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A little bit ago I published a link to a post about the latest Apple acquisition, which was related to mapping and search. In the post I declared that I think Google should be very afraid of Apple when it comes to search. Unfortunately I barely scratched the surface.

I’d like to double back to that thought now and dive into the topic a little bit more.

In a nutshell I see Apple attempting to create a search tool which shows the answer, instead of the search tool that Google has which shows a list of answers. The distinction is linguistically simple, but vastly different in implementation.

Of course we already know that Google sees the value in showing answers, as they will for some questions already, and we know Apple is building this as we have all used Siri.

What makes Apple so dangerous is not simple:

1. Apple has the ability to not be beholden to any one tool. Apple owns very little in the way of search, but because of that they can switch to anything that is better at any time. Apple’s users will never notice, or never need to adapt to a new backend service — because they never saw that service to begin with, all they saw was Siri, or Spotlight. So if you ask Siri what the capital of Kazakhstan is, you’ll never notice or care how Apple gets that answer. If you ask that of Google, and all of a sudden Google just shows the name: ‘Astana’. Well that’s a little jarring. Both provided the same (correct) answer, but because you only expected Astana from Apple, and a list of links from Google, you were off put by Google’s change. That’s a huge problem for Google.
2. Apple isn’t showing ads. No really. Apple doesn’t need to, and Google must show ads.
3. Google’s play seems to be to predict what you need, whereas Apple just wants to have the answer you need to you as fast as it can. One is creepy, the other is logical. I don’t remember Captain Picard walking around the Enterprise and upon asking another crew member “where did Earl Grey come from?” having the fucking ship’s computer chime in and say “Charlton & Co. of Jermyn Street in London… Maybe, it’s not clear”. No instead Picard would have had to ask the computer. Why ask the computer? Because having a computer chime in as a know-it-all would be exceedingly annoying.

In the end Apple is interested in telling you what a research paper concluded, but Google is more interested in showing you the research paper, and the bibliography for it while occasionally, and seemingly randomly, offering a summary as well. And how to you get a user to look at search results long enough to monetize that user if all you show is the one answer?

I had a couple quick days to play with the new Sony A6000, which is replacing the NEX lineup of APS-C sized Sony mirrorless cameras. I’ve used a few NEX cameras in the past and have really not been impressed, so I was a bit biased to not like this camera going into my testing.

For the duration of my testing I used the Sony 35 f/1.8 OSS lens (OSS is Sony’s version of image stabilization). What I found with the A6000 surprised me quite a bit, it’s actually quite an excellent camera.

Handling

Handling, or how a camera feels in your hand, can make or break a camera experience — this is also highly subjective, as everyones hands are different.

To my hand the A6000 feels very comfortable with the large grip making the camera easy to hold with one hand, while never feeling like you might drop it.

With the exception of the shutter button, all the buttons on the camera feel good. Not excellent, but good. The thing to remember is that this is a plastic camera body, with plastic buttons — everything feels like plastic. Nice plastic, but still plastic.

That’s about where my compliments on the handling end.

The shutter button is too easily pressed, and there were many times when I intended to half-press the shutter to lock focus, and instead snapped a photo. With longer use, this probably becomes less of an issue, but the feel between half-press to exposing the image is so subtle that I have a feeling I would always end up with a few accidental photos. This is the first time I have ever felt this way about a shutter release.

The two main dials, one for the mode setting, and the other to adjust controls are backwards. With the mode being in a very convenient spot for your thumb, and the dial where you would actually adjust something like EV, Aperture, or Shutter, being in a very awkward spot for my thumb. Essentially requiring me to hold the camera slightly less securely to use it. This drove me nuts as I felt like I was doing thumb contortions to get at the dial.

But that’s not the worst handling issue — the dedicated movie recording button is. I’ve been told that this button location used to be worse on the NEX lineup, and so it was moved out of the way. It is now in such an awkward spot that I would not recommend anyone press it while holding the camera with just one hand. Now, for recording movies it makes sense to hold the camera with two hands (for stability), but even so this is a dumb place for such a button.

Beyond those comments I didn’t get to use the camera long enough to find any other handling issues I feel comfortable making an assessment on.

Image Quality

It is top notch, and a whopping 24.3 megapixels. I’m not the right person to ask for someone to dive into the quality, but that’s not what most people want to know. Instead let me answer what I feel are the most common questions:

• Can this take lovely pictures? Yes. But I do find the pictures to be a soft, and in need of sharpening in post processing. I found this in just about every image I took.
• How is the noise control? Not as good as Fujifilm, but not too shabby. I wouldn’t take it over 3200 if I wanted a clean image (after noise reduction), but 6400 is fine.
• How are the colors? Neutral, that’s the best way I can describe them. This camera lacks personality in the image tone, and some people will love that, while others (like me) will feel it looks a bit generic.

Overall then: images need sharpening and noise reduction above 1600 ISO, and the colors lack personality. That’s not too shabby, and lets not forget you get a very large image from this camera, in a very small package.

Auto Focus

The fastest and quietest I’ve used, hands down. Just about every camera I have used I have been able to hear the AF motor (even Canon USM), but I really can’t hear it on the Sony. Even with my ear next to the lens, I have a tough time hearing the motor. It’s a bit unreal — like somehow the camera magically focuses without doing anything at all.

Add to that the fact that the AF is nearly instantaneous, and always spot on. Then add to that the fact that the tracking can actually track my kid — and wow, just wow.

This is a truly impressive AF, and I drool over how good it is. I want this in every camera.

All of this means: AF-C is a no brainer on this camera. After a couple hundred shots I set the camera to continuous autofocus with tracking, I mean why not? I don’t hear thew noise, the camera doesn’t hunt for focus, and it always hits it’s mark. It’s astounding.

The only complaint I have is that the stock multi-AF point mode didn’t always find what I wanted the focus to be on, and for those times it was far faster to switch to manual focus than to change modes and select the focus point. Now, that is only the case in still life photography, once you introduce people the camera tracks the people exceedingly well.

This is a people camera first and foremost.

Miscellaneous

• Shutter Sound: this is actually a pretty loud camera. So even though the autofocus is silent, the shutter is really loud and higher in pitch. It’s not annoying, but no where near stealth. Everyone in the room will probably hear it. It sounds to me a bit how Hollywood makes ‘silencers’ and pistol sound.
• There is shit all over camera. One of the worst things about the camera is the excessive labeling and writing. Do I really need the megapixel count etched on the camera? No. Just look at this mess. Way too much going on.
• The SD card slot, is the worst SD card slot in the history of SD card slots. Look at an SD card, see that indent for your finger nail? That helps get SD cards out of slots, and it is quite nice. That indent, on the A6000, goes up against the battery door, so that one must try hard to pinch the edges of the SD card to remove it. No joke, I had to use two index fingers to get my card out as it does not pop up high enough, nor offer access to the finger nail indent. I hate this so much that it is almost a deal breaker right there.
• Eye cup: it’s huge. Like really huge. Probably great for bright light, but really kills the ability to compactly stow the camera. It can be removed, but then the glare is terrible on the EVF. For how small the camera is, the eye cup is comically large.
• Manual Focus isn’t great, it’s not bad, but I had trouble with it unlike I have had with other cameras. This just is not a camera meant to manual focus, and why would you with how great the autofocus is.

Overall

This is a camera that is very easy to use and a camera that you can trust. ((WiFi could not be tested because this reviewer was running a beta of iOS.)) What I mean is that you can set this camera to P mode, and hand it to anyone and trust that the camera will do a pretty epic job of making sure you get a decent photo — especially if that photo is of people.

In other words, close to the opposite of a Fujifilm camera as you can get.

Because of that, I found myself getting a little frustrated with the camera at times. I felt like I had little control over the exposure even in Aperture Priority mode (my preferred mode of shooting). That has nothing to do with a flaw in the camera, as much as it has to do with a flaw in the photographer. The camera never let me make a mistake, and so I never really felt like the images were ones I was making — as much as images the camera was making.

So who then is this camera for? Well I can think of two people:

1. Someone who wants really good images, without having to ‘learn photography’. And I truly do not mean that as a back handed compliment to the A6000 — it’s actually kind of impressive if you think about it. I tried to find something where the camera would screw up, but I couldn’t.
2. Anyone with kids who want images that are in focus of their kids. Seriously, if you want a small camera that can track sports, and active kids — this is the camera to buy. No joke, I wish I could have one of these just for the times when I know the kids are going to be active (waking hours). This is a beast of a camera for focus tracking.

Those two categories, unsurprisingly, encompass a large swath of people. Where a person is likely not to enjoy this camera is if they like a bit more manual control. Everything is done with odd buttons and very few dials on this camera. This is a tough camera not to like, and surprisingly (to me) I really do like it.

This is a people camera and, luckily for Sony, people tend to mostly take pictures of other people. I won’t replace my Fuji for this, but this is a very tempting and very good camera. Perhaps the best people/family/kids camera I have ever used.

Buy It

Buy it at Amazon.

Or buy it from B&H Photo.

Photos

Federico Viticci:

All developers I’ve talked to over the past few days share a common thought: this year’s announcements are creating new possibilities. New technologies can empower users in new and better ways. We can’t wait to start coding.

I’ve heard this same thing too. Developers are really excited.

Craig Hockenberry:

Apple has a newfound confidence in itself. It’s at the top of its game, and it knows it.

I wouldn’t say ‘newfound’, I think a better word is: recharged. I don’t think Apple ever lost confidence, but I think they questioned their confidence a bit.

Stephen Hackett:

Apple feels good about itself, and that trickles down to the community. You can feel it in the air.

It’s palpable.

Shawn Blanc:

We are seeing what the post Steve Jobs Apple is like, and my friends, it is awesome.

If I summed up the direction Apple has decided to take, it would simply be: bold. They aren’t resting on their laurels the way Microsoft did when Ballmer took over. They are banging shit out and getting it done as fearless as they can be. But they are tempering that enthusiasm with patience and thought. They are doing a lot, but are being careful to do it right the first time.

A lot of people have told me I am too excited about iCloud Drive, but the thing is I think Apple will finally get the cloud stuff right. Their stream for WWDC was perfect, and their iCloud offerings really have been nearly flawless recently.

Jason Snell:

Over the next year, there will be innovations that surprise and delight users, and they won’t be trapped inside a single app interface—they will be able to spread themselves across many more parts of the iOS interface.

All of a sudden things that used to be very tedious to do on iOS will become so simple that it will feel magical. There’s no need to talk about customer lock-in with iCloud — that’s all the lock-in most people need.

A few nights ago I got an email from Bryan Clark, and he explained that he and Jesse Herlitz teamed up to make a new App.net client, and they are still excited about it even if App.net seems to be in a bit of limbo. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too excited to test the app, but I checked out the other app these two worked on and was impressed with the app. Then, I accepted to promo code so I could see the app before launch ((If you don’t know, developers can have an app approved, but hold it so you cannot download it. Then they can share promo codes and people can download the app from the App Store that way.))

Boy am I glad I checked out the app. It’s called Blixt and it is an App.net client, though it doesn’t do private messaging.

It is gorgeous.

It is damned smooth.

I love so many things about this app that I wish people posted more on App.net so that I might use it more.

The Highlights

The scrolling in this app is possibly the smoothest scrolling I’ve seen, it’s like a plastic disc on an air hockey table. Simply fantastic, you just want to scroll around. I don’t know what gives it that feeling, but man is it silky smooth.

There are no delineating lines between posts, but somehow nothing looks cluttered and nothing is confusing. It’s really clean feeling and super flat, but yet it feels like slick glass. It feels made for the iPhone.

The animations are great. From the little bounce a post does when interacted with, to the loading indicator when using the browser. All these small touches make for an app that visually doesn’t get in the way, but never leaves you feeling lost.

I was confused at first as to what the image is that is blurred out behind your timeline, as it turns out it is your cover image. However, when you browse to another user, or simply view the post view for a post that is not yours, the image switches to that user’s cover image. Very nice touch, and amazingly not distracting at all, it simply gives a little depth and character to the app. In fact it is a great way to skin the app a bit if you want.

Another nice touch is how large the few buttons are. This is best seen when composing a new post, as the buttons are a bit in your face, but thankfully easy to tap, which isn’t something I can say about most of iOS 7. Even though the buttons are larger they feel right, but not something you tend to see in iOS anymore.

The Misses

There’s a bug that I’ve run into when I tap on a post with a link the app seems to freeze (the developers are looking into it), all you have to do is go back to the home screen and back into the app (no force quitting needed) and all is fine. It’s odd and annoying, but a testament to just how good this app is that I am more than fine with putting up with that bug.

The swiping is a bit un-iOS, in that going back, say from mentions to timeline, requires a swipe starting near the middle of the screen to the edge. If you swipe from the left edge to the right, you pull up the account switcher and settings screen — I pull that screen up a lot. This isn’t consistent with the rest of iOS so it is likely to always be a challenge for me.

The Icon

I wanted to give the icon it’s own section, just because it is stellar. Of all the icons on my main home screen, this is the only one worthy of being there.

More like this please.

Go Buy It

Who gives a damn about what’s going on with App.net, this app is one of those apps you will appreciate the hell out of no matter what you think of App.net. Rarely do I like apps this much, but this app is very impressive in such a very simple and smooth way.