I’ve just received my invitation to an Apple event on September the first. Sure, I sent myself the invitation, modeled after what real reporters surely received, but as fake as the invitation is, the event is real and I’m psyched, Unlike some past events (iPod HiFi, Macbook Air) that even the reality distortion field could not fix, it seems like there’s probably some cool stuff in the pipes this time. I could be completely wrong of course, and this could be the event where they announce that they’re putting Windows on all their new Macs and firing Steve again. With tightly crossed fingers, here are my predictions/hopes for what His Steveness will deliver unto us a week from today. (more…)
I’ve been a Mac user for nearly four years now, and it’s been a good four years, but at some point we should all just accept the fact that Windows is superior in every way and go back. Let’s be honest, we were all just using Macs because everybody else was using Windows and we wanted to be different, but now a whole bunch of people are using Macs, and it’s become clear that this display of difference is futile. I declare our stupid rebellion from the social norm of Windows officially over, let’s all go to Dell and buy some beige power tower.
We’re always going on about the superior UI, and the UI is superior, but it’s spoiling us for the awful UI of reality. You know how kids who grew up in dirty environments get sick less later in life than the kids who grew up in spotlessly germ-free environments? It’s the same for UI; the easier it is to use your computer, the less prepared you will be for some challenging obstacle to pop up in real life. You can’t zoom out of real life to see all of the windows you’ve got open, and if you want to find something in a pile you can’t just ‘spotlight’ for it. Windows purposefully makes it as difficult as humanly possible to do anything at all with your computer, which strengthens your reflexes for real life. It’s like the UI is exercise equipment for your interaction reflexes. (more…)
Computers themselves have evolved drastically since the turn of the millennia, back in 2000 a single gigahertz was a lot, and a gigabyte of RAM was considered overkill. The Playstation 2 and XBox were still vaporware, Cellphones just made calls and PDA’s just remembered data, and neither WiFi nor Cellular Data Networks had really caught on.
This decade brought HUGE advances in the hardware side of computing, and yet the way we interact with our computers is nearly identical to how it was back then. In fact, the way we use computers hasn’t significantly changed since 1984, back when color screens were a novelty and the internet was only for the geekiest of geeks. Modern UI’s are often still based around the limitations and capabilities of 26 year old computers, and though we don’t really think about it, are now just a huge inconvenience in almost every situation. We’ve already seen some very successful attempts at getting rid of these vestigial interfaces (chances are you’ve got one in your pocket right now), and I think that by the end of this decade the software that we use now will be just as obsolete as the hardware of 10 years ago is today. (more…)
[EDIT: Will everyone PLEASE stop calling it the MacPod - Stu]
My prediction for the magical flying unicorn of a product that is the Apple Tablet is as follows; almost everything everybody, including me, has predicted so far will be partially to totally wrong. Obvious paradox aside, the build up to this iUnicorn mirrors that of the iPhone almost perfectly; hundreds of tech blogs speculating wildly different things about a product, agreeing only on a name (well, usually) and a few basic ideas about what it is. So yes, I could spend the next 3-4 paragraphs analyzing the exact position and length of every one of the few hairs remaining on Steve Jobs’s head looking for any clues to what this iFlyingNarwhal is, but that would be stupid, unhelpful, repetitious, and take longer than the 45 minutes I have allotted myself to write this before Chuck starts, so instead I’m just gonna write about what I’d like to see, and what I wouldn’t. (more…)
Alright, it’s time for some honesty on my part. I wasn’t satisfied by the number of comments on my last ‘Keaton On’ post, so I’ve decided to put my life on the line and go on a serious first-to-palm (see what I did there?) Pre-bash-athon. Yes, I do remember the last time I bashed Palm for the Pre on Twitter, ending with my own all-too-public humiliation. Now, after spending 5 months in the fetal position, sucking my thumb and crying for my mommy, I’ve done some actual research (a.k.a. I skimmed the Wikipedia article) on the Pre, and have a whole new set of reasons why it will fail. Muahahahaha!
It’s no secret that Apple and Microsoft are going at it in an ad battle that would make the Spartans from the movie ’300′ cower in fear (although they probably wouldn’t cower because of the content of the ads, they would probably freak out about the fact that there are moving pictures in a time when yellow paint was considered the wave of the future and long boring speeches by old philosophers who may or may not have gotten high on bay leaves were considered entertainment). Some love the often humorous, always cunning ad-fest in the same way as they love watching famous Star Wars fight scenes. Others find the ads much more similar to two five-year-olds poking each other with light sabers while screaming loudly for their respective mothers. Of course, you’re not here to learn what others think, you’re here to be told what I think, and then meticulously counter every sentence I write with at least 5 different points on why I’m wrong (I love you guys). Enjoy!
Cocoa is my girlfriend. That is a phrase coined by the popular cocoa blog of the same name, and it rings sadly true for me, both as a developer of mac apps, and more importantly as an avid user of mac apps.
Somehow things like Adobe Air, X11, and even Apple’s own Carbon give me flashbacks to my time on Windows. Up until a few weeks ago I was using Twitterific as my main twitter client, unfortunately for it, it took its own concept of simplicity too far.
Also, it doesn’t look all that cocoa-ish, especially in Leopard, where HUD windows are supposed to have a glossy looking header. So then I was a rogue twitterer, on a hunt for some good Cocoa twitter clients. I found 5 contenders – here and now they will battle it out for my usership. ding ding
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