Entries from July 2008 ↓

WSJ: Obamanomics Is a Recipe for Recession

Taking upwards of 60% of a person’s income is moral?

This would be incredibly funny if it wasn’t so likely to happen.

A Macintosh in Your Pocket: iPhone 3G Review - Michael Mistretta

Michael wrote an excellent, in-depth, review of the iPhone 3G. It is especially good because this is his first iPhone, and his impressions are fresh.

Michael writes:

Think about it, the iPhone + the AppStore could be a major paradigm shift in how people look at “computers”. For many people, the iPhone can be the only computer they need. Why do I need a big beige box, or a laptop anymore?

I’m not talking about the geeks. I’m talking about normal people: my mom, a teenager, the cashier at Wal-Mart. How do these people use their computers now? Email. Web browsing. Facebook. A bit of IM. Maybe some Youtube. Music. And a couple games. What if I device the size of a deck of cards could do all of that? It fits in your pocket, gets Internet anywhere, and costs $200.

The one downside to this argument is the lack of a proper word processor and an Office suite. If the iPhone eventually is able to pair with a bluetooth keyboard, I could see some people using it to take notes and type up short documents, but practically speaking, people want a bigger screens for that. Video editing, graphic design, and high-end photo editing will obviously be reserved for desktops.

It is an interesting point, and worth considering, because it is clear people want mobility. Notebook PCs have outsold desktop PCs, but most people do not need a notebook for what they do. They need access, as Michael explains, to email, the web, and social networking — none of which is dependent, or even better experienced, on a full-fledged PC. A mobile device like the iPhone fits this role perfectly.

It begs the question, then, of how people’s use of computers will change. Will they continue buying notebooks so they can use the web away from their desks, or will they buy mobile devices like the iPhone — the “post-PC” — for mobile use, and a powerful, affordable desktop for work?

Or will there be a mix somewhere in-between? I own both an iPhone and a Macbook Air, which I use as my primary computer. While as a student I depend on the Macbook Air’s mobility, I am not going to be a student for long. I still benefit from that mobility, though; I do freelance web design, and being able to pick up the Macbook Air and go to a cafe or a meeting with a client is invaluable.

Yet I also find myself looking at the iMac’s store page often, because I would benefit from its large monitor and, most importantly, its GPU and large hard drive.

From this perspective, which is a web professional one who works on a computer most of the time, I can see the Macbook Air, and perhaps a large swatch of notebook PCs, moving to a more niche position. Rather than have a full-purpose CPU, GPU and hard drive, notebooks would adopt Intel’s Atom processor, small and affordable hard drives, and a small, Macbook Air-like form factor. With a “full-sized” screen and keyboard, these notebooks would sell for under $1,000 — preferably for $799 or under.

We would then have three devices: a powerful desktop for power and screen-intensive work; a mildly powerful, mobile notebook for general work; and a post-PC device for ubiquitous communication.

Indie Fever

This is the first academic study on the Mac developer community I have seen. I have read the first forty pages so far, and its discussion on how the developer community works is intriguing to read.

There is little better than someone who loves their work:

For the past few weeks I’ve been working with a fellow developer on a project that required an all-out programming effort. It’s done now, so we’re back to a regular schedule, but when people hear about the crazy hours they often say they’re sorry. They really shouldn’t be. I would never do this often, or for long periods, or without proper compensation if done for an employer, but the truth is that these programming blitzkriegs are some of my favorite periods in life. Under the right conditions, writing software is so intensely pleasurable it should be illegal.

(Via Daring Fireball)

I started TightWind in April 2008, and I created a simplistic design that had little more than the logo and text. TightWind began just as finals started for my second year in college, so I had little time to work on the design itself — once I was satisfied with the design, I went back to studying and, when I had the time, writing content for TightWind.

The first design was temporary, a holdover until summer, when I would have the time to re-think the design, and build it.

Welcome to the new design. It is by no means finished — expect many small, and a few large, changes soon, but the general design is finished.

My goal with the original design was simplicity. I enjoy weblogs which, when you view them, draw your eye to the content rather than an obscenely complicated and flashy design. Daring Fireball rather than TechCrunch. I want my content to be your focus.

You should notice, however, something jutting out from under the content, and you may have even noticed some words in the background.

You can view the background on its own here. The paragraph is a quote from The Fountainhead, my favorite book, which succinctly explains the proper purpose of a site, organization, company, individual, and why I am attracted to the technology industry generally and Apple specifically:

Why? Rules? Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the material, determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth. Its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose.

My intent with TightWind is provide the best possible content that I can on technology and world events. Its theme is great — writing articles worth reading, and publishing links worth considering, all content about outstanding things.

The name is a reference to a band I admire very much — the Ramones. They had the audacity to play exactly what they wanted to, never pretend to be something they weren’t, and they made excellent music. That thing extending from below the content is a building, a skyscraper. A skyscraper is a wonderful symbol. With no pretense, or doubt, its purpose laid bare, a skyscraper stretches inexorably toward the sky, the infinite, the impossible, but it first sprang from a human mind. A skyscraper reminds me of what humans can do, and what our goal should be: the perfect — the impossible.

Rhode Island Driver Charged With .491 Blood Alcohol Level

You could get drunk on his blood alone.

Brent Simmons is the creator of NetNewsWire, the best feed reader for the Mac, and an application I use every day.

Brent has developed NetNewsWire for the iPhone, and made an interesting design decision. Rather than attempt to implement all features, or even a large subset, of the desktop version, he built it to be used quickly when its user has a few minutes to spare. This becomes immediately clear when you first open the application, and it illuminates what iPhone applications will be.

Brent and I traded emails over the course of last week.

The Interview

KYLE: In a discussion with Macworld’s Jason Snell, you said that when designing NetNewsWire for the iPhone, you started off simple, but realized even that was too complicated, and pared it down. Did you start the design process with assumptions about how the application should be structured or what features should be in it that you realized were wrong?

KYLE: The iPhone’s size and touchscreen require a simplicity and intentional design that desktop applications do not. It requires finding an application’s core functionality and re-focusing on it. What does this mean for the iPhone as a platform going into the future?

KYLE: This also fits nicely into Apple’s “small apps for individual tasks, which integrate together” philosophy, such as Mail, iCal, and Address Book, though Apple has moved away from this with iTunes (for some good reasons). Does this also reflect the iPhone’s intention as a complementary device to the PC, rather than a standalone device?

KYLE: How has developing for the iPhone affected your design philosophy for the desktop?

KYLE: Does this lower price point relative to Mac applications discourage thorough application development for the iPhone, or does the App Store’s huge sales potential actually encourage the opposite?

KYLE: How many copies of NetNewsWire have been downloaded?

KYLE: The Mac’s developer community is a large part of why I love the Mac so much. It tends to be very community oriented, and open to new developers. It requires little more than a great application, a nice website, and willingness to be involved in the community for Mac users to embrace a new developer. The App Store certainly is beneficial both for developers and consumers, but does the App Store’s exclusivity change this communal and egalitarian feel at all? Or could it increase it by giving new exposure for new developers that they would have a hard time getting exposure when selling an application for the Mac?

KYLE: Many developers have been frustrated by the NDA, including Craig Hockenberry, who has made a bit of a refrain out of “Fucking NDA,” but another complaint he made on his weblog is the current inability to easily send out updates to beta testers, and to collect logging information from end users with malfunctioning apps. These factors seem to leave developers in the dark both about how to fix certain problems with their apps, and how other developers are solving similar issues. Does this threaten the iPhone platform, and has Apple made any indication that these issues will be fixed?

KYLE: One of the most exciting parts of the iPhone, and certainly the one with the most potential, is the built in location service. OmniGroup is using location-support in an innovative way in OmniFocus for the iPhone by showing to-dos that are relevant to your location. For example, if a current to-do of yours is to buy groceries and you are running errands, OmniFocus will show you that, say, a Trader Joe’s is only half a mile away. What other ways do you envision using location services? Are you planning to use it in any future applications?

KYLE: I like that idea a lot — it would be great to add a location-based aspect to the already existing weblog community, which is a complaint I have — I simply don’t know many people around me involved in it. Do you intend on integrating this into NetNewsWire?

Fucking Brilliant. There is nothing else to say.

It turns out I do have something else to say. I love movies that are so incredibly well written, acted, and made, that I am inspired — and not in some bullshit sense of the word that critics use to describe films and books every day, but in its true sense, the sense where I have seen something I didn’t know was possible, and as a result, I remember just how artificial the limits we assume exist are. It reminds me that, quite literally, anything is possible, and there is nothing more inspiring than that.

That is what The Dark Knight is. And that is all that is to be said.

AT&T has brought back free WiFi for the iPhone. Let’s hope it lasts more than a few days this time.

Update: AT&T, how many times can you screw this up? According to Ars, AT&T is not launching free WiFi for iPhone owners yet.

Seymour Papert, an MIT mathematician famous for his work on artificial intelligence and theories on learning, suffered severe brain damage in Hanoi when a motorbike hit him. His wife and colleagues have worked to rehabilitate him with the same learning strategies he developed, and they say he is sometimes his same brilliant self, and other times incoherent, but that his same mind is still there:

“Are children still using the robots?” Rottman asked.

Papert paused and appeared to reflect. “For this particular group of kids, something of kinetic directed very started getting this moving,” he responded authoritatively, but then lapsed: “So a lot of children gradually are taken vocay and the convense.”

“When I talk to you,” Rottman said, “do you understand everything I say?”

Papert nodded. “Somewhat,” he said, and smiled.

Rottman said it’s disconcerting, sometimes, to watch Papert speak and know he’s conveying only a small percentage of what he’s thinking. “When he’s talking to you, obviously in his mind it’s correct, but coming out of his mouth it’s not. Every now and then he’ll string together three or four sentences and they’ll just be perfect,” Rottman said. “But if he can put together three or four, why not five or six? That’s the fascinating part. We don’t know.”

I loved playing with Lego Mindstorms as a kid, something Papert inspired. It’s an excellent article, and I hope that he is able to overcome this.