I see you’re looking for An article…
Damn!
Well there it is. A respected journal has confirmed what has been a contested issue regarding the iPhone 4′s antenna. Consumer Reports concurs with many iPhone 4 owners that the iPhone 4 is especially sensitive to the way in which it is held by the user and has confirmed a dramatic loss of reception when the antenna bridge on the left side of the phone is covered by the user’s hand. The result? Dropped calls and greatly reduced bandwidth.
I’ll say it again. Damn!
My fiancé and myself both have placed ourselves on our local Apple Store’s priority list for the next batch of new iPhones. Now, I’m thinking we were too hasty.
Currently I think the plan should be to wait and see what sort of response Apple decides to put out. It is going to be difficult and I would think unwise for them to ignore the findings of a respected consumer journal such as Consumer Reports and to continue to ignore that there is a problem or to simply write it off as (oops!) a legacy and heretofore undiscovered software glitch. If we don’t hear any official response from Apple that explicitly addresses the issue in a
proactive way and with a solution that is more than just “don’t hold it that way” or “put a case on it” I am of the mind to take our names off the list and monitor the situation until the problem is truly fixed in whatever fashion Apple thinks is most benificial to it’s image — fix it quietly or in a public way but fix it.
If CR is right, no longer is this iPhone users’ or AT&T’s problem.
You’re move, Apple.
—12 July 2010 ∞ | View Comments
Sometimes I’m deeper into this geek thing than I think I am so I’m not going to assume that you know anything at all about the hub-bub over the next generation iPhone prototype that was…(uh-hem)…found in a bar in Mountain View and is now on full display on the Gizmodo website. That’s the short story (and to my credit, I think that’s the shortest description of the situation I’ve seen…yay, me) and Google can fill in any amount of the story you are unaware of with far greater effectiveness than can I.
The long story is far more interesting and, no, I’m not talking about the filling in of all the obvious holes in a story that starts with “found in a bar” and ends with “we’ve got it in our hot little hands and here are the pics!”. That will be interesting, to be sure, but we don’t know anything about that…yet.
No, the more interesting thread in this story, at least to me, is that of the ethics (or lack thereof) of all the people involved and that is exactly what a man named Andy Ihnatko (a pillar of the Apple-focused jouranlistic community…but I don’t expect you to know that either [pushes taped coke-bottle glasses back up onto the bridge of nose with index finger]) addresses in a damn fine bit of journalistic prose on his website today. Even if your not in to Apple kit and the stories that surround all of it the way I am, it’s a good read and a well structured treatise on one journalist’s views on journalistic integrity and ethics. If that sounds at all interesting, you should check it out.
—19 April 2010 ∞ | View Comments
If you love beer — I mean love, not that “let’s be friends” stuff — here are a set of posts from the Know Your Brewer blog that you need to read on Kevin McGee and his Healdsburg Brewing Co. — a “nano brewery” in Sonoma County, CA.
Along with Elizabeth St. Brewery and (newly discovered to myself) Clara St. Brewing (both here in the San Francisco Bay Area), it’s a veritable revolution of “nano” proprotions.
The stories one hears of how the various incarnations of this new batch of “nano” brewers came to be is evocative of the stories that have floated about on the early years of the latest batch of coffee roasters such as Blue Bottle – started by James Freeman – and Stumptown – hatched by Duane Sorenson. Freeman wanted better tasting coffee so he started roasting his own. Sorenson started out by hand delivering individual bags of coffee to each of his customers.
The rest is history.
—16 April 2010 ∞ | View Comments
Johnathan Bonnell and John Kumahara
I had a conversation with my brother just last night, prompted by Apple’s announcement of iPhone OS 4.0, about the iPad and the various complaints people have been lobbing at the new device since it’s release on April 3rd. He’s not as apt to follow the finer points of the news swirling around about Apple and it’s products as I am. I’m the maven in these matters – while I’m reading Daring Fireball and Ignore the Code, he’s catching his news about Apple and their wares from more mainstream sources. For him it’s a more casual process: he’s not looking for it, he gets his Apple news as he happens upon it (and, of course, through me). It’s interesting, the difference in news stories each of us ends up running into.
During our conversation, he relayed to me bit of information that he had heard that, to my ears, sounded completely asinine: that many people who had bought the iPad were surprised and disappointed that you couldn’t simply download apps for it from whatever source you wanted. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Today, via John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, I came across this gem of an info-graphic – It’s a beautiful piece – produced by Johnathan Bonnell and John Kumahara (an “account planner” and designer, respectively) that compiles, in an easy to digest graphic fashion, all of the data that has been thrown around about the iPad since it burst onto the scene a few days ago. In the process, I had a moment of serendipity. [Read more →]
—9 April 2010 ∞ | View Comments
Adam C. Engst, in his iPad review for TidBITS has this to say about the experience of using the device:
[...] the iPad becomes the app you’re using. That’s part of the magic. The hardware is so understated – it’s just a screen, really – and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away. You’re using the app, whatever it may be, and while you’re doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.
the fact that you’re using an iPad falls away
This is why, certain opinions notwithstanding, the iPad can accurately be called a “game-changer” – It’s the iPad’s disappearing act.
When was the last time, while typing or clicking away at whatever it was that you happened to be working on, that you had the experience of forgetting that you were using a computer? [Read more →]
—6 April 2010 ∞ | View Comments
Did you know the iPad is coming out tomorrow? Of course you did. How could you not? Article after article after article – the hype machine is in full swing. It’s an exciting time. The inter-tubes are all a-flutter with opinions and proclamations: some of impending doom and some of rosy-eyed joyfulness. And then there are others with no opinion at all, content to simply sit back and watch this big crazy parade sail by. Many on both sides of the polarization party seem to believe that April 3rd is the beginning of a new era of computing. To wit…
Myself, I’d love to march right on over to my local Apple Store tomorrow and partake in the madness that will be the iPad launch (I’d love to buy one too). I, too, think it’s going to change things for good. I think it’s a courageous product on Apple’s part and I think that they are the only ones who could have done it. Not that anyone else out there shouldn’t have. It’s just not probable that anyone else would have. As sad as that may be.
But I think I’m going to sit and watch the parade go by (it’s riveting entertainment). At least for now.
—2 April 2010 ∞ | View Comments
An interesting series of articles today – The originating article at UX Magazine, a link to it by John Gruber and a response to the original by Lukas Mathis (and I’m sure there are more). All of them are generally focused on peoples’ love of, and pride in using, complex interfaces but all of them are specifically regarding the reported reluctance of Bloomberg to simplify and modernize its interface for The Bloomberg Terminal and the reasons why it refuses to do so.
The thrust of the original piece, from the UI/UX perspective, is that research has shown that the people using the Bloomberg Terminal’s unnecessarily complex interface take an immense amount of pride in their ability to use it and because of that, they are unwilling to change to a simplified, more efficient UI design. I’ll buy that. But despite these people’s “advanced user” status, pride might not be the only thing keeping them chained to needless complexity. [Read more →]
—26 March 2010 ∞ | View Comments
M’lady — always on the bleeding edge — bought herself a Linus bike a few weeks ago. This is the first time I’ve see another out in the wild before or since.
It even has the same LED lights as m’lady’s.
—19 March 2010 ∞ | View Comments
Are you a blogger? Do you have a Twitter account? Flickr account? Tumblr? WordPress? Hell, even a Facebook account? Doesn’t matter, really, which one, or combnination of some, that you have. One day you might make it big, get advertising dollars for the characters you lay down in electronic ink all over the pages of what ever vehicle you choose to power your thoughts in written form on the web, collect a ton of followers that may hang, with baited breath, on every word that you write.
Or not.
But even if you don’t, even if the only person that reads your words is your kind-hearted grandmother, even if one day, the vicissitudes of your life are such that you no longer are able to budget enough time to attend to your little gem and all of that work ends up collecting dust on Google’s internet archives, even then, at the very least, there should never have ever, ever, ever been a time that you knelt down so deep into the mire that you felt the need to dupe the people that you hope are handing over even one measly little second of their precious time to place their eyes on you work. Never dupe your readers. Even if those readers are just in your mind. Entertain, sure, if that’s your thing. No harm there.
You can never really get rid of the words you write on the internet. That should really give most people pause, even if mostly it doesn’t. It’s you’re legacy. Big ideas and small. It’s forever. There isn’t much more on this earth that is much more your own than your own words – spoken or written. Never. Dupe. You’re readers. It’s just foolish. (via Daring Fireball)
—31 January 2010 ∞ | View Comments
San Francisco’s Sightglass coffee & Square. Two great “tastes”…
—2 December 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Opening home game for the San Jose Sharks. Best game — hockey or otherwise — I’ve ever been to.
—11 October 2009 ∞ | View Comments
There are a lot of old signs around Oakland. They’re a joy to behold.
—11 October 2009 ∞ | View Comments
This looks like a blast.
This looks like a blast.St. Louis’s City Museum. Via Randy Reddig. …
Posted via Posterous
—11 October 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Lodovico Bernardi «
Constructed from a single panel of wood. Via The Silver Lining.
—3 October 2009 ∞ | View Comments
Seen on iTunes. Make that 47, “geometor”.
—28 September 2009 ∞ | View Comments
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