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Ok, I’m about to start posting an 11-month backlog of pictures and videos. By way of explanation: I usually am off by about three months, maximum, on posting stuff we have captured with our phones. But, last fall everything came together for us to invest in a Synology DS1517+, a network-attached file server. It took me months to set the entire thing up to my liking, including storing our Photos and iTunes libraries on sparse bundles. In the meantime, posting here was on hold as those libraries were in flux.
I’m typing this on my MacBook 13" (Late 2008), and you may know its successor as the 101, a machine which updated my computer’s internals but still used an almost identical chassis. The 101 was Apple’s last mostly-upgradeable laptop.
Historically, watches have had very little information to offer, and essentially zero interaction. It used to be, after a watch was set to the correct time, there was no button pressing, scrolling, or reading to do*, only glances to see the time, each lasting a fraction of a second. With the introduction of Apple Watch this year, there will be a vast increase in the pressing, scrolling, and reading done on watches. To accomodate, people may chose to wear this device differently than their old watches: on the inside of their wrist. Let’s work through the anatomical reasons for this.
In 1999, I was exploring this new, amazing thing: the world wide web. I wasn’t an active participant in any social areas like Slashdot nor was I a gamer. Instead, I mostly kept to myself, fascinated as I was with how this world wide web thing worked. You see, growing up, if my toys had any screws on them, I would inevitably find the appropriate tiny screwdriver and open them up. I was consistently disappointed that there was little for me to do other than replace the plastic cover I had removed.
After nearly 7 years accident free, Mykala accidentally spilled coffee on her laptop. We took it apart, cleaned the entire thing, put it back together, and it worked… for 4 minutes. This is the last picture of the laptop before it went to the laptop farm. We will miss you, you were a wonderful computer.
With Scott Forstall out and Jonathan Ive now oveerseeing interface design as a part of his duties as benevolent head of Industrial Design at Apple, one can be pretty certain that rich Corinthian leather and green felt will be expunged from future software. (And yes, those examples are just how it looks, not how it works.)
“Your 1920x1080 TV takes a 1920x1080 signal, chops the edges off it and then stretches the rest to fit the screen because of decisions made in the 1930s.”
— Matthew Garrett
“120Hz and 240Hz TVs have the potential to show you each 24p frame for exactly 1/24th of a second, perfectly replicating The Way Movies Look, and that’s great. The problem is, it’s hard to make them do that, because of awful motion-smoothing settings that are On by default.”
— Stu Maschwitz
“‘Can I choose?’, Beatrix asks. She’s still confused. She thinks this is like home where one can choose from a selection of things to watch. A well organized list of suggestions and options with clear box cover shots of all of her favorites. I have to explain again that it does not work that way on television. That we have to watch whatever is on and, if there is nothing you want to watch that is on then you just have to turn it off. Which we do.”
— Patrick Rhone
“You know those [unskippable] FBI warning messages that appear at the beginning of DVDs and Blu-ray discs? They’re getting an upgrade—and they’re multiplying.
The US government yesterday rolled out not one but two copyright notices, one to “warn” and one to “educate.” Six major movie studios will begin using the new notices this week.”
— Nate Anderson
“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent [television],” he said. “[Apple is] not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
— (Inspired by) Ed Colligan
At this point in time, in the middle of dental school, I’ve spent many many hours in lecture halls. Here’s what I’ve found: a lot of professors are disorganized, and as a result tend to descend into tangential (yet important for the exam!) monologues that stray far from the ugly PowerPoint slide at hand. During these all-too-frequent digressions, one must be ready to transcribe a lot of information very quickly. To accomplish this, I have slowly adopted the use of a laptop during lectures.
Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D is a game for the iPhone. For the iPhone? For the iPhone. Holy cow, it’s like they made the Nintendo Wii mobile. The new iPhone comes out this Friday for $199. I still can’t afford it, but with its business AND gaming features, well… I think if you clicked through and watched that video, you just saw the reason why this thing has won. A list:
Mark Friedman, DDS uses Macs to enhance his dental practice in a wide variety of ways. Apple profiled this dentist and outlines the advantages that his approach affords.
“The implications are countless,” he continues. “Say my hygienist detects a speckled white spot in a patient’s mouth during a prophylaxis. She can capture it, at differing magnification levels, right into iMovie. Then, while the patient’s still having his teeth cleaned, an assistant can share the automatically compressed video file with an oral surgeon via e-mail. iMovie also lets us export a still image that we adjust in iPhoto and send to our color photo printer. So by the time our patient leaves, we know whether the surgeon wants a biopsy now or prefers to re-check it in a week.
Next time you’re in an Apple retail store, take a look at the floor. If you’re in a newer store, you’ll notice that the dark gray stone is incredibly smooth, durable, and flecked with random bits of shiny material. The 30"x30" square tiles are made of stone called Italian Tuscan or Pietra Serena sandstone, and it’s a good material to keep in mind for your next flooring project.
Lego workmen unpacking an Apple iPhone. By Flickr user ntr23. I love that the little Lego hands fit around the iPhone’s sync/charge cord.
Wow, Apple is going through the roof bonkers crazy never seen it before sales with the college crowd. Writes Ars Technica:
For what it’s worth, my cell phone is thicker (by about a third) than the thickest point on Apple’s newest laptop, the MacBook Air. The thinnest part of the MacBook Air is 6 times thinner than my cell phone.
“The Line Experience” - Good observations about the Apple modus operandi, generally:
My old phone, one based on Windows Mobile 5.0, had almost every feature the iPhone has - point by point. The differences between the products (like the differences between their desktop cousins) have to do with how functionality is exposed to the user. In this matter, you’ll find that Apple’s product is almost infuriatingly superior.
Wardway Fuels, Inc. - One of Ars Technica’s writers was able to cram iPhone purchase and a wedding into one weekend. One of her pictures shows a sign: “NO I PHONES HERE BUT WE HAVE PLENTY OF PROPANE”
David Pogue: iPhone Review - A great video review, in funny narrative format, from David Pogue of the New York Times—the Apple iPhone. It’s nice to see the iPhone in real settings, without all the digital retouching done on PR photos. It truly is tremendously thin and sleek.
iPod Shuffle 50 and 1418 errors - If you are gettting the errors -50 or -1418 when you try to use iTunes 7 to put music or change settings on your new iPod shuffle, use the trick from “Albertech842 ” in this link, and your problem will be solved!
In February of 2005, I mocked up an idea I had for attaching the iPod shuffle directly to my full size headphones. Today, when I got a second-generation iPod shuffle, I was able to realize this idea and correct a shortcoming in this newest iPod. Note that the shuffles currently ship with the previous generation iPod earbuds. You know, the ones with slightly inferior fit and sound quality to the newer ‘buds. Thanks, Apple. I had assumed the pictures depicting the old earbuds on the Apple website were used simply because the newer model was not available at time of photography/photoshopping (I’m not sure how those images were originally generated). In an effort to correct the earbud shortcoming, I realized I could combine headphones and a shuffle into a cords-free wundermusik contraption. In short, I could make my original idea a reality: a version 2.0, if you will. I’m still looking to get a shorter y-cable (1/8” stereo jack to 1/8” dual mono … anyone?), but for now this works pretty well. I’ll walk you through it.
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