The Brooks Review

Month: February 2012

  • The iPad at Work Experiment

    Dan Moren, wrapping up his three day test of the iPad as his *only* machine for work:
    >That’s perhaps the biggest change in switching from a Mac to the iPad: The technology becomes almost transparent. You are simply writing, or reading, or browsing. It’s all about the task itself, while the technology you’re using fades into the background.

    That’s largely been my experience too, so it comes down to whether you like that or not — because it can be quite confusing. Moren wrote a three part series and you should definitely read up on them.

  • Path Deletes All User Uploaded Data

    Path CEO Dave Morin:
    >We also believe that actions speak louder than words. So, as a clear signal of our commitment to your privacy, we’ve deleted the entire collection of user uploaded contact information from our servers. Your trust matters to us and we want you to feel completely in control of your information on Path.

    Well done.

  • Now Available: HP Slate 2

    Hey HP.

    Let me wrap my head around something.

    You killed off the TouchPad — perhaps the most interesting iPad competitor — because it wasn’t selling well and everyone was confused as to what HP was doing.

    Now though (in light of all that confusion passing?), you launch a brand new HP Slate — the same type of device that Ballmer famously tried to upstage the iPad with (before the iPad launched)?

    That just seems silly.

    Surely this is all a joke, right?

  • It’s Easy to Make a Mistake

    A great take on the Path screw up by Brent Simmons, as he shares how these types of mistakes are made on the developer side of things.

  • WeatherMin

    Dan Frakes has a nice look at a Mac app called WeatherMin — it reminds me a lot of how I display the weather on my desktop using [Nerdtool](http://mutablecode.com/apps/nerdtool). Should be a good option if Nerdtool is, well, too nerdy for you.

  • ‘Hipster Uploads Part of Your iPhone Address Book to Its Servers’

    Mark Chang:
    >Inspired by [this post](http://mclov.in/2012/02/08/path-uploads-your-entire-address-book-to-their-servers.html) (which you should all read), I looked at the apps on my own iPhone for information leakage by other apps. I figured this would be common practice, and lo and behold, when booting up Hipster, it seems like parts of my iPhone address book were being uploaded to Hipster. Here’s the breakdown, done in the style of Arun Thampi (the author of the first post).

    One interesting thing that I saw floating around the web, about all this address book uploading that is happening on iOS, is this idea that an App must ask for permission to use your location, but doesn’t need to do so before it grabs everything in your address book and uploads it to their servers.

    Apple needs to change this. Now.

  • ‘Hey Path, Just Nuke All the Data’

    Michael Arrington:
    >Path should just state that they’re nuking all collected address book data for all users right now. Remove it from their servers entirely.

    Agreed. ((Quick, anyone know if I have ever agreed with Arrington before?))

  • Quote of the Day: Chuck Skoda

    “The iPhone is the most useful computer in the world.”

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  • What is the Everyman’s PC?

    When the MacBook Air “relaunched” in 2010, I immediately thought that it was the absolute best computer that any general computer user could buy. It was priced right, fast enough, light enough, had great battery life — and so on — it blew everything else out of the water.

    More importantly it came with an SSD standard. For most users that SSD will be the single greatest speed boost they have ever seen when upgrading from one computer to another.

    It seemed to me that the 2010 MacBook Air (and it’s subsequent upgrades) was the computer that 95% of all computer users should buy — not just Mac users.

    I haven’t thought much about this until the never-ending debate over whether an iPad is a PC overtook my RSS reader (again) this past week. I have nothing further to comment on that debate other than to say that iPads can, and are, certainly being used in place of PCs. ((Personally I think it is foolish to think of the iPad as anything but a PC. The more interesting debate to me is whether iPhones and Android phones are PCs.))

    If I, and many others, believe that the iPad is actually a PC — then does my theory that the MacBook Air is the best PC that people can buy still hold true today?

    That is: is the iPad a better PC for most people than a MacBook Air?

    That was interesting enough to me that I started to write this post, but then something else occurred to me. If the iPad is better for most people than a MacBook Air, then is an iPhone better for most people than an iPad and thus a MacBook Air?

    It’s a topic that [Shawn and I discussed on the last episode of our podcast](http://thebbpodcast.com/2012/02/episode-45-a-slightly-better-pedigree-of-americanos/), but one that I think warrants further thought.

    It’s easy ((Because people are already doing it.)) to see why one would argue that the iPad could be better suited for most people than a MacBook Air, but a cellphone? That seems like a stretch, right?

    ### More with Less?

    I am not arguing that everyone goes out a buys iPhones and ditches all other computers. That’s short sighted.

    I do however think that the iPhone can do *more* than an iPad while being far more convenient. Thus if you think buying an iPad instead of a PC is a good idea, then perhaps buying an iPhone instead of either would be an even *better* idea.

    I don’t have a strong argument that the iPhone is a better computer than a MacBook Air — because it’s not. But I do think that it is by far my (a many other peoples) most *used* computer.

    So my question now becomes: if I use my iPhone more than my iPad, and more than my MacBook Air — is my iPhone the best computer I have?

    I think the answer is a resounding: yes.

    Not only that, but I think that any one of my iPhones (certainly the 4S) is *the* best computer I have ever owned. Yet, while that is most certainly a true statement, I wouldn’t dare ditch my iPad or MacBook Air.

    ### Niche Computer Era

    The simple fact is that we now have two types of computing devices: general purpose and niche. All of these devices are “personal computers” it just so happens that not all of them a general purpose personal computers. ((I guess I did end up weighing in on the debate.))

    My MacBook Air and everything with a “Mac” label are general purpose computers. However things like my iPhone, iPad, and the Nest are all niche computers.

    There’s certainly nothing wrong with choosing a niche computer over a general purpose computer — just so long as you can do what you need and want to do with the computer. If all I need a computer for is to control the temperature in my house, then the Nest makes far more sense than a Mac Pro.

    So to get back to my original question: If the iPad is better for most people than a MacBook Air, then is an iPhone better for most people than an iPad and thus a MacBook Air?

    The iPhone is probably not better for most, but certainly better for some. ((Where the term “some” doesn’t necessarily amount to a small percentage of people. I believe this group is rapidly growing.)) I would even argue that as time progress the amount of people that the iPhone is a better computer for is actually increasing, not decreasing.

    For me the iPhone has done far more to reduce my need of a MacBook Air type computer than the iPad has ever done. ((And I love my iPad.))

  • Picture: Galaxy Note next to iPhone 4S

    Holy giant phone Batman.

  • ‘Path Uploads Your Entire iPhone Address Book to Its Servers’

    Arun Thampi:
    >Upon inspecting closer, I noticed that my **entire address book (including full names, emails and phone numbers) was being sent as a plist to Path**. Now I don’t remember having given permission to Path to access my address book and send its contents to its servers, so I created a completely new “Path” and repeated the experiment and I got the same result – my address book was in Path’s hands.

    Not cool.

  • Chrome for Android

    MG Siegler on Google porting Chrome for Android devices:
    >Say I have 5 tabs open in Chrome on my iMac and I get up to leave my home. I can see all 5 in Chrome for Android. And if I have 3 other tabs open on my MacBook Air, I can see those as well, all labeled and separated.

    Sounds like a huge step forward for Android users (and would be awesome to get in iOS), but:

    >Back to the bad news: some of the more advanced features of Chrome for Android require APIs found only in Ice Cream Sandwich, so the team made the call to make it only available for Android 4.0 and beyond. Again, this means only 1% of current Android users out there can actually get and use the browser right now.

  • Looking at the Wrong Specs

    *Editors note: This post was updated to remove all mention of the Tim Moynihan post that I had originally linked to and quoted.*

    [Canon released a new camera](http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/digital_cameras/powershot_sx260_hs) that:

    >The fact that the PowerShot SX260 HS digital camera is an ultra-slim camera with a powerful 20x Optical Zoom […]

    I don’t give a damn about this camera, but I think it offers an interesting glimpse at the market. That is: consumers are looking at the wrong specs. Traditionally in this segment it was all about megapixels, but now it seems to be all about: optical zoom and Wi-Fi (this particular camera does not have Wi-Fi but it was a trend at CES). Both are horrible features to care about, let alone to base a decision on.

    Wi-Fi is just a way to get pictures off your camera and onto the computer without all that “hassle” of taking a memory card out. It’s a non-feature-feature — a throw-in.

    Optical zoom *is* important, but not when stated as 20x. Because a multiplier specification like `20x` is not something you can compare from camera to camera. If the focal length starts at 10mm on one and 40mm on another then 20x that initial focal length on the first and 20x on the second means two entirely different things.

    In fact, if you are worried about zooming in that much with a point and shoot, perhaps you should look at other offerings.

    The two features that matter most on a point-and-shoot to almost all consumers are:

    1. How wide angle is the lens. This matters because you are going to take far more pictures close up to things than you will far away. Wouldn’t it be nice to fit that entire building in the frame without having to walk a block away? Or fit the line of five friends in frame while still being able to stand in the same room? My most used camera lens on my dSLR? A 17-40 wide angle lens on a full frame camera — that’s a useful lens. My least used: 80-200mm lens.
    2. ISO, or noise is the second most important factor. Most of our pictures aren’t well lit, so you really need to look at how well the camera handles noise in dimly lit photos. If you can get a camera that performs with low noise at high ISO speeds, then you are going to be far happier with your photos and that trip to download them on the computer won’t matter as much.

    Those two items are going to be far more helpful than a 20x optical zoom ever will be — remember that the next time you buy any camera.

  • Tweet of the Day: Dan Frommer

    “Google, once the poster child for simplicity, has become Microsoft. Try managing a Google Apps domain for the full experience.”
    — Dan Frommer (@fromedome) February 7, 2012

  • ‘Samsung Shoots at Apple, Hits the Customer’

    Shawn Blanc on Samsung’s odd Super Bowl ad:
    >Whomever it was that Samsung was trying to advertise to, they managed to insult instead.

  • A Succinct Description of Starbucks

    Frank Chimero on why he likes to write at Starbucks:
    >I can focus on the words, because the rest of the environment is vignetted in a fuzziness produced by its lack of opinion on the world.

    Well said.

  • Amazon Item of the Week: My New Travel/Office Headphones

    I purchased these Sennheiser PX 200 II i headphones on a recommendation from Marco and took them with me on the plane to San Francisco. Not only are they nice and compact, but they are incredibly comfortable.

    I typically don’t go for headphones that are on-ear. My ideal headphones are over the ear style after which I I used to prefer in-ear buds — but no more. This was the first plane flight where I wasn’t messing about with my in-ear headphones, trying keep them in my ear, or trying and find a more comfortable position.

    They are priced right too.

  • An Amazon Store in Seattle?

    Laura Owen:
    >A new report suggests that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is opening a small, Kindle-focused retail store in Seattle to test whether the concept could be expanded to other markets.

    Sounds like the idea is that they would sell Kindles, accessories, and Kindle exclusive books. It’s interesting to me mostly because I can’t help but wonder what such a store would look like.

    It stands to reason that Amazon might copy the Apple Store model that Microsoft also hijacked, but then again Amazon also doesn’t seem to mind being a bit different. I’m not talking just about the products they would stock, but how those products are displayed and how the staff interacts with customers.

    I think such a store would reveal a heck of a lot about Amazon.

    More than anything, opening a physical store, seems to go against everything that Amazon is and everything Amazon has built up.

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 45: A Slightly Better Pedigree of Americanos

    >Shawn and Ben talk about coffee and Americanos, the Samsung Galaxy Note and its revolutionary new stylus, and then they go down the rabbit hole known as ‘Ben’s Paranoia’ as they discuss Google and social networks.

    Brought to you by the fine folks behind [Doxie Go](http://www.getdoxie.com/a/bbpodcast_feb12.php) and [Jumpchart](https://www.jumpchart.com/).