The Brooks Review

Month: September 2012

  • Perfect Bacon Cooking Method

  • ‘Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?’

    Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes an interesting and rather scathing article on Scott Forstall. I’m not sure the maps and Siri problems are fire-able offenses because both were things Apple had to do and both needed user feedback to get better. Now it’s true expectations weren’t managed well, and that’s not good, but fire-able?

    However if it is true that other executives don’t like to meet with him without Cook present, that’s a different matter entirely.

    I don’t know much, but what I do know is that Cook has had the reigns entirely for almost a year and there’s been no exodus of talent. I think that says a lot.

  • Assorted iPhone 5 Thoughts

    There’s not much reason to write an iPhone 5 review, as [John Gruber truly said it best](http://daringfireball.net/2012/09/iphone_5):

    >I own things that cost and remain worth more (e.g. my car). But I own nothing this nice.

    There is however a few things that I have noted in my week plus of using the device that I thought worth sharing.

    The first time I heard rumors of a larger screened iPhone I was immediately against it. Even when seeing it announced from Apple, I thought it was a bad idea.

    My concern: how could I comfortably use a bigger screen? Turns out that, aside from the first day, I can’t remember having an issue with the larger screen size after only a week of use. How quickly we adapt and this coming from a guy who used his iPhone more than his Mac over that first week.

    The way I see it there are two disadvantages to the larger screen size and a multitude of advantages.

    ### Disadvantages

    No matter which hand you hold your iPhone 5 with you are going to have to strain to reach the farthest corner of the screen. Note that the strain is not uncomfortable, but it is there. You can see it in the muscles in your hand, but after a day you don’t notice that you are doing it.

    There seem to be two solutions for this: get used to it, or learn to shimmy the phone around in your hand. For me it took about a day to get used to, but I imagine smaller handed folks will have much trouble with this on a more on-going basis. This is the true disadvantage of the larger screen size: it sucks for smaller handed people. There’s no getting around that.

    The second major disadvantage is that developers can “just” stretch their apps. For some apps, like App.net clients, this makes sense. However for a great many other apps this doesn’t make any sense. Take [Apple’s weather app for instance](https://brooksreview.net/2012/09/apple-weather/), it would have been easiest to stretch the UI, but instead they rethought how the app should work for the larger screen. I have two longterm concerns about this:

    1. iPhone 4S and older users will be punished with crappier UIs while developers focus on creating UIs for the larger iPhone 5 screen. Thus leading to inconsistent apps within a daily consistent (to date) app platform.
    2. Developers that already have an existing app will take the easy way out and instead of rethinking their interfaces for the larger screen they will just go for the “stretch”. So far I have only seen a handful of developers do such a rethink for the larger screen, and that worries me. Again, many apps (think content centric apps like reading apps) don’t need such a change, but there are plenty of apps that I had hoped would get a rethink that didn’t, or haven’t yet. This is a major longterm concern I have. I really think the larger screen is best taken advantage with by creating new layouts for it, not by stretching an existing layout — again that’s not universal.

    ### Advantages

    There are a ton of advantages to the larger screen, but only one I think worth pointing out. Apps with an extra row of keys added to the top of the keyboard (like Scratch or Writer) now have ample room remaining to type in the text fields. I think, I hope, this drives more content creation apps to add special keys atop the Keyboard for faster access because now keys can be added without eating up too much of the typing area. This could be a big win longterm — especially if Apple extends the built in keyboard by a row in the future.

    ## Oddities

    – Occasionally when I am typing and I switch to the numeric keyboard there’s some staticky-fuzz-stuff that happens on the keyboard, like a display glitch. It’s very odd and never stays for long, but concerns me. If I could consistently replicate it I would take my iPhone to the Apple Store. **Update:** [A lot of users are writing to tell me they see this too](http://m.cnet.com/news/iphone-5-users-complain-of-static-lines-on-keyboard/57519607).
    – I [mentioned the chipping issue](https://brooksreview.net/2012/09/nicked-black/) already, but oddly enough it stopped after the first day. I have two ideas as to why: bad paint adhesion in certain spots, or the paint just wasn’t fully cured when I got it. Either way I have about four or five small nicks and they don’t bug me much now since they don’t seem to be continuing.
    – Twice now I have noticed that the automatic time setting feature goes haywire and jumps around, the only fix is to restart the phone. I think a network settings restore may fix this, but I don’t want to lose those settings just yet.
    – Call audio quality seems worse when you are in an area with low reception, worse than with the previous iPhone. What I suspect is that this is a difference between AT&T and Verizon and not a difference in the iPhone itself, but I cannot be sure.

    ## Why It’s Worth the Upgrade

    Two reasons:

    1. We lowly iPhone users finally get LTE, and boy is it fantastic. As I noticed with my iPad, LTE is true broadband speeds in most areas and is something that you immediately notice. It is my favorite feature of the new phone.
    2. The camera is really good. Not just better in low-light, but all around better. [I talked about why I think this is important to Apple](https://brooksreview.net/2012/09/cameras-mics-brand/), but I left out another obvious reason: the iPhone is probably the most used camera among most iPhone engineers. And it shows with the work they put into each version. The larger shutter button, low-light ability, and the new hardware make for an excellent pocket camera. I’ve been leaving the GX1 at home more now that I have this upgraded iPhone camera than ever before. It won’t replace something like the GX1 for me, but it’s really good.

    ## Wrap

    Everything about this iPhone is better than every iPhone before it — it’s something that is said every year, but the leap from a 4S to a 5 feels much larger than any previous leap. It’s like going from an original iPhone to an iPhone 4.

  • Quote of the Day: The Macalope

    “And Fake Steve is dead, but the self-important drama queen lives on.”

  • Much Smaller

    Chuck Skoda:

    >What was more unexpected was the size of the Lightning connector. The marketing images don’t quite do justice to how small it is, and the size isn’t the end of the improvements.

    It’s really small — blew me away when I saw it t first. The connector actually seems delicate, but at the same time very strong. More than that though is how fantastic the phone looks when plugged in now, whereas the dock connector was bulky and ugly, the Lightning connector is sexy and sleek. I love this connector.

  • Review: Parallels Desktop 8 vs. VMware Fusion 5

  • ‘California Bars Employers From Demanding Employees’ Social Media Log-in Info’

    Sarah Jacobsson Purewal:
    >It’s officially illegal for employers and universities in California to request social media log-in information—that is, user names and passwords for Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail—from employees and students.

    When I first heard about this being a common thing when trying to get a new job, I honestly thought it was a joke. More of a, give it to us to show that you trust us, then we will forget the info — than a real, we want to snoop on you thing. I was wrong. I talked to many friends who fear self-employment in a way that I have never understood and many told me that not only is it a real thing, but something they’ve had to go through.

    I simply could not believe that: 1) people thought it was worth getting a job with such a stipulation, 2) that companies thought they had the right to do this, 3) that Congress didn’t step in to stop it.

    At least California didn’t have their heads up their asses about this one, now we need it to be federally protected, it’s just insane to me that people are OK with this.

    One last thing: if a company wants this info, trust me, it’s not a company you should work for.

    One more last thing: do you think Facebook looks at your Facebook profile and reads your private messages before they hire? I doubt it, but what about Google and Google+ — I get the feeling that [Uncle Creepy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt) looks at G+ private profiles all the time — just a feeling though.

  • “My Wife Did It”

    Chris Morran on a TSA agent stealing an iPad ABC intentionally left behind:
    >“I’m so embarrassed,” he explained to ABC. “My wife says she got the iPad and brought it home.”
    >When asked how his wife, who is not a TSA officer, could have “found” the iPad when it had been left at an airport security checkpoint, the man decided the interview was over and shut the door.

    Sounds like this would make for a great reality show, unfortunately it’s not over exaggerated bullshit that you normally see — it really *is* happening.

    I also like the iceberg analogy, because the TSA is the iceberg and those that travel in the United States are the Titantic. The only people that can stop it, the government, don’t seem to give a shit.

  • Apple Crime in NYC Spikes 40 Percent

  • Mumford & Sons Are the Biggest Thing in Music Right Now

  • Software Driven

    John Gruber on the iPhone 5 camera:

    >Looking at the EXIF data, the big difference is that the photo shot with the built-in Camera app on the iPhone 5 had an ISO speed of 2500; the other three all maxed out at 800. It appears the iPhone 5 can go up to ISO 3200.

    I wonder if this is just a matter optimizing apps for the iPhone 5’s camera, or if this is Apple being a dick and blocking third-party apps from using the higher ISO speeds. It’d seem really short-sighted of Apple to block third-party apps from going above 800 ISO, but then again it is Apple — so who knows.

    Update: [Developers can use it](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/09/28/low-light-boost-mode).

  • Google’s Motorola Ad Faked an Address to Beat Apple Maps

    Honest question: why did they need to fake an address to “beat” Apple? Why not just show Street View versus Flyover? Seems like that is more honest and more telling of the feature dis-parity between the two.

    Another way would be to show one of the many “melting” bridges, or to advertise your market leading position. There’s tons of ways Google Maps are better than Apple Maps — why invent something?

    What does it say about your company when you immediately decide to make up ways to “beat” a competitor instead of just realizing that you actually *do* beat a competitor? It’s like an abuser-abusee situation where Google now feels that Apple is so consistently better that surely they could never have a better product, yet in this case they do have the better product, Google just chose to think Apple did have the better product and made up shit. So odd.

  • Subtle UI Changes in iOS 6 and the Case for the Blue Status Bar

  • iPhone 5 Wallpaper Pack

  • Wedge — a Mac Client for App.net

  • The Apple Weather App

    When I first installed iOS 6 as a beta, one thing that immediately struck me was Apple’s own weather app. I’ve long hated the app as it always didn’t do quite enough and at the same time looked cheesy. Then Apple added the local weather portion, that grabs your current location and shows you the weather data for where you are right now — that made the app a little better. So too came the hourly forecasts, and better still the app became.

    But I’ve always been searching for something even better — something that looked great and worked great.

    So when I popped open Weather in iOS 6 I was surprised to find a really good looking app. It’s still the cards, but the graphics, the sheen, the polish all looked very nice for a change. Nothing else change, but it now looked like a sheet of glass instead of a plastic bubble.

    Still, the app wasn’t quite perfect and so I kept my folder of 5-6 weather apps on my iPhone.

    Then I opened the Weather app on my iPhone 5 and everything changed. For the taller screen Apple made the app look like this:

    Apple’s Weather app on the iPhone 5.

    The change is subtle, making the hourly forecast a horizontally scrolling list, available right away without having to tap anything. This is simply fantastic.

    I feel like I must be losing “it” because the Apple Weather app is now on my home screen right next to Dark Sky and I’ve deleted all the other weather apps I have been hanging on to. Apple’s made something really great here and no one seems to be talking about it.

    The Weather app gives me everything that I need at a glance, without extra taps needed, without extra swipes need, all wrapped in a lovely looking package.

    As I said, it’s on my homescreen now.

    VoiceOver

    Something new I’ve started doing is testing whether apps support VoiceOver, and I am going to shame those that don’t. Apple’s Weather app supports it really well, of course — no worries here.

    Try It

    I doubt I would be using the built-in Weather app if I still was on my 4S, but on the iPhone 5 I strongly recommend that you give Apple’s offering another go — its gotten very good.

  • ‘Different People Have Different Hands’

    Lukas Mathis on the iPhone 5’s screen size:

    >There is no one perfect screen size that fits everybody’s hands.

    He has a screenshot of what looks to be the iPhone 5 commercial. The thing that strikes me most about that commercial is that Apple is clearly trying to convey to skeptics that you can easily reach all the edges of the screen with your thumb, but yet the most difficult corner to reach — the one where the camera icon is in the screenshot — is never attempted to be reached by the thumb in the ad. Why? Because to do so you have to stretch your hand and strain is shown in the hand — go ahead and try it — I can reach all four corners, but for the furthest corner I have to strain my hand just a tad to reach it.

    Is this a deal breaker? Not for me, but then again I have large hands — my wife would likely be seriously annoyed by this. And indeed the other night she told me something along the lines of: “Does Apple just not care about women? No woman could easily reach all the corners, this sucks.”

    I wish someone would take their iPhone 5 around and take pictures of people’s hands trying to reach that furtherest corner, just to see if this really is an issue or not.

  • Note on RSS Feeds

    After today I will be turning off Feedburner and sticking with just the built in RSS feed system. Most of you that use Google Reader should roll over to the new feed (in theory) without having to do a thing. However if you don’t use Google Reader you will need to replace the Feedburner URL (if you are using it) with https://brooksreview.net/feed

    Let me know if you bump into any issues — member feeds are *not* affected.

  • The B&B Podcast #78: Listener Q&A

    A fun episode of Shawn and I taking questions from readers. Everything from bags to coffee roasting.

  • Why Your OS Name Matters

    Apple has, to my knowledge, never exclusively used a non-numeric name for their operating systems since OS X. Yes, they refer to 10.8 as “Mountain Lion”, but they also fall back on the “10.8” monicker when needed. I’m reminded of just how important this fact is by the [exploit found on Android devices](http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/09/26/heres-check-android-device-vulnerable-remotely-wiped-hackers/) and it occurs to me that it would be very hard for Google to say either of these two statements:

    1. Devices running 4.X and newer are secure.
    2. Devices running Ice Cream Sandwich and newer are secure.

    It’s difficult because Google has decided that the non-numeric name is a *better* way to sell the OS to consumers. So statement #1 doesn’t work because no Android user is likely to know what version number they are running, or what version number corresponds with each name. Which is why #2 won’t work either, because even I don’t know the order of the names (yes they are alphabetic, but it took me writing that sentence to remember that detail and do you think general users will know this).

    So if the same thing occurred on iOS, Apple could say: only affects devices running iOS 5.1 and older. Likewise on Mac OS X, Apple can say: only affects Macs running 10.7.4 and older. As users we know how to count, thus we know how to tell what we have. With Android it’s a much harder sell to tell a general consumer which OSes are exploited and thus [you get sites like this](http://dylanreeve.com/phone.php).

    There’s much larger issues at bay with Android, like fragmentation and slow updates, but the naming issue will always come into play when a security breach occurs — like right now.