March 2012
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There's never been a simpler time...
“There’s never been a simpler time. Never. In all of human history, everything has always been as complex as it is right now. The people change. The technology changes. But the … the forces at work, whatever it is that drives us to be human, that’s always the same.”
— Micah Brack to Zefram Cochrane in Federation by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
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Analysis Paralysis
A good example of analysis paralysis in general, but what’s particularly interesting is how many people readily believe random stuff they read on the Internet, from random people, just because it’s on the Internet.
(In a larger sense, I think this is tied to the tendency for most people to believe more of what they read than what they hear, regardless of the source, but it’s still interesting the amount of undue influence that random posts by complete strangers can actually have on somebody’s viewpoint)
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The Steve Jobs Effect
Call it a reality distortion field, a cult of personality or simply good presentation skills, but I think the real issue here is that Steve Jobs made things work in a much more subtle way than many people realize.
As Matt Thomas very cleverly illustrates, the three key things that Jolie O’Dell calls out in her article as being a departure from Apple’s previous style have all been done by Apple before.
The point is, however, they were done by Steve Jobs, rather than Tim Cook. Now, some may argue that this is simply a question of Jobsian Fanboyism; that somehow those who worshipped at the altar of Jobs were willing to give Apple a pass for such things.
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Regarding "The new iPad"...
There’s been a lot of fuss lately about Apple’s choice of name for the third-generation iPad. While “the new iPad” smacks of marketing speak, the reality is that what Apple is ultimately calling the latest model is simply iPad, and marks a return to the company’s simplified product naming. Apple’s web site also lists the latest iMac as “the new iMac” but at the end of the day it’s really just the iMac.
For six years, the iPod was merely “the iPod.” Although there was a fifth-generation iPod, there was never an “iPod 5.” Generational designations were obviously necessary to differentiate each year’s model, and you would find them in places like Apple’s support site, knowledge base, and sometimes even in the actual order entry system, but the actual Apple Store and all marketing and packaging materials never said anything other than “iPod”.
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Dot Tumblr Dot Com
The rather frightening thing is that a site actually exists with this name.
I wonder if there’s any weird phrase that hasn’t already had dot-tumblr-dot-com put after it.
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Haptic Feedback
While I realize it’s somewhat a question of personal preference, I’ve always liked the haptic feedback when typing on an Android device.
It seems the new Chrome Browser for Android adds a useful new twist: When searching for text within a page, a slightly stronger vibration occurs as soon as you hit a character that produces no further search results. Kind of surprised me for a brief moment at first, but is actually kind of a cool and naturally intuitive way to provide negative feedback while typing.
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App Store Download Size Limits
An update to an app on the App Store today had this single line in its release notes…
“Reduced file size - Download is now available without Wi-Fi connection.”
It is seriously time for Apple to get rid of this 20MB limitation. Last week I was out with my wife and daughter, away from Wi-Fi access, and decided to download an app for my daughter to play with, as I had forgotten to bring her iPod touch with me. It was over 20MB, so I ended up turning on Personal Hotspot on my wife’s iPhone and downloading it over “Wi-Fi” that way, since of course my own iPhone didn’t know the difference.
I could understand Apple leaving an option in the settings — even enabled by default — to allow people to choose whether to enforce this limit or not, When I can use a 3G network that outperforms most public Wi-Fi networks, it’s ridiculous that I would otherwise have to jump onto a slower network to download something, and you really can’t use “network congestion” as an excuse in that case, either.