The Brooks Review

Month: June 2011

  • Bamboo Paper

    The icon is terrible and the market is saturated. Even with those caveats I think Bamboo Paper may have one of the best “ink” engines that I have seen. I actually think the replication of writing with a felt tip pen is done better in Bamboo Paper than it is in my old stand-by Penultimate.

    I haven’t tried it with a stylus because I gave me stylus away, but even with your finger it works pretty well — as well as any other drawing/handwriting app. A few testers have noted that it doesn’t get tripped up when you rest your hand on the screen and I found that it still does get tripped up, but not to the degree that *most* iPad apps do.

  • Skype Fires Executives, Avoiding Payouts After Microsoft Buyout

    Joseph Galante:
    >Skype Technologies SA, the Internet- calling service being bought by Microsoft Corp., is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter.

    Clearly Microsoft has shown that they have the management chops to run online services successfully. [Clearly](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-income-2011-1).

  • NY Post Blocks Access To Its Website On iPads To Drive App Purchases

    Casey Johnston reporting on this stupid decision:

    >Trying to access the paper via the Safari browser on the iPad results in a redirect page that points them to the app, as well as a few other basic services.

    and:

    >As a Murdoch publication, the NY Post appears to be getting pushed in the direction of The Daily, which exists only as a paid app on the iPad. The NY Post app costs $1.99 to download and gets the customer 30 days of access; after that, it’s $6.99 for one month, $39.99 for six months, or $74.99 for a year. By comparison, The Daily is free to download, and costs 99 cents a week or $39.99 for a year’s subscription.

    I can just picture how this happened:

    Old Media Guy (OMG) emails young middle manager (MM) in charge of the iPad app to say: “I thought building this iPad thing was going to make us millions like those Birds guys?”

    MM: It is taking off a bit slower than expected, but the market is very new.

    OMG: What are *you* going to do to fix this problem?

    MM: I think *our* best course of action is patience.

    **2 Days Later**

    OMG: I was talking to my nephew and he said we could just block people on the iPad from visiting our website. That would force them into buying our iPad app. Let’s do that.

    MM: Sir, we certainly *could* do that, but I strongly recommend against it. Here are some reasons why (Reader’s choice: add in three reasons that are logical here).

    OMG: How about we just block them and see what happens.

    MM: Yes sir.

    At least this is how I imagine stupid decisions get made.

  • Facebook’s Upcoming… Issue

    MG Siegler:

    >With some 700 million users, Facebook is one of the biggest forces in the tech world today. But their glaring weakness is that they do not ultimately control their own destiny. They have flourished on the desktop-based web, which is mainly open, but mobile is the key to the future. Facebook has been doing pretty well here so far, but because they do not control the platforms they are on, things are likely to get hard for them going forward as rivalries intensify.

    Which is why they are always rumored to be creating their own phone.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 15: Dub Dub Goers

    Shawn and I talk about my hatred of Comcast, beta software and he makes me feel bad for not being at WWDC.

    Big thanks to [Tweetbot](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/) for sponsoring the episode.

  • Switching To iPad Pilot Charts Could Save American Airlines $1.2MM A Year

    This story itself isn’t very interesting to me, but last night, reading about this switch, I found it funny what wasn’t talked about. What isn’t mentioned is what happens if the device crashes, or the battery dies.

    Think about that for a moment.

    A major airline is switching to a computer for mapping and routes, all without worry about crashing the plane **or** the device. That’s pretty cool.

  • Doxie

    I want to thank Doxie for sponsoring this weeks RSS feed, they make a slick little USB scanner for your Mac/PC. What is really trick is the integration that the scanner has to many of the best apps and services out there.

    This scanner also does photos — something that my ScanSnap has never been great at.

    If you really want to be paper free though, Steve Losh [wrote up](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2011/05/paper-free/) how for $220 he was able to go paperless with the Doxie (including buying the Doxie) — very neat.

    Be sure to check Doxie out first if you are in the market for a scanner to file away all those bills.

  • RIM: Six Downgrades

    Tiernan Ray reporting on a comment from Caris & Co.’s Robert Cihra:
    >But, “it appears RIMM has now sunk into eroding mismanagement, having delayed even just its evolutionary bold 9900 refresh multiple times.”

    It is amazing to me how fast RIM fell flat on its face, not even Microsoft could have handled things this badly.

  • Why the $100 Gift Card Is Better Than an iPod

    Cody Fink commenting on why the $100 Back to School gift card promotion is better than the free iPod touch promotion:
    >Apple is leveraging this year’s Back to School promotion to make the Mac App Store popular.

    It makes way more sense for Apple to give out App Store/ iTune gift cards than it does to give out any hardware — I would also be willing to bet this offer is far more appealing to the buyers too.

  • The Perils of Sitting

    Emily Singer uses a FitBit to track her calorie burning and it results are dismal during the work week. Standing, it would seem, is *the* way to go.

  • Apple’s MacBook Air A $3 Billion Revenue Opportunity

    John Paczkowski:
    >Add to this the fact that Apple shipped 432,000 MacBook Airs during that period, up 412.9 percent year over year at a time when the broader PC market was down 10.1 percent, and it’s not hard to see that the machine is building up quite a bit of traction in the market.

    If you built it they will come?

  • Tech Leaders Don’t Win By Saying They’ll Crush Somebody

    Louis Gray on CEOs/Leaders rambling on about destroying the competition:

    >So when you read about company X targeting company Y or setting up to take them down, you can almost guarantee they either won’t make it, or company Y is going to change the game again.

    Great read.

  • iA Writer: On Prices and Features

    Oliver Reichenstein wrote a fantastic post about how iA came up with and decided on the pricing and features for their Writer app ([my review here](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/ia-writer/)), this point really stuck out to me:

    >Even though iA Writer for iPad is a professional’s tool, it is sold in an amateur environment at amateur prices.

    So very true of the iOS App Store. The entire post is worth the read if you wonder why Writer for the Mac is priced the way it is.

  • Quote of the Day: Tim Worstall

    “But to value every company as if they are the next Google, rather than valuing them all as if one of them might be, is pretty much the definition of a bubble.”

  • Keyboard versus Mouse, 1980 Style

    Originally published in the AppleDirect, August, 1989. Republished as Chapter 6, in Tog on Interface:
    >While the keyboard users in this case feels as though they have gained two seconds over the mouse users, the opposite is really the case. Because while the keyboard users have been engaged in a process so fascinating that they have experienced amnesia, the mouse users have been so disengaged that they have been able to continue thinking about the task they are trying to accomplish. They have not had to set their task aside to think about or remember abstract symbols.
    >Hence, users achieve a significant productivity increase with the mouse in spite of their subjective experience.

    What an interesting read about how computing commands were shaped.

  • The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: iOS App Icons

    This is a look at the apps that I have currently installed on my iOS devices — it is in no way a look at every app in the App Store. This also means that I use and like every app on this list, just because the icon is bad doesn’t mean I don’t like the app.

    I am including ‘good’ icons to give you a bit of insight into what I like. I classify bad icons as icons that I don’t particularly like, but that are tolerable. The ugly icons are ones that make me feel nauseated.

    ### The Good


    First up is OmniOutliner. What I really like about this icon is the subtle hat tip to the outline culture in the background and the huge nod to what the app really does: captures ideas. That’s why I like this icon so much.


    Articles is another icon that I really like because it conveys what the apps does for me: gives me a huge drawer of information. I don’t typically like this type of design, but I think it really works well for this Wikipedia app.


    Gowalla on the iPhone (not iPad) has always been a favorite of mine. I love the strong use of orange and the simple nature of it. The icon also fits so well with the Gowalla brand by simply putting “Go” on the icon. Really is one of my all time favorites.


    Everyday is another app that really is a simplistic description of the app. The faded heads and similar coloring as the Camera app really speak to what the app does.

    ### The Bad


    First up is Apple’s Mail client. How is a cloudy blue sky with an envelope supposed to convey that this is for email? This app icon seems better suited to an app that helps you send envelopes via carrier pigeon than it does for an email app. Still, I have seen worse.


    Reeder, for the iPad because I like the iPhone icon, is painful to me. Don’t get me wrong it is one of my favorite apps, but why in the world is the bottom right corner curled? Why? Remove that and you have yourself a lovely icon, but with that page curl I find myself scratching my head.


    Kindle… Is this is a shot at the fact that I can only read outside with my iPad while in the shade? If not why would you depict someone clearly reading a paper book, sitting very awkwardly under a tree?


    Simplenote, oh you knew your turn was coming. Yes, this is the best iteration of your icon to date, but the more I look at it the more I wonder what the hell it is all about. It’s very neat looking and very modern feeling, but — actually — it gets quite boring.

    ### The Ugly


    TextExpander you inspired this post because I find your icon so awful. It hurts me to look at you so very much that I can’t even stand to see it in the small view/preview that folders show. Why is there a balloon, in what world does expanding text through shortcuts lend a balloon as the representation? While I have you, why in the world do you have such an ugly, busy, orange background?


    Oh 1Password you know I can’t live without you, but seriously your icon really bugs me. You are a vault of my secrets and should convey such a thing, so can you explain why you show a lock **and** the key to that lock. My word, what am I to leave my passwords stuck to my monitor now?


    Twitter, specifically Twitter for the iPad: you suck.


    Photos: you cheery sunflower bastard stop looking at me. I hate you and I hate how uninspiring you are and the fact that I must look at you daily. Your not even a real photo and yet I find everything about this fairy-tale-sunflower-photo to signify everything that is wrong with photography today.

  • Help Shape Steve Ballmer’s WPC 2011 Keynote Speech

    Microsoft is reaching out and asking for people to submit questions that they would like to hear Ballmer speak about:

    >WPC 2011 is your event, and we would love to get your comments on topics you want to hear from Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO. Help us shape his 2011 WPC Keynote speech by leaving your requests below.
    >Are you interested in learning how Microsoft is leading the industry transformation to the cloud? Or how Microsoft is committed to partner success? Is there something specific about the business vision, commitment, or consumerization of business that relates especially to you, the partner, which you want to hear Steve Ballmer speak to?

    Here are some of my favorites that have already been posted:

    Jeff:

    >Dear Steve,
    >I’m interested in Microsoft and your personal philanthropic activities pertaining to the Greater Seattle area. Can you please transform Key Arena into the Windows Media Center where Microsoft products can be showcased as well as being home for champion NBA and NHL teams?

    Bill (for fun let’s say, Gates):

    >I want to first thank you for all your efforts in keeping the Seattle Supersonics in Seattle where they belong. They have been gone for over three years, and nothing is being done. Is there any way you could bring up this vital issue? Microsoft could be a community sponsor like it is for the Seattle Storm Basketball team. Thanks so much!

    Milton Huertas:
    >Who in the company is in charge of product design? We have seen changes in design but still the products seems to lack an edge. What steps are you taking to have system folks and product design folks get together to create the future? I fear that MS may be in neutral similar to the Detroit car CEO’s and designers that produced – the Pinto, the Pacer, and other horrible products. Do you see MS stuck in neutral?

    The hands down winner though is Perry Keithely:

    >I’m concerned about you screwing up Skype.

    Aren’t we all, Perry.

  • Samsung, Apple to End Nokia’s Smartphone Reign

    It’s not just that Samsung will sell more phones than Nokia, it’s that Samsung and Apple will both, individually, sell more phones than Nokia. Nokia isn’t moving from the number one spot to number two, they are dropping to third — for the first time since 1996.

    Credit where credit is due, nice work to Samsung for being fast to react and capitalize on Nokia’s floundering.

  • Commoditize your Complements

    Neven Mrgan on app pricing and iA Writer:

    >In conclusion: pay $20 if you think you’ll get $20 of use out of the app. That is the only meaningful criterion to use.

    Spot on.

  • Apple’s Ron Johnson Going to J.C. Penney

    This is great for Johnson and in all honesty it shouldn’t change a thing for Apple. Johnson did a great job for Apple, but Apple’s retail strategy is not only very mature it is also very sound at this point.

    My guess is that Johnson felt there wasn’t much left for him to do at Apple — but that’s pure speculation.

    What isn’t speculation: he has a ton of work to do for J.C. Penny, a ton.