Rene Ritchie makes the case for iOS 6 to have a ‘Files.app’ of sorts:
>Files deserve equal status under the OS. Since Apple has has already done a lot of interface work for Documents in the Cloud, the material is all their. They just have to give it a face.
It’s an interesting proposal to a problem that Apple very much does need to address. I wonder though if something like this is just annoying to power users/ nerds, or if this is a problem that all iOS users face.
Because unless it falls under the latter, I don’t see Apple creating a solution.
Dan Frommer:
>**One opportunity would be to formally split Android devices into three tracks:** Plain-old-Android, do what you want with it; the Nexus program (significant Google control, available to select partners); and a third line (complete Google control, exclusive to Motorola, ideally the highest-quality line). We’ll see if that happens — and if it does, whether it works. Everyone has different motivations for Android: Google, phone manufacturers, carriers, and consumers. They might never harmonize.
I think the third is where Google will eventually *have* to end up, but once that happens why would any other Android phone manufacturer (Samsung, HTC) bother making Android powered phones?
When one has a baby, they quickly realize that baby gadgets/toys/furniture is almost universally horrible. No, honestly.
By that I mean that if you think you are “good” or “pro” at putting together IKEA furniture, then you are going to be dumbfounded by the unnecessarily complex procedure that has been “designed” into baby furniture. Anyways, this post isn’t about baby furniture.
This is about the [iBaby Monitor](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005FPT51K/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20).
This is a video baby monitor that works with iOS and that’s pretty much perfect sounding on the face of it. I haven’t tried any other baby monitors, so I can’t say if others are better, but here are my thoughts as a first time parent using this baby monitor.
### The Good
– First things first, it’s not a bad looking unit. That doesn’t mean it’s good looking, but for something that I mounted on the wall, white is a pretty good choice.
– Setup was pretty easy, no Mac needed. Just plug it in via ethernet and boom, good to go.
– The feed is secured by username and password.
– Setup is all easy and can be done on your iPhone or iPad.
– Pan/tilt is great and works.
– It has never once not worked when we needed it.
– Push notifications means you can use your phone for other things if you want.
– The packaging was great, Apple-like.
– Swiping your finger on the image moves the camera.
### The Bad
– Ditto the mount for the wall, it feels more like an afterthought.
– Image quality isn’t great. You can see what’s going on and make out faces, but at night it’s more like shapes.
– The infrared lighting is nice, but is too concentrated. This means that you need to have the baby off center on the screen, or her face will be a white spot.
– The iOS app drains the battery crazy fast.
– The iOS apps are crazy ugly.
– The monitor says it will work over any internet connection (meaning you don’t have to be on the same network to view), but I have yet to get this to work despite forwarding the right ports. The app seems to connect, but never loads an image.
The infrared highlight blowout.
### Overall
Here’s the thing, I like this baby monitor. I know it’s not perfect, but it does a few things that make it a winner in my book:
1. It just always works. The power went out, I didn’t do anything, and when the power came back it was still working like normal. I unplug it and move it to another spot in the room, it just keeps working. In fact the app is stable and the camera software is stable — that’s probably the most important facet of any baby monitor.
2. It works with iOS and therefore I don’t need to carry anything else with me. I don’t even need to have the app running — it will alert me of movement or sound in customizable settings.
3. I love that I can pan and tilt the camera, because I never have to worry about if we can see her in the camera view or not — we can remotely move the camera to see her if needed.
All that said, I wasn’t lying when I said this app drains the battery fast. If you are listening to audio and video, you need your charger on hand. I did find that my original iPad makes for a nice dedicated viewing device (we use it in the living room). For a point of reference this is the only app running on the iPad and the battery drained to 40% in 1.5 hours. So yeah, this app eats batteries. But you don’t need to have it running, so there’s a nice tradeoff there.
For as much as I like the way this works, the app is horrendous looking. Here’s what it looks like:
The horrible UI.
That’s why I run the app in landscape, because here’s what that looks like:
Less horrible landscape UI.Even better: Landscape UI, picture only.
Much better.
You can focus the camera manually, but it never seems to be crystal clear for me on the iPad. [It’s not cheap either, but hey, I like it](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005FPT51K/ref=nosim&tag=brooksreview-20).
Michael Wolff:
>Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.
That’s the opening sentence, and it only gets better and harder to argue with from there. Wolff makes some great points, not only about Facebook, but about web advertising in general.
Typically when I read a post I am able to pick out one section to quote, with this post I could have quoted just about any sentence.
I rate this post: fifteen seconds of slow clapping.
CEO of Google, Larry Page, today (May 22, 2012):
>Sanjay Jha, who was responsible for building the company and placing that big bet on Android, has stepped down as CEO. I would like to thank him for his efforts and am tremendously pleased that he will be working to ensure a smooth transition as long-time Googler Dennis Woodside takes over as CEO of Motorola Mobility.
[Phil Goldstein](http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/motorola-exec-product-strategy-wont-change-after-google-acquistion/2012-03-01) on March 1, 2012:
>Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president in charge of mobile, said he is aware of the concerns that Google will favor Motorola, but stressed that Google has “literally built a firewall” between the Android team and Motorola.
I guess “literally” doesn’t include putting a loyal Googler in charge.
I debated about writing this, but I can’t stand to be silent on this matter. Some of you will think this is a vendetta I have against Readability, so you can ignore me if you honestly believe that.
Today I was made aware of [Readlists](http://readlists.com) which is a service from Arc90 and Readability. Essentially a user can make a “Readlist” of articles that they like that pertain to a common theme. A good example of this is the Readlist comically titled: “[Instapaper is Better](http://readlists.com/a49d6191/)” (for the record I did not create it).
As you can see, on a Readlists page, you can publicly share the page, as well as download a packaged eBook with all of the content in it. At first glance this doesn’t look different than what Instapaper does, by allowing users to download articles to a Kindle — but it is actually very different.
With Readlists you are essentially publicly sharing an eBook that contains a writer’s content — content that was never granted permission to be redistributed. In Instapaper (as far as I know) you can’t grab an article list from another user and package an eBook that you can then download.
This is where I call bullshit on Readlists.
Readlists is a service to allow people to completely avoid reading a content producers site, allowing them to repackage and redistribute their content all without permission.
This is utter crap and shady as hell.
I sent Readlists an email requesting my site be blocked (I think they have done so now as a post of mine was on that above Instapaper Readlist), if you write on the web I urge you to do the same.
**Update:** Nope, looks like my site hasn’t been blocked — I was *too* generous to them.
A fun new game from Lex Friedman and Marco Tabini where you pick a competitor and then hum the tune of a song (out of three choices, where you can listen to the songs as well), they they have to guess the song.
As I tell Shawn all the time on our podcast, I am tone deaf, pitch unaware, rhythmically challenged, and generally embarrassing when it comes to musical pursuits. That said I asked my wife to play this last night against Lex while I tested it out — even just being a spectator I had good fun. There’s a free version and a [paid](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lets-sing!/id519518278?mt=8), no ads, version.
It’s a pretty fun little game, if you find me on there you may just get to play against my wife.
I’ve had this printer for a while now and I have to say: it’s the best printer I have ever owned. I specifically chose this printer for the quality and the size.
Because looking at 8×10 prints is neat, but looking at 13×19 prints is fantastic.
My wife and I don’t really buy artwork to hang on our walls, we buy frames and fill them with pictures of *our* life.
Yes, the paper I use is expensive because I want the prints to look great.
Yes, the ink doesn’t last long and is massively expensive and requires all the colors to be full before printing in black and white.
Yes, it is a printer in an increasingly digital world.
But — man — it’s a hell of a printer, and after all it’s much more satisfying to look at your photos when they are hanging on the wall.
Oh, and this printer used to retail for about $900, but through Amazon can be had for the bargain price of $535.71 after rebates. So there’s that too.
Chuck Skoda:
>One thing though of which I’m convinced — the child confused that her swipes and pinches leave the magazine unaffected will not find it any less strange to have a laptop screen ignoring her gestures en masse.
Personally I don’t see a point in touchscreens on computers, but when you put it the way Skoda did, well… yeah that makes sense.
Sarah Jacobsson Purewal commenting on the $75 **trillion** in damages that the RIAA is seeking from LimeWire:
>That’s right, the music industry wants LimeWire to pay more money than exists in the entire world.
Nick Bilton concluding a great post about privacy and trust differences with Twitter and Facebook:
>In the long run, people will trust Twitter more than they do Facebook. And when it comes to building a long-term, trusting relationship with its users, Twitter will take it slowly and steadily, and in doing so, could win the race.
It’s a really interesting point to think about if you ask me. At what point, or what thing, would Facebook have to do to get you to say: “That’s it, I am done.” For me that happened a while ago, for reasons that truly don’t matter to *you*.
To me, Facebook is currently the Microsoft Windows from 1997. Everyone used Windows and *everyone* complained about Windows. Fast forward to today and everyone is on Facebook and (it seems) any user that has been on the site for over a year *is* complaining about Facebook.
That’s not to say Facebook can’t change, but it’s something to think about every time you use a new service that requires personal information, ask yourself:
– Do I trust them?
Do you trust Microsoft more than Facebook? I do. Do you trust Google? Hell no. Should you?
J.D. Tuccille on the TSA:
>But necessary evil or not, it’s increasingly apparent that the TSA is spectacularly inefficient and inept at everything it tries to do.
Great article rounding up most of what is hilariously wrong with the TSA.
“That’s not all these apps do, but it’s one benefit of using them, and it indicates how pathetic much of our web design is when our visitors increasingly turn to third party applications simply to read our sites’ content.”
Dark Sky is a new kind of weather app. It uses state-of-the-art
weather forecasting to predict when it will rain or snow — down to the
minute — at your exact location, and presents it to you alongside the
most beautiful radar visualizations you’ve ever seen.
[Now only $3.99 in the App Store](http://darkskyapp.com/?ref=brooksreview#go_to_app_store).
Dan Benjamin shares his thoughts on *The Talk Show* leaving 5by5. Sometimes a scandal, just isn’t the scandal that the Internet [wants it](http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/05/18/where-did-the-talk-show-go/) [to be](http://www.quora.com/The-Talk-Show/Why-did-John-Grubers-The-Talk-Show-switch-podcast-networks).
I used to have a 45 minute commute and Dan & John were a large part of keeping me sane during that commute — thanks to both of them for a great run and a great show.
As for the *new* *The Talk Show* — I look forward to [checking it out](http://muleradio.net/thetalkshow/).
**Update:** [Richard Heath says I got it wrong](http://space36.com/a-few-words-about-the-talk-show), not the Internet. John Gruber has commented on the matter twice, basically saying he moved over business disagreements. What I don’t think you can do is to read into Gruber’s comments as much as many people are reading into them. Business agreements can be about more than just money (not often) and by assuming that was the reason — well — you are also making assumptions about a persons character. Maybe I am wrong, maybe not.
What I think still stands: this is not the scandal that the internet was hoping it would be.
I have been using the `WP to Twitter` plugin for WordPress for a long time now — I much prefer it over Twitter Tools because it works faster and lighter. Not only that, but I can easily customized the tweet and automatically post “updated” tweets when I edit a post.
There has been one problem with my site and `WP to Twitter` — it posts the tweet before the database cache is done updating and because of that Twitter users often read the post before the server had a chance to flip around the linked list URL. So essentially Twitter users often think there is no link to the linked list post, instead just an endless loop. Whenever this happens I have to dump the cache, not hard, but annoying.
The biggest feature (for me) that WP Tweets Pro brings: a delay setting for the Tweets. Now all TBR tweets will be delayed by one minute, thus (hopefully) solving all my problems. This plugin also has some other cool features, and for $25 — why not.
>Someone could be building something right now, in secret, that could obsolete Facebook. Software is ‘soft’ for a reason, it can change fast.
Some really smart points. Facebook’s massive user base does not mean it can outlast a good competitor,that could be launched tomorrow, by default. It’s going to be interesting to watch them.
Dustin Curtis:
>Basically, every time you visit a site that has a follow button, a “tweet this” button, or a hovercard, Twitter is recording your behavior. It is transparently watching your movements and storing them somewhere for later use. Right now, that data will make better suggestions for accounts you might want to follow. But what other things can it be used for? The privacy implications of such behavior by a company so large are sweeping and absolute.
That’s pretty shitty of Twitter if I am honest. I have been using the embedded Tweets and the follow buttons on this site without knowing that Twitter did this. So I am sorry about that. I took some time this morning and removed those embeds everywhere I could find, if you see one shoot me the URL of the post and I will remove it.
