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title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. |
descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001. |
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| Monday, April 11, 2016 | |
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Was listening to The Talk Show with Jason Snell talking about the latest Apple event, and heard them talking a good deal about why, say, the SE had top of the line hardware and why the iPad Pro 9.7" had some new stuff but not everything the larger Pro has (it has True Tone, but not USB 3). I think the Apple strategy when designing new consumer products is pretty simple: Use whatever's best today. We first saw this with the new iPod touch. The iPod touch surprisingly had the same stuff inside, give or take, as an iPhone 6, then the Apple flagship, but without a price increase over the previous generation. Wait, what? For a while, it the iPod touch was the best iOS deal going. (Where was Ben Thompson's "cannibalizing" argument then? Apple's cards were already down.) Same thing happened with the iPhone SE. They're redesigning an iOS device, and they grab the state of the art off that's already on the shelf -- and if some dates and chip serial numbers (?) are to be believed, many of the SE's chips were made well before the SE was. And this makes good sense if you want to maximize your users' experience. I'm going to bet that the marginal cost of making a million more A9's is essentially the same as making a million A8's. And if that's true, what do you use on your SE? For your users' sake, you use A9's. Apple had the A9 in hand, was making a new motherboard, and poof, it's an easy design to use your design dollars to make that mobo hook up to the A9.* The only reason to use an A8 would be so you're not competing with yourself. It's not a cost thing. It's not a supply-side concern. The only reason to make more A8s instead of more A9s would be so that the SE doesn't undermine your iPhone 6s. Apple's telling us, I think, that's it's not doing that any more. This is sorta what Ben Thompson's been saying, though he doesn't (surprisingly for him) do a good job explaining it yet -- Apple is giving maximum customer experience even though it'll cannibalize its own flagship sales. No SE? I know I would've jumped once the 7 came out. But once you put aside the temptation to undercut your own product, you release better ones. And ones that you can sell longer. But this is not the same as a Celeron. This is not crippled hardware going downmarket. This is the best existing hardware without compromise.
The iPad Pro is interesting in that it does get bleeding edge state of the art with True Tone. But it's a "Pro" device. It should be chasing and integrating the state of the art. But it's the Tiny Pro... which means we can sacrifice features to get the right size inside. Though I would be curious to know how much it was developed in parallel with vs. orthogonal to the Giant Pro. Did the Pro have extra space that allowed USB 3? Did Apple decide that USB 3 wasn't important? Guess when the next iPod touch refresh is going to happen? We're probably still a couple of years out. Would you be surprised if it got top of the line stuff when it is refreshed, though? I wonder how closely the iPod touch refresh will mirror the SE's. * It makes a lot of sense that they didn't use an A10 in the SE, btw. When you have the mobo chasing the processor, you've got a much more difficult game. And if you're not ramping up production lines on the A10 yet, well... The SE needed to use the best parts on hand, the best known knowns, I guess. So you see all recycled parts. You don't create a new 4" case; you use the assembly line that you've already got running. You don't add a new processor; you grab the best you're already producing in bulk. Your only new part is the motherboard. posted by ruffin at 4/11/2016 11:51:00 AM |
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| Saturday, May 24, 2014 | |
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I've often thought of the 3.5mm headphone jack as one of the most impressive wins for open standards. Everything I've used to listen to music portably since I was listening to a tape of my Falco album during runs as a kid to my iPhone today has had one, which means that there's one type of hardware with the potential to last even longer than my monitors -- my headphones. There's really only one company that has the proven ability to kill a hardware standard, and that's Apple. Sure, Microsoft has killed a few software specific standards, and pushed forward others, but nothing quite as powerful as a physical connection. I can't think of any move as bold or successful as the iMac's killing serial ports for USB. Maybe Napster and CDs? You can say it's just a barrier to entry thing, and you wouldn't be wrong. But Apple's standing in the music player space -- and that includes every iPhone-qua-glorified-iPod -- is quite a bit more substantial than even their psychological footprint with the iMac. Given enough push, they could establish a new headphone connector. But why would they? That is, if you make the audio port proprietary and keep shipping the same serviceable but not great Apple earbuds on the other end (and I have probably eight pair sitting around that I don't use), that's a huge negative for prospective music-loving buyers (aka, "Those that care enough to buy 3rd party 'phones"). If I like serious, quality sound, I'm not buying an iPhone with a limited headphone selection any more than digital serious comic consumers are buying an iPad now that Amazon has pulled Comixology's (sp!) impulse buy feature. So how do you keep what we'll call the popular-audiophile (that is, people who don't need "neutral" sound, and enjoy bass-heavy dance/rock tunes) interested and still allow yourself to make an ever-thinner player/phone? Bluetooth headphones haven't played out as an alternative. You can't expect everyone to settle for crappy white Applebuds. So you buy someone who makes popular headphones. If the new connector isn't licensed, then Beats users have to be iPhone users. Win. Though not win-win. So I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that Beats doesn't just mean great 3.5mm sales and industry connections, it also means Apple would like to kiss the 3.5mm jack goodbye. If so, I'm really going to miss it. In five to seven years, when I'm thnking of upgrading my iPhone 5s, which replaced my Optima V (look it up; it stunk). Maybe. And only if I buy another iPhone. posted by ruffin at 5/24/2014 10:24:00 AM |
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| Saturday, November 23, 2013 | |
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I noticed on the fourth generation iPod touch that the volume buttons are very difficult to operate with a single hand. I had an earlier touch that wasn't as noticeably difficult to use. I guess Apple favors thin over ease of use for 14% of the population. Appropriately enough, I was told this is a first-world problem, and let it go [for a while]. Well, the first-world problems continue. When I shoot pictures and video on the iPhone 5S (and everything before), it doesn't seem to have a good concept of when it's upside-down. Better put, it doesn't know which side is being held down when I do a landscape. I mean, there's no a priori right-side up when you lean something on its side. When I hold the iPhone in landscape, I position it to unlock the screen with a left-handed flick, and the camera snap/record button is on the left. If I email someone a picture, bam, it's upside-down. Folks don't enjoy watching upside-down movies. That's just sad. I'm always surprised how often Apple fails at easy, obvious, commonly used things but still gets away with the reputation that they sweat the details. I mean, they do a great job when they want to get a concept just right, but if they don't think something's worth checking out -- or just miss it entirely; you know, like left-handed use -- you're toast. Labels: apple fail, iphone, ipod posted by ruffin at 11/23/2013 11:25:00 AM |
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| Wednesday, September 12, 2012 | |
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The colors are a cash grab. I love Easter Eggs as much as the next guy, but the pastels are just an excuse to buy. "I have this black iPod touch, but now I can be myself with blue!" Whatever. Not sure why I didn't feel the first iMacs were like that -- perhaps because that was the first colorful computer I remember. Now color's just the shine on a shiny bauble. The new iTunes' emphasis on albums is either an extension of skeuomorphism talk from yesterday or it's a concession to music labels. Emphasizing albums might sell more albums, which means sell more b-rate tracks than you're currently selling. The iPod touch is insanely expensive. That you could spend within $100 of a Kindle Fire or iPad on a touch is insane. How much is the unlocked iPhone 5 going to be? The touch was a great buy when $180 at Black Friday got you the current model, but the current $200 version is long in the tooth. There's no longer a model that's an obvious great deal. Buy a real phone. The new touch isn't tempting. Wait, I take that back. The wrist strap would have potentially saved mine, which was dropped by a tiny hoodlum a few months back. That part is tempting. The nano, otoh, is pretty cool. Video is back. Until now, my old 5th gen nano was my favorite iPod precisely because of video and camera with a quick, tactile pause button (the last I will miss). Bluetooth is brilliant. And here, the colors at least have a history. Buying the red seems a no brainer, though. Nike+ stinks in general, but at least without the dongle it'll honestly work with a nano now. It was nearly worthless for me until I got an iPod touch (I use Runkeeper on my phone now), as the nano dongle would come out or get wet and stop working. Running involves sweat and jarring motion, Apple. Earbuds. Who cares. Can you really run in in-the-ear headphones? I can't. They fall out. Cheapie behind the neck or nothing for me when I'm mobile. Giving me Ives' finest seems wasteful. I've already got at least 8 of their 1.2 billion (or whatever) tiny speakers in my desk drawer. Overall, especially with the iPhone, nothing interesting. Natural progression for a company looking to print more loot. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing that distinguishes these as new devices. Just more Apple keeping their lead (and the stock went up wildly too, last I'd looked). posted by ruffin at 9/12/2012 06:44:00 PM |
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| Sunday, November 13, 2011 | |
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My iPod touch (8 gigs) was pretty much full, and one of the worst culprits was the Apps section. It was well over two gigs. But when I added up all the sizes reported in iTunes, it wasn't close. I didn't have more than a gig of apps on there. Long story short, after removing lots of apps I thought might have been hiding how much space they were taking (Kindle, my Gmail account in Mail, etc), I finally figured out it was Al Gore's Our Choice app. It was taking up about a gig all by itself, though it only reported about 60 megs [sic!]. It must be downloading tons of stuff in the background though I can never remember it not showing something when I was outside of WiFi range. Perhaps it was uncompressing files to show them and never recompressing, perhaps even doing it again with each view. Strange. But that explained the lack o' space. And when you're shooting more pictures and movies because of how awsomez!11! iCloud's photo stream is, well, choo needs cho space. posted by ruffin at 11/13/2011 06:01:00 PM |
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| Sunday, January 30, 2011 | |
 When importing pictures to Picasa from my iPod touch today, I was surprised to find that many had little Google Maps pushpins, suggesting they were geolocated. You can make them out on the top and bottom pictures in the screenshot, above. Now there's no GPS in an iPod touch nor does it take in a cellular signal, so the amazing accuracy -- at a recent convention, the pushpin moved around the map revealing almost exactly where each picture I took was taken inside of the building -- might come as a shock. Now I've heard of Skyhook before (here's an article from CNET back in 2005). Apparently, much like Google's cars have run around taking pictures of everyone's back yard, Skyhook drove around taking down MAC addresses and other info from everyone's WiFi routers. That's neat, I guess. It's certainly a creative, ingenious idea. On the level of problem solving, I'm very impressed. Why is this a problem? Well, there are two ways, I believe. First, parents might not want emailed pictures of their kids to include, say, the precise location of their kids' favorite ice cream shop, or friend's house, or park, or school. It's not like any of this is a huge issue to figure out, but right now stalking a stranger in a picture takes some work. Geolocation lowers the sleuthing bar to installing Picasa (or any other geoaware pic app) and clicking a tab. I like my [functional] anonymity. Secondly, and this one is more theoretical, I believe, though it's the cause for the first -- I don't want to be responsible for helping not just Skyhook, but also stalkers or even necessarily every authority from finding people who happened to take a picture of themselves doing something near my home router. If a parent takes a kid on a bike near my house, I'd rather be asked if the camera's makers can use my router info to geolocate before the stamp hits the picture. My home might be relatively stationary (though there are funny stories about routers moving from, say, the US to the UK and producing some interesting geolocation stamps), but there's really not too much difference between using it and, say, people's proximity to my cell phone. I'm not sure I want this information out there in the ether without my consent, and I sure as heck haven't been asked. So while I'm impressed with the problem solved, with regards to privacy, I'm less so. You could say that it's an implementation issue. Why geolocating images from my iPod is the default is Apple's fault, not Skyhook's. But again, there are two dancers here. As if the eye in the sky aerial imagery of the earth isn't bad enough, metadata telling folks exactly where they are using my data isn't cool either. Without Skyhook mining my router -- and yours, and your local university's, and Starbucks', and the local library's, etc -- this isn't an issue. Who said that was okay, and who should have been inserting themselves in 2005 to say, "You need to ask us first"? posted by ruffin at 1/30/2011 02:20:00 PM |
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| Monday, January 03, 2011 | |
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Had the 3rd gen iPod touch. Dropped it out of my pocket. Had name, phone, and email engraved. People still laugh at me when I act surprised I haven't gotten a call. Got new, 4th gen touch today. Volume buttons sux0rz if you don't use your right hand. No, really, try changing volume with your left thumb. 3rd gen, np. 4th gen, impossible. Labels: ipod, left-handedness posted by ruffin at 1/03/2011 08:56:00 PM |
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| Wednesday, September 08, 2010 | |
 Is there a reason I haven't seen this in a review or preview yet? From Apple - iPod touch - Get amazing new features with the iOS 4.1 software. Labels: ipod posted by ruffin at 9/08/2010 09:14:00 AM |
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| Thursday, June 17, 2010 | |
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Update 2: Now Apple's apparently getting serious about HD radio in the touch and iPhone. From AppleInsider. I can't see how HD radio makes it without this sort of mainstream adoption. I don't think it's happening in cars, but teaming up with ultra-portable computers makes more sense. Wonder what sort of data they'll ship that'll put them over the top -- imagine getting broadcast video with your radio or, what's got to follow, DTV reception... Update: Now that I have one, I find that track tagging isn't a sign of HD Radio and that the nano does not, in fact, support HD. HD Radio really is a technology without a purpose. Does anyone really dislike FM? Do you really need CD quality tunes in anything short of a Maybach? Well, short of the cars the top 10% drive? If one could do anything for radio, it'd be to use digital metadata (or any metadata, honestly) to make it easier to discover sports radio, political, blues, rock, etc in a new area. I'm not sure why I have to tune for an hour to find a new station. I should be able to hit "Sports" on my radio and have it looking even before the last station is out. GPS enabled searching? Even better. Back to the old, horrendously flawed post from 9/9/09: I think it's finally a lock. The new iPod nano supports "iTunes tagging" of songs on the radio -- but when I say radio, I mean FM HD radio. (And no, HD doesn't mean high definition. It means, "HD sounded cool, resonated with TV, and we decided to use it.") But now that an iPod supports FM and at least track tagging from HD, this route of using metadata to monetize radio is going to get pretty popular. That the FM+tagging stream is backward compatible and doesn't redefine the medium in a fell swoop should also help adoption. Reasonable remediation/reformation + popular platform supporting the reform == hats o' caish. A little on tagging from... The Complete Guide to iTunes Tagging | iLounge Article: Developed by Apple and implemented in new iPod speaker systems by companies such as Polk Audio and JBL, iTunes Tagging enables an HD Radio tuner to record information about the currently playing track, save it to an iPod, and let the iPodโs user easily find that track in the iTunes Store for purchase. In other news, I lost my old iPod nano today (for realz) and decided that the move to larger Pringles cans are not only to convince you that $1.50 is a good price for what used to be $1.20 of chips, but is also designed so that, since you're expected to have occasions where you'll eat until they're gone, you'll eat more of them. Imagine that? So far I've been buying less Pringles in spite of their best laid plans, but I don't think it's enough to buy a new nano. posted by ruffin at 6/17/2010 05:00:00 PM |
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| Thursday, March 25, 2010 | |
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If there's one thing that I know Jobs would like to have back, it's an Apple computing platform with tightly controlled access for developers. As the Wall Street Journal apparently reports (via AppleInsider): "Jobs has kept 'tight control and directors have rarely challenged him.'" His preferred dev environment is no different. Right now, on the Macintosh, anyone can code up an app and release it without so much as Googling (Binging?) the Apple Human (once User) Interface Guidelines. Heck, even I've released apps for the Mac into the wild. Oh noes!!! Oh wait, Jobs has gotten that closed development environment, hasn't he? It's the iPod, iPhone, and, increasingly overlapping with the Mac, the iPad: In February, it was rumored that Hulu, an online streaming video destination for multiple networks, plans to make its videos available without Flash for the iPad platform. Reports then alleged that the Web site could be prepared by the time the iPad launches April 3, though it was said the service would likely be subscription only. If the iPad only does HTML5/H.264 jive, the fact that this protocol isn't the most popular on the net gives it a leg up on open browsers. That is, if Hulu makes HTML5 pay to play only, thanks to the iPad's effectively closed platform, Hulu has a ready-made, similarly closed/captive market. * If the iPad did Flash, not only would there be a closed system involved that Apple doesn't control, but there'd be no easy way to differentiate folks using the iPad platform. Goodbye Hulu revenue stream. *With no Flash, Hulu has a reason to partner/get in bed with/come to the defense of Apple's iPad and to temper its support of Adobe's Flash. Captive markets are exactly what Jobs likes to have (see the iPhone developer program and the rules for distributing software, where Apple can even, 1984-style, rip programs off of your iPhone retroactively!), at least until he gets to the point that market dominance (digital music) makes it so that captivity works against Apple selling hardware. So once the iPod and the iTunes Music Store dominate digital music, Jobs makes DRM leave the stage precisely to ensure there are no competitors to the gorilla. But, again, the interesting point here is how Apple is reinventing the Mac. As the iPod stretches out and begins to swallow the Macintosh via the iPhone and now iPad, it's essential to pay attention to the compromises these [at least relatively] closed platforms are making. The iPad will do 50% of what I use my MacBook for and essentially 90% of what I use my iPod touch for (the balance being "fitting my pocket"). But I can't run my Java apps on my iPad, and probably never will, and certainly won't without Jobs' permission. (Yes, I realize Apple develops and maintains the standard Mac JVM, but there are others that work on OS X. Don't split hairs, please. ;^D) Labels: browsers, control, DRM, ethics, evil, html, iPad, iphone, ipod, iTunes, online distribution posted by ruffin at 3/25/2010 10:01:00 AM |
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| Thursday, January 21, 2010 | |
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Apple Tablet Hints: Virtual Keyboard, Camera, eBooks, More - Mac Rumors: According to those familiar with the situation Apple will be targeting the new device at both homes and classrooms. Apple is said to envision that one device might be shared by multiple family members to read news and check email. For classrooms, Apple is looking into electronic textbooks. The device will include a virtual keyboard for input. I enjoy reading pdfs with applications like Skim (OS X) and Foxit Reader (Windows), which both do a decent job of annotating pdfs, but on a tablet, I don't see how you make marginalia effectively without a stylus. The virtual keyboard of my iPod touch, even if it was in a giant device, isn't going to make the grade. The iSlate turned iPad is going to need a stylus for marginalia if any serious scholarly work is to be done, and if Apple's targeting educational institutions, I've got to guess a stylus'll be in there. That's about as far as my predictions/wish list go/es. In other news, $1000 is more expensive than my MacBook that I'm hypocritically using to type this, and more expensive by a pretty serious margin. I can't see spending that type of dough on an eMagazine/newspaper/book reader. Which, of course, means Apple is pricing this one exactly right. I'm an early adopter, but I'm also a cheapskate. As an example, I made the fam give up a Sprint cellphone plan to use Tracfones, and now I'm piddling around with plans from Cricket. It's amazing how much you can save on phones if you don't assume nearly unlimited minutes is a necessity and you use Google Voice for voicemail. Price it so that I'm interested in buying an iPad now, and you're leaving cash on the table from the "BMW drivers" of zeroes and ones. So the first wave -- rich early adopters -- pad Apple's pockets. Once the hardware costs go down, they start pitching the thing for schmoes like me who, in the meanwhile, have plunked down embarrassing sums for a Magic Mouse, iPod touch, and MacBook. /sigh At least I still own some stock. posted by ruffin at 1/21/2010 01:00:00 AM |
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| Wednesday, October 14, 2009 | |
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So my iPod Nano was AWOL for a while, and I broke down and bagged a Zen V Plus for $25 shipped thanks to a CNET Cheapskate deal (long since expired). Twice the capacity of my Nano (honestly, the extra space is great) with the ability to show video! Woohoo! As if. Didn't find out until I got it that it didn't have any Mac OS support. There's an app called XNJB that marginally manages files, but it's been buggy and a real pain. I ended up duplicating what I wanted on there by dragging podcasts and music to a new folder from iTunes, and then would just add the whole duplicated smear to the Zen. Then XNJB would crash, I'd reboot, and try again. Nor does XNJB encode [short] movies for the player. After a while, I ended up using my Mactel Mini running Vista to sync with Windows Media Player, but I'm rarely running Vista. Well, I bought that Toughbook a while back, and have been using it a bit. It does take a good, long drop well, and doesn't mind a little coffee spillige either. So I figure, what the heck, time to try the Zen V again, right? Still wrong. Creative has no Win2k drivers. Wtf? Anyhow, thanks to a Creative support forum poster, we've got a good fix. Media Monkey runs sluggishly on the PIII 600 MHz Toughbook, but it does run. Finally, an iTunes-esque experience, podcast subscriptions and all. Not a bad solution, and the Zen is finally useful a short four months after I bought it. (Up until now, it still had podcasts, audiobooks, and songs from my Vista sync months ago.) But anyone who wonders why iPods dominate the mp3 player world need look no farther than the Zen V Plus' interface -- which loses your place in a podcast if you pause too long or power down, and won't play, say, all rock genre songs (it's either All Tracks [All Genres, including podcasts] or you have to drill down to a specific rock genre artist. ?!!). And it's a cheap piece of plastic. And the little joystick sucks. And there's an extra, unnecessary click to start playing a song once you select it (you select a track with a click and get asked "Play or add to selected [list]?). But if one did look further and, say, try to actually hook it up to a machine not running XP or Vista, well, forget it. Heck, Apple even keeps an old version of iTunes around for Win2k. Creative? Zilch. Without a random poster, some wacky driver download site that I checked for viruses, and a third party player, I got nuttin. *sigh* /rant posted by ruffin at 10/14/2009 09:39:00 PM |
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| Thursday, July 30, 2009 | |
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Wow. I recently got my stereo out of storage, where it'd sat for years on years. I'm not sure my speakers are what they once were, and my EQ still hasn't shown up, but I did get enough together to try out my iPod blasting through the amp & speakers. Ouch. Wow. Bad. I'd convinced myself that the 110 disc CD player I'd purchased about a decade ago was wasted money. Now I believe the music I've purchased at 256 kbs from Amazon and Apple were burned dollars. So though I don't think I ever wrote it, I've often thought I didn't have a good enough ear to really tell the difference between 192 kbs and CDs, and that I had good enough backups of my collection on my Macs. Not true. My apologies for so much as thinking such blasphemy. Wow. I think I'm going to be buying Before the Frost on vinyl. posted by ruffin at 7/30/2009 09:04:00 PM |
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| Monday, April 27, 2009 | |
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Two New Devices from Apple: Category Defining 'Media Pad' and 'iPhone Lite'? - Mac Rumors: The Apple media pad is said to be smaller than Amazon's Kindle ebook reader but its touchscreen is bigger than the Kindle's. Always nice to be right. posted by ruffin at 4/27/2009 11:35:00 PM |
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| Wednesday, March 11, 2009 | |
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From Daring Fireball: Redesigned iPod Shuffle, With VoiceOver I was going to blog that it wouldn't be long before Gruber was gloating a bit, but it appears I've been beaten to the punch. The new shuffle looks neat. Apple's still just barely one step ahead on every facet of Also not surprised to see that Apple's surprised with the amount of refreshed desktops they've sold. The new Mini rocks, especially when you're upgrading from G4s. Even from integrated Intel, it'd be a bonus. And yes, I'm enjoying my iPhone emulator and Xcode. posted by ruffin at 3/11/2009 12:03:00 PM |
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| Saturday, February 07, 2009 | |
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From AppleInsider: 'We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones,' Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener tells the New York Times. 'We are working on that now.' I'm not sure how opening the format helps Amazon. Seems they're trying to follow iTunes' model but missing a step: huge customer momentum bred from an initial period of lock-in. If Kindle hits iPod touch and friends now and Apple makes a slightly larger touch, well, goodbye slight initial Amazon advantage. The slow move to interoperability and open formats is the right one, but it's waaaaaaay too soon for Kindle to do it. posted by ruffin at 2/07/2009 08:39:00 AM |
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| Wednesday, December 31, 2008 | |
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From Macrumors.com: TechCrunch claims to have heard from three independent sources that Apple will be releasing a 'large screen iPod touch device' with a 7-9 inch screen. According to the site, one of their sources have actually seen and handled one of the prototypes That's exactly the kind of hardware I want (Not that I called it; anyone who has been following Mac related rumors knows a touchpad has been a common one for quite some time. Nearly embarrassing I didn't put 2 and 2 together.) There's still plenty of life left in the "iPod" line. Buy stock now. posted by ruffin at 12/31/2008 07:58:00 AM |
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| Friday, December 26, 2008 | |
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I had an iPod touch for a week to try it out, and it did a great job filling in the RSS/leisure web surfing niche I tend to frequent. One problem: It's too danged small. That's great when you want portable, but not so great when you want to read your newspaper/magazine/etc jive online. Amazon's Kindle runs the exact opposite line. It will never succeed as more than a niche device as long as it tries so hard to emulate a book. I'm reminded of the ill-fated Sega Game Gear ad where the kid knocks himself (someone else?) in the head with a squirrel so hard he can see his Game Boy in color. Well, here it really matters. I don't want to see my eMagazines in 128 greys. I don't care how it reads outside. If I'm stuck outside, I'll read, well, a printed book. I don't want to drive my content through Amazon; I read more than what I buy at the bookstore these days. I want to choose. I want rss, email, and web pages of my choice. I don't go to Barnes and Noble to read The Sports Bog. What I want is the flexibility of the iPod touch's platform with a size somewhere between the touch and a notepad-laptop -- in other words, I want a Kindle-sized iPod. If I need to be mobile, I'll grab something like the current touch, but when I'm sitting at home, resting, I need something larger. Larger, in color, and able to surf the web. posted by ruffin at 12/26/2008 09:12:00 PM |
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| Thursday, October 30, 2008 | |
 Say what? Somebody's already put a store in my pocket? I'm slow. I kinda missed App Store applications for the iPod touch and iPhone because I want to write them, not buy them. But when I saw how good olde Genius is on the iPod touch (see how lowercasing "touch" means you can't just say "touch" and have readers know you're talking about the iPod? Clever girls...), I finally clued in. Now, thanks to WiFi and, for those rich enough to afford it, 3G, the iPhone and touch (ha, did it anyway. Take that, Profit Maximization Machine), we can all carry around music stores in our pocket. How awesome is that?!! I always hated the inability to buy on demand. Labels: apple, hats of money, iphone, ipod posted by ruffin at 10/30/2008 03:26:00 PM |
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