Not the iPad 3, or the iPad 2S, or the iPad HD. Just the new iPad. I like that. I believe Apple has decided to change their naming convention after the small backlash they received with the iPhone 4S not being the iPhone 5. It somehow made some crazy people think that the new upgrade [...]
Archived entries in category: "Apple"
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Tuesday, 14 May 2013
The Loop Magazine updated and an apology
Jim Dalrymple, on the subscription bug that plagued the first two releases of the excellent The Loop Magazine app:
You deserved a better experience than what we delivered, and we expected more from ourselves. Please accept my apology and know that we are working hard to deliver a great app for you.
Relax Jim, you’re trying too hard. Bugs in 1.0 versions are not uncommon, and easily forgivable. Especially when developers react timely and work their asses off to release an update. And yes, even if the update doesn’t immediately fix the problem, there’s still no harm done. As the saying goes: “If at first you don’t succeed…”
We don’t expect you guys to be perfect, we just expect you to be professional and respectful towards your customers. And in my book, you certainly have.
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Friday, 26 April 2013
Instapaper sold to Betaworks | Marco.org
This was even more surprising than WWDC selling out in under two minutes:
I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.
I’m genuinely happy for Marco. He’s done a terrific job with Instapaper, and now he knows it’s time for him to move on. That takes courage. I have the utmost respect for him, and I truly wish him the best for the future.
Thanks for everything, Marco.
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Thursday, 21 March 2013
The Return of NetNewsWire | Black Pixel
This is great news for all RSS users out there (myself included), especially given Google Reader’s imminent demise.
There is something else worth mentioning though:
As far as sync is concerned, we knew we would likely need an alternative to Google Reader as early as last year. At the time, the option that seemed to make the most sense was to embrace iCloud and Core Data as the new sync solution of choice. We spent a considerable amount of time on this effort, but iCloud and Core Data syncing had issues that we simply could not resolve.
iCloud hasn’t worked out for us and Google’s announcement solidified and accelerated our plans.
This isn’t the first high-profile developer that wanted to embrace iCloud but was forced to look elsewhere due to Core Data’s shortcomings. That’s the alarming reality of iCloud today as far as third-party developers are concerned. If Apple wants iCloud to become the de-facto standard in cloud-based data sharing services, they need to step up their game and they need to do it yesterday.
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Wednesday, 20 March 2013
EU still unhappy with Apple over silence on two-year warranty | Ars Technica
The EU remains unhappy with Apple when it comes to informing customers about their right to a two-year warranty on their purchases, as reported by Dow Jones Business News. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding spoke on Tuesday about Apple’s warranty practices, pointing out that the company hasn’t been forthcoming in making customers aware that they can get free hardware repairs past Apple’s standard one-year warranty period, even after facing fines and lawsuits throughout Europe.
It’s a pity, and it’s true: most people in Europe don’t know they are covered by a 2-year warranty by law. Apple could make this very clear it they wanted to, by displaying it prominently on the Apple Online Store as well as informing customers in Apple Retail Stores when they buy a product.
It’s even more of a shame given that Apple is great at honoring this 2-year warranty period, far better than most manufacturers. Precisely yesterday, I kid you not, I went to an Apple Retail Store because the sleep button in my 16-month-old iPhone 4S was stuck, and they replaced the phone with a new one immediately, no questions asked. In 15 minutes I was in and out of the store with a new phone, just like that.
Alas, great customer service is meaningless if customers don’t know their rights. And Apple has the responsibility here to inform its customers of that right. It’s that simple.
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Friday, 1 March 2013
Open and Shut | Daring Fireball
John Gruber utterly (and in typical fashion) destroys this article from Tim Wu for The New Yorker:
Even more telling, and more damning to Wu’s use of this as a case study, is that soon after Windows 95, Apple radically opened up the Mac OS, in a use of the word “open” that Wu expressly states is what he means by the term: they licensed the OS to other PC makers to produce Mac clones. This was the most open decision — in Wu’s sense of the word open — in the entire history of Apple Computer Inc.
And it nearly bankrupted the company.
The most embarrassing thing for Wu is that his article is actually very well written. It shows that he tried very hard to present a compelling argument. The problem, as John points out, is that his thesis is, well, bullshit:
The dogmatic assumption that openness correlates to success, evidence to the contrary be damned, overcomplicates the argument. “Wu’s theory is that open should generally do better than closed, unless the closed company is run by a genius.” Take the open/closed stuff out of that premise, and you’re left with something like this: Companies run by geniuses should generally do better than those which are not. That sounds about right.
If I were Wu, I’d very much like to be hiding under a big rock just about now.
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Friday, 19 October 2012
Tweetbot for Mac is available on the Mac App Store | Tapbots
Tweetbot is a full-featured Twitter app for the Mac based on the award-winning apps for iPhone and iPad. With retina support, sync via iCloud, and multiple column views, Tweetbot is the premier Twitter app for the Mac.
Instant buy. It may seem a bit expensive for a Twitter client but trust me, it’s worth every penny. I like how Gruber puts it:
$20 for a Twitter client? Damn straight. Screw the race to the bottom. I’m happy to pay for quality work.
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Thursday, 26 July 2012
Preparing for John Siracusa’s Review of Mountain Lion | Pat Dryburgh
You cannot possibly become any more awesome than this. EVER. Don’t even try.
Via Shawn Blanc, who also stars in this epic production.
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Wednesday, 25 July 2012
The Marco.org Review of John Siracusa’s Review of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion | Marco.org
This is not a quick read, so it’s a good opportunity to try a read-later method such as Safari’s Reading List, which Apple invented completely on their own.
Simply amazing. Kudos to Marco, this just made my week.
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Manually migrating to a new Mac | Matt Gemmell
Great news for Mac geeks all around: today is Upgrade Day. OS X Mountain Lion, the next major version of Apple’s desktop operating system (previously known as Mac OS X), is due out today.
If you’re planning to do a clean install, Matt Gemmell has rescued this fantastic article that will help you get your Mac ready for the upgrade:
This checklist is for situations where you want to start fresh with a clean installation of OS X and just your essential apps and files, which can provide a general speed boost and may also be a useful preparation for a major new version of OS X.
This may be a good way to kill some time while we wait for John Siracusa’s traditionally epic review of the new OS, which should also be out later today.
Enjoy, my friends, this day comes by just once a year.
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Thursday, 26 April 2012
Why was Wall Street surprised by Apple’s performance? | Asymco
The reason lies in the way the Earth is tilted and the way the continents are arranged upon it. So perhaps a better understanding of astronomy and geography would have helped investors make decisions during the past few weeks. I suggest remedial lessons for those who missed this.
Horace Dediu, being badass. I love it.
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Thursday, 19 April 2012
Into The Wild: Lost Conversations From Steve Jobs' Best Years | Fast Company
There was one other big lesson he learned from his Hollywood adventure: People remember stories more than products. “The technology we’ve been laboring on over the past 20 years becomes part of the sedimentary layer,” he told me once. “But when Snow White was re-released [on DVD, in 2001], we were one of the 28 million families that went out and bought a copy of it. This was a film that is 60 years old, and my son was watching it and loving it. I don’t think anybody’s going to be beating on a Macintosh 60 years from now.”
This should go straight to the top of your Instapaper queue, if it’s not there already.
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Thursday, 8 March 2012
This Article Generating Thousands Of Dollars In Ad Revenue Simply By Mentioning New iPad | The Onion
The Onion, as awesome as ever.
Via Daring Fireball.
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Tuesday, 20 December 2011
Amazon Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 | Marco.org
Anyway, the main attraction of Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 page is the big comparison table. Other people’s feature-comparison checklists always leave out factors that are important to me, so I made my own additions that Amazon is welcome to include on their page.
This is pure awesome. Well done, Marco.
