The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Quote of the Day: Tim Dees

    “High-speed chases look like fun because they are.”

  • Thoughts on Switching to Verizon from AT&T

    With the iPhone 5, I’m switching to Verizon. I’ve been an AT&T customer since I got my first cell phone circa 1996, and have been loyal to them the entire time, but their lack of actual LTE in my area and insistence that their “4G” *is* 4G [just pisses me off](https://brooksreview.net/2012/03/marketing-bullshit/) so this time around I am going with Verizon.

    I have a few varying thoughts about this, so I thought I would share them here.

    ### Simultaneous Data

    The Verizon iPhone cannot do simultaneous data (where you talk on the phone and use the internet). This sucks, because even though it is not a feature I use often, it *is* a feature that I do use from time to time. I have a ton of questions about this, but the biggest of them is: what happens when you are using turn-by-turn navigation, get a phone call, and need to keep getting directions?

    I have no clue what the answer is, but I hope the answer doesn’t suck.

    ### Non-LTE Speed

    LTE speed on Verizon is fantastic — my iPad is a Verizon LTE iPad — but non-LTE speed on Verizon is no where near as fast as AT&T’s speeds. So the gamble I am taking is that LTE will be expanded fast enough that the times I am not on LTE are far and few between (I hope I am right).

    The flip side is that AT&T actually gets going on rolling out LTE and covers my area faster and better than Verizon — however I think history has shown that staking Verizon is a smarter play.

    ### AT&T Hates Its Users

    I’m more and more convinced that AT&T is greedy as hell and sees the need from its customers for better features and more data as their number one threat. They drug their feet with tethering, and now they sound like they are dragging their feet with FaceTime over 3G/4G.

    While I doubt Verizon is much better, they do seem like the lesser of two evils right now.

    ### Tethering to an iPad for LTE

    A few people have mentioned that they would get an AT&T iPhone and tether to their Verizon LTE iPad when they need LTE speed. I’m going to call bullshit on this one.

    It’s a great idea, but highly impractical. I’ve had that setup now since the iPad (3) came out and have yet to do it once, despite several times when I could have actually used the speed boost. I always just switched to the iPad instead of tethering. I would guess that most people would just switch devices too, rather than tether if they had both with them — it just makes more sense.

    Honestly though, the times that I need the LTE speed on my iPhone are also the times when the iPhone is likely the *only* device I have with me. It’s a convenience factor and I am willing to sacrifice things to have that.

    ### AT&T Family Plan

    Right now my wife and I are on a family plan, and my number is the primary account number — I do wonder what happens when I switch to Verizon. To be safe I am going to call in and try to switch our accounts to separate accounts without signing a new contract — if I can’t do that I will try to assign my wife’s number as primary. Either way I suspect this will be a huge pain in the ass.

    ### Friday

    I’ve no clue how this will all shake out on the 21st, but I’m hoping it goes better than the 4S launch — that was a fiasco for me.

  • ‘Towards a Retina Web’

    A great overview of the different techniques that you can utilize to make your websites retina ready. On this site I had been using the double-resolution (actually 2048px on the long side) picture trick — meaning everyone gets to download huge images. This has slowed down site load times, significantly, but it was the easiest to implement and has kept the site looking great.

    I used [Icon Slate](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icon-slate/id439697913?mt=12) (hat tip to [Gruber](http://daringfireball.net) to create a retina favicon. Those are the only images I use, everything else is just CSS and text.

    Now, the biggest downside to this is that in Reeder on the Mac (and I think Google Reader) images from my site shoot out of their bounds and look crazy big.

    I’ve since installed [Retina.js](http://retinajs.com) to use and try out, but it occurs to me that all these tricks are just nasty hacks for something that is just going to have to be standardized in the browser itself. That is, we need a standard file name attribute that tells the web browser when there is a retina asset available, the browser knows it needs the retina asset, and grabs that first.

  • ‘Gotcha Features’

    Jessica Dolcourt:
    >Yet its lack of a “gotcha” feature gives shoppers considering other powerful alternatives — like the intriguing Lumia 920, the larger-than-life Samsung Galaxy Note 2, or even the won’t-quit Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD — fewer reasons to stick with Apple.

    Oh boy. Let me get this straight, the iPhone 5 is just an ok option, but will sell well while opening the door to competitors? And Dolcourt’s proof of this is that she found three separate Android phones that each have one feature better than the iPhone 5. Right, so I could carry all three other phones (which are huge phones) and have a better offering, or just carry the iPhone 5. But I *totally* see where they left the door open, why didn’t they add those made up features you spoke about earlier in your article:

    >[…] an innovative camera feature that lets you drag and drop subjects around the screen, or other far-out concepts come to life.

    Yeah, Apple, what the hell. I bet no one pre-orders this piece of junk — [oh wait](http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/14/iphone-5-pre-order-sells-out-20x-faster-than-4-and-4s-further-highlighting-apples-dominance/).

  • ‘Apple’s Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige’

    MG Siegler writing about people who are “disappointed” that the iPhone 5 looks the same as the iPhone 4S:
    >Apple is not and will not change things just for the sake of change. And while some may now be clamoring for this change, the paradox is that if Apple did make some big changes, many of the same people would bitch and moan about them. Apple is smart enough to know that in this case, most people don’t really want change, they just think that they do because that’s the easiest way to perceive value: visual newness.

    Siegler’s post is fantastic and worth a read, but I have a counter point to his argument that is something to be mindful of. That is, RIM was very good at ever so slightly making the BlackBerry devices better — iterating design — but in the end they got pigeoned holed into thinking the same.

    I don’t see Apple doing this at all, but I think it’s important to remember that iterating to perfection is fantastic just so long as you recognize that perfection may be a completely different device than what you are iterating on today. This in my mind is what explains the move to a 4-inch screen. I am sure that in 2007 3.5 inches seemed fantastically big, but Apple kept their eyes opened (and their minds) realizing that 4 inches maybe a better device.

    This is counter to what RIM did, deciding that a trackball was better than a jog dial and color screens better than monochrome — so we have nothing to worry about with Apple right now. I just want to point out that there’s two types of iteration: iteration for the sake of perfection and iteration for the sake of selling new devices. It’s the latter that we need to be worried about, Apple’s still well in the iterating to perfection mode.

  • The B&B Podcast #76: Pop Open LaunchBar

    Really fun show this week that only runs 30 seconds over the 30 minute mark that Shawn and I want to hit or be under. Shawn and I talk about tips and tricks for LaunchBar, teaching each other some new ones along the way.

    If you’ve given up on our podcast, or podcasts in general, I’d urge you to give this one a listen — we’ve worked hard to try and make the show fit better into busy schedules and I really think this is a fun episode.

    [We also recorded a nice After Dark about switching from AT&T to Verizon](http://5by5.tv/afterdark/231) — for those not familiar an “After Dark” is 5by5 network lingo for the conversations that happen after we stop recording the episode.

  • Quote of the Day: Terence Eden

    “Either you’re a big business or you can piss off. Small developers have been told they can play no part in this brave new world.”

  • Doubling Down

    Shawn Blanc on the iPhone 5 event:
    >It was like the whole internet had the run sheet for today’s event.

    >Earlier this year Tim Cook said Apple was doubling down on secrecy, and yet virtually every single thing announced today was called by the rumor mill.

    The rumors were so accurate and consistent (well the sane rumors) that I thought for sure they all had to be wrong. I guess there’s going to be some job openings at Apple.

    However, as un-Apple as the lack of secrecy was, I think it paid off better for Apple. Typically after an big announcement event their stock takes a dive because Apple never “meets” rumors, however this time around Apple *did* meet the rumors — and Apple’s stock immediately climbed (continues climbing as of this writing). So there’s an interesting case to be made for getting rumor-mongers more accurate leaks.

  • ‘The Backdoor’

    Richard Koopmann, found a backdoor into the member-only posts on TBR:
    >Back to the point, in my bit.ly network is an account held by Ben Brooks that tweets out a link whenever a new post hits his website. And as I found out, converting a bit.ly user page into an RSS feed is as simple as appending .rss to the end of the URL.

    Koopmann was kind enough to contact me before posting this so that I could fix the hole, but it’s certainly one I had never even thought about. Since launching the paywall I have had quite a few people email me about backdoors they found into the content — none sounded malicious, most found their way in accidentally.

    When designing the paywall I knew one thing: there will always be ways around the paywall, always. I can’t stop it, so I just accept it as fact.

  • Quote of the Day: Farhad Manjoo

    “Nothing about it was obvious.”

  • Apple’s Brand is Intertwined with iPhone Cameras and Microphones

    While reading the live-blogs for Apple’s iPhone 5 event, I stopped to think about why Apple continues to improve cameras and microphones in the iPhone — and not in little ways, and certainly not in cheap ways. It occurs to me that perhaps Apple improves these factors because they are one of the most outward facing images of Apple’s brand that potential consumers will see.

    In other words: People share photos, and Apple doesn’t want photos from their iPhones looking like crap. Likewise the owner of iPhones don’t really notice better sounding microphones, but the people on the other end of the call *do*.

    So my theory is that Apple wants consumers to always think things like: “Man you can really tell when someone is talking to you from an iPhone — they sound great.”

    Apple wants this as it’s a fantastic boost in value to their brand and something that sticks in your head when you go to buy your next phone.

    The iPhone camera — and it’s popularity on Flickr — is evidence of the power that the quality of the photos taken with iPhones must be good. Apple’s been very good at not focusing on jazzy features for the camera, things like higher megapixels, instead Apple improves the camera in the spot that cameras are weakest in: low light.

    I bet most of you have had this scenario happen to you:

    – You show Uncle Bob a great photo you took.
    – Uncle Bob loves it, and asks: “What kind of camera you have, Neb?”

    Apple wants you to answer, with pride, “an iPhone”.

    Because in the consumer mind it’s not the photographer, but the camera — so if Apple makes the camera really great at the really tough photos, then people will notice and ask the same question Uncle Bob asked. Apple wants to be your answer.

    And consumers will remember this the next time they buy a phone: “Neb’s iPhone takes such great photos, I haven’t seen any photos people take with the `Samsung EEw577 S™ REPPPER`, so maybe I should get the iPhone.”

    The photos you take with your iPhone are, themselves, a lasting marketing tool for Apple to sell more iPhones — so it only makes sense that they spend so much time improving the camera with each version. ((A bit of anecdotal evidence I had never given second thought about, is that my Wife will often say: “Can you take the picture with your iPhone, it takes better pictures.” My wife is always one generation behind with her iPhones.))

  • Ridiculous Statements from the Tech Press Regarding the iPhone 5, After it was Announced

    I got bored during one of the software demos while reading live-blogs about the Apple iPhone 5 press event, so I checked in on my RSS feeds. Surprisingly (or not really) there were posts up about what the iPhone 5 means yadda yadda yadda — yet no one had touched it yet. So I’ve culled together stupid statements people are making maybe even some statements from those that have played with the iPhone 5, we can’t be sure with this level of “journalism”.

    Here we go, let’s start with Consumer Reports. [Mike Gikas](http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2012/09/apple-iphone-5-is-the-radical-makeover-that-apple-fans-needed.html):

    >Apple needed to go big this time, and it did.

    Why, because competitors have larger phones? If that’s your basis for this statement, then how do you back up the fact that Apple has not lost any sales by not having a bigger phone sooner — it’s not like this is a new trend? That is, iPhone sales were still excellent-to-industry-leading. So what is the basis for this ludicrous statement? There isn’t one — and who’s to even say that a bigger iPhone is actually better? I’m not convinced, but I am going to wait to have one before I put that down in ink.

    Next is [John Brandon, who writes a true gem for Inc.com](http://www.inc.com/john-brandon/apple-iphone-5-finally-ready-for-business.html), titled: “iPhone 5: Finally Ready for Business?” Well, is it? Brandon goes through a bunch of words, that put together amount to little more than a press release. Here’s a true gem of the article:

    >A new set of earbuds, called the EarPods, should make phone calls a little easier and clearer for business purposes–and maybe even reduce some background noise in the process.

    Did he just write about the new headphones being great “for business purposes” — wow, just wow. Maybe they will be great for music purposes too. Either way, do business people walk around with headphones on? Bluetooth, certainly, but earbuds? I think not.

    Brandon solidly concludes his article with:

    >Whether the business world adopts it as a standard phone for employees, or lets staff members “bring their own” is still undecided.

    Shocking conclusion there Brandon. He then cites an Inc.com poll showing consumers that read Inc.com want the iPhone 5, while his actual conclusion is the pricing info. I get putting a business spin on the article, but why not talk more about VPNs, encryption, security, and Exchange support? He touches on some of this, but that’s the heart of a business article about the iPhone — not the earbuds.

    The Consumerist’s, Chris Morran took to the argument we are likely to hear everyone talk about, [the new connector](http://consumerist.com/2012/09/is-there-anything-special-about-the-iphone-5.html). Morran thinks:

    >Sure to be of annoyance to some people is Apple’s decision to finally do away with the wide 30-pin connectors that have been associated with iOS devices for years.

    Good to know that, I guess. Of course it will make great claim chowder if it turns out to be the best new feature — I guess we will have to wait for actual consumers to use the device, you know, because assumptions are just that, assumptions. If you really wanted to damn this new connector why not talk about the obscene $29 that Apple charges for the adapter. Better yet, why not ask why Apple likes the $29 price point so much. As I said, the new connector is just as likely to be a hit as it is to be a miss, unless you need something to get riled up about before you know the answer.

    To recap:

    – Consumer Reports thinks this is something that will right the iPhone ship that was being bombarded by larger screened rivals.
    – Inc.com thinks there’s a chance the earbuds will be great “for business purposes”.
    – The Consumerist thinks the new dock connector is going to be a real pain in the ass for consumers.

    I can’t wait for tomorrow’s reports…

    **Update**: [GigaOm is blaming Apple’s lack of adoption of NFC as being the reason NFC is floundering](http://gigaom.com/2012/09/12/iphone-5s-nfc-snub-will-keep-technology-out-of-mainstream/). Yeah…

  • Quote of the Day: Gadi Amit

    “We don’t need translation of the digital medium in mechanical real-life terms. It’s an old-fashioned paradigm.”

  • SpiderOak

    A nice review from Glenn Fleishman on Macworld that looks at an interesting backup/sync option called SpiderOak. He concludes:
    >If you’re looking for the highest level of privacy and a service that has all of the pieces in one place for backup, sync, and read-only folder sharing, SpiderOak offers the strongest solution.

    I’ve known about SpiderOak for a long time now, at it seems right up my alley, but honestly the UI is confusing and ugly. I tried to use it a month ago and just couldn’t find the time to want to set it up. That’s why Dropbox and Time Machine are so powerful — just flip a switch and forget about it.

    Still, I’ve heard from many that SpiderOak is a much more secure option — and with iCloud it might make a nice complimentary service over Dropbox. I’ll give it another go.

  • ‘Integrity and Bullies With Blogs’

    Joshua Topolsky (the editor-in-chief of *The Verge*) responded to [earlier criticism](https://brooksreview.net/2012/09/reporting-kind-of/) of a Verge post on his personal Tumblr. Overall it’s about what you would expect, but the opening salvo is a real gem and so I think we should break down the opening paragraph line-by-line.

    >I wanted to make this brief, because I have more important things to do with my time than respond to bullies who like to play-pretend that they know things they don’t.

    This is an interesting way to start. He’s trying to discredit those that are speaking out about this, saying they are “play-pretending” that they “know” things that they don’t. Further, that even talking about these people are a waste of his time because this is very much a non-issue. Two of those people: Marco Arment and John Gruber. So I’m thinking this opening statement is a bit of a stretch, but heck, he’s upset.

    I’m breaking the next bit up for better analysis.

    >But, just as I felt compelled to respond to Michael Arrington when he attacked the work I (and my team) did at Engadget,[…]

    It’s one thing to have Arment or Gruber call you out, but Arrington? Ouch, I had forgotten about that.

    > […]I am now responding to Marco Arment, John Gruber,[…]

    I’m glad he didn’t pussyfoot around calling people out by names — when everyone knows who called you out, best to address those people directly.

    >[…]and anyone else who sets up a minimal WordPress blog and thinks that the ability to publish text onto the internet gives them insight into what journalism is or what I do for a living.

    Wait, you have got to be fucking kidding me, this is the next bit of discrediting tactic he is taking? That somehow a minimal looking WordPress blog makes you a shit writer? How do the tools have anything to do with the writing talent?

    Topolsky is using Tumblr for fucks-sake if you really want to start talking about platforms, probably not best to sling shit when using Tumblr — just saying. ((I mean Jim Dalrymple has a minimalist looking WordPress blog, didn’t comment on this, and is ten times the writer/reporter/journalist of the entire Verge staff combined. Probably best to check the WordPress comment at the door.))

    Further, this minimal looking WordPress blogger hack, looked into his RSS feed of ~600 tech minded sites to see who commented about *The Verge* — of those commentators I am the only one on WordPress that commented — so it must be me right? I mean it’s not like WordPress is [*that* popular to blog on](http://trends.builtwith.com/cms).

    Give me a break.

    That’s not to mention that Topolsky likely offended half of the people that read *The Verge*, but hey he needs to defend his site.

    ### The Error

    Here’s the thing, I would have loved for Topolsky to have posted this as an open “letter from the Editor” on *The Verge*. He could have clearly and calmly laid out the policies at *The Verge*. He could have went on record as saying why the topic was omitted, that they always tell the truth, and so forth.

    But he didn’t.

    Instead Topolsky responded on his smaller personal Tumblr site.

    >My point is this: when someone accuses this team of lacking in integrity, or being on the take for a company, or somehow perverting their work for the sake of some other party (readers or otherwise), I take it pretty seriously. I think it’s bullshit, and I won’t stand for it.

    “I mean, not seriously enough to talk about it openly on the site that I am editor-in-chief of, but the next level down for sure. But really, as I said, I don’t have time for this shit — it’s serious — but I don’t have time for it.”

  • Quote of the Day: Harry Marks

    “9to5Mac is the ‘used car salesman’ of Apple blogs (maybe a notch below DigiTimes).”

  • “Reporting”

    Harry Marks on the fact that the Spectre One looks exactly like an iMac, and yet Engadget didn’t mention that in its review — instead the author tweeted it would have been trolling to mention that fact — rebuts:
    >I don’t believe it would be “trollish” to state that the Spectre One is, at the very least, influenced by Apple’s iMac all-in-one.

    [Marco Arment points out](http://www.marco.org/2012/09/10/elephant):

    >Big “gadget” blogs depend on maintaining very friendly relationships with the companies whose products they cover so they can continue to get exclusives, interviews, press badges to events, and early access to products.

    Better still, [Jonathan Poritsky reminds us that those exclusive are usually piss-poor anyways](http://candlerblog.com/2012/09/10/staying-friendly/).

    Of course, [this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone](https://alpha.app.net/benbrooks/post/372549) — it’s [one of the reasons I moved to a paywall model](https://brooksreview.net/2012/07/new-tbr/) so that I could *always* avoid not being able to speak my mind.

    I’d like to say I expect more from Engadget or *The Verge*, but I really — honestly — trust their reviews less than I trust Amazon reviews.

  • Siri Drops the “That”

    A nice catch by Shawn, but more interesting is that he feels he treats Siri like a person. I, for one, treat her better — last night I caught myself saying to Siri: “**Please**, set a time for 20 minutes.” I mean who uses “please” anymore?

    My guess, 95% percent of people that use Siri, speak like they are naturally speaking to a human. That’s not because we think Siri is a person — no — I’m guessing it is because Siri actually understands us ((Mostly.)) when we use our *natural* language.

  • ‘I’m David Marcus, and I’ve Been Running PayPal’

    David Marcus, in a comment on Hacker News, about all the complaints surrounding PayPal:
    >[…]there’s a massive culture change happening at PayPal right now. If we suck at something, we now face it, and we do something about it.

    There’s so much that’s fascinating about his statement. Let me just run through them:

    1. This was sent publicly on a very nerdy link aggregation site. Not done via a Press Release or anything more private.
    2. This sends the wrong message. This makes PayPal sound like a startup (again) and makes the company look rather unprofessional — not something you want your online bank sounding like.
    3. That said, I love that he did this. The statements could be complete bullshit, but the fact that he had the savvy to respond to this criticism is fantastic.
    4. This feels more like a response to the loss of customers, than it does a response to a real complaint.
    5. PayPal is clearly worried about their future, because you don’t hire a guy that says the things Marcus is saying if you are riding high.

    Should be interesting to watch if any changes happen.

  • Belkin WeMo

    When Shawn Blanc first told me about the WeMo, I was pumped. An iPhone controlled outlet and a web enabled motion sensor sounded not only awesome, but perfect. With Belkin making the project I was even more in love with the idea — because while I don’t think everything that Belkin makes is great, I do think that for the most part they don’t make crap for the sake of making crap.

    I purchased the kit that included the switched outlet controller and the motion sensor device — I had the perfect scenario mapped out. My living room is lit with two tall lamps, neither of which are on a switched outlet and thus must be turned on by hand. I put the switched outlet on one lamp and was amazed at how well the entire thing worked.

    I then started to play around with the motion sensor, and quite honestly am not impressed by it in the least. I can’t seem to find a good use for the motion sensor and this is in part due to the fact that anything it would alert me to, would likely be too late of an alert by the time I was alerted. Even though we are only talking about a seconds type of delay, it’s still significant enough to make the product harder to find a fit for. Since I haven’t used the motion sensing bit very much, this is all I feel comfortable saying about that part of the WeMo.

    The Pros of the Switched Outlet Component

    • It works very fast. In my home there is a less than one-half second delay from the time you tap the on/off button on the iPhone to the time the light turns on and off. (The light has an LED bulb in it, so the delay isn’t some CFL nonsense.)
    • It’s very reliable. My biggest fear was that it would crap out at times and leave me high and dry. It hasn’t once crapped out that I can remember. It did stop working one day, but then I found out the cats had unplugged it somehow.
    • It’s insanely convenient. We can now leave the light on while we walk the hallway to the bedroom at night and wait to turn off the living room light until we are both in bed. That may sound silly to some, but we really love being able to do this.

    The Cons of the Switched Outlet Component

    • You cannot turn on the light without using the WeMo app, which is logical, but you can turn off the light without using the app — and once someone does that it can’t be turned back on with just the app. Do you see where this can get confusing?
    • The app needs to launch faster.
    • The switch makes a very audible click when you turn it on and off. I wish it was silent — that’d be far better.
    • The icon for the app is, well, let’s just say that I keep it hidden in a folder — as inconvenient as that maybe.

    Wrap Up

    The WeMo switched outlet component is a solid device and we will likely be getting another for the other lamp in our living room. I wish the UI was a little better on the app, but it’s not the worst I have seen and is perfectly useable as is.

    The motion sensor is simply not something I can find a use for, but I am certain there are uses for it. ((If you want mine, send me an email — best offer gets it.))

    There’s a bunch of cleverness about WeMo, from the rules you can setup to the WAN support. It’s a solid product all around.

    If you buy it from Amazon, you can support the site: here’s just the switch component and here’s the switch plus motion sensor package.