Marco has written the list of the year, as far as I am concerned.
posts
Cultured Code’s Biggest Problem Isn’t OTA Sync
Cultured Code has a problem. And it isn’t with its products.
Yes, bashing Cultured Code’s Things family of programs has become popular. And not without good reason. The more complex OmniFocus has OTA sync. Simpler to-do managers like Remember the Milk and TeuxDeux do as well.1 In a world where most people own at least one iOS device, it’s critical to have a solution in place that makes data on all devices stay in sync. Patronizing blog posts and fancy status board updates do not a feature make.
Jon Stewart, on Politics and the Media
In an interview with NPR’s Terry Gross:
I think it made me less political and more emotional. The [more] you spend time with the political [world] and media, the less political you become and the more viscerally upset you become at corruption. I don’t consider it political, because ‘political’ I always sort of note as a partisan endeavor. But I have become increasingly unnerved by the depth of corruption that exists at many different levels. I’m less upset with politicians than [with] the media. I feel like politicians — the way I explain it, is when you go to a zoo and a monkey throws feces, it’s a monkey. But when the zookeeper is standing right there and he doesn’t say, ‘Bad monkey’ — somebody’s gotta be the zookeeper. I feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media than by political advocates. They’re representing a constituency. Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we’re in a battle between tyranny and freedom — it’s a series of pendulum swings. And the swings have become less drastic over time. That’s why I feel, not sanguine but at least a little bit less frightful, in that our pendulum swings have become less and less. But what has changed is the media’s sense of their ability to be responsible arbiters. I think they feel fearful. I think there’s this whole idea now that there’s a liberal media conspiracy, and I think they feel if they express any authority or judgment, which is what I imagine is editorial control, they will be vilified.
The iPad Killer
John Paczkowski, on the RIM Playbook:
If Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook is to succeed at market the way the company hopes, there are a few engineering hurdles to overcome. The most significant, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, is the device’s relatively poor battery life.
Sources tell him the tablet currently lasts just a few hours per charge, compared with rivals like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, which lasts about six, and the iPad, which lasts upward of 10.
A Trip to Best Buy
Last night, the family and I went to Best Buy.
Now, I usually avoid retail stores as much as possible. Even going to the grocery store is something I dislike. Sadly, I couldn’t escape it last night, but I did come away with some random thoughts.
E-book Readers
The store had the Kindle, the Nook, the Nook Color and Sony’s reader all on display, as well as some models I didn’t recognize. Clearly, the Kindle is the machine to beat. At $139, it was the cheapest contender, and by far the best. The screen is simply wonderful.
Apple: 2010 in Review
Check out my newest editorial at Macgasm, outlining the hits and misses of Apple’s year.
Pixelated ‘Empire Strikes Back’
Dropbox Gets Reviewed
Put simply, Dropbox is an amazingly useful combination of a Web service and a Mac OS X program that work together to make your data accessible from anywhere and to keep it synchronized between your computers
[…]
If this sounds a bit like the iDisk feature of Apple’s MobileMe service, that’s because it’s similar…except that Dropbox is fast and reliable. Dropbox is also more secure than iDisk, as files stored on the Dropbox servers are encrypted and are transferred using SSL.
13" Air Named GigaOM Gadget of Year
The iPad didn’t make the cut for the top spot, mostly because of my work rhythms and how I do it. And despite my own early excitement, I have not been able to make it an efficient part of my work flow.
That’s the same dilemma I have.
On Facebook, Distractions and Real Friendships
Several weeks ago, I deleted my Facebook account. Several weeks ago, my life seemed to get a lot better.
If there are nouns — obligations, people, things, etc. — that you’ve allowed into your life that are holding you back from what you know is important to you, that should raise a red flag. Why are you tolerating those distractions?
To me, Facebook was a huge source of distractions.1
‘It’s Like Loaning Money’
We tend to forgive the features that Apple left behind, though. We’re confident that Apple will get around to it in time. It’s like loaning money. We understand that there’s a risk in giving Apple our $499, but the company is a good credit risk and we’re confident that within 12 months they’ll give us a feature that they never outright promised to deliver.
Lovely. The danger there is that we might someday accept all of this as normal. It isn’t. Our expectations should always be high and should never lose our ability to feel a sense of disappointment.
Year of the Tablet
So what happened to the year of the tablet? The answer is simple: the iPad. Apple offered a slatelike computer that incorporated its perfected iTunes app experience, at the right price point, and with an intuitive interface that helped the company quickly sell millions of its newfangled device.
As we move into 2011, the murmurs coming out of the next Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas all have to do with tablets again. There will be Microsoft tablets, Hewlett-Packard slates and a number of devices running the Google Android platform. All hope to take on Apple. And so we’re looking at another Year of the Tablet.