This is a killer implementation of Basecamp on my iPhone — beats any of the apps that you can buy for iOS in the App Store by a mile. I now have everything but a good Backpack client for my iPhone. I hope this is a the route they take with Backpack as well.
Author: Ben Brooks
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The Fall of a Titan — So Long Sony
I posted a quote from Jeff Yang in an article he wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle titled: “How Steve Jobs ‘out-Japanned’ Japan”. It has been noted, that the article really should have been ‘how he ‘out-Sony’d’ Sony’ — much of the article is about Sony with the remaining bits about Apple and specifically Steve Jobs — the insight he draws into both Apple and Sony makes for an informational read. About a month ago I started to write a post about Sony and how it is quickly fading away in both consumer relevance and technological relevance. I got one sentence into it: “What the hell happened to Sony?”
The answer to this question starts back in 2007, when I was in Japan visiting relatives. ((I am one-quarter Japanese and can speak 1% of the language, while understanding a far greater percentage.)) I had the opportunity to go into a Sony building/store that was in Tokyo. In this store I saw one of the most impressive pieces of technology I had ever laid eyes on: a 13” (I think, metric system and Japanese writing makes it hard to remember) OLED TV/Monitor. The color and resolution was superb and the device was as thin, or thinner, than an iPad. It was really a sight to see and it cost an arm and a leg (if memory serves it was over $1000 US).
Growing up I always wanted Sony stuff — their stuff was always the best looking gadget you could buy — Sony seemed to epitomize cool. They made black computers long before it was cool to make black computers. Sony was always at the high end of the market, charging premium prices for premium design.
They were cool.
I don’t know when it happened, but if you browse Sony’s website you get a clear picture that they are selling mid-range products with mid-range design. The biggest design element that Sony uses is applying color with reckless abandon to all of their devices. All of the prices seem to be run of the mill, nothing too expensive and nothing too cheap. It all seems so very average.
There is no one thing you can point your finger at as the problem, except perhaps their CEO. You don’t keep a great company great by saying things like this:
No — you have to launch [it]. It’s there. Competitive pressures — you read in the papers, so-and-so is the first to release 3-D TV. You don’t want to be the last.
—Sony’s CEO Sir Howard Stringer [source: Jeff Yang for the San Francisco Chronicle]
Compare this to what Jeff Yang explains as the idea that Sony’s founder Masaru Ibuka instilled Sony with:
That statement was simple and to the point: “Sony will be the company that is most known for transforming the global image of Japanese goods as being of poor quality.” It defined Sony by what it would not do — make bad products — making it something of an omission statement, if you will.
I don’t quote that snippet to imply in any way that Sony has started making poor quality products, but I think they make very average products today. The current crop of leaders at Sony are after two things: profits and market share. I don’t think they truly care which one they get, so long as they get one of them.
The CEO needs to go. Hell, the senior management needs to go.
Sony may still make products that are durable and pass Q.A., but what they don’t make is products with quality design. They haven’t made something like that in quite a while.
I used to waste hours in college looking at Dynamism as they would have the latest computers available in Japan for import to the U.S. We are talking about spending $500-1000 in marked up prices to get the latest cool notebook. Now you browse that site and you have to be left with the feeling of: so what. I remember how cool the Carbon Fiber sony laptops used to look.
Sony should be the Windows supplier of beautiful computers — instead they let Apple take that away from them with Bootcamp. The competition is between Apple and the PC world, with Sony being lumped with the likes of Dell as just another PC manufacturer. Where Dell used to represent the anti-Sony — Sony has now found themselves lumped in the category of just another computer maker.
Ibuka has to be rolling over in his grave.
I just spent about 30 minutes of my time looking through Sony’s US website to see if there was anything I wanted to buy. I came across this:
I think we all now know exactly what the problem with Sony is. ((Hint: Look at the prices and the fact that they are selling Tape a CD players…still.))
[Updated: 2.1.11 at 8:37 AM]
A reader pointed out that he thinks the main mistake was moving to hire a ‘western’ CEO and not a Japanese CEO. I have spent most of my life in the Japanese culture and with that mindset this sentiment makes complete sense to me. There is a huge difference in mindset between the western world and Japanese culture.
For example Japanese employees typically all do a serious of stretches and a light work out at the beginning of each work day — a western CEO might not think that is important. There is one danger in this line of thinking: if Stringer has this knowledge base then the only problem would be that he is not Japanese — but I don’t think that this is fundamentally a problem. So long as the CEO understands AND respects the Japanese way the company should still be doing fine.
Sony is not doing fine, so either Stringer does not understand the Japanese culture, or he simply doesn’t respect it.
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Readability’s new service
Marco Arment on Readbility’s new service:
Today, they launched an entirely new Readability service: you pay a small fee each month, and they give most of the proceeds to the authors of the pages you choose (by using the Readability bookmarklet on them, or adding them in other ways). It’s a great way for readers to support web publishers, big and small, directly and automatically.
I am signed up to pay $5 a month right now and The Brooks Review is setup to receive funds on Readability. ((My ultimate goal is to end up paying a subscription for whatever I bring in to TBR a month, back to the sites I read. I don’t know what, if anything, that will be right now so I am starting with $5/mo.)) This is so new and I was so excited about it I had to get it setup up right away. You will also notice that the Instapaper buttons are gone — replaced with Readability’s new buttons. On any article that I write you will see a button that says ‘Read’ and gives you two options: now and later. Later saves the article in the Readability back-end and Now gives you a great view of just the content. I am a huge fan and it helps that the colors somewhat match TBR’s colors.
Marco is working on an iOS app that uses Instapaper’s back-end for ultimate awesomeness. Let me know if you hit any problems, until then hit the link and sign up to use the service and sign up as a publisher if you haven’t already.
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USAA App for iPad
Remember how I was saying that USAA is the best bank you can get — well check out their new iPad app. I can tell you from first hand experience that this app is killer.
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How Apple and Google Probably Won’t Kill the Password
Mike Elgan wrote an exhaustive piece full of technology day dreams for a world where we can rid the password. He talks about how Apple is presumable pursuing NFC technology and how Android is set to include it.
NFC is a word that is going to be annoying for the next few years — it stands for Near Field Communication. Basically it is like a Bluetooth/RFID system.
Google likely isn’t going to transform this — adding support for NFC in Android leaves it up to developers to implement the system, which is just asking for crap.
Apple doesn’t care to do this unless they are getting 30% of every NFC transaction. They do have incentive to use NFC to make interacting between iOS devices and Macs better.
I like Elgan’s grand thoughts, but they are all pipe dreams that are more than 5 years out (at best).
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The next Nokia OS: Android or Windows?
Fabrizio Capobianco debating Nokia’s mobile OS options:
The big question is: will there ever be a lot of MeeGo developers? Hard to say, the ship has sailed a long time ago. Developers today build for iPhone first, then Android. If they have a good reason (i.e. Microsoft paying) they build for Windows Phone 7. If they are in the enterprise, maybe they look at BlackBerry. If they want to support the existing bunch of devices, they suffer and go with Symbian as well. Hard to think they will pick yet-another-OS…
Capobianco is right, MeeGo has no developers and that means that there will be little consumer interest. I would guess that Nokia tries to launch a Windows Phone 7 and Android phone to see which sells better. As much as I would like them to pursue MeeGo and not license Windows Phone 7 or Android I just don’t see the benefit to it.
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Egypt. Internet. Stupidity.
Christopher Mims:
In a country where users are ahead of the authorities in terms of their ability to exploit the relatively new “social” media, blunt instruments must be used, and the economic consequences for Egypt could be profound.
A fascinating look at Internet filtering versus turning off the Internet completely.
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Marco Arment’s Speculation on the Next MacBook Pro
Marco has a hard time seeing Apple dropping the Ethernet and FireWire ports in the 15″ MacBook Pro in order to obtain a wedge shape. ((Like what the current Airs have.)) What if Apple decided that USB 3.0 was the way to go, thus theoretically allowing a Gigabit USB Ethernet adapter and FireWire speeds?
I don’t know if you could do Gigabit over USB 3.0 and the standard is very new, but I do know that it is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices — you wouldn’t need any more ports.
Personally I think Apple ditches the Ethernet and platter based hard drives. Though USB 3 would be a compelling reason to get the ‘Pro’ lineup of Apple portables.
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Researchers Enable Mesh WiFi Networking for Android Smartphones
Casey Johnston:
Individual phones can also act as relay points, and theoretically should be able to bridge together a phone in a remote area with no service to one with access to the cellular network, where the call can finally be relayed to its intended recipient.
This is really cool — as many of us know, when a disaster hits the cellphone networks start getting overloaded. This is a huge problem for emergency responders as they have to begin to rely on older technology to keep in touch. I could see this being a huge draw from agencies like FEMA to us in the field — as well as search and rescue operations that often happen well outside the coverage area.
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Quote of the Day: Shawn Blanc
“There is something magical about the early morning. It’s a time when the world belongs to only those few who are awake. And we walk around like kings while others remain unseen in their beds.”Typically I like to let quotes stand on their own with no commentary, but I can’t leave this one alone. Shawn has written an awesome post, and that statement above is one of the best paragraphs I have ever read. I honestly mean that.
I only started getting up early about 2 years ago and, like Shawn, it is my most productive time of day. One thing I like about getting up early is the flow of information — be it email, Twitter, or RSS feeds — is incredibly low. Sitting at my desk after I shower at 5:45am has made this time a silent bubble. Even our cats are too tired to bug me.
I get every minor thing out of the way so that when I get to my office I can immediately start checking off stuff in OmniFocus. I absolutely love the mornings and I am thinking about moving my wake up time to a touch earlier, perhaps 5:30am.
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The Times’s Dealings With Julian Assange
I finally had a chance to read this very long article from the NYT about their interactions with Assange and WikiLeaks. I found these two bits fascinating, as reported by Bill Keller:
On the fourth day of the London meeting, Assange slouched into The Guardian office, a day late. Schmitt took his first measure of the man who would be a large presence in our lives. “He’s tall — probably 6-foot-2 or 6-3 — and lanky, with pale skin, gray eyes and a shock of white hair that seizes your attention,” Schmitt wrote to me later. “He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.”
Keller later says:
Assange was transformed by his outlaw celebrity. The derelict with the backpack and the sagging socks now wore his hair dyed and styled, and he favored fashionably skinny suits and ties. He became a kind of cult figure for the European young and leftish and was evidently a magnet for women.
Gee I wonder why, oh wait:
The flow of donations to WikiLeaks, which he claimed hit 100,000 euros a day at its peak…
If you think for one-second that Assange is doing this solely to open up the world of corporate deceit a political games then you are a fool. While those are most certainly part of his motivation, the larger part is fame. Otherwise why dye your hair and start changing how you present yourself?
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Three Great Apple StackExchange Threads
There are three really great threads going on at the AskDifferent StackExchange site:
- Terminal Tips and Tricks where people are listing out a ton of terminal tricks for Mac users. Even if you don’t know anything about the Terminal, I bet you can find some neat stuff here.
- Mac OS X Hidden Features and Tricks is another great thread where people are sharing little things about OS X that you may not have discovered yet.
- My personal favoritue os the Mac OS X Keyboard Shortcut thread — I am sucker for more keyboard shortcuts.
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Federico Viticci’s iPad Life
Please welcome Federico Viticci the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net, where he always has great scoops on Apple and their products. Federico was kind enough to take some time from his busy schedule and geek out about iPads with me.
Tell me a little about yourself, what do you do, where do you live?
Hi, my name is Federico Viticci and I am the editor-in-chief of MacStories. I live in Italy and more specifically in Viterbo, a small town 80 kilometers away from Rome. Life is pretty good around here, although I wish I’ll be able to move to the States someday, both for work purposes and personal reasons.
What was your reaction when the iPad was launched?
I remember the months ahead of the iPad announcement. People were skeptical about the “Apple tablet”, they didn’t know how such a device would run OS X (yeah, some people actually thought Apple would come up with a new portable Mac) and, above all, they didn’t see why users would need another thing to fit in their workspaces. Personally, I wasn’t skeptical at all. I knew I needed a new device, possibly touch-based, to put between the MacBook and a smartphone, and Apple delivered just that.
Being based in Italy, I had to buy an iPad from the US on day one. Our editor Cody Fink drove to the nearest Apple Store to get one, shipped it inside a UPS box and, thanks to the super-expensive & super-fast Express shipment, I received it in 60 hours. When I first opened the box, first reaction was “Wow, this screen is large”. Second reaction was “Well, this is heavier than I thought”. I’ve been using the iPad since April 6th and I love it. I know we’re just getting started with the tablet market and better iPads will come in the next years, but the iPad 1 has definitely changed the way I work, read, play games and consume media.
I also remember being one of the few folks in my town with an iPad didn’t help getting people away from the screen.
Which model did you order and why?
I got a 16 GB WiFi-only model because a) WiFi model was the only choice available in April and b) I didn’t think I would need much storage on a tablet. Now I can say my next iPad is definitely going to be a 32 GB model with 3G connectivity. For as much as MyWi and, most recently, Apple’s Personal Hotspot have helped me using the iPad on the go, I want to be able to connect to the Internet using 3G with no additional devices or apps required.
How are you using the iPad on a daily basis?
Mostly for reading, writing and playing games. Well, actually my friends grab my iPad to play games, but still. The iPad is perfect to read long articles saved from the web: with the combination of Instapaper and Read It Later, I take the device off its stand to read and focus on what I’m reading (I can’t do that on a desktop browser) at any time. The iPad’s large screen is equally impressive to write down articles and quick ideas for MacStories: notes go into Simplenote, articles are written into Writings, a Dropbox-based text editor I started using a few months ago.
Overall, though, I believe it’s not about “how I use my iPad” — it’s about how I can’t use it. This thing can do almost anything besides Flash, movie and photo editing and other desktop-related tasks that require professional software. Which, as you can guess, it’s not really a problem for me. So every time I found myself using the iPad instead of my MacBook or the iPhone, I’m surprised of how this device is changing the way I work every day.
Can you give me a quick run down of the apps that you use the most?
I have too many apps installed on my iPad, but these are the ones I come back to on a daily basis:
Screens: Awesome VNC client I use to connect to my MacBook Pro and iMac;
Twitter for iPad: Many people and well-known bloggers hate it, I love it. It’s got its issues and bugs, but I believe the Twitter team will get them fixed soon. I use Twitter because it’s fast, intuitive and lets me see lots of information at once.
OmniFocus: See reply below. It’s the app for iPad.
Writings: The text editor I use to write articles for MacStories and sync them through Dropbox. With Notational Velocity running on my MacBook Pro, I can also sync these articles to Simplenote.
iFiles: A great app to get files out of the iPad (with a built-in WebDAV server) and into it via supported internet services. I use iFiles every day to share iPad screenshots with my Mac or upload them to Rackspace.
iCab: An alternative to Safari that’s actually great and good-looking. It’s got tabs, it’s fast and never crashes. I love it.
Read It Later / Instapaper: The perfect combination to read articles from the web. Read It Later works better with articles that have lots of images and video.
Reeder: I have tried several RSS readers on the iPad since April, but Reeder is where I sticked. I use Silvio Rizzi’s app on the iPad, iPhone and Mac. I guess I’m just too much of a Reeder fan.
Colloquy: IRC client to communicate with my team. The UI is minimal and it makes IRC easy.
1Password: Seriously, there’s no better way to manage passwords and logins. 1Password is must-have both on OS X and iOS.
Which app is your favorite?
OmniFocus. Ever since it came out it dramatically improved the quality of my GTD workflow by offering cloud sync, a great UI (way better than the Mac version) and an impressive feature set. Of all the apps on my homescreen and the ones I’ve tried, OmniFocus might be the single reason to get an iPad if I didn’t have one already.
Do you have any bag/stand/case recommendations for people?
Sure. I only use a case and a bag for my iPad: a Griffin Elan Passport case (ecru leather model) and a Tom Bihn Ristretto bag. The Ristretto is a great, high-quality bag that can easily fit cables, iPad camera connection kit dongles and iPad (inside the case) + ZAGGmate Bluetooth keyboard with ease. I also know some people who use the Ristretto to carry the iPad + MacBook Air 11-inch without any problems.
What features do you want to see in a future iPad?
I can tell you the features I can imagine, because you can’t really know what Steve Jobs will come up with. Anyway, I would like a front-facing camera for FaceTime and Skype, a thinner and lighter design, a higher resolution screen (even though it looks like we won’t get it just yet with the iPad 2) and the obvious faster processor / more RAM / more storage. I also think touch-sensitive bezels would help in allowing developers to enable multi-touch gestures without overriding Apple’s ones (that aren’t coming with iOS 4.3). Oh, and a software developed by Apple to integrate the desktop with the iPad. Like a full-featured VNC client + lightweight Finder + cloud-based file management. I think a future iPad with more powerful specs will be able to handle this kind of desktop -> iOS portability.
Last question: You seem to tweet all day while I am awake, yet I am in Seattle and you are in Italy — do you set your schedule based on U.S. times, or just stay awake all day long?
That’s a good question. Yes, even if I live in Italy I have adjusted my life to the U.S. time zone. It’s better for work, but it lead to some “issues” with my friends and family at first. They have come understand my needs and times though, so it’s not really a problem now. The amount of caffeine I have every day doesn’t help sleep either, so that’s why it looks like I’m always online and available.
Thanks again to Federico for taking the time to give us a peek at his iPad life. You can follow him on Twitter he is @viticci.
More iPad Life
To see more people’s iPad Lives take a look here.
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Quote of the Day: Blake Gopnik & Gijs Bakker
“What Bakker loves about his iPhone is the way the object is barely there at all; you don’t have to praise its look because it’s so easy to ignore it.” -
Texting While Working
Seth Godin on why you shouldn’t text, eat chips, or update social networks while you are working:
After all, if you sit for an hour and do exactly nothing, not one thing, you’ll be ashamed of yourself.
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OmniFocus Aid
Shawn Blanc elaborating on an idea from Ian Hines:
OmniFocus Aid would be lightweight, easy to use, and built for the sole purpose of throwing tasks into your OmniFocus database when at your Mac.
I am plus one to that idea. I think for many people the cost of OmniFocus for the Mac is a huge amount of money to come up with. If you are just starting out with OmniFocus I recommend you purchase in this order:
- OmniFocus for iPad (if you have an iPad).
- OmniFocus for iPhone (if you don’t have an iPhone this would be your excuse to go get one).
- OmniFocus for Mac Trial.
The best version for organizing and reviewing your tasks is the iPad version, the iPhone version is a must have for on the go entry and the Mac version is a must have for anyone working on the Mac. I recommend getting the Mac version last — even though the trial is free — because this will give you an idea as to whether or not you actually need the Mac version. There is a large subset of people who will be just fine without the Mac version — personally I couldn’t live without all three. ((Ok I *could* live without all three, but I don’t know if I would ever be able to get out of bed.))
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Quote of the Day: Jeff Yang
“Apple products are as defined by what they’re missing as much as by what they contain” -
Ask Different
A new site from Stack Exchange for Apple related questions and answers.
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10 Awesome but Impolite Email Filters
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten writing for The Next Web:
I know it is very polite to say thanks when I answer your question offline and face to face. But in email, when you ask me a question, I answer it and you are happy with it, there really is no need to send an email with nothing but “Thanks!” in it. Want to thank me? Keep my inbox clean. Really NEED to thank me? Send me a bottle of champagne or some flowers.
Agreed also to his first rule about the CCs, I have that in place.
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David Karp Has a Short Fuse
PostDesk reporting on a response that a Tumblr user received from co-founder David Karp:
Karp responded abruptly, saying that “…we have no interest in customers that will go out of their way to discourage our entire team” continuing to say that this is a “…team that regularly spends their nights and weekends working feverishly to provide the best service we can against extraordinary challenges”. He signed off saying that “Plenty of services will import Tumblr blogs. Please go away.”
If this is true (and no real evidence is provided that it is) then it is a massive failure on Tumblrs part. Karp needs to go on record denying this or apologizing for this lapse in judgment. Either way Tumblr is losing my respect and I may just close the personal blog I host on the service.
