This two-part series over at Engadget shows just how deeply carriers are involved with new phones. Reading this really helped me understand why the Android market is such a mess, and how different the iPhone really is.
posts
‘It Is About Enriching Pocketbooks’
This is a dark look at Apple retail and how it has changed over the years.
Granted, the writer has every reason to be jaded, as he says he was “bullied by managers into resigning.”
The Newton Still Going Strong
2011 brought a lot of resources to the Newton community. I love it.
A Review of Phraseology: The iPad App for Writers
There are a lot of writing apps for the iPad. So many, in fact, I usually gloss over new releases, assuming they won’t offer much over my current setup of text files syncing with Dropbox and Notesy.
Enter Phraseology, by Agile Tortoise. While Dropbox syncing support is coming, this app is about far more than taking notes. It’s designed as a writing tool, from the ground up.
Take re-rearranging paragraphs for example. When I’m working on a long piece (like this review), I often re-order my paragraphs more than once, to find the flow I want to portray in my writing.
Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking
Except in a few cases, which I’ll explain, the apps that appear in the multitasking bar are not currently running. When you press the home button, iOS will tell the app to quit. In almost all cases, it quits, it stops using CPU time (and hence battery) and the memory it was using is eventually recovered if required.
The thought that apps in the multi-tasking tray are running seems to be growing. I think Apple’s UI for this could be a little more clear.
Backup Pinboard to Webpage
Drew Schuster has posted a nice alternative to the Pinboard backup solution I posted about the other day.
PostSecret App Canned
Frank Warren, the man behind PostSecret:
99% of the secrets created were in the spirit of PostSecret. Unfortunately, the scale of secrets was so large that even 1% of bad content was overwhelming for our dedicated team of volunteer moderators who worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week removing content that was not just pornographic but also gruesome and at times threatening.
Bad content caused users to complain to me, Apple and the FBI. I was contacted by law enforcement about bad content on the App. Threats were made against users, moderators and my family. (Two specific threats were made that I am unable to talk about). As much as we tried, we were unable to maintain a bully-free environment. Weeks ago I had to remove the App from my daughter’s phone.
WTF, Apple Fans? (Part 3)
The Mother of all Hot Wheels Tracks
My son would have a heart attack if he saw this video.
The AP Gets a Look at Rare Apple History
In the interview, Steve Wozniak and the late Steve Jobs recall a seminal moment in Silicon Valley history - how they named their upstart computer company some 35 years ago.
[…]
The interview, recorded for an in-house video for company employees in the mid–1980s, was among a storehouse of materials Apple had been collecting for a company museum. But in 1997, soon after Jobs returned to the company, Apple officials contacted Stanford University and offered to donate the collection to the school’s Silicon Valley Archives.
Eleven
I’ve written my “end of the year” post a couple of times now, but was unhappy with it each time.
That frustration has been a thread through my year. Don’t get me wrong, the year actually went pretty well, but I just have a hard time with a lot of things these days.
In March, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. I’m making progress in my life, and taking care of myself for the first time since Josiah was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, but I’m learning this battle is very often a few steps forward, then a few steps back.