Reminds me of the good old days. I WANT TO GO BACK.
Squarespace Opens Developer Access to Version Six ⇢
Looking forward to digging through some of this.
Verizon iPhone 5 Preorders Start at Friday, 3 AM ⇢
I’m going to be tired Friday.
Four Inches
Myke and I talked at length about Apple’s event today, but I thought I’d write out some of my thoughts here.
The obvious news here is the iPhone 5’s bigger screen. At 4 inches and 1136 x 640, the new layout is 16:9 — perfect for movies in landscape, and no wider. Apps that don’t scale or fit will be letterboxed at the top and bottom.
While I know very little about app development, from the people I’ve spoken to today, moving to this new screen shouldn’t be nearly as much work as going to Retina was. In short, Apple changed the physical screen size of the iPhone in the easiest possible way.
The question, though, is why. For five years, the iPhone has had a 3.5 inch screen.
As with most things, I think a combination of factors are at play.
With LTE on board, Apple presumably needed to increase the size of the battery. As this image shows, Apple is using the increased height provided by the larger screen to include a bigger battery. Here’s Dave Caolo:
According to Apple, users can expect up to 8 hours browsing time on LTE, up to 8 hours on 3G and up to 10 hours over Wi-Fi. Total standby time is listed as 225 hours. The iPhone 4S delivered up to 6 hours browsing on 3G, up to 9 hours over Wi-Fi and total standby time up to 200 hours.
Another factor could be the general direction of the market toward bigger phones. Maybe it was just time for a change.
Maybe Jony Ive’s hands are bigger than they look on video.
Ahem.
iPod classic Not Dead Yet ⇢
The iPod classic looks like it lives to see another day.
Apple Introduces New iPods, iTunes ⇢
The new iPod touch, the newly-redesigned iPod nano and colorful but boring iPod shuffle will be out in October, alongside a new version of iTunes.
Apple Introduces the iPhone 5 ⇢
It’s out, in “Black & Slate” and “White & Silver” and sports a 4" screen, A6 processor, better camera optics and LTE. Available for pre-order on Friday.
On the Original iTunes Phone ⇢
Bored waiting for Apple’s iPhone announcement later today? Why not catch up on the original iTunes phone, the Motorola ROKR E1?
Last Minute Predictions Concerning the iPhone 5
- It will be awesome.
- I will buy one.
Why Twitter’s Afraid of Clients
While I’m still not positive App.net will be successful long-term, it’s been fun to relive the early days of Twitter with this new service.
The service is evolving right before user’s eyes — just the other day, they added the ability to star a post — and the clients that are being built around the service are evolving, too.
I’m beta testing several apps, and have bought a couple from the App Store. They are all different. They have different control schemes, different UIs and different ways of posting, replying and re-posting. Some are blue, some are white and some are dark. Some have push notifications and some don’t. Some can publish photos and some can’t.
It’s like 2008 all over again.
In 2008, Apple opened up the iPhone to third-party apps with the release of iPhone OS 2 that summer. In those early days, there were many clients — Twitterrific being the best in those early days — that were awesome.
Today, it’s even better. I use Tweetbot on all three of my devices — iPad, iPhone and Mac. Once the Mac version comes out in the App Store, my custom mute filters and more will sync, wall-to-wall, giving me a type of platform on top of Twitter that I can fully control.
I keep the official client stashed in a folder on my iPhone just to keep tabs on what Twitter’s doing with it. I opened it the other evening to be bombarded with tweets including hashtags I had blocked in Tweetbot. It was jarring.
This, of course, is just what Twitter doesn’t want. Twitter wants everyone to experience the service they way they intend it, not a developer — no matter how great the third-party app or service might be. The reality is that Twitter just doesn’t like third-party clients — they are afraid of them. They are afraid that users will fall in love with a client and its services, and forget that Twitter is what’s underneath. That, coupled with the fact that currently third-party apps don’t pass along promoted tweets and other ads, is why Twitter is killing them off. Twitter’s doing it slowly, but have no doubt — it’s happening.
It’s a real shame. While the average user doesn’t care about this stuff, there are many users who do, and ADN might just benefit from their unhappiness with the way things are going.
The Verge Reviews the 7″ Kindle Fire HD ⇢
Joshua Topolsky likes it as a content consumption device, but:
…there’s a second tablet in the review as well. One that gets compared to the iPad and Nexus 7. One that I expect to do more than just show me movies or help me shop. One that should be a companion for all kinds of things I want to do, that doesn’t feel limited, that doesn’t respond to my touches slowly, that doesn’t make me wait.
As that device, the Fire HD still has a long way to go. I think it can get there, but it isn’t there yet.
The biggest thing I walked away from this review was how much I like the back of the Fire HD.
‘A Lemon In It’ ⇢
This week on the 512 Podcast, I enjoy a milkshake while Myke drinks fruity water. We talk about Amazon’s new Kindles and last-minute rumors concerning the next iPhone.
This week’s show is made possible by Squarespace and Shutterstock.