Year: 2014

Federico Viticci on the biggest need for iOS:

I could discuss ideas for inter-app communication on iOS for hours, but I’d like Apple to start from the basics and iterate from there. Look at how apps can open a Mail compose window now, or how you can create a Calendar event from email messages.5 Those are essentially app features made available to other apps with no manual switching required: imagine if, again, a user could configure actions available in Safari, Mail, or other apps through this system. Combined with a UI for picking files from apps, iOS could be better suited for productivity tasks and general sharing actions than it is now.

I'd put the need for this on par with the need for copy and paste back when then iPhone launched. Apple simply cannot ignore this any longer. Something must be done.

Nikil Saval on the creation of the cubicle:

And it was too late to fix the problem. He had trapped people in giant fabric-wrapped walls, when he had meant, like Propst, to free them.

It turned out that companies had no interest in creating autonomous environments for their “human performers.” Instead, they wanted to stuff as many people in as small a space for as cheaply as possible as quickly as possible.

We have cubicles in our office and they are terrible, but I think “open plans” are probably just as bad (but prettier). The plan for the original “action office”, complete with standing workstations, sounds truly great. We should bring those back.

There were many idiosyncratic touches. Because Propst had convinced himself that work out of sight was work out of mind, there were no large desk drawers. Instead, there was a movable display surface, from which items could be retrieved and replaced at ease. A standing rolltop desk not only kept workers on their feet but also allowed them to leave work out overnight, securely closed.

Modern update would be needed, but sounds really neat. I might try to devise a way to have my “office” space defined like this.

Justin Williams isn't so hopeful about Flickr:

I want Flickr to succeed, but I worry that the Flickr I want to succeed isn’t the Flickr that Marissa Mayer is building.

Shawn has a nice overview of the new Flickr iPhone app, well worth the read. I'm really excited to see where Flickr is heading these days and I would wager they stand a good chance to be my go to service in the not to distant future.

This is excellent.

Step 2.

This is step one.

Galen Gruman:

It’s time for Google to admit what it does and to act consistently on its policies (or withdraw policies it doesn’t intend to enforce). That honesty will help stem the loss of trust. People know that companies exist to make money, but they need to know the true relationship they’re entering and don’t end up feeling misled. We all know the promises that the banks, airlines, insurance companies, cellular providers, and cable companies make aren’t real, and they routinely mislead us on pricing and services — so we don’t trust them. Does Google really want to be like those industries?

I could quote the entire post, it is a must read for anyone who uses Google. The above bit was the best part.

Matt Gemmell on negative criticism:

I still struggle with that type of feedback, and anyone who says they don’t is deceiving themselves. It’s all too easy to take it to heart, without trying to assess the validity of the remarks first. You have to cultivate an attitude of being open to pushback, without letting yourself be destroyed by it. The assessment itself must be assessed. If you can manage to do that, you’ll live longer, and you’re a wiser person than I am.

I get a lot more negative emails than most of my blogger buddies do — it’s the nature of the way I write, and the way I speak about things. I speak more in black and whites than in grays — that’s my personality — and that causes more furor.

Matt is right here, though, every time I get negative feedback I feel my skin flush just a bit. It’s not a lot, and I quickly quell it see what the true complaint it. The hardest thing for most people (including me) is to ignore the personal pain of such feedback and instead try to see the merit. Negative feedback cuts, and sometimes you heave to step away to let the red fade from your face.

If the complaint is about my “crazy anti-Google stance” then so be it, why not see if they have a point. Most criticism has a good point masked by personal attacks, and just because it is a good point doesn’t mean you have to agree with it. I’ve gone back and forth with many readers who initially seemed furious, but after a few emails realize that we do have a lot of common beliefs, but we apply those beliefs to the world differently.

It’s old and annoying to say, but learning to agree to disagree on some things will do you a world of good. I can respect most of the criticism I get, and sometimes it does make me change, and I think the most anyone can hope for is to remain open to admitting you were wrong.

What company does this description sound like (from Andy Westlake):

Most cameras are built around an internal chassis, with all of the electronics fixed to it and a body skin finally added over the top. Leica has done something completely different; instead the body is formed from a solid block of aluminum, with all of the electronics attached to it directly. The result is an extraordinarily tactile, solid-feeling object.

It sure looks close to an Apple product. If only it weren’t priced like people pretend Apple products are priced.

Hey, if you want to buy it, use this link will ya?

Edward Wyatt for the New York Times:

Those earlier rules effectively barred Internet service providers from making deals with services like Amazon or Netflix to allow those companies to pay to stream their products to viewers through a faster, express lane on the web. The court said that because the Internet is not considered a utility under federal law, it was not subject to that sort of regulation.

ISPs have a lot of money, and what they are doing now in their anti-net-neutrallity fight is a two part struggle:

1. They are fighting to be able to charge big companies a lot of money.
2. They are fighting to not become a “dumb pipe”.

I think the second point is the biggest motivation — and the same fight cell phone carriers are facing — where you simply do not want your service to be relegated to a service agnostic pipe.

I think of it like cable TV, where it reality you should be able to pay one price and get all 10,000 channels, but that’s not the case. Instead you pay extra for HBO, Showtime, etc — that annoyance is effectively what ISPs want to do to the Internet. Except, instead of blocking content from you (which would be wrong, obviously), ISPs just want to make non-paying content a bit slower than the other content.

I can see a future where Netflix pays Comcast to get faster service to users and users also pay Comcast to get faster Netflix service — a double profit for Comcast. Yuck.

Tim Wu, in The New Yorker, on a response President Obama gave in 2007:

“The answer is yes,” Obama replied. “I am a strong supporter of net neutrality.” Explaining, he said, “What you’ve been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you’re getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites…. And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet—which is that there is this incredible equality there.”

It is within Obama’s power to tell the FCC they fucked up, but don’t hold your breath — it would seem if it cannot be cured by a drone strike, then it cannot be cured by this administration. ((Or that’s how it feels.))

Marco Arment on the FCC’s (and Obama for that matter) bullshit:

It’s ostensibly the FCC’s job to see through this bullshit language and do what’s right for the country and the people, but only the fool who believed that ISPs are trying to build something beneficial here would believe that the FCC gives a damn about what’s best for American citizens.

Kottke on this bullshit:

The hell with that.

Yep. Kottke has a good summary of what’s going on (as always).

Good keyboard shortcut tips for 1Password, didn't know a few of these.

Fantastic information.

The original Lytro was a cool gadget, but this looks like a cool camera. The distinction between the two is going to be huge.

Gene Marks:

Yes, it’s getting attention. But only as a creepy gimmick which, I’m sure, is not the kind of attention that Google intended when they initially introduced it. As cool as it is, let’s admit that Google Glass will go down in the annals of bad product launches. And it will do so because of these reasons.

I cannot believe the article went any further than saying: “Robert Scoble, because of Robert Scoble. In the shower. Scoble. Shower. Your Product. Marketing 101.”

Nate Barham on Checkmark 2:

Next is Checkmark’s most impressive feature. Location-based reminders. Regardless of the rest of the app, and the rest of this review, no other app I’ve used even comes close here. In fact, were Apple to add the same functionality to its own reminders app, I can think of no greater single way that they could improve it.

His thoughts are pretty spot on.