Lots of goodies, unless you already have a WP7 phone, as none of them will be updated to the new OS.
That said, the company is prepping Windows Phone 7.8, which will bring some features to older handsets.
Confused yet?
Year: 2012
Into the Nuba Mountains
Earlier this month, my brother travelled to South Sudan to document the North Sudanese government’s killing of the people who live in the Nuba mountains via bombings and starvation.
He’s just released the first trailer for his documentary, and its stirring.
A $1,148 Hackintosh
Seems like a great way to blow $1,148 when an updated breaks your machine.
I hackintoshed a few netbooks back in the day, but that’s a far cry from spending $1,100 on something completely without support or a guarantee of working well.
More on Microsoft’s Shift
Joshua Topolsky on the shift at Microsoft:
In fact, the entire tablet was designed in-house by Microsoft’s teams, and if you believe what was said in the presentation yesterday, design and functionality in hardware has suddenly become a big deal in Redmond.
That’s a big shift, and it’s an important one. The announcement of the Surface shows that Microsoft is ready to make a break with its history — a history of hardware partnerships which relied on companies like Dell, HP, or Acer to actually bring its products to market.
A Year of Field Notes
A Guided Tour of Brickworld
Reading Rainbow iPad App Coming
I’m thinking of getting my wife an iPad just so she can use this app with our kids.
RSS Sponsor: OmniPlan for iPad →
Thanks to the OmniGroup for sponsoring the 512 Pixels RSS feed this week! — SH
Sarah wakes up, prepares a full breakfast, and fires up her standard suite for design. Two new, time-consuming projects this week — it’s time to start planning much further than was previously warranted. Should’ve started yesterday.
OmniPlan for iPad is perfect for this. An intuitive interface keeps unnecessary controls out of your way until you need them, and you don’t have to become an expert in another field.
It’s just Sarah, three months of work, and a beautiful timeline to keep her studio of one on track. Available in the App Store for $50.
Microsoft’s Shift
During last night’s keynote, Microsoft executives unveiled Surface, a set of new 10.6" tablets built by the company itself — not a hardware OEM.
Alan Kay famously said:
People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.
It seems like Microsoft may finally be getting the message.
Here are some quotes from Ballmer’s keynote:
We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when hardware and software are considered together.
This combination of hardware and software works together to deliver an amazing experience.
We see that combination working in our PC ecosystem. We believe in the strength of that ecosystem. Of software and hardware partners working together. Those are essential to the re-imagining of Windows.
Of course, since the main venue Microsoft uses to gets it software in to the world is hardware partners, Ballmer had to backtrack a little bit:
The ultimate landing point is through our partnerships.
Interesting, right?
Windows RT
A shift can be seen in Windows as well, With RT, Microsoft is leaving the legacy desktop behind, except as a thin shell in which to run Office. If Office was fully ready for Metro, I think that the Desktop would be 100 percent gone. (Of course, as both are built by the same company, I do have to raise an eyebrow at my own theory.) The company isn’t letting third-party developers get to anything except metro on the ARM-based RT platform.
Speaking of Microsoft Ads…
The Internet Explorer TV spot I saw all season of Mad Men is cool, too.
Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2.1 Released
Apple has, with no change in the release notes or acknowledgement of the problems caused by version 1.2, released Thunderbolt Software Update 1.2.1 to add support for the Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. Version 1.2 of the update was notable for causing boot failures, and although the assumption is that Apple addressed the problems, we won’t know for sure until reports start to come in from users.
If you installed version 1.2, then this new update will not show up in Software Update. It can be downloaded here, but there’s no need to run this on top of the old update.
Retina Remarks
I spent a few brief moments with a new “MacBook Pro with Retina display” at the Apple Store, and thought I would share a few thoughts. This by no means is a fair review (or by type of review, really), but just a handful of impressions.
- The machine is crazy thin. It reminds of me of seeing the Titanium PowerBook G4 after the PowerBook a G3 had been around forever. It is crazy thin.
- I wish my MacBook Air had HDMI out.
- The lack of the “MacBook Pro” badge below the LCD is weird.
- The screen is slightly more glossy than my MacBook Air’s, but doesn’t seem as shiny as the glass-covered MacBook Pros or iMacs.
- Finally, the Retina display is simply stunning. Text looks super crisp, as do the built-in applications. (Of note, the overlay Apple uses on their store models for customers to use to alert the staff they need help looked like crap.) It is as impressive as the iPhone 4 or new iPad were. Web sites re-worked to target the new iPad should look fine on this machine. 512 Pixels looked sharp, as did Apple’s site. CNN and other sites featured clear text, but blurry graphics.
- As good as this laptop looks, I can’t imagine going back to a 15″ machine after using the 13-inch Air for so long.