Jim Cloudman

John Gruber's Talk Show leaves 5by5

Sat, 19 May 2012 13:04:23 -0500

This is a big deal because The Talk Show was the podcast that forever changed 5by5. Prior to The Talk Show, 5by5 was characterized by shows like the Expression Engine podcast, The Pipeline and The Dev Show - podcasts that were almost entirely educational in nature. The Talk Show changed the equation: throwing in speculation, imagination and entertainment to create something that was fun to listen to, not just informative.

I’ve stopped listening to the Talk Show, however. Not just with the switch-over - it’s been mostly ignored for several months now. To try to explain why, I’ll go through the four podcasts I do listen to, and explain why I listen to them:

Build and Analyze: Every time I listen, I learn something interesting. More often than not it’s something development related, often valuable insights from running your own software company. Other times it’s coffee, which intrigues me even if I won’t drink it. And other times it’s car talk, which I love learning about. It gets the imagination going, and I love to exercise it.
Hypercritical: If B&A gets the imagination going, Hypercritical gets my critical thinking ability going. If John Siracusa was dictator of this country, we’d all be driving flying cars to work by now. He can take a problem, break it down, and come up with the best solution to it like nobody else can. He isn’t perfect, but when he isn’t, you can always explain it away as a matter of perspective.
Geek Friday: This is what I would consider a wonderful entertainment and educational experience. Jason & Faith are the most ridiculous combination of co-hosts - I’m not sure if it’s a genius move or a recipe for disaster. They talk about geek culture, which is something that I don’t really get to experience in the middle of Wisconsin, and that may be for better or for worse. But I love listening to this show.
B&B Podcast: This is also a show that tends to get the imagination going, though I disagree with Ben Brooks on damn near everything. I like how they talk about the tools they use and how they improve their productivity and daily routine, and explain why they use them.

Why isn’t The Talk Show on my list? I’m not sure. I can’t say why I don’t listen to it. However, it did serve as my backup podcast for when the four above ran out¹, and I can’t explain why I listen to it then, either. But one thing is for certain: these four podcasts above are better.

Which is why I worry for the show’s future. The best points of The Talk Show were the points where Dan Benjamin interjected. Usually he brought up something that was a little off the wall, it threw John Gruber off his balance, and it usually brought up a really good point a few minutes later. I worry that he’s becoming the David Lee Roth to 5by5’s Van Halen - goes off on his own, does alright for a while, but then it’s clear to everyone that he took the old band for granted. The initial comments on the new show seem to support that, though that should change somewhat as the new pair gets more comfortable with each other.

Time will tell, but I do know that Amplified is becoming my new backup podcast. To me, it seems broadly similar to The Talk Show, except with a more likeable host and less intentionally offensive Canada jokes. But I do hope that things go well for the new show on the new network, because it was the podcast that made 5by5 and inspired other great podcasts - it’s too important to wither away.

This only happens on 12 hour round trip drives to the middle of nowhere. Which happens about every other month. ↩

The New, Bigger iPhone

Sat, 19 May 2012 11:23:48 -0500

Something has been bugging me about the new iPhone rumors saying that the new phone will get bigger, and that to make apps work with the larger display they should only expand in one dimension.

I’m reluctant to say that a 9x16 aspect ratio is natural for anything. It just seems much too narrow to me. Further, I think the arguments for doing so don’t hold water. If Apple decides to do a new display at the same pixels per inch, I think they’ll take old apps and simply center them on the bigger screen, and the surrounding pixels will be nothingness. They already worked wonderfully at that size, after all, and the only consequence is more bezel around old apps. As long as the thumb can reach everything - which it will have to, else the new iPhone will be awful - it should not be problematic.

I think that a bigger 4-inch-screen iPhone will come in whatever shape feels most natural, and new apps will either have to rework themselves to the new resolution or be content with being the same size and in the same spot as they were on the iPhone 4. That doesn’t strike me as a bad deal.

John Gruber on iOS 6 Maps App

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:10:23 -0500

John Gruber on iOS 6 Maps App:

No surprise to anyone even vaguely paying attention to the cold war between Apple and Google.

Just out of curiosity, what will it take for the war between Apple and Google to become a “hot” war? Do artillery shells have to be raining down on Mountain View or will there merely be a formal declaration of war to announce it?

Happy Birthday Mom!

Fri, 04 May 2012 12:41:43 -0500

Happy Birthday Mom!

Day in the Life of a Music Snob

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:51:27 -0500

7:30:00 PM:

Well, I’m out of podcasts, might as well listen to some music through my standard iPhone earbuds. Should be listenable for a little while, I would imagine.

7:30:30 PM:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH OH GOD IT SOUNDS LIKE A SCREECHING CAT FILTERED THROUGH RAW ANALOG TV STATIC AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH WHERE IN THE HELL ARE MY SENNHEISERS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Windows 8: Russian Roulette Edition

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:05:56 -0500

Let’s say you’re a Windows developer. Already you’re facing the problem that you’re on an Android-esque platform where no consumers want to buy applications. Compound that with the fact that Microsoft’s UI development tools on Windows before Windows 8 are either 20 years old (Windows Forms) or slow, heavy and blurry (WPF). What you have is an enviroment that is not conducive to making great consumer apps, no matter how wonderful C# and .NET may be as a language.

Now with Windows 8 we have something different: Metro and WinRT. Microsoft is clearly saying this is the new way going forward… while also clearly saying the Windows desktop is not going anyhere. So they’re clearly saying Windows will be a dual-ecosystem OS going forward. So you, as a Windows dev, need to make a choice, if you don’t have the resources to support multiple platforms.

What happens if consumers don’t massively adopt the Metro UI? Also, what happens if Metro works out too well, and the desktop is put on the chopping block? If you’re on the wrong side of that line, your app needs to be ported. For that matter, what if both are adopted equally? Then you need to build and maintain an application with two user interfaces to reach the wider audience.

This adds a level of uncertainty that has to be factored into the risk equation for building a Windows app. Windows is already a risky platform to build a paid app on. The last thing Microsoft needs to do is give developers another reason to pick up Objective-C books, but that’s exactly what they’ve done.

Hypercritical 64: You Will Die Instantly!

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 20:50:50 -0500

Hypercritical 64: You Will Die Instantly!:

In the latest Hypercritical episode John Siracusa replies to my post about App Store updates. I agree with everything he says, and it’s otherwise an entertaining and informative episode as always.

That said I do have one point to add. Most people’s attitude towards replacement is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The reason for changing Office’s file format with 2007 was to make it open¹ and XML-based. While good for the long-term health of Office, you can’t argue that it didn’t cause more problems than it solved for users when it launched. So, while you can’t blame the software developer after learning why they had to make the switch, the average person is never going to learn these reasons, and will come to the obvious conclusion that the developers are heartless jerks instead.

Of course (as usual with Microsoft), this is debatable. ↩

When Upgrading is not a Choice

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:51:16 -0500

On the latest Hypercritical episode, John Siracusa is talking about Apple’s App Stores and the lack of paid upgrade capability. He is spot on for much of the episode, but I take issue with what he says around the 100 minute mark. He thinks the mindset that people can be forced into upgrading an application is a false one - that there is nothing truly forcing you to stay on the current version of your application.

This is indeed true for most apps, but I think John forgot about one important exception. Let’s use Adobe Creative Suite as an example. Printing companies typically have the latest versions of CS available to them. The reason is not that they want the new features, but that inevitably at least one of their customers will, and if they send in a new file that only the latest CS can open, then they have to have it or they lose the customer.¹ This is not unique to CS - Microsoft Office is notorious for the 2007 transition to new document formats which could not be opened in earlier versions of Office.

What we have in those cases is social lock-in - you have to have the highest version of the application that the people you’re working with have. It could happen with proprietary and incompatible file types, such as with CS and Office. There is also social lock-in in the broader sense. Let’s say everyone else has a version newer than yours of a cloud-syncing app. There’s a chance that down the road you will no longer have access to the API because support for the old one has been cut off, and then your app gets bricked. If you have to pay to upgrade to the one that isn’t cut off, then most people would feel cheated by that.

iOS’s free upgrade system - the OS too, not just the App Store - ensures that as many people have the latest version of the application as possible. The hard work Apple has put in to ensure that even iPhone 3GS users can get the latest iOS version ensures that apps are also broadly compatible across as many devices as possible, and forcing free updates means nearly everyone can and should have the same version of the application.

When everyone is on the same version, then compatibility problems largely disappear, and as a result customers are usually happier. Apple is famous for putting the user experience ahead of that of developers, and this sounds like a scenario where paid updates have a detrimental effect for users, minor though it may be.

Maybe they could have the customer send it in an older version, but that’s mostly irrelevant for this discussion. ↩

Tumblr to Add Some Sort of Advertising

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 20:58:53 -0500

Tumblr to Add Some Sort of Advertising:

Personally, I miss the Iconic Promotional Unit.

Libyan Rebels Tweeted Targets to NATO

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:13:05 -0500

Libyan Rebels Tweeted Targets to NATO:

The New York Times:

…anti-Qaddafi forces were providing targeting recommendations to NATO via informal means, sometimes even by way of Twitter or e-mail.

Twitter: your social networking service of choice for blowing your enemies to kingdom come.

The Apple Dashboard (not the OS X one)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:17:58 -0500

A while back I wrote about how Apple getting into the car industry is something I would have loved to see happen, even if it is a farfetched idea. However, I think there is a case to be made for Apple to involve themselves with car dashboards.

As Scott Hanselman pointed out so well, car computers stink. Still, a lot of people want to use their phones on drives to and from work. The problem for Apple is that a problem with the car console could well be interpreted as a problem with the phone by consumers, and definitely a disadvantage if a Samsung phone works better.

It’s in Apple’s interest to create a painless and futureproof solution for iPhone vehicle connectivity. Consider iTunes and Windows - it wasn’t in Apple’s best interest to make iTunes on Windows until they realized it improved the experience greatly for iPod owners who had PC’s. I’ll bet most people who own cars with a wonderful iPhone interface would consider an iPhone before anything else, though it wouldn’t have the same drastic effect as iTunes on Windows did surely.

Consider that automakers will have a lot to gain from advertising their Apple iCar interface (or whatever the name would be). They’d probably pay Apple enough to do it that Apple might be able to justify putting resources towards it. Also, Apple doesn’t need to really make money from it - just improving the experience for iPhone users is significant. Of course, frustrating Android users wouldn’t hurt them either.

I wouldn’t say Apple needs to do this, but with 100 billion in the bank Apple doesn’t need to do diddly-squat. I think it’s an idea at least worth considering for Apple, though.

On a note from personal experience, I myself only had a CD player in my car when I got it, but I replaced it with a Pioneer DEH-6300UB. Turns out it’s a pretty decent option for iPhone connectivity. No Bluetooth¹, but works seamlessly with the Pandora iPhone app, in addition to other music apps with no problems or hassles. The RGB backlighting that let it match my car’s interior color and brightness is a pretty cool trick too.

Bluetooth in aftermarket stereos isn’t something I trust anyway. My last car had a bluetooth system that I never used because the other party could never hear me over the road and engine noise. ↩

The first few weeks of Papermill

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:33:05 -0500

The first few weeks of Papermill:

Android’s core strength over the iPhone is that it appeals to the buyer who chooses purchases based on facts on paper, and which one adds up to the “better” device. Subjective things like the user experience and actual utility are not factored in. As a result, app purchasers on Android have a different value mindset than iOS users.

An application like Papermill, which was made to have a superior user experience, puzzles these kinds of people. This is why situations like the one with Papermill here happen, where a good premium app is unprofitable no matter what advantages it has. For Google to change this will require them to change the kind of people who buy their phones.

Restriction Woes

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 14:55:00 -0500

So Matthew Inman and MG Siegler both gave up in frustration trying to get Game of Thrones legally, without paying $100/month for an unused cable subscription. I now have a similar story that I want to relate.

I’m a graduate of Ferris State University, a college in Michigan’s central lower peninsula. The college’s best sports team is their Division I hockey team, and somehow they managed to get into the regional NCAA hockey semifinals. This is not something they do often, so of course me and my alumni friends in the area all wanted to see the game.

Problem is, the game was only being shown on ESPN3 and ESPN U. So we had four options:

Go watch it on cable. Problem is, only one of us had cable, and she did not have the above channels with the package she had, and even if one of us was crazy enough to sign up for cable just for the game, it was the weekend and would not have been available in time.
Go watch it live. While not normally practical, the game was actually taking place at an arena about ten minutes away from us. Unfortunately none of us could justify spending $40 per person on tickets.¹
Stream it from ESPN.com.
Pirate it.

We tried option 3 first. ESPN has their WatchESPN site, where they stream all their events online. However, there are restrictions. You need to have a cable account from one of the participating cable providers.

Our one cable-owning friend was sure that if she entered her cable account credentials she would get charged for the service, so that option did not exist. It would have been nice if ESPN had done a good job of clarifying that it’s free. However, there seemed to be another option:

Non-participating TV provider customers have access to ESPN3 programming online only at WatchESPN.com, as long as they subscribe to a participating high speed internet service provider.

Ignoring the disturbing net-neutrality implications of restricting video to certain ISP’s, this seemed to be the way in. Since the game was on ESPN3 and several of us had internet accounts through one of the listed service providers, we should have been set, right? Nope. Nobody’s account credentials worked with the site. So now we have restrictions on the site that block legitimate existing customers, too.

We attempted option 4 as well, but as it turns out, Game of Thrones is a bit easier to access than a live stream of a Ferris/Cornell hockey game. This did not pan out, seemingly leaving us with no recourse.

Finally, one of the group told us he had Comcast account credentials that we didn’t know about. I saw a review saying that Comcast didn’t work with the site, but we tried it anyway, and sure enough it worked! We got to see the game, and see our team win a place at the Frozen Four.

This was only possible because one of us happened to be spending a thousand dollars a year on a cable subscription. That we used for one game.

I don’t know about you, but this just seems like a terrible situation. It’s mostly college students who want to see these games. They’re poor these days. They shouldn’t need premium subscriptions to cable to see their team play.

That might explain why when we finally saw the game, the arena was nearly empty. Way to price out your customers, Resch Center! ↩

The new iPhone... number unconfirmed

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:40:07 -0500

The iPhone 4S took some heat for being a “minor upgrade”, and Apple appears to have responded by removing the number entirely from the newest iPad. So, will they do that with the newest iPhone? In theory that’s the best thing for them to do, but there’s a problem.

Numeric version names on Apple products are actually something Apple rarely did after Steve Jobs returned. It never happened in Macs after the Intel transition. It never happened on the iPod line, even the iPod touch, though sometimes they might get an extra name like the iPod Video. So seeing numeric versions on the iPhone and iPad is unusual, and now appears to be a mistake.

Killing it from the iPad is easy. Instead of being the iPad 3, it’s now the 3rd-generation iPad. If you do that to the iPhone 5, though, it becomes… what?

You see, there have already been five iPhone iterations: original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4S. The iPhone 5 would actually be the 6th-generation phone. If you didn’t count the 3GS and 4S, then it’s the 4th-generation.

Apple will still need to refer to the specific type for compatibility concerns. There might be some clues, though. Consider this image below taken from the page for the Apple Digital AV Adapter:

Notice that it says “iPad 2 2nd Generation”. What if the graphics after the next iPhone say “iPhone 6th Generation”, then “iPhone 4S 5th Generation”? It’s a bit awkward, but it seems to be what they’re hinting at with their naming scheme.

Or, they could just call it the 4GS and make everyone’s brain hurt. You never really know for sure with Apple.

Das Keyboard Ultimate S

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:14:33 -0500

My new keyboard came in - the infamous Das Keyboard. In fact, I got the especially infamous “Ultimate S” unlabelled key edition. And it came in when I was at work too, which gave me the opportunity to use it to terrorize the office I was in.

My first impression of this keyboard is that it’s significantly better than the current wired Apple Keyboard that I was using. Which, given the $130 price of this keyboard, it had better be. The keys have a very satisfying feel to them - there is never a time where you wonder for a split-second if you actually pressed a key or not. On top of that, every keypress feels like it has impact, which I love. It makes writing that much more fun. On top of that, the added heft of this keyboard is really useful - there were plenty of times where I would slide the Apple keyboard around accidentally, but not the Das Keyboard.

I’ve been doing fairly well with having no lettering on the keys. Though I only got the unlabelled edition because the labels had an ugly typeface I didn’t like (or at least was used poorly), I was really surprised by how I had less typos by using this keyboard compared to the Apple one. If you’re reluctant to get the Ultimate S because you think you need to look at the keys every once in a while - unless you’re fairly new to typing it’s not something to worry about.

The noise is certainly noticeable, but it’s not ear-shattering. In my office today, those who were there didn’t mind the extra racket coming from my keyboard. That’ll change from person to person, though. If I was buying one for work, I’d get the silent edition, but I’m perfectly happy with the noisy one for home.

I think this makes coding more fun, if not easier because I’m prone to less typos with this compared to an Apple Keyboard. This keyboard and the Logitech Anywhere MX definitely rank as my favorite input combination out of anything I have ever used.

Stephen Hackett’s Minimalist Writing Environment I...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:47:00 -0500

Stephen Hackett’s Minimalist Writing Environment

I ordered a Das Keyboard the other day - I should have ordered a USB camera adapter too, this looks like an awesome idea. (Also, I’ll have a review on that this weekend, hopefully.)

Instapaper 4.1

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:38:10 -0500

Instapaper 4.1:

I’m not sure what I like more, the wonderful new font choices (currently rocking Lyon), or the subtle speed improvements that nonetheless make all the difference in the experience.¹ I have been neglecting my Instapaper queue - this could be the tipping point for me.

I’m sure the retina graphics and text are oh-so-amazing, but I’m skipping the 3rd gen iPad. Hard to justify the expense right now.² But I would recommend this app to anyone and everyone who’s interested.

I might be willing to consider that my iPad was just being slow for some strange reason and that explains my previous performance complaints. Then again, this is iOS we’re talking about, not Windows Vista. ↩
Why I’m holding off: my rent, student loan and car loan expenses are adding up to over 60% of my take-home income. Anything optional that I buy needs to be better justified than “has a sharper screen than what you have already”. ↩

Twitter Buys Posterous

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:32:17 -0500

Twitter Buys Posterous:

I can’t help but wonder if Twitter’s idea is to make posting longer content extremely well-integrated into tweets - like “click button to side of tweet box to get great big text box which is linked automatically to your tweet”. That could be pretty cool and compete well with one of Google+’s few useful features: turn your profile into a blog just by posting longer content.
You know that Tumblr has turned down offers from Twitter - Twitter didn’t buy the second place player because it wanted to. Good for Tumblr.

Thoughts on The New iPad's 4G

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:33:13 -0600

I think the precedent that Apple set with the new iPad regarding 4G is interesting - we’ll be expecting that the iPhone 5 (The New iPhone?) will be a little bit thicker and have 4G as well, or there will be even more “disappointment”. Some of which might even be justified.

I also find it strange that the iPad is reported at 10 hours on wifi still. That implies that, at 9 hours, the 4G only causes an extra 10% battery drain. It’s also said that the iPad’s battery capacity is doubled. That can mean one of two things, if true: the 10 hour life with 4G off is way low, or the retina display (or A5X chip) is the real battery drain.

Aww, guess it’s time to reset the “days since the...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:29:58 -0600

Aww, guess it’s time to reset the “days since the last incident” sign… but to be fair it’s been going strong for quite a while and today’s the big Apple Day.