Kyle Baxter, on what curating means:
The web means there is always more supply than we can handle, so what we need is groups that can sift through the muck and find the people worth reading. Instead of publishers being merely the people who provide printing and distribution, completely irrelevant to the end-user, they should become someone whose taste we trust.
Podcasting has taken off. While its been around for years, in the last 8 months or so, it seems to have really grown in popularity, at least in our corner of the Internet.
Here’s a list of the podcasts I currently subscribe to:
Only two of those are video podcasts — the rest are just audio.
I’m sure many people listen to more than this. I know people who listen to everything Dan Benjamin or Leo Leoporte do. Even with this short list of mostly weekly shows, I find myself unable to keep up.
Currently, my work MacBook Pro is my podcast machine. I only subscribe to the Engadget Show and Car Talk at home, so I can’t spend an hour at work watching Engadget, and listening to Car Talk on Sunday afternoons has become a ritual at our house. That said, I often find myself selecting “Mark all as Played” on these great shows, just because I don’t have enough time.
When I’m at my desk, I usually have my headphones on. Several of us work in a big open room, and its distracting to hear everyone’s conversations. But my days aren’t always spent at my desk, with me hiding behind my Cinema Display.
I spend about 30 minutes a day in commute, and often more time driving between our sites at work. I’ve thought about syncing podcasts to my iPhone, but I sync my phone with our iMac at home, not my MacBook Pro. Syncing an iPhone with two iTunes libraries is possible, but can blow your face off at a moment’s notice.
Enter Podcaster, a 99¢ app that makes your iPhone a standalone podcast catcher.
I’ve moved most of my podcasts to my iPhone, giving me greater flexibility for listening. I can listen in my truck, at work or anywhere with headphones.
Bring on the content.
Update: Cody Fink just reviewed Instacast, and boy is it great. I made the switch and haven’t looked back.
Ben gets it. John does, too.
If you haven’t signed up to be a member of Shawn’s site, you really are missing out.
I’ve recently performed an audit of my next actions list and found that several entries weren’t actionable. For example, “interview questions” and “FaceTime poll” are poor action steps.
Why? No verbs. In fact, “interview questions” and “FaceTime poll” are both projects, not actions.
I’m terrible at this. My action lists are full of nouns.
(In other news, go buy Dave’s book!)
So if you take the current 13” MacBook Pro, remove the superdrive, grab an SSD, jam more battery in, and make the entire package smaller — you basically end up with a faster version of the 13” Air.
Or look at it this way: once the Pro line ditches optical drives, what will be the difference between the 13” Air and the 13” Pro? Not much. I wouldn’t think Apple would keep two different notebooks that are essentially the same (price, and performance being the main differences). I just don’t see Apple trying to sell the Air line and the Pro line with the differences being computing speed. One will have to die, so will it be the 13” Air or 13” Pro? Doesn’t matter, they will be the same at that point.
I think he’s right. The 13" MacBook Pro is a great machine, but I don’t see it having a future.
Be sure to check out my review of the machine back in 2009. I don’t have that computer anymore, but I will always have fond memories of it.
Be sure to check out Ben and Shawn’s new podcast. It’s great.
Editor’s Note: A little birdie from Cupertino sent this to me. They stressed that this is the real deal.
SAN FRANCISCO—March 2, 2011—Apple® today introduced iPad 2, a magical update to the revolutionary device that changed the course of computing history forever. iPad 2’s responsive Multi-Touch™ display lets users interact with applications and content, just like before, but with great new features like the FaceTime HD™ camera, better stereo speakers and the other new things announced today, users will once again be blown away by just how awesome Apple’s mediocre hardware revisions can be.
With an even-stronger glass display, more robust buttons and moisture-resistant ports, the iPad 2 is designed for users looking to take the magical experience of iOS on a 9.7-inch display into the bathroom stall with them.
“Without any doubt, iPad 2 is the best bathroom computer ever created,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Users will be able to enjoy their apps and media in more ways — and in more places — than ever before.”
“We don’t judge our users,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. “In fact, I do most of my work from the private bathroom in my office. Before iPad 2, I often found myself annoyed at having to lug my MacBook Pro into the john. Those days have passed.”
“With the new vibrator built into every iPad 2, users will be able to get feedback from their favorite games without compromising their dignity or privacy,” said Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President Industrial Design. “We’ve re-thought everything for use in a stall. We are so proud of this product.”
Continue Reading → “ForkBombr EXCLUSIVE: Leaked PR Release for iPad 2 Launch”
I can’t believe that Consumer Reports is still fired up about this:
The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, Consumer Reports engineers have found in lab tests.
[…]
Here’s a rundown of what we did and what we found in our tests: We subjected the Verizon iPhone 4 to a full complement of regular tests in order to add it to our smart-phone Ratings, available to subscribers. We also put it through the special tests we carried out last year on the AT&T iPhone 4 after a rash of consumer complaints about signal reception with that model. There has been no such outpouring of complaints about the Verizon version of the phone.
For what it’s worth, my Verizon iPhone doesn’t have any issues with it. Nor have I heard a single complaint about this anywhere.
David W. Martin at Cult of Mac:
Apple’s new Mac OS X Lion adds support for a recovery partition as part of the OS installation and while this may not seem important to most users — it is. Apple is making the tools and resources available to you that will allow you to perform disk repair and recoveries on your mobile Mac while on the road or on your desktop Mac at home. The utilities will be readily available and therefore you won’t have to go hunting for that always elusive DVD or USB stick.
While this won’t do you any good if your hard drive physically fails, troubleshooting and dealing with software issues is about to get a whole lot simpler.
iOS and Mac OS X are symbiotic entities. When designing iOS, Apple distilled the Mac down to something pocketable, but the core concepts are there, such as an app-centric workflow, an always-accessible “home base” Dock, and a fierce pursuit of intuitive interfaces. After gaining knowledge and experience from nearly five years and four versions of iOS, Apple clearly felt that it’s time to return the favor in Lion. Apple is incorporating some of the fresh simplicity of iOS back into its point-and-click desktop computing platform that, at its conceptual core, is almost three decades old.
When Lion arrives, the Mac might begin to resemble some aspects of Apple’s simpler, more streamlined OS that’s designed for mobile devices. But that’s only because they are fundamentally good ideas that can polish a full-featured desktop platform and make it even easier to use, without sacrificing any of the power and flexibility that brought users to the platform to begin with.
Joshua Topolsky, in his review of the Motorola Xoom, the first Honeycomb-powered tablet to hit the market:
The problem with the Xoom isn’t really about the core of the experience or the core of the hardware — it’s about the details. Too much in both the design (like those wonky buttons) or the software (like the feeling that this is all very much in beta) makes you wonder if this wasn’t rushed out to market in order to beat the next wave from Apple. Regardless, there isn’t much here for consumers right now. The Android Market is almost devoid of tablet applications, the OS feels buggy and unfinished, and the hardware has pain points that we find troubling. And that’s to say nothing of the pricing and carrier commitments being asked of first-time buyers.