The Brooks Review

Year: 2011

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 35: Lunchbox Locker

    >In this episode Shawn and Ben talk about Jeeps, the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Touch, all the hoopla surrounding Readability and paying publishers, and the Jawbone UP.

  • Sprint Most Dropped iPhone Calls

    Jordan Golson:
    >For dropped calls, something for which AT&T has been consistently criticized, Sprint comes out worst. Metrico claims Verizon experienced a 2.1% call failure rate while AT&T had 2.8% and Sprint was worst at 3.7%.

    Also take a look at the chart for the network speeds, AT&T really comes out ahead in this test. While I don’t doubt it has issues in Manhattan and San Francisco, it overall is a pretty decent network it would seem.

  • OmniFocus + Siri

    From the geniuses at OmniGroup:

    >We could have said “Yay, Siri and OmniFocus can work together” and gone back to our long-term projects. Instead, a couple engineers got to talking “You know, if we… and then the server… and…” “Wow, I think that would totally work!”

    So damned sweet.

    **UPDATED**: I just had a chance to play with this and it really does work well. Much better than other solutions I have seen. Additionally it “completes” the task that you added to the Reminders app so that you don’t get a double notification. If you work at the OmniGroup and see me on the streets of Seattle I will happily buy you a drink.

  • Paul Thurrott Hates the Kindle Touch

    Here he is starting off his criticism:
    >In fact, I will go so far as to say that this device appears to have been designed by someone who has not only never used a Kindle, but is actively working to usurp the platform from inside. Amazon, find this mole and remove them with maximum prejudice. They have ruined a device that should have been excellent.

    **UPDATED**: I don’t agree with his assessment, sorry that wasn’t clear.

  • Actually, it’s 15

    Bryan Gruley and Cliff Edwards writing about Sony and its CEO Stringer for Businessweek:
    >Jeff Loff, a senior analyst with Macquarie Capital Securities in Tokyo, points out that Sony sells nine different 46-inch TV models in the U.S. and its mobile-phone joint venture with Ericsson offers more than 40 handsets. “Can you imagine how dilutive that is to your R&D?” he says. A Sony spokesman says the number of phones is being reduced, and notes that Samsung has 15 different 46-inch TVs.

    This article does a great job to spell out what’s wrong with Sony and why Stringer should not be in charge — though the Stringer bit I don’t think is the point of the article.

    I also can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the rabbit hole that Google is heading down. Both are engineer focused and create a wide range of products and in Google’s case are continuing to move farther away from their profit center.

  • National Geographic Photo Contest 2011 – The Big Picture

    Some phenomenal photos.

  • Readability and Collection of Money for Others

    I was chatting with a friend the other day about Readability’s model. The question that he asked was (paraphrasing): “So after 12 months, what happens to the money that is unclaimed?” You see “premium” members pay a monthly fee (that they choose, mostly) and 70% of that fee is evenly distributed out amongst the sites that the person reads.

    This is an incredibly noble cause, and I believe that Readability only has the best intentions, but there does lie a significant flaw in the model. In order for a site to get the money, the site actually has to sign up, as a publisher, with Readability and then they get a check every 6 months.

    So after 12 months, what happens to all the money that would, *should*, have gone to a publisher that did not opt-in, or actively chose to not participate?

    The obvious answer is that Readability keeps that money and its just a bonus to them for pursuing this business model.

    Hmm.

    I was a huge fan of Readability when it came out because of the fact that I may make more money. I’m not going to lie, I like things that impact my bottom line in a positive way. I never once had a problem collecting, and continuing to collect, a check from them every six months.

    But I think they are going about this wrong. If my assumption that Readability pockets unclaimed money after 12 months, I think as both a publisher and formerly a paying member, we should be upset.

    If a site doesn’t claim money after 12 months, I think the left over funds should be dispersed equally amongst the sites that actually are setup to collect the money — on a user by user basis. That is if Tom paid out $5 to 5 sites ($1 for each site) and 1 of those sites didn’t collect their money, after 12 months the 4 sites that Tom already paid each now get $0.25 more — this seems far more “noble” that taking the money and sticking it in your pocket.

    This would be better, but it’s still not great. The next part, I don’t have a good solution for.

    ### Last Night on Twitter

    You see last night on Twitter [David Chartier](https://twitter.com/#!/chartier/status/137316873887956992) tweeted:

    >Readability makes it drop-dead simple for readers to thank publishers, publishers to get paid. I love it [http://tmblr.co/ZelxbyC3Y5rH](http://tmblr.co/ZelxbyC3Y5rH)

    That tweet set in motion one of the most interesting discussions I have ever followed on Twitter, because Kontra (@counternotions) [responded](https://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status/137330248252530689):

    >@chartier How do you know publishers get the money?

    I am going to skip ahead here, but first a short recap of the conversation. Kontra doesn’t sound like he is a Readability fan, and eventually Anil Dash (Readability advisor) and Marco Arment (Instapaper founder) chime in to the conversation. Everything is very cordial and there is some nice discussion and debate. Then Kontra sent four tweets that really blew my mind and completely changed how I think about Readability.

    [Tweet 1](https://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status/137351777023565824):

    >@chartier Is it OK for a 3rd party to collect money in the name a publisher w/out its knowledge or content? (See, books, Google, courts.)

    [Tweet 2](https://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status/137370881625296897):

    >@chartier For avg user, Readability is collecting money in the name of the publisher. There’s no way of getting around that.

    [Tweet 3](https://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status/137374513666080768):

    >@anildash When somebody collects money in your name w/out your consent (with a cut), it’s called something else in many boroughs of NYC.

    [Tweet 4](https://twitter.com/#!/counternotions/status/137377133193478144):

    >@anildash Any act is not always better than no solution. Readability has no right to claim agency for publishers w/out consent.

    After reading those four tweets I really started to have a problem with Readability’s business model. Because the mysterious Kontra is right — Readability has no right collecting money in my name without my consent.

    Now, realistically, I have given Readability consent by signing up — but what about other publishers that have not only not signed up, but have actively chosen to *not* sign up? Is it still OK for Readability to be collecting money in their name?

    I think not.

    But how do you solve this problem? I don’t know, but it is a very real problem.

    *(Note: I just want to reiterate that I don’t think Readability has any malicious intent. The model is complex and inherently flawed.)*

  • Can Steve Jobs Be Replaced?

    Walter Isaacson in an interview with Nick Bilton:
    >He can’t be replaced by one person, but two people can replace him. Tim Cook is the business side of Steve’s brain. He’s meticulous, scientific and business-like. Jony Ive is the artistic, emotional, romantic side of Steve. The two of them together are an incredible team that will hold together very well.

  • To Occupy Such a Time as This

    James Shelley:
    >To occupy such a time as this is to realize that every issue before us is bigger than any particular brand of protest or strategy. If these are indeed the greatest cultural challenges that we and our children will face, then we do not only need the direct action of demonstrators to activate our collective consciousness, we also need to coordinate some practical, actionable strategies for addressing the issues themselves.

    Well said.

  • A human review of the Kindle Fire

    Marco Arment on the Fire:

    >Granted, I’ve only spent two days with it, so I can’t share any long-term impressions. But I’m honestly unlikely to have any, because this isn’t a device that makes me want to use it more. And that’s fatal.

    Exact same feeling that I had, though I didn’t notice the light leak issues that he did.

  • EU Adopts Resolution Against US Domain Seizures

    Ernesto at TorrentFreak:
    >According to the resolution these measures need to be countered as they endanger “the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication.”

  • ‘Understanding Apple Fans’

    Mike Loukides starts by talking about how much he adores Android because it is open, the ends with this:
    >The price of openness may well be letting vendors break stuff. And I suppose I’m willing to pay that price. But I don’t have to be happy about it. I hope Google can figure out how to exert some control over what vendors do with Android; that would be good for the whole community. AT&T and other carriers are not helping Android, or themselves, by turning a great product into a second-rate one. And maybe I’m becoming soft in my old age, but I now understand what Apple fans hate about Android.

    I’d say he still doesn’t fully understand Apple fans. To understand Apple fans, you must first understand why this statement by Loukides is so absurd to Apple fans:

    >[…]at one point had a whole stack of Android phones sitting on my desk[…]

    That statement right there is a better example of everything that is wrong with the Android market, it’s more than just crap UI and carrier logos. It’s about every facet of Android and the market that it has created.

    You can argue all day long that:

    >[…]if Apple didn’t exist to be teach us what great design was, we’d certainly be happy with Android. Way, way better than any of the feature-phones I’ve used in the past.

    Sure, and I thought my Treo and BlackBerry were pretty great before iPhone. The fact isn’t that Android would be amazing if iPhone didn’t exist — it’s that Android still can’t come close to the polish of the iPhone after existing for 6 plus years. To say that an Android phone is “way, way better” than old feature phones, is setting the bar so low that it’s not even a valid comparison.

  • Ars on the Silk Browser

    Casey Johnston for Ars Technica did some more scientific studies on the speed of the Kindle Fire’s Silk browser:
    >The internal specs of the Kindle Fire are more than adequate for simple Web browsing, but browsing doesn’t happen with much urgency. To use a popular point of comparison, the Fire loaded pages two to three times slower than the iPad 2, for instance. And the Kindle Fire runs the SunSpider 0.9.1 JavaScript benchmark in around 2,500 milliseconds, much slower than the iPad 2’s 1,700 milliseconds.

    Seem about right in my testing and to be honest I really think Silk is faster with the acceleration ‘off’.

  • Shawn Blanc Reviews The Kindle Touch

    Shawn Blanc:
    >But who says the Kindle has to replace the iPad? It’s not uncommon for people to own both. I know people who use their Kindle and their iPad. Of course, I also know others who abandoned their Kindle back in April 2010.

    >For me, I can see the Kindle becoming the reading device I keep on the coffee table and take on vacations. But, if I’m going to head out the door and am going to take just one device, you can bet it’ll be the iPad.

    I have always liked my Kindle 2, but what Shawn says here is really accurate. You have to be devoted to reading to find a use for a Kindle after you get an iPad — the iPad is far more useful and typically closer to you than your Kindle ever is.

    So while I love Kindles, and own a Kindle, they are pretty well unused in my home.

  • Verizon Tracking Phone Use

    Dan Seitz on recent Verizon privacy changes:
    >Yes, Verizon is literally tracking where you go and what you do with your phone.

    According to [TechCrunch](http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/16/verizon-opt-out/) AT&T does the same thing, but the user must opt-in. With Verizon the user has to opt-out.

    Verizon is doing it wrong.

  • How Facebook Tracks Users and Non-Users Alike

    Byron Acohido reporting on Facebook tracking cookies:
    >Facebook thus compiles a running log of all your webpage visits for 90 days, continually deleting entries for the oldest day and adding the newest to this log.

    >If you are logged-on to your Facebook account and surfing the Web, your session cookie conducts this logging. The session cookie additionally records your name, e-mail address, friends and all data associated with your profile to Facebook. If you are logged-off, or if you are a non-member, the browser cookie conducts the logging; it additionally reports a unique alphanumeric identifier, but no personal information.

    Later Arturo Bejar, Facebook’s engineering director, is quoted as saying:

    >”But we’re not like ad networks at all in our stewardship of the data, in the way we use it, and the way we lay everything out,” Bejar says. “We have a very clear and transparent approach to how we do advertising that I’m very proud of.”

    So I guess the real question is, do you trust Bejar, and therefore Facebook, in general when they say these things?

    What about now:

    >Adding fuel to such concerns, Arnold Roosendaal, a doctoral candidate at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Nik Cubrilovic, an independent Australian researcher, separately documented how Web pages containing Facebook plug-ins carried out tracking more extensive than Facebook publicly admitted to.

    I just don’t buy anything Facebook is saying these days.

  • A Review of “the First Serious iPad Competitor”, aka the Kindle Fire

    Amazon marks their entry into the crowded tablet space with a 7” custom Android OS device — a tablet that is at the bottom of the price for a tablet from any company most people are likely to recognize.

    The long and short of the Fire is that it does quite a few things, but doesn’t do any of them very well. It does many of these things really poorly.

    It was about a year ago that I reviewed the original Samsung Galaxy Tab — one of the first Android tablets, also seven inches. The main problems with that tablet were: hardware, lack of software, the OS and the price. Amazon only fixes the price and the hardware (mostly) on the Fire, otherwise the device feels very similar — though more closed — than the Tab did a year ago.

    That’s probably not something you want someone to ever say about a new tablet: “feels like one I used a year ago.” Tablets aren’t cars, they don’t get better with age, they just get sad with age.

    ### First Run Experience

    Right from the get go the Fire’s first run experience is pretty poor. I am a big believer that I should never have to be shown how to use a device, good devices should be intuitive, and if it isn’t good I don’t want to use it. The Fire walks you through every little tap — a clear sign that the OS is just not that intuitive — before you get going and even with that tutorial I was a bit lost once I was let loose in the OS.

    Right away you are presented with a dialog that you need to update the Fire software, something that took about 5-8 minutes on my very fast Internet connection. Normally I would be fine with this, but I couldn’t even use the device until it updated — there was no option to wait until later, and I really think that is needed before you block a user for running the device.

    Once you finally get into the OS you see a carousel view that isn’t exactly clear on telling you what it is showing. In fact nothing about the UI on the Fire is very straightforward. It seems like I am constantly scanning the interface to see what I want to do and where I need to tap.

    Your recent items are most prominent and then you have some favorite apps along the bottom. Music, movies, web browsing are shown in a small line of text along the top. Seriously I had to stop and pause to figure out where the web browser was at first.

    I did get over these issues with use, but it still struck me as uncomfortable.

    ### Context Unaware

    What’s most interesting to me about the Fire is that, unlike iOS, it is very context unaware. With the iPad there is very clear modes delineated by the fact that each app is different and maintains it’s place in the grid. The main grid simply cannot show you the last file you worked on, only the last app. That is central to iOS.

    On the Fire the main carousel is your most recently opened items, but not by context or app, instead by individual items like videos, web pages or books. That is a very different concept.

    So maybe you see the email app icon, and a few other app icons — that is all familiar and logical. Then you see the cover of a book, the screenshot of the last webpage you looked at, the artwork for the movie you last watched. These are things that on iOS would be represented by their app icons, instead of the media itself.

    So on iOS where I would see the ‘Safari’ app icon, on the Fire I see the screenshot of the actual webpage.

    I don’t point this out because it is better or worse, but because it is very different. It like storing all the papers on your desk by project in folders and no other way — the Fire then would ditch the folders and just keep stacks of papers by project, with the last viewed paper on top of each stack.

    I like the way the Fire handles this because it makes it easy to jump right back into the movie or webpage that I want — that’s great. I don’t like how prominent this carousel is on the “home” screen of the device, I’d much rather it be treated as secondary in the same way that the “favorite” apps on the home screen currently are. It seems too over powering, but I think with use this is something that you would get very used to.

    ### Closed or Protected?

    The Fire maybe built on top of Android, but it isn’t open to customization the same way that Android is. I can’t change the look of the OS at all. I can’t change the image that is used for the lock screen (it actually rotates through some, which makes it potentially very easy to get your Fire mixed up with another) and I can’t change how long before the device requires a passcode.

    There’s quite a few stupid little things that I have come to expect to be able to do on a tablet, that I simply cannot do on the Fire. I would say this is a sign of a closed system, much as Apple has created with iOS, but perhaps it is better to use the word ‘Protected’ so that we don’t get mixed up with the open source debate.

    Here are some things I expect to be able to do, but currently cannot — or don’t know how to — do:

    – Change the lock screen wallpaper.
    – Change the passcode timeout.
    – Change the time to display in 24-hour format, or even put up the AM/PM symbols.
    – Change the device name that is displayed in the top left corner.
    – Delete apps completely from the device that came with it (like the web icon link to Facebook, WTF).

    There’s more, but I think you get the point, little things are missing.

    ### The Hardware

    The Fire is surprisingly nice feeling in your hand. The device feels thick, but it is hard to make such a smaller footprint feel thin. It is heavy, and feels just as dense as my iPhone. ((I don’t mean that it is the same weight, just that if my iPhone were blown up to the same size as the Fire, I would assume it would be the same weight.)) The weight actually gets in the way of making the device as comfortable to hold for long periods as my Kindle 2 is — thus reducing the reading-in-bed experience.

    The screen feels like any iOS screen. The back has a rubberized coating that isn’t grippy enough to keep it “stuck” on fabric, but does have a nice tactile feel. However, the tradeoff is that the back is prone to many greasy finger prints — ones that don’t wipe off as they do on the screen.

    [](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/fire-2.jpg)

    The digitizer is actually visible under bright lighting and reveals that it is spaced wider than on the iPad. Thus, I would assume, explaining most of the poor touch interaction on the device.

    The power button is small, but easily pressed, at the bottom of the device. Of note the power button actually lights up which is quite off putting for iOS users.

    Overall the Fire is a well built, sleek looking, little tablet. However for $199 you can’t expect perfection as these bumps in the rubber between the chassis and screen show:

    [](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/fire-3.jpg)

    [](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/fire-4.jpg)

    I talked to a few other Fire owners and this seems to be hit and miss whether these ripples are on the device.

    ### Apps

    As was the case with the Samsung Galaxy Tab the apps available for the Fire are both limited and universally subpar. I don’t say that to deride Android and hold iOS up on some pedestal, but the App selection and quality truly is worse than on iOS. This is actually a really big deal for me, and I suspect most users, because Apps are what make these devices so useful.

    Apps that are missing, or lack any useable version:

    – Instapaper (by the developers choice). I did try out Read It Later Pro, but found that the experience was not up to the level of Instapaper — though it is a passable alternative if I was forced into it.
    – An RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. I liked EasyRSS (an pure Reeder clone) the best, but it crashed every time I tried to scroll a list view. Every time. I didn’t find any other RSS readers that worked with Google Reader that are worth even mentioning.
    – A Twitter client (Seesmic is slightly better than the web portal).
    – Notes app. Again here I didn’t find a Dropbox syncing note app, leading me to Evernote as the best solution — though it doesn’t come close to fitting in my “normal” workflow.
    – Dropbox, I am told I could side load one. That’s a lame solution, side loading is something a very small percentage of Fire users will ever do, let alone know what it means.
    – Weather (there are many, many crap ones). The best I found was AccuWeather.

    And then you get to the worst part about the Apps on the Fire: they all have different icon sizes. So when you do see your apps listed in a grid, very few icons are the same size. I don’t even understand the logic on this one and quite frankly don’t think it is possible to logically explain this choice. Even scaling the icons to the same size, at risk of pixelation, would be better than the jumble of sizes.

    Overall I was left very disappointed about the variety of apps and the quality of the apps. (For the record the best app I found was Angry Birds. It actually managed to play smoothly on the device — it may be the only smooth thing on the Fire.)

    ### Video

    A lot has been said about the Fire by other reviewers, but one thing that I kept seeing is that it makes for a good device for viewing video. I don’t get that, it sounds like something reviewers decided that they would like so their entire review wasn’t negative — because in the world of tablets the Fire is just average, at best, when it comes to video.

    Selection wise, it’s pretty great. Playback wise? Not so much.

    Every video I played (Netflix and Prime streaming) played back smoothly, but the layout of the hardware got in the way of my enjoyment of the video. The light sensor for the dimming on the screen is in the top left corner of the device when held in portrait. That’s fine, but when you switch to landscape view it is in the bottom right corner, a spot likely to be covered by your hand — dumb.

    Now it is true that I could spin the device around so that the sensor was back at the top, however that introduces another problem: the UI rotates but not the video. So in order to play back a video in another orientation you need to stop the video, exit the playback, and then enter back in, but you must make sure you are holding the tablet the way you want the video oriented.

    This seems like a bug that should be fixed, but until then it is pretty crappy. (I do want to note that the Netflix app works as expected, just not Amazon’s built-in player.)

    What can’t be solved by a software update is the lack of hardware volume buttons. In order to adjust the volume (something that I apparently do frequently when I watch videos) I have to go back into the software to change the volume. This is just bad design.

    What’s more is that the power button is smack in the middle of the bottom (when held in portrait) and so when you watch a movie it is smack in the middle of the side. I can’t tell you how many times I hit that button while I was holding the device — in any orientation. This is a problem that I have only had on very rare occasions with the iPad.

    ### Silk

    One of the biggest features of the Fire is the web browser: Silk. This browser is the primary reason that I wanted a Fire. Amazon designed Silk to work with its servers in order to help “instantly” load web pages — or at the very least make them much quicker.

    At home I have a 60mbps internet connection on the download and 12-20mbps on the upload. I have an ample connection speed.

    Having said that Silk is not nearly as fast as I would expect for a browser being “assisted” by faster servers. In fact in my very unscientific testing web pages actually load faster when this “acceleration” is **not** enabled. Go figure. ((I tested the speed by clearing the cache, loading the page with acceleration on. Then clearing the cache and loading the same page with acceleration off. I did this with a sampling of 5 site, ranging from complex to simple.))

    Silk also doesn’t work very well when you double tap a column of text so that it will zoom in. The text often reflows when you zoom in on it, something that I find very odd and doesn’t usually zoom in accurately as one would see in Mobile Safari.

    Any Typekit site renders very slowly. The text looks less than stellar on it.

    Overall, the browser is better than the standard Android browser, but no where near as good as Mobile Safari on iOS — not even close.

    ### Reading

    So the Fire is branded under the Kindle name and Kindles are some of the best reading devices on the market (excluding paper). Unfortunately the Fire fails the Kindle brand in the reading segment.

    Oh the text looks fine, comparable to the iPad screen, but the experience of actually reading a book is pretty terrible. I’d take the iBooks design any day over this, because with iBooks at least everything works smoothly.

    #### Books

    My preferred book reading app on my iPad is the Kindle app and so I was excited to give ebooks a go on Amazon’s own device. The design and layout is much the same, with one big caveat.

    There is an odd animation displayed when you change pages — wait no, actually it is just a jittery animation of the pages sliding from one to the next. Page turning is incredibly jittery and given that turning a page is something you frequently do when you read — well this is pretty important.

    Other than that, standard Kindle app fare.

    #### Newspapers

    I purchased two Newspapers (single issues) the local *Seattle Times* and *The New York Times* on the Fire to give each a go. Both are laid out very similar, you are presented with a list of articles with the first couple of lines of text for that article. You can also jump to specific sections of the paper. Tapping a headline brings you into article view where you can actually read the paper from front to back if you wanted by just sliding to the next page. There is no hard stop once you finish an article, you just move on to the next in the list.

    There are still jittery page turns here and over all a pretty uninspiring layout and UI. I don’t hate the newspapers on the Fire, but I find them less appealing than their iPad counterparts — more like you’re reading an ebook than reading a newspaper.

    #### Magazines

    So here’s the deal: I hate magazines on the Fire with such a passion that I very much regret every penny and moment I spent buying and testing *Forbes* — I even hate the fact that this sentence about it has run so long.

    Until a major overhaul is done you are far better served downloading the 500mb magazine issues that are common to the iPad.

    ### Miscellany

    – The keyboard works in much the same way as on every other Android device and like on iOS the keys “pop up” when pressed. What’s odd is that the spacebar also pops up when pressed, this seems a bit unnecessary.
    – The packaging is dead simple. Charger, device, getting started card. No knife was needed to open any part of the packaging from the time I picked it up off my stoop, till the time I started using the device. This is Amazon at its best.
    – I don’t think the screen has the olephobic coating that Apple uses, because it is slightly more resistant than my iPad and iPhone. However it still wipes clean with relative ease.
    – To indicate when you have reached the top or bottom of a list the OS put a white glow emanating from the top or bottom. It took me about an hour to realize why that was there. The elastic bounce that iOS uses is just a far better indicator, but I believe this is a patent issue for Android devices.
    – Amazon sends you an email every time you buy or download something, for each item, every time. Whereas iTunes waits a bit and sends multiple transactions in one email — every transaction is emailed from Amazon. Again, every one — even for free apps.
    – The time it takes to “rotate” the screen is far too long. Overall I don’t find the device to be very responsive when switching orientations.
    – This device was really made to be used in portrait and with a 16:9 resolution it feels very silly to do anything but watch videos in landscape.
    – The ability for Apps to integrate with the browser is incredibly useful. For example once you install Read It Later you can send articles directly to the app from the browser in just a couple of taps. No need to figure out how to install a bookmarklet, that’s actually really nice.
    – When entering a passcode you must tap a small OK button after you have entered your passcode. I see no point to this.

    [](https://f3a98a5aca88d28ed629-2f664c0697d743fb9a738111ab4002bd.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/fire-1.jpg)

    ### The Helping Sell Things Argument

    I have seen many people talk about how great the Fire is for selling Amazon items. I largely agree with that statement because the Fire does have a very nice Amazon store on it. Here’s the “but”: a device that you never want to use, isn’t a device that is likely to compel you to buy anything for, or with, it.

    So while the buying experience is very good, I doubt it is going to help pad Amazon’s bottom line, because I doubt people will be clamoring to use the Fire.

    ### Bottom Lining It

    Here’s the thing about the Fire, as it currently exists I pretty much find the device useless. Not one person would be better served buying the Fire over an iPad, OR an iPod touch. There’s no reason for it.

    Since getting the Fire I have left my iPad as far from me as possible and taken the Fire every where I have gone. Time and time again I found myself walking to where ever my iPad was so that I could use it, because I simply couldn’t, or didn’t want to, do what I needed to do on the Fire.

    But that is as the Fire *currently* exists. If you give it a touch more horsepower, rework the Magazines, add in a few “normal” customization features — then I think you have a pretty slick little device. Oh, and make some nifty way for a cover to attach like the Smart Cover does on the iPad.

    I don’t know how much Amazon can fix with software updates, but I am more curious to see if they even try to fix things with it. I strongly suspect they will just release a newer model, with better software.

    At the end of the day I would have loved to have taken more time with the Fire before reviewing it, but I honestly didn’t want to have to use the device anymore.

    And that pretty much sums it up.

    **UPDATED**: You can rename the device by going into your Amazon account online and navigating to the ‘Manage My Kindle’ page. Thanks to those that wrote in on that one.

  • Why Mixel Requires Facebook Login

    Khoi Vinh on why Mixel went with requiring a Facebook login:

    >But to sum up quickly: the reason we use Facebook login is that it lets us build the Mixel community around real names. This is by far the most important element of Facebook for us, and the document explains why.

    That seems like a cop-out of an answer to me. The fact is that you can build the same type of community around real names and completely leave out any other social network. I understand completely what he is trying to say, but assuming that Facebook names are any more “real” than names anywhere else on the Internet is a bit naive.

    I don’t like this explanation one bit, and perhaps the decision is for the best with Mixel, but I just don’t see Facebook helping in any other way than spurring more users.

    The fact is, as a user, it is just easier to sign in with your Facebook login than it is to register for yet “another new service.” If the Mixel folks just came out and said: “Look, using a Facebook login really helps grow our user base fast and helps to encourage people to share it on Facebook — thus getting us more users — that’s why we use it.” I would have been fine with that, because it seems more honest to me.

    There’s also a [more in-depth](http://mixel.cc/about/facebook-login), but equally unsatisfying Q&A on the Mixel site about their use of Facebook logins.

  • The Relationship Between Readability and Instapaper

    A nice response from Instapaper’s developer Marco Arment on the fact that Readability pivoted and became a direct Instapaper competitor.

    I honestly don’t see Readability being a huge concern for Instapaper because Instapaper is the better service and has been for a long time. ((Though, that could change.))

  • Google Announces Google Music

    I was a part of the beta and never used it. They do have some compelling new features for Google+ users and some neat sounding exclusive concerts thing (we will see how that works).

    Should be interesting.