ios
- If you want to install the iOS 8 update but your iPhone or iPad tells you it doesn’t have enough free space, make sure you have the latest version of iTunes.
- Plug the charging cable into your computer’s USB port and then connect it to your iPhone or iPad.
- If iTunes isn’t already opened, it will open. If it doesn’t open automatically you’ll just have to open it yourself (a first-world problem if ever I heard one).
- Click on the iPhone button that appears in iTunes and, if iTunes isn’t already offering to update your phone, click Check for Update.
- Wait. iTunes will download the five-gigabyte update to your computer and install it on your device.
Thoughts on ad blockers
iOS 9 Public Beta coming today?
iOS 9 Public Beta coming today?
I rarely cross-post from my geekery-focused Tumblr, but I’m so excited about this I had to share it here, where I have literally thousands more followers.
I’ll be writing a proper post about the public beta after I’ve used it for a few days. There are some interesting legal consequences of agreeing to use beta software.
Update to iOS 8 even without enough free space
I’ve heard from many people who insist their iPhone or iPad “can’t handle” or “doesn’t fit” iOS 8. I read an article about a slow-down in updates to iOS 8. John Gruber of Daring Fireball first posited that some well-documented software bugs were making people reluctant to update.
But his follow-up post reminded me how many times I’ve been asked by “normals” how I managed to update my iPhone 5. Their phones, the common story goes, just don’t have enough free space available to perform the update.
I know this is frustrating, so I wanted to share some quick and easy advice on the topic. First, if your iOS device is low on space, it’s probably because of all those photos and videos you’re taking. Learn how to move that stuff to your computer so you can safely delete it from your device.
Second, if you have an iPhone 4 or 4s, think hard before updating to iOS 8. Some reports suggest you’ll have a much slower device after the update. There are some neat new features, but none of them are worth slowing your phone down.
Third, make sure your iPhone or iPad is fully charged before you try to update. While it will be plugged into the computer and therefore charging during the update, it’s best to be safe about these things. Make sure your battery icon is green before you start the update and you should be fine.
Update to iOS 8 with iTunes
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p>Check out Apple’s support page for more information.
Teehan+Lax on redesigning Prismatic
Teehan+Lax on redesigning Prismatic
It’s a great post by great designers about the work and value that goes into and comes out of great design. It also happens to explain very clearly the concept behind my own website here at Constant & Endless.
Geoff Teehan of Teehan+Lax writes:
In the end, a successful project is never done. It is never perfect. If you aren’t learning from it, then you’ve given up. It’s a constant process of assessing the landscape, making hard choices and accepting trade-offs.
Like Saleem Sinai says in Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children, “the process of revision should be constant and endless.”
Prismatic is a content discovery engine powered by your own wide array of interests, aiming to avoid being limited by your filter bubble of common sharing tendencies. Check it out on iOS or the web.
Reuters nixes Next: Failed redesigns and the challenge of expanding a digital audience
Reuters nixes Next: Failed redesigns and the challenge of expanding a digital audience
That’s a shame. This image alone illustrates the design strides made by the Next team (the cancelled redesign is on the right).
The Reuters iOS app is better than that of Associated Press, for what it’s worth.
Apple removes app curation app from App Store
Apple removes app curation app from App Store
"Yes, you can live here," Apple seems to say to developers, "but if you ever break one of our vague rules, or if we ever decide for any reason or even for no reason at all that you must go, you will be evicted. No appeal, no questions asked, no discussion."
I wish only the best to the folks at AppGratis, but this is the danger in building your business, and your employees’ livelihoods, on something over which you have absolutely no control.
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternatives
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternatives
The Simplenote/nvALT sync issues recently scared me away from Simplenote sync. I use Byword on the Mac and iPad, and Epistle on Android to sync notes with my Dropbox account. PlainText is also very good for this. I haven’t had any problems since going Dropbox-only.
If you’re a plaintext geek, read Mr. Blanc’s post to get a good overview of options from someone who knows the subject very well.
Apple Maps lead fired
Richard Williamson is his name, and shipping a less-than-perfect mapping application on the iPhone 5 was his game, until, as Bloomberg's Adam Satariano reports, Senior Vice President Eddy Cue fired him.
As an aside, I really like that Bloomberg lists both the reporter’s and the editor’s name and email address at the bottom of stories. More publications should do that.
Apathy and ecstasy for the iPhone 5
Mat Honan, writing at Wired’s Gadget Lab blog:
It is an amazing triumph of technology that gets better and better, year after year, and yet somehow is every bit as exciting as a 25 mph drive through a sensible neighborhood at a reasonable time of day.
I am still waiting for Verizon to push Jelly Bean to my Galaxy Nexus. Meanwhile, the damn thing throws a force-close dialogue every couple of hours, stutters whenever I try to switch between apps, and occasionally reboots itself just for fun.
My fiancée has had an iPhone 4 for a little over a year, so I’ve had a lot of time to sit on the couch late at night and compare the two phones (like the unashamed geek one has to be to do such things…). The verdict is clear, quick, and simple: go Android for customization and Gmail (a far bigger point in Android’s favor than non-Gmail users might imagine…) but go iPhone for stability and app availability.
That has been the state of things for some time, and it’s no different with the introduction of the iPhone 5, iOS 6, or Android Jelly Bean.
Maybe it’s because I’m 29 this year, but my desire to customize the hell out of my phone is fading fast, especially at the high cost of stability. I’ll always keep an Android phone or two around for playing with custom ROMs, but I need something more refined for my primary phone.
Also, I’ve found on other Android devices that the four-inch display is my preference. The older iPhone displays were too small, and the Galaxy Nexus, at 4.6 inches, is a bit too large. Some people are complaining that iPhone 5 looks the same, just as the 4S looked the same. But it doesn’t: it has a bigger display and a thinner depth, without sacrificing anything in the spec department. That’s change enough for me.
Honan nailed it: iPhone 5 is great and it’s whatever. But it’s stable, app-rich, uniformly-updated whatever. And unless my first experience with it in a store or from a friend’s unit is surprisingly negative, it’s what I’m getting the next time I need a new phone.
Apple's Comfortable Middle
Hamish McKenzie, writing at PandoDaily :
With two product launches in a row that show Apple is merely keeping pace with innovation rather than leading it, the world’s most valuable company will start to seem mortal.
I disagree.
For the record, I’m usually on board with Mr. McKenzie’s analyses, and I think he’s right that the iPhone 5 doesn’t restore the staggering lead Apple once had in smartphone innovation. I just don’t agree that there is any probable circumstance in which the iPhone 5 marks the beginning of the end of Apple’s dominance. I want him to be right, but I believe it will take action on the part of Apple’s competitors, rather than mere inaction from Cupertino, to catalyze that descent from the pinnacle.
I want to see something truly threaten Apple’s dominance: it would be good for consumers and even good for Apple, potentially motivating just the sort of next-generation innovation everyone wishes we saw with the iPhone 5. But Android is peddled in an ever-changing array of hardware of wildly varying quality, its interface often marred by manufacturer “improvements” and carrier-mandated bloatware, with no cohesive or remotely predictable software upgrade schedule.
Yes, it’s customizable, “open” (depending on how you define the term), and a provider of competitive pressure. In fact, Android, the OS, in its pristine Jelly Bean state on glorious hardware, is functional and gorgeous. But Android, the experience and, for lack of a better word, the brand, is truly a mess.
Then, there is the iPhone.
Apple tried for years to make things people loved. They succeeded. Now they are in the business of making improvements on the things they make that people love. And they’re succeeding there, too.
Whether or not they revolutionize TV next, and whether or not they drastically refresh iOS in the next couple of years, I think they’re still comfortably in the middle of their dominance, and at the top of their game.
No Pressure
Analyst Brian Marshall, to SFGate’s Jun Yang:
As the markets get more saturated, the pressure will be much stronger to add more screen sizes.
"Today, the answer is no," he said. "Down the road, the answer is yes," he said.
No way.
The only source of pressure on Apple to do anything is the company’s own design language and direction. If they ever made iPhones with larger screens, it would be for their own reasons, like maybe the retina display deserves a slightly larger screen on which to show off its awesomeness.
But there’s already the iPad for that.
It won’t ever be to reach “lower-cost segments” like another analyst told Yang, because Apple’s strategy for that is to slice the price of older iPhone models to the bone whenever a new one comes out. There’s your lower-cost segment. They’ve been doing it for some time now, with narry a > 3.5 inch screen in sight.