNA and similar things)
Making phone calls and writing text messages is a pretty obvious one. Also a decent webbrowser supporting current standards is an important feature. Useful Apps to add features and customize the phone to ones likening is great. Apps like Shazaam, Grooveshark, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, aso. are all great to have on your phone. Usually I settle around 40 Apps on my current Android mobile. Especially Dropbox is a very essential App to me as it makes exchanging files between devices very easy.
I like to have a Map around. It has
proven to be a handy thing at times. I don't care much about what
provider it is of. I usually prefer Google Maps as they have a lot of
additional data. But it's not as important to me. I just want it to
show my current position and the streetnames to find something. In a
big city this is a very useful thing.
I want my phone to replace other
devices I used to carry around with me. So replacing an MP3 player is
an obvious thing. It doesn't necessarily need to be the best player
but it should get the job done in some meaningful way. For example
I'm constantly confused by the Windows Phone 7 Player. I need at
least double the time to get together a playlist of what I want than
on Androids default player. The WP7 player is capable of playing what
I want but I find it rather confusing to get there.
An other device my phone needs to
replace is a quick shooter for pictures. Usually current generation
phones are good enough for my taste. I just like to take pictures of
funny things or something I want to remember or post on a social
network to share with others. For serious Pictures I rather take a
better Camera thats likely more expensive than my phone anyway.
Yet another device I want to replace is
a Thumbdrive. My phone should be able to be used as one. This has
already proven a very good feature multiple times to me. Every phone
that isn't able to do this is out already. I usually don't need much
space, a GB or two should be enough for this.
As my phone already has Internet access
I want it to be able to share that with my other devices. I usually
use it over USB on my Netbook. Most of the time this is enough but
it's still nice to be able to also share the Internet over Wifi. I
don't want to carry around yet another thing so I have Internet on my
Netbook. Like right now I'm sitting in a Train on my Netbook and
using the Internet of my mobile phone to write this. And I'm
listening to music played by my phone as well. It's great what's
already possible and I can't wait for what's next.
As more and more devices support DLNA
its really handy to have a remote for them right in your pocket. I'm
looking closely at the DLNA features on all my new media devices.
So with these features OS choice is
very slim. Windows Phone 7 and iOS aren't capable to deliver the
features I want without some great effort like Jailbreaking on iOS.
Android is the only bigger choice left. WebOS as well as MeeGo would
be nice but just don't have the needed traction and with that
support. Hardware wise I'm against taking a device with your contract
as these aren't as cheap as they seem. And the lockin you get is even worse. Most of the time you pay more
in the end. So Carriers get more money from you and have you locked to them. Great for them, bad for you most of the time.
I think in the future Smartphones will
also start to replace other devices we have. Like your computer at
home. It just needs a dock where the monitor, mouse and keyboard are
connected. On-the-go you just need a cheap Netbook shell to place
your phone in. As our phones get more powerful this will be enough
for most people. Want to watch a movie? Your DLNA phone will stream
it and your DLNA capable projector or TV will make a cinema experience out
of it. It's gonna be great :)
Aug 15, 2011
Google bids For Motorola
Google Goes Soup-To-Nuts On Android With Bid For Motorola | TechCrunch
wow! thats big news. That could really turn troubled android around into the right tracks. Also I'm sure they have some advanced dev tools for android that could be added to the SDK now. Very very cool indeed
wow! thats big news. That could really turn troubled android around into the right tracks. Also I'm sure they have some advanced dev tools for android that could be added to the SDK now. Very very cool indeed
Apr 17, 2011
Mac userfriendliness
thomas.apestaart.org » Mac userfriendliness
From time to time I have to work on a Mac and run into all kinds of "things you need to know". I sometimes wonder myself why Macs are considered userfriendly.
Hold down a “mouse” button while the machine is off. Turn it on but keep the “mouse” held down and the disk will be ejected.
WTF? How is anyone supposed to know/discover that? By randomly pressing buttons on boot till you find the right one? ...
Oct 5, 2010
Sep 9, 2010
Debunking the 1% Myth
Debunking the 1% Myth - O'Reilly Broadcast
nicely put together. Not much new for me, but basicly what I think about the market share. I would put linux as well on about 8-10% share. Mac slightly more ..
I did start to think about "actual usage" a bit somewhere around january of this year. I came to the same conclusion as noted ini this articel. On bigger tracking websites linux market share is usually somewhere around 0.5-2%. And back then I suspected that this just can't be true. I know too many people using linux and the linux world just is too big for that.
The only thing I didn't know from this webstat tracking sites is which sites they take the data from. So I came to the conclusion that it's likely they use a lot of sites that favor windows users. A extreme example would be if they would take data from microsoft.com, msdn.com and sites like that. These sites have a lot of traffic but of course almost only from windows users (which may run a dual boot system). There just is no reason to go to these sites if you are on linux as they don't offer linux software or any help on linux.
nicely put together. Not much new for me, but basicly what I think about the market share. I would put linux as well on about 8-10% share. Mac slightly more ..
I did start to think about "actual usage" a bit somewhere around january of this year. I came to the same conclusion as noted ini this articel. On bigger tracking websites linux market share is usually somewhere around 0.5-2%. And back then I suspected that this just can't be true. I know too many people using linux and the linux world just is too big for that.
The only thing I didn't know from this webstat tracking sites is which sites they take the data from. So I came to the conclusion that it's likely they use a lot of sites that favor windows users. A extreme example would be if they would take data from microsoft.com, msdn.com and sites like that. These sites have a lot of traffic but of course almost only from windows users (which may run a dual boot system). There just is no reason to go to these sites if you are on linux as they don't offer linux software or any help on linux.
Aug 30, 2010
Jun 4, 2010
Currently annoying things
Things that I'm annoyed at:
* Software Patents. As log as they exist innovation and the evolution of all our software is slowed down and in some cases even destroyed. Of course the ones with the biggest problems are small companies closely followed by open source projects. They have no chance against a patent giant. The video-codec mess comes to mind, or exFAT on SDXC cards.
* Browser wars. They are sooo 1990. People need to inform themselves more, no one would use IE 7- anymore. I have still hopes but people tend to be soo lazy. HTML5 at least seems to move fast everywhere except IE of course. If you use Opera/Firefox/Chrome or Safari just makes no big difference as it should be the case. Who cares what you use as long as it works fast and looks the same everywhere.
* State of music/movies. I wanna buy music, but I'm not gonna do that with the current system. It just sucks, its too complicated. Not to start with how expensive it is to buy something. I have hopes that they manage to at least get into the evolving cloud stuff. My music everywhere, that's great. If they would start to make it really cheap to buy a song people would get crazy for that. They need to make it so cheap that the gain of illegally downloading a song is just too small. I mean why should I use my time to search for a illegal copy if I can just pay 10 cent and have the song without any work involved besides searching for it on a internet platform.
* Hardware vendors which try to be software companies. Means they make closed source drivers and do a horrible job at that. Creative comes to mind ..
* Ruby. Great language, but why is everyone using python these days? Python makes so ugly code compared the the freedom you have in Ruby. I would any day choose ruby over python if the language is the only deciding point. Also, I couldn't use python in any big project. Its just too hard to maintain. Too much work on keeping the code clean. Don't get me wrong, python is great but ruby is just better so why not choose the better language?
* Android fragmentation. Fragmentation is a natural thing in Software and only a very small problem. There is only one platform which keeps fragmentation small that's Apple and its iPhone/iPad. But that's all explained very simple: Apple tells you what you can use and have, not you. You buy an Apple product and Apple decides what you do with it no one else. With Android (and other systems like WinMo) you (and the companies using it on their devices) have the freedom. I have Android 2.1 on ma HTC Hero, no problem just a bit of following instructions. HTC will soon release a official 2.1 for Hero. You just can't do that with an Apple product without a lot of work.
* Software Patents. As log as they exist innovation and the evolution of all our software is slowed down and in some cases even destroyed. Of course the ones with the biggest problems are small companies closely followed by open source projects. They have no chance against a patent giant. The video-codec mess comes to mind, or exFAT on SDXC cards.
* Browser wars. They are sooo 1990. People need to inform themselves more, no one would use IE 7- anymore. I have still hopes but people tend to be soo lazy. HTML5 at least seems to move fast everywhere except IE of course. If you use Opera/Firefox/Chrome or Safari just makes no big difference as it should be the case. Who cares what you use as long as it works fast and looks the same everywhere.
* State of music/movies. I wanna buy music, but I'm not gonna do that with the current system. It just sucks, its too complicated. Not to start with how expensive it is to buy something. I have hopes that they manage to at least get into the evolving cloud stuff. My music everywhere, that's great. If they would start to make it really cheap to buy a song people would get crazy for that. They need to make it so cheap that the gain of illegally downloading a song is just too small. I mean why should I use my time to search for a illegal copy if I can just pay 10 cent and have the song without any work involved besides searching for it on a internet platform.
* Hardware vendors which try to be software companies. Means they make closed source drivers and do a horrible job at that. Creative comes to mind ..
* Ruby. Great language, but why is everyone using python these days? Python makes so ugly code compared the the freedom you have in Ruby. I would any day choose ruby over python if the language is the only deciding point. Also, I couldn't use python in any big project. Its just too hard to maintain. Too much work on keeping the code clean. Don't get me wrong, python is great but ruby is just better so why not choose the better language?
* Android fragmentation. Fragmentation is a natural thing in Software and only a very small problem. There is only one platform which keeps fragmentation small that's Apple and its iPhone/iPad. But that's all explained very simple: Apple tells you what you can use and have, not you. You buy an Apple product and Apple decides what you do with it no one else. With Android (and other systems like WinMo) you (and the companies using it on their devices) have the freedom. I have Android 2.1 on ma HTC Hero, no problem just a bit of following instructions. HTC will soon release a official 2.1 for Hero. You just can't do that with an Apple product without a lot of work.
Mar 29, 2010
USB and SD card adapter for iPad
iPad Camera Connection Kit finally surfaces for pre-order, still absurdly overpriced -- Engadget
Quote of the day: "Of course, one could easily argue that the iPad should have native support for both of these widely used formats without forcing users to lug around two extra peripherals, but if that were the case, this thing just wouldn't be an Apple, now would it?" .. so true :D
Quote of the day: "Of course, one could easily argue that the iPad should have native support for both of these widely used formats without forcing users to lug around two extra peripherals, but if that were the case, this thing just wouldn't be an Apple, now would it?" .. so true :D
Mar 3, 2010
Apple is always fun to watch ..
Steve Jobs, last week:
Steve Jobs, 1996:
I guess its good to see Apple taking steps against Android. That means Apple already fears Android. And I think they have any right to fear Android as it is where the iPhone will never be able to go to. Open, Featurefull, Simple ... I really like that I can do and use what I want on my phone. It feels so powerful and so open and ready for any task. The iPhone is nothing compared to that, just a nice looking feature phone. I don't even know why they call it smartphone, don't see anything smart there.
oh and btw. Patents suck hard ..
We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it.
Steve Jobs, 1996:
...Picasso had a saying he said good artists copy great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
I guess its good to see Apple taking steps against Android. That means Apple already fears Android. And I think they have any right to fear Android as it is where the iPhone will never be able to go to. Open, Featurefull, Simple ... I really like that I can do and use what I want on my phone. It feels so powerful and so open and ready for any task. The iPhone is nothing compared to that, just a nice looking feature phone. I don't even know why they call it smartphone, don't see anything smart there.
oh and btw. Patents suck hard ..
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