Too Small a Casket

Join me today in celebrating the life, and mourning the loss, of the beautiful baby daughter of our good friends down the street. Even if you don’t know them, I’m sure their family would appreciate your prayers.

iCloud Storage

I just got my iCloud storage notification, and I agree with Gruber:

Apple needs to start offering more than 5 GB of storage at the free level. That’s not even enough to back up two iOS devices — and Apple certainly doesn’t want to discourage people from buying additional devices or from backing them up to iCloud

In many respects Apple is a hardware company. Given that, I’d love to see Apple go with a device centric model. Why not include 5 GB of iCloud space either with every device you buy, or with every device using your iCloud ID as the primary iCloud account?

Icon Design is Hard

I’ve had the good fortune to spend some time sweating every pixel of tiny little 16x16 squares, and it has only increased my respect for the designers who create some of the beautiful Mac and iOS icons. 

This piece from Chris Sauve on pxldot is an excellent look at how icons change between Apple’s platforms. Definitely worth a look.

Via Daring Fireball.

Spotlight

This Spotlight for iOS concept from Cody Sanfilippo looks pretty good.

Personally, for whatever reason, I don’t use the current iOS Spotlight very much at all. In fact, on both my iPhone and my iPad I use a home screen layout that puts Spotlight two swipes away instead of the traditional one. Where the setup Apple assume you will use is:

  • Spotlight - Primary apps - Additional screens

I actually use this as:

  • Spotlight - Utility apps - Primary apps - Games - Additional screens

Of course, I sacrifice things like having spotlight one swipe away and having a single click of the home button take me to my primary app screen, but I gain a whole extra screen of apps that is only one swipe from my ‘home screen’.

Back to the Spotlight concept from Cody, I think my favorite part is the idea that Spotlight search results should be more like Siri search results. One of the best parts of Siri is that when she knows what you are asking about she presents the answer in a canned format that is specifically designed for that type of question. I think we’ll see that concept make its way into all types of search results in the near future.

Lightning

Rainer Brockerhoff with two excellent posts on Apple’s new Lightning connector. Boom! and Boom: A Follow-Up.

I understand the sentiment from people who wish Apple would have moved to an existing standard (like micro USB), but Rainer calls out some of the technical reasons that such a move probably wouldn’t have made sense.

What I don’t understand is the idea that Apple should have stayed with the old 30 pin connector. This is why PC laptops still have VGA ports.

You can’t seriously think that every iPhone, iPod, and iPad for all time would keep using the same connector, and if the connector is going to change eventually, it seems clear that the change should occur as soon as possible. If Apple had waited for the next iPhone, or the next one after that, there would have been that many more people with accessories based on the 30 pin connector.

It also seems like people have forgotten that even within the 30 pin connector era Apple has made changes. I still have a car charger and some other accessories sitting around that will connect to my iPhone 4S just fine, but won’t fully work because they are FireWire based. At least with the new Lightning connector I can tell what cables will work and what ones won’t.

Fox 5

That’s funny, I don’t remember Phil Schiller talking about these features. At least they have posted a correction of sorts:

One clarification: the iPhone 5 will not have features such as holographic imaging and laser keyboard as depicted in a YouTube video and reported by FOX 5 News on September 17, 2012.

Original link via 9to5mac, correction link via cnet.

Dice

Interesting, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem. I’d guess that the time it would take order these and open them when they arrive would easily outweigh the time an average person would ever spend on resolving this type of tie.

Attach Rate

I’ve always heard that the ‘attach rate’ for covers and cases is very high for the iPhone. For example, this article from The Fiscal Times:

This made for an ideal scenario for, say, a case maker. “Before the iPhone, on a smartphone you might only see a 30 to 40 percent attach rate on protective covers,” says Morgan. “On the other hand, after the first couple of years, iPhone was seeing 60 to 70 percent attach rate for protective covers.”

Given that, I always find it interesting when Apple launches a new iPhone without an available Apple branded case. For example, as I write this there don’t appear to be any cases available for the iPhone 5 in the Apple Store. How many millions of people have preordered with no option to splurge on a case at checkout?

Third party case makers couldn’t officially start work on cases (and certainly couldn’t have gotten cases into the Apple Store) until the iPhone was announced on the 12th,  so this preorder period seems to be something that Apple could dominate at will.

I wonder if the motivation for skipping this opportunity relates to a desire for people to use the iPhone without a cover? After all, the iPhone doesn’t seem nearly as thin and light when you wrap it in a case.

Kimmel

I'm not usually much for Jimmy Kimmel, but this is pretty funny.

Obviously the people that avoid the cutting room floor are the ones that are entertaining in some specific way, but I'd be curious to know how that trick would work in a slightly more scientific setting. It would be interesting to know how many people would call the bluff, how many wouldn't notice, how many wouldn't care, etc. Running some of that data against information about the respondents current and past phones might produce some interesting trends.

Landscape Keys

As I’ve noted before, I’m very interested in how the taller iPhone screen will behave in landscape. As far as I could tell from watching the event video and looking at the Apple site there have been no official images showing the keyboard in landscape.

Google leads me to two main images of interest. First, this one from 9to5mac is actually from August and based on the iPhone simulator hack that allowed what we now know is the iPhone 5 resolution. Second, is this image hosted at Apple (via @MacRumors). This isn’t a great image, but it seems to confirm that the image from the simulator is accurate.

I really thought we might see some new keys with the additional space. That doesn’t appear to be the case, despite the lack of images.

My Grade

I did fairly well, but that mostly reflects how extensive the leaks for the iPhone 5 were.

  • New iPhone (Taller (16x9) 4 inch screen, No NFC, Most hardware leaks accurate) - Yep
  • New dock connector - Yep
  • Headphone redesign - Yep
  • iPod updates - Yep
  • New version of iTunes - Yep
  • iOS 6 - Yep
  • OS X 10.8.2 - Not discussed
  • Taller iPhone includes changes to keyboard to provide additional buttons while still showing more text, possibly only available on the taller devices - Nope
  • Updates to iWork/iLife and stock iOS apps showcasing the screen - Yep
  • Most surprises come from software announcements - I think I’d call this a ‘Yep’, but I’m not sure I’d call any of the software announcements ‘surprises’

Later:

  • iPad mini - Yep (as in, not discussed)
  • Anything Mac hardware related - Yep (as in, not discussed)

iPhone 5

Quick notes before the iPhone event:

  • New iPhone (Taller (16x9) 4 inch screen, No NFC, Most hardware leaks accurate)
  • New dock connector
  • Headphone redesign
  • iPod updates
  • New version of iTunes
  • iOS 6
  • OS X 10.8.2
  • Taller iPhone includes changes to keyboard to provide additional buttons while still showing more text, possibly only available on the taller devices
  • Updates to iWork/iLife and stock iOS apps showcasing the screen
  • Most surprises come from software announcements

Later:

  • iPad mini
  • Anything Mac hardware related

Keyblets

Moltz:

I suggest these are kablets, seeing as these are tablets with dedicated keyboards.

No?

Good, because that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever written.

Agreed. Clearly this class of product will be known as Keyblets (alternate spelling Keeblets). Cross marketing with Keebler to follow.

Being Specific

Although I don’t exactly agree with all of these criticisms, I love seeing people’s specific thoughts about how products and services could be better for them.

A few comments on this particular list:

  • Auto-correct: Sure damnyouautocorrect.com can be funny, but it isn’t like all the examples on there are from iOS, and typos are funny even when they aren’t Apple provided. From my personal use I wouldn’t put auto-correct on a list of iOS frustrations.
  • Widgets/Better email client: Long before I worry about being able to see the current temperature on my home screen, or ask for the ability to mark an email that I didn’t read as read, I’d like Apple to fix the atrocity that is iCloud email unread message counts. When I can look at my home screen and see the real number of messages that are unread (instead of the count of messages that are either unread or maybe have been read on another device since the last time I got a new email on this device because that is totally a useful number), then we can talk about other things Apple should do with notifications and email features.
  • Bigger display: Do people really find the current iPhone UI elements ‘tiny’? I don’t really want the stuff on my iOS screen to be bigger. Aside from that specific point, I’m with Gruber on the general topic of larger screens: “You want a physical device that is small enough to fit easily in your pockets and is comfortable and easy to use while holding it in one hand. But you want a screen that’s as big as feasible, so you can see more content — more words in email messages, web pages, and e-books; bigger pictures and video.”

Mario Kart Turns 20

I would have totally missed the significance of today’s date, so my thanks to Paul Sawers at The Next Web for this piece.

I think I first played Super Mario Kart at a kiosk in a Toys “R” Us in Indiana, but it didn’t stick at the time. I’m not sure I even had time to finish a single race before I had to leave. I probably didn’t play again until college, and by then it was mostly Mario Kart 64.

I don’t think I was really hooked until I started playing four player Mario Kart Wii on a regular basis with guys from a local youth group. Those were fun nights, and since then Mario Kart has remained a goto activity for gatherings that involve any of those guys or my brother.

Verdict

Nilay Patel for The Verge on the Apple vs. Samsung verdict:

There is no way to interpret this as anything but a sweeping, definitive victory for Apple.

Of course, that won’t stop people.

To be fair though, I’m not sure any of them are wrong. I think the verdict is a sweeping, definitive victory for Apple, but I also agree with two of the main counterpoints.

  • First, let’s assume that Samsung did purposefully and knowingly copy the iPhone as soon as it came out. it may have been well worth the billion dollar cost in the end. You can certainly pick out some companies that didn’t copy the iPhone right away, and they aren’t exactly at the top of the market anymore. 
  • Second, the perceptions of the public are extremely hard to predict. I’m sure that many people are turned off by Apple’s current quantity of litigation. I’m also sure that some read the whole situation as meaning that products from Samsung really are just like products from Apple, which I’m sure isn’t really what Apple wants.
If nothing else, I’m looking forward to seeing some new and unique developments in mobile devices and UIs.