Year: 2012

31 Months

⌘ Permalink

Chris Ziegler:

Thirty-one.

That’s the number of months it took Palm, Inc. to go from the darling of International CES 2009 to a mere shadow of itself, a nearly anonymous division inside the HP machine without a hardware program and without the confidence of its owners. Thirty-one months is just barely longer than a typical American mobile phone contract.

On iOS and Google Maps

⌘ Permalink

According to MacRumors, Apple will be dumping Google Maps on iOS for its own in-house solution.

Of course, as I broke back in March, iPhoto for iOS doesn’t use Google Maps currently. Many have seen this as a dry run for a much bigger change.

If Apple moves away from Google Maps, many will view it as a sign of the growing rift between the two companies. While I do think Apple and Google are more competitive with each other than ever before, I think Apple’s primary reason for such a change is that the company thinks its own solution can offer users a better experience.

RSS Sponsor: Fantastical →

⌘ Permalink

Thanks to Flexibits for sponsoring the 512 Pixels RSS feed this week. – SH

Fantastical is the Mac calendar app you’ll actually love to use. Type in that you have “Lunch with John on Friday at 1pm” and Fantastical will schedule it! Or type in that you need to “Buy milk by Tuesday” and Fantastical will create a reminder with a due date!

Fantastical’s natural language event/reminder creation, beautiful calendar, and gorgeous list make it the best calendar you’ll ever use. Stay on top of your schedule with features like native CalDAV support, automatic alarms for new events, iCal and iOS reminder support, and instant search.

Get your free 14-day free trial now!

University of Oregon Student Newspaper Transforming to Online Media Company

⌘ Permalink

Curt Hopkins at Ars Technica:

This coming school year, the University of Oregon’s 92-year-old Oregon Daily Emerald, first a daily student newspaper, then one with a website, will stop publishing altogether except for a Monday “weekly” style publication devoted to news and sports anchored by a 1,200-word cover feature and a Thursday culture and entertainment edition. The rest of the emphasis, effort, time and resources are going to be devoted not simply to a Web presence but to an information and media company called the Emerald Media Group (EMG).

I know at my college paper at least, the web was very often a second thought, but times are changing.

The Battle of the Styli

⌘ Permalink

When showing off the original iPhone, Steve Jobs famously said, “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” We’re born with ten fingers, and Apple says that’s all we need to operate their Multi-Touch devices.

That said, there are cases where a stylus is nice to have. For me, having a pen to use with my iPad is nice when annotating PDFs and sketching in apps like Paper.

But which stylus is best? To find out, I picked three well-known models and spent some time with each of them.

The Studio Neat Cosmonaut

In many ways, the Cosmonaut is the stylus to beat. Studio Neat is well-known among Mac nerds, and the company’s chunky black stylus is easy to use.

About the size of a child’s magic marker, the Cosmonaut is made of soft-touch rubber wrapped around a hard central core. The end of the stylus is rubber, and has a slight give when pressed.

The size is odd among its competitors, but I like it. It’s easy to grip.

I actually own two Cosmonauts. One I keep in my bag, and the other we use at home as a physical therapy aid for my son, whose left side is weak as a side effect of his cancer. The large shaft is great for him to hold on to with his left hand.

It’s $25 on Amazon.

The Just Mobile AluPen

As good as the Cosmonaut is, the AluPen might hit a broader section of consumer, as some might be thrown off by the former’s size.

The AluPen gets it name from the aluminum used in the body. Shaped like the No. 2 pencils we all used in grade school, it’s still a little on the wide side, sitting (thickness-wise) between the other two models in this review.

The end — like the Cosmonaut — is a rubber bubble, but compresses far more than the Cosmonaut’s, as there doesn’t seem to be anything solid behind it. This makes me worry that the tip might wear out faster than it should.

I really like the AluPen. The Cosmonaut’s size can make it difficult to see around (if that makes sense), but the AluPen doesn’t suffer from the same problem.

It’s on Amazon for $17.

The Adonit Jot Pro

The Jot Pro made news at its release due to its tip. Unlike the other two products, the tip isn’t rubber at all. Rather, it has a clear plastic disc surrounding a tiny touch-triggering point.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was scratching my iPad to hell when I was using it.

Note that I haven’t scratched my iPad with any of these products. But I just don’t feel comfortable with the Jot Pro’s design.

The Jot Pro has a magnet in its slender body, meaning it can stay attached to the front of the iPad when not in use. Which is clever. The screw-on cap is also clever, as it attached to the top of the stylus when not in use.

You can pick it up on Amazon for about $20.

Conclusion

As much as I like the Cosmonaut, I think the AluPen is going to be my go-to stylus from now on. While I don’t use one often, the AluPen’s lightweight, medium-thickness body is a pleasure to use.

‘Fiddling’

⌘ Permalink

I wrote a guest post over at Frictionless, and I think you might enjoy it:

Many will say that friction is bad, and that we must do everything we can to eliminate it from our workflows, our setups and our lives.

Of course, fiddling for fiddling’s sake is bad. It introduces unjustified friction.

But sometimes, the friction is worth it. If the end result was worth it.