After Apple CEO Tim Cook announced their newest offering of iPhone, it was immediately clear that fans and commentators alike were disappointed that he did not announce the iPhone 5. My question is simply, “Why?”
First of all, Apple do not conform to usual naming conventions, which is exemplified by the fact that their most recent operating system, Mac OS X Lion, is numbered 10.7, and not 11 (or rather 17, as it’s the seventh Mac OS X to be released), so it strikes me as odd to expect them to do so now.
Secondly, while it might not conform strictly to how they have been naming the previous iterations (iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4), it does make a kind of sense. I also suspect that they were trying to tell their customers that it wasn’t the revolutionary iPhone that would, again, change everything, but rather an upgrade of the existing platform.
My last point is that it’s just a name. If they had not used numbering, but rather an apparently random string of names (I’m looking at you, HTC), I seriously doubt that there would be the same fuss. And the fuss, after all, is what Apple is best at.
Category: Opinion
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What’s in a name
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Survival – how news media should adapt to a challenging present
Over the last ten years, I have been an active consumer of online news media. This has cost me nothing, simply because the online news outlets I read are financed by ads. According to Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, this trend must change if news media are to survive. While I think that his approach – simply shutting people who don’t pay out – isn’t the way to endear himself to the consumers, I do think that he has a point.
Until recently, I had a subscription for the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. About four months ago, I cancelled it, because I never read it anyway, mostly because I already knew most of what it said already, having read several online newspapers at home, at work and in transit. Will I ever take up a subscription to Aftenposten again? Maybe. But not for the paper version. Instead, I will gladly take up a subscription to their tablet app.
I say tablet app, instead of iPad, because I am in no way certain that I’ll still be using an iPad ten years down the line, but I most certainly will still be using a tablet of some kind. The first attempt at creating a good app for news consumption from a single source on the iPad comes from Wired magazine. Their app is free – as it should be. Instead, users pay per issue they download.
Let me just say this at once; reading Wired Magazine on the iPad just works. It’s quick, it’s comfortable, and gives me more value than the magazine itself ever did. Another example of an excellent solution is MacLife tablet edition, which also shows off the strengths of the iPad format for magazine consumption.
What makes me think that this would work for newspapers? I can only speak for myself. However, I know that I only really read a very small number of newspapers, most of which more or less conform to my political views. I want editorials on subjects that interest me, and I want to have it on the go. Having an app that, every morning, downloads the most recent edition, is just what I need and want. I can bring my pad, and the app, with me on public transport, reading the articles that interest me.
Why do I think that’s how they will save themselves? By offering a two-tiered system, the newspapers reach two markets. The model I’m envisioning is something like this: The first tier only offers headlines and a little detail, with no analysis. This should be free, or ad-funded. The second tier should have detailed articles with editorials and additional content, such as guest writers. I would willingly pay for a subscription to the second tier, which would give me more news, of higher quality.
What would I want from a newspaper app? At the very least, these three criteria should be fulfilled: (more…) -
My number one wanted feature on Android
Lately, I have been writing quite a bit about features I’d like to see on my iPad. I do also have an Android phone (my second one, as a matter of fact), and, while it usually does most of what I want, there is one feature which is not built into it – screenshots.
On my iPad, and apparently also on the iPhone, you simply press the home and power buttons, and hey presto, you’ve got a screenshot. On Android phones, you have to either root the phone, or install the SDK, both of which are unsatisfactory solutions to me.
Now, apparently, this will come in Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), but frankly, it should have been a feature since day one. -
Give me one bar, make it do more!
I have said it once, and I’ll say it again; I love my iPad. It’s light-weight, instant-on and, most importantly, for the most part, it just works. However, there are a few frustrations, some of which I’ve mentioned previously, such as what they did to the rotation lock switch.
Now, most of the time I spend on it, is spent browsing the web. However, whenever I go to open a new page, I am presented with this:
Now, I like the fact that I can search from the browser, but why make it a separate box? If it were up to me, Apple’d take an idea from Google Chrome, and make it look like this:
Make one bar, its default function an address bar, unless something that is neither a URL, an IP or a combination is inputed, in which case it performs a search instead. -
My number one wanted feature on the iPad
As should be obvious by now, I love my iPad, and bring it with me most everywhere I go. I use it for work and play, planning and doodling in equal amounts. It has more or less supplanted my netbook as my default unit for web browsing, emailand many other things.
Along with my android phone, I’ve got internet access most anywhere I go, and am very happy about that fact, too. There is one feature from my android phone that I’d like to see however, which is only currently available on iOS devices when they’ve been jailbroken; a unified file management system.
On any and all android devices, you can access the file system, and any files on it, directly from the unit, allowing you to modify them at will, and opening them in other programs.
Sure, there are apps that sort of do what I want, but they don’t do it particularly well, nor particularly elegantly. moreover, i think it’s something that should be handled, not by some app, but natively, in the OS.
Like my wishes for what used to be the rotation lock button, I understand, and to some extent accept that this might not be forthcoming for some time, though I honestly think it would be a mistake on Apple’s part not to implement it soon. -
2010 roundup
Almost past us, I think it is time to take a look back and take stock of 2010, and see what the year brought. -
Endings and beginnings
An age old adage tells us that when one door closes, another opens. This feels particularly apt to me these days. As we approach christmas and New Year’s eve of 2010, I can’t help but feel nostalgic. It will be my last christmas as an employee at Orkla Shared Services, and come January 3rd, I will take up my new position with FotoWare, a Norwegian software development firm, where I will be supporting their software suite.
While I am sure I will miss my colleagues and customers, I am looking forward to taking up new challenges, and learning new skills. In particular, I am looking forward to learning to work with Mac OS, with which I only have a very bare minimum of experience.
I feel terrified at the thought of leaving the safety of knowing my job ten ways to Sunday, but the challenge is welcome, and frankly a while overdue. You can expect to read about my experiences with Mac OS X, as well as virtualization on Mac and using a totally new software suite.
Don’t worry though, I am not planning on leaving my other topics behind, either, with the exception of Lotus Notes, which I will not miss. I am already working on posts on apps for Android, and my wishes for the iPad and iOS. Yet other posts might very well be reposts of stuff I write for the corporate website.
I will miss seeing my old colleagues, some of which I’ve worked with for over four years now, but I look forward to learning new faces and names, colleagues and customers. -
Why I blog
I have been blogging for a long time now, and am very likely to continue doing so. I have my own domain, and prefer that to using one of the many, many blogging sites out there. This blog is the one that gets the most updates and attention from me, for a few reasons;
First off, it’s my personal online knowledge base. It is where I have a large amount of the solutions that I have researched and implemented in my job as a support technician.
Secondly, it’s a way to get my name “out there”, as a resource in both technical issues as well as in documentation. I have, in fact, gotten jobinterviews because of my blog, and am changing jobs come 2011 because of an interview I took after the recruiter read a few posts on my blog.
Thirdly, I like the fact that I have a soapbox from which to publish my opinions. Be it the choice of a smart phone, my thoughts on multitasking on handheld devices or anything else, I enjoy being able to voice my opinion, and track the responses to these opinions.
The fact is that I am in my third year of blogging on technical issues, and I will continue doing so for the foreseeable future, or at least, that’s how I feel now… -
Mobile multitasking – Android versus iOS
The two main contenders in the mobile OS world today have two vastly different approaches to multitasking. Both have merits, and potential drawbacks. Let’s have a look:
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The iPad reviewed
First off, I know I said I wasn’t going to get an iPad. That decision was based on the hype and buzz about it, after laying hands on one myself, though, I’ve got to say I was simply wrong. Probably not about my concerns, as I still feel they are valid, but about my decision not to get one.
What it all boils down to is this; do I think it is worth paying the cost, and accepting the limitations for what I get?
Quite obviously, my answer to that is yes. If it hadn’t been, you would not have been reading this, now would you? The question to answer, then, is not if, but why it is worth it to do so.
This post will be part rationalisation, part review, and I ask you to bear with me in that respect. Still, though, here goes…
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