The Heap

Apple and the iWatch

Thu, 09 May 2013 17:10:43 -0700

With all the speculation that has gone on around the rumors of the iWatch, the most surprising revelation, to me at least, has been the number of tech pundits who don’t wear watches. The same people who love the Jawbone Up and the Nike Fuelband don’t wear watches? Makes it seem like they might not be horribly qualified to discuss the watch market, doesn’t it.

It seems that there is a divide between people who are into the “quantified self” and those who are watch wearers. The watch wearers, the very people who make up the market that it’s claimed Apple would be selling to with the iWatch, are very different people than the people who are putting up with the looks and design of the smart tracking devices. Watches are a form of jewelry, and in the case of men’s watches, one of the more socially acceptable forms. The tracking devices often have watch features, but they are focused almost solely on the data gathering and the design is a secondary goal.

The way I see it, for Apple to succeed in with this type of device, it would need to build in the tracking features of some of these devices, but with the looks/design of the more traditional watches. This would probably mean a smaller screen than most people are expecting, and less of a iPhone on your wrist and more of a remote sensor for your iPhone. Maybe the iWatch would function more like the Pebble, but either way, the build quality and design would have to be ratcheted way, way up.

The long and short of it is that I can’t see this being anything but a hobby, similar to early Apple TV, but even smaller. Unless… I get my wish and this is all an elaborate prank to get Samsung to make a shitty pedometer watch.

Arnold & Son Time Pyramid Watch

Wed, 08 May 2013 12:22:35 -0700

Arnold & Son Time Pyramid Watch:

One of the best looking skeletonized watches I’ve seen. Love how this looks with the large open spaces.

Mozilla's Rust… oh and Servo too

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:21:39 -0700

Mozilla's Rust… oh and Servo too:

I find it telling that the part of this announcement that I’m most interested in is Rust, and that the article on ARS spends most of it’s time talking about that. Servo isn’t really the focus of the article it seems.

Good luck Mozilla and Samsung. The world needs to get more rendering engine competition going again.

Meanwhile, I’ll be checking out Rust.

Serious Outside the Box Engineering

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 12:20:22 -0700

Serious Outside the Box Engineering:

A very interesting find by Panic and interesting discussion (especially this comment) about how Apple designed the Lightning video adapter with an ARM SoC that decodes a compressed video stream from the iOS device and outputs the video on the AV outputs.

The design of this means that the iOS device can output video to any device type as long as there is an adapter that can talk to it. This of course is not limited to video, but designing this way means the only limitation for video is the bandwidth of the lighting port rather than being tied to a specific hardware implementation.

Very interesting to say the least.

New Blackberry…

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:50:24 -0700

New Blackberry…:

Brian Lam has the best take I’ve seen so far on the BB10 announcement today.

It was just blah. Nothing to see here, move along.

Hypercritical: CES: Worse Products Through Software

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:56:19 -0700

Hypercritical: CES: Worse Products Through Software:

siracusa:

Watching the CES coverage out of the corner of my Internet eye, I’m reminded of exactly how bad most hardware makers are at writing software. Mat Honan summed it up nicely last month: No One Uses Smart TV Internet Because It Sucks. Amen to that. But it’s not just TVs. Who really likes the…

Very astute analysis; but it must be noted that the sorry state of “apps” on TVs is not just the fault of the software, specifically in regards to speed.

One significant problem with embedded platforms that used to be focused on a single task, or group of tasks, that are trying to become general computing devices is speed. This can come from a range of factors, but the primary ones are: slow, low powered components; and an overly focused and optimized design.

The former is often related or caused by the latter: the hardware design is optimized for a single purpose, such as displaying video, and may be lacking the features needed for an app that needs to display an interface, connect to the Internet, communicate via YouTube’s protocol, and then display the video. In a TV the designers have most likely placed most of the resources into the DSP and data pipelines from the video inputs to the screen. A YouTube app would need these resources only for the last step; the steps up to that point would need to use the severely limited RAM and general CPU cores that are really only spec’ed for displaying the basic UI of a TV.

Couple these limitations with protocols designed for browsers, and software designed and written as quickly as possible, and you have the mess we are currently in.

Mind the cracks (at Vigilucci’s Seafood & Steakhouse)

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 21:40:13 -0700

Mind the cracks (at Vigilucci’s Seafood & Steakhouse)

Passport to the future… (at Santa Fe Depot)

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:08:10 -0700

Passport to the future… (at Santa Fe Depot)

Catching a line out of here. (at Santa Fe Depot)

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:05:39 -0700

Catching a line out of here. (at Santa Fe Depot)

Aye aye Captain. (at USS Midway Museum)

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:04:20 -0700

Aye aye Captain. (at USS Midway Museum)

Panda Badass… (at Panda Trek)

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:26:50 -0700

Panda Badass… (at Panda Trek)

Got anything to eat?… (at Galapagos Tortoise Exhibit)

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:27:02 -0700

Got anything to eat?… (at Galapagos Tortoise Exhibit)

Skeuomorphism Isn't the Real Problem

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:20:06 -0700

Skeuomorphism Isn't the Real Problem:

Kontra absolutely nails the issues with Apple’s current UI/UX:

Apple’s software problems aren’t dark linen, Corinthian leather or torn paper. In fact, Apple’s software problems aren’t much about aesthetics at all…they are mostly about experience.

…

In the end, what’s wrong with iOS isn’t the dark linen behind the app icons at the bottom of the screen, but the fact that iOS ought to have much better inter-application management and navigation than users fiddling with tiny icons.

iOS in particular really suffers from the lack of the ability to have apps communicate. URL schemes get you part way there, but are really just a half step.

Markdown Still Broken in Tumblr's iOS App

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:04:28 -0700

Looks like tumblr still doesn’t support using Markdown in the latest iOS app update. The following should be a link:

[Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/)

Which, clearly it is not. Instead you have to enter raw HTML to get it to work:

Markdown

Why is this still broken? It works via email and even the mobile web site.

SmartGlass Stillborn?

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 10:45:08 -0700

SmartGlass Stillborn?:

“Xbox SmartGlass launches on Windows 8 tablets and PCs on Oct. 26. It will be available on Windows Phone 8 when those devices launch,” the company told the Penny Arcade Report. “Xbox SmartGlass will become available on select iOS and Android models soon. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”

…

This isn’t the launch of a feature, it’s a middle finger. iOS and Android support isn’t a neat thing they should be trying to achieve, it’s absolutely mandatory for SmartGlass to succeed.

Sounds like someone in the Windows group at Microsoft heard about SmartGlass and decided that it would hurt Windows if it released as a first class option on iOS or Android. It would be typical MS behavior to kill its own new product rather than let it hurt, or worse, embarrass, Windows or Office.

Sad really.

MS Surface RT Pricing

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:10:30 -0700

MS Surface RT Pricing:

The pricing seems reasonable, but I’m surprised that they don’t have any
cellular data connectivity. Seems like it will limit the usage of the
device.

parislemon: What do the colorful Apple decorations for this...

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 16:21:21 -0700

parislemon:

What do the colorful Apple decorations for this coming week’s event at Yerba Buena represent?

They’re stretched iOS icons…

The stretched icons almost look as if they are moving by very fast. Maybe rather than pointing at a taller iPhone, they’re pointing out the 4G speeds.

Well, Fuck…

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:36:41 -0700

Well, Fuck…:

As Gruber says, this looks to be a total cluster fuck.

Question 1 is why the FBI has this info and question 2 is what this group plans to do with it now and how much damage can it do.

Also, something really has to be done about these Java holes.

What Killed the Linux Desktop

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 22:17:18 -0700

What Killed the Linux Desktop:

Miguel de Icaza gives the best explanation I’ve heard so far on why Linux on the desktop failed.

Steam Comes to Linux, Stallman Not Enthusiastic; News at 11

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 08:36:14 -0700

Steam Comes to Linux, Stallman Not Enthusiastic; News at 11:

At least he isn’t outright hostile:

“This development can do both harm and good. It might encourage GNU/Linux users to install these games, and it might encourage users of the games to replace Windows with GNU/Linux,” he wrote. “My guess is that the direct good effect will be bigger than the direct harm. But there is also an indirect effect: what does the use of these games teach people in our community?”

He does call steam games on Linux “unethical because they deny freedom to their users.” Which is a bit much.