512 Pixels

I joined the guys from the FatDads podcast for episode 42, in which we discussed the iPhone 4S, cell phone carriers in Canada and my new house.

New in the knowledge base:

Apple may provide customers a replacement adapter if the power adapter shows signs of strain relief.

Ben Brooks:

The MacBook Air and the Mac Pro are polar opposites: one a marvel of engineering — the other a marvel of brute strength.

I don’t think the Mac Pro is going anywhere, but I also don’t think it is something that Jony Ive’s team has spent much time thinking about.

While I agree that the Air and Pro are opposites in many ways, I think that they are both marvels of engineering.

The Mac Pro’s internal layout got a massive update back in 2009, putting the CPU¹ and RAM on a removable tray and re-jiggering the air flow within the chassis.

Clearly, as interchangeable components are in the Mac Pro, and as expandable as they are, it will be a very different experience with the MacBook Air. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, nor do I think it’s been ignored by Apple as much as some think.

By the way, Ben is totally right about this:

As I think about everything that Apple stands for with its design and goals, I can’t help but suspect that the MacBook Air is the epitome of the Mac experience as Apple sees it. Small, quick, sleek, low-price, sealed.

The Air is the future, but that doesn’t mean the Mac Pro is the past. Don’t get me wrong — I wouldn’t be surprised if it went away in the future. But I also think it’s an experience that a lot of people still need and desire.

I got bored this afternoon, so I made this:

Click on the image for the full-resolution version. It’s Retina Display-ready.

Update: Here’s an iPad version and one for use “inside” your iPhone, which works way better if you don’t fill up the bottom row.

Editor’s Note: This post is written by my buddy Myke Hurley.

Oh, Hello there! Yeah, I’m over here on this tiny island that’s considered a world superpower, with a pretty big economy and trade presence. Yep, that’s the UK, baby! But for some reason we quite frequently get ignored.

My current state of annoyance stems from the fact that I am unable to submit a project to Kickstarter for funding, as I am not a US resident and nor do I have a US bank account.

On the Kickstarter Help page the following question is met with the following answer:

I’m not in the US. Can I start a project on Kickstarter?

You don’t have to physically be in the US, but there are some US requirements to be eligible. Please read: “Am I eligible to start a Kickstarter project?”

When you click that link you are met with this answer from the friendly FAQ:

Am I eligible to start a Kickstarter project?

To be eligible to start a Kickstarter project, you need to satisfy the requirements of Amazon Payments:

Be a permanent US resident and at least 18 years of age with a Social Security Number (or EIN), a US bank account, US address, US state-issued ID (driver’s license), and major US credit or debit card.

So in essence I don’t have to be in the US, I just have to hold everything a US citizen does and be a “permanent resident.” Well that’s easy then…

I do struggle at times to understand why companies make these decisions. I feel even worse for Canadians, who actually share a land-mass but will sometimes have to wait even longer than us for some things (pure madness!). I know that, as a company, you have to battle with additional legislation and consider teams in other countries, etc. But using Kickstarter as the operative example, if they used Paypal for payments (as the restrictions they have to impose come from Amazon’s payment system), even though the fees would be higher, they would be able to give access of the site to the entire world, therefore opening up a much larger revenue stream. Profitability in volume, and all that..

My anger stems from the fact that I have been waiting close to a year to submit a project to Kickstarter, with the goal to be starting a brand new Podcast, something that I can’t currently do on my current budget (zero) which will have high production values and make the return of my time much greater. Additionally it will allow me to build a group of people who can be seen as ‘contributors’ or ‘donators’, without having to rely on a Donations page on my website which struggles to really offer anything ‘tangible’. I know that I could start something myself, but then I am unable to tap in to the community of people on Kickstarter, therefore limiting myself greatly.

So here I am, stuck between a rock and US citizenship. I love the US and would love to move there one day (a dream for a lot of people, I know), but right now this isn’t really something that works financially. If I could do that, I wouldn’t need funding.

So Kickstarter, sort it out! Us in Blighty have ideas for projects too y’know..

The Big G:

In life we connect with all kinds of people, places and things. There’s friends and family, of course, but there’s also the sports teams we root for, the coffee shops we’re loyal to, and the TV shows we can’t stop watching (to name a few).

So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about — from local businesses to global brands — so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.

I’m not on Google+, but if I were, I’d be annoyed.

Neil Hughes at AppleInsider:

Chris Whitmore with Deutsche Bank issued a note to investors on Monday in which he revealed that a poll of about 30 retail stores revealed Apple is experiencing daily stock-outs of the iPhone 4S at most of them. He said that between 85 percent and 90 percent of stores polled continue to run out of inventory.

If I were to go back to Android today, this is the phone I would buy. However, as Nilay Patel points out, there’s a problem:

Lastly, we should note that all of these tweaks and extensions to Android mean that the RAZR won’t get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich until sometime next year. That’s hard to take, especially since we’re expecting Verizon will launch the Galaxy Nexus with 4.0 in the next few weeks. And even when the RAZR does get ICS, you’ll forever be stuck with those four capacitive buttons at the bottom of the screen as Google moves Android away from them entirely. Yes, ICS will work with them, but they’re not at the cutting edge of the platform. It may or may not matter to you, but it’s definitely something to consider.

Weird — I thought Google was buying Motorola. It seems that Motorola’s new flagship device didn’t come up in talks.

Pathetic, yet predictable.

I agree with Dave.

The makers of iA Writer are adding iCloud support to their iPad and Mac applications.

As far as I know, this is one of the first third-party Mac apps to add iCloud support. I hope many more are to come. While I currently use Dropbox for syncing my text documents around, this may offer a nicer solution.

Only Apple works so hard to make its stores art forms. The 5th Ave Store was already gorgeous, but this is just stunning.

Update: The Next Web has loads of photos from the re-opened store.

Richard Thompson, on an event concerning my college newspaper:

The Helmsman, in its anger, wanted the photo removed and WMC obliged – which again is proper, even if not necessarily required.

And while WMC’s reported rationale of “blanket permission” is flimsy when it probably meant to argue fair use, it is hard to argue, again, that the facts in the Helmsman’s Oct. 12 story are not now in the public domain.

So, the Helmsman’s front page story seems a bit much.

If anything, it simply would have been nice if WMC acknowledged that the story first appeared in the Helmsman. (A nicely detailed and well written story, by the way.)

Lesson learned: A little credit goes a long way.