Where you find religion, you find disagreement. Nothing has caused more derision in the history of the world than religion. But yoga, really? Who hates yoga? If yoga studios have achieved religious status, surely Apple's decades-old crusade of fanboys versus haters should be granted religious status.
Acting like I know what I'm doing...
Monday, July 30, 2012
Apple Using Its Religion
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Apple Patents Conversational Speech
"We realize the broader societal implications of this patent. However, we strongly feel that this technology is not standards-essential and we will not be licensing it under FRAND terms. We fully intend to allow users of Apple products to continue to communicate with each other and with Siri as they do today. For others, we can recommend several iBooks on topics ranging from grunting, to cave drawing, hieroglyphics, and runes. Please keep in mind that mankind has been communicating for millenia; far longer than communication in its current form has existed."
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Student Creates Black Hole by Crossing The Cloud Storage Streams
"I just wanted as much free storage as possible. I hoped that by syncing the various products with each other, I might achieve some form of storage amplification. I never imagined I would shake the foundations of physics or cloud storage file compatibility."
"We cannot comment at this time as our internal IT policy strictly forbids the installation of storage solutions utilizing a public cloud infrastructure. If the LHC manages to unlock the secrets of time travel, we fully intend to go back in time and make sure that our IT administrator's father and mother never meet."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Incontrovertible Proof of iPhone Redesign
"We don't know why you people keep calling it the 'iPhone 5'. Don't you realize this will be the sixth iPhone? This is not Siri, by the way." - unnamed Apple spokesperson who may or may not have been Siri
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Flooding the rumor mill
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Things don’t have to change the world to be important
In the wake of the news surrounding Steve Jobs’ resignation, the Wall Street Journal posted a list of Steve’s best quotes. Among them, was this gem:
“Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” [Wired, February 1996]
I latched onto this for a couple of reasons. One is that Jobs’ keynotes and persona often come across as ego-laden and overplay Apple’s implementation of existing technologies as “world changing”. I’ll leave that for the fanboys and haters to debate.
The more compelling reason this piqued my interest is that start-ups and the press that covers them (I’m looking at you TechCrunch) are obsessed with how these fledglings will change the world. In fact, there are two boilerplate templates about how start-ups pitch themselves:
1. Start-up X is the Y for Z. For example, YouPud is the YouTube for corporate sexual harassment videos.
2. Startup-up X is changing the world by … For example, MyNicheNetwork is changing the world by creating an online community of people who are left-handed and right-footed.
I think number one is the result of laziness. Not on behalf of the start-ups, but on behalf of the VCs. I would venture to bet that this format was borrowed from Hollywood, where new movie ideas are pitched as similes.
But it’s number two that really annoys me. In fact, it’s why I left YouNoodle in a huff. I got tired of so many start-ups pitching themselves as “changing the world”. Especially when they were targeting a very small niche, doing something that was easily emulated, or just copying another successful company. If you are doing any of these, you are not going to change the world (at least in a positive way).
But even if a company really is doing something new, unique, and innovative, it most likely WON’T change the world. There may be one company in a generation that really changes the world. An you know what, that’s OK. You don’t have to change the world to be successful, to make money, to impact the world.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Tablet Virtual Keyboards: A Typo Comparison
I have been surprised at how capable my iPad 2 has been at content creation. The virtual keyboard and autocorrect are surprisingly efficient at capturing meeting notes, jotting down thoughts, etc.
Over the course of the last few weeks, I have had a Motorola Xoom to play with as well. I have been using both my own iPad and the Xoom at work, alternating which I use at meetings. I’ve been astonished at how much better the iPad is at typing. It’s surprising, given that both keyboards are roughly the same size; actually the Xoom is slightly wider due to the screen aspect ration.
This is far from scientific, but as a demonstration, here are a few sentences I typed out on each tablet. The only corrections were autocorrect. I explicitly prohibited myself from using backspace:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation.
iPad: Four sore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation.
Xoom: Four score and seven years avoum our fathers brought fir kn thus continent a new nation.
The quick brown fox jumped over the two lazy dogs.
iPad: Te quickl brown fox jumped over the two lazy dogs.
Xoom: The quick briuwn fix jumlex over the two, az div.
Which is better, the apple keyboard or the android one?
iPad: Wich is heather, the apple keyboard of the andoird one?
Xoom: Which us better the aop,e mdybkarx ir the andkjd kind?
Why does the apple keyboard routinely miss the second letter of a word?
iPad: Why dos the apple keyboard routinely miss the second letter of a word?
Xoom: Why did the aooke keyboard routuneky miss the second letter if the word?
So many words typed on the android keyboard don’t even resemble real words. Why is that?
iPad: So may words tped on the android keyboard don’t even resemble real words. Why is that?
Xoom: So many words tyoed in the android keyboard don’t even resebke real word, why is that?
So far it looks like the biggest problem on the apple keyboard is missed keystrokes.
iPad: So fear it looks like the biggest or Len on the apple keyboard is missed keystrokes.
Xoom: So far t kijs like the biggest lripen in the aooke keyboard us missed meystrijds.
No doubt there are plenty of typos is both. But the iPad performed significantly better than the Android tablet. It also appears that the Android spell-check is a Scandinavian person who hates Apple. In three attempts at typing the word “apple” on the Android keyboard, all three failed. Conspiracy?
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