Apple Keynote Simulator
For those of you who cannot wait for next week, behold the Keynote Simulator.
iPhone 6 Predictions
This site doesn't get a lot of traffic, so please do not assume I am writing this post because I think that a great number of people are waiting with bated breath to hear what my predictions are. I do this simply because I find it amsuing to publicly pronounce what I think will happen to then later see how well I did post-announcement. I have no sources of my own. All of these predictions are just based off of my reading news & rumor sites and making judgement calls on which are truthful or are bullshit.
Many family members from both my family and my wife's sometimes ask me if I've heard about one rumor or another. They fail to understand the difference between a "leak" from Recode or one from Digitimes and the significance of either. They have no idea of who to trust, because most other technology companies leak like a sieve. These other companies that our family members are used to reading about have poor security which means when you read about a leak from them in the news, it is mostly all true. These same family members don't realize that when it comes to Apple, this isn't the case. I've mostly given up on going out of my way to activley correct them, only bothering to do so with my own Mom or Dad or if someone asks me directly. It is a losing battle otherwise and one that isn't worth my time. "The next iPhone is going to have a 7 inch screen, and SD card slot, and allow you to run Android on it if you want!" Statements such as this used to upset me and I felt compelled to try to correct them of their naivety. Now I just smile and tell them, "We'll see in September!".
It seems that, just like last year, Apple has gotten better about secrecy even if the supply chain leaks have seemingly gotten worse. Unfortunately that is something Apple has little control over when the devices are manufactured by sub-contractors with hundreds of thousands of employees making the devices in factories day after day. Parts will be slipped in pockets. Given enough time, more and more will leak. I think we hit "peak pocket leak" this year.
The video above was only just posted yesterday, but it is only the latest in a steady stream of other videos and pictures of parts, screens, cases, or shells which leave nothing to the imagination as to what the new iPhones will look like. The "style" of the design looks like the new case design the iPad mini went to last year. I like the new look but that isn't what excites me... Here is a breakdown of my predicitions:
Screen Size
2 models: I believe the 4" iPhone 5/5s size will be deprecated in their flagship line. It will be regulated to "last year's model" status or of something like the 5c.
Flashship line devices will have 4.7" or 5.5" screens.
I'm a little skeptical but I think Gruber's post on screen math seems plausible. For more discussion about this listen to the most recent episode of The Talk Show.
Sapphire/glass screen? Skeptical about this. There has been a lot noise about this but I've yet to see anything that has convinved me.
NFC/Payments
- Where there is smoke, there is fire. These leaks are likely because of employees at the various credit card companies that can't keep their mouths shut. Visa, Mastercard, and American Express all onboard. Some sort of NFC powered chip within the phone that allows you to pay at stores with your various cards without having to pull them out of your wallet.
Assumed improvments
- Camera will be better
- A8 processor
- No proof but I will be very disappointed if the new "small" size is not 32GB of storage. 16GB needs to go. It needed to go last year but didn't.
- Double the RAM
Battery life
- Despite the bigger screens needing more power, I think the larger case space within the phones will allow Apple to dramatically increase battery life on both devices. I think this particular point will be a surprise to many.
New Wearable Device
- Announced next week
- Ships in 2015
- Rumors say could be as much as $400. Also say could be multiple devices at multiple price points.
So far those are the definite "leaks". There may be more between now and next Tuesday. If so I'll update this post here if any of them seem credible, otherwise, anything else covered above should either be a surprise or something I was wrong about.
Robin Williams, July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014
One of the greats and one of my favorite comedians. Always brought a smile to my face. Rest in peace.
Out of all of the comedy bits he ever performed or movies he was ever in, this clip is probably my favorite:
Some great interviews with Robin Williams over the years:
Pragmatic Podcast Episode 31: It's Supposed To Be Raining
John Chidgey, host of one of my favorite podcasts, invited me on this week to discuss the difficulty with predicting the weather. I had a lot of fun as a guest host on the show as John allowed me to geek out on a subject that I rarely get to geek out about. Now perhaps you'll see why I tweet about weather a lot.
Pragmatic Episode 31: It's Supposed To Be Raining
Since information could travel faster than the weather we’ve strived to predict the weather more accurately into the future. Joel Housman joins John to dig deep into just how hard weather prediction can be and why.
Thanks for having me on John.
Overcast Reviewed
This is by no means a comprehensive review of the entire application. This post is meant to tell you why I ditched my former podcast client and switched to Overcast full time. If you want to read such a review, I recommend you check out these reviews - Macworld, MacStories, Tech Distortion, iMore.
This morning Marco Arment released Overcast 1.0. You can learn more about the application from the Overcast website or just go to iTunes and download it. The application is free, but has just one in-app purhcase for $4.99. If you make this purchase, additional functionality will be unlocked:
- Cellular downloads
- Variable playback speed
- Smart Speed
- Voice Boost
- Per-podcast effects settings
- One-by-one playback option
- Sleep timer
- Unlimited number of playlists
- Unlimited episodes shown in playlists
It is now the only podcast client I use. Here's why:
When I first found out Marco Arment was working on an iOS podcast client as his next project, I was immediately excited. Having been a long time Instapaper user I knew, in general, my design tastes jive with the decisions Marco makes in his apps.. Marco was nice enough to give me an invitation to the first beta release of Overcast on May 10 of this year. On May 13 I emailed Marco to tell him that I had just deleted Downcast from my phone. I have been using Overcast as my primary podcast client since. [ 1 ]
Applications that allow you to export OPML files can be read by Overcast to import all of your feeds.
Being able to see the entire beta process of Overcast has allowed me to see the app's many iterations and appreciate the finished product more than I normally would. One of the earliest features that I was able to appreciate was the ability to quickly migrate from Downcast to Overcast. Downcast, as many podcast clients do, supports the ability to export an OPML file of your feeds. When you export this file, you can choose to attach it to an email. I emailed it to myself, selected to open the attachment with Overcast. Overcast recognized the file and imported all of the podcasts.
On first launch, until you import or add podcasts, you're presented with the photo above. After adding a few podcasts, making a few playlists or importing your existing feeds, the homescreen might resemble the below image.
One of the things that I rely on a lot with podcast clients are playlists. I listen to so many podcasts, that I don't always have time to listen to them all. My listening habits also vary greatly:
- Some I only listen to occasionally, but all at once. For instance with NPR's Car Talk, I usually listen to on long car trips myself over the course of 4 or 5 hours, each episode back-to-back.
- Some podcasts I listen to each and every podcast as they come out, almost immediately (ATP, The Talk Show, Back to Work, Roderick On The Line, Wait Wait...Don't Tell me).
- Some podcasts I'm interested in but don't listen to each episode, deleting sometimes as many as half of the episodes. I screen these by reading epsidoe descriptions - The Incomparable is one such podcast. It is a phenomenally wonderful podcast but occasional episodes cover topics that I have absolutely no interest in and I just skip these. Planet Money's bad habit of re-playing old episodes whenever they take a week off is another example.
- Some podcasts I like, but only when I'm in a certain mood for. These will sometimes pile up for months but I then catch up over the course of a week on all of the episodes that I've missed.
Playlists help me tackle all of these problems. One such feature, Priority Podcasts, attacks one of these problems directly. When configuring a playlist you may designate which podcasts fall under this categorization. These episodes will be pushed to the top whenever they are downloaded, making it unecessary to create a dedicated playlist for just these episodes.
Another feature I love of Overcast is how it handles its own podcast directory. Within the directory itself Marco has a curated list of very good podcasts, broken down by category. Just this along has allowed me to discover 2 or 3 new podcasts that I wasn't aware of yet, but I now love. Another feature is Twitter recommendations. After signing in with your Twitter app, you may flag podcast epsisodes as favorites with a star button on their respective episode pages. When you view this section of the directory, any people you follow on Twitter that have also done this will cause the episodes they favorited to be listed. This is similar to social functionality that Marco added to Instapaper years ago. I liked it then and still like it.
In his announcement post, Marco goes into detail about two of the earliest ideas he had for Overcast: Smart Speed and Voice Boost. When I first saw these in the beta, I ignored them. I've never been one to listen to podcasts in any way other than how they were recorded (minus editing of course). However, after seeing these being discussed by other beta members on Glassboard, I began to give them a try. While I don't use Smart Speed for every podcast, or even every episode of the ones I do, it is a nice feature when needed. Voice Boost, however, is fantastic and makes a huge difference when listening to podcasts in the car (or when I'm mowing the yard with headphones on).
Another reason I instantly fell in love with Overcast is the UI layout of the actual play screen. Marco put a lot of thought during the development of Overcast, all the way up through the beta changing this screen many times due to tester feedback. The end result is lovely giving the user just enough information and exposing the most important controls. Annoyances that I've had with other podcast clients, such as play/reverse/back buttons being too close together or the scrubber being hard to use, have been fixed for me. Additionally, whenever an episode is playing, a very nice animation effect is shown throughout the app in various places to show the sound of the current episode. Check out the gallery below to see examples of the play screen UI as well as this animation.
The wait was long, but it was worth it. Overcast 1.0 is a solid release, which Marco has put a lot of work into. I love using it, and appreciate its design (and nice app icon!). I cannot possibly recommend it highly enough so you should just stop right now and get it. I think you'll like it too.
[ 1 ] Also, apparently I am user #2.
"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes
This is such a good parody. Much better than the original. This song is on his new album Mandatory Fun, which you should go buy right now.
Yesterday's video he released, Tacky, was also fantastic: