(Via . Macworld)

I’m glad Lex Friedman had the guts to say this. He seems to be the only one. From the press going around Clear over the past few weeks, you’d think Realmac had invented the wheel, or something.

Now, I do like Clear; I find it great for entering quick lists of tasks, now that I’ve gotten the hang of it. But all the praise it’s getting for it’s “brilliant” UI seems to be more of a piling on of designers stroking each other than anything else.

Yes, simplicity is always a goal. Yes, the Steve Jobs philosophy of removing rather than adding is a great driving force. But there is such a thing as taking it too far, and I think Clear is just on the cusp of taking it too far.

There’s a point where you make the thing so simple that it becomes less useful than it could be.

All the raving about the pinching for everything in this app is just weird to me. Pinching on an iPhone is not something I want to be doing all the time. For starters, I have to use two-hands to pinch, and that already is a big fail on a phone. And 9 times out of ten, when I’m trying to pinch something open, Clear mistakes my pinch for something else, or does nothing. So I’ll come out and say it: the pinching in this app sucks, to be frank.

As soon as I realized that I could accomplish all the same things without pinching I was happier. But that in and of itself is practically an admission that pinching constantly is awkward. So why base your whole UI on it?

And while the app is clever in its use of minimalism, you can’t honestly say that it’s intuitive. The tutorial that comes at first launch is nice, but it’s also absolutely necessary; this app is not easy to figure out without it. Hand Clear over to someone without that tutorial, and he or she would be lost. Heck, I know a few people who watched the tutorial and STILL didn’t get it.

Friedman is right on when he says “you can expect to make the wrong thing happen with alarming consistency.” I’m constantly swiping the wrong way and deleting, rather than checking off, a completed task. And pulling down to go back up in the hierarchy (while better than pinching) is somewhat of a “crapshoot” as he puts it. I’m very often creating new tasks whether I intended to or not.

And don’t get me started on the character limit. There’s no reason for it, other than someone on the design team didn’t like the way longer tasks “looked”. Aesthetic over function. Not a good thing.

I get that this is a 1.0. I get that Clear will be adding an iPad and Mac version soon, and I assume, synching all your tasks between them. That’s good. I’m sure even some of these weird quirks will be overcome. This app is coming from a great development team with a good track record, so it’s likely the app will get even better over time. But in it’s current state, it’s more interesting and promising than it is great.

And I would still even recommend Clear to some people, because it is very good for entering tasks very quickly, and it’s only 99 cents, for crying out loud. But hailing it up as the most amazing example of super-duper designed app genius seems a bit over the top to me. It’s a solid app with some decent innovative thinking behind it. Let’s just leave it at that.

My favorite feature: the way Messages handles multiple alerts on different devices. This is one of those things that is just about impossible to make perfect, but I think what Apple has done here is clever, and probably the least annoying way to handle it.

The problem? I have an iPhone, an iPad, and three different Macs I use on a regular basis. (A desktop at home, a desktop at work, and my Air for cafe/travel use.) I have Messages running on all of these machines at once. So what happens when I get a new message from someone? Well, I get an alert on my iPhone, my iPad, and all three of my Macs. Considering I have at least three of these devices within arm’s reach most of the time, that means I get three different alerts showing up in my face, and two others on the other machines that I’ll have to address later. All for the same message.

The wrong way to handle this would have been to force me to dismiss this alert on all five machines manually, or worse, to try and “guess’ on which machine I want the alert to appear. (While that approach sounds good, in practice, it would probably guess wrong more often than not.)

Apple took a better middle road and had the alert go off on all machines, but as soon as I acknowledge the alert on any one of my machines, it goes away on all five. So I only have to dismiss or reply to the message once, and all my other machines get updated. My iPhone and iPad take the alert badge off the Messages icon and remove it from Notifications center. The Macs do the same. I’ve read the message once on one machine, but all the others still have the message, so I can still reply on whichever machine I like later.

How can you complain about that?

Now sure, it doesn’t always work perfectly. I’ve had to dismiss a message on two of the five machines a few times. But it gets it right most of the time.

If it doesn’t work this way for you, there’s probably something wrong with your configuration. Make sure all your devices are set to the same Apple id, and your iPhone is set up to get messages from your email, not just your phone number.

This works so much better than the way Apple has historically handled Calendar Alerts. I can only hope they apply this same logic to those soon.

And as far as the noise goes, if you don’t want multiple devices beeping at you, do what I do. Mute all your devices except the iPhone. For me, the iPhone is the one device I’m guaranteed to have on me at all times. So that’s the one that becomes the official attention grabber. When I’m working on my Mac, I hear the iPhone SMS sound go off, but I can check the message using my Mac.

My iPad is also always set to silent. I don’t even have my iPad vibrate on new alerts, as, again, all of those will go off on my iPhone, which is always with me. Problem solved.

In response, Google says the WSJ report is off-base when it comes to what Google is doing with its advertising cookies on these devices. Google says it was using a known bit of Safari functionality to provide features that were only enabled when users signed into Google using their browser. Google used this functionality to provide personalized ads and the ability to +1 items for signed-in Google users.

Google then pins the problem on Safari; the statement says the browser “contained functionality that then enabled other Google advertising cookies to be set on the browser.” The search giant said it didn’t expect this to happen and is now “removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers.” Google insists that the original cookie enablement was done anonymously and no personal data was collected.

 

(Via TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

If this incident had happened in isolation, I’d probably be more inclined to trust Google’s explanation. But with all the other happenings around Google and it’s behavior lately, it’s hard to take anything they say at face value anymore.

That’s what you get when you hold yourself to an elite standard and then drop that standard when it becomes inconvenient.

Messages, like the rest of Mountain Lion, is the logical next step in Apple developing its instant message programs and making them available across a lot of its devices. But like last year’s FaceTime beta, there are a lot of bugs to be worked out, and I wish Apple had taken a cue from Adium in designing Messages. If you do plan to stick with the program, Erica will be offering some tips and tricks on making it useful.

(Via TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Um, it’s a BETA. That, by definition, means it’s not ready for prime time.

Has Google’s bastardization of this term really convinced even the technically literate folks at TUAW that beta just means version 1.0? I hope not.

I realize that historically Apple has not released betas very often to the public. (The more I read articles like this, the more I realize why.) But since Apple seems to be trending towards releasing betas a little more often nowadays, I think it may be time we all re-evaluate the true definition of the term.

(Via The Verge)

They aren’t Apple factories, and they aren’t Apple inspectors. This headline seems to imply at least one, if not both.

Now, I have my doubts about the FLA after reading many articles recently. Seems like there’s a good chance they are sugar coating conditions over there at least a bit. They could very well be a “public relations mouthpiece” for the industries it claims to be watching. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me.

And the article itself is actually presented in a pretty balanced way.

But I HATE headlines like that. Especially from a group like the Verge that is claiming to be so “fair” in its reporting. The headline is all most people ever read; if you can’t get the facts straight there, how can you hope that I’m going to trust you?

Pegatron stands to suffer a lot if it loses Apple contracts. Not only does the company assemble iPhones for Apple, but they’re also rumored to be producing the next-generation iPads that are expected to ship next month.

(Via TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

There’s no question in my mind that these new Wintel notebooks are a complete and shameless ripoff of the MacBook Air. And if Apple were to go to the courts to defend its designs in a trademark/copyright infringement case, I’d be behind that. No reason other PC makers should benefit from Jony Ive’s industrial design expertise.

But threatening to leave your contracted suppliers/manufacturers for building these products has a bad smell to it. This is over stepping the line I think. It’s a bully tactic that could easily be interpreted as stifling competition. Apple cedes the high ground by going this route, if indeed, this story is true.

Part of the problem when you’re the top dog after many decades of getting the shaft is that you live in constant fear of losing that top dog status and getting shafted again. Apple’s position on top is so obviously secure from where I’m standing, but Tim Cook has a lot more to lose if I’m wrong about that than I do. So I get where the fear comes from.

Still, I think Apple should let these obvious knockoff products die in the market. It’s not like they’re going to sell particularly well, because they lack the one critical feature of any successful knockoff: price. They’re not any cheaper than the real thing, so why would anyone buy one?

Since it’s obvious to most of the world that these things are shameless wannabes, why not let them hit the market and fail miserably, prove to other companies that you can’t beat Apple by aping it’s every move anymore. Or take the issue up in court, if you must. What’s one more case amongst the hundreds Apple already has going?

That way, you go after the company that created the knockoff, not the middleman who just builds it for him, and most importantly, you don’t get seen as a bully playing hardball with manufacturers to suppress competition.

It’s a fine line between pulling a contract because someone helps another company build a copycat product, and pulling the contract because someone builds any competitor’s product.

At press time, it was unclear if the protesters were wearing clothing manufactured in the USA, or if they plan similar protests at Best Buys, Walmarts, Gamestops, or the headquarters of Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, HP, Dell, or any of the other retail outlets and consumer electronics companies who also heavily employ Chinese labor to build their products.

(Via TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Well played, Mr. Rawson. Well played.

For many developers, Apple’s warning, and the fact that it appears to be cracking down on apps that take advantage of these means, is definitely a positive. For one thing, it helps level the playing field for those trying not just to make a hit, but a living developing software.

“There are plenty of developers who work very hard to produce quality apps,” The Iconfactory’s Craig Hockenberry wrote in an email to Macworld, “and we’re all happy to see Apple kick these scammers to the curb.”

 

(Via www.macworld.com)

Dan Moren over at Macworld did a great job with this article. I’m glad someone is bringing the issue some attention, lest App Store customers get the impression that the majority of developers are more like snake oil salesmen than legitimate small business owners.

I suppose to some extent we should expect the hucksters to come in and try to make a quick grab for a million dollars off the latest trend. But I hope that it’s clear to at least a good number of App Store customers that we’re not all in it for fame and fortune. Some of us, as the article points out, really do just want to make a decent living and escape life in a cubicle. We’re in it for the long haul.

I talk about this constantly with my partners at Bombing Brain Interactive. The long term goal: be able to continuously make a living designing and building great products. No Lamborghinis or cruises around the world required. Just make enough to keep going and not have to work a “day job.” Support our families doing something we love, and make customers happy in the process.

There’s no short cut to achieving that goal. You work your butt off and keep trying to improve your apps, and hope that you get enough buzz and word of mouth going to keep feeding you.

The sooner the get-rich-quick scammers move on to the next big thing, the better off we’ll all be. I’m just surprised it’s taking this long for them to realize that most are falling flat on their faces. As long as they’re still around, the rest of us have to keep fighting the negative public perception.

A new report features a woman who works 60 hours per week assembling iPad components in China, though she has never seen a full iPad in person.

(Via www.appleinsider.com)

I know a lot of American workers in cubicles who work 60 hours a week and haven’t seen the product their company produces. So what’s your point, CNN?

All kidding aside, conditions in China are pretty horrible. But parading out individuals and making it look like a specific Apple issue is a little Reality TV-kitschy, even for CNN. CNN isn’t interested in getting at the truth here; they’re jumping on a bandwagon to get more clicks. This is the problem with journalism in the 21st century. Even our most “trusted” sources like the New York Times, institutions that are supposed to have high standards, follow, rather than lead. They give us what we want to hear, instead of providing us with the facts we need to form legitimate opinions.

Read this, and then this, and then we can have a talk about China. (And keep in mind that Paul Krugman is by anyone’s standards a liberal.)

I’m not saying I agree with everything in those two articles, but it did make me think there’s a lot more to this than just having companies pull out of China, or worse to have us impose American ideals on those cultures.

Like most things in the modern world, this is a complex issue. You can’t boil it down to one company, or assume that any one organization can fix it. But that’s easier, so that’s what we do. Once we push the blame and responsibility onto someone else, we can all feel better about ourselves without having to actually do anything meaningful. As if not buying a new iPhone this year is going to make anyone in China’s life better.

It’s the “Red Velvet” jar that got them into trouble a week later. When they tried to clear security at the Las Vegas airport, the jar got seized for violating the 3-1-1 rule. “This wasn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake,” wrote TSA blogger Robert Burns. “Unlike a thin layer of icing that resides on the top of most cupcakes, this cupcake had a thick layer of icing inside a jar.”

via TSA defends cupcake confiscation – CNN.com.

Okay, so it’s the amount of frosting on the cupcake that matters. SO what would be the difference between one cupcake with a lot of frosting, and say, 12 cupcakes with 1/12 of the frosting each?

What if five people brought five individual cupcakes onto the plane? Could the five of those combined not have enough explosive frosting to blow up the plane?

The liquids rule never has and never will make any sense. Any five-year old can figure that out.