The Brooks Review

Month: October 2011

  • Digital Magazines Still Have Adverts Non-Shock

    Craig Grannell offers his opinion, refuting [Marco’s claim](http://www.marco.org/2011/10/27/double-dipping-ads-in-ipad-magazines), on magazines that you pay for and still get ads in.

    I get where Grannell is coming from and he is right that ads in magazines (digital or other) are not *that* intrusive and act as a subsidy for the magazine. However, that’s only an explanation and not an excuse.

    I subscribe to a great many magazines because it is often cheaper to subscribe (usually about $19 a year) than it is to buy them à la carte as I want them. I am not paying $4.99 for one issue when $19 gets me a years worth — makes no sense — and that is exactly why the pricing is the way it is: publishers want people to be subscribers because that is what ad rates are based on.

    So, yes, I do want magazines to make money and pay writers — but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the readers. You either strip the ads and ask the readers to support you, or remove the price of admission and get the ads to support you. Anything in between annoys the crap out of me.

    Grannell asks in response to Marco asking what he paid for:

    >How about the content, and the wages of the people who write the content, and who design the app?

    This is all true, but it is also true then that he paid for: the ads. It is also true that the advertisers paid for the wages, and designers. That’s the problem. ((Speaking solely for myself here.))

  • Quote of the Day: Dan Benjamin

    “‘My new iOS app uses Facebook for logins’ is the new ‘It only runs on Windows’”

  • HP Announces It Is Keeping Personal Systems Group

    Matthew Panzarino on The Next Web:
    >“It’s clear after our analysis that keeping PSG within HP is right for customers and partners, right for shareholders, and right for employees,” Whitman said. “HP is committed to PSG, and together we are stronger.”

    So, what changed? That is, unless, no “analysis” was done when the decision to shit-can the PC division was made.

    HP and Netflix have a lot in common.

  • Quote of the Day: Marco Arment

    “I just don’t feel comfortable paying for an iPad or web publication, no matter how good it is, and then having ads shoved down my throat.”

  • Siri Powered TV

    Nick Bilton speculates (guess? has heard from unknown sources?) that the Apple TV (an actual TV) will be Siri driven. Which would be great if you knew what you wanted to watch, but not so great for channel surfing.

    Seems logical, but at the same time hard to envision without a more full picture of how the system would work.

  • Bloomberg TV+ for iPad

    Live TV on your iPad, for free. For. Free. This is another, in a long line, of examples of Bloomberg getting “it”. Who cares if you don’t like Bloomberg TV, or the industry they serve — the precedent of this move is very big.

    More like this please.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: Belkin Mini Surge Protector

    I have been wanting one of these little guys for a long time, but ~$29 — come on. For $11.60? Hells yeah.

    So I bought one about a month back, it was great move. Here are some of the scenarios that I have used or for, or are planning on using it for:

    – Taking to a coffee shop when I know I will need to charge my MacBook Air (helps to split the outlet to share the love).
    – Every time I travel. Doubles as my iPhone charger and to help with the general lack of power outlets everywhere I go.
    – Conferences. (see: Coffee Shops)

    It’s a handy thing to have, doesn’t weigh much, and is decently compact (when in your bag, quite bulky on the outlet). Again, I would have kept living life without it but at $11.60 it is hard to go wrong.

    **UPDATED**: You can only charge one iPhone at a time (I am told), and you cannot charge an iPad, off the USB ports.

  • iPod nano Remote Controls

    Shawn Blanc is dreaming:
    >I think the idea of a product like this — a touchscreen watch that plays music and also has phone-like capabilities and an ability to connect to and control our other devices — is a no-brainer.

    I see the limited appeal of such a device, but I think it would be a horrible failure. The iPod nano as a watch is poor. The reasons:

    1. It is too big.
    2. It cannot be operated without looking (yeah, I’ll get to Siri in a moment).
    3. Redundant

    If you already carry your iPhone in your pocket, what’s the actual benefit to controlling it from an iPod nano? It saves you from pulling out your phone? Your iPhone is likely already in your hand.

    Add to this that such a watch would need a loud enough speaker that you could hear the feedback and a directional microphone to cut ambient noise for commands — well I just don’t think it works very well. I don’t think you could create a watch-like device that is more convenient to control the phone that is already in your pocket, than just pulling out your phone to control it.

    Besides, the iPhone (in my mind) already has such a controller: bluetooth headsets.

    Siri has a place on iPods, but it don’t think using an iPod to control an iPhone when the two are only ~30 inches apart is Siri’s place on iPods. I think Apple would be better served with another go at creating a sleek bluetooth headset, which already can control your iPhone.

    Think of it this way, what’s easier: holding a watch close to your mouth to send commands, or just keeping a (tacky) bluetooth headset in your ear?

  • Dropbox Announces ‘Team’ Service

    Will Knight:
    >The new service, Dropbox for Teams, which has been in beta for the past year, is aimed at companies. It will provide a terabyte of storage for five users, along with administration tools and support, for $795 per year. Additional user licenses cost $125 per year and come with 200 gigabytes of additional storage.

    First I had heard of this, but seems like a no-brainer. You can read more about Teams [here at their FAQ](https://www.dropbox.com/help/category/Teams).

  • Paul Thurrott on the iPhone 4S Camera

    Paul Thurrott:

    >But the iPhone 4S camera is the best phone-based camera I’ve used so far, and that was obvious after just a few snapshots. This is a great reason to consider upgrading.

    That’s from the guy that runs the “Supersite for Windows”, so you would be hard pressed to call him a “fanboi”. So compare and contrast his statement to the one [posted earlier from Elgan](https://brooksreview.net/2011/10/elgan-hes-an-idiot/).

  • 3G MacBook Follow-up

    After posting my [3G MacBook post](https://brooksreview.net/2011/10/3g-macbooks/) I have been getting quite a few more emails than normal. The bulk of which agree that Apple should provide such an option, but worry that it never will for various reasons.

    Among those reasons the most common are: the iPhone already has a personal hotspot mode, data plans are expensive and this would add yet another data plan to pay for, and lastly that the data caps are so low such a computer is not realistic. I want to take a moment to better explain why I think all of these are poor excuses for Apple to *not* make a 3G equipped MacBook.

    ### Personal Hotspots

    The argument here is that Apple provided the personal hotspot mode on the iPhone so that it didn’t have to set about installing 3G in a MacBook.

    I disagree.

    I think the more likely reason Apple provided the personal hotspot mode is because they wanted to check the box on the feature comparison list with other smart phones. This feature of the iPhone never gets a ton of billing from Apple, likely because it is a quick fix to the deeper, more complex, problem of internet everywhere.

    The main problems with a personal hotspot mode are:

    1. It requires you to own two Apple devices. Something that Apple has been trying to stay away from doing ever since they introduced the first iPod. Take for example the fact that now, under iOS 5, a user can fully setup and restore an iPhone or iPad without the need for a computer.
    2. It is a clunky, non-seamless, system. To get hooked up you have to turn it on and then connect to it. This is not the type of solution that Apple likes.
    3. It’s a drain on the iPhone battery — something Apple goes to incredible lengths to prolong.

    The iPhone personal hotspot is a stop-gap, not a solution.

    ### Data Plans: Pricing

    Many have also commented that data plans are already pricy and the last thing Apple would want is to saddle users with yet another data plan. I largely agree with this, but I also see it as something that is mostly out of Apple’s control and thus something they would just ignore.

    While it would be ideal if you could share a data plan between your iPhone and iPad, that is simply not the case in the U.S.. I would suspect that Apple doesn’t much care about this, as the likelihood of a user having three data plans for three Apple devices is lower than most of the readers of this site suspect it is.

    I would guess that any 3G enable MacBook would have the same data plans and options as the iPad does: simple and à la carte.

    ### Data Plans: Caps

    Something that I had completely forgotten to address in my last post was my idea behind how Apple could deal with data caps for 3G toting MacBook users. If we assume that any 3G plan in the U.S. for a MacBook would only go as high as 2GB (maybe 5GB in rare cases) then it is safe to assume that this is not nearly enough bandwidth for the average user.

    Many readers wrote in about the potential for overage charges when you decide to download a movie on the go, or backup to Backblaze and other services. I think these readers missed the larger point of: this is not what a 3G MacBook would be for.

    I never meant to imply that we need a 3G MacBook so that we can go about our regular internet connected lives, I was simply saying that there is a subset of core services that we need and should be able to access anytime we want. Things like syncing files and checking websites.

    You would be hard pressed to go over a 2GB data cap if you stuck to actual work while on 3G. Still though I think there is an easier solution: create a bandwidth monitor mode in OS X.

    I would see it working like this:

    – OS X detects that a user is on 3G and automatically shuts off all known services that hog bandwidth.
    – OS X only allows user directed interject connectivity. (e.g. The users says fetch email, update Twitter, the user said go to this page.) All background internet enabled services are suspended.
    – There is a custom setting that a user can tweak to grant permission to certain apps, much in the same vein as how the current firewall or Spotlight settings work.

    The goal would be to create a version of OS X that would help to limit internet traffic while on 3G — all without interfering with how the user is directing the computer to act. I think such a solution is not only doable, but would be quite user friendly in a 3G MacBook scenario.

    ### Two Reasons Against 3G

    Demand and battery life hits to the MacBooks.

  • Sending a Message

    Marco Arment:

    >Even though there weren’t a lot of them sold, cutting off support less than two years after its launch (and even less time after it stopped being sold) sends a message to the other manufacturers that it’s acceptable not to care about the long-term usage of Android devices.

    As a nerd I would be pissed. I have to wonder though just how many Android users even know what version of Android they are on and if there is even a new version out — let alone what features are *in* the new version.

    So yes, for nerds this probably is a huge negative — for most users? Well I doubt that most users know and care, all they know is that their phone isn’t evil. ((Clearly))

  • Patents and Stealing

    Timothy B. Lee talking about patent lawsuits between Apple and Android handset companies:

    >The important question isn’t whether such “stealing” occurred, it’s whether we want to live in a world where it’s illegal. Do you want to live in a world where only Apple is allowed to make phones with pinch-to-zoom capability (and dozens of other features) until 2027? I sure don’t.

    I can’t say that I disagree with him here. In fact I was just about to write a similar post. While I don’t think Apple is wrong for patenting these things and for using them in lawsuits, it’s the modus operandi for this industry right now, I think we as a society need to question what should be patentable.

    I don’t have the answer here, but perhaps we should think about what the answer *should* be.

  • Google Puts a Price on Privacy

    Sean Sperte [reflecting on the recent changes to Google searches](http://searchengineland.com/google-puts-a-price-on-privacy-98029):

    >It means, though, that Google’s privacy policies are being dictated by money. That can’t be a good thing.

    It was a matter of time.

  • Nokia Lumia 800

    I can’t speak much to the new version of Windows Phone 7, but the Lumia 800 looks like a phone that I would want to hold. And I can’t think of a better compliment to an iPhone competitor than that.

  • Quote of the Day: Jason Kottke

    “But then you look at the general aesthetics of OSX and iOS…I don’t know, it’s really confusing how the same company, especially one that had such strong design leadership, could produce something as beautifully spare as iOS and something as cheesy as the Game Center app.”

  • Meet Mike Elgan: An Idiot

    [Mike Elgan thinks](http://www.datamation.com/mobile-wireless/why-you-should-wait-for-the-iphone-5-1.html):

    >The truth, it turns out, is that the iPhone 4s kind of sucks.

    He boldly claims:

    >The iPhone 4s is the first stumble by Apple since the company launched the original iPhone in 2007.

    The rest of his article is filled with nonsense pilled atop of incorrect information. For example, Elgan states:

    >That last bit, the “reduced motion blur” is flat-out wrong. Apple claims that because they say the camera has image stabilization. But this feature is undetectable in real life.

    It doesn’t take a genius (or maybe it does) to read Apple’s tech specs page for the iPhone 4S and see that it says:

    >Video stabilization

    Note, that is not “image stabilization”, just video. Now, Elgan does note that:

    >I can’t detect any image stabilization in videos, either.

    Which is a far different statement from saying there is none. Either way he is an idiot.

    His biggest frustration with the phone is also his biggest love of the phone: Siri. Elgan states that 80% of the things he does on his phone is now with Siri, but it is still a pretty crappy phone. He also notes, in regard to Siri, that:

    >The problem is that it’s exactly what Apple says it is: an unfinished beta.

    Hmm.

    Elgan is flat out wrong, and idiotic about the iPhone 4S. You can make an argument that an iPhone 4 user should wait another year, that makes sense. But you can’t make that argument based on:

    – Siri being in beta, just as Apple says it is.
    – The camera being worse than the 4 — because it isn’t.
    – The camera not having image stabilization, like Apple never said it had.
    – iCloud, because that is an iOS 5 thing — something that iPhone 4 users get too.
    – The design of the new apps, because of the same reason as the last point.
    – The yellow screen, because this is always a complaint with new iPhones while the glue, or whatever, dries.

    In fact, Elgan’s only valid point is that the battery life isn’t as good — something I have experienced too. Mike Elgan: idiot.

  • iMessengers Be Warned

    Chuck Skoda:
    >If you send a text to multiple iMessage users, anyone who responds inline will have their message sent to everyone. I previously thought this was an issue with people having “Group Messaging” enabled in Settings→Messages, but apparently this functionality comes standard with iMessage.

    He brings up a couple of good reasons why this is a less that ideal situation. I haven’t noticed this personally, but that likely has to do with the fact that I never am involved in multi-party messages like this.

    The second point he brings up on privacy though is something that I have never thought of, and is in the same vein of why I hate people that send mass emails with the recipients all in the “to” field instead of BCC’d.

  • Gems Revisited: Fantastical 1.1 and Moom 2.3.1

    Dan Frakes does a nice job detailing some of the new features to two of my favorite and daily used little apps: Fantastical and Moom.

    The big addition to Fantastical is the ability to edit events in the app. Moom also has a big update: you can now have a little grid pop-up and you can draw the size of the window, neat stuff.

    Both have a bunch of other adds and worth checking out if you were holding out for some odd reason.

    Frakes on one of the great new features in Moom:

    >The other big new feature is multi-window-layout snapshots. If you’ve got a favorite setup, with each program’s windows meticulously organized, you can take a snapshot of that layout and then use Moom to restore it at any time. This feature can be helpful for restoring order, but it’s also quite useful if, for example, you’ve got a Mac laptop and you regularly switch between using one display (just the laptop’s) and multiple displays (the laptop’s and an external display while at the office).

  • The $8 HBO

    Peter Kafka on the plans to turn around Netflix:

    >So Hastings is trying to build an $8-a-month version of HBO — a network you pay for in addition to your regular TV package, not one that replaces it. And to make that work, he doesn’t have to have everything — but he has to have stuff you can’t get anywhere else.

    That’s a great way to frame what Netflix is trying to do, the question now is can they do it? ((On a side note: I worry for a company with a [CEO sporting a goatee](http://allthingsd.com/files/2011/06/reed-hastings.jpeg).))