A few days ago, Ben Brooks wrote a piece on how he organizes his home screen, based on usage. I do the same thing, but in a very different way. Here’s a screenshot of my iPhone’s home screen:
I’ll explain that green box in a second.
As you can see, I keep things simple.
I keep an empty row between my apps and the Dock. This not only de-clutters my home screen, but gives me substantial space in which to swipe to Spotlight or to my second page, without accidentally opening an app.
One year later, the iPad has been a terrific commercial success for Apple. More than 15 million copies sold, over 75,000 native apps available in the App Store, long lines around the globe to get the chance of buying an iPad 2. The iPad has become an iconic device in 12 months; and for those who believe, it’s become more than a simple piece of glass and aluminum. One year of iPad has changed everything for Apple, and the millions of consumers who get things done with it every day. The doctors, the journalists, the school teachers, the students, the writers and the sports fans. A single device with simple hardware features (touch, large screen, thin design) has proved that apps and a well-designed operating system can make a huge difference. And one year later, I still have the feeling we’re just getting started.
Michael J. Kavanagh at Bloomberg:
Rules backed by Apple Inc. and Intel Corp. to stop sales of minerals used in electronics from funding war in Central Africa took effect today, forcing miners from the region to seek new buyers in Asia, according to exporters.
“There is a de-facto embargo, it’s very clear,” said John Kanyoni, president of the mineral exporters association of North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We’re committed to continue with all these programs. But at the same time we’re traveling soon to Asia to find alternatives.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if updates to the iPod product line became as un-event-worthy as Mac CPU updates.
But couldn’t this happen to the iPhone and iPad as well?
Not every time, of course. Just like the Macs, what if the iPhone didn’t get massive updates on a regular annual schedule, but only got a significant redesign every few years, with minor mid-cycle updates as needed? Some wouldn’t even be announced at events at all, and others would be quick footnotes during otherwise software-focused events.
The tablet space is a weird little corner of the technology market right now. Apple’s crushing everyone with its iPad 2, clearly. There are several tablets on the horizon, but most of them feel like knock-off iPads.
There is more to a good tablet OS than the cloud, though. People are using tablets for content consumption, and with Android, that’s tricky. Android’s strength is its tie-in with the Google cloud, not with easy ways to purchase music and movies.Honeycomb apps can be counted on both hands.
The Internet is buzzing this morning with separate rumors that Apple’s iPad 2 and iPhone 5 will be delayed. The fact is, neither rumor is true.
From what I’ve heard this morning both products are on schedule and will ship when they are supposed to. Only Apple knows exactly when that will be, but the products are not delayed.
[…]
It seems amazing that rumors of Apple missing product deadlines are running rampant when Apple hasn’t even announced the product yet. The only deadlines that have been set are by the media, not Apple.
Editor’s Note: This is written by a friend of mine, Caitlin Woodward, who spent countless hours trying to find an iPad 2 here in Memphis.
I’m that person who picked out a specific model. Looking for a black 32GB AT&T. My dad wants the same model.
It seems like AT&T are the popular ones. On launch day, the first thing they ran out of was AT&T ones, about a dozen people in front of me. Right then, I ordered one from Apple.com, it said it was going to ship Apr 1, deliver by Apr 6. Talked to my dad a short bit after that, he stopped at the Apple Store in Oklahoma City to see if they happened to have anything, but they only had a few tickets left, all were Verizon.
Though there is nothing particularly new in these docs, we’ve been handed the full Apple Store layout documentation (100 page PDF) as of last month. It is interesting to see the attention to detail Apple puts into its Store layout and design.
The 100 page document goes into significant detail on every aspect of how stores are set up. Perhaps that’s why there is such consistency between stores.
“At this year’s conference we are going to unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “If you are an iOS or Mac OS X software developer, this is the event that you do not want to miss.”
Apple’s apparent focus on software in its WWDC announcement backs up what my own sources are saying about the annual conference. That is, expect a software show in 2011, not a hardware event.
Oskar Groth has released a neat little utility that will enable TRIM for any Mac with an SSD.
Of course, any time you play with kernel extensions, you could accidentally blow something up. That said, I ran this with no issue. Hopefully, my SSD will last longer with TRIM support now enabled in Snow Leopard.
[Thanks Todd!]