The Brooks Review

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The Hype: Yoshida & Co’s Porter BagsAugust 26, 2025
G-SHOCK DW-H5600 After 7 MonthsJuly 31, 2025
Casio Duro MDV-106 Re-ReviewDecember 15, 2022

Recent Articles

  • “Journalism”

    Brooke Crothers on CNET writing about fanboi sites like [Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net/): >Take the blog Daring Fireball. It offers some solid analysis. But in the end it’s a fanboi site. Assailing the misinformed. Or pointing out how wrong or disliked the Android competition is. That kind of attitude gets in the way of informed insight. Take…

    Brooke Crothers on CNET writing about fanboi sites like [Daring Fireball](http://daringfireball.net/):
    >Take the blog Daring Fireball. It offers some solid analysis. But in the end it’s a fanboi site. Assailing the misinformed. Or pointing out how wrong or disliked the Android competition is. That kind of attitude gets in the way of informed insight.

    Take the blog by Brooke Crothers at CNET. It offers a lot of random links in its text. But in the end it falls short of journalism. Assailing random accusations. Or pointing out how wrong others are without the facts to back things up. That kind of attitude gets in the way of informed insight.

    *Just* saying.

  • A Proposal to Save the USPS

    This plan would mean I would be paying to not receive any mail — I’m so in.

    This plan would mean I would be paying to not receive any mail — I’m so in.

  • Change Scares Some

    Paul Miller pens a post on *The Verge* about UI issues that bug him on Mac OS X and Windows. He brings up some really good points if you can ignore the incredibly distracting animated GIFs. He points out the wizard nature of the Windows Control Panel and how it always assumes you are looking…

    Paul Miller pens a post on *The Verge* about UI issues that bug him on Mac OS X and Windows. He brings up some really good points if you can ignore the incredibly distracting animated GIFs. He points out the wizard nature of the Windows Control Panel and how it always assumes you are looking at the screen for the first time.

    He talks about how bad Address Book and iCal are on the Mac.

    He also has some idiotic points about not needing window shadows — umm yeah we don’t need them, but we also like for our UI to not look like shit.

    Then Miller completely discredits everything he said in his post when he writes:

    >In my personal quest to escape the condescension, I recently switched my Windows 7 install over to the “Classic Theme,” which is basically Windows 95 incarnate, just with all the under-the-hood improvements I’ve come to rely on. I really like it. It feels right, and if it isn’t beautiful, at least it’s honest.

    No, Paul, it’s hideous and I no longer trust your opinion about any design and UI related topics — you undermined your entire article, which I was largely agreeing with, with your last paragraph. (The animated GIFs really should have tipped me off.)

  • The B&B Podcast – Episode 37: It’S Old School, Bro

    Shawn and I have a long talk about Twitter and Twitter related things (e.g. Instagram) — we touch on the design, the vision, and the business model of the service. Big thanks to the sponsor this week: [Instacast](http://affiliate.vemedio.com/itunes/app/420368235/bbsponsor).

    Shawn and I have a long talk about Twitter and Twitter related things (e.g. Instagram) — we touch on the design, the vision, and the business model of the service.

    Big thanks to the sponsor this week: [Instacast](http://affiliate.vemedio.com/itunes/app/420368235/bbsponsor).

  • Thunderbolt: How Devices Affect Each Other on a Daisy Chain

    A nice batch of tests from James Galbraith on Macworld to see what happens when you have a Thunderbolt chain arranged differently. The end result seems to be that you are fine no matter what you do, until you add two Thunderbolt displays to the same chain — that’s when things start to slow down.

    A nice batch of tests from James Galbraith on Macworld to see what happens when you have a Thunderbolt chain arranged differently.

    The end result seems to be that you are fine no matter what you do, until you add two Thunderbolt displays to the same chain — that’s when things start to slow down.

  • Meg Whitman and Marc Andreessen on webOS

    Joshua Topolsky interviews them for *The Verge* about how HP will be using webOS in the future. The interview is played as Whitman confirming that new webOS tablets will be coming, but read the actual transcript: >In the near term what I would imagine – and this could change, in full disclosure – is I…

    Joshua Topolsky interviews them for *The Verge* about how HP will be using webOS in the future. The interview is played as Whitman confirming that new webOS tablets will be coming, but read the actual transcript:

    >In the near term what I would imagine – and this could change, in full disclosure – is I would think tablets, I do not believe we will be in the smartphone business again.

    Then she was asked if tablets are a “real possibility”, to which the response was “yes”.

    HP has flip flopped on just about every move they have made, so I would think anything is a “real possibility” with HP right now. The bottom line though: HP open sourced webOS in order to cut development costs — given that I don’t see a full commitment to the OS for hardware development.

  • Quote of the Day: Nilay Patel

    “God I hope Dell builds some sweet webOS phones.” — Nilay Patel

    “God I hope Dell builds some sweet webOS phones.”

  • webOS Being Open Sourced

    Chris Ziegler: >HP has decided the fate of webOS today, and it’s an open one: the platform will be contributed to the open source community. The company says that it will be an “active participant and investor in the project,” and that its ultimate goal here is to accelerate development. In other words, it doesn’t…

    Chris Ziegler:
    >HP has decided the fate of webOS today, and it’s an open one: the platform will be contributed to the open source community. The company says that it will be an “active participant and investor in the project,” and that its ultimate goal here is to accelerate development. In other words, it doesn’t want to pump the amount of money into webOS that would be required to make it fully competitive, so it’s looking to the public to help make that happen.

    That’s the death of webOS as a main stream platform.

  • Motorola Mobility Wins German Patent Suit Against Apple

    Does this mean Apple has to stop selling iPads and iPhones in Germany? It’s not clear yet. What’s more interesting, and what I couldn’t stop thinking about when reading this, is: wouldn’t it have been cheaper for Apple to just have bought Motorola and shut it down? Disregard DOJ and anti-trust concerns — think about…

    Does this mean Apple has to stop selling iPads and iPhones in Germany? It’s not clear yet.

    What’s more interesting, and what I couldn’t stop thinking about when reading this, is: wouldn’t it have been cheaper for Apple to just have bought Motorola and shut it down? Disregard DOJ and anti-trust concerns — think about the money Apple is spending to fight patents against Motorola and the potential loss of sales if they lose. I would think it would have been easier to just buy the company (hostile takeover if needed) and shutter it.

  • Gruber on the New Twitter

    John Gruber: >The Twitter service this new UI presents is about a whole lot more — mass-market spoonfed “trending topics” and sponsored content. It’s trying to make Twitter work for people who don’t see the appeal of what Twitter was supposed to be. It all makes sense if you think of the label under the…

    John Gruber:
    >The Twitter service this new UI presents is about a whole lot more — mass-market spoonfed “trending topics” and sponsored content. It’s trying to make Twitter work for people who don’t see the appeal of what Twitter was supposed to be. It all makes sense if you think of the label under the “#” tab as reading “Dickbar” instead of “Discover”.

    [Like I said yesterday](https://brooksreview.net/2011/12/twitter-4/), Twitter no longer wants to be seen as a tool or service — it’s not a backbone to be built a top of. Twitter is a place on the Internet. Twitter wants to be an environment that people spend time at, not a service that people spend time using without every “seeing” it.

    I think Gruber is only partially right here. There’s a lot more going on than just setting the app up for monetizing the service. I would guess that any new Twitter user that loaded up Twitter 4.0 verses Tweetie 1.0 will find 4.0 far more comfortable and useable. I don’t think that is the case because they “don’t see the appeal” of Twitter — I think that is the case because Twitter has evolved beyond what it was when people like Gruber and I first started using it.

    One thing that Gruber points out that is really at the heart of the matter is the waining support for 3rd party Twitter apps. I really wouldn’t be surprised that come 8 months from now all 3rd party apps are severely crippled in someway compared to the official Twitter clients — so much so that it becomes masochistic to use them.

    A lot of people are surprised that I *still* use the official Twitter apps — the reason I do is because I know that they are the only ones that will be around in the future. That is: I don’t think Twitter likes that there are 3rd party apps and because of that I think they are slowly trying to kill them off. Example number one was the integration in iOS. Example two is the killing of photo sharing services with the `pic.twitter.com` service.

    It’s a matter of when, not if, Twitter is going to kill 3rd party clients.

  • What Twitter for iPhone 4.0 and Twitter’s New-New Design Tells Current Users

    “We care more about new users and you finding more people to follow rather than about how everyone has been using Twitter in the past.” Don’t read that as a bad thing. Don’t read that as a good thing. It is simply just a thing. The fact is that the web version of Twitter doesn’t…

    “We care more about new users and you finding more people to follow rather than about how everyone has been using Twitter in the past.”

    Don’t read that as a bad thing. Don’t read that as a good thing. It is simply just a thing.

    The fact is that the web version of Twitter doesn’t matter to me. I rarely use it and try to stay logged out of it. I don’t care about the web version.

    The iPhone app though — it is the most used app on my iPhone. My iPhone is Twitter.

    The design changes are just design changes and I mostly think they look nice. These changes are a nice new look at Twitter and I have no qualms with them — even though the top blue bar is a bit bright.

    I really like the new ‘Connect’ tab because of the ‘Interactions’ menu that shows not just @replies, but also shows new followers, retweets, and favorites. That’s a welcomed change and I think pretty helpful for all users.

    What is absolutely crazy — what drives me nuts — is the ditching of the swipe-to-act gesture. In previous versions you could swipe left or right on a tweet to slide open an action menu. From there you could quickly favorite, retweet, Instapaper, or reply to the tweet.

    That was the single most fantastic thing about the app.

    Now it’s gone.

    I think the reason this was removed is explained by the direction Twitter is moving: gone are the days when Twitter was a tool because now Twitter is an environment.

    The latest updates to Twitter seem to be saying: “stick around, don’t leave.”

    I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but it’s certainly not how I am used to using Twitter.

  • Normal Really Means Performance

    Walt Mossberg in his review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime: >Asus and Nvidia build in three battery modes, and I tested only the one called Normal. Unfortunately, Nvidia now says that nomenclature is misleading, and that Normal is really meant for only high-performance tasks. So, early next year, when it switches to the…

    Walt Mossberg in his review of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime:
    >Asus and Nvidia build in three battery modes, and I tested only the one called Normal. Unfortunately, Nvidia now says that nomenclature is misleading, and that Normal is really meant for only high-performance tasks. So, early next year, when it switches to the next version of Android, it plans to rename Normal as “Performance,” to steer users to a less power-hungry mode called “Balanced.” I can’t say how the Prime’s battery will perform in that scenario with the new OS.

    I had to read that paragraph twice because I got confused. Why aren’t those features already present? Why ship the tablet with a battery mode mislabeled?

  • UP Refund

    Hosain Rahman the CEO of Jawbone about the UP: >This means that for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can receive a full refund for UP. This is true even if you decide to keep your UP band. We are so committed to this product that we’re offering you the option of using…

    Hosain Rahman the CEO of Jawbone about the UP:
    >This means that for whatever reason, or no reason at all, you can receive a full refund for UP. This is true even if you decide to keep your UP band. We are so committed to this product that we’re offering you the option of using it for free.

    They admit there is a problem with the hardware and stopped production to fix them. Good return policy, but man is that some crappy QA.

  • Twitter for iPhone Pro-Tip

    Two great tips for using the new (shitty) Twitter for iPhone app. At least this makes the app slightly more useable.

    Two great tips for using the new (shitty) Twitter for iPhone app. At least this makes the app slightly more useable.

  • Twitter for iPhone 4.0

    The swipe a tweet to act on it was the best feature of Twitter for iPhone — that’s gone. It’s also a pain in the ass to switch between accounts. Oh it looks nice enough and in time I am sure I will get used to it, but removing the swipe gesture — that’s just…

    The swipe a tweet to act on it was the best feature of Twitter for iPhone — that’s gone. It’s also a pain in the ass to switch between accounts.

    Oh it looks nice enough and in time I am sure I will get used to it, but removing the swipe gesture — that’s just idiotic.

  • Hulu’s Face Match Helps You ID That Actor You Can’t Name

    T.C. Sottek: >Hulu today announced Face Match, a new feature that allows viewers to hover their cursor over an actor’s face in a video to find out their name and other background information. That’s pretty cool. Currently I have to ask my wife and she tells me — so eliminating some steps here.

    T.C. Sottek:
    >Hulu today announced Face Match, a new feature that allows viewers to hover their cursor over an actor’s face in a video to find out their name and other background information.

    That’s pretty cool. Currently I have to ask my wife and she tells me — so eliminating some steps here.

  • Garrett Murray’s Jawbone UP Review

    No need to read past his first paragraph (maybe take a peak at his great photos): >Here’s the TL/DR version: Don’t buy this piece of shit. It doesn’t work, it will fail, and the software is terrible.

    No need to read past his first paragraph (maybe take a peak at his great photos):
    >Here’s the TL/DR version: Don’t buy this piece of shit. It doesn’t work, it will fail, and the software is terrible.

  • Paul Thurrott on the Courier Tablet

    I think Thurrott is mostly right about Microsoft killing the Courier: >No, Microsoft was right to kill that device. I mentioned earlier that Microsoft is a platforms company and the big failing of the Courier is that it didn’t support a single successful Microsoft platform, not one. Well, that and the fact that no one…

    I think Thurrott is mostly right about Microsoft killing the Courier:
    >No, Microsoft was right to kill that device. I mentioned earlier that Microsoft is a platforms company and the big failing of the Courier is that it didn’t support a single successful Microsoft platform, not one. Well, that and the fact that no one was ever going to buy that thing, despite all the moaning and hand-wringing you see online these days to the contrary. You see the same arguments about a Zune device based on Windows Phone: Everyone says they want one, but if Microsoft produced it, they’d sell 6 copies.

    I say mostly because:

    1. I don’t think the Courier needed to support a “Microsoft platform” and
    2. Because I think that if the Courier had shipped *before* the iPad they would have sold a ton, but waiting until after the iPad would have Zune’d it. ((That’s a thing, right?))

    Interesting that Thurrott agrees that seemingly no matter how good it was to be — it would be destined to fail.

  • The Moment Before Instagram Turns to Crap

    Stephen Shankland reporting a statement from Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom: >”I think the advertising experience is going to be extremely engaging,” Systrom said. “It’s much harder with text,” but Instagram offers photos, and brand names such as Audi, Kate Spade, and Burberry have joined Instagram. In other words: don’t you think it would be…

    Stephen Shankland reporting a statement from Instagram Chief Executive Kevin Systrom:
    >”I think the advertising experience is going to be extremely engaging,” Systrom said. “It’s much harder with text,” but Instagram offers photos, and brand names such as Audi, Kate Spade, and Burberry have joined Instagram.

    In other words: don’t you think it would be cool if we flooded users with picture based ads instead of just text? Well… don’t you?

  • That Guy At Your Wedding

    Marco Arment on Google Chairman Eric ‘Creepy’ Schmidt: >Why does Google let Eric Schmidt speak publicly? Has it ever turned out well? Schmidt is like that guy at your wedding — the one that no one wanted to invite, but everyone felt obligated to invite. You know the guy — the one that everyone doesn’t…

    Marco Arment on Google Chairman Eric ‘Creepy’ Schmidt:
    >Why does Google let Eric Schmidt speak publicly? Has it ever turned out well?

    Schmidt is like that guy at your wedding — the one that no one wanted to invite, but everyone felt obligated to invite. You know the guy — the one that everyone doesn’t want to give a toast, but that everyone knows will give a toast.