1. Runs on Windows →

    Daniel Eran Dilger in top form:

    Saying that the Surface is a combination of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 hardware savvy and its Windows Phone software savvy is like one of those jokes about a train engineered by Italians, serving English food, managed by Portugal and financed by Greece.

    In this joke, what does America do? International customer service?

    Aside from the possibly inflammatory content, Dilger has a great point. The Xbox 360 is the single worst piece of hardware I’ve ever owned (No, I take that back, because I’ve had three). In addition, I can’t remember the last Microsoft Software product that I genuinely wanted to use. Office stopped being anything but miserable a long time ago, and even the Windows 8 beta was an interest driven only by curiosity.

    It seems to me that Microsoft may have a collossal disaster on thier hands. However, the article to which Dilger makes his counterpoint is right as well—to a degree. Many will upgrade because they have to. It’s the same reason that my MacBook Air has Microsoft Office, despite my earlier claims. The majority of the world still runs on Windows. For now.

    ∞ October 23, 2012

     


  2. iCloud is the Memory Palace →

    On episode 80 of Hypercritical, John Siracusa likens the idea of spatial computing to the memory palace strategy for coordinating bits of information with parts of a house or other familiar place.

    The thing is, the memory palace maps surprisingly well to the new document model in OS X and iCloud as they exist in Mountain Lion. John likens the spatial locations to choosing rooms in the house, but in the new document model, the rooms are apps.

    Inside, each might have a drawer or shelf or a desk in which to place items. These are iCloud’s single-level, Springboard-like folders. But if you think about the memory palace, they’re all one sub-location within the room, which is the app. So, remember the app and you remember where something is. It’s like always being aware of which room you left it in.

    The old model was like finding an item in a huge warehouse full of identical containers. Sure, you might know which side of the building the item was on, but if all the containers look and act the same—only with different labels—you’re unlikely to find what you’re looking for.

    The key (or the key frustration) is that to move something in the memory palace to another room, you have to go to the room where it is stored, reach into the drawer, and explicitly remove it from its room in the palace. The new model works the same way. It adds steps, but it prevents people from standing in one enormous room with hundreds of pieces of paper piled on the floor, trying to remember where they came from, where they go, and if any of them are the thing that the person is looking for.

    ∞ August 24, 2012

     


  3. Everything Back to the Mac

    Features don’t debut on the desktop anymore. With iOS around and selling far more units, everything happens there first. Think about it: iMessage, sandboxing, FaceTime, the Mac AppStore, instant on, retina displays, and on and on, seemingly ad infinitum? Mobile devices get features first, then they come back to the Mac. iCloud is another feature that came first on iOS. Now it’s a marquee feature in OS X Mountain Lion.

    On a recent episode of John Gruber’s The Talk Show, the topic of discussion was Mountain Lion. John and MG Siegler speculated that Facebook integration on the desktop might be held up because it was still in beta. I think that since FaceTime is a key feature for iOS 6, as it was demonstrated for us at WWDC, Apple is waiting to debut the feature on iOS first. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it appeared in ads for the new iPhone.

    In the old world, if the desktop had been ready first, we would see Facebook on Mountain Lion already. Now, iOS is the lead platform.

    “Remember that Facebook feature you love on iOS? Now you have it on the Mac.”

    With Mountain Lion, the problem is that the desktop update came right before the announcement for the new iOS device. In the future, I would expect to see iOS devices gaining features maybe in the spring with the iPad or even in the fall with the iPhone, but the desktop will feel like it follows the iOS lead instead of paving the way.

    The iPod, iPhone, and iPad put Apple on the map for the mass market. For diehard Mac users, this may be a difficult transition period where the old platform must wait for the new.

    ∞ August 14, 2012