The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Pitting the Web's Users Against Its Gatekeepers

    I think perhaps the most interesting question we should be asking about this Net-Neutrality debate is nit whether we as consumers should stand for it but rather should big companies. Would you still be a Comcast or Vodaphone customer if Google and YouTube refused to pay them to be available for the users?

    In other words would you pick your Internet provider based the provider or the websites that you can get with that provider? I tend to think we care far more about the content than we do about the ISPs.

  • Ins and Outs of the 3G iPad AT&T Service Plans

    Glenn Fleishman:

    On the whole, AT&T’s 3G service options are still rather remarkable, with unique or rare elements on pricing, extending service, upgrading, and cancellation that make it flexible enough for occasional use but affordable for regular use. Watch that streaming video, though.

    I didn’t go 3G because a) I had a Verizon MiFi already and b) I already pay AT&T for a 3G plan on my iPhone. If AT&T let’s you use the same data plan on both devices then I will get a 3G iPad.

  • iPhonegate: Q.&A. With Mark D. Rasch

    Mark D. Rasch:

    I don’t know what the sentence could be, but it could be significant as they’re going to say what he stole wasn’t something worth $150 or $400, it wasn’t even worth $5,000, but they’re going to say it’s worth the entire development cost of the iPhone prototype, which could cost tens of millions of dollars.

    I also love this quote when asked if he had ever worked on a similar case:

    There was a case I worked on many years ago in which a Soviet pilot defected to Tokyo and under the law he was granted asylum. The Soviets wanted their Mig25 plane back, but we had never seen a Mig25 before. So we and the Japanese had to return it because it was the property of the Soviet Union. But before it was sent back, it was taken apart, every piece measured, every piece replicated and put back together and then returned. Did we steal it? No. We returned it.

    The really interesting point here is not who will be found right, but rather who will wave the white flag first. This is going to be expensive for Gizmodo, and Apple. I tend to think that Apple is the only one who can afford it.

  • H.264 Already Won—Makes Up 66 Percent Of Web Videos

    This debate rages on and I want you to think back to pre-iPhone days. Pre-iPhone not to many regular users gave a crap about codecs, web standards and Flash. Now even people that I think are not tech savvy, talk about how the iPhone needs to support Flash.

    With Microsoft onboard seems the writing is on the wall. It will be interesting to see how well Flash performs on Android, if and when they release it.

  • YouTube Video on iPad Over 3G Looks Like Crap

    Leander Kahney:

    As our friend Chris Foresman of Ars Technica fame points out in the comments, 3G tops out at a paltry 64Kbps. ” It looks like crap on the iPhone,” says Chris, “so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it looks like crap 4x as big?”

    I don’t have a 3G iPad but based on what I have seen on the iPhone I believe it. Also I can confirm this to be true as well:

    Meanwhile, our readers are reporting that Verizon’s MiFi delivers: there’s no difference in quality between Wi-Fi and 3G on Verizon’s network.

    It appears to effect other iPad apps that stream video as well.

  • Struggling to Find Bad Things About the iPad?

    Mitch Joel:

    Lacking Flash. Flash has become a standard technology to view websites, so while Apple battles it out with Flash’s owners, some websites will be a challenge.

    So because Flash is not standard on the iPad, it sucks? Oh but wait then you say that only some websites are inflicted? How does this make the iPad bad? Mark me confused.

    All I know is that during the past few weeks I have had an iPad I have run into only one website that I could not view because of Flash.

  • My Close Encounters With Steve Jobs

    Cult of Mac is running an excellent series of posts about Steve Jobs told from the perspective of David Bunnell who founded Macworld magazine.

    The look inside of how Jobs operated back then is incredibly relevant to anybody who is interested in learning more about why Apple is the way it is today.

  • Your Phone Is Locked, Just Drive

    David Pogue for The New York Times:

    The statistics on distracted driving are pretty scary. Just making cellphone calls increases your chances of crashing by four times; sending text messages increases the risk 23 times.

    We know this, we get this, but we keep doing it. About half of all teenagers admit to texting while driving, for example, no matter how many statistics and horror stories we pass along to them.

    and

    In any case, it might be worth considering a text-blocking app for your teenager — or even for yourself, if only to make your phone so inconvenient while driving that you won’t bother with it. Because the world already has enough horrifying driving-distraction statistics; you should avoid becoming one yourself.

    This is a great idea, it will be interesting to see how the debate of “driving while on the phone” progresses over the next couple of years. States have already started to enforce hands free laws, so it will be intriguing to see if the Feds step in to enact some laws.

    I would suspect that if the Feds to enact some laws it would revolve around the punishment for accidents that occur while on the phone. As in if you were yapping away and killed a pedestrian it is some serious jail time.

  • Nerd Skill Number One

    Dan’s Data:

    If a developer doesn’t spend quite a lot of time on getting a graphical interface right, this is the sort of hideous disaster that’s likely to result. To avoid it, developers often find they need to make at least some effort to fight the good fight via usability testing; even if you spend months on assembling an interface that looks good to you, it may not work very well for normal users.

    A great look at why knowing command-line interfaces is still so important today.

  • HP’s Very Smart Acquisition

    Hey thanks HP for acquiring Palm — I almost forgot you were still around.

    Ok that was a very snarky statement, but it really is true. The last we heard about HP was when Steve Ballmer announced the now vaporware “slate” at CES. Then we started hearing about Palm being for sale, and well nobody was surprised. Palm’s future was doomed, they had not capitalized against Apple and Google when they could/should have. They waited too long and got pulled into what I call “the lost hiker dilemma” — reacting instead of planning and thinking their way out.

    Now they have lost significant market share, they are not innovating, and are presumable bleeding cash. An acquisition was the only way that they stay relevant and I applaud them for making a very smart call — one of the best Palm has made in the past year.

    Part of Palm’s struggles with WebOS is they have been sitting there trying to out match the iPhone OS and this is never a good strategy. You can’t be worried about what your competitors may or may not do. You need to focus on your product — on making it the best that it can be. I think a lot of the problems stem from the fact that there are a large contingent of ex-Apple employees at Palm, including the CEO.

    ###Moving Forward###

    Now that HP and Palm are sitting in a tree, there needs to be some real focus on WebOS, because from what I have heard it is a great OS – just no one knows about it. Money needs to be spent on getting the brand recognition and awareness in place so that it is more than just the nerd crowd loving the phone.

    HP needs to get every major carrier it can to sell and support the Palm phones. Making WebOS ubiquitous (in that you can get it on every carrier, your choice) is about the only chance that it has of surviving. Most importantly they need to sell the features that their competitors don’t have — mainly the mobile hotspot capabilities of the Palm Pre Plus.

    I would suspect that not too many people know that you can turn a Palm Pre Plus into a mobile hotspot that you can connect up to 5 devices on. This would be a huge marketing advantage considering that AT&T has yet to enable tethering for their iPhone users.

    So in short, HP forget about Windows (phone) Mobile, spend money on Palm’s marketing. But most importantly forget about Apple and do your own thing, because you can’t beat Apple at its own game, so beat them at yours.