by Conrad MacIntyre
By Conrad MacIntyre
Shawn King on the announcement of Aaron Sorkin as the author of the Sony SJ biopic:
This announcement alone guarantees the movie will be better than anything Ashton Kutcher stars in.
Completely agreed, but I'll most likely see both movies anyway.
The [Firefox or Android] beta now also features support for Adobe’s Flash plugin
Finally!
Google Chrome is quite possibly the best web browser you can install on your Mac or PC, and it could soon be the best browser on your iOS device, too.
10-to-1 that Chrome grows faster on iOS than Android. Any takers?
As a side note, I prefer Safari. Tried switching to Chrome but it didn't take. And with Safari 5.2 looking so great I can't see a switch coming any time soon.
Adobe’s message is clear: if you need or want to continue using Photoshop, the only responsible course of action is to buy every new version, which most Photoshop customers never needed to do before.
Or you could give that sentiment back to Adobe and pirate their software. I am not a fan of software piracy, but with so little regard for their users it makes you think...
Wouldn't it be great if you had your own account with your own apps and settings on the family iPad?
ZOMG YESSSSS!!!!! Er, I mean… Yeah, that'd be cool.
Apple’s doing a lot right when it comes to security: GateKeeper, app sandboxing, and so on. Could Apple keep OS X even safer by pulling a Microsoft and outsourcing most of its security to third-party antivirus companies?
No. Lack of necessity for security software (and the software/battery drain they provide) is a big part of what makes average people feel safe buying and using a Mac over a PC.
Ben Brooks on Apple's supposed plan to become their own service provider and bypass carriers entirely:
How about the fact that they would have to build a wireless network and get the spectrum to do that from the FCC? Apple can figure out the phone subsidies, but magically making a cell network infrastructure appear is likely to be much harder.
You're thinking too small, Ben. That's just the US. Apple has iPhone customers all over the globe.
Peter Cohen on the 20% of Macs with Malware:
So where was the Sophos software finding these malignant tumors in my e-mail circulatory system? Gmail, specifically. In the junk bucket.
In a previous article Peter also pointed out:
Sophos is including Windows malware, sent to you by e-mail, for example, by unwitting Windows users. That stuff will never give OS X a problem.
And:
What’s more, Sophos’ thesis is predicated on assumptions made using data retrieved from “Mac computers which have recently downloaded Sophos’s free Mac anti-virus software.” Mac users who have downloaded anti-virus software are a self-selecting group if ever I heard one. One in five of those Macs may have some kind of malware on them, but I’d be very surprised if that was the same as the public at large.
So I just posted about a [stupid] iPhone concept rendering I saw at Cult of Mac. There's a couple things wrong with the design. I decided that my previous post was too vague I that I ought to elaborate.
The first is that edge-to-edge-to-edge-to-edge screen. When I've got my phone tilted 90 degrees to play a game or something I need that buffer zone between where the screen starts and where the physical phone starts. Do this: hold your phone horizontally and try typing right up against the edge of the screen. It very, very quickly causes muscle strain in your thumbs. I'll bet that when you hold your phone vertically and type with two hands you don't actually hold your phone with two hands. I would wager that you hold your phone with a single hand and cradle that hand with the other providing distance from the body of the phone to allow for comfortable thumb travel across the virtual keyboard.
The second is that (say it with me) stooopid virtual home button. The problem with a virtual home button is that it has to always be there anyway. Why put it on a screen? You can never have that real estate back anyway. People need that home button. They know that no matter what is happening or where they are in the system that button will bring them home. My wife has seen me use the multitasking bar many times (both the double-tap and gesture varieties) but still simply presses the home button goes to where she needs to be and then selects whatever it is she would like to do next. And now that the home button activates Siri it is even more important that the tactile feedback exists so the user can know they've hit their mark.
Count me out for 4-edge displays or for virtual home buttons.
[W]hat I find most interesting [about this iPhone 5 mockup] is this idea that the home button could be replaced with a “virtual home button” that displays on a larger 4.5-inch widescreen display.
There's two things wrong with this sentence.
Research in Motion has revealed the smartphone hardware prototype device that will be given to Blackberry software developers this week.
Something about this looks strangely familiar. John goes on:
RIM has confirmed that at least some of the new smartphones it is developing for Blackberry 10 won't have the physical keyboard that has become a staple of most previous Blackberry devices.
I can't imagine why… RIM's been doing so well.
John Brownlee, in the body of his piece titled, "Apple Really Screwed Over West Coast Devs Who Wanted To Go To WWDC This Year":
Apple clearly didn’t mean to leave devs out of WWDC this year. WWDC’s a victim of its own success.
The only moment of lucidity in an otherwise baby-tantrum of a rant from the Cult of Mac contributor.
Jordan Kahn at 8am PST, regarding WWDC tickets that went on sale at 6am PST:
[T]he $1600 tickets are now listed as sold out. In 2010 it took roughly a week for tickets to sell out, and last year about half the day.
Wow.
Matt Brian on the Instagram Android app:
[T]he iOS version of [instagram] took about six months to reach 5 million users, on Android it took just six days.
The reason it only took six days is because of the success on iOS. Instagram was a good enough product to stand out on the App Store. And, after no Android-compatible alternative arose the launch of the original Instagram on Google Play was met with much exuberance and gleeful clap-dancing.
So… yeah, that comparison is just terrible.
Ben Brooks on Dan Moren's plea to separate iMessages and IM:
I would really like to see some stats on teenage usage of IM. My guess is that outside of Facebook Chat, barely any teenagers use something like iChat or AIM.
I would like to see that as well. When I was in my late teens it was MSN Messenger or bust. I, like Ben, wonder what those numbers are today.
Samsung will open own branded stores later this year, also rolling out smaller Samsung ‘Experience Zones’ and store-within-a-store kiosks in larger retail outlets (much like Apple does with Best Buy)
Apple store-within-a-stores pale in comparison to the shopping experience at an actual Apple Store. Matt continues...
It draws parallels with Apple’s own retail experience, but Samsung isn’t going to operate its own stores, instead it will outsource it to third-party companies.
I suspect that's the same problem with Apple's store-within-a-stores. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Jake Smith on a couple bits of Mac malware:
The most recent virus found was one that affects Word for Mac, which allows the infiltrator to gain access to the user’s files.
Leave it to Microsoft to compromise security on the Mac.
There’s also other viruses that take advantage of vulnerabilities in Java
And this is why both Java and flash aren't installed on new Macs. I haven't had Java installed in over a year… and I haven't ever noticed.
John Gruber on the recent report that iPhone over 40% of Android phones don't connect to the internet:
Another data point backing up the theory (to which I subscribe) that a large number of Android owners use their devices just like they did their previous non-smart phone.
Makes sense.
Killian Bell on the rumour that Apple is developing a physical controller for iOS:
iOS devices are terrific for mobile gaming, but they could be even better. They’re already stealing market share from portable consoles from the likes of Nintendo or Sony, who saw their share of software sales slip from 70% to 36% and 11% to 6% respectively between 2009 and 2011. But there’s only so far they can go without physical controls.
I can't see it happening. Honestly. However, what I could see is Apple developing a bluetooth controller for Apple TV that allows iOS game to be played on your 1080p HD screen. On the flip-side, perhaps Apple has plans to bake in new APIs for hardware developers to create physical controllers. So they've built one for testing purposes.