The Brooks Review

Month: September 2011

  • HTC Status™

    I have been seeing this phone on TV commercials a lot lately, and it bugged me enough to check out the website for it, that’s when I read this:

    >You know those priceless moments with your friends on Facebook—that quick pic, inside joke, or perfectly timed post? The HTC Status™ has a Facebook share button that makes those moments happen more often, keeping you at the center of your social circle. One second you’re sharing, the next second your friends are commenting.

    Basically it sounds like owning this phone creates more priceless moments in your life. ((You can’t make this stuff up.))

  • Andy Rubin Got Inspiration for Android Framework While Working at Apple

    Florian Mueller with the latest in patent wars:
    >But Apple now asserts — in a filing with the ITC, which means Apple has a legal obligation to make truthful representations of fact — that Rubin’s superiors at Apple were the inventors of that realtime API patent and he worked for them at the very time they made that invention.

    This is actually a post — no matter how boring patents are to you — that you need to read. It is pretty interesting stuff and really paints Rubin as a “bad guy” in these patent cases.

  • Siegler’s Hands-On with the Amazon Tablet

    MG Siegler on the version of Android and associated apps on the device:

    >They are not working with Google on this. At all.

    From the sounds of it I may have greatly underestimated Amazon’s ability to create a decent UI. I still reserve judgment. But $250? Seems a bit high to hit mass-market appeal, even on that magic Amazon front page.

    All in all I think Shawn was right on the latest (#25) episode of our podcast: this is a device people will buy just to say that they have a “tablet”.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 25: WhaatsAaaapp?

    As it turns out Shawn is quite the movie critic and we also take you on a tour of Kickstarter projects. Also: Amazon tablets, moving Dashboard widgets and iCloud. Oh and Shawn tried to iMessage me during the show.

  • Quote of the Day: MG Siegler

    “Microsoft’s problem is that the public isn’t stupid.”

  • Sponsoring TBR

    Just a quick note: there is only one slot left to sponsor the RSS feed for September. Current subscriber count is 5,800 readers . All smarter than your average bear.

    Get in touch if you are interested (other dates available too).

  • WeatherSnitch

    My thanks to WeatherSnitch for sponsoring the RSS feed this week to promote their latest version of the app. WeatherSnitch has long been one of my favorite iOS weather apps — it’s month view offers one of the best weather forecast views of any app.

    Give it a look-see and see what you think.

  • Which Girl Scout Cookies Score the Most Brownie Points?

    Interesting break down. For the record I purchased 8 boxes of Thin Mints for my own consumption last year — I will not make that mistake again as it is clear now that more were needed.

  • Improving Alarms in Clock App

    I second this motion, I always have to change my ringer volume before I fall asleep so that I don’t have a heart attack when it goes off the next morning.

  • How to Get Rid of DigiNotar Digital Certificates From OS X

    Best get rid of this certificate for the time being and this is a nice write up on how to do just that.

  • A Markdown Primer

    Following-up on my post [yesterday](https://brooksreview.net/2011/08/terpstra/), TJ Luoma has an old, but great Markdown Primer for those interested in learning an incredibly useful language.

  • Multi-Platform Is a Feature

    David Sparks:
    >Expect to see a lot of familiar apps on unfamiliar platforms soon.

    Sparks is making the argument that apps on more than one platform are going to basically become the standard before a consumer considers an app for use. It has been my standard since the iPhone was gifted the App Store.