The Brooks Review

Year: 2012

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 49: Dude I’m Holding a Phone

    Shawn’s out caring for his new son, so I asked Federico Viticci to fill in. We talked about the iPad 3, iPhone 5, iOS privacy, and Samsung for good measure. It’s a fun episode so be sure to check it out — also I say ‘button’ a few times for everyone.

  • Ars Examines Nokia’s 41 Megapixel Smartphone Camera

    Chris Foresman goes over just how that 41MP Nokia smartphone camera works. A nice primer if you are wondering if Nokia is nuts. ((Also, good job on the straight forward headline Ars.))

  • Canon EOS 5D Mark III

    The new hotness — man do I want this.

  • Did Twitter Change the Way Replies Work? Maybe Not

    Matt Honan has the word:

    >Twitter says it’s a bug, and they’re going to fix it

    I guess we will see.

  • How I Use Hazel

    Sorry for the self link, but back in 2010 I post about how I use Hazel on my Mac. Seems a lot of you aren’t using it yet, so this is a decent place to start.

  • ‘How Twitter Broke Twitter’

    Austin Frakt:
    >Clicking “reply” now means that only joint followers see the tweet even if you prefix it with a “.” (or anything else for that matter). You can still tweet at (@) someone with a “.@” construction and have all your followers see it but not if you click reply. When did this change occur? I cannot find anything on the internet that documents it. Is this the first post to do so?

    I have seen a lot less of these types of replies and I thought he may be wrong — until I saw that a few were using a work around: not hitting the reply button instead creating a new tweet. What a pain in the ass.

  • ‘Sony and Samsung Tablets Miss the Mark Thanks to Contracts and Pricing’

    Abdel Ibrahim and Jon Dick:
    >The Galaxy tab 7.7 will set you back a minimum $499, and that’s with a 2-year contract. If you say to hell with carriers, the price of the puny tablet swells to an eye-watering, deal-breaking $699.

    Maybe that’s what they [meant by “double down”](http://parislemon.com/post/18390218572/winning-duh)?

  • Stupid Misleading Headlines at Ars Technica: Round 2

    Jonathan Gottfried runs with this headline: “Don’t bet on “Linsanity”: US seizes online gambling domain over sports wagers”. Aside from the headline of the post and the link to the very article you are reading in the side bar, “Linsanity” is never mentioned again.

    Actually the post is just about the U.S. seizing Bodog.com. I would assume Ars went with the headline to drive pageviews making the weak connection that Bodog is/was about sports betting — but really that’s pretty lame.

  • ‘A Precious Hour’

    Michael Lopp:
    >Starting at the beginning of February, I made a change. Each day I blocked off a precious hour to build something.

    >Every day. One hour. No matter what.

    I’m in.

  • Hazel 3

    A fantastic update to an app that I use everyday without even seeing or thinking about. It’s right up there with Keyboard Maestro and LaunchBar for me. Go buy it. Now.

  • New Instapaper Bookmarklet With Multi-Page Article Saving

    Marco Arment on the Instapaper blog:
    >The new bookmarklet now also supports automatic saving of every page in multi-page articles.

    That’s sweet, but the new `Saved` graphic is even sweeter — seeing it was the best part of my morning.

  • Readability for iOS

    [Federico Viticci in his review of Readability for iOS](http://www.macstories.net/reviews/readability-for-ios-review/):
    >Second, to differentiate its product from the plethora of available read-later browser companions and mobile apps, Readability spiced up its offering with a unique “support the publishers” spin that, as we detailed, allows users to pay for Readability and give 70% of their subscriptions back to the websites they read.

    Their new app is certainly gorgeous, but this second point really rubs me the wrong way — and it’s not Viticci’s fault. The thing is that when Readability launched I loved this idea of paying writers and it panned out for me to the tune of $20-25 a month. Not great, but heck it bought me a few burgers.

    So let’s lay our cards on the table, here’s my Readability stats:

    As you can see in June of 2011 the service basically died for me. Maybe it’s because I have been [outspoken about their business model/practices](https://brooksreview.net/2011/11/readability-agency/), maybe not. I have talked to a few others and they too have seen the same decline, so I don’t think it is just me.

    I included my Feedburner stats in the table so that you can see this is not due to a decline in my readership — the page views show growth as well. This decline has strictly been (from what I see) do to a decline in the usage of the Readability paid service itself. Perhaps these new iOS apps will change that, but I wouldn’t count on it.

    Once you give users a free option, they have little reason to upgrade. So while the “pay your favorite writers” mantra is awesome and easy to get behind, so far it hasn’t panned out from what I have seen and I hold little hope that this will change. ((A few have noted that since Instapaper stopped their integration with Readability they stopped paying Readability. If that is the case then I think it says a lot more about Readability and the lack of passion users have for it, than it says about anything else.))

  • Windows Desktop UI Concept

    I don’t know how useable this work from `Sputnik8` would be, but it looks damned pretty.

  • ‘Regarding MS Office for iPad’

    I missed all the hubbub about Office and the iPad, but this is a great take from Guy English, starting with this:

    >“Does it run Office?”

    >“Yes, it’s on the App Store.”

    I think that sums up why Office matters for Apple and Microsoft.

  • OmniOutliner for iPad v1.2

    The release notes:
    >The document picker has been redesigned to allow quicker access to files and easier file management. Tap on the edit button and select a file(s) to access the sharing, duplicate, and delete options.

    The document picker is so much better I felt the need to post about this update. Still no iCloud support as far as I can see though — I really want that.

  • ‘The Problem With Dumb Pipes’

    Trevor Gilbert makes a really strong argument for not turning cell networks into “dump pipes”:
    >You may think that AT&T slows down speeds because it really likes to be mean and hates the customer. In truth, it is because it needs to make money to exist at all. It needs to grow to survive. Not every company can be Apple, and make products that not only are profitable but lovable. Some companies are relegated to the role of simple profit-seeking. A role that doesn’t endear it to the public, but one that does generally get shareholders on board.

  • The Financial Times’ Paid Subscription Model

    Robert Andrews:
    >In the U.S., print circulation was overtaken by these digital subscribers for the first time.

    Impressive, especially considering they don’t have an app in the App Store any longer. A large part of me thinks that paid subscriptions, rather than advertising, is the way to go.

  • ‘Verisign Seizes .Com Domain Registered via Foreign Registrar on Behalf of US Authorities’

    Mark Jeftovic:
    >But at the end of the day what has happened is that US law (in fact, Maryland state law) as been imposed on a .com domain operating outside the USA, which is the subtext we were very worried about when we commented on SOPA. Even though SOPA is currently in limbo, the reality that US law can now be asserted over all domains registered under .com, .net, org, .biz and maybe .info (Afilias is headquartered in Ireland by operates out of the US).

  • Promoted Tweets in Twitter for iPhone

    Word from the [Twitter blog](http://blog.twitter.com/2012/02/promoted-products-now-more-mobile.html):
    >With our most recent app updates, Promoted Accounts are now in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android. And in the coming weeks, we’ll begin introducing Promoted Tweets in the timeline on these mobile apps.

    Many would think this is precisely the reason to *not* use the official Twitter apps, but I think it is precisely the reason *to* use the official mobile apps. I have long been telling people that I think it is only a matter of time before you can’t use third-party Twitter apps — at least not without them being crippled — and I see this move as further evidence of that.

    Think about it another way: what if RSS feed reading clients started to block my ‘sponsored posts’ that I send out weekly? I would want to stop them from being able to do that because by not stopping them I would be directly harming my ability to make money off of this site. Advertisers would be getting less eyeballs and therefore less return for their money and would be less inclined to advertise on this site. It’s really that simple.

    The same is true with Twitter.

    By injecting ads (I mean promoted tweets) into the timelines of their mobile apps, the company is (presumably) making money. When other third-party apps do not show those ads in the timeline, those apps are effectively reducing the eyeballs that see the ads, which in turn is devaluing the ad. Therefore, in order for Twitter to maximize revenue from the ads (oh, promoted tweets) that it interjects, all Twitter clients must show them.

    So either every third-party app will need to interject Twitter’s own ads, or those/some third-party apps need to no longer work with the service. That’s the way forward — that’s how Twitter survives as a business — and make no mistake Twitter needs more than VC money to survive.

    *(On a separate note, don’t confuse this post with me being happy that ads are going to be put in my timeline.)*

  • Quote of the Day: MG Siegler

    “The only people I know that use Google+ regularly are people who work at Google (and Robert Scoble).”