The Brooks Review

Top Posts

Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022

Recent Articles

  • Google Raises the Maps Bar

  • ‘The Geography of Gun Deaths’

    Richard Florida wondered what factors he could draw statistical correlation with for death by firearms and concludes: >While the causes of individual acts of mass violence always differ, our analysis shows fatal gun violence is less likely to occur in richer states with more post-industrial knowledge economies, higher levels of college graduates, and tighter gun…

    Richard Florida wondered what factors he could draw statistical correlation with for death by firearms and concludes:
    >While the causes of individual acts of mass violence always differ, our analysis shows fatal gun violence is less likely to occur in richer states with more post-industrial knowledge economies, higher levels of college graduates, and tighter gun laws. Factors like drug use, stress levels, and mental illness are much less significant than might be assumed.

    Very interesting analysis — by no means is it proof of anything, rather just a correlation between two data sets. Still, it is apparent that change is needed — whether or not you believe this data.

  • On Paid Apps Being Acquired, Apps Abandoned

    Today we saw [two](http://blog.acrylicapps.com/post/27635101056/our-next-project-facebook) [companies](http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparrow-mail) get gobbled up, both selling well known and respected paid applications in the Mac space. Both seemingly do a good business. Both acquired for the talent of the employees, not the products they sell — as such the products for both will be gone soon enough. I wasn’t going to…

    Today we saw [two](http://blog.acrylicapps.com/post/27635101056/our-next-project-facebook) [companies](http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparrow-mail) get gobbled up, both selling well known and respected paid applications in the Mac space. Both seemingly do a good business. Both acquired for the talent of the employees, not the products they sell — as such the products for both will be gone soon enough.

    I wasn’t going to write about this, because neither was particularly interesting, but then a few tweets and emails later and I have been asked to defend a rather popular post of mine: “[Fragility of Free](https://brooksreview.net/2011/03/fragility-free/)”.

    In that post I argue that choosing to use free apps is a bad idea, because often free apps will die off because the developer can no longer support the apps. I state (sorry for quoting myself):

    >The fragility of free is a catchy term that describes what happens when the free money runs out. Or — perhaps more accurately — when the investors/founders/venture capitalists run out of cash, or patience, or both. Because at some point Twitter and all other companies have to make the move from ‘charity’ to ‘business’ — or, put another way, they have to make the move from spending tons of money to making slightly more money than they spend.

    My argument is that nothing can continue to be free forever. At some point you are going to pay for it, by viewing ads, exchanging money, or having to switch to something else because your free thing is gone — dead. Now we see a situation where a paid app is gone and dead — the very thing that I was arguing for — but the truth is a paid app is simply *more* secure than free, certainly not foolproof.

    I said:

    >This happens with free software and services, sometimes with paid services (but that is far less likely). Sometimes the funding for free just runs out — perhaps it was just someones hobby, a hobby that you depended on — doesn’t matter because it is gone now.

    Sparrow is gone now. Perhaps it lives on as part of Google, but Sparrow as we knew it yesterday is effectively dead.

    So how do you stop this from happening to another app that you depend on?

    [Marco Arment offers a suggestion](http://www.marco.org/2012/07/20/talent-acquisitions):

    >If you want to keep the software and services around that you enjoy, do what you can to make their businesses successful enough that it’s more attractive to keep running them than to be hired by a big tech company.

    I think the key part here is “more attractive”, it would be easy to say “more lucrative”, but inaccurate. I know far too many people who are willing to be paid less to do something that they enjoy more. Such is the case right here on this site, I took a pay cut to rid my site of ads — I did this willingly and (from a readers perspective) unnecessarily. It is simply more attractive for me to blog without ads, and more attractive for Marco (I assume) to work from home on his own schedule, on a product that he has passion for.

    Paid doesn’t solve everything, but free solves next to nothing.

  • Garrett Murray on The Retina MacBook Pro

  • Is Kickstarter Selling Dreams?

    Felix Salmon has a really smart analysis of Kickstarter, and specifically the psychology behind backing Kickstarter projects. It’s interesting to think about what Salmon is talking about, with regard to why people back things. Do we back something because was see it as a pre-order? Do we back things because we want to support our…

    Felix Salmon has a really smart analysis of Kickstarter, and specifically the psychology behind backing Kickstarter projects. It’s interesting to think about what Salmon is talking about, with regard to why people back things.

    Do we back something because was see it as a pre-order? Do we back things because we want to support our friends? Why does this work on the web, when you would have laughed if it came in the mail to us? Are we backing ideas, or are we wanting products?

    I am waiting for quite a few Kickstarter projects to actually ship the goods to me, so this last sentiment from Salmon rings close to home:

    >But as consumers get wise to those risks, especially if one or two high-profile million-dollar Kickstarter successes end up producing nothing at all, then at that point we’ll realize that the funders weren’t just buying a dream after all. They really thought they were buying a product.

    Elevation Dock, Flote Stand (to be fair I am not a backer, I just pre-ordered after it was funded), and a few other smaller projects have yet to ship anything to me. I knew the risks, but it has made me become very picky about what I do back now — and ultimately that hurts Kickstarter and other potential products.

  • The Nexus 7

    This is not my first time around the block with a seven inch tablet, I reviewed the original Samsung Galaxy Tab ([here](https://brooksreview.net/2010/11/tab-review/)), I review the Amazon Kindle Fire ([here](https://brooksreview.net/2011/11/kindle-fire-2/)), and now the Google/ASUS Nexus 7 (here ((No, like really *here* — listen you are reading the Nexus 7 review right now, let me get back…

    This is not my first time around the block with a seven inch tablet, I reviewed the original Samsung Galaxy Tab ([here](https://brooksreview.net/2010/11/tab-review/)), I review the Amazon Kindle Fire ([here](https://brooksreview.net/2011/11/kindle-fire-2/)), and now the Google/ASUS Nexus 7 (here ((No, like really *here* — listen you are reading the Nexus 7 review right now, let me get back to it.)) ). I really didn’t want to buy the Nexus 7, but the more I read about it, the more it sounded like this probably would be the best seven inch tablet made to date. It had been a while since I used Android, so off I went.

    I kind of knew what to expect from a seven inch tablet, but I was hoping for better hardware and smoother software. Both are things the Nexus 7 delivers on.

    ### The Short Version

    The long and short of it is that the Nexus 7 has impressive hardware, a solid OS, but ultimately doesn’t hold up to the iPad.

    Now, I ask that if you disagree with me, that you continue to read the rest of the post. But if all you wanted to know is if you should buy it: not yet.

    ### The Longer Version

    The Nexus 7 is a truly good device. Solid in every aspect. For me, where it falls flat, is in giving me a reason to use it. It’s more awkward to type on than my iPhone or iPad. It’s easier to hold in one hand than the iPad, but not easier than the iPhone.

    It awkwardly fits between my iPhone and iPad, and that’s not a good thing.

    Let me use a car metaphor for you (because you love it when I do that). Imagine you own three vans: a “normal” 7-8 seat minivan, a 10 passenger van, and a 15 passenger van. Odds are that the two most used vans are the smallest and the largest. The 10 passenger isn’t *that* much larger than the minivan and isn’t *that* much smaller than the 15 passenger van. And so the 10 passenger van only has a 1,000 miles on it after 10 years.

    The Nexus 7 *is* the 10 passenger van.

    And here’s the thing about the Nexus 7, there isn’t one thing that is so demonstrably wrong about it that I can point to it and say: “haha, iPad wins”. Because truthfully the iPad doesn’t win, but neither does the Nexus 7.

    I use tablets in two places: meetings and at home. For meetings the Nexus 7 has pretty much sucked every time for multiple reasons:

    – Can’t get the apps I am accustomed to.
    – The apps I do find are hideous.
    – It’s too small.

    But really none of that matters because I simply have cut most meetings out of my life, so I rarely have them anyway. The ones I do have, are often short and don’t warrant anything more than my iPhone.

    That brings us to the one place I use my tablet more than any other place: home.

    At home I use my iPad for the following:

    – Writing
    – Reading
    – Email
    – RSS
    – Web Browsing

    The Nexus 7 can do all of this, but in my use it can only do two things better than the iPad: reading in bed, and reading with one hand. For every other task the iPad is better, but only marginally so. Text/fonts/typefaces, all look better on the iPad screen. But it’s not just because the iPad screen is a “retina” display, the Nexus 7 and Android choose typefaces I dislike for reading and then render those choices poorly.

    There is no better example than Instapaper — which has the same fonts on both devices, shown in the same manner. Instapaper on the iPad just looks far more readable.

    So yes, the seven inch tablet is easier to carry around and works better in one hand, BUT…

    But my iPhone is *even* easier to carry around and works *even* better in one hand than the Nexus 7. Do you see what I am getting at here?

    It’s not that the Nexus 7 stacks up poorly to my iPad, it’s that the Nexus 7 stacks up poorly to my iPhone.

    The way I look at this is that I would choose a seven inch tablet over the iPad so that I could have a *more* portable tablet than the iPad. I completely understand why people would want this. So I carried the Nexus 7 with me everywhere I went. I had it tethered to my iPhone and ready to go. I paid for every equivalent app I had on my iPad — including the $10 MLB At Bat app. For the entire first two days I made an effort to do everything on the Nexus 7.

    After that I didn’t think about which device I used.

    Nine times out of ten, I reached for my iPhone over the Nexus 7. And for those times when I did, specifically, sit down to use a tablet: I grabbed the Nexus 7 and then felt like I was handicapping myself and then reached for the iPad.

    And yet [Shawn Blanc thinks this is the area that the Nexus 7 excels at](http://shawnblanc.net/2012/07/the-nexus-7/):

    > It seems silly to buy such a capable tablet for the sole purpose of easier couch surfing and extended reading, but to me that is the Nexus 7′s strongest suit.

    I wouldn’t fault anyone for owning a Nexus 7, but I will scratch my head at anyone buying one that already has an iPhone and iPad — because I can’t figure out a time when it is better to use than either.

  • ‘Awakenings: An Android Design Process’

    Sebastiaan de With has posted about his design process for an Android alarm clock app that he designed. He goes through the how and why of an alarm clock, the — umm — intricacies of designing for a platform with some many different screen sizes. Near the end of the post he gets on with…

    Sebastiaan de With has posted about his design process for an Android alarm clock app that he designed. He goes through the how and why of an alarm clock, the — umm — intricacies of designing for a platform with some many different screen sizes.

    Near the end of the post he gets on with a fascinating topic to me:

    >It’s… well, designed for humans. All these details seem like such obvious things, yet you’d be surprised to find that nobody seems to have thought about these details before. I sincerely hope our app inspires others to adopt the same design patterns, simply because I believe it makes people’s lives better.

    There are some really great touches that are in the app — things like sleep cycles make the app something more than your normal alarm clock.

    I often whine on and on about weather apps, but it is true that something well designed, well thought out, and designed to *help you* can almost be magical. Case in point: Dark Sky. Just look at what [Dr. Drang has to say about Dark Sky](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2012/07/dark-sky/) after heading its advice and waiting out rain, while watching a colleague dash into the building:

    >I waited out the full three minutes and sauntered up to the door with only a couple of stray drops hitting me. She now owns a copy of Dark Sky.

    It was a powerful enough moment that he felt compelled to write about it, because in that moment the app seemed like magic. Indeed, Dark Sky often seems like magic when you use it — like something that shouldn’t be possible because it is almost too accurate.

    Why should that just be limited to Dark Sky, seems like this alarm clock is heading on that path and I would love to see more apps take this route too.

  • “Keep Moving”: Marissa Mayer’s First Memo to Yahoo

  • ‘Magazines on iPad Should Be in iBooks Format’

    Nate Barham arguing that magazines should default to the `.ibooks` format instead of the Adobe crap that is prevalent today: >They’re much better off than the mainstream publications, but System Extension is what my dad should see (though it would probably be something more like, Mustang Maintenance) when he picks up his iPad to read…

    Nate Barham arguing that magazines should default to the `.ibooks` format instead of the Adobe crap that is prevalent today:
    >They’re much better off than the mainstream publications, but System Extension is what my dad should see (though it would probably be something more like, Mustang Maintenance) when he picks up his iPad to read a magazine. It downloads fast. It works the way an iPad user expects things like text and images and videos to work.

    Barham is right, iBooks Author is a superior tool for creating magazines, but — as far as I can tell — Apple offers no way for publishers to publish using the iBooks format and utilizing the Apple subscriptions and Newsstand background downloading. I would love to see publishers using iBooks Author for magazines, it would be a great thing for iOS users, but for now it seems Apple doesn’t have a way for them to do this.

  • Sparrow Acquire by Google

  • Announcing Two Members Only Features

    I have crafted two small perks for members — these will always be members only. The first is something I am calling “Daily Linkage”. Unlike my normal linked list posts, this is just a list of links presented without any commentary. These are items that I read and think are important enough to share, but…

    I have crafted two small perks for members — these will always be members only.

    The first is something I am calling “Daily Linkage”. Unlike my normal linked list posts, this is just a list of links presented without any commentary. These are items that I read and think are important enough to share, but that I have nothing additional to add to with commentary that makes them worth a full linked list post. Pretty simple, members can [check it out here](https://brooksreview.net/category/linkage/).

    The second is called “The Weekly Review” and it’s a blatant rip-off of the [Evening Edition](http://evening-edition.com/), except it is posted every Friday and centers on technology news and the TSA — you thought I would forget about the TSA? Ha. I round up the week in tech and add a few comments and lots of links (hopefully). Members can [check this out here](https://brooksreview.net/category/weekly-review/).

    Both of these items are a way to share more time sensitive items with members, but I make no guarantee that they will stick around — for now both are just a running experiment. If the feedback is good, and I don’t get annoyed by doing this, then hopefully they will stick around.

    But by no means should either be the basis for your membership.

  • Video: Nexus 7 Touchscreen Defect

  • Sun — Simple Weather App

  • Both iA Writer for Mac and for iOS Receive Significant Updates

  • At Least 12 Killed, 50 Injured in Colorado Movie Shooting

  • For the Week Ending July 20th, 2012

    This week was all Google, all week long — but don’t worry the TSA made an appearance. ### Yahoo! Former Google executive Marissa Mayer made the move from what seemed like a dead end job, [to the CEO of the once web darling, Yahoo](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/googles-marissa-mayer-tapped-as-yahoos-chief/?hp&pagewanted=all). This is a pretty big deal in tech, and [it got…

    This week was all Google, all week long — but don’t worry the TSA made an appearance.

    ### Yahoo!

    Former Google executive Marissa Mayer made the move from what seemed like a dead end job, [to the CEO of the once web darling, Yahoo](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/googles-marissa-mayer-tapped-as-yahoos-chief/?hp&pagewanted=all). This is a pretty big deal in tech, and [it got the nerds all riled up](http://dearmarissamayer.com/) — was it Mayer herself that prompted [this great response to them](http://www.flickr.com/dearinternet)?

    [*The Week* has a nice roundup of the hubbub surrounding Mayer’s hiring](http://theweek.com/article/index/230636/marissa-mayer-can-yahoos-new-ceo-turn-the-company-around), but personally I think this was a savvy move by Yahoo and gives them a fighting chance at righting the ship — I give Yahoo better odds than Microsoft.

    Not everything is roses in the Mayer hiring, well at least not for Google as [Marco Arment points out](http://www.marco.org/2012/07/17/the-real-reason-marissa-mayer-left-google):

    >Every time Apple loses one of its Senior VPs, we see stories questioning Apple’s leadership and future, suggesting that there may be significant inner turmoil.

    >Well, Google just lost one of its top people.

    [Steven Levy points out in his article for Wired](http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/why-marissa-mayer-the-ultimate-googler-makes-sense-for-yahoo/), most Googlers he talks to don’t see themselves at Google in 5 years. [Something to keep on eye on](https://brooksreview.net/2012/07/google-mayer/).

    ### Nexus Se7en

    Speaking of Google, pre-orders of Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet made it in the hands of users this week and guess what? There’s a ton of reviews to read. [Most agree that this is a mighty fine tablet](http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/15/omg-he-likes-it-he-really-likes-it/), though there are some [that question the usefulness of the device](http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2012-07/googleasus-nexus-7-review-best-weird-breed).

    [Shawn Blanc, also questioned this in his write-up, concluding](http://shawnblanc.net/2012/07/the-nexus-7/):

    >Where is the magic? The fun? The incredible 3rd-party apps? It is because of these elements that the iPad is more than the sum of its parts while its competition continues to remains less than.

    I’ll post some thoughts on the tablet soon, but suffice to say — I don’t think it’s worth spending money on.

    ### This Week in TSA Stupidity

    [The TSA freaked out this week](http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/07/17/man-claims-worlds-largest-penis-got-him-frisked-at-sfo/) as a man with a world record holding penis had a “concerning” bulge in his pants. Oh TSA, you would be the government agency to force me to write the word penis on my site.

    ### Apple Ordered to Buy Samsung Some Nice Ads?

    [So says a U.K. judge, that ruled Samsung tablets are *not* a knock-off of the iPad](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-18/apple-must-publish-notice-samsung-didn-t-copy-ipad-judge-says.html) — and therefore Apple must now buy ads in top publications, as well as post on their U.K. website, that he hath decreed Samsung tablets to not be iPad knock-offs.

    We’ll see how that works out for you.

    I can’t see Apple ever complying with this. If there is a fine, I bet Apple pays it up to $400 million without even blinking. If it is an injunction against selling in the U.K., well I say Apple calls the bluff on this one — would you want to be the judge that decided no more iPads in your country? I didn’t think so.

    ### Patents

    Remember when the iPhone was announced in 2007 and Steve Jobs proudly declared something like: “we patented the crap out of this thing”. Remember that?

    We this was the week those patents started to get approved, everything from the [disappearing slider](http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/17/3165237/intellectual-properly-apple-patents-disappearing-vertical-scroll-bars) to how they display files on the screen.

    [Christina Bonnington](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/07/apple-patent-gui-iphone/), for Wired:
    >It may sound snoozy, but the patent — which covers graphical user interfaces ranging from email to Camera Roll to menu lists to the multi-touch interface in general — looks like a dangerous weapon for Apple as it battles Android handset makers.

    I can already hear Samsung screaming “prior art!”.

    ### Sad Days in Redmond

    [Microsoft reported it’s first *ever* quarterly loss](http://allthingsd.com/20120719/aquantive-write-down-deflates-microsoft-earnings/) as they realize the loss on an acquisition gone bad.

    That’s too bad too, because it’s been rather nice weather here in western Washington. Then again, we have had freak lightening storms all week…

    This is a big deal for Microsoft, but it’s not *that* big of a deal. The loss was basically from a bad investment, rather than the kind of losses that — say — RIM is experience, those of disinterested consumers. So while this stings, it’s more like deciding that the boat covered in moss on the side of your house — yeah that boat — it’s no longer an “asset” to your family, rather than it is about actually tanking your business.

    ### Sad Days for the Country

    [A shooting in Colorado at a Dark Knight Rises movie premier has left a dozen dead and many more injured](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-20/14-killed-as-many-as-50-injured-in-colorado-movie-shooting.html). Most debates that will arise from this shooting, will sadly, be the wrong debate to be having.

  • Typekit’s New, Improved Embed Code

    The Typekit Blog

    The Typekit Blog

  • Microsoft Reports First Loss in History

  • Google’s Data Advantage Over Apple’s Siri

  • Marco Arment on Dropbox

    Rob Sobers writing about a statement Marco Arment made on his podcast about Dropbox: >Marco’s response echoes my personal feelings about Dropbox and other public cloud services – treat Dropbox as though it’s nearly public. **Marco’s rule of thumb is that he doesn’t put anything in Dropbox that could potentially be harmful or embarrassing if…

    Rob Sobers writing about a statement Marco Arment made on his podcast about Dropbox:
    >Marco’s response echoes my personal feelings about Dropbox and other public cloud services – treat Dropbox as though it’s nearly public. **Marco’s rule of thumb is that he doesn’t put anything in Dropbox that could potentially be harmful or embarrassing if it were leaked.**

    Regular readers will know that I am paranoid about this kind of data breach. So my solution? Sensitive stuff goes inside an encrypted DMG inside of Dropbox. I am willing to trade a bit of security for the ease of use Dropbox offers.

    Also remember that there is a Dropbox like solution that is encrypted on the user end, called: [SpiderOak](https://spideroak.com).

    Or your can use [this tool to encrypt first](http://getsecretsync.com/ss/) (never tried it).