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Tag Archives: ios

Why Apple Will Make a MacBook Touch (eventually)

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A few weeks ago someone mocked up a concept MacBook touch, and in a nutshell, they way-y-y-y-y overthought it.  After a week(ish) using my iPad with an external keyboard, I can see how the worlds could and should collide.  And I think it’s exactly what Apple plans to do – one day. The concept is already as much as there in their products anyway: ship Mountain Lion with the ability to “launch” iOS.  That’s it.

In the current OS X, Lion, we already have LaunchPad, a feature clearly designed for a touch-screen interface, mainly because it’s the exact UI for iOS apps.  This would/should be touch-enabled.

Next, OS X already has an App Store, the inventory of which could easily expand to include iOS apps.

The LaunchPad would become the primary “desktop”, and Finder would move to be an app instead of the primary navigation metaphor.

Apps could then be written as OS X, or OS X with touch, or iOS.  Standard OS X apps would function like they do today, expecting a mouse + keyboard interface.  That’s the easy part.

iOS apps would go into full-screen, thought likely not include the ability to rotate – but maybe they wouldn’t have to.  The next-gen MacBooks are already rumored to go retina anyway, which provides enough pixels for a portrait-mode app to run on the screen size of a 13″ laptop.  Granted, a ton of apps would work poorly – things that require lots of motion sensitive or heavy gesture inputs.  But maybe that’s okay.  Maybe this isn’t about a laptop with great Infinity Blade capabilities, it’s a bit more focused on productivity.  More on this in a bit.

OS X with touch apps would be able to support mouse + keyboard + touch interfaces.  This is the tricky part.  There are times when touch works great, other times when the mouse is ideal.  For example, a pull-down menu is going to be too tiny to easily work with a finger, but the mouse is perfect.  Similarly, mouse-overs are useful for many applications, and the pixel-level work in design apps could never be done without a mouse.  But moving files, selecting apps to run, and creating free-form quick designs are all radically better with a touch input.  Gestures are awesome methods of navigating through computing interfaces.  There’s a right balance, and as long as Apple can clearly delineate best practices, I think some great new experiences would emerge.

Combining the full power of OS X and iOS brings great power, and accordingly, great… You know.  But in all seriousness, this isn’t meant as a “make a MacBook all fun like the iPad” nor is it “turn the iPad into a productivity center”.  It’s both.  The computing era has evolved to the point where touch is a key part of things.  Further, Apple is uniquely positioned to create a product like this, where the touch features augment the overall platform, as opposed to just being gimmicky.  Lastly, they’ll create yet another leap forward that their competition will have to spend eons catching up to.

ps – for those wondering, I’m using the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard for iPad. I love it.  I started with the Apple Wireless Keyboard (with great sleeve by SF Bags) but ultimately preferred Logitech’s solution.  Amazingly.

My Top 10 iPhone Apps in 2011

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Sharing your favorites seems to be the hip thing to do, so I thought I’d share my absolute favorite apps on both my iPhone and iPad (not including any default iOS apps).  These are basically the apps I use all the time, and really enjoy using. There’s also quite a few apps I use daily, but might not like as much, as well as apps I think are amazing, but only use on a very infrequent basis.  And there are also apps I don’t much like and rarely use, but I didn’t really see the point in including those…

One other note – I picked apps from all categories, including games, social, etc. Also, I didn’t deliberately pick 10, it just worked out that way.  First up – iPhone fave’s (in no particular order, btw).

Chef’s Feed

Chef’s Feed is a fun app for foodies (wannabe foodies as well).  The app has a list of the “top” chefs of a city, and said chefs have picked their favorite dishes (not restaurants) to eat.  The app lets you make a bucket list of dishes that appeal to you, and also is a handy way to find a good bite when you aren’t sure what to eat. Free app.

Words With Friends

It’s like Scrabble, only more “balanced” so players at many levels can really enjoy the game.  Vocabulary and knowledge of “Scrabble words” is very helpful, and tile placement strategy is essential to win, but regardless, it’s possibly the best non real-time game time waster app out there. Free and paid versions.

Camera+

It’s a good photo taker, but more importantly it’s a fun photo editor/filter.  Simple effects, easy cropping, and simple sharing (though I wish they’d just let me send images instead of creating a whole new link/web system). Paid app.

Test Flight

Simply put: Test Flight lets app developers send you their apps prior to putting them in the iTunes App store. It’s great for previewing or testing out apps in development. If you are an app developer and are not using Test Flight, you should start now.  Free to consumers, paid by developers.

GrubHub

GrubHub is an app that replaces all the crappy little delivery menus restaurants leave on your door (though hey, free rubber band).  They have tons of local restaurants, plus in-app ordering, and, as pictured above, an order history which makes it super convenient to remember where you liked (or hated) to eat.  Free app.

Starbucks

Yeah, I know, cliche, whatever. You prefer Blue Bottle, great, so do I, but $12 for a latte that takes 45 minutes to make doesn’t always work out for me. The Starbucks app does one main thing: let me not have to carry my Starbucks card around.  Nice.  Free app.

Flashlight

Guess what this app does?  Free.

Temple Run

After Words, Temple Run is the next best time-killer game I know.  Basically, you run, and run, and run, and then run a bit more.  You jump, duck, pivot, and you turn yourself around, and that’s what it’s all about.  Free.

Pandora

Free personalized radio on your iPhone.  Any questions?  Nah, I didn’t think so. Great for road trips.  Free.

Zite

Gosh I love Zite.  Zite brings me articles I want, on topics I like, and does so with sickeningly good accuracy.  While Twitter (and vis-a-vis Flipboard, Pulse, etc) are great for bringing me feeds on a variety of topics, the one thing these apps fail to deliver for me is topical content based on my interests, not my followers or those I am following. I open Zite, I find content I like.  Life is good. Oh, and – free.

That’s my list of favorite iPhone apps, hope you enjoy.  Here’s the quick list of “runners up”:

  • Plants vs Zombies – it’s fairly new to me, I’m having fun playing but I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my interest.  Could be a winner, not sure yet.  Paid.
  • WhiteNoise – self explanatory. Free and paid versions.
  • Flixter – movie lookups (solid app, just don’t get to see many movies).  Free.
  • IMDB – satisfies inner movie nerd needs. Free.
  • Path – just started experimenting.  Beautiful app design. Does all that Facebook stuff, only without the massive invasion of privacy.  Also, just for your real-world friends (you remember those, right?). Free.
  • Twitter – read description of Path above.  Now think the opposite of it.  Free.
  • Yelp – great to look up restaurants I already am thinking of going to. Not useful as a restaurant recommendation/finder app.  Free.
  • CardMunch – take picture of business card, scans it, sends to the Internet, comes back as LinkedIn contact.  Previous version of app was notably better than current, but still works great. Free.
  • Expensify – if you do a lot of business expensing, you must have this app.  Free.
  • Sonos – controls my Sonos.  Would be on the must-have list, but I know not everyone has a Sonos.  Free.
  • AppShopper – great app, lets you create a “wishlist” of apps you want, then notifies you when they go on sale.  Free.
  • iHandy Level – it’s a level.  comes in handy.  Free.

Anything you think I should check out – leave a comment!  iPad version of this list coming soon!

ps – I’d include Dijit, but that’s cheating. 🙂

The difference between Fragmentation and Disparate Products, a counterpoint

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My friend Louis Gray wrote a piece tonight mostly about the new Apple TV, but focusing on how he believes Apple is introducing fragmentation into their ecosystem.  Go ahead, give it a read.

I was writing the following as a long comment, and just as I was wrapping up I thought it would serve better as a blog post.  Please consider it a counter-point, and you should definitely read Louis’ arguments first.  Go ahead, click there, then read all the way through the comments until you get to…

“I’ve yet to see anybody dispute the facts about each device running a different flavor of the OS, which is the crux of the issue.”

The reason nobody’s disputing it is because it’s not actually an issue.  Apple does not, for the most part, have fragmentation in their platforms (other than tiny exceptions, which I’m sure someone will point out snarkily in the comments).  This is about disparate products, not a fragmented operating system implementation (though I do completely agree that the iTunes experience is woefully out of date within the overall product line Apple sells).

First, all the comparisons about what does/doesn’t play on Apple TV on day 1 of shipping are irrelevant – the wide swath of Americans who will buy the device will pick it up later this year (you know, November-ish), by which time the content library will be different.

Second, it’s not as if there’s any cross-product features, other than the few apps which happen to run both on an iPad and on an iPhone/Touch.   When we talk about Android fragmentation it’s because all the products are being labeled as having a common platform, yet there is MASSIVE discrepancy between user interface, app compatibility, features, etc.

Third, Apple isn’t out there marketing “iOS 4 devices” other than when it needs to in re updating iPads/iPhones.  And even then, it’s highly product-specific.  Android, on the other hand, *is* a promise/value expectation (and I’ll avoid commenting on the quality at this point).  When Google touts new Android features and someone with a Droid Eris (my former, sad sad sad phone) hears about them, they have *NO WAY* of knowing they will never ever get them.

Fourth, and last, is about the developers.  Ultimately fragmentation is most keenly an issue to them (even more than consumers), as it impacts their livelihood.  So if you are developing for Android, yet your app won’t run on the mega-phone Evo, and runs poorly on a Droid X, but is nice on the HTC Incredible (my current, much better, but still lacking phone), how are you supposed to communicate that to consumers, who will inevitably write poor reviews, not trust your brand, and ultimately not spend money with you.

That’s the problem with fragmentation.  Now let’s look at developers for iOS – they know exactly (1) how big their market potential is, (2) where the money is flowing, (3) how to build apps within the ecosystem, and (4) with 100% certainty, which devices their apps will run on.  A bad user experience is utterly the developers’ faults, not due to some random hardware maker poorly implementing an OS.  And if/when Apple TV gets iOS 4 (my prediction is it doesn’t happen until the next version of the device, but I’m getting a lot of these wrong these days, so who knows???), developers will have a clear path to build whatever apps they can, knowing exactly how they will perform.

Predictions for Apple event, Sept 1 2010

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Watch live video from Jeremy Toeman on Justin.tv

In a nutshell:
– iPad iOS 4.0
– refreshed iPods, with wifi
– no 3x3cm iPod touch
– adding “touch” to iPod classic
– iTunes with internet streaming & sync
– no iTV announcement today
– iBeatles