Daryl Baxter.

WWDC 13 Announced.

After last night’s conference call saying there would pretty much be no new products until fall (although I’m hoping for the new refresh of the Macbooks in June) iOS 7 and 10.9 are certainly to be shown.

A UI refresh of iOS is surely to come, along with Siri and Maps coming to OS X.

And in the same week as E3 as well, a good week to come, roll on June 10th.

Apple and Twitter.

• Apple can’t update its online store without taking it offline first.
• A popular Game Center game was able to bring down the entire network.
• Apple requires you to re-friend everyone on Game Center, Find my Friends, and Shared Photostreams.
• Notes requires an email account to sync.
• The iTunes and App Stores are still powered by WebObjects, a mostly dead framework written almost 20 years ago.
• iMessage for Mac lives in an alternate dimension in which time has no ordered sequence.
• Ping.

Apple should buy Twitter not for its social network, but for its talent and technology. That talent and technology could undoubtably help bring Apple and iCloud into the 21st century. The social network is basically an added bonus.

Agree with everything here. Google can update their web services without having to take it down with a ‘Back Soon!’ post it note, so why can’t Apple.

Source.

Rethinking design for iOS 7.

A really great mockup of how iOS can go beyond it’s current state. 3 Features that could do with these improvements.

The first new feature of the lockscreen is something I call “Lockscreen Cards.” Basically, they’re little informative slates that are connected to an app. You can slide between the cards in the same way that you slide between homescreen pages.

The grabber which was introduced a year ago, with the camera icon appearing next to the ‘slide to unlock’ bar, shows a method of improving this:

Quick access to the camera was a great addition to the lockscreen in mid 2011, but I think that the idea could be taken further. The grabber should be able to open any app action that you want. So, first, what exactly is an “app action?” It’s basically anything that you do with an app. Update your status on Twitter, check-in on Foursquare, take a picture with Instagram, whatever. So you can customize your grabber to be one of those things.

More on below.

Source.

Loren Brichter on iOS Design and Tweetie.

Loren Brichter, the founder of Tweetie and then sold it to Twitter, which is now their official app, talks about how he see’s design, and what iOS design could mean now that Jonny Ive is in charge.

One quote that stood out for me:

One of my complaints about design of iOS is it’s doing things that aren’t true to the hardware.

Something that seems to be coming to the forefront of what iOS 7 will be, is how the design is going to be so simple, but elegant, and just makes sense. Exactly how the design of the hardware has been since 1998. Now with Ive in charge, the design of iOS 7 will complement the hardware completely.

Source.

iPad Mini.

So i finally got to try out the iPad Mini, and the first thing that hits me is:

This is a fuzzy screen.

Then you actually try out Safari, and some games such as Crazy Taxi, Jetpack Joyride, and that feeling of disappointment goes away.

When I was controlling the taxi, it was a lot easier than doing it on a 9.7 inch screen, and as this isn’t updated for retina anyway, it looked and played exactly the same as my iPad 3.

I’ve said it before, and this will be ideal for students, especially in Primary schools. Also with photographers so they can modify any photo with iPhoto, or just having an iPad Mini connected to a hospital network and downloading the patient records.

It’s one huge step closer to what we saw in Star Trek.

The design is a bigger iPhone 5, so that smooth back is all here, and the jewelry like edge are all present here.

And of course, it’s light as a feather.

If i wasn’t using my iPad as my primary computer and only using it as a secondary device to my Mac or PC, i’d seriously think about the Mini. Especially if I wanted to give one of these to my son or daughter down the line, the size is ideal for them.

Give it 6 months minimum and i can see a retina iPad Mini, but for now, if you’re looking out for an iPad, this is it.

Steve Jobs.

A year ago when i found out the news, I was in London and went to the Apple Store at Regent Street and Covent Garden, the following is what i wrote in a previous blog of mine. RIP Steve.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?

Breaking away from the usual of this blog, the past 24 hours up until now has been, emotional.
I was about to get to sleep last night when I checked twitter and the reports were coming in, and I had seen this before, but was usually disregarded right away.
But i went on the Apple site, and there he was, not among us anymore.

First, a little history:
I had first come across a Mac back in Secondary school. In this computer room, one half was old, Mac OS 9 computers, while the other half had the brand new iMac with Mac OS X on it.
You can probably guess what i tried out first.
I was trying to get used to the OS nearly every lunch break, i’d spend about a half hour on the internet, and i even remember now I couldn’t believe how this blue box was so fast and just worked. I tried to see if i could use this instead of the networked Windows PC’s, but i was told no, gutting.

Around 2003 had this Nomad Jukebox that the Dad gave me, and it was terrible. Looked like a CD player, awful UI, and battery life of 2 hours, and it took ages for it to play once you selected it.
I then bought my first iPod, a 3rd gen, and my memory then of a ‘Nomad’ was erased. I remember thinking how crazy it was that it was the size of a drink carton, yet better in every way.
From then on it went to the iPod Photo, to the 5th Gen iPod, and the subsequent iPhones, iMac, and now it’s a iPhone 4 and Macbook Pro. The elegance and ‘it just works’ mantra couldn’t be more true, they feel like they’ve been thought over and over again. It feels like a first class Concorde ticket every time you switch it on until the moment you switch it off, it’s always there to help you or service you in watching a film, listening to music, or just a simple browse. I couldn’t go back at all when it’s this good.

Since i had gotten my act together about 18 months ago, one of the end goals was to meet Steve Jobs, just to say thanks really, and to say that I actually work for Apple and Steve Jobs essentially, but that chance has been taken away from me, from anyone who knows him and also wanted to meet him, any chance of talking to him again are now no more in this life.

So instead, surprised at how down i was feeling about it this morning, I thought i’d go to an Apple Store. I thought if i’m feeling not 100%, maybe theres a few outside the store who feels the same.

I arrived to see this:



















I thought i’d take a few on my iPhone, and there were some photographers, and they then all of a sudden asked me to go right up, kneel down a bit, and they kept taking photos of me for which felt like a minute. I haven’t seen any of them anywhere yet, they said they worked for a London paper, so maybe tomorrow? there’s nothing on the web yet.

It just felt really moving, then when I walked into the Store, there was this sense that hadn’t been there before. The staff weren’t the same, not the public looking at the Macs or iPads etc, just something that wasn’t there before, a sense of loss.
 His DNA is and always will be a part of Apple, from the products you buy, to the shops and online store you’ll visit for years to come.

I thought i’d get some flowers to put down to show my respects, so I got some orange lilies to the left:

I thought i’d then go to Regent Street. I hadn’t been before, and wanted to see what kind of tributes were there, and it was only about half 1, so after about half hour, i arrived.
By which time i wish i had a jacket, crazy blasts of cold wind, then I came across this:

And still there were people putting more post it notes, flowers, cards, just essentially saying
‘Thank You, you changed the world for the better, for all of us.’

I was nice to see everyone round, just looking and taking pictures. No one spoke at all, just stared at the tributes.

Cameras started to appear, and a Chinese and Australian news crew appeared to do their report on this. The australians interviewed the guy above, and then, me!
I was just staring at the flowers and they wanted me to be interviewed.
They asked me questions about what i thought of his impact he had on the world, how he made ‘geek’ sound cool, and how Apple will be now.. So i replied with the below from what i can remember:

I had said that he taught us to ‘Think Different’, and in these times, we all have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, and even though he’s gone, there will still always be a part of him in Apple, always, and i’m sure for whatever products are coming out , be it an iPad 3, iPhone 6, he would have been heavily involved still.
Everyone will want to make him proud, and i’m sure that everyone will, they will change the world just as he did.
I haven’t seen the report yet, but i’m sure because of the impact of this, i’ll be seeing it soon.

Not the best of photos, but thats the Aussie crew, they’re interviewing a guy who was after me, was taking a photo of the flowers with his iPad.










I thought after being in the store, i’d just walk back to Covent Garden. Took about a half hour, but i was feeling better. I thought, anyone who has seen this today, heard Steve Jobs, or at the least had an Apple product, can take the fact that they’ve bought something they he spent every night and day with his team to make it simple, elegant, and just work.

Mountain Lion.

Today the latest version of Mac OS X is released. 10.8, the first version i’ve missed out on in 6 years, and also the one that is driving further down the path of the coming iOS/Mac OS X Fusion.

Reading the reviews, from The Verge to Daring Fireball, to All Things D, the general concensus is that:

• Cheaper Price
• Faster
• Airplay Mirroring.
• Full iCloud integration
• Twitter and soon Facebook baked into the OS
• No better reason for spending $20 or £14.

As the updates are now on a yearly cycle as iOS has been since its original release, one has to wonder just what 10.9 will unveil, a further fusion, possibly a Maps app on Mac OS X?

Its hard to believe that when 10.5 Leopard was in the making, it had to be delayed by 6 months just so engineers could be transferred to concentrate on having the iPhone launch on time. 5 years on, and a yearly release for both OS’ they can do with ease.

Looking ahead to see what may be on 10.9 apart from a possible dedicated Maps app, it’s too hard to say. But right now, Apple definitely has the understanding that on a PC, the function of a keyboard and mouse is always primary. If its changed too much for a one size fits all scenario (Windows 8) then there’ll be more alienation than attraction to the platform.

It may be a 0.1 release, but in 10 years since 10.0, Windows 8 seems to be the turning point of where the consumer will be able to realise what is the better, elegant, faster, more cared for OS in the PC age.

And you don’t need me to type out what the answer is.

Surface.

This video sums up everything i felt about Monday’s event.

Also to quote one man from the above video:

If you see a stylus, they blew it.