The Brooks Review

Month: November 2011

  • A New Low

    Range Govindan writing an article titled *How to Live without a Cell Phone or Tablet* advises under how to live without a tablet, that since the iPad forces you to buy apps you should:
    >Non-iOS Tablets: While it’s true that the iPad is one of the best tablets around, the closed nature of the device makes it somewhat problematic for some users. Instead of using an iPad, which you’ll most probably want to update the following year, try a non-iOS device.

    My guess is that this advice will accurately curb your desire to own and use a tablet.

  • ‘I Swapped My MacBook for an iPad+Linode’

    Interesting story of how a guy went from developing on a MacBook Pro to using just and iPad and Linode server. I personally think that this is a pretty stupid move, if only because it imposes far too many constraints for an incredibly small payoff. However, I do think it is pretty neat that it can be done and that this guy seems to like it.

    I have tried, and can, work all day on just my iPad. I have all the apps and tools that I need, but no matter how hard I try I find that I am much slower using the iPad than I am on my Mac. Whether it is the lack of true multitasking, keyboard shortcuts, mouse, or just a large screen — I can’t say, all I know is that it is a last resort as an “only” machine.

  • Apple Needs a Touch More Search

    One of my biggest annoyances with iOS and Apple TV is that I often know exactly what I want, just not where it is. Take for instance the Apple TV.

    At $99 it is a fantastic product and with an added subscription to Netflix it is a wonder how I lived before. What happens though if you want to watch a movie, say *Apocalypse Now*?

    Well if you are a Netflix subscriber that would be the first place you start, so you go into Netflix and search (with your Apple TV remote of course) through the database. For the sake of this example let’s say Netflix doesn’t have the movie, you must then back out to the main menu and search the iTunes Movie listings, again entering things with your remote, jogging about the virtual keyboard.

    Wouldn’t it just be far more convenient if there was a global search, that when used, returned a result that said: *Apocalypse Now* is available on both iTunes and your Netflix account, there are also 43 results on YouTube. Perhaps it even states whether buying from iTunes would be a higher resolution or not, but let’s not get greedy here.

    Wouldn’t that be a far better user experience, and potentially more lucrative for Apple?

    “Sorry, Netflix doesn’t have it — iTunes does.”

    ### Newsstand

    I have a similar issue with Newsstand and the implementation of separate but equal with periodicals on the iPad/iPhone. I subscribe to about 5 periodicals in Newsstand and I often find that I have read an article I want to reference, I remember what it is about, but can’t remember where or when I read it. I just know it was on my iPad in a “magazine”.

    As of right now I would need to go in and search each magazine “app” (if it has search) and hope to find it. Maddening.

    Why can’t I just perform a search at the Newsstand level and see what results I get, regardless of what “magazine” the article was published in? Why must I pinch, zoom, tap, pluck, swipe, and poke my way around until I find the article I need?

    Instapaper and Safari all allow me to quickly do this, why not these native ‘buckets’ that Apple has created and forced my content into?

    We need more search and less touch, especially when I am paying for so much of this content.

  • “Siri, How Much Data Do You Gobble Up in a Month?”

    Jacqui Cheng investigating Siri data usage:
    >We performed six tasks that would be considered to be local tasks. These queries included things like, “Set an alarm for 3 hours from now,” “Make an appointment for 2pm on Friday” (and then telling Siri to cancel the task), “Remind me to file expense reports when I get home,” and “What is the contact info for Ars Technica?”

    >These tasks added up to a total of 220KB of data usage, or an average of 36.7KB per query. The actual numbers ranged from 60KB down to 18KB, and we believe this is correlated to the complexity of the specific query and language we used to perform it.

    In other words if you are a heavy Siri user (using it 10-15 times a day for such a task) you are looking at adding 30MB of data a month. That’s a lot less data that I expected it to be, well done on Apple’s part.

  • Daring Fireball: ‘The Type of Companies That Publish Future Concept Videos’

    John Gruber:

    >I’m not arguing that making concept videos directly leads to a lack of traction in the current market. I’m arguing that making concept videos is a sign of a company that has a lack of institutional focus on the present and near-present.

    The two big companies producing ‘Future Concept Videos’ right now are Microsoft and RIM — both companies have failed to create new innovative products in the last few years and are, arguably, suffering because of it.

    Microsoft is too big, unfocused, and lacking in leadership to put on a new pair of pants. RIM has seemingly just stuck their heads in the sand and are hoping for the best — at least at the `C` level positions.

    I personally have no problem with these types of concept videos, because I see them very much in the same light as I see concept cars. The idea is that you push forward some radical things to get people talking about it and then you use these ideas as guidance moving forward. That works well for companies that execute on these plans, like Aston Martin or BMW. Both having pushed out radical concept cars that then ended up seeing the light of day a couple of years later with only minor changes. ((The Aston Martin Rapide for example.))

    Here, with Microsoft and RIM, they are fully admitting this is fantasy, instead of admitting this is a direction they are pursuing. That’s the problem I have with these videos: fantasy.

    Fantasy is fine in the movies, but for a company you need to have goals. What goal does Microsoft have for the Kinect?

  • Apple Misses iTunes Match Launch Target

    Oops. Not surprising to anyone who has been using the beta versions of it though. My guess is that it will ship pretty soon.

  • Quote of the Day: Watts Martin

    “People who don’t know a damn thing about your business can correctly tell you your model is broken without being able to tell you how to fix it.”

  • Amazon Cloud Music Player Deleted From iTunes Due to ‘Legal Issues’

    Eliot Van Buskirk writes that the app called ‘gMusic’ (allowing you to play Amazon cloud stored music on the iPhone) was pulled from iTunes. The reason cited was: “legal issues with the music industry.”

    I am not sure if Buskirk intentionally is trying to say that competition is partly to blame for the app getting pulled, or not, but it certainly sounds like that is what he is implying.

    >However, separating music clouds from their mega-sized motherships turns them into commodities. If you can use all three of these music clouds with the same phone just by tapping a different app, you’re unlikely to develop an exclusive reliance on one or the other, which is what each of these companies hopes will happen […]

    The assumption being that Apple wants everyone using iTunes Match and not Google or Amazon for cloud storage.

    If that was the case I doubt Apple would have even approved these apps. My guess is that there really were legal issues — one reason it took Apple so long to get in the music stored in the cloud business, and still won’t offer streaming, is the inane restrictions labels impose.