If the iOS device lineup consisted only of iPods and iPhones, I think Apple’s mobile OS could continue quite happily as a siloed one-application-at-a-time environment for many more years.
However, the iPad puts a spanner in the works. Everyone is realising for the iPad lineup to keep expanding, iOS has to grow up. The decision to run the iPad on iOS brought all the benefits of a lightweight power-efficient core, but it also brought the less-desirable characteristics as well. Most of these deficiencies don’t matter on a phone but become clear downsides on a tablet.
iPad hardware is outstripping the capabilities of the OS it runs … already. With the potential of an even bigger-screened slate on the horizon, in the form of an ‘iPad Pro’, the need to develop iOS’s multitasking and productivity workflows is more important than ever.
That being said, at the same time, users do not want to sacrifice iOS’ trademark intuitive simplicity either. That is why people love iPads and iPhones as much as they do. “Professional” does not mean complicated.
Therefore, any improvements Apple makes to iOS need to satisfy both of these criteria, to be both straightforward and advanced. It sounds paradoxical, but what realistically can be done?
Windowing is the response everyone wants to give. Let two apps live side by side onscreen. Done. Of course, it’s not that easy. On a desktop, windowing is implemented in a way that adds hierarchy, because windows can stack and occlude other windows. I think its clear to pretty much everyone by now that window management is not desirable for touch interfaces. Resizing is just too fiddly — Samsung proves this point perfectly with its latest TouchWiz stuff.
With Metro, Microsoft enforces constraints on how apps can appear side-by-side. The result is users can quickly “snap” a secondary app as a sidebar, taking up about a third of the display’s width, from anywhere in the UI with just a quick swipe from the edge of the screen. Not only easy, but understandable.
I think Apple could implement this limited form of windowing, in a way that builds upon the established platform that already exists. I mocked up what this would look like in practice, but let me elaborate on the technical details a bit further. With the iPhone 5, Apple stretched the iPhone screen resolution vertically by 176 pixels. Developers were forced to invest time making their apps’ layout vertically flexible so they looked on the iPhone 5. Effectively, Apple has seeded the app ecosystem to react to respond to changing vertical screen heights.
So, if Apple set the width of the sidebar panel to be the width of the current lineup of iPhones (640 pixels), the amount of additional work developers would have to do to adapt to the new system would minimise, because apps are already used to living in environments that are 640 pixels wide and have flexible heights. Essentially, when docked in the sidebar, iPad apps would render like elongated iPhone apps. The design of most iPhone apps lends well to tall viewports. Most apps are navbar, tableview, toolbar. Just increase the height of the tableview indefinitely to fill the additional space.
Taking this ‘panelling’ concept in a slightly different direction, iOS could do with some way to open apps in a more transient manner. With iOS 7, if you want to check Tweetbot, you have to make a concerted choice to leave what you are doing and switch. For things like Twitter, that doesn’t really make sense a lot of the time. I’d love to be able to peek at an app over-the-top of whatever I’m currently doing. Imagine something similar to how iPad Mail behaves in portrait, where the message list can be popped out with a swipe and dismissed just as quickly without losing the context of your current actions completely. This kind of approach is better suited to the 9.7inch iPad form factor we have today, as the system doesn’t need to dedicate a portion of the screen to a secondary app — it just shows and hides over the top of the current primary app.
Multitasking isn’t the only problem to tackle, of course. Ideally, iOS apps should be able to coexist and cooperate between each other. Popovers are an excellent way to expose this in UI, because of their self-contained nature. Apple already does this with integration with the stock apps: presenting a picker for photos, contacts or events in a popover is already common practice on the iPad. Apple just needs to extend this to support third-party datasources. Developers could provide UI that other developers can present to users as a modal popover, without waking up the entire app. XPC would ensure that data transfer between applications remains secure.
Apps should also have the capability to be ‘faceless’, so that other apps can query for data without needing any intermediary UI. This would enable apps like to draw on information available in other apps without pushing additional UI. For example, GarageBand could import sound-clips from apps like djay or Animoog in addition to the Music app. Similarly, a word processor could retrieve definitions from the users’ preferred dictionary app rather than stick to whatever the developer bundled with the app.
The notion of such deep access will undoubtedly sprout fear about data corruption from external sources, malicious or otherwise. However, this system of information exchange does not have to work in both directions. Read-only access alone would be enough to mature the iOS platform significantly.
In many ways, this system would end up being more sophisticated than what is available on OS X. The technologies that will enable this stuff to become reality exist in iOS today, such as remote view controllers, and are already used by Apple extensively for their own apps. Challenges arise when scaling up for third-party use, questions such as ‘which app gets priority for photo management’ are an issue.
In spite of the complexity, I strongly believe progress in this area is necessary … to make up for the shortcomings of a largely siloed OS. OS X doesn’t need this stuff because everything goes through a centralised filesystem, which iOS obviously lacks.
For example, why would they ignore the fact that as a diabetes patient, it is generally recommended that I not wear contact lenses. Yes, I understand that there are many different opinions about this, but it is generally thought of as smart to not wear contact lenses, as they always carry the risk of increased complications for diabetics.
Never heard this issue come up before. Interesting.
Dougherty’s work at Sano Intelligence is incredibly interesting in light of Apple’s work on wearable devices, and it seems likely that she will bring this expertise from Sano over to Apple. While Sano Intelligence has yet to launch their product, it has been profiled by both The New York Times and Fast Company. The latter profile shares many details about the product: it is a small, painless patch that can work on the arm and uses needle-less technologies to read and analyze a user’s blood.
Having something that can analyse blood without cutting into the skin is a hard concept to wrap my head around. Having that strand of biological analysis in a smartwatch is equally difficult to visualise. How would it be marketed for one thing?
Apple and Samsung were the winners as more consumers migrated to their flagship devices. iPhone ownership increased from 35 percent in Q4 2012 to 42 percent in Q4 2013. Likewise, Samsung Android phones increased from 22 percent of smartphones owned in Q4 2012 to 26 percent in Q4 2013.
It’s easy to take a comical stance in light of this report, play the ‘Apple is doomed’ sarcasm card and move on. However, I think it’s important to remember that the US has never been a point where Apple has struggled. The proportion of iPhones sold relative to all phones sold in the US has grown consistently for ever.
The people who genuinely believe ‘Apple is doomed’ quite rightly pinpoint other regions as the key battlegrounds for the iPhone going forward; places like India and China.
Each of us has something to share. A voice, a passion, a perspective. The potential to add a stanza to the world’s story. We were so inspired by how people use iPad every day, we set out to capture a few of these moments.
This ad has spurred quite a controversy over the weekend. It’s certainly divisive. Personally, I think the ad is okay but nothing spectacular. It is really moody and very intense but those characteristics don’t necessarily make a good ad, a trap I feel too many people fall into.
That aside, what caught my eye in particular was the accompanying micro-site for the diving expedition. I noticed Apple had put social sharing buttons for Twitter and Facebook at the bottom of the page.
This gave me an idea. I searched Twitter for the string Apple suggests (“Scuba divers are taking iPad underwater to perform research and save our coral reefs”) to gauge how well the campaign was being received. As of right now, only four people have actually tweeted the page. Make of that what you will.
Ever felt you’ve overstayed your welcome in a cafe, by reading, working or surfing the web while hugging the latte you bought two hours ago? Pay-per-minute cafes could be the answer. Ziferblat, the first UK branch of a Russian chain, has just opened in London (388 Old Street), where “everything is free inside except the time you spend there”. The fee: 3p a minute.
Ziferblat means clock face in Russian and German (Zifferblatt). The idea is guests take an alarm clock from the cupboard on arrival and note the time, then keep it with them, before, quite literally, clocking out at the end. There’s no minimum time. Guests can also get stuck into the complimentary snacks (biscuits, fruit, vegetables), or prepare their own food in the kitchen; they can help themselves to coffee from the professional machine, or have it made for them. There’s even a piano – an idea that could seem brilliant or terrible, depending on who takes the seat.
What’s stopping people grabbing a coffee and a biscuit on the way to work and then just leaving, with a total cost of 6p? Even if you take an hour to enjoy your coffee, it’s still cheaper than any other cafe in the city.
The Galaxy S4 may have fallen short of consumer expectations because its design was too similar to its S3 predecessor, Lee Young Hee said. The next handset likely will be different, she said without providing specifications, including screen size.
“When we moved to S4 from S3, it’s partly true that consumers couldn’t really feel much difference between the two products from the physical perspective, so the market reaction wasn’t as big,” she said. “For the S5, we will go back to the basics. Mostly, it’s about the display and the feel of the cover.”
If it looks the same, how will people know I upgraded?
This change relates specifically to FREE Super Saver Delivery - all other delivery services, including Amazon Prime, remain unchanged.
Our Super Saver Delivery service has changed. From 7 January 2014, all UK orders fulfilled by Amazon with a total value of at least £10 will qualify for FREE Super Saver Delivery. Previously, the £10 threshold applied to all our product categories except Books, Music, Film & TV, Blu-ray, Software or PC & Video Games.
The minimum spend requirement was first introduced back in July. Now, the threshold applies to all orders, including books.
When the £10 limit was originally instated for certain products, I assumed it was because the items in these categories were just too expensive to ship for free as individual items. Now that it applies to all goods, including books, it is obvious that this change is trying to force people onto Prime, which sucks.
Apple’s 2014 Lucky Bags went on sale in Japan today. The sale is an annual tradition in which Apple sells bags full of assorted Apple products and accessories, with buyers not knowing what they’re actually getting until they look inside. This year’s bags cost ¥36,000, which comes out to around $340.
Although every bag is guaranteed to have at least 36,000 yen worth of product, it’s gotta sting if you get lumped with an iPod nano whilst your friend lucks out with a MacBook Air.
In the past year, I converted my programming skills into a proper part-time job, started blogging at 9to5Mac and grew the readership of this blog by almost three times. My follower count has also more than trebled. As vain as it sounds, watching this number grow accounts for a disproportionately-large component of my self-satisfaction.
Thanks to everyone who helped me achieve these milestones: my clients, my readers, my employers and my friends.
Apple is rumored to release a 12.9-inch tablet in October 2014, targeting North America’s educational market, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
Apple’s large-size tablet will be manufactured by Quanta Computer, and was originally expected to adopt either 12.9- or 13.3-inch panels, with recent rumors indicating that 12.9-inch has a better chance to be picked, the sources noted.
In addition to tablets, Apple is also rumored to be planning a larger size iPhone for May 2014, using a 20nm processor manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the sources noted.
As for whether the large-size tablet will also adopt the same processor, performance is expected to be a major factor as the tablet is being considered as a substitute of the 11-inch MacBook Air, the sources speculated.
I wouldn’t put much faith in a Digitimes report, but I do think that Apple will want to have major new products announced (if not released) in the first half of next year. I don’t think they want to cram all their announcements into the last three months of the year again.
Whether the iPhone specifically is coming out in June or not … who knows?
Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function hashing mechanism was strlen(). In order to get a nice hash distribution of function names across the various function name lengths names were picked specifically to make them fit into a specific length bucket. This was circa late 1994 when PHP was a tool just for my own personal use and I wasn’t too worried about not being able to remember the few function names.
As is tradition, Apple is airing a new holiday commercial this evening, this time highlighting the iPhone 5s, its movie making capabilities, and AirPlay with the Apple TV. The ad is set to the tune of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. As you may recall, last year Apple highlighted the iPad and FaceTime, with an ad set to “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”. In 2011, Apple featured Siri and the then-new iPhone 4S.
This year’s ad takes an entirely different approach, focusing on the iPhone and real world usage scenarios for it.
I think the pace is too slow for a ‘jolly’ Christmas commercial. Not enough happens. It’s not ‘bad’, but I don’t think it’s very memorable or provoking. I much preferred last year’s holiday ad.
Unfortunately, short of removing app ratings entirely, Apple can’t do much to stop them, and they’ll continue to “work” on enough people for many developers to continue using them.
I disagree; I think Apple wields enough control that this stuff can be regulated. Is stuff going to slip through the net? Of course, but some policing is better than none.
In a refreshing departure from its iconic flick-and-throw style animated gameplay, Rovio is out with a brand new Mario Kart-like game depicting the ongoing battle between the winged warriors and pesky pigs with Angry Birds GO!
Angry Birds GO! delivers ‘breakneck speed’ downhill racing on Piggy Island in the first three-dimensional version of the series for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
The game works off a freemium model. Some of the cars cost $50 to buy.
Nokia has been building its own Android phone according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans. Codenamed Normandy, and known internally at Nokia under a number of other names, the handset is designed as the next step in low-end phones from the Finnish smartphone maker. We understand that Nokia has been testing “Normandy” with a special “forked” variant of Android that’s not aligned with Google’s own version, akin to what Amazon does with its Kindle Fire line.
If this project isn’t scrapped, the day this ships to consumers will be the day that perfectly epitomises all that is wrong with Microsoft.
