The New Feedly Mobile
Anti-disclosure: This post raves about the new Feedly. They didn’t pay me, I don’t know them, and all I get out of writing the below is the satisfaction of pointing fellow Android users to one of the best-designed apps in the Play Store.
I love both Pulse and Flipboard and I can’t think of many ways I would improve them. They’re elegant and functional, which are really important descriptors in my mind when it comes to app design. But they feel best to me on a tablet. Both use interface paradigms (buzz word!) that just feel (again, to me) a little overwrought on most mobile phone displays.
I uninstalled them this morning after trying out the new update to Feedly. Feedly has always integrated Google Reader, but the update includes a swipe-from-left menu letting you easily access your Reader folders. Those of you who aren’t Google Reader users can find sources in their slick new topic menu. Instapaper (and Pocket) integration, syncing read items to Reader, a dark theme, and some new font choices round out what I consider the best newsreader available on Android smartphones today.
Try the new Feedly people, and thank me later.
Mitigating My Mitigating
This post by Michael Schechter at his site A Better Mess hit home for me because I recently migrated this site permanently to Tumblr from a self-hosted Wordpress installation as part of a larger effort to consolidate the things I do in life and on the web. I’m also looking for a way to squeeze some exercise into what amounts to a 12-hour “work” day between my day job and evening classes. I am like Mr. Schechter in that I start lots of little projects, often with little or no eye toward whether they will still interest me in the long-term.
Sometimes they do. For example, I made Memeframes as a way to quick-glance Techmeme and its sister sites and I use that daily. But Fiction By Joe Ross, a Tumblr vehicle for my original sci-fi, hasn’t seen an update since July—and not for lack of material. It just isn’t in my weekly workflow.
Anyway, give Schechter’s post a read if you ever find yourself struggling with a similar problem.
David Carr on quotation approval
David Carr on quotation approval
Keep in mind that when public figures get in trouble for something they said, it is usually not because they misspoke, but because they accidentally told the truth.
News junkies probably know this already, but it’s worth letting the Times's David Carr remind us that what we find between the quotations marks isn't always accurate: sometimes it's edited by the speakers themselves.
Further Reading
- The Times Needs a Policy on Quotation Approval, and Soon by Margaret Sullivan at the Times's opinion column Public Editor’s Journal
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.
Twitter forced to turn over protester's deleted tweets
Twitter forced to turn over protester’s deleted tweets
Mike Isaac, writing at All Things D:
In the end, the New York DA and the judge used a legal maneuver to put pressure on Twitter, threatening to hold the company in contempt of court and levy steep fines if it didn’t hand over the data.
You can’t say they didn’t try.
They have even appealed the judge’s threat to hold them in contempt. The envelope—yes, a physical envelope—containing the tweets at issue will remain sealed until that appeal is complete.
I’ve said it before: it may not be a good time to be a third-party Twitter developer, but the company truly goes to bat for its users when it’s appropriate.
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.
Gruber on "Amazon's Play"
John Gruber writes one of the most respected and prolific tech blogs on the web, Daring Fireball. Some people deride him as a blindly-worshipful Apple fanboy who delights in pointing out the failed attempts of other companies to copy Apple’s products and strategy.
I don’t agree with those people.
This article by Mr. Gruber is a great example of his willingness to praise true innovation. Amazon has taken inspiration not from Apple’s hardware or software design, but from their approach to product development.
Place the delight of your customers first and the device and multimedia sales will follow. Put another way, Amazon, like Apple, operates on the premise that putting customer experience first is the best way to put corporate success first.
Further Reading
- Jeff Bezos, inheritor to Steve Jobs’ crown? by Om Malik at Om.co
- Making Money While Keeping Prices Low: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Explains It All (Mostly) by Tricia Duryee at All Things D
"The Math"
Once again, MG Siegler nails it on HBO’s missed opportunity for direct-subscription innovation.
Most companies are so desperate to maintain anything close to an upward slant in revenue year-over-year that they never even know opportunities like this one exist.
The worst part of this situation, to me, is the fact that HBO is being repeatedly told about this opportunity and actively ignoring it merely because it doesn’t make short-term business sense.
Kindle Fire HD 8.9: how the new Kindle tablet compares with the competition
Kindle Fire HD 8.9: how the new Kindle tablet compares with the competition
Amazon increased the power and range of its Kindle offerings and achieved impressively-low pricing across the board. Again.
I’m 100% certain someone I know will get one of the newly-announced devices, maybe even before the holidays, and I can’t wait to have a look.
Further Reading
Brevity
MG Siegler posted yesterday about his desire to write with more concision. His point is a good one: writing concisely suggests, when you think about it, a far better grasp of a topic than does the need to write 1,000 words about it.
It’s a lesson I learned from a couple of professors in law school (while others tried to teach almost the opposite):
Get in, make your point, and get out.
Being Real Builds Trust
Steph Hay, writing at A List Apart:
Your mom may not be your target user, but she is a real person who’ll call you on your bullshit.
This is great advice.
Peeling Back the Hidden Pages of History With Hyperspectral Photography
Peeling Back the Hidden Pages of History With Hyperspectral Photography
John R. Quain, writing at American Photo:
When the hyperspectral eye was turned on an early draft of the Declaration of Independence written in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, researchers could see that Jefferson had originally written the word “subjects” on one line, which he then scratched out and replaced with the more politically correct “citizens,” exemplifying the egalitarian sensibility of one of the Enlightenment’s greatest minds.
Okay, that is the most fascinating tech I will see this month. Read the whole article. It’s, well, fascinating.
NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customers
NoWait protects restaurants from the wrath of restless customers
Rebecca Grant, writing at VentureBeat:
Restaurants can use this iPad app to keep track of available tables and alert customers with a text message when their table is ready.
This sounds like technology with the potential to go far beyond restaurant use cases.
Neil Armstrong, First Man on Moon, Dies at 82
Neil Armstrong, First Man on Moon, Dies at 82
Neil Armstrong on Chuck Yeager’s breaking the sound barrier, quoted by his own biographer:
All in all, for someone who was immersed in, fascinated by, and dedicated to flight, I was disappointed by the wrinkle in history that had brought me along one generation late. I had missed all the great times and adventures in flight.
Hardly, Mr. Armstrong, hardly.
Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Hits Evolution Deniers
Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Hits Evolution Deniers
Bill Nye, as quoted in an article by Kevin Dolak at ABC News:
And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.
Watch the full clip of Mr. Nye’s thoughts on creationism on YouTube.