Good Will Blogging

“I think something’s up”

Thu, 31 May 2012 07:59:36 +0900

Me too.

Regarding "Regarding The Talk Show"

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:06:44 +0900

I just listened, and then re-listened to Dan Benjamin’s thoughts on The Talk Show, in which he responds to what must be an avalanche of emails, Twitter messages, blog posts, and even a song about John Gruber’s decision to move The Talk Show away from 5by5 to Mule Radio Syndicate.

The whole thing is very tastefully done, and I have buckets of respect for the way Dan did this. He does reveal that the decision was indeed not mutual, and in particular that Gruber continuing the show under the same name at Mule was a surprise to him. But he also gave sincere appreciation and respect to Gruber and his decision, even encouraging everyone to continue listening to The Talk Show on Mule. Kids, this is what it means to be a grown-up. So classy.

The thing that impressed me most, however, was this little story:

Way back when, I used to have a 45-minute commute to a crappy IT job. Every morning on the way to work and every night on the way home, I’d listen to my favourite talk show hosts doing their thing.

And over time, as weird as this might sound, they became my pals — in my head, anyway. And sure, they didn’t know me, but I knew them very well. And I loved hanging out with them.

So when things changed — when a show came to an end or a host left — it affected me. I felt like I’d lost something. Maybe just something small, but something.

Because these were the people I hung out with every day, while traversing a long stretch of road. And they had a place in my life just like my real-life friends.

That is exactly how I feel, and it was a beautiful thing to hear it so perfectly described. That Dan understands and respects this about his listeners is why I listen to 5by5 shows, and why I’m prouder than ever to be a monthly supporter.

Software Patents as Hong Kong

Mon, 21 May 2012 19:49:52 +0900

The debate on software patents, and patents in general, is alive again thanks to John Siracusa on recent episodes of his brilliant podcast. Thanks to Siracusa’s sharp analytical wit and the audience he has cultivated, the quality of the discussion is extremely high.

Of all the interesting points — and there are many — the one that stands out to me is that there appears to be fairly broad concensus on the absurdity of software patents. So, while Siracusa’s call to end all patents draws (expected) criticism, it would seem that criticism doesn’t apply to software patents.

For some reason, this made me remember a really interesting TED Talk by Paul Romer, wherein he explains how Hong Kong became a thriving centre of capitalism in China. He then goes on to propose repeating this approach in other parts of the world to stimulate local economies. (Very cool talk, you should watch it.)

So I would like to propose a similar idea: Use software patents as an experiment in patent reform. Abolish all software patents, as a way to test out the idea of life without patents in a limited corner of industry. Nobody wants software patents anyway, so the risk is fairly low. If it works, then other industries can try it out; if it doesn’t, then we’ve all learned a lesson.

Wishful Thinking

Sun, 20 May 2012 16:06:00 +0900

I’ve had a couple of rounds of Twitter debates with iOS designers over this 4-inch iPhone rumour, specifically the taller-but-not-wider variant, with me on the pro and them on the con. While I’m not putting my money on a 4-inch screen this year (more on that later), I see a pattern of wishful thinking about it on the “no way Apple will do this” side.

Anatomy of the Con argument

The con argument goes something like this:

@marcedwards: It may happen, but the rumoured taller iPhone sounds like a lot of pain for very little benefit.

@marcedwards: Breaking all apps would be a PR disaster for Apple. Plus they’d have to rework every single aspect of the OS. Doubt it’ll happen.

@mrgan: I reject the idea that “showing more content” is a powerful idea. Again, why not a 15” iPhone then? 3.5 is good.

@marcedwards: Is that how they’d do it, if they had to start from scratch? If the answer is no, it’s the wrong choice.

In other words, they say it won’t happen because (a) it’s a lot of work for developers & designers, and (b) if 4-inches is right now, why hasn’t it always been 4-inches?

Apple’s priorities

A gentle refresher on Apple’s priorities, from highest to lowest:

What’s good for Apple.
What’s good for Apple’s users (whether or not we know it yet).
What’s good for developers.

I see many iOS and Mac developers bemoaning and begrudging Apple for shoveling more shit on them. But every time, they crawl out of the shit and get on with the job. Not because Apple is a cult, but because ultimately it’s good for business.

When the iPad was first announced, there was a huge amount of work to be done to redesign and rebuild apps for the new form factor, screen size, pixel density, and aspect ratio. But everyone clamoured to get their apps onto the iPad because there was money to be made. And it was made. Lots and lots of it.

Similarly, when the iPhone got the first Retina Display in 2010, another huge pile of work landed on the doorstep to produce @2x artwork. And it got done. Same again for the 3rd-gen iPad.

Developers have repeatedly shown Apple, through their actions, that they will quickly rise to the challenge of new screen resolutions. Or, more cynically, Apple has shown that it can coerce developers into doing so. Either way, it gets done.

So, how hard it is for developers does not factor in Apple’s decision here. Rather, decisions are based on the resulting product; and then Apple works on making the transition as smooth as possible within that constraint. “Do I want this to happen?” is a different question to “Will it happen?”

As for why the original iPhone didn’t have a 4-inch 16:9 display in the first place, my guess is that it simply wasn’t possible, technically and/or economically, to build an iPhone any other way in 2007. Maybe 16:9 was Apple’s first choice, and now in 2012, with the technical constraints removed, they can finally implement that choice.

Springs and Struts, and Black and White Bars

Cocoa Touch has some clever screen layout mechanics, inherited from Mac OS X, to place and resize UI elements relative to the edges of the display. This is important for apps that support rotation, since the effective aspect ratio can change underneath you at any time.

In particular, the standard controls that you see on almost every app (tab bars, title bars, etc.) are usually not placed on the screen by the developer at all — it’s all controlled by iOS automagically.

I don’t have numbers on how many apps rely on these layout controls, but I’m sure it’s an overwhelming majority. Even apps that appear to have custom UI controls are mostly just skinning the standard controls to get the look they want.

Because of this, if Apple increased the vertical resolution only, all of those apps would essentially update to the new screen size automatically. No changes required by the developer.

(Pictured: Cities by Bjango)

For other apps, especially games with pixel-for-pixel artwork, automatic layout controls won’t work. But in the transition period, I think it would be absolutely fine to have black padding above and below the screen, effectively displaying the app exactly as it was displayed on iPhone 4/4S.

With Apple’s amazing technique of bonding the display to the front glass, the black bars might just blend with the rest of the phone, enhancing the illusion that the app is running just as it did before. Again, I imagine this would happen automatically, with no effort required on the developer’s part.

As a bonus, the black bars could be white bars on the white iPhone, so that the illusion works there as well!

(Pictured: Kapowie by Bjango)

The Real Con Argument

To me, the far more interesting puzzle is, how would Apple announce this?

Since there would be development and design work to be done, Apple needs to release those SDK updates well ahead of device launch, ideally at WWDC. But that makes the phone 3 months old on launch day. Apple wants to announce, and then sell within 14 days.

But if Apple announces the screen size change within days of putting them into customers’ hands, there would be no time for any developers to test and update their apps before the launch.

Unless! If the Cocoa libraries are really doing their job well, and Apple has already tested and confirmed that 50%+ apps will auto-optimise without changes, then I suppose a launch day announcement could work. Thinking historically again, this is what happened with the iPhone 4; apps that had minimal or no graphical artwork elements were Retina-optimised already, with no update required.

I remain unconvinced in either direction, and now it seems even John Gruber is throwing cold water on his implicit confirmation of the rumour.

So, we’ll see. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on both sides.

Oh, Steve.

Fri, 04 May 2012 04:10:06 +0900

Oh, Steve.:

Paul McNamara, writing for NetworkWorld:

Entitled “1944,” the almost 9-minute full version was Apple’s in-house takeoff on “1984,” the iconic first Macintosh TV ad that caused a sensation during that year’s Super Bowl. Set as a World War II tale of good vs. IBM, it is a broadcast-quality production (said to have cost $50,000) that was designed to fire up Apple’s international sales force at a 1984 meeting in Hawaii.

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em

Thu, 03 May 2012 19:43:00 +0900

Back in June (and again in November), Horace Dediu pointed out the astounding fact that Apple could buy the entire mobile phone industry, with cash.

But Apple didn’t buy all its competitors. Instead, it just pounded them.

Horace Dediu, today:

Apple captured 73% of phone industry profits and Samsung captured 26%. HTC took 1%. Everybody else lost money.

(via Daring Fireball)

TimeFreeze

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:37:31 +0900

TimeFreeze:

Congratulations to my friend and colleague Michel Lönngren on the update to his awesome app, TimeFreeze.

It’s one of those I-can’t-believe-a-phone-can-do-this things: TimeFreeze uses some crazy mathematical jiggery-pokery that I don’t even pretend to understand, to synthesise additional frames between the frames of any video you shoot on the iPhone. The effect is that it can make a standard 30fps video effectively up to 600fps. It’s truly amazing.

The latest update adds 720p HD support, plus now you can even add some other cool video effects with an in-app purchase.

Michel also wrote a nice blog post about the benefits of hiring a professional designer. You can see the difference it has made — the app is gorgeous. Go get it.

Check out this sample video I made on a recent snowboarding trip to Niigata. I shot, edited, and sent it to friends while out on the slopes. It’s shit like this that makes me feel like I live in the future.

Four million digits of π

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 06:18:00 +0900

Four million digits of π:

Practically, one needs only 39 digits of π to make a circle the size of the observable universe accurate to the size of a hydrogen atom.

whoa.

(via @charlesarthur)

Bones

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:52:22 +0900

How cool is it that bones make blood? As if supporting our body structure wasn’t enough, they also make probably the most important substance in our bodies as well. That is awesome. Bones are awesome.

I also think it’s pretty cool that bones can heal themselves when broken. Although, instead of evolving the ability to heal our bones, we should’ve evolved the good sense to avoid doing things that might break them.

2012 iPhone concept design #2

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:20:00 +0900

I realised the problem with my previous mockup was that in order to have enough room for the rounded “pebble” look, there is a bigger margin on the left and right sides of the screen, so either the phone would be wider, or the screen thinner. I don’t think either of these is likely or desirable.

So this time I took a bit more care with precise measurements. The screen in this mockup is exactly the same width as the previous generations of iPhone, and the height is exactly what it would be if Apple increases the screen height to 1152 pixels. More on that later.

Design Cues

One thing that struck me about the iPad 2 design was that although it was about a third thinner than the first-generation iPad, it felt much thinner than that. I suspect this is thanks to the tapered bevel of the iPad 2 back plate, meeting at a thin but subtly rounded edge. So first I thought about an iPhone design more like the current-generation iPod Touch.

But there is a problem with that: The most prominent design feature of the iPhone 4 was its external steel antenna. Moving the antenna to the outside, and making it the principle structural component, was what made the iPhone 4 so thin. So I doubt that moving it back inside is an option for Apple. And besides, I love the iPhone 4/4S design. Something about that steel antenna band makes it feel like a premium product when you hold it.

So instead, I brought the antenna band right up to the bevel of the front glass, and made the back plate taper away from it like the iPad’s.

Thickness

As a general rule, we expect Apple, and other device makers, to trend towards thinner, smaller, and lighter devices by default. The iPad (3) was ever so slightly thicker than the iPad 2, which was a surprise, but it was clear that Apple did everything they could to match the iPad 2’s dimensions as closely as possible.

The generally accepted consensus is that Apple had to do this to fit the larger battery. However it’s not completely clear whether the extra juice is to power the “4G” radio system, or that giant retina display.

If the former, and the iPhone also gets “4G” this year, then it seems unlikely that the new iPhone will be thinner than the iPhone 4S. But if it’s the iPad’s retina display that needs the bigger battery, well then, the iPhone already has one. And if so, it’s conceivable that the new iPhone could be slightly thinner.

Betting on the latter, I conservatively squeezed the total height to 8.96mm, just a hair thinner than the 9.34mm-thick iPhone 4S. And with the antenna band at only 6.17mm wide, it should feel a great deal thinner when held.

The 4-inch Display

Both my previous mockup and this one are inspired by the hot rumour that the next iPhone will have a taller-but-no-wider display, giving it something very close to a 16:9 aspect ratio. What makes this rumour special is that John Gruber practically confirmed it on his blog, and later on his podcast.

For the record, I don’t have a strong opinion on whether Apple should change the screen dimensions. Marc Edwards of Bjango told me that it would break a lot of apps. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I am 100% certain that if Apple does make this change, almost all iOS developers will update their apps. And for those that don’t, there will be some kind of black bar workaround applied by iOS to make it look just like it does now.

So for what it’s worth, here is what a 4-inch, 640x1152 screen might look like:

I think it looks pretty nice. And I certainly wouldn’t mind having an extra row of apps on my home screen.

Home Button

With the taller screen, there is no room for the round home button as it currently exists. I played around with different shapes and sizes for the button, but it just didn’t look right. But what if the entire bottom area of the phone clicks like a button, kind of like the trackpad on the current generation of MacBooks? The area indicated by the home button symbol could be touch-sensitive, so when you click there it registers as a home button click.

This would also seem to agree with last year’s rumours about a swipeable home button. When the software activates the gesture, swiping left or right over the touch-sensitive home button symbol could send events to the software. I’m not convinced Apple would do that (lots of problems with accidentally touching it), but it’s possible.

Details

Unfortunately my 3D modelling skills are not even close to good enough to capture all the gorgeous little details that Apple puts into its industrial design. Still, I think this gives a rough idea of how it might look. As for how it would feel in the hand, if anyone out there has a 3D printer, contact me and I’ll send you the SketchUp file.

Finally, here’s a video animation (no sound) of the model. Enjoy!

How Wil Shipley can get Paid Upgrades on the Mac App Store

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:56:00 +0900

Wil Shipley wrote a characteristically well-written and introspective post a few weeks ago, calling for paid upgrades on the Mac App Store. I heard about this from John Siracusa on Hypercritical #63 just today, so I’m a little late to this party, but here goes.

Siracusa skilfully breaks the issue down, via his listeners’ feedback, into two different but interrelated philosophical and business problems:

The software industry that an App Store with no paid upgrades creates.
The difficulties of recovering or replacing upgrade revenue for software businesses that depend on it.

The first problem is very interesting, but way beyond me to try to speculate about. The second assumes resistance to the first, that is, software businesses that are unwilling or unable to shift to a new-users-only revenue stream.

It seems to me that the answer lies in in-app purchases (IAP). There have been arguments made for IAP-based solutions by others, but all the ones I have heard focus on using IAP as a secondary revenue stream, and hoping that it all works out roughly the same. But I think there is a way to get exactly the same business model using the current App Store features.

Here’s a simulation of how it would work, using Shipley’s example:

Delicious Library 2 is on the App Store and selling at $40.
Bug fixes and minor enhancements are released as free updates as usual. The app version creeps up to 2.1, 2.2, …2.7.7.
Meanwhile, Shipley & Co. are hard at work on “Delicious Library ∞”, the best thing since spit. This development is funded with the profits from Delicious Library 2.
Finally, the big day arrives. It’s time to show Delicious Library ∞ to the world! The new version is released both as a fresh new app priced at $40 and as an IAP in Delicious Library 2 priced at $15.
Simultaneously, the price of Delicious Library 2 is reduced (permanently) to $25. So if anyone accidentally buys Delicious Library 2, they can upgrade in-app to the latest version, and neither the customer nor Delicious Monster are any worse off than if they’d picked up the newer version.
Both versions continue to get bug fixes and other updates.
So far so good. Then one day, Shipley slips in the shower and hits his head. As he comes to, he sees a wonderful vision. It’s… “Delicious D”! The most delicious library the world has ever seen! The team sets to work, and after months of sweaty effort, Delicious D debuts on the App Store, again as both a new app and as a $15 IAP in Delicious Library 2 and Delicious Library ∞.
And again, the price of Delicious Library ∞ is reduced to $25, joining Delicious Library 2 at the no-regrets price point. New customers who accidentally buy either “2” or “∞” can upgrade to the latest version for the same money as buying it outright to begin with.
Eventually, Shipley decides to end support for Delicious Library 2. So after giving appropriate warning to his users (via the App Store release notes), the binary in the App Store is replaced with the same one used for Delicious Library ∞. So this would be a free upgrade from “2” to “∞” for those still hanging on to “2”.
The “2” SKU remains on the store, but customers who buy either “2” or “∞” for will get the same “∞” binary. And they will be offered the upgrade to “D” in-app for $15.
Customers who for whatever reason don’t want to upgrade from Delicious Library 2 to either of the new versions can simply ignore the update, accepting that there will be no further bug fixes to the product.

Now obviously, this is a hack. Shipley wants paid upgrades to be a baked-in feature of the App Store. But this solution is available right now. So let’s see how it stacks up.

First, it replicates the existing business model. Existing customers get to upgrade for a cheaper price, and new customers still pay the full price. Meanwhile, it’s fair to customers who buy directly from the website, since it’s possible to offer the same pricing.

Second, clearly this is a bit of a pain for the developer, since they have to maintain an SKU for every major version ever released, and also bundle the binaries of up to two versions in the older binaries. But the problem to be solved here is not the developer’s convenience. The problem to be solved is the developer’s business model. And it’s not that much bother to maintain multiple build targets, anyway.

But what about the customers? Won’t they be confused by this? Well, certainly it would be easier and simpler if there were only one app called “Delicious Library” in the App Store. But other than that, the developer has complete control of the communication once the customer buys and downloads the product. A first-time popup message in the old version could say something like, “Whoops! Did you mean to buy the latest version, ‘Delicious Library ∞’? Never fear! You can upgrade now for and pay no more than the regular price!”

(My apologies if someone else has already proposed this solution, or if this breaks some App Store rule of which I’m not aware.)

UPDATE: On further reflection, it occurs to me that this approach may even introduce a new revenue stream: Customers that wouldn’t have got on board with the product at the $40 price point, but are willing to hand over $25 for last year’s version. So on the high end, you’ve got the loyal customers who got in at $40 and pay $15 every year for the new version, and at the low end, you’ve now got a new set of customers that get in at $25 and ride the free upgrades to the old versions as you EOL the version they bought. Yes, they get free upgrades, but these are customers you wouldn’t have had at all, and if they like the product and are sufficiently impressed by the marketing of the newest version, they might decide later to give you another $15. All new revenue.

I'll give you a social network movie

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:39:34 +0900

Just thought of this awesome movie idea:

Set in the near future.
“Likes” and “favs” on social networks are given monetary value.
When someone “likes” (etc.) your photo/video/status/whatever, you get a credit.
When you “like” someone else’s you use up that credit.
Enormous sums start to accrue.
The people at the top want to cash out.
But the people at the bottom are in too deep.
A few cases of violent debt collections are reported.
People get scared.
Some, out of desperation, post disturbing videos in a last-ditch attempt to win back enough credit to cover their losses.
The government is left with no choice but to post a video of a live Justin Bieber sacrifice to earn enough likes to neutralise and shut down the entire like economy.

Booyah!

I enjoy your concept, but I doubt that Apple will change the near-perfect screen size of the iPhone. The size of the screen is one of the main factors which keeps me from considering switching to Android

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:45:53 +0900

I have my doubts, too. But if they did, I certainly agree that changing the height only, keeping the width and pixel density the same, makes the most sense.

I should have mentioned the sources of this idea in my post.

I wasted my day making this mockup of what the iPhone 5 might...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:09:00 +0900

I wasted my day making this mockup of what the iPhone 5 might look like with a taller 960 x 1152 screen and a new design.

The buttons, dock connector, etc. are missing not because I think it will happen, but because my SketchUp skills are not that advanced. ;)

UPDATE: I made a new concept design, which I like much better than this one: http://willhains.com/post/21558152803/2012-iphone-concept-design-2

How to send work email from iPad

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 11:14:36 +0900

As much as I would love to live the independent developer lifestyle, unfortunately, I have a day job. I work for a big financial company as a software architect and I manage a large team of engineers. For those who don’t know what the finance industry is like, one of its defining traits is an obsession with information security. As such, there is no way in hell my company would ever let me connect my iPad to the company’s network. Actually, they don’t even have a wireless network.

Nevertheless, I wanted to start using my shiny new iPad (3) in anger at work, so over the past two weeks I have ditched my trusty paper notebook for an iPad. I’ve gone all-in. Mostly I take the iPad to meetings, where I use the gorgeous Meetings for iPad to take notes. The app includes a brilliant feature to email the notes to attendees, but of course sending from my iPad meant the email would come from my personal email address. Most people wouldn’t notice that, so when they reply all to comment on something, I get emails to my personal email address. Definitely not cool with the information security folks.

Luckily, it turns out there is a simple way to get around this, using Gmail’s “send mail as” feature. Now I can send emails from my iPad and they appear for all the world to have come from my work computer. Here’s how to set it up:

Sign up for a new Gmail account. Yes, you’ll want a new Gmail account for this, as we’ll see later.
Go to Settings (now hidden in one of the two gear-icon buttons… ugh).
Click the Accounts tab.
In the “Send mail as” section, click “Add another email address you own”.
Type in your company email address, and deselect “Treat as an alias”. Click “Next Step”.
On the next screen, leave the first option selected, to send via the Gmail mail server, and click “Next Step”.
Click the “Send Verification” button, and check your company email. You should get a confirmation code from Google, which you can enter on the next screen.
Back on the Accounts tab in Gmail Settings, click the “make default” link next to your company email address. This means that all emails send from this Gmail account will use your company address by default (which is why I advise setting up a new Gmail account for this).
Now, on your iPad (or iPhone), set up the Gmail account as you would normally.
Finally, go to Google Sync on your iPad, and select the option to allow “Send Mail As”.

Now when you send an email from iPad, just select your “work” Gmail account in the From field. That’s it!

Apple’s Tim Cook Visits Foxconn IPhone Plant in China

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:17:00 +0900

Apple’s Tim Cook Visits Foxconn IPhone Plant in China:

Shouldn’t that headline read, “Apple’s Tim Cook visits Foxconn iPhone plant in China, as usual”?

I mean, he was the COO. Visiting those factories regularly was, you know, his job.

iPad (3) Retina Display

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:03:00 +0900

I’ve had the iPad (3) for about 2 weeks now, and although the screen is stunningly sharp, I have to say that apart from being much larger (obviously), it is not as good as the iPhone 4/4S screen.

The main complaint is that the iPad’s screen is not bonded to the front glass, like the iPhone’s. The improvement Apple made when they first did that in the iPhone 4 was, I think, one of the most underrated and underreported features of the new display. I think Gruber put it best:

More importantly, though, is that it looks better. The effect is that the pixels appear to be painted on the surface of the phone; instead of looking at pixels under glass, it’s like looking at pixels on glass. Combined with the incredibly high pixel density, the overall effect is like “live print”.

It also improves the field of view for the display — you can view the display from an oblique angle and it looks great. Again, like print. It’s like a glossy magazine come to life.

On the larger iPad display however, the downsides of having a layer of air behind the glass are more noticeable. Two surfaces (the front glass, and the display itself) mean double the reflections. And the reflections don’t quite line up, so the area of screen affected by a reflection is bigger. Also, you can see the reflection of the glass move when your finger places pressure on it.

Don’t get me wrong — it still feels like an ultra–premium display, and much better than anything out there at this size — but to me, the iPhone 4S still has the best-looking display of any device on the planet.

I hope that the iPad 4 closes this figurative and literal gap next year.

Update: Thinking about this further, I wonder why Apple built it this way. That thin layer of air is clearly more than 0.6mm thick — the increase in thickness of iPad (3) over iPad 2 — which implies that not bonding the display to the glass was more important than keeping the same thickness as iPad 2.

In other words, bonding the larger display to the glass either presents such difficult engineering challenges, or impacts the overall quality to such a degree, that Apple was willing to bear the potential negative consequences of releasing a thicker product. And now I can’t stop wondering what was so important.

How to set up Gmail and Google Calendar on iOS

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 04:08:00 +0900

The following is a note to myself to remember how to set up Gmail and Google Calendar properly on iOS.

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account…
Don’t select Gmail. Instead, select Microsoft Exchange.
Enter the following details and tap Next.
Email: your email address
Domain: leave blank
Username: your email address
Password: your password
Description: “Gmail”
A “Server” field will appear. In it, enter “m.google.com” and tap Next.
Choose the items to sync.
Open Safari, and go to https://m.google.com/sync/settings/iconfig/chooseCalendars.
Sign in with the Gmail account address & password.
Select the calendars you want to be selectable on iPhone/iPad.

There are more detailed options in the Settings app, but the defaults you get with the above steps are pretty good.

The main benefits of setting them up this way are:

Push email, contacts, and calendar.
In my experience so far, this seems to help battery life, since there is no need to have a regular fetch every 15 minutes.
Calendar editing is two-way, so you can create and edit appointments on the iPhone, and have them show up everywhere else.
Invitations work.
You can select subscribed calendars as well.

Instapaper's Fireball Immunity

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:01:31 +0900

Speaking of Instapaper, I find it amazing that Marco Arment is able to keep his site up despite receiving what I’m sure must be an insane amount of traffic.

Think about it: So many sites go down when they are linked to by Daring Fireball that “fireball” has become a verb, and there is even a service to cache a copy of Gruber-linked sites before they are pulverised by his readers. But I’m pretty certain that a not insignificant percentage of us immediately save Gruber’s links straight to Instapaper, and yet Instapaper doesn’t go down.

I think that’s pretty amazing.

Not Cloudy Enough

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 02:05:00 +0900

I recently had to get my iPhone 4S replaced at the Genius Bar twice within the space of a week. That’s another story. But it meant that I had to go through the new iPhone set-up process a few times, something that normally I would only do once a year at most.

This is not the first time I have set up an iPhone after the launch of iCloud, but it’s the first time I’ve done so without restoring from backup. I wanted to see what it’s like to depend on iCloud and other cloud services to get all my stuff back.

I have to say, I’m very impressed by how much is possible without a backup these days. iCloud in particular was very easy and extremely fast. Surprisingly, the biggest pain was setting up all my apps again.

Not meaning to pick on anyone in particular, but let’s take Instapaper as an example. Instapaper was one of the first apps I installed on my fresh new iPhone. Getting the app was easy. (In the App Store app, there is a handy “Purchases” section that lists all the apps you own.) The problem is having to re-enter my account ID and password, to link it to my Instapaper account.

That might not sound like a big deal, but I had to repeat this process, racking my brain to remember all those IDs and passwords, for every single app that has a cloud service. And these days, that’s nearly all of them.

As a counter example, take Instacast. When I opened the app after a fresh install, it prompted me to sync with iCloud. And when I did, all of my podcast subscriptions, played/unplayed status, and even track positions were synced instantly. I was listening to my favourite podcast, right from where I had left off, in seconds. It was a fantastic user experience.

So why don’t more apps do it like Instacast? My first thought was that Instapaper has a web-based component to its service, so it needs a user ID and password. But why not store that in iCloud?

Imagine what it would be like if all apps did it this way: You would get your new iPhone, step through the set-up screens, entering your Apple ID along the way. Then you’d download Instapaper and all your other apps, and voilà! It would instantly work, just as it had done on your old phone.

I’ve noticed that many apps, including Instacast, offer syncing with Dropbox, but that is not a solution, since Dropbox is not integrated into iOS, so you still have to enter your Dropbox user ID and password into each app individually. The only iOS-wide accounts that are accessible to apps are iCloud and Twitter. The latter means that Twitter clients tend not to suffer from this problem, although they could benefit from syncing app settings and so on.

Could it be that app developers with ID-and-password cloud services just haven’t thought of this? Or is it that the APIs for iCloud are just too hard to use? Or perhaps, because this only happens to people once a year or less on average, developers don’t see it as a big problem?