iPhone 5

iPhone 5 Apple's event has just concluded. This is what was announced. Links are up on Apple's website: Promo Video
Features Highlights Features the following: * 7.6mm thin, 18% thinner * 112 grams, 20% lighter (the iPhone 4S weighed 140 grams by comparison) * Taller screen, 1136 x 640 pixels. Increased from a 3.5 inch to a 4 inch display. Room enough to fit another row of icons and have apps and movie be "wide screen" when rotated on it's side. * The screen itself has 44% more color saturation, as it is now a true sRGB screen. The touch sensor is built directly into the screen now instead of resting behind it. This means the phone was able to be more compact. * True 4G/LTE networking on Spring, AT&T and Verizon. * Faster Wifi. Dual-band 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n 802.11n in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Wifi speeds now up to 150 Mbps * New A6 CPU. 2x faster processor. 2x faster graphics. * Matched or exceeds the battery life of the iPhone 4S depending on how you use your phone. On the low end, 3G talking, or 3G/LTE web browsing can expect 8 hours of battery. On standby 225 hours. Video & wifi browsing can expect 10 hours. Music playing can go for 40 hours. * Camera is better. Still an 8 megapixel sensor with resolution up to 3264 x 2448. Backside illumination. Hybrid IR filter. Five-element lens. f/2.4 aperture. New dynamic low light mode. * With the new CPU it takes photos 40% faster. * New photo feature: Panoramic photos. Hit a single button and rotate your phone through the air. Automatically builds a panorama for you. (Looked kickass in the demo). * Video: 1080p HD, Improved video stabilization, Face detection, Take photos while recording * You can now do FaceTime over your cellular network as well (used to be Wifi only). * Audio improved: 3 microphones. Front, back & bottom. Speakers have 5 magnet transducers (old ones had 3). Earpiece now includes noise canceling on your own audio out. * Wideband audio: Fills up more frequency spectrum to make call audio sound better. * New dock connector called "Lightning". All-digital, 8 signal design. It is reversible (able to be inserted up or down). Improved durability. * They are selling an adapter that you can buy to make your old accessories work with it until you have a chance to replace them all. * iOS 6: I won't rehash the details here as they were already covered at the June WWDC event. But the iPhone 5 ships with the new iOS version too. * iOS 6 gets released to existing iPad and iPhone users to download, for free on September 19. Now for sales options & info: * Two colors, White & Black. The black is ALL black, even the edges. The white has a brushed aluminum edge. * iPhone 5 comes in 3 sizes, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB (same as the iPhone 4S) * Three pries, $199, $299, and $399 (same as every iPhone - nothing changes year to year). * Pre-orders start September 14th (Friday) and it ships to customers on September 21st (next Friday). Customers can also line up at stores on Sept 21 as well. In addition to the iPhone announcements, Apple had a big music related announcement: New version of iTunes coming out that is deeply integrated with iCloud. Completely redesigned the interface of the application (finally!). Easier to browse your music & other content now. The new iTunes version will come out in late October. Other announcements: iPod shuffle: $49, 2GB New iPad nano: * Small iPod with a tiny color touch screen. * 5.4 mm thick. * 2.5" screen * It has Music, Video, Fitness, Podcasts, Photos and Radio as its apps. * Comes in 7 colors: Silver, Black, Purple, Green, Blue, Lime, and Red. * FM tuner integrated. * Widescreen video * Built-in pedometer for working out. * Bluetooth * Uses the new Lightning connector. * 30 hours of music playback on a single charge * $149 price, 16GB New iPod touch: * 6.1 mm thin * 88 grams * Same 4" Retina display from the iPhone 5. * Will get the A5 chip (same processor as the iPhone 4S) * 40 hours of music playback, about 8 hours of video * 5 megapixel camera, hybrid IR filter, five-element lens, f/2.4 aperture * Bluetooth 4.0 with LE, * 802.11 a/b/g/n * 802.11n 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz * Up to 150 Mbps * AirPlay mirroring * Gains support for Siri. * 5 colors * Support for a "loop". Attachable wristband for kids. * $299 32GB, $399 64GB (Colors) New earbuds, called "EarPods": * They made 3D scans of hundreds of ears to come up with a new design. * New noise canceling technology. * Should be more comfortable. * Better microphone

JP Morgan Estimates That New iPhone Could Boost GDP By 0.5 Percent

Call me skeptical given that it comes from JP Morgan (I distrust any mainstream Wall St. analysts given their track record) but if this is true, that would be crazy. Tim Reid, at Reuters:

Feroli laid out his math. J.P. Morgan's analysts expect Apple to sell around 8 million iPhone 5s in the fourth quarter. They expect the sales price to be about $600. With about $200 in discounted import component costs, the government can factor in $400 per phone into its measure of gross domestic product for the fourth quarter. Feroli said the estimate of between a quarter to a half point of annualized GDP "seems fairly large, and for that reason should be treated skeptically." But, he added, "we think the recent evidence is consistent with this projection." Again, that's crazy - but cool if true.

NBC News' Fear-mongering Regarding Leaked Apple Device UDIDs

I always enjoy when non-tech reporters write about tech stories and get just enough of the details wrong to make it seem to the average user that the story is true while the story actually perpetuates falsehoods. Keyy Sanders and Bob Sullivan, at NBC News:

The UDID -- which stands for Unique Device Identifier -- is present on Apple iPads, iPods and iPhones, and is similar to a serial number. During the past year, researchers have found that many app developers have used the UDID to help keep track of their users, storing the data in various databases and often associating it with other personal information. When matched with other information, the UDID can be used to track users' app usage, social media usage or location. It could also be used to "push" potentially dangerous applications onto users' Apple gadgets. The way this paragraph is written, it would lead the average reader to believe that any of the leaked 12 million UDIDs could be used to push malware onto the respective iOS devices they belong to. This is a blatant lie. In order for something like this to happen, the culprit would have to register 120,000 Apple Developer accounts, paying $99 each for them which would cost a total of $11,880,000. Then someone would have to manually enter each UDID into Apple's Developer portal. Then and only then would someone have to make some sort of iOS app (that Apple could kill easily by deactivating the offending developer account) and add that app to each of the 120,000 developer accounts they've made in order to be able to generate a link or share a file that users would have to drag into their iTunes or use a service like Testflight to receive over the air (most if not all Testflight users are developers themselves.) As you can see, this is a near-impossible scenario. Yet if you read the quoted paragraph, NBC would like the reader to believe that they are possibly in grave danger of having malware "pushed" to their devices. ::eyeroll:: The question is - did these two reporters not understand how this works or did they intentionally attempt to mislead their readers to make the story juicier?

The Mac App Store's Future Of Irrelevance

Marco Arment, writes:

In the first year of the Mac App Store, before sandboxing, I bought as much as I could from it. As a customer, the convenience was so great that I even repurchased a few apps that I already owned just to have the App Store updates and reinstallation convenience. And, most importantly, when an app was available both in and out of the Mac App Store, I always bought the App Store version, even if it was more expensive. But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer, has evaporated. I agree whole-heartedly with Marco on this. When the Mac App Store first came out, I began buying everything on it, and why not? It was great! I could sit down at any of my 4 Macs and instantly have access (well, with download times maybe not quite instantly - but easily) to all of my OS X software. I began to snug apps who weren't on the Mac App Store unless I absolutely needed them, such as SuperDuper!. And then, Apple had to rain on its own parade with Sandboxing and Entitlements. Now, I've had to purchase newer versions of several apps off of the Mac App Store because they've pulled out due to Apple's onerous restrictions that break core functionality of their apps. Apps that have been hampered by the Mac App Store that I rely on or are very popular: Textexpander, Alfred (which you cannot get from the MAS if you want to add-on their 'Powerpack' functionality due to the inability for in-app purchases), Hazel, SuperDuper!, Reflection, all of Atlassian's apps, Postbox. Myself, Manton Reece, Daniel Jalkut and others have been keeping a running list of articles on Pinboard about apps that have pulled out or have had updates rejected due to Sanboxing shenanigans. Someone at Apple who has the power to step in and reverse this poor direction Apple is currently taking with the Mac App Store had better do so soon, otherwise they are going to either doom the Mac App Store from being a long term success or lose years of progress while they recover from this bad decision years from now.

OS X Mountain Lion Review Roundup

This morning, Apple released OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on the Mac App Store, for $19.95. I have been using Mountain Lion since Beta 3 as a part of the OS X Developer Program. While there were a few bugs during the betas, as to be expected, the ones I noticed were all fixed by Apple by the time they released the GM Seed to developers a few weeks ago. Since then, the OS has been rock solid. There are lots of new features, many of which I think you'll appreciate. Rather than attempt to explain them to you myself, I wanted to list a few places where you can go read reviews of Mountain Lion written by the veteran reviewers themselves. First and foremost, I want to point out, that John Siracusa has once again written one of his famous OS X reviews (Web or Kindle) . John's review, which weighs in at 25,935 words, is the most in-depth review of all reviews. John has famously written epicly detailed reviews of OS X going on for over a decade now. His reviews are a must-read by die hard Apple users, so much so that Marco Arment has wrote a review of his review (which is quite funny to read).

Review Roundup

1. John Siracusa - "OS X Mountain Lion" (Web or Kindle)
2. John Gruber - "Mountain Lion"
3. Jason Snell - "OS X Mountain Lion (10.8)"
4. MG Siegler - "OS X Mountain Lion: Quick, Familiar, Cheap, And Drenched In iOS Goodness"
5. Jim Dalrymple - "Apple Releases OS X Mountain Lion"
6. Wayne Dixon - Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and ML Server via Web, Kindle
7. Federico Viticci - "OS X Mountain Lion Review"
8. Richard Gaywood - "OS X Mountain Lion: The TUAW Review"
9. Shawn Blanc - "Mountain Lion and the Simplification of OS X"
10. Harry McCracken - "Apple OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Review: The Mac's Lion Adventure Continues" While a lot of these reviews, or probably all, talk about the same topics, like me you may wish to read them all as I respect the views of each author and each author will have a different take on these features. Also, some reviewers will catch details that the others miss. I like to have a thorough understanding of the tools I use, so knowing as much as possible about OS X is desirable to me. I find that reading all of these reviews each year when new OS X versions come out gives me that knowledge.

Tweetbot for Mac - Alpha

The day has come.

Complaints About Apple's New Podcasts App

My Podcast Listening History

Going back many years, to early 2005, when I started listening to Podcasts, I've always used iTunes to do so. Apple added the Podcast Directory to iTunes on 28 June, 2005. I honestly don't remember how I listened to Podcasts from March/April until June - I think I downloaded them manually - but from June 2005 until about 2 months ago, I used iTunes exclusively. At first, I used my 3rd generation iPod, then my 4th, then my 5th. In 2008, when I got my first iPhone, the 3G, I abandoned my iPod and switched to using the podcasts section of the music app on the phone instead. When the iPad came out in 2010, I expanded my podcast listening habits to the podcasts portion of the music app on that device as well. Why am I telling you all of this? I wanted to make the point that I am a long-time user of Podcasts in iTunes, from the beginning, and am intimately familiar with how iTunes, iPods, iPhones and iPads have functioned with regards to podcasts. In the last couple years, I have not made the switch to any alternative podcasting apps (until recently). Now that we've established what I hope you will take as my qualifications to bitch about this subject, I shall now lodge my complaints.

Reasons For Wanting To Switch

Over the last couple of years, I have been slightly annoyed that, using the model I've outlined above, in order to receive new episodes of a podcast that come out when I'm not at home, I must go into the iTunes app on my iPhone or iPad, manually search for the podcast, and manually download it. There was not a way within the app to search for new episodes, especially if it is a podcast that I do not keep played versions on my device once listened to. Once an episode gets deleted, the podcast disappears from the Podcasts section of the Music app. This was incredibly frustrating. A month ago, I finally made the decision to stop using iTunes for podcasts and to research both Downcast and Instacast, two of the leading 3rd party iOS podcasting applications. Both are highly rated in the store and very popular. Without going into specifics, and based on Marco Arment's endorsement, I chose Downcast. Now, while Downcast still has its faults, I had been using it fairly well for 2-3 weeks. Then Apple released Podcasts. Because Podcasts was produced by Apple - I assumed it would have superior iCloud features, do everything the Music app did, and had been instilled with features that the Music app did not do previously. I was partially right, but mostly wrong...

The User Experience or The Beginning Of My Ranting

I will now list everything I've found that the application falls short on. When it was built into Music, I could partially understand, which is why I sought out Downcast. But now that Podcasts is separate - I no longer grade it on a curve but expect it to do at least 80% of what Downcast or Instacast do. Sadly, it does not. First of all - the application is limited to downloading files less than 50MB in size. As I understand it, this is a limitation across all iOS applications when on 3G - but as about 1/2 of all podcasts I listen to are greater than 50MB in size…well you can see why this is an issue. Next, whenever the user starts listening to an episode, the album artwork covers up the play/pause/forward/reverse controls for the episode. The user must swipe upward to reveal these controls. In the 7 years I have been listening to podcasts I do not think I have ever cared about the album artwork of a podcast while listening, however, I usually need to access the controls from 0-5 times during an episode. This extra swipe to access them each and every time is tedious, to say the least. Next…reel to reel tape? Are all of the designers that Apple assigned to work on this application over the age of 40? I'm 30 and the last time I recall seeing a reel to reel tape machine in was sometime in elementary school during the 80s when my poor, rural county was still using 20 year old equipment because they couldn't afford to purchase anything better. And yes Apple, I get it…in order to be a designer at Apple one must pass an extensive Dieter Rams fetish test, but enough with the god damned skeumorphism already. The tape deck is beautifully done! Kudos to you! But podcasts are 7 years old. I would wager than 75%+ of all podcast listeners are less than 35 years old. We don't need to be hand-held to explain the UI to us, no matter how cute you think it is. How about you give us controls that makes the forward and reverse buttons not be placed directly next to the play/stop button huh? That is the kind of user interface design I can get behind. While I'm on that subject - why is it that when I try to pause or unpause an episode from the button on my headphones it now works about 50% of the time? The old Music app worked almost 90-100% of the time. As of now, I hit the button and it's as if I am pulling a slot machine lever in order to be able to pause an episode without having to remove my iPhone from my pocket to do so. Lucky me! And when I receive a call or use Siri, the application almost never resumes playing (as the old Music app used to do). Furthermore, when I mark an episode as played….put the phone in my pocket, and then pull it out later - why is it marked as unplayed again? And why do you keep randomly re-downloading episodes I've deleted…and marking them as unplayed too? Also, why is it that I can make a bunch of changes (listen to episodes, delete episodes, download new ones) and then dock it with my computer to sync with iTunes - the application doesn't sync all of my changes back to the computer, but instead, the comptuer overwrites the application. Does your sync workflow not follow chronological order of changes? Do you understand how infuriating this is? And finally - iCloud sync. Or not. Because apparently, the ONLY thing Apple syncs over iCloud is an episode's play-state. To be more specific, if I am listening to Back To Work, and am on minute 35, pause it, pick up my iPad, it will also have Back To Work on minute 35. This is the only thing you sync. C'mon Apple. You're APPLE for pete's sake. Sync my entire list of podcast subscriptions. Sync their play/unplayed state. Sync whether I have the episode still (even though I've listened to it) or deleted it. Downcast does this. Instacast does this. That you do not do this is pathetic. I'll stop ranting here, but I warn you - if you've made the switch to Downcast or Instacast, and are tempted to switch back to using Apple's Podcast app - DON'T. Perhaps Apple will slowly iterate this application into an Apple-like level of quality in 2-3 years, but as of right now, this application behaves like an engineer with a Dieter Rams fetish who works at Google made it.

Building And Dismantling The Windows Advantage

Horace Dediu, at Asymco:

Considering the near future, it’s safe to expect a “parity” of iOS+OS X vs. Windows within one or two years. The install base may remain larger for some time longer but the sales rate of alternatives will swamp it in due course. The consequences are dire for Microsoft. The wiping out of any platform advantage around Windows will render it vulnerable to direct competition. This is not something it had to worry about before. Windows will have to compete not only for users, but for developer talent, investment by enterprises and the implicit goodwill it has had for more than a decade. It will, most importantly, have a psychological effect. Realizing that Windows is not a hegemony will unleash market forces that nobody can predict. Horace outlines why all of these things will happen, based on years of data going back to the 80's and current trend-lines in this article. Great analysis.