The Need for Notifications
Back in the day, cell phones did one thing — make calls. Since they were so simple, the only time they needed to alert their owners was with a ringtone.
Obviously, phones do a few more things these days. They can send and receive emails, SMS and MMS messages, surf the Internet, give turn-by-turn directions and much, much more. One of the core problems with smart phones is how to handle all of this incoming information and present it to the user in bite-sized chunks.
James Bach, via Gizmodo:
The pattern I experienced at Apple would be confirmed almost everywhere I traveled in the computer industry: most people have put themselves on intellectual autopilot. Most don’t study on their own initiative, but only when they are forced to do so. Even when they study, they choose to study the obvious and conventional subjects. This has the effect of making them more alike instead of more unique. It’s an educational herd mentality.
CNet UK has pitted the Newton against the iPhone and the Newton won:
The Newton may be old and dusty, but it still shows the young pretenders a thing or too. The iPhone is a superior device in many ways, we’ll admit, but when it comes to sheer innovation, the Apple Newton MessagePad is a true pioneer. Long live the king.
On a related note: If you haven’t run the appropriate 2010 patch on your device, the time is now.
Apple’s Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, recently pointed out that Apple receives more than 10,000 new app submissions each week. Yes, every seven days Apple receives a volume of new apps equivalent to the Android Market. Schiller cited this statistic to explain how Apple is somewhat a victim of its own success and that with so many submissions sometimes apps fall through the cracks.
According to Mobclix.com, more than 100 million apps are downloaded from the Apple app store each month. Doing the math based on the number of iPhones users, that means that iPhone users download an average of 11 apps per month.
Ted Landau of the Mac Observer wrote a piece yesterday titled Mac Pro: R.I.P. in which he said:
Given these numbers [the benchmarks for the new i7 iMacs], why bother with a Mac Pro? Personally, I can only think of one and half reasons — neither of which will drive a large number of sales. The one reason is internal expandability. If you want three internal hard drives and two internal optical drives and an upgraded graphics card, you need a Mac Pro. The half reason is the display. The iMac has a great display. But if you want more flexibility, including the option to replace your initial display without having to get a new computer, you may prefer a Mac Pro.
Wired’s Brian Chen nails it. I totally agree — I enjoy using my Magic Mouse, which is something I never thought I would say about a pointing device.
If you imported photos of people while using iPhoto 8.1, there’s an extra step you should take after installing the 8.1.1 update. Select all those photos, Control-click to open the contextual menu, and then choose Detect Missing Faces. This will redetect the faces in those photos and correct any face recognition issues introduced in iPhoto 8.1. You should not quit iPhoto during the Detect Missing Faces process.
Apple’s new Core i7-based iMac might be a performance monster, but it looks like the whole family’s having some problems getting out of the gate: in addition to the previously-noted performance issues with the Core 2 Duo models, a quick glance across Apple’s support forums and on other Mac boards around the web reveals that some machines are showing up DOA and / or with cracked screens. We’re a little more familiar with the DOA issue, since the new i7 we just bought doesn’t boot at all, but the cracked screen issue seems to be equally common and mostly affecting the bottom left corner, from what we can tell. Now, our review Core 2 Duo 27-inch iMac is perfectly fine, and Chris Ziegler’s new Core i7 machine doesn’t have any problems either, so these obviously aren’t universal issues, but if you’re about to stick one of these under the tree for someone it might be wise to do some surreptitious testing first.
The argument that you can make iPhone web apps that are “good enough” misses the entire point of iPhone apps — the entire point of the iPhone itself, even — all of the things that drive Twitter users to pay $3, $4, or $5 for apps that do the same things that can be done for free by loading Twitter’s web site in MobileSafari. “Good enough” is not good enough on the iPhone.
Apple has launched two new iPhone ads, touting AT&T’s 3G network and it’s ability to handle data and a voice call at the same time.
Verizon’s 3G network operates like AT&T’s EDGE network in this regard — to access data, you have to disconnect from a voice call.
While the ads’ message is well-received and a good point to make, it is interesting to see Apple defend AT&T’s network. I think Apple realizes that the public’s feeling towards AT&T — which is increasingly negative — has the potential to hurt iPhone sales. At least as long as the iPhone is exclusive to AT&T.