Smartphones All Look Alike, Are Boring
This will sound a bit get-off-my-lawn, but smartphones are too much alike nowadays. Recently, I saw several smartphones laid out at my gym, and I was struck at how much alike they looked, despite being produced by different manufacturers and rocking different carriers and OSes. It’s all black bricks with big screens anymore. I’ve followed [...]
A Supermarket Featuring 40 Years of Product
I’m a nostalgic person, so this type of thing fascinates me. I would totally waste a day wandering through this place. For Design Researchers: The NewProductWorks Collection, a Supermarket Featuring 40 Years’ Worth of Product – Core77 This massive warehouse of old product packaging doesn’t appeal to my consumerism; it appeals to my design sense. [...]
On the 3.5 Inch Screen Size
I saw this post and reactions to it floating around, but honestly, I thought they were floppy disk memoirs or something. 3.5 Inches – Dustin Curtis When I first read the post, the assumption that the iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen is a design decision based on thumb-reach radius sounded very plausible. After all, Apple does [...]
Chrome Remote Desktop
Google announced something very cool today, Chrome Remote Desktop beta, an app in the Chrome Web Store that allows desktop sharing between any two computers. Each machine needs to be running Chrome, as well as the web app, but that’s it. No additional software to install and manage. This is huge for IT, support, and [...]
Working with Email, Not against It
Recently, I’m reminded of how much people depend on email to GSD. Despite all the flashy (and useful) content management solutions out there, the most common way to share files is still by attaching them to emails. By now, everyone understands the limitations and issues wrapped up in this practice. We only have 1 GB quotas [...]
On the Oracle Social Network
In yesterday’s afternoon keynote, the Oracle Social Network was officially announced. Check out friend of the ‘Lab Peter Reiser’s (@peterreiser) coverage for details. A few of you who’ve been reading here for a while have asked if this new product is any part of the socials apps we built and operate internally, Oracle Connect and [...]
Let’s Talk iPhone: Running the Gamut
Tons of coverage of today’s Let’s Talk iPhone event out there, as usual for Apple events. The smartest: Apple will continue to sell the iPhone 3Gs and iPhone 4 at lower prices, free with contract for the 3GS and $99 with contract for the 4. This is a great move against pressure from middle and [...]
Facebook’s Confusing Settings
While reading Nik Cubrilovic’s post on how to set up secure and private Facebook browsing, I stumbled across some interesting copy and messaging. People correctly complain that Facebook’s privacy and security options are too complex, and here’s an example of why. Check out the boilerplate and label for Facebook’s Instant Personalization feature: Carefully read the [...]
Test Driving Google Wallet
Despite my concerns about the privacy of purchasing data that goes into Google Wallet, I’m stoked to try out NFC payments. I guess the promise of a less bulky wallet is too attractive, and plus, I love shiny objects. So, when I received my $10 prepaid card offer from Google today, I jumped at the [...]
Gone Native?
I’m a bit sad that one of the few social apps I actually use anymore, Untappd (@untappd) has released native apps for Android and iOS. I’ll explain. First, what is Untappd? With a motto “drink socially”, you can probably figure it out on your own. It’s a social app for beer drinkers with a bunch [...]
Introducing Amazon Silk
Noteworthy in today’s Kindle fanfare is the new Amazon Silk browser that will run on the Kindle Fire. Introducing Amazon Silk | Amazon Silk Amazon is using its EC2 infrastructure to optimize content before sending it to the browser, similar to what mobile proxy browsers like Opera Mini do. This should make the experience much [...]
Browser Rapid Release Makes Busy Work for Web Devs
Firefox 7 dropped yesterday. So now I have seven profiles to test the last seven versions of Firefox that my users could be using: 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and now 7.0. And this doesn’t count the dot releases for each major version. This is a major pain when issues arise, since users could [...]
The Amazon Kindle Fire
Amazon announced its long-rumored Android tablet today, the Kindle Fire. The price is a scant, at least compared to other tablets, $199, which many, including our pal David (@dhaimes) are excited, but skeptical. Amazon Just Won The Android Tablet Wars With The $199 Kindle Fire | TechCrunch During the announcement, Jeff Bezos didn’t discuss specs, but rather [...]
Browsing over the Shoulder
This is either an interesting experiment in complete transparency, or Facebook’s new admin console watching you surf. Browsing over the shoulder Interesting stuff, especially given the highly disturbing news that Facebook tracks you even if you’re logged out and apparently everywhere, even to sites without a Like button or other Facebook integration. Update: Maybe not every [...]
Inconsistency Rules, Deal with It
You’ve probably heard by now that Apple is having a big “Let’s Talk iPhone” press shindig on October 4. Rumors continue to swirl, people are excited especially those iPhone 3GS owners who are out of contract and ready to upgrade. One of my Twitter pals, John DeRosa (@johnderosa), whom I’ve actually had the pleasure of [...]
Shared Link Half Life
If you need a reason to start a blog or continue blogging, check out this post on the half life of a link on various social networks. Mobile Phone Development » Blog Archive » Shared Link Half Life Sure, Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus are easier. Short format is easy and fits nicely into the [...]
Weird Controls or Reinventing the Wheel
This is a happy coincidence, since I’m trying to make this exact point about touch interfaces. This post puts interface change and its detriments in terms of game design, and the parallels with software design are many and obvious. Some developers have even taken to messaging the player at the start of the game asking [...]
Windows 8 Secure Boot Spells Trouble for Linux
It’s very early, but this might be worth freaking out about. This was discovered by Linux developer Matthew Garrett, who’s been doing a lot of work with EFI booting in general for his day job. Recent UEFI specifications have allowed for “secure boot” that requires an OS to have a signed key in system firmware to [...]
Impressions of Windows 8
When the Windows 8 Developer Preview iso dropped earlier in the week, I immediately downloaded it for a VM test drive. After some trying, I finally got it working and spent a short amount of time with it. Setting up a VM First off, kudos to Microsoft for dropping iso images of Windows 8 to [...]
Google Wallet’s Terms
Google Wallet launched yesterday, and since I have a Nexus S on Sprint, I should be seeing a Wallet application sometime soon, delivered via OTA. Wallet looks slick and useful, and it appeals to the nerd in me by proving out NFC as a useful technology. Google just added Visa to the list of partners, [...]
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