Early iPhone Use

This PDF from Create With Context was interesting when it came out, but is in some ways even more interesting to look back at now. Take a look at how many of the UI elements people found confusing then have changed, as well as how many things have stayed the same.

I still think editing alarms is one of the most difficult ‘simple’ tasks in iOS.

Treasured Memories

From my Uncle Dan:

This story was found in some papers and pictures from my mother, Margaret Woodson Searing. There were three typewritten versions, some with pen & ink changes. I decided to type a ‘final’ as a remembrance of her work for Christmas, 2009. I believe this story was the basis for one of an occasional column she did after her retirement as Women’s Editor for the Waukegan News-Sun.

It seems to me now that when I was a child Christmas was always a time of beautiful snowfalls.  I remember one special time just when my faith as a true believer was beginning to waver a bit.  I saw Santa in a sleigh pulled by his reindeer.   You probably don’t believe me, but see him I did and the memory is as clear today as the sight of the bearded and bundled up old gentleman was those many years ago.

It was Christmas Eve and we were visiting my grandparents in a small Iowa town.  We had arrived by train in the afternoon.  Trains still ran to little Iowa towns in those days.  We, my sister and I were wild with excitement and anticipation of Santa’s visit.  It had been snowing all day, a wonderful Christmas cottony snow so that everything was covered in fluffy white.  Well bundled up because of the cold I was headed across the unpaved street to my aunt’s home on some long forgotten errand.

I heard the jingle of sleigh bells and I waited to cross.  And there he was!  Santa Claus in a fully packed sleigh pulled by reindeer with sleigh bells jingling merrily away.  

Was I frightened? Awed? Thrilled to my very toes?  Speechless, I watched them go quickly out of sight then dashed back to the house, errand forgotten, and burst in with my big news. 

Everyone laughed and said I must have seen a farmer in a sleigh pulled by horses on their way to Christmas services in the Lutheran Church down the block.  I wasn’t convinced.  I knew what I had seen.

It was so clear to my five year old eyes.  The memory returns every year and has warmed me through many Christmases when I haven’t been as happy as I was on that long ago snowy night.   Is there a moral to my story?  Probably not, but I only wish that everyone could have treasured memories of their childhood.

Food From the Sun

This reminds me of a science project concept that was floating around my head back in 7th grade.

They appear to have pulled off the ultimate something-from-nothing agricultural feat – using the sun to desalinate seawater for irrigation and to heat and cool greenhouses as required, and thence cheaply grow high-quality, pesticide-free vegetables year-round in commercial quantities.

However, knowing very little about plants and being something of a procrastinator, what started in my head as ‘maybe I could find a way to use the sun to purify salt water and show that the process works by using the water to grow some plants’ ended up as ‘trying unsuccessfully to get soybeans to grow using tap water and hoping that the whole science fair thing would just mercifully come to an end’.

Allow Me To Translate

Because this needs translation.

If you’ve been using iTunes then you probably are aware of the constant delays with the upcoming version, iTunes 11.

If you’re a typical iTunes user you had probably never heard of iTunes 11 before it was released, and by ‘constant delays’ I mean one delay.

After a month and a half of delays, it would appear that the updated iOS media player is finally on its way.

After a single delay of a month (from October to November), the updated… wait, iOS? Aren’t we talking about iTunes? You do know this is software for the Mac right?

Personally, I’m excited for this update and am glad it’s finally(hopefully) coming to consumers. I love iTunes and always welcome any updates and improvements that will make my iOS using experience better.

Finally? Oh, maybe Joel has been frustrated with previous iTunes releases because he couldn’t figure out how to get them to run on iOS. I’m sure this update will clear that right up. Finally indeed.

On Star Wars Actors

I would certainly be interested to see Harrison Ford, Mark Hamil, and Carrie Fisher involved in Episode VII, but here’s what I really care about.

  • I don’t want to see new actors cast as Han/Luke/Leia at the age they were at the end of Return of the Jedi, and obviously the original actors can’t play their old ages. So, I definitely don’t want to see Episode VII start out the morning after Return of the Jedi.
  • I don’t want to see a 70 year old Han Solo played by a 70 year old actor that isn’t Harrison Ford. Likewise for Luke/Leia and any other remotely main characters where the original cast member is still alive. So, if Episode VII is to take place at that time either do whatever it takes to get the original cast, or kill the characters in the opening scroll so they don’t need to appear.
In short, if you want to cast new actors into established roles then Episodes VII, VIII, and IX better all fall in a timeline far enough past Return of the Jedi that new actors make sense, but not so far that the original actors are really the correct age.

Episode VII

Big news in the Star Wars universe.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this. I love Star Wars and look forward to seeing three more movies, plus I’ve been relatively pleased with Disney’s work with Pixar and Marvel. 

On the other hand, I love Star Wars and there are just so many bad things that could happen in three new movies, plus now I’ll have to bring my own 20th Century Fox fanfare to these films.

Forstall and Browett

At first glance I think that this is a great move. One that reinforces my belief that Apple is still on the way up, and that Tim Cook is just where he belongs.

Ousting Forstall, who was by most reports close to Steve Jobs, sends a few important messages:

  • Cook is not Jobs, and isn’t afraid to be not Jobs.
  • Cook has a vision for the company, and that vision is collaboration: “across the company”, “all of our online services in one group”, “brings together the OS team”, “combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization”.
  • What you’ve done is less important than what you’re doing. 

Forstall led iOS to amazing success, but I suspect his role in the iOS 6 Maps kerfuffle, Siri’s prolonged beta status, and the perception that the iOS UI has stalled with nowhere to go all factored into this. In iPod parlance Forstall is the iPod mini and Apple just released the iPod nano.

Also, although the move with Forstall is the bigger shakeup, I think Cook’s action with Browett is just as important. It shows that Cook is no less attatched to his own hires than he is to holdovers from Jobs. With both shown the door together Cook shows that he can recognize who needs to go, regardless of how they got there.

So I say bravo to Tim Cook, and I look forward to seeing what Jony Ive can do with software UI.

Headphone Jack

John Gruber in reference to the iPod touch:

It’s near the point where the headphone jack is the limiting factor on getting it any thinner.

Last week Kari and I realized that in more than two weeks of iPhone 5 ownership, neither of us had used the headphone jack at all. Kari mostly uses either the Remote app to play music from one of our computers, or AirPlay to play to one of our home speakers. I do some of those things, but mostly use Bluetooth headphones. We finally used one of our phones to play music in our car, but I’d guess that in the next car we buy we wouldn’t use the headphone jack for that either.

So, how long will it be before we see an iPhone or an iPod with no headphone jack?

QWERTY

On the old site I wrote a few times about keyboard layouts. I haven’t yet reposted any of that content, but the topic is still one that interests me.

This article is an interesting look at the topic. I had never heard this anecdote before:

Sholes allegedly studied common letter combinations and then arranged the keys so as to separate commonly used letter combinations to slow down typists and thus prevent his newfangled machine from jamming. There’s no documentation to support this statement, though Sholes’ attempt to slow you down does make your 85 words per minute typing skills sound a bit more impressive.