One of the best iOS apps just got a lot better.
Dragon Parents
Emily Rapp, whose son Ronan will pass away before his third birthday:
Ronan won’t prosper or succeed in the way we have come to understand this term in our culture; he will never walk or say “Mama,” and I will never be a tiger mom. The mothers and fathers of terminally ill children are something else entirely. Our goals are simple and terrible: to help our children live with minimal discomfort and maximum dignity. We will not launch our children into a bright and promising future, but see them into early graves. We will prepare to lose them and then, impossibly, to live on after that gutting loss. This requires a new ferocity, a new way of thinking, a new animal. We are dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell. Our experiences have taught us how to parent for the here and now, for the sake of parenting, for the humanity implicit in the act itself, though this runs counter to traditional wisdom and advice.
[…]
And there’s this: parents who, particularly in this country, are expected to be superhuman, to raise children who outpace all their peers, don’t want to see what we see. The long truth about their children, about themselves: that none of it is forever.
Shit That Siri Says
While I’m sure some of these are Photoshopped, this is my new favorite tumblog.
iPhone Case Guessing Games
Douglas MacMillan and Adam Satariano:
In the weeks leading up to Apple’s Oct. 4 announcement about the new iPhone 4S, Tim Hickman lived and breathed rumors about the device. His company, Hard Candy Cases, makes protective covers for mobile phones, and he was determined to get a jump on production. After three separate manufacturing partners in China sent him detailed 3D models of an iPhone with a widened, pill-shaped “home” button and a slightly tapered back, Hickman decided to roll the dice. He paid $50,000 to make steel moldings to mass-produce cases for the new design and, on the morning of Apple’s announcement, began taking orders on his website. The gamble backfired: Apple’s new iPhone 4S included no major changes to the exterior design. The home button remained circular. Hickman suddenly owned $50,000 worth of paperweights.
The moral of the story? Rumors based on cases created for the “next” iPhone are useless.
Jobs’ Hero
Christopher Bonanos at The New York Times:
In the memorials to Steven P. Jobs this week, Apple’s co-founder was compared with the world’s great inventor-entrepreneurs: Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell. Yet virtually none of the obituaries mentioned the man Jobs himself considered his hero, the person on whose career he explicitly modeled his own: Edwin H. Land, the genius domus of Polaroid Corporation and inventor of instant photography.
Fake Android Netflix App Streams Sadness, Steals User Information
On iOS 5 and Cache Cleaning
When customers save an article with Instapaper, get a book in iBooks, or download a podcast with Instacast, they expect it to be there next time they launch the app. Even though it’s technically redownloadable, customers see that as their data — they put it there, and it’s theirs to remove if and when they see fit.
Read his post to see why iOS 5 is causing issues with apps like Instapaper.
iFixIt Tears Apart an iPhone 4S
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Star Wars Tones for iOS
The “R2-D2: 3-Tone” is my new default text message alert. Thanks, Shawn.
Instacast and iCloud
This is what the future is like — a continuous experience across devices. A great addition to one of my favorite iOS apps.
Weird Siri Sayings
Apple IDs and iCloud
Apple has published a support article outlining correct steps for using multiple AppleIDs on a single device. This is a life-saver for someone like me — I’ve got iCloud account for Mail, Contacts, etc., and another AppleID for iTunes purchases.