Marco Arment gives his impressions of the App Store so far (via Cameron.):
What bothers me the most is that so many apps are simply unnecessary front-ends to websites […] I want to see more apps doing things and enabling uses that weren’t possible to do well, if at all, using Safari. That’s the result I expected from the pent-up SDK demand.
I wholeheartedly agree. Most — probably 90% — of the apps available right now are unimaginative. I haven’t found a single (non-game) app that uses the accelerometer to present a different, landscape screen. That seems extremely odd to me, especially since many apps could really use more horizontal space for their UI presentation.
One of the most interesting apps is a video app from Rhythm NewMedia called vSNAX Videos [non-iTunes link]. The app is really polished and has some great features I’d even like to see Apple incorporate into the iPod video player. (If only the content were better.)
If there’s any takeaway for me from this past week (including all the TripLog conversation), it’s that interface design is needed now more than ever. ✓
From the Buy n Large website, their Core Values:
Buy n Large believes in focusing brand responses into leveraging consumer enhancement and nurturing emotional or cognitive customer satisfaction across the entire retail framework, while magnifying dynamic industry expansion into bespoke evergreen solutions. Our ability to harness visionary synergies and optimize out-of-the-box systems has created a dynamic process where we construct revolutionary architectures that redefine communities and cultivate integrated markets. Because we continually utilize global action points that enable 24/7 systems, our ability to engineer scalable methodologies is now second to none. At Buy n Large, it’s always been important for us to incubate leading-edge action points and unleash best-of-bread relationships. Our focus has always been to strategize solutions that will enable our customers to harness collaborative relationships while we transparently utilize extensible models.
Classic. (Via Bronwyn.) ✓
Got this in my inbox tonight:
From: sperte@me.com
Subject: A Tip From the Future
Date: July 8, 2018 9:32:47 PM PDT
To: sperte@me.com
Dear Sean,
Thanks for giving up soda and sugar substitutes, that’s been a huge blessing. Now to business.
I know you’ve been heavily weighing the option of getting an iPhone 3G on Friday, and have already looked at all the pros and cons. I also know you saved the money from the sale of the — what was it again? Oh, yeah, the PowerBook — to purchase it. (Wow, I haven’t said that name in years. I had to have my Knowledge Navigator look it up for me.)
Well, let me just tell you: Don’t do it. Skip it. Keep your current iPhone.
You see, here in the future, the only companies that have survived are the ones that look after their customers. While some companies expanded their energy and resources trying to contain handfuls of pirates and scammers, others concentrated on improving their loyal customers’ user experience. Unfortunately, AT&T is not one of the latter type. In classic Galactic Empire fashion, they tightened their grip, and the pirates slipped through their fingers. It drove their cellular division to the ground.
Meanwhile Apple has been pounding out product after product after product — with services, too! You should see their new home gardening appliance. Freakin’ awesome. Comes out in time for the Holiday season. But why am I telling you? You don’t even care about gardening yet.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you fair warning. You don’t want to be locked into AT&T any longer than you have to. They had a good run, but once Apple decided to give them the boot and launch their own communications service platform, it was over. (Truth be told, though, I knew way before then — when AT&T started courting other manufacturers trying to come up with an iPhone killer. It happens sooner than you think.)
Also, hey, don’t worry about that rash. It goes away.
Sincerely,
Future Sean
So what do you think? I say Future Sean’s an idiot.
I’m getting an iPhone 3G this Friday.
Feeling a bit burned by CoverSutra’s lack of updates and/or bug fixes? Take a look at TotalTunes Control. ✓
While watching the “QuickTour” of Me.com I noticed something on the Account page that piqued my curiosity: A setting for “Personal Domain”.
I hadn’t seen this documented elsewhere, so I did a little digging. As far as I can tell, it’s just a transferred feature from .Mac; which I didn’t know existed. According to this transition FAQ, personal domains already in use with .Mac will carry over and also work with MobileMe:
[…] If you have a personal domain setup for your iWeb site, it will continue to work without changing any settings at your registrar.
Neat.
Theocacao: Thinking Like a Cocoa Programmer.
Being a great Mac or iPhone programmer means more than just knowing Objective-C and the Cocoa, it means thinking in a different way about designing and writing software.
Brilliant article — that also applies to web development. ✓
Since The Twitter seems to be down this morning, I thought I’d post this quick little shortcut I discovered last night in Safari, right here on my blog. How novel.
To create a new, blank tab: Double-click in the tab area.
Somehow I managed to lose my subscription to one of my favorite blogs, and haven’t noticed for six months. Needless to say, I did a lot — seriously, a ton — of laughing tonight as I caught up on what I missed over at Motherfuton™.
Because nothing says I so just worked you, like mouthing the word, Countach.
Oh, Noah. Thank you so much for that; just what the doctor ordered. ✓
Jon Hicks, on ExpressionEngine vs. Textpattern:
after a week of re-acquainting myself with it, I can now see why EE is raved about so much
That’s about how long it typically takes, unfortunately, to really get your head around EE. One you do, though, it’s easy to get excited about its power and flexibility.
Of course, Jon is quick to point out some obvious flaws shortcomings he’s found — one of which remains my biggest pet peeve:
/index.php/ shouldn’t be in URLs by default, and it’s right pain to get rid of (but you can do it). Likewise, getting simple /section/title/ urls requires a lot of work. For something so flexible, getting the URLs I want is painful.
I can’t understand why this is such an ignored feature. Obviously users want the ability to display “clean URLs” in a default, supported install; just do a search for “remove index.php” in the community forums. It’s the most suggested, “unsupported” feature available for EE. ✓
GenDigital took a look at retail trends originating on the West Coast (specifically, Santa Monica), and posted their thoughts:
Without a doubt the most crowded store each night was the Apple store. Teens and twenty somethings were snapping up iPod Touches faster than you could say blueberry pancakes while several people were discussing the new soon to be released version of the iPhone with store staffers. It was a completely different story 50 feet down the street at the Helio outpost.
There’s no denying Apple’s “mind share” among students. It’s prevalent even where I live, in Redmond, WA — Microsoft-town. I see young people with Apple products (signified, mostly, by the white earbuds) everywhere I go.
Is this only a trend, though? Can we chalk up a two-thirds retail sales market share for quality PC’s to trend? ✓
Mocking MobileMe.
I’m not sure I understand the issue here. The branding for MobileMe is great. It’s clean, clever, sharp, and fun; and has a light feeling to it. Remember, it’s not the “enterprise” demographic they’re going for — it’s “the rest of us”.
To be fair, I prefer the single-line variant, without the cloud icon.
(Via Brand New.) ✓
Oh, this is just genius. Khoi points out that if he’d bought about six shares of Apple stock last year in June — instead of the then-brand-new iPhone at $599 — and sold today at the current price, he’d have enough surplus to buy a new iPhone 3G and just about break even.
But I’m with John Gruber on this one. The iPhone 3G price ($199) is not an indication of lowered technology value, it’s subsidy. And it’s Apple vigorously going after market share. ✓
- iPhone 2.0 supports multiple calendars
- The 8GB iPod Touch is now $100 more than the 8GB iPhone 3G
- The white variant of the iPhone 3G is only available in the 16GB model
- “Enterprise” is, apparently, what Apple calls “business”
- MobileMe’s iDisk is very robust, allowing for publicly sharing files openly, with a password, limited to number of downloads or set a time limit
- Apple isn’t, as promised in March, going to deliver the iPhone 2.0 software update by the end of June
A proper (read as “useful”) method for rating my music — with stars, in iTunes — has eluded me ever since the feature was introduced. Here’s a new method I’m trying; which I couldn’t fit into a 140-character Tweet:
- 5 stars = “I could listen to this song anytime, in any mood”
- 4 stars = “I love it”
- 3 stars = “I like it”
- 2 stars = “It’s okay (but I have to be in the mood)”
- 1 stars = “Not a fan … but I keep it around for some reason”
My goal is to rate every song in my library with this system. Unrated songs will be left unchecked, and won’t play in shuffle mode or get transferred to my iPhone. I’m starting by rating entire albums, or at least those I can, confidentially.
Coupled with data iTunes records automatically (e.g. play count, times skipped, etc.), ratings can prove very helpful in fulfilling preference. For instance, finding songs that I love but haven’t played in a while could be as easy as creating a Smart Playlist that matches checked songs that:
- Have a rating of greater than 3 stars
- Kind doesn’t contain “video”
- Last Played is not in the last 3 months (a “played” song must play through entirely, I believe)
- Last Skipped is not in the last 3 months (for a song to be “skipped” it must have played at least 1 second first)
- Skip Count is less than 3
- Date Added is not in the last 6 months
That Playlist returned just under 400 great songs I’d either forgotten about, or haven’t listened to in months! I’m rediscovering my music.
Preview of Versions SVN Client from Scott Stevenson.
If you’ve never tried to browse svn projects via the command line or a web browser, believe me that this is a vast improvement over the usual experience. ✓
Sean Sperte is Geek & Mild. His passion for technology and media, along with his interest in 
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