Absolutely brutal take on the new Top Gear hosts. I have yet to see the new show, but I did watch the 90 second preview on iTunes. Here’s the thing, that 90 second preview used to be amazingly entertaining to watch and make me want to buy the show. I left the preview with the new cast scratching my head.
Luckily, the old cast is back on Amazon this fall.
The camera practically disappears and allows you to immerse yourself in capturing the perfect moment in time.
The above statement is the highest compliment you can pay to any camera.
I really hate packing pants, because they are bulky and they always seem to get wrinkled — the only worse thing to pack is a cotton dress shirt. What makes pants doubly annoying is that you typically only need one pair — the pair you wear when you leave. However, then there’s the fear of a spill, or a rip, or of them not being flexible enough to cover the range of activities and situations you have planned. Can they go on that short hike and still to the five star restaurant for dinner? To the business meeting, but also everything else in between?
When I started down the path of looking at travel friendly pants I knew there were two things I really wanted to avoid: cargo pants and pants that look more like hiking pants than “regular” pants. If they have “zip-off” anything, no thanks. If they focus more on hidden pockets and insect repellent, no thanks.
One last reminder that the membership drive ends today at 5pm PST. There’s also one other thing: the quarterly membership plan ($7/quarter) is currently way cheaper than all other plans. After today that plan will be gone for good. If you are on that plan now, you get to keep it until you cancel it.
After today though, that will no longer be an option. Thanks to everyone who has been signing up, I can’t wait to do the giveaway.
You need far fewer electronic devices than you think. All I carry is my iPhone and my iPad Pro. Done. My rule here is very simple: take a phone and one other device. Unless you have a major reason why you need three devices, take only two. For me the second device is my iPad Pro, and before that it was my MacBook. If you need a Mac, take a Mac and use your phone for anything else. But decide if you even need that second device — I take mine strictly because if I can squeeze in writing time, it is worth having the iPad Pro. But I could do it all with my iPhone if I wanted.
There’s lots of ways to talk yourself into taking one more device, but I’ve always found that when I travel with three devices, one will always go unused. There’s nothing more frustrating than lugging something around you don’t use.
Marco Arment on, I guess, a potential demise of Apple: ((Perhaps this is more of a warning, or a complaint about iCloud services?))
Today, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are placing large bets on advanced AI, ubiquitous assistants, and voice interfaces, hoping that these will become the next thing that our devices are for.
If they’re right — and that’s a big “if” — I’m worried for Apple.”
What if they’re wrong though?
If Google is wrong, and computing continues to be defined by a tightly controlled grid of siloed apps that you poke a thousand times a day on a smooth rectangle of manufacturing excellence, Apple is fine. They’re doing a great job of what computing is today, and what it will probably continue to be for a long time.”
Not quite.
Actually, this is not accurate. Not all of these companies can “win”, some have to fail. So essentially Google, Amazon, and Facebook are fighting for their futures. If they are wrong, some or all likely meet Blackberry’s fate. If they are right, they could still lose and meet Blackberry’s fate because their competitors do it better, or something like that. Blackberry wasn’t wrong — they saw the mobile phone becoming an essential tool for everyone — Blackberry just didn’t win.
Now, back to Apple. Let’s assume that Marco is right and Apple isn’t even fucking trying big data or AI. (I personally feel there is little chance this is a correct assumption, but whatever. It actually doesn’t matter.) Let’s say, for shits and giggles, that Facebook wins at AI and Google wins at big data and Amazon does something else we don’t care about for this post. Does Apple become irrelevant?
If you assume that they do, then essentially you think the iPhone paved the way. You think that the iPod was the first MP3 player, you think OS X was state of the art — and on and on. Apple rarely does it first. None of those things did it first. It’s not a zero-sum game.
Apple succeeds right now because they do it better. Will it be hard to catch up? Maybe, but so far it’s not been hard for Apple at all. Not under Steve Jobs, and not under Tim Cook.
Let’s also not forget Maps. When the iPhone came out, I don’t think Apple was prepared for just how crucial mapping would be. They just relied on Google to get it right. And then, Apple Maps. Is it better? That’s subjective. But it is most certainly good enough. The Apple Watch wasn’t even close to being the first. Is it amazing? Depends. But is it better than any other smart watch? Yes.
So, even if Facebook, Google, and Amazon beat Apple to something, they would all very much want their something on the iPhone. Because: iPhone.
As long as iPhone still trumps all — iPhone still trumps all. Even if Apple has to start 3 years in the hole — we’ve seen them do it successfully with Apple Maps and many other things — it doesn’t hurt them, it just doesn’t help them.
The iPhone trumps, and cash is King. Apple has both — massive amounts of both if we are talking about cash.
Apple can wait and take their time. They can be cautious, they are in a position where they don’t need to skate to where every puck will be, they just need to be ready to drop everything to get to the puck once they think they know where it is about to land. This is a strategy that works for only a hand full of companies because it takes a dominant market position, and cash. This is exactly how Internet Explorer won over Netscape Navigator, by the way.
Over at MartianCraft we launched new versions of TouchPad and NumPad. Among the new things is how we tackled upgrade pricing. I’m very proud of the model we used, so take a look at the article explaining it.
Nice overview from MacStories on the latest PDF Expert update. Personally, I am very happy they support the Apple Pencil now. Great app.
Editor’s Note: I’m going to be writing some posts about how I travel light. I’ll pull them all back together at the end with one larger post and hopefully a video. I am not a super minimalist packer, I am however a light packer. This will also be very geared to men, sorry to all the women — I just have no way of writing about that.
Wrinkles and stains. For me those are the two largest concerns I have when I know I need a dress shirt, or “button down” shirt on a trip. (This is also the standard shirt I wear, so I can’t recall any time when I didn’t pack one or more.) Will it wrinkle? Will it clean easily if I spill my Tex-Mex all over it? Will it still look good after a couple days in a plane or a suitcase?
This is easily the most concerning thing I have seen about the future of Apple. I’m not yet sold on voice, but I have no doubt it is a large part of the future of computing.
I haven't held a membership drive in quite some time, so here we go. As most readers know, there are two funding sources for this site: affiliate revenue, and membership revenue. On an average month I make about 70% of the money for this site from memberships.
Reviewing things not only takes me considerable time (even just finding things which might be good to review), but it also costs considerable money. I only receive items in exchange for a review about 30% of the time — the remainder of the time I am left spending my own money on these items.
I’ve never been a hoodie kind of a guy, but working from home lends itself to wearing a hoodie quite well. So I knew I wanted to get a decent one — something built to last — and I ended up with a Flint and Tinder 10-year Hoodie, in black.
Spencer Bentley:
People who say, ‘it’s not the camera, it’s the photographer,’ are missing the boat. Sure if you put a ten thousand dollar camera in the hands of a blind raccoon you’re probably not going to get any great photos. But in the same vein, if Ansel Adams, Robert Capa, or Vivian Maier had left their cameras at home how much poorer would we all be.
Fantastic post.
I tried to ignore this podcasting hubbub, but I failed. Marco Arment writes about Apple’s position with podcasts:
The biggest player app: Apple’s built-in iOS Podcasts app is the biggest podcast player in the world by a wide margin, holding roughly 60–70% marketshare.
The biggest podcast directory: The iTunes Store’s Podcasts directory is the only one that matters, and being listed there is essential for podcasts to be easily found when searching in most apps.
In other words: podcasters are so worried about what Apple might do, because anything Apple does with podcasts will essentially become the defacto standard for podcasts given Apple’s actual role in podcasts being too important to podcasting. Apple holds the best keys to discovery, and the largest market share for podcasting apps.
Or: if your podcast isn’t listed in iTunes, then do you really have a podcast?
Editor’s Note: I’m going to be writing some posts about how I travel light. I’ll pull them all back together at the end with one larger post and hopefully a video. I am not a super minimalist packer, I am however a light packer. This will also be very geared to men, sorry to all the women — I just have no way of writing about that.
I’ve previously spent a lot of time, and money, trying to find the best undershirt you can wear. And while I stand by my assessment that Underfit shirts are the best ones you can buy, travel undershirts are a different breed. Whereas with my daily wear undershirts I just need something which is comfortable and looks good under my shirts, with travel undershirts I need them to also be:
Once you start down this path you end up looking at two types of shirts: Merino wool, or synthetic. I personally felt that synthetic must be the way to go, however after a lot of research it seemed very clear to me Merino wool was the way to go. Which sucks, because those shirts are very pricey.
I recently wrote, on Medium, how all of my news is sourced through three iOS apps: Reeder, Economist Espresso, and Medium. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with these apps as they offer the perfect way to consume news:
Add to this list now, the New Yorker Today app and the Quartz News app. The New Yorker has always been very hit and miss for me over the years — often what they write is too long and dense on a topic which doesn’t hold enough interest for me to want to read it. But 2-3 times a month, they hit the nail on the head. The hard part: finding that stuff.
Chris Bowler on his switch to 2Do:
Indeed. 2Do strikes the right balance.
2Do is such a fantastic app — but OmniFocus has also been a on tear lately with new features. Glad to see some renewed competition here. For now, I am still very happy with 2Do.
Editor’s Note: I’m going to be writing some posts about how I travel light. I’ll pull them all back together at the end with one larger post and hopefully a video. I am not a super minimalist packer, I am however a light packer. This will also be very geared to men, sorry to all the women — I just have no way of writing about that.
I only ever take two jackets (if any) when I travel: a rain jacket, and/or a thin down type jacket. ((The only exception here is if I need a suit, then of course I take an appropriate jacket as needed.)) If it is cold, I take the down and the rain jacket, if it is forecast to be warm then I take the rain jacket. The only time I won’t take a rain jacket is if the weather will be over 80° the entirety of my stay, as even if it rains then, my clothes will dry fast enough and it will be warm enough, I won’t need a jacket (usually).
Steven Sinofsky writing about his new iPad Pro:
It is a good idea for the debate not to center on “developer” scenarios since the vast majority of people don’t do these things, especially when one considers the degree to which many on earth will experience a smartphone as their first and only “computer”.
The first half of his post is a fantastic analysis of how iPad adoption is likely going to play out. He then dives into his likes and dislikes of the iPad Pro, culminating in this:
The shift to this new form factor and new platform will bring with it cultural changes that take advantage of what are perceived as disadvantages. As makers, being early is essential, otherwise you are late.”
Very astute.
Oh, and I went the sticker route too:
Editor’s Note: I’m going to be writing some posts about how I travel light. I’ll pull them all back together at the end with one larger post and hopefully a video. I am not a super minimalist packer, I am however a light packer. This will also be very geared to men, sorry to all the women — I just have no way of writing about that.
There are two things I hate when it comes to trying to pack toiletries light: travel toothbrushes and the idea that you can buy what you need, where you are going. Travel toothbrushes, which are too small to hold comfortably, and fold in half and thus are never great to begin with.
Just use a regular toothbrush for crying out loud.