The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Retina MacBook Pro Review as a Mac Pro Owner

  • Why I Think This Win for Apple Is Good for Everyone

    I was watching Twitter yesterday when the Apple vs. Samsung jury came back and announced its findings. The overall sentiment on Twitter was one of worry — mostly about the reaffirmation that this gives to litigation and the patent system itself. The worry is that with such sweeping victory, Apple now has massive power over the patents they have and thus everyone should cower if cornered by Apple.

    I think this assumption is dead wrong.

    In order to believe this, you also have to believe that Apple wants to take you to court — they don’t. In fact, all Apple really seems to care about is not being ripped off — and really don’t we all care about this. It doesn’t appear to me that Apple is looking at every obscure patent they have and finding someone to sue, rather they are looking into products that they feel copy theirs.

    [From Nilay Patel at *The Verge*, on the verdict](http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/24/3266571/apple-decisively-wins-samsung-trial-what-it-means):

    >Perhaps most importantly, the jury ruled that many of Samsung’s infringements were “willful” — that is, the company deliberately copied Apple’s patents. That’s how they got to that $1.051 billion damage award; they punished Samsung for doing it on purpose.

    In my opinion, from what I have read, this case was not about patents for Apple *or* the jury (it was for Samsung) — for both Apple and the jury this case was about copying an idea. The question that the jury answered for Apple, and for me, was: did Samsung copy Apple products, [or did they Remix Apple products](http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html)?

    The jury came back and said: Samsung copied.

    Furthermore, the jury came back and said that said copying *is* wrong. But we all knew it to be wrong the entire time.

    Yes, the patent system is a fucked up mess to say the least, but I still very much believe that what Samsung has done is wrong no matter how you slice it.

    So yes, I would like patent reform, but I am also very happy that *this* jury simplified the matter and handed out the correct verdicts. ((Though, the verdict sounds unlikely to stand, the judgment has more or less gotten the point across in the court of public opinion — something Apple really wanted.))

  • ‘The Boolean Graph’

    Kevin Rose wonders out loud why he is using Facebook less and less, concluding:
    >The people I friended three years ago in passing I hardly know and un-friending is hard and socially awkward.

    The concept of “friending” on Facebook is both its biggest strength and biggest weakness. I explained a lot in [this post about Twitter from a while back about the dynamics of things like this](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/follow/). The long and short of it is that unfollowing on Twitter isn’t nearly as painful (but still pisses people off) to people as unfriending on Facebook is, but the real problem is that people have an overly loose definition of what a “friend” is.

    The way I determine a friend: do you have my cell phone number or home address? Because if you can wake me up in the middle of the night, then I probably think of you as a friend. ((Excluding those that have my number as an emergency contact for my work related things.))

  • ‘Supporting Content Makers’

    When I was talking with Myke on CMD+SPACE the other day, he mentioned his internal thought process on how he decides to support a site by becoming a member or not. After mentioning it I urged him to write it up, because his rationale is simply fantastic.

    This is that write, and I really don’t want to spoil the criteria he uses so I do urge you to read it. What I really like about his logic is that it is all about the people behind things, and not the content itself — that sits well with me.

  • Quote of the Day: Dustin Curtis

    “It now expects those developers to continue supporting Twitter by syndicating content into its platform, but it no longer wants to provide any value to developers in return.”

  • ‘Fred Wilson on Why the Collapse of Venture Capital Is Good’

    Rachel Metz in an interview with super-blogger-VC Fred Wilson, introduces the interview with this nugget:
    >Lately VCs haven’t come close to generating the returns on their investments that made them stars in the 1990s. It’s even becoming questionable what value they generate for society. IT companies are finding it cheaper than ever to get going now that they can rent computing resources from providers in the “cloud.” Meanwhile, alternative funding mechanisms are proliferating.

    What a great opening salvo, particularly the second sentence about the value of VCs towards society.

    Just three questions into the interview she asks Wilson what a “mediocre return” is for a VC, to which he responds:

    >Anything less than three times your money over a 10-year period.

    Correct me if I am wrong, but that’s a 30% return on your money every year for ten years — and anything less than that is considered too bad to want to continue with this?

    Armed with that information, and the fast approaching seven year anniversary of Twitter, do you still wonder why Twitter is scrambling to make money?

    Personally I don’t mind companies that take VC money, what I do mind is companies that take VC money that:

    1. Don’t have any clue how to repay that money (no business model in place, or planned on);
    2. That eventually allow the VCs to run the entire show.

    Twitter is at fault, I believe, of both of those errors.

    In case you don’t think it is possible to be VC funded and not let the VCs run the show — even when you don’t have the money stuff figured out — I would look no further than Facebook. Zuckerberg’s most impressive feat, to date, is the fact that he took Facebook through countless VC rounds and an IPO, all while still retaining control of the company. That is simply amazing.

    Should be interesting to watch how venture capital changes with the explosive growth of Kickstarter (who is backed by VC money, no less).

  • Quote of the Day: Horace Dediu

    “The irony is that by thinking small, Apple became the biggest company that ever was.”

  • Glassboard Premium

    I have never used Glassboard for more than a few moments to try it out. Here’s the thing though, I really want to sign up for the premium service because of how great the platform is.

    I really want to use Glassboard, but my company is basically me — so that’s out.

    So, here’s my serious question for all of you: if you use Glassboard in a non-work setting, how are you using it?

    I am really looking for a way to use the service because I like it so much, so get in a touch and let me know.

    Oh and if you use Glassboard, I highly recommend you pay to support it.

  • ‘Translation of Selected Portions of AT&T’s Blog Post Regarding FaceTime Over Their Cellular Network’

    Nick Heer translates AT&T’s BS press release:

    >You won’t *believe* how tightly we are threading our FaceTime policies through some loopholes we found. You are going to be amazed, where by amazed, we mean “totally pissed off”.

    I actually didn’t read the AT&T press release because I couldn’t keep from rolling my eyes long enough to get through the first word. Heer’s translation is excellent.

    I’ve been an AT&T subscriber for well over 14 years. No, really. I was pumped when the first iPhone was announced on Cingular (later changed to AT&T) and I have a completely unfounded hatred of using Verizon. ((I have a Verizon iPad, but only because AT&T’s LTE network is a joke.)) With the next iPhone coming out in a month or so, I have to say, that for the first time I just might switch to Verizon. ((Or T-Mobile as I am hearing more and more little birdies telling me that T-Mobile will get the iPhone this time around, what with the failed merger with AT&T. They are local, so might make a good choice for me.))

    Literally no one in my family, or immediate network (save two good friends), are on Verizon — and yet I don’t know if I can stomach staying on AT&T. It’s not that AT&T has bad service, bad speeds, or bad prices ((All the networks have shitty prices.)) — it’s that AT&T Wireless has taken the Airline route to customer service, which I summarize as such:

    > We stand to serve our customers, except only *we* know what our customers want. Should a customer want a new feature, we need to sit down and determine how much and how often we can charge them for that new feature — this should take no less than 6 months. Should our customers challenge us, we will slyly raise early termination fees to deter such dissension. Remember, we are AT&T, and the ultimate authority on what *you* actually need.

    The problem is that mobile telephones and internet has moved from a luxury good, paid with disposable income, to a commodity. I have seen people sitting on the side of the road, freshly evicted from their apartment, chatting on their phones and texting. This is our priority — it’s no wonder that AT&T feels like they can treat us like shit.

    So, maybe it’s time for a change this September. ((T-Mobile users, let me know how the service and network speeds are just in case what I am hearing is true. No way I go with Sprint, their commercials were in B&W — can’t imagine they have a fast network.))

    [via The Beard]

  • Scratch Version 1.1 is out

  • Good Men Doing Nothing

    > “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
    > – [Edmund Burke](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke#Misattributed) (maybe)

    If you want App.net to succeed, that is if you are morally or otherwise opposed to what Twitter is doing with its API, then why are you still actively or otherwise using Twitter?

    I’ve stopped posting new updates. I’m only checking it a couple times a day. And if Twitter doesn’t do an about face I’ll be done with it very quickly. I’m giving them one last chance, but also slowing my usage to a crawl — imagine the power of the entire nerd community doing this. The easiest way to making Twitter take notice, is to remove your eyeballs from their advertising, and devalue the network by reducing the size of it.

    The question is, are you willing to take action beyond just complaining about Twitter, on Twitter?

  • Drafts for iPad

    [I love Drafts](https://brooksreview.net/2012/04/drafts-2/) and so I am happy to see it make its way to the iPad as a new $3 app. Drafts for the iPad is everything you would expect: fast, clean, and simple. If you already use and love Drafts on the iPhone, then Drafts for iPad is a no brainer.

    There are two things that I am not a fan of with the iPad version:

    1. Simperium is powering the syncing engine — which means I have to create an account with them to get sync up and running between the two versions of the app. This is likely done because of the trouble developers are having with iCloud, but it is still a very annoying thing as a user. So far I haven’t bothered to set this up.
    2. The actions menu is now huge in Drafts, this is really nice if you use Drafts that way, but for me I would much prefer if Drafts just came with the actions defaulted to off — forcing me to turn on only the ones I really need.

    Both those complaints are minor ones, and only complaints that you will encounter in first-run scenarios. Once you are up and running things work very nicely.

    Along with the iPad version [Drafts for the iPhone hit version 2.0](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drafts/id502385074?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4). I am still personally using [Scratch](https://brooksreview.net/2012/07/scratch/) on my iPhone instead, but now it just comes down to UI preference as both apps have very similar functionality and launch seemingly just as fast as each other.

    *(Personally I am sticking with Scratch on my iPhone because I love the custom keys above the keyboard. This is something that Drafts on the iPad does have, but is curiously missing on the iPhone.)*

  • Former Googler, Marissa Mayer Picks iPhones Over Androids for Yahoo Employees

  • CMD+SPACE – 004 – Paywalls with Ben Brooks

    I joined Myke on CMD+Space to talk about paywalls and Twitter. It was a fun show and I loved how Myke decides whether or not to pay for a membership, which I won’t reveal — you’ll have to listen.

  • Poster – a WordPress Blog Editor

    New iPad app for posting to WordPress blogs that does two fantastically awesome things:

    1. Allows you to grab files from Dropbox to post, all within the app.
    2. But more importantly it is the only iPad WordPress app that I know of that supports custom fields — which is huge for me and many other WordPress bloggers.

    Beyond that it is a really nice clean and straightforward app. It’s actually perfectly simple and I think is going to become my new best friend.

    [It’s $3.99, go get it.](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/poster-wordpress-blog-editor/id549006481?mt=8)

    **Update:** There is a bug in the app that causes the post time to be several hours off. This is a timezone bug I am told and a bug fix should be submitted soon. For me this post (posted with Poster) was submitted to my site 7 hours earlier then when I expected. This is certainly annoying to have in an otherwise great app.

    [via huw on App.net]

  • Quote of the Day: Matt Drance

    “It’s clear to me that over the last five years or so, Samsung has built not only a multibillion-dollar business, but a corporate culture around having Apple’s number.”

  • ‘Why Apple Might Be Better Off Losing Its Patent Lawsuit’

    Steve Lohr, reporting on a research note from Steve Milunovich argues that Apple *might* be better off losing its patent battle with Samsung:

    >“It could hurt Apple,” he writes, “because the real threat is not a competitor beating Apple at its own game but instead changing the game.”

    Bullshit.

    Are we to believe that Google, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, et al. stand any chance at “changing the game”? These are entrenched players that, to this day, still show that they lack a fundamental understanding of why, what Apple is doing, is working.

    The companies don’t get it and that is why they are copying instead of innovating. That will not and cannot change if they are forced to make workarounds. You know what will happen: they *will* make crappy workarounds and not give a crap about user experience — as evidenced by the quality of devices (generally) and crappy skins they apply over Android.

    Look, I’m not saying these companies are incapable of coming up with a few features that are better than what Apple offers, but I *am* saying that Samsung stooped so low as to copy the icons that Apple uses.

    *The* icons.

    I don’t know what logic Milunovich was using, but I bet if Apple outright wins its lawsuit it would be far more crippling to Samsung than it ever will be to Apple.

  • FF Chartwell

    A fantastic new font that allows for chart creation that is dead simple. I purchased the font today and have been having a blast playing around with it — I am not yet sure where and when I will use it, but I do know that it beats the hell out of the crafting charts in Illustrator.

    [via DF]

  • It’s Math

    Professor Pi, answers: “Why time appears to speed up with age (idea)” and concludes:
    >Life is half over at age ten, and three quarters over at age thirty. Note the rapid increase at very young ages: in the initial stages of life, life itself makes big strides forward.

    The math quickly got away from me, but I have always believed time sped up the older I got — this is all the “proof” that I need. Simply the most fascinating thing I have read a quite a while.

    This finally explains why my Grandpa is content — no, perfectly happy — to wait for a product he wants to go on sale even though that wait might be a year or more. Whereas I can’t stand the fact that I still haven’t received Kickstarter projects that I backed just this year.

  • Quote of the Day: Chris Bowler

    “The device is a satellite, not my primary tool for work.”