The Brooks Review

Month: March 2012

  • AT&T 4G LTE Coming Soon to Twelve New Markets

    In case you got [duped into buying an AT&T iPad](https://brooksreview.net/2012/03/marketing-bullshit/) because you thought they had ‘real’ 4G in your area, you may get LTE yet.

  • TextExpander [Sponsor]

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  • ‘Amazon’s Brilliant Plan to Pay You Crazy Money for Your iPad 2’

    Actually, it is a pretty good plan.

  • Gowalla Shuts Down

    Can’t say I am surprised to hear that.

  • You Can Sign-up, But You Can Never Leave

    [On March 6th I wrote](https://brooksreview.net/2012/03/explanations/):

    >Right now — I don’t want anything to do with Readability. I am, however, going to let things cool down before making a final decision.

    [Later that same day John Gruber linked to that post and said](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/06/brooks-readability):

    >Like Brooks, I’ve never been comfortable with the way they collect money on behalf of publishers. And their app is nowhere near as good as Instapaper.

    Once Gruber posted that I started to get a flood of comments from friends. The common theme was: “I agree with you.”

    I didn’t want to make a decision that day, but as I read more and more about Readability it made me sick.

    Rich Ziade of Readability reached out on Twitter asking me to ask him any questions. I took him up on it and sent this email to him:

    As of this writing I still haven’t heard back, but I also used the contact link in the help section to request that https://brooksreview.net be blocked from Readability and that my publisher account be deleted — you see unlike a user account there is no `cancel account` link.

    Again, as of this writing, I still have not heard back and https://brooksreview.net is still not blocked, my publisher account is also still active.

    [Readability states](http://help.readability.com/customer/portal/articles/267462-how-can-i-opt-out-of-readability-view-):

    >If you don’t want your website content to be available in Readability view, you can exclude your content from being processed by contacting us directly. We’re always happy to help.

    Except I asked them to do this five days ago and not only has it not happened, but they seem to just be ignoring the request.

    That seems awfully shady.

    Update: Chris Dary of Arc90 responded to me on Twitter and got me opted-out. Thanks to him for that.

  • ‘Read It Later vs. Instapaper vs. Readability’

    Christine Chan does a nice job breaking down all three read-it-later services. What I don’t quite get is this tidbit from her article about Instapaper:

    >While it does the basics fine, I will admit, the typography and overall design of the app currently does not have the “polish” that everyone sees in Readability.

    There’s actually a lot of “polish” in Instapaper. Instapaper just doesn’t have custom fonts, but that doesn’t mean the fonts that it has are bad — they just aren’t new and shiny. Personally I think Readability did a really nice job designing their app, but it’s got a long way to go to match the usability of Instapaper.

  • The B&B Podcast #51: That’s How I Know It’s a Telemarketer

    This week Shawn and I talk about iPad stuff, retina Macs, battery life, the design tweaks I made to this site and all the confusion with AT&T 4G.

    Side note: We are now on 5by5, having joined the ranks of some very impressive nerds. I want to thank Dan for all the work he did moving the podcast over so that it doesn’t hinder any of the listeners.

  • New iPad’s Most Revolutionary Feature Is Its Battery

    Adrian Kingsley-Hughes:
    >Between the release of the iPad 2 last year and the announcement of the new iPad yesterday, Apple has nearly doubled the capacity of the battery, taking it from 25Wh to a massive 42Wh. Measured in milliamps this boosts the battery from 6944 mAh to a monstrous 11,666 mAh.

    I can’t wait for those efficiency gains to spill over in laptops and the iPhone — that should be great.

  • iPad vs. MacBook Air and iMac

    Horace Dediu:
    >The only value that a desktop of 2008 has over a new iPad is the size of the screen and a larger hard drive.

    That is pretty amazing.

  • iA Writer for iPhone

    iA Writer is now out for the iPhone (universal app) and it looks fantastic. I do most all my long form writing in Writer — love it.

  • Instapaper Placebo

    Classic and well done.

  • ‘Forget LTE — the Real iPad Wireless Story Is Bluetooth’

    Kevin C. Tofel points out that the iPad will now sport Bluetooth 4.0, which is a very nice upgrade. He lists out the reasons why it is great, including extra battery management. Here’s hoping that Apple adds this to all its devices, especially the keyboard and mouse — because man do they churn through batteries.

  • iPhoto for iPad Edit Buttons

    Dave Caolo is also stumbling with iPhoto for iOS:

    >None of them are labeled and I don’t know what they do. Tapping the icons on the left only deepens the confusion.

    I hear ya Dave, I hear ya.

  • ‘Mobile Hotspot Included in Verizon’s iPad 4G LTE Data Plan’

    K. T. Bradford has more info on Verizon tethering with the iPad:
    >However, a Verizon Wireless spokesperson informed me that for tablets (including the new iPad), the mobile hotspot feature is included in the data plan’s price. iPad owners won’t have to pay extra to activate mobile hotspot, even with the 1GB plan.

    Nice, still waiting word from AT&T…

  • AT&T and Verizon Confirm: No Personal Hotspots on New iPad

    Bryan M. Wolfe:
    >According to the report, AT&T and Verizon, through Twitter posts, both indicated the hotspot feature won’t be available, at least not when the new tablet is launched March 16. This, of course, is regrettable given that these are the only two US carriers offering LTE plans for the iDevice.

    I am shocked, *shocked*, I tell you. Also, who wants to bet that Verizon enables it before AT&T? ((Another reason I chose Verizon this time around.))

  • Shawn Blanc’s Membership Drive

    Also, on the subject of my pal Shawn, he is running a membership drive this week. There are some great prizes, but more importantly [diapers are expensive](http://shawnblanc.net/2012/02/noah-blanc/) so go sign up.

  • How Big Will Retina Display Magazines Be?

    Shawn Blanc:
    >What is Condé Nast going to do with their magazine apps? Their current issues (which use images even for text) are going to look horrible on the Retina display and if they start making their files 4x bigger then the downloads will get even more ridiculous — growing into the ballpark of an 800 MB file. At that size, after few back issues of The New Yorker and Wired and your iPad’s storage will be maxed out.

    First, isn’t it just 2x bigger on the iPad? But Shawn makes a great point here: the decision of magazines publishers to use crappy image only tools for text is going to show how short-sighted of a decision it was on March 16th 2012. Here’s hoping magazines pull their collective heads our of their collective asses and use better tools.

    Update: About the 4x versus 2x debate. It’s 4x the pixels, but my thought is that is misleading because you are basically just doubling the size. Looks like I am wrong, or at least in the minority on this thinking though. Oh well.

    Update 2: Yeah, I am wrong about the sizes. Not the first time. Carry on, nothing to see here.

  • Marketing Bullshit

    Congratulations. By updating to iOS 5.1 your iPhone 4S suddenly got 4G! Except it didn’t really, because as [Brad McCarty explains](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/03/08/att-apple-hspa-lie/):

    >The iPhone didn’t suddenly become an LTE-capable capable device by simply upgrading the version of iOS that it’s running. AT&T is defining its HSPA+ network as 4G, but by the very definition of HSPA+, theoretical speeds aside, it doesn’t qualify as 4G.

    So what the hell, Apple? McCarty sees this as Apple caving to AT&T — and that may well be — but more worrisome is that this move is pretty hypocritical and deceitful. [Here’s Phil Schiller at the iPhone 4S launch as quoted by GDGT](http://live.gdgt.com/live-apple-iphone-4s-event-coverage/):

    >“Where have I heard these numbers before? This is what our competitors call 4G… the iPhone 4S is just as fast as all of these phones, even faster in real-world use.”

    Yet, Apple refused to call the speed `4G` and many people (myself included) applauded them for that decision.

    Now though? Now we have the *same* iPhone 4S and suddenly also get the bullshit `4G` moniker — that would be bad enough, but it gets even worse for users that don’t know about the difference.

    AT&T is pretty horrible about this because if you viewed their coverage map when deciding between your shiny new 4G iPad on Verizon or AT&T — you immediately saw that AT&T appears to have a pretty robust 4G network. [Everything in the darkest blue is 4G according to AT&T](http://www.att.com/network/?wtSlotClick=1-006S2O-0-1) (also note that this is *not* the coverage map that Apple links to on the iPad buying page):

    So the average person is likely going to see that AT&T has `4G` in just about every major city on the two coasts. That’s fantastic — I was almost fooled by this.

    Then you read the map and see that `4G LTE` is by cities, denoted by the large orange blob. Fantastic: no LTE in the Pacific Northwest. So when you look at this map to determine 4G coverage, you really just need to be looking for giant, inaccurate, orange blobs.

    Now, compare that to how [Verizon markets `4G` service](http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/CoverageLocatorController?requesttype=NEWREQUEST&zip=94531&city=Antioch&state=CA):

    Everything in dark, dark, red is 4G LTE — every other red area is simply 3G. Now it is true that Verizon doesn’t have the faux-4G that AT&T does, so they might not be as good as they seem. One thing I can tell you for sure: Verizon has more 4G LTE areas (and a zoomable map).

    Long story short: `4G` and `4G LTE` are not equals, and shame on Apple for misleading iPhone users with the `4G` tag that AT&T so clearly loves to toss about.

  • Welcome, Apple from the OpenStreetMap Foundation

    Jonathan Bennett:
    >The desktop version of iPhoto, and indeed all of Apple’s iOS apps until now, use Google Maps. The new iPhoto for iOS, however, uses Apple’s own map tiles – made from OpenStreetMap data (outside the US).

    So what are they using in the US?

  • The TSA Blog: Viral Video About Body Scanners

    TSA responds to [that video about the guy walking through their machines with a large metal object](https://brooksreview.net/2012/03/tsa-metal-detection-skills/). Instead of disproving that it is possible to do what the video shows, they just talk about how fantastic their security is.