The trouble with online conversations

Twitter, Facebook, G+, blog comments, web forums, &c. None of them seem able to handle one very important thing that NNTP clients did since the 1980s: Keep track of what I’ve read & what I haven’t.

The Twitter iOS client does a decent job of remembering my position in its time stream. That position doesn’t sync between my iPhone, my iPad, & the web site, though. Twitter is also not a great medium for conversation in many other ways, though.

Some web forums make an attempt at it, but I haven’t seen one that does it well. Although it has been a while since I was keeping up with forums.

Skeuomorphism isn’t all bad (IMHO)

Rene Ritchie of iMore mocked up what some of Apple’s iOS apps might look like without skeuomorphism.

I wouldn't miss the skeuomorphism in Calendar, Contacts, or Find my friends. I don't think I'd miss it in iBooks. But I would miss it in Game Center.

Browser/OS stats for this blog

I was looking through the blog’s stats, and the browser and OS stats seemed kind of interesting.

• 63% Firefox
• 15% Chrome
• 10% Safari
• 8% Internet Explorer

• 40% Macintosh
• 37% Windows
• 16% Linux
• 2% iPad
• 2% iPhone
• < 1% Android
• < 1% Other Unix

Based on what I’ve been seeing from more generic reports, that seems atypical. I’m surprised that Chrome isn’t closer to or a bigger percentage than Firefox. I’d expect Safari and IE to be reversed, but they are pretty close. It seems that fewer of my visitors who use Macs use Safari than I would’ve thought.

For this blog, that’s pretty much just trivia. If you are someone who has to make decisions based off this kind of data, though, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to collect your own data rather than relying on what others report. e.g. When I was in the shrink-wrapped software business, Macs made up a lot more of my company’s market than the general marketshare they held at the time.

My dream text editor and word processor

There’s a discussion on Branch about Your Dream Text Editor / Word Processor. I submitted an answer, but it won’t show up unless I get approved to join the branch. In fact, there doesn’t even seem to be a way for me to see what I wrote until/unless I get added to the branch. Weird. (But then it took me a while just to figure out how to add the branch to my Branch “drawer”.) So, it goes here too.

My dream text editor would be mostly like Vim, but with Scheme underneath.

I’ve had to work on enough systems where vi was the only practical editor that I found it easier to use Vim on the systems where I could install something more powerful. I’ve really come to like it except for its ad hoc scripting language. I’d envy the Emacs people except that I think elisp would just annoy me by being almost Scheme. ^_^

My dream word processor would be something akin to Amaya or UX Write. I want the output to be clean HTML. I want to be able to do semantic formatting as I write without having to type raw HTML, LaTeX, or Markdown.

Plus I’d like a high quality HTML to PDF/print converter. HTML+CSS has features that ought to allow generating LaTeX quality print.

Touch won’t hold the kids back

Coding Horror: Do You Wanna Touch:

Although I love my touch devices, one thing I've noticed is that they are a major disincentive to writing actual paragraphs. On screen keyboards get the job done, but if I have to scrawl more than a Twitter length reply to someone on a tablet or phone, it's so much effort that I just avoid doing it altogether, postponing indefinitely until I can be in front of a keyboard. By the time that happens I've probably forgotten what I wanted to say in the first place, or that I even needed to reply at all. Multiply that by millions or billions, and you have a whole generation technologically locked into a backwater of minimal communication.

That “whole generation”? They’re not as attached to keyboards as we are. They’re going to take what they have and make those touch keyboards sing.

iOS 6 uptake

The real reason for the rapid uptake of iOS 6.

The people who obsessively clear any icon badges.

Which iPad?

Which iPad should you buy? Well, first of all, realize that everything I say here is going to be colored by my experience. I’m going to try to give you advice, but there are plenty of factors that I might not see.

It seems to me that there are mainly three disadvantages to the iPad mini versus iPad with Retina display (4th generation). (Two versus the iPad 2.)

Although the iPad mini display has the same number of pixels as the iPad 2, they are smaller. So text is going to be smaller. In lots of cases you can adjust the text size. Even so, if you have trouble reading smaller print, I think you might be happier with the one of the larger iPads.

The extra pixels of the iPad with Retina display (4th generation) means that it is practical to read some PDF files on it that are less practical for anyone to read on an iPad 2 or iPad mini. This is important to me because I carry, reference, and read a lot of PDFs (mainly role-playing game material) on my iPad. For most people, though, I don’t know if the Retina display—as beautiful as it is—makes much difference.

Likewise, tap targets on the iPad mini will be smaller. They’re still big enough in general. If, e.g., you find yourself often having trouble tapping targets accurately on an iPhone, you might be happier with one of the larger iPads.

The third disadvantage to the iPad mini is performance (i.e. CPU/GPU speed). The iPad mini and the iPad 2 are pretty much the same in this department, but the iPad with Retina display (4th generation) is much better. It’s hard to generalize about whether this will really matter to you, but certain types of games are probably one of the biggest reasons you might want the extra performance. Music creation and recording apps might be another.

The big advantage of the iPad mini is weight. The smaller size, for most people, isn’t going to make it that much more portable than the larger iPads. For something that you normally hold in your hands while using, though, being lighter can mean a lot.

In general, the iPad mini is superior to the iPad 2. Unless the text size or tap-target size mentioned above matter to you, you should probably get an iPad mini rather than an iPad 2.

Generally, I would not suggest the 16GB models unless you’re going to be sticking mainly to Mail and Safari. (Which is another knock against the iPad 2, which is only offered in 16GB configurations.) If you’re going to be carrying music and movies on it, you’ll probably want more space. If you’re going to be playing games on it, you’ll probably want more space.

Also, there’s no way to upgrade an iPad’s storage. So, if in doubt, it isn’t a bad idea to err on the side of more.

There’s an argument to be made everyone should spend the $130 for a cellular radio. If you decide not to use it, you’re out $130. If you don’t have it and decide to want it, though, you have to buy a whole new iPad. Personally, I’ve been happy with the Wi-Fi models, and I use my iPhone’s Personal Hotspot on the occasions when I want my iPad to be online where there’s no Wi-Fi. People with less access to Wi-Fi, however, might find it very useful.

Me? I’m sticking with my 3rd generation iPad for now. The big, Retina display, high performance, and maximum storage capacity are important to me. So, if I do decide to upgrade soon, I’d go with the iPad with Retina display (4th generation).

Maps in iOS 6

There hasn’t been a single complaint about Apple’s maps in iOS 6 that isn’t something I’ve seen from the previous, Google-powered maps app. In my experience, the iOS 6 maps app works as well as the iOS 5 maps app ever did. Maybe better. Plus, I get the turn-by-turn, voice-prompted navigation which, again, has been flawless for me so far.

In some countries, things are bad. If you’re in China, though, iOS 6 maps is a huge improvement.

People like me get shouted down, though. We are told we’re the outliers. They say you only have to google to see how widespread the problem is.

Apple’s data is different than Google’s. So, people who were happy with Google’s are likely to be less happy with Apple’s. It’s no surprise those people are going to be vocal about their disappointment. I’m not convinced, however, that the number of complaints found online is an especially good metric for measuring the quality of the app. Your anecdotal evidence isn’t better than mine.

One test suggests that the iOS 5 and iOS 6 data may be comparable. Maybe it isn’t the best test, but it is orders of magnitude better than the “Don’t you see all the complaints?” test.

Yes, Tim Cook apologized. Which is standard customer service operating procedure. You apologize before you even know whether the customer’s complaint is valid. (Jobs might not have done it, but the regular customer service in Apple does.) It is reasonable to assume Apple’s data isn’t up to par with Google’s. Apple is new to this game. It will take actual research rather than anecdotes, however, to know how it really compares.

3DS and living in the past

The first thing that really struck me as odd about the Nintendo 3DS was the cartridges. In a world of mp3s, e-books, and even buying OS upgrades for my Macs online, games on cartridges seem very out-of-place.

They did eventually launch their eShop. Though—until recently—the eShop didn’t carry any of the cartridge games. Either a game deserved a cartridge or it was undeserving enough to appear in the eShop. There is now one cartridge game that you can get through the eShop as well: New Super Mario Bros. 2

The next surprise was that eShop purchases are tied to a device rather than an account. They did let me transfer (i.e. copy to new device then delete from old device) purchases from my 3DS to my new 3DS XL, but I can only install a purchase on one of my devices.

The 3DS does have a nifty feature called “Download Play”. How this works is that you buy a cartridge game and then friends can use the Download Play feature to temporarily download a client for the game from your 3DS. This way you can play the multiplayer version of the game without having to buy multiple copies of the game. That makes a lot of sense and mirrors the way that we can buy one copy of a game for the Wii and the whole family can play. Or the way that we can buy a game once in the iOS App Store, install it on all our iOS devices, and the whole family can play.

Well, this would be nifty if not for two things. (1) Very few games support this feature. (2) The games that do support it only support it in a very limited way. So, it ends up just making a worse impression than if they just didn’t have it at all.

I do really like the 3DS. It’s fun to have a 3D camera and glasses-free 3D for such a good price. For me, the 3DS XL is an improvement. The bigger screens and greater battery life are worth the increase in size to me.

But it is weird how so much of the experience seems to be relunctantly dragged towards the present. When I’m faced with deciding whether to spend some disposible dollars on software for the 3DS or iOS, I find it harder to choose in the 3DS’ favor. Which is a shame.

Fire HD v. iPad first thoughts

Let’s assume for the moment that the Kindle Fire HD lives up to the expectations Amazon has given us. Perhaps the most interesting part is how Amazon differentiated themselves from Apple and other Android tablet makers. Amazon said they want to make money off the content they sell you for your devices rather than on selling the devices themselves.

Now, I’m not going to say that you can’t create on a Kindle Fire HD. Creative people will find creative ways to use any tool. But while Apple sells Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and GarageBand for the iPad; Amazon tells us that their tablets are about selling books, music, movies, and games.

(However much you think creating text content on an iPad doesn’t make sense, consider presentations, music, and graphics. Oh, and thanks to Posts, I’m creating this blog post entirely on my iPad.)

So, for instance, it seems (note “seems”) doubtful that the Fire will ever have the range of music production apps and accessories that the iPad has.

So, if you’re wondering why you should buy an iPad instead of a Fire HD, the big question is how much you want to use it to create and consume. If, for you, a tablet is mostly about consumption, a Kindle Fire might be the best choice for you.

And if you buy an iPad instead, Amazon still wins, because you can still buy your content from them and use it on your iPad. In fact, if you’re thinking about buying content to consume on your iPad from Amazon or Apple, you’re probably better off buying it from Amazon because, e.g., you can read Kindle books on nigh everything, but you can only read iBooks on an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod touch.

Apple, Samsung, etc.

Samsung blatantly copied Apple much too much. That was wrong, but I don’t believe it should be illegal.

Apple is succeeding in the market. There was zero need for them to sue Samsung.

The words “innovation” and “originality” get bandied about a lot here, but I’ve come to see them as overrated. What really counts is execution. It is execution that has put Apple on top, not innovation. What the evidence presented in the case showed was Apple executing. The iPhone and iPad merely seem innovative because everyone else executed so horribly before Apple entered the fray. Seriously, the Blackberry was the pinnacle of mobile phones. It may have been a good product, but it wasn’t great.

By the way, competing in the courtroom is nothing new to Apple. They did it long before Jobs talked about them shamelessly stealing. See Apple v. Franklin and the GEM “look and feel” suit. This has always been the least appealing aspect of the company.

Also, the kind of copying Samsung has done is a far cry from the kind of stealing Apple does. I still don’t think either should be illegal, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a difference.

Siri update

I use Siri just about everyday. I find it very useful. I don’t remember the last time I got an “I’m having trouble right now” response. The misunderstandings are infrequent enough to be funny rather than annoying.

The frequent recognition problem that does happen enough to annoy me is, “Set an alarm...” For some reason Siri has a hard time understanding me when I use that stock phrase.

My biggest complaint is that too often it seems to think I’ve stopped talking when I’m in the middle of a word. In general, though, I’m not a big fan of that feature with either Siri or voice dictation. If it worked better, it would be OK when using Siri most of the time. When doing voice dictation—and when doing voice dictation as part of a Siri interaction—my speech often needs to pause to wait on my mind.

Oh, and there is one other minor annoyance with Siri. If I say something like, “What is the closest Chinese restaurant?” Siri shows me a list of the closest ones. Once I tap on one of those, it takes me to the map. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to get back to Siri’s list short of asking the question again.

iOS project organization thoughts

There is one big thing I find missing when working on my iPad.

On my Mac, I might have a directory with these subdirectories and files.

• Skylands
  • For the players
    • Character Sheet.ink
    • Player Map.hxm
    • NPC Pictures
      • Abe the patron.jpg
      • Bob the retainer.jpg
      • Chuck the merchant.jpg
    • Q and A.html
    • Player Guide.pages
  • DM eyes only
    • Dungeon key.md
    • Dungeon map.ink
    • Reference.numbers
    • Secrets.md
    • Unmet NPC Pictures
      • Victor the minor villian.jpg
      • Xavier the major villian.jpg

There you see files created and edited by about seven different apps. For the most part, I don’t need the apps to see or access the files belonging to another app. I put all these files from different apps into the same directory, however, for organizational purposes. Everything I collect or create or edit for this project is kept together.

On iOS, data is generally organized by app. At a basic level, this is good. Plus it avoids the complications of a traditional file system which is both hard for many people to understand and which may not serve most people as much as the complication it brings. On the iPhone especially, this “each app manages its own docs” tends to work well for me. On the iPad, though, I really miss the ability to organize everything for a project in one place.

You might be able to workaround this a bit by using an app like GoodReader or FileBrowser. (There are a bunch more too.) These apps essentially work like a file system. The problem, though, is that the interaction between this file system and other apps is limited.

Apple could provide a system-wide file system and a Finder app. Lots of people have been calling for that, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

Maybe there could a project organizer app. Other apps could let it know what documents they have. The projects app would then let the user arrange these into projects. Then, tapping a document name/icon in a project would launch the document’s app and load the document. The actual data remains managed by the originating app. The projects app just provides a way to bring together and organize links to documents inside multiple apps.

Sell me video

If you’d like me to pay your company for video, here’s three ways you can do it.

1. Put it on iTunes.
2. Create an iOS app for it, and—this is crucial—support AirPlay and wired video out. Do not make me log in with my AT&T credentials unless you are AT&T. I shouldn’t need a cable, satellite, or U-verse subscription to view your content unless you actually are that company. Ensure that I can view your content through this app anywhere in the world where I have a wi-fi connection.
3. Partner with Apple to provide your content directly to my Apple TV. The relevant caveats from #2 apply here too.

Wait! Before you start telling my why these things aren’t possible, understand this: I don’t care. If you want my business, figure out how to make it happen. If you can’t, get as close as you can, and I’ll consider it.

Another benefit of the iPad retina display

When I remotely connect to my iMac at home, I’ve been switching the display down to the resolution of the (old) iPad: 1024 by 768 pixels. That way, I don’t have to shrink the image or scroll around.

The resolution of the retina display on the new iPad (2048 by 1536) is more than the native resolution of my iMac (1680 by 1080), though. So, the iPad can display every pixel from my iMac in its native resolution and have some left over for the controls of the app I use to connect to the iMac.

If I were to upgrade to a current 27-inch iMac (2560 by 1440), however, the iPad would be a little short again.

The future of the Mac

The iOS-ification Of Apple’s Ecosystem

It does indeed look like the Mac is going to start looking more and more like iOS. Honestly, that makes me uncomfortable.

A key to the success of the iPhone and iPad is that they didn’t try to shoehorn desktop/laptop software onto the palmtop/tablet. I think the same logic holds that what is good for the palmtop/tablet isn’t necessarily good for the desktop/laptop.

(If I had my druthers, the iPad would be called a laptop and MacBooks would be called mobile desktops.)

Apple does recognize this. They’ve said that their research showed touch-screens don’t work well for desktop/laptop systems. But, still, they seem to be carrying “back to the Mac” farther than I’m comfortable with.

But that’s OK.

The reason I don’t have a Linux or *BSD system in the house anymore is simply that the Macs can do pretty much everything Linux can do. Perhaps as the Mac becomes more like iOS, I’ll have a reason to bring Linux back into the house.

It may even be that someday I won’t even have a Mac. The iPad and the Linux box will split everything that I used to use my Mac for.

Open phone

What would an open phone be?

1. It would be one where I buy the phone from a hardware vendor. The hardware vendor wouldn’t care what I did with it.

2. It would be one where I install whatever software I want to on the phone. Most likely starting with an open-source system that I download for free.

3. It would be one where I pay for cellular data service. The service provider wouldn’t care what hardware I’m using, what software I’m using, or what bits I’m transmitting and receiving.

Without those three things, the word “open” shouldn’t be used without being highly qualified.

Ironically, I think the iPhone may be a key component in this ever happening. Because Apple and the iPhone have come the closest opening up the cellular service providers to being simply cellular service providers. They’re the ones succeeding as a hardware company that thinks of the end-user as the customer rather than the service provider being the customer.

I can’t say for sure that I’d choose such an open phone over the iPhone, but that’s the open phone I would consider. Less than that isn’t worth my time.

Pause

The number one thing I want most from any iPhone app that plays audio (or video). In particular: Apple’s iPod app, Apple’s YouTube app, Matthew Gallagher’s Stream To Me, and Bottle Rocket’s NPR News app.

The biggest button on the app should be the pause button. The pause button should be separated from other buttons by as much space as possible. I should never go to hit pause and instead find only a spinner. I need to be able to pause even during the time between hitting play and when playback actually begins. (Or, as in the NPR News app, between entries in my playlist.)

Readability’s Open Letter to Apple

Steve Jobs:

We support two platforms at Apple: HTML5. Fully open, uncontrolled platforms forged by widely respected standards bodies. The second platform we support is the App Store. It’s a curated platform

Readability: An Open Letter to Apple

As far as Readability is concerned, our response is fairly straight-forward: go the other way…towards the web.

This seems a little strange.

We can offer you Coke or Pepsi.

An open letter to this restaurant: We don’t like Pepsi. Until you change things, we will go the other way...Coke.

Whether Apple’s policy towards subscriptions is good or not is beside the point. Apple explicitly supports the web route for anyone who doesn’t like the terms of the iOS App Store. And, hey, you were already there anyway. What was your point again?

Honestly, though, Readability’s set-up seems really screwy. Why would anyone pay those authors extra to get a readable version of their content. They ought to have worked with people who would have presented it in a readable fashion in the first place.

Anyway, I hope Apple’s policy doesn’t force Kindle off of iOS. I wouldn’t be happy about that.

AT&T not so bad after all?

Perhaps the “good but not that good” sales of the Verizon iPhone merely shows that AT&T isn’t quite so awful as the pundits make them out to be?