>Shawn and Ben are joined by David Smith, an indie iOS developer. We talk about some of the things David has learned in his years developing software, and we talk about his most recent app, Check the Weather, including all that went in to building it, preparing for launch, and then handling customer feedback afterwards.
Fun interview, Shawn is getting good at doing these — I just try not to derail them too much. Bonus fact: we learn all about inverted iPhone colors.
Allison Gibson:
>The nature of quality is that it’s hard to pin down. I can look into it forever and never find two matching definitions. Because, ultimately, it’s about intuition. I do know that sometimes quality is a thing so desirable it’ll lead you to chase the rising sun across a barren desert just to grab a heap of furniture that another person might call junk.
This is a fantastic essay, well worth a read a couple of times a year. It really made me think about what I mean when I use the word ‘quality’ and personally I think I have two definitions — both relevant to everything I ever post on this site:
1. That to say something is simply ‘quality’ with no further description is to say that this thing was ‘well-crafted’.
2. To use quality as a scale is to pit two definitions of quality at either end and find where the current thing lies between those ends. At the highest-end of quality you have a thing that I simply could not imagine having been crafted any other way. At the lowest-end of quality you have a thing that I simply cannot imagine why it was crafted the way that it was.
That is what quality means when I write here — as best as I can express.
It’s fucking good. I’ve been playing it all day and have 20+ games going right now. Retro theme is my current choice, FYI.
It’s massively simple, yet very strategic and mostly highly addictive. The UI is better than most are giving it credit for — almost feels like the UI formerly called Metro, with a splash of iOS. I want more apps designed like this.
David Pogue in his Surface review hits hard on Microsoft with these two statements:
>So that’s the amazing, amazing hardware. Now the heartbreak: software.
And:
>And how ironic that what lets the Surface down is supposedly Microsoft’s specialty: software.
Is that Microsoft’s specialty? Has Windows, Office, or IE really ever been amazing software? I’d argue that Microsoft’s specialty is market dominance, business savvy, relentlessness. In other words, the same things that Samsung is good at.
That’s not to be mean to Microsoft, it’s the truth. Microsoft has been impressively good at creating a dominating business, but they’ve never actually made great software in my opinion. I think that’s why the hardware is so good on the Surface — they haven’t done PC hardware before (outside of Xbox, Zune, etc) so they essentially hired fresh meat to do this — and voila, good hardware.
Whenever a new device comes out, I often wait until a certain person analyzes it before I form a full opinion. For screen and build quality I look to [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net), for reading and font rendering I look to [Marco Arment](http://www.marco.org), for speed [Bare Feats](http://www.barefeats.com), and so on.
We all have *the* “guy” that we look to for an opinion on a specific aspect of something. For tablet usage, and usability, and overall guidance I look no further than Fraser Speirs. Speirs just weighed in on the tablet size debate with the most astute point I have seen, saying:
>I’ve said before and I still think I’m right on this: a sub-10″ device makes a wonderful adjunct to a computer. A 10″ device can replace it.
So very smart and well said. The iPad mini will compliment the typical laptop/smartphone setup whereas the iPad can, and at times will, replace your laptop. I really want the iPad mini, but I know I won’t be happy until it has a retina screen on it — at that point I probably will switch from a full sized iPad to an iPad mini.
Why? Because an iPad is only useful if you have it with you, and you want to use it. Right now I don’t always have the iPad with me because of the size, but I always want to use it. With the iPad mini as it currently is I would likely always have it with me, but not want to read on it. A retina screen iPad mini would change that.
Harry Marks detailing the four articles that *The Verge* posted which amount to less said than one Macworld article, summarizes succinctly with:
>Of course, you won’t find one backlink in the Macworld article, but many of those Verge pieces are chock full of SEO-masturbatory goodness.
As I was busy flooding App.net with my stream of conscious during the event, more than a couple of people pinged me to make sure I was still alive after Apple quoted *The Verge* at the event. That’s great for them, and makes perfect sense for Apple to quote: *The Verge* writes their articles to be quoted by other companies. Blogs like *Daring Fireball* and Marco.org write their content to be understood by, and helpful to, their readers.
The differences are miles apart.
John Gruber:
>Screen resolution-wise, it’s exactly what I expected for a 163 PPI display in 2012: noticeably nicer than the 133 PPI iPad 1/2, noticeably worse than the 266 PPI iPad 3/4. The iPad Mini display seems brighter and to have better contrast than the iPhone 3GS display, but unsurprisingly, rendered text looks exactly like it does on the 3GS.
Yuck. No really, I am so tainted by having my three primary computing devices using retina quality displays that I really don’t think I would be OK with such a screen. So, though it is against every inkling in my bones, I think I am going to pass on the iPad mini this time around. Instead I will probably upgrade my iPad, or wait to see the iPad mini in the store.
I didn’t expect the retina display in the iPad mini, but I also expected the screen to look a touch better than the 3GS. I use a 3GS everyday for my daughter’s noise machine at night and I can’t imagine buying a new device with such a fuzzy looking screen. I’m not trying to be down on Apple or the iPad mini — I want one — but I am the guy that got rid of his mint 24″ LED Cinema display because it looked too fuzzy compared to my retina displays.
Great thoughts from Marco on Apple’s recent product announcements.
I agree with him that the 13″ retina MacBook Pro is now the best Apple laptop to recommend to people. It’s so close to the Air, but so much more powerful that I think it is silly to go with the Air right now unless you have a niche use for a 13″ Air.
What’s more interesting is Marco’s analysis of the two iPad models. I am personally torn between them. I want the shiny new iPad mini, but the iPad 4 is likely the device I would use more. After thinking about it all afternoon I think I will get the 32GB 4G iPad mini in white, and wait until the next cycle on the iPad 4. This will give me a lot of data on which size is better for *me* and then moving forward I will likely pick one of the two sizes and just stick with it.
If the iPad 4 update had been a bigger update I would have been swayed to get that instead of the iPad mini, but a very nice speed bump just isn’t convincing enough for me when compared to an entirely new device size.
What is compelling to me about the iPad mini is strictly the size. I still find it tough to leave behind my MacBook Pro when I travel and so it always seems silly to me to have an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro. With an iPad mini, the separation becomes greater between the devices and the three devices seem more complimentary than they do overlapping while traveling. That’s what I think right now without ever having touched an iPad mini — I could be totally wrong.
What you do on your Tumblr blog is probably closer to copyright infringement than it is to “curation”. Don’t get me wrong, [Rich Kids of Instagram](http://richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com) is funny as hell, but that’s the minority not the majority.
What I’m more curious about is who is being fooled by the term “curation”, that is: are you lying to me in order to fool me, or to fool yourself?
Reposting photos and quotes from other people is simply not curation, it’s closer to scrapbooking — which is fine, but it’s not curation.
I only used Tumblr in the above example because it is the easiest example, but just about every social network or blogging platform has this problem.
What I can’t figure out is whether the use of the word “curation” now falls under acceptable infringement by copyright holders, or are we hiding behind the term “curation” in an effort to hide the infringement?
When BusyCal first came out I jumped right to it and used it for a couple of months. Slowly I moved back to, what was then, iCal on my Mac. Then Apple added the little torn jaggies of paper and after I stopped banging my head into my desk I basically made the move to Fantastical full time.
Since that time not much has changed. I still pop into “Calendar” from time to time, but mostly use Fantastical to enter new events. [Today BusyCal 2 came out](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busycal/id567245998?mt=12&ign-mpt=uo%3D4), and while I have only been using it for 20 minutes, I can already tell I am going to switch to it as my full-time tool.
Why? Lot’s of reasons, let’s go through some.
### Smart
I don’t know if Calendar does this, but it’s a nice feature:
Here’s what really sold me though:
Not only can you change the font, but you can also get rid of the bubble things used to show “all-day” event banners. Instead just showing a nice colored tile at the top. Thank you for this.
[This is almost perfect](https://brooksreview.net/2010/09/sucky-calendars/):
Who really wants to see seven days at a time? Not me.
This is just neat:
I’ve never been one to care where the calendar thinks the day starts and stops, so I like this little addition.
Of course, the best feature, is that the product is integrated with the menubar icon — allowing quick add and a nice overview.
### What I Don’t Like
I wish I could change the weather icons. I wish the menubar quick app worked like Fantastical. I wish the menubar icon was better looking. That’s about it.
### What’s Silly
This, this is silly:
### Solid
[For $29](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/busycal/id567245998?mt=12&ign-mpt=uo%3D4), this is a solid app that I bet stays my default for quite a while.
Interesting lawsuit filed against Apple by two iPhone users that claim Apple is in violation of anti-trust laws by locking iPhones to AT&T. I don’t care about the legality of the matter, but think about the implications. Should Apple lose, what happens? iPhones sold by Apple will be carrier unlocked and Apple will have to supply unlock codes to current iPhone users.
What about that would Apple be against?
Remember, Apple doesn’t care what carrier you use, they only care what device you use. Essentially what I am saying is that this is a lawsuit Apple might not mind losing. A loss would allow Apple to look at AT&T, shrug their shoulders, say “we tried”, and unlock millions of iPhones much to the delight of iPhone users. Win-win for Apple as far as I see it.
I think this is the first lawsuit against Apple we should all be hoping Apple loses.