The Brooks Review

Top Posts

Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
The Hype: Yoshida & Co’s Porter BagsAugust 26, 2025

Recent Articles

  • The New TBR Business Model

    I started writing this long before anyone knew about this change — in fact only a handful of people know about this change as I write this sentence. The change I am making today, has a huge potential to fail and this, I accept. Simply put: I hate the business model of this blog, well…

    I started writing this long before anyone knew about this change — in fact only a handful of people know about this change as I write this sentence. The change I am making today, has a huge potential to fail and this, I accept.

    Simply put: I hate the business model of this blog, well actually I *hated* the business model of this blog. It was simple, well known, and commonplace. It’s the standard blog business model:

    1. Build a readership.
    2. Sell ads those readers must see.

    In my case, here, I sold two ad spots: one to Fusion and one to RSS Sponsors. Both are very different types of advertisements.

    Before we go any further I want to be clear about something: I have no problem with ad supported websites — they play an important role and both Fusion and the Syndicate were nothing but great to me. Ad supported sites will always be around — and truthfully that is fine.

    But an ad supported site is, ultimately, not the site *I* want to run — so before I go any further I thought it prudent to craft the kind of site that I actually want to run, or as is actually the case: a site much closer to the one I want to run.

    I want a direct relationship with you, my readers.

    So starting today the business model becomes even more clear ((There are still Amazon Affiliate links, but those are still you directly deciding to pay me by using them.)) :

    1. You pay me.
    2. I write.

    Of course this model isn’t new either, we typically just call it a “paywall”. But a paywall in its basic form is ineffectual for what I want, because then it becomes a massive hurdle to gain new readers (since all my content would be hidden out of the public eye) — I don’t want that.

    ### The Challenge

    What I needed to solve was a few issues with a pure paywall model:

    1. How to continue to attract new readers and thus expose my writing to new people.
    2. How to keep my writing quotable and linkable by other sites.
    3. How to keep the current readers I have.
    4. Provide a firm reason why a membership model *is* better than the ad supported model, for those reading the site. (This was something I personally had to answer before I felt good about moving forward.)

    ### New Readers

    The first problem I hit with a paywall model was how I attract new readers. Word of mouth is just too slow, so I needed some way to offer potential new readers a taste of my writing. What I was strongly against doing was:

    – Truncated posts on my site.
    – Trial periods of any kind, or length.
    – Sample writing posts.

    All three of those methods seemed way too crappy for me to put up with and would personally piss me off. I needed something better. In looking at how other sites worked I honed in on *The New York Times*. They have a modified paywall that allows readers to view a certain amount of articles every month. That, I thought, was closer to what I needed, but I could do my readers one better.

    What I have going for me that *The New York Times* doesn’t have, is that I am *not* a news site. And since my opinions should stand the test of time, I do not need to move at the speed of light, therefore: time itself should really not be a big deal to me or the readers of this site.

    All non-members of the site will have access to *every* post that members have access too, with one caveat: non-members won’t see those posts until *seven* days after I posted them.

    Therefore, you can still enjoy this site, in full, without paying a dime or seeing a single ad — you just have to be OK with enjoying it seven days after members enjoy it.

    I realize this isn’t ideal, but being as what I write is not time relevant, I feel that this is a decent tradeoff. If you aren’t a member you won’t be able to see what you are, in fact, missing — thus the content is indeed new to you when it does become “unlocked”. (This is the plan at least.)

    I arrived at seven days because I think that is the minimum point of pain. Meaning I think that anything shorter would be too easy for a reader to decide it’s not worth becoming a member. Anything longer than seven days and I felt that I was being too punitive against readers who simply cannot afford to pay for a membership.

    ### Incoming Links

    This model brought about one other snag that really dumbfounded me: what happens to the readers of my site that want to link to one of my posts on their own site when my post is still behind the paywall? I could have easily forced those members to make their readers wait seven days, but that didn’t seem right to me and it didn’t seem like a site that I would want to link to.

    Again I turned to *The New York Times*.

    I have decided that if you are linking to my site, then a reader that comes here from your site can also view the article you link to, without having to become a member. ((Thus opening up a loophole for less than quality individuals to exploit, but I have provisions in place for this — don’t worry.))

    So if member Jim wants to link to a TBR article from his site, and his reader Bob wants to read my article — he can do so if he follows the link from Jim’s site to my site — even if Bob isn’t a member here.

    It’s not a perfect system, but the very last thing I wanted to do was close my content off from being commented on by other sites and shared around. ((If you notice a bug in this at all, or feel I have unfairly blacklisted your site — just get in touch.))

    ### Current Readers

    I wanted to make sure that what ever changes I made to the site, I made them in such a way that all current readers could continue to enjoy the site without having to pay. That’s why there is the “free after 7 days” mechanism built in.

    No matter if you pay for membership, or not, you can still read everything I write. The only difference now is that it isn’t the very latest thing I wrote, but you get the added benefit of *never* having to see an ad.

    ### The Benefit

    Why go this route? Why not stick with tried and true advertising? Why change? Why is this *better* for readers?

    Lots of good questions, and truthfully this is one big guess, but I do want to share my reasoning.

    No matter if I am the one booking advertising slots, or someone else is booking them: the companies I write about are the ones that must decide to book the spot and pay me (indirectly). Therefore if I write something negative (gasp!) about a company, that company may decide **not** to sponsor the ad network that is powering my site in the future. Likewise if a company is sponsoring the RSS feed in a given week and they do something stupid, I may feel that I need to refrain from making fun of said stupid move — that notion never sat well with me.

    I have always tried to never let this play a role in my writing, but it weighed on me. Even though the issue rarely came up, it always made me feel less genuine. It was upon that realization that I knew something had to change — I couldn’t and shouldn’t be held to worry about advertiser’s feelings when my first (self-imposed) duty is to write with complete honesty.

    That’s part one.

    Part two is that advertising is ugly and distracting on a page. I wanted a pure reading experience, one that is, from the outset, unbiased and direct. Removing all ads and designing a site that need only give room to the pixels I choose ((Because I didn’t get a say in what the square Fusion ads look like.)) : that’s the ultimate goal.

    And that, my friend, is the way it *should* work. It is a simple plan.

    ### Pricing

    The pricing is pretty simple: $4 a month. That gets you everything, ad free, without delay.

    It’s automatically billed through Stripe. Yep, no need to have to deal with PayPal for either of us. You sign up on my site, you get processed by Stripe, and you can cancel your account right here on my site. So you need only to come here if you want to cancel — it’s one click — no trying to figure how to cancel.

    Once you sign up you immediately get login credentials, a unique (to you) RSS feed for all the posts, and you are on your way.

    ### Changes to My Writing

    Before I wrap this up: the writing here is going to change.

    I can’t buy new things to review unless I have the money to do so — so that may taper off for a bit until the membership base (hopefully) grows. Also, since I am not worried about the timeliness of my linked items and articles, I am going to try and write all of them with a lasting and value added motivation (keen readers may have noticed that my commentary has slowly been getting longer on linked list posts — this is what I am talking about).

    Linking to a post and commenting “cool” is now against my own rules. If I can’t add value to a link with thoughtful analysis and opinion, then that post isn’t getting a link on this site.

    If my article or review won’t be as helpful in seven days as it is today, then it’s not worth posting at any point.

    I am going to hold myself to a higher standard. ((Additionally I will not be accepting promo codes for apps any longer either. Again, I want nothing influencing me. I will still be accepting beta invitations, but will always say so when writing about an app. The reason for accepting beta invites is simple: I feel I pay for a beta invite in the form of my direct feedback to the developer.))

    ### That’s a Wrap

    Enjoy the tweaked design. Enjoy the lack of ads. Become a member if you can and want to.

    A big thanks to [JR Tashjian](http://jrtashjian.com) for the coding.

    And a huge thank you to all of you — regardless of whether you become a member or not.

    To join up, [go here](https://brooksreview.net/members).

    #### Programming Note

    Just a heads up on a couple of things:

    1. Because of the new 7-day rule, this site would be a wasteland for the next 7 days if you aren’t a member. Of course that wouldn’t be OK with me, so I will be passing one post a day through the paywall for all to read. It will just be one of the linked list posts that I normally post — no articles. Now, this causes another problem to anyone that reads the site by visiting just the homepage: new posts will be appearing intermixed with the posts I pass through the paywall for a week, meaning the chronology of things will be messed up on the homepage for non-members. Sorry about that, but this is the best, albeit hacky, solution I could think of.
    2. If you use Twitter as your RSS reader, and Twitter is how you look to get updates on new posts, well things are going to be a bit different now. Non-members will still see tweets on the @brooksreview account, but they will show up (hopefully) when the actual posts are available for non-members to read. For members, the best solution I could come up with is a protected Twitter account @TBRmembers — request to follow that and if you are a member I will grant access.

  • ‘Petition the U.S. Government to Force the TSA to Follow the Law’

    There’s no reason to not sign this and even less of a reason not to take the time to sign it. This is important. This isn’t about the TSA being stupid, it’s about them defying a court order.

    There’s no reason to not sign this and even less of a reason not to take the time to sign it. This is important. This isn’t about the TSA being stupid, it’s about them defying a court order.

  • ‘Sitting for More Than Three Hours a Day Cuts Life Expectancy’

    Andrew Seidman: >Sitting down for more than three hours a day can shave a person’s life expectancy by two years, even if he or she is physically active and refrains from dangerous habits like smoking, according to a study to be published on Tuesday in the online journal BMJ Open. Converting to a standing desk…

    Andrew Seidman:
    >Sitting down for more than three hours a day can shave a person’s life expectancy by two years, even if he or she is physically active and refrains from dangerous habits like smoking, according to a study to be published on Tuesday in the online journal BMJ Open.

    Converting to a standing desk is really tough for the first two weeks, but if you can get past that it really does feel great. I had some lower back problems completely disappear once I made the switch — and I was sitting in one of the best chairs money can buy. Do note that researchers relied on self reported data, and believe that many respondents lied about how much they actually sit, meaning the numbers are probably worse than they look.

    The other advantage to standing, if you work in an office with others, people that come to your desk are forced to stand if they want to talk to you. This means they tend to linger less since they are probably not comfortable just standing at a desk. This was a great fringe benefit for me.

  • Today, in RIM

    Lots of good stuff floating around the web today about RIM, no doubt because they held their annual shareholders meeting. There are four specific articles that I think need to be called out for their interconnectedness alone. ### MarketWatch Dan Gallagher for MarketWatch posts a short snippet titled: “[RIM board kicks off meeting with support…

    Lots of good stuff floating around the web today about RIM, no doubt because they held their annual shareholders meeting. There are four specific articles that I think need to be called out for their interconnectedness alone.

    ### MarketWatch

    Dan Gallagher for MarketWatch posts a short snippet titled: “[RIM board kicks off meeting with support for execs](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rim-board-kicks-off-meeting-with-support-for-execs-2012-07-10).” Which is great all by itself, but his quote from RIM is great too:

    >The statement said the board believes the current team — led by CEO Thorsten Heins — is “well positioned to lead the company forward.”

    Keep that in mind for the next article about RIM.

    ### VentureBeat

    [Devindra Hardawar reports on VentureBeat that](http://venturebeat.com/2012/07/10/rim-hires-a-search-firm-to-find-more-tech-experience-for-its-board/):

    >Today at its annual shareholder meeting, RIM chairwoman Barbara Stymiest confirmed that the company is indeed seeking out new board members with technical experience with the help of a search firm.

    So just to get you on the same page as I am: RIM’s Board has complete faith in the executives running the company, **but** RIM’s board does **not** have complete faith in themselves.

    See the problem here?

    ### e27

    Shifting gears, [RIM announced that they will be bribing developers with a $100 million pool](http://e27.sg/2012/07/10/research-in-motion-announces-us100m-investment-to-grow-developer-community-for-blackberry-platform/) to get them to develop apps for BlackBerry 10. Joash Wee reports:

    >One of such programs incentivizes developers to build apps for BlackBerry 10 by guaranteeing the developers US$10,000 in revenues from the app.

    This is actually consistent with the arrogant and oblivious nature in which RIM conducts itself, but even more interesting is the implication of this. Are the best developers, the ones that actually make fantastic apps on other platforms, motivated by $10k in guaranteed revenue? Isn’t this likely to attract the second-tier developers, the ones who have solid apps, but not apps that motivate users to switch platforms?

    Paying developers to make apps for your platform is not inherently a bad a idea, but it has yet to prove effective ( `*cough*` Microsoft `*cough*` ).

    ### Bits Blog

    Lastly, as if to perfectly sum up everything that RIM has become, [Ian Austen has this to say about the annual meeting](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/10/at-rims-annual-meeting-some-unpleasant-questions/):

    >So much new software was integrated into BlackBerry 10 over “the last few weeks and months” that the system had become “destabilized,” he said. He added that finishing BlackBerry 10 promptly is simply a matter of time — a process that cannot be accelerated by spending more money or hiring more developers.

    Austen is quoting RIM’s CEO, and there’s two phrases in that paragraph that sum up RIM nicely:

    1. “The system had become destabilized.”
    2. “A process that cannot be accelerated by spending more money.”

    RIM doesn’t seem to realize that it is RIM itself that is “destabilized” and yet (perhaps because of that) they are trying to right the ship by spending more money.

    Crazy.

    Ok, I can’t leave this post alone because this is another laugh out loud moment in it:

    >He said many wireless carriers were pleased with the delay because they won’t be unveiling higher speed networks that can fully exploit BlackBerry 10 until next year.

    *Riiiight.*

  • Is Retina a Pro Only Feature?

    With rumors going around [today of a 13″ MacBook Pro — retina — circling](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/10/purported_13_retina_macbook_pro_benchmarks_appear_launch_rumored_before_oct.html) I thought about why Apple keeps that stupid 13″ MacBook Pro around — I mean the 13″ Air is almost better in every way. Then it occurred to me: what if in Apple’s eyes a retina screen is really just a…

    With rumors going around [today of a 13″ MacBook Pro — retina — circling](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/07/10/purported_13_retina_macbook_pro_benchmarks_appear_launch_rumored_before_oct.html) I thought about why Apple keeps that stupid 13″ MacBook Pro around — I mean the 13″ Air is almost better in every way. Then it occurred to me: what if in Apple’s eyes a retina screen is really just a “pro” feature for now?

    The rumor is that the iPhone 3GS will live another year — and the 3GS is the entry level iPhone. The entry level iPad is the iPad 2 — again, non-retina. The entry level laptop is the 11″ Air — non-retina.

    The 15″ MacBook Pro is the workhorse laptop for Pro Mac users, it is *the* machine and likely that is the reason it got the retina display first among Macs. The 13″ MacBook Pro is the entry level pro Mac laptop — just as the iPhone 4 (with its retina screen) is the entry level “pro” iPhone.

    So what if then, Apple sees retina screens as “pro only” while they wait for economies of scale to bring the price of the screens down?

    Well, that would mean that the MacBook Airs won’t be getting a retina screen any time soon — which is really too bad.

  • Quote of the Day: Dave Pell

    “All reality shows only feature the people pathetic and desperate enough to publicly humiliate themselves in exchange for 15 minutes of looking like an idiot.” — Dave Pell

    “All reality shows only feature the people pathetic and desperate enough to publicly humiliate themselves in exchange for 15 minutes of looking like an idiot.”

  • Soulver – the Notepad Calculator

    [This tweet from Marco Arment](http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/222755117840089089), reminded me just how much I love and use Soulver. Without any exaggeration I use Soulver everyday that I am at my Mac. It is so good that I bought a second copy from the Mac App Store when I setup the retina MacBook Pro. Surprisingly the app is only…

    [This tweet from Marco Arment](http://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/222755117840089089), reminded me just how much I love and use Soulver. Without any exaggeration I use Soulver everyday that I am at my Mac. It is so good that I bought a second copy from the Mac App Store when I setup the retina MacBook Pro.

    Surprisingly the app is only $11.99 on the app store — it’s worth at least twice that. If you [buy the iOS version (and you should) for $2.99](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/soulver-notepad-calculator/id348142037?mt=8) then iCloud will sync your calculations back and forth.

    Soulver is a bit more than your normal calculator, it’s almost like having an Excel scratchpad handy — without all the Microsoft junk that comes with excel.

    If you are reading this, you know I don’t normally gush about apps, but I *love* this app.

  • .Mail by Tobias Van Schneider

    An interesting conceptual email client, that has some good ideas going for it. The design itself is not all that compelling to me, but a few of the ideas behind it are very compelling. Mainly: – Focusing on readability. Why is this overlooked in current email clients? – The ability to show all your received…

    An interesting conceptual email client, that has some good ideas going for it. The design itself is not all that compelling to me, but a few of the ideas behind it are very compelling. Mainly:

    – Focusing on readability. Why is this overlooked in current email clients?
    – The ability to show all your received attachments seems really neat to me.
    – Actions. While I personally would never use them, I know it would improve my life because most everyone I email with would use this feature.

    I think the biggest problem with email is that the market is far too niche to be profitable for most companies. While most users could and should have a better email client, not many would be willing to pay for one. I really do hope we see more people working on email clients though and I hope they can make money at it.

    [via @hrbrt]

  • ‘Apple Wins Patent for NFC-Enabled ‘iTravel’ Transportation Ticketing App’

    This is really interesting to me, an old patent application from 2008 for a travel app for what looks to be an iPhone. As MacRumors points out this is particularly interesting given the Apple Passbook app in iOS 6. To me, paperless travel and booking is a much more desirable tool than paying for things…

    This is really interesting to me, an old patent application from 2008 for a travel app for what looks to be an iPhone. As MacRumors points out this is particularly interesting given the Apple Passbook app in iOS 6.

    To me, paperless travel and booking is a much more desirable tool than paying for things with my iPhone, but it’s also much harder to accomplish in the U.S. The main reason travel is so much harder: both Airlines and the TSA don’t particularly give a crap about what is easiest for travelers. Actually I always feel like both kinda hate their customers.

    Passbook will work because small stores and big stores are all looking for ways to make it easier for you to hand over your money, so they are naturally inclined to adopt any such tool that helps with that. Prime examples: Square and Credit Cards.

    This travel app will have a much harder fight, because after they convince airlines (shouldn’t be hard) they will have to convince the TSA. That may be the most futile fight.

  • Apple’s Disruption

    Horace Dediu answering a question during an interview with John Cox, has the following to say about Apple and how it approaches the business of selling hardware: >Apple changed the basis of competition from hardware as the primary value consumers paid for to a combination of hardware, software and services. Being competitive changed from having…

    Horace Dediu answering a question during an interview with John Cox, has the following to say about Apple and how it approaches the business of selling hardware:
    >Apple changed the basis of competition from hardware as the primary value consumers paid for to a combination of hardware, software and services. Being competitive changed from having good hardware to having good hardware, good software and services — made usable through integration.

    The “made usable through integration” bit is perhaps the most notable change of Apple in recent years and I think the reason that iOS has really taken off. We all like to hate on the mess known as iTunes, but the fact remains that iTunes made syncing the first iPhone relatively painless for Mac users. Fast forward to today and you have iCloud, which from my own use, has been even better than iTunes — and that’s before you take into account the fact that iCloud requires no cable.

    Apple is in the process of taking everything that makes using multiple devices a pain in the ass, and removing that pain from your ass — so to speak. Cables: gone. Contact/Email/Calendar syncing: done. Moving photos from your device to computer: done. Backups: check. If you stop and remember where we were before 2007, then you can truly appreciate all the advancement that Apple has had a hand in bringing forth.

  • Quote of the Day: Micah Baldwin

    “We have been cursed by a belief that being anything other than bullshit is helpful to whomever we are speaking with.” — Micah Baldwin

    “We have been cursed by a belief that being anything other than bullshit is helpful to whomever we are speaking with.”

  • “Most Pro of Tips”

    I never could reason a use case for the blinking of the flash light for notifications, but I like this reasoning. The only wish I have with this tip, is that it was easier or faster to turn this on and off so that I could quickly set it on. Perhaps even just turning it…

    I never could reason a use case for the blinking of the flash light for notifications, but I like this reasoning.

    The only wish I have with this tip, is that it was easier or faster to turn this on and off so that I could quickly set it on. Perhaps even just turning it on when the phone is switched into silent — that would be pretty useful.

  • ‘AT&T to Start Blocking Stolen Cellphones This Week’

    I love this little bit of news from Brian X. Chen about AT&T: >The company said that its database would initially prevent reactivation of stolen devices on its own network. Later this year it plans to expand the database to work with other carriers. I am sure the meeting for this went something like: “Hey…

    I love this little bit of news from Brian X. Chen about AT&T:
    >The company said that its database would initially prevent reactivation of stolen devices on its own network. Later this year it plans to expand the database to work with other carriers.

    I am sure the meeting for this went something like: “Hey boss! I’ve a great idea: let’s track phones that have be stolen and block them. This will make current customers happy, and force more users to buy our subsidized phones!” Then the boss slowly turns with a glimmer in his eye and replies: “Genius, what a great, brand new, never heard before, idea. (With a subtle undertone of ‘that’s why I hired you — I’m so smart.’)”

    In other words: why hasn’t AT&T been doing this all along?

    If that was all that was in the story I wouldn’t have linked to it, but that’s not all in the story, the best bit comes right now:

    >Verizon Wireless, the No. 1 carrier, said that unlike AT&T, it has had its own database for disabling stolen cellphones on its network for years.

    That sentence is so perfect, on so many levels.

  • ‘Dear Internet: Please Stop ‘Reviewing’ Microsoft Surface Until You’ve Actually Used One’

    Craig Grannell making the point with a comparison to early iPad coverage: >I still like my iPad a lot and I don’t regret buying it, but it certainly doesn’t live up to the initial coverage online—and that’s something you only realise and can only tell after extended use, not through seeing a couple of pictures…

    Craig Grannell making the point with a comparison to early iPad coverage:
    >I still like my iPad a lot and I don’t regret buying it, but it certainly doesn’t live up to the initial coverage online—and that’s something you only realise and can only tell after extended use, not through seeing a couple of pictures online and a keynote video.

    Doesn’t matter who the person is, or what the device is — you cannot and should not review something that you have never used. Likewise I don’t recommend things that I haven’t used first. So the “Amazon Items of the Week” posts, yeah all those items are things I own, like, and therefore can recommend to you.

    I have no problem with speculating on announced products, but calling such speculation a “review” or “buyers guide” is basically out right lying to your readership.

  • HTC Defeats Apple in swipe-to-unlock Patent

    I’m actually really glad Apple lost this patent because it’s something that just seems silly to not have on touchscreen devices.

    I’m actually really glad Apple lost this patent because it’s something that just seems silly to not have on touchscreen devices.

  • The Amazon Smartphone

    Chuck Skoda, [responding to the rumors that Amazon will release a smartphone](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-06/amazon-said-to-plan-smartphone-to-vie-with-apple.html), speculates that the Internet browsing and apps are what makes the iPhone a success, a component that Amazon hasn’t shown it can be good at, so Skoda asks: >How many books, movies, and tv shows are you consuming on your phone? When I…

    Chuck Skoda, [responding to the rumors that Amazon will release a smartphone](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-06/amazon-said-to-plan-smartphone-to-vie-with-apple.html), speculates that the Internet browsing and apps are what makes the iPhone a success, a component that Amazon hasn’t shown it can be good at, so Skoda asks:

    >How many books, movies, and tv shows are you consuming on your phone?

    When I look at most everything Amazon does it is very clear to me that the strategy is consistently: sell more. The Kindle sells more ebooks, the a Fire is trying to do the same with media, so what the hell would a smartphone sell for Amazon?

    Do people really need an Amazon device to buy from Amazon? No.

    If this rumor holds it seems very much like a break in strategy and a ‘me-too’ move from Amazon, which is not how they got to where they are today.

    *Side note: am I the only one that wants Amazon to release a product named ‘Amazin’? I can’t be alone in this wish.*

  • ‘Web Designers: You Need a Retina MacBook Pro’

    Marco Arment makes a great argument for every web designer needing a retina MacBook Pro and I agree. The last design of this site I did was tailored first and foremost for the iPad. Now I am torn whether to tailor for the iPad or the retina MacBook Pro, because now I can’t decide which…

    Marco Arment makes a great argument for every web designer needing a retina MacBook Pro and I agree. The last design of this site I did was tailored first and foremost for the iPad. Now I am torn whether to tailor for the iPad or the retina MacBook Pro, because now I can’t decide which device I like reading on more.

    A couple of people wrote me to tell me that I should stop throwing out complaints about magazines and start offering solutions: step one is making all digital publications look great on retina screens.

    Oh and in case you were wondering about designing a site only on a retina screen, [Tim Van Damme has you covered](http://maxvoltar.com/archive/web-designers-you-need-a-retina-macbook-pro):

    >I think right now the perfect setup is a Retina MacBook Pro, and a non-retina external monitor.

    Just be warned, you won’t use that second screen for anything other than testing.

  • Retina MacBook Pro vs. Mac Pro: Aperture and Motion

    Rob for Bare Feats: >If apps like Aperture and Motion are your “bread and butter,” you can conclude from this test session that the 2012 MacBook Pro (Retina and ‘normal’) performs on par with the best Mac Pro with the best graphics cards. Aperture has always been a dog in terms of performance and thus…

    Rob for Bare Feats:

    >If apps like Aperture and Motion are your “bread and butter,” you can conclude from this test session that the 2012 MacBook Pro (Retina and ‘normal’) performs on par with the best Mac Pro with the best graphics cards.

    Aperture has always been a dog in terms of performance and thus I have usually preferred Lightroom. However since getting the retina MacBook Pro I have switched back to Aperture and haven’t noticed that dog slow performance in Aperture. Maybe the hardware has finally caught up, maybe Apple got around to optimizing Aperture.

    I do get some good satisfaction from how favorably the retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Pro compare to Mac Pros.

  • ‘Apple’s Fix for Corrupt Binaries’

    Marco Arment on Apple’s solution for the corrupt binaries: >By republishing “updates” to these apps, Apple is helping users avoid deleting them and losing their data. As Marco points out this is a smart move by Apple — because as a user I’d be pissed if I lost a bunch of data in an app.…

    Marco Arment on Apple’s solution for the corrupt binaries:
    >By republishing “updates” to these apps, Apple is helping users avoid deleting them and losing their data.

    As Marco points out this is a smart move by Apple — because as a user I’d be pissed if I lost a bunch of data in an app. I also think it was a clever way of avoiding the deletion of comments, which would have likely caused outrage among idiots.

    Sidebar: If your app stores all the user data locally, ‘just’ enable iCloud so that users can delete your app and later reinstall it without losing their progress/data. Or sync that data somewhere so that deleting an app doesn’t delete the data.

  • The Elusive iPad ‘mini’

    I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait for the iPad nano, with it’s 3.5″ retina screen. While we wait for those rumors, let’s take a look at what is going around this time. We’ll just blame this flare up on [MacRumors](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/03/apple-planning-for-7-85-inch-ipad-mini-with-igzo-display-later-this-year/), [Bloomberg](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html), and the [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506471913819412.html) all together. Since the reports…

    I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t wait for the iPad nano, with it’s 3.5″ retina screen.

    While we wait for those rumors, let’s take a look at what is going around this time.

    We’ll just blame this flare up on [MacRumors](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/03/apple-planning-for-7-85-inch-ipad-mini-with-igzo-display-later-this-year/), [Bloomberg](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/here-comes-nexus-7-nightmare-the-ipad-mini.html), and the [Wall Street Journal](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577506471913819412.html) all together. Since the reports are all similar we can break it down as such:

    – 7-8 inch screened iPad.
    – 1024 x 768 Resolution.
    – Before the end of 2012.
    – Sources “close to the matter”.

    This is nothing new, since “sources close to the matter” have been reporting an iPad mini, and Apple Television for well over a year now. The discussions are largely the same “yay” or “nay” depending on how you view the future of a smaller tablet, but I have a few thoughts about such a device.

    There’s been a [strong argument made by Joel Bernstein](http://castirony.com/post/26466421254/the-case-for-a-7-8-ipad) on why a 7.8″ screen would mesh well with the rumored resolution. His strongest point, I believe, is this one:

    >The iOS Human Interface Guidelines say “The screen size of iOS-based devices might vary, but the average size of a fingertip does not. Regardless of the device your app runs on, following these guidelines ensures that people can comfortably use your app. Give tappable elements in your application a target area of about 44 x 44 points.”

    So let’s just make it a given that Apple could/can/would produce a ~7″ tablet with little to no harm to the current crop of iPad apps. With that, then the question becomes: should they make one?

    In the “for” camp this argument from [Rene Ritchie strikes me as the strongest](http://www.imore.com/apple-release-7-inch-ipad):

    >The reasons Apple was planning this, we heard, was the same reason they planned and executed on the lower price point iPod mini and iPod nano — to take the oxygen out of the market. In this case, to leave no room for discount competitors like Amazon and Google.

    The reason this bit is so compelling to me is a two part answer. First, it is generally believed that Steve Jobs had a large hand in the product road map for at least the next 5 years at Apple. Part two, [is this quote (curiously the only source I could find for it is *Daring Fireball*) from Steve Jobs](http://daringfireball.net/2010/08/n92):

    >Once a company devises a great product, he says, it has a monopoly in that realm, and concentrates less on innovation than protecting its turf. “The Mac user interface was a 10-year monopoly,” says Jobs. “Who ended up running the company? Sales guys. At the critical juncture in the late ’80s, when they should have gone for market share, they went for profits. They made obscene profits for several years. And their products became mediocre. And then their monopoly ended with Windows 95. They behaved like a monopoly, and it came back to bite them, which always happens.”

    I think it is pretty certain that Apple knows they have a hit with the iPad. So now do they rest on their laurels or go for market share?

    For that we look at the iPhone — and yep, just checked, Apple still sells the 3GS. Why? Because they are going for market share.

    With the iPad it isn’t so simple because there are no carrier subsidies to drastically cut the price, but they have already started going for market share by keeping the iPad 2 around. With a smaller, cheaper, iPad they could aggressively pursue market share.

    That’s why *I* like the 7 inch iPad rumors right now, but there’s a problem with these rumors.

    The problem is: I don’t know where the hell a 7 inch iPad would fit for Apple users. The iPhone, iPad, and Mac all complement each other, but I have a hard time seeing where the 7 inch iPad would fit in.

    To me the 7 inch iPad would be a bit like the iPod touch, not likely something you would buy if you already have an iPhone. Again though the iPod touch does sell well, so perhaps I am just not the target market for the 7 inch iPad?

    So let’s just assume I am not the target market for such a device, that there actually is a group of buyers that is the target market, and that a smaller iPad would be cheaper — given all that I still have one question: how does Apple market it?

    Apple doesn’t like to market things as being cheap. You don’t see commercials for the iPad 2 floating around, because the only reason Apple keeps it around is because it is cheaper. You don’t see Apple engaging in marketing price wars.

    Right now Apple sells and markets devices by showing users why they need/want such a device. The amazing screen on the retina MacBook Pro. The amazing form factor of the MacBook Air. The intimate web and portability of the iPad. The amazing do everything, go everywhere iPhone. 10,000 songs in your pocket iPod.

    How does Apple market a seven inch iPad if they are only making it because it would be cheaper to buy? What is demonstrably better about a 7 inch tablet?

    Those are two questions I would expect Apple to have a firm answer to before they launch a tablet.

    I like carrying a seven inch tablet around because it is small and easy to hold, but I hate using them because they are too small to actually use.

    This should be a very interesting move if Apple makes it.