Hi, I'm Shaun Robinson, a web developer in Ipswich, UK.
Here I post interesting and useful things I find on the internet, with the occasional photo or post about Real Life™
John Gruber has said some great things about Adobe’s news, but this is his best point:
Apple didn’t win. Everybody won. Flash hasn’t been superseded in mobile by any sort of Apple technology. It’s been superseded by truly open web technologies. Dumping Flash will make Android better, it will make BlackBerrys better, it will make the entire web better. iOS users have been benefitting from this ever since day one, in June 2007.
iOS counts for 61% mobile web usage, Android just 18%. This shows that most Android owners don’t even use their phone as a ‘smartphone’.
Zelda iPhone text tones
Now that iOS 5 lets you change the text tones (and other sounds) on your iPhone, I created some great ones for Zelda fans.
All the sounds come from the excellent site Legend of Zelda Sound Effects, but the download link below has them formatted as an iPhone ringtone you can just drag into iTunes.
Noises include: The famous “Puzzle complete” noise, Navi “Hey!” and “Listen!”, Various sounds for obtaining items, the Mail Man from Twilight Princess, and more!
[Starbucks CIO] also said that iDevices from Apple are used more in its stores than any others. How important is that? Well, Gillett wanted to use Flash on the social network, but there wasn’t any way he could because of Steve Jobs’ refusal to support Flash.
So, Starbucks built its system using HTML5.
—Starbucks CIO shows why next version of Windows is “risky business” for Microsoft (and why iOS is the best thing to ever happen to the Open Web).
Another gem from this interview: “He said that laptop usage is flat, or even slightly declining, and that mobile usage [including tablets like iPad] is on fire and growing a great percentage every month.”
This is what high-end smartphones looked like in 2007:
Smartphones were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws.
Then this happened:
I love Carcassonne! It reminds me of playing the board game at uni.
If you have this game add me, shauny@gmail.com
Apple makes more profit from mobile phone sales than the entire rest of the industry combined.
There’s an awful lot of hoopla
Around the iphone 4 anttenna
When you grip it with the death grip
And you’re call slips away
The media loves a failure
In a string of success
The facts won’t ever matter
If they can make bigger messes
Sure i can make it happen
But in terms of daily usage
I’ve yet to drop a call
So this whole damn thing is stupid
And you can call me a fanboy
I’ve been called worse things
But Gizmodo just ridiculous
Pulling their anti-apple strings
You bought a stolen prototype
Get over it and move on
Or hey even better
Let’s all sing this song
If you don’t like iPhone 4 - don’t buy it. If you bought it and don’t like it - bring it back.
Apple consiracy uncovered:
- Glass panel connects with drop surface on falls. The guys at iFix Your i claimed this design flaw when they noted the steel frame offers no protection to the glass panel when dropped face flat. Apple’s iPhone 4 Bumper has a raised rubber edge to prevent this.
- Square steel edges are uncomfortable in hand. I noted this when I first got my iPhone 4, mentioned it a few weeks ago, and even a genius at the Apple store brought it up without prompting. The 4 is just uncomfortable to hold. Oh, but the Bumper has nice, soft, rounded rubber edges.
- The back is too darn slick. That oleophobic coating makes it wonderfully easy to wipe away fingerprints, but it also makes the 4 a frictionless wonder. Hard to pluck from my pocket, impossible to rest on a slightly rounded surface. That grippy rubber Bumper sure fixes that problem though.
- And finally, there’s that magic spot on the lower left that kills wireless signals on contact, like a can of Raid smashing a cockroach. Can’t touch that spot if there’s a Bumper in the way, can you?
So if Apple knew about the problems and designed the Bumper to address them, why didn’t they include Bumpers with the 4? Short answer: money. If people buy cases anyway, why give them away?
Actually yes, they knew about issues, and they want you to buy a Bumper case along with your iPhone 4. But this time Apple’s habit to put less and less into product boxes finally backfired.
Dear Apple, why didn’t you just include a bumer case with each iPhone 4? If you did, now you wouldn’t have to read all those articles everywhere.
(via dear-apple)
Whilst I agree that it seems like you really need a case to make your iPhone 4 more usable (although the examples above are a bit OTT), I think they would have had complaints if they included the bumper in the box anyway.
The price of the phone would go up $30, so you would effectively be ‘forced’ to buy their case. What about other cases? Not only would case makers call foul (and say Apple has a monopoly on iPhone 4 cases because of bundling), but this would also limit consumer choice.
If you want a bumper, buy it. If you’re pissed off at Apple for the ‘conspiracy’ then buy a case from someone else. Simple.
Although it makes you wonder if their exaggerated reporting of signal strength was on purpose and if other phones do that too…
Apple just posted a letter about the iPhone 4 antenna: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/07/02appleletter.html (it’s not a problem)
RT: @micflan: O2 iPhone people — don’t forget you can get out of contract free before July 12th! #o2fail http://bit.ly/dsrXEh
Anybody would think Apple’s iPhone 4 is the first phone with an antenna. Here is evidence that all phones have problems when you cover up the antenna - and here is a video of another Nokia with the same problem as the iPhone.
The fact is, the antennas have to be at the bottom - this was mandated by the FCC, because of radiation scares. Yes, the “mobiles cause cancer” fears that have been debunked again and again and again.
Don’t blame Apple or Nokia or any other phone that this happens to (read: all of them). Blame idiots in government who don’t understand science.
tj said:
Instructions from a Nokia 2320 which boil down to “avoid holding it that way.”
