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Sad About Sandboxing

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 3, 2011 at 9:48 am

Pauli Olavi Ojala does a good job of making the case against upcoming Apple rules–similar to those already in place for iOS–which will greatly restrict the capabilities of OS X programs that are sold through the Mac App Store:

Need to access hardware using something else than USB, for example Thunderbolt, FireWire or Bluetooth? Tough luck. (Just because these interfaces are on your Mac doesn’t mean Apple wants anyone to use them via 3rd party software.)

Need to communicate with processes that your app didn’t directly start, or perhaps take screenshots? Not going to happen.

Maybe you’d like to read and write files in a known location on a network disk? Not possible, unless you pop up the Open/Save dialog for every file.

There are two reasons not to get too worked up over the new regulations. One is that software developers don’t have to use the App Store–and software distributed through other channels doesn’t have to hew to the new policies. The other is that the sandboxing that Apple is enforcing has real benefits. (The company may say that Macs “just work,” but its sandboxed OS-based products are far more reliable than a Mac or any other old-school PC.)

If Apple ever starts to make it difficult to avoid the Mac App Store, I’ll get alarmed. (I’m already worried about Microsoft’s apparent plans to permit distribution of new-style Windows 8 software only through its app store.) But as long as the App Store is avoidable, I think we’re okay. Think of buying non-App Store apps for your Mac as being like jailbreaking your computer–except you don’t actually have to jailbreak anything.

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Mossberg’s Twentieth

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 3, 2011 at 1:22 am

Walt Mossberg has been writing his Wall Street Journal column for two decades (!). He’s celebrating the landmark with a look back, including links to some historic columns–such as the first one.

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Steve Jobs: The Computer Magazine Covers

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 3, 2011 at 1:00 am

When I was editor of PCWorld and spent endless hours thinking about computer-magazine covers, we had lots of theories about what people didn’t want to see on them. One was depictions of human beings: In all my time there, I don’t believe we ever once used a photo of a person, and even drawings of them tended to intimidate us. We also thought that anything that anyone might construe as being negative rather than relentlessly upbeat was a turn-off. I suspect that other computer magazines the world over harbor similar theories.

But Steve Jobs’ passing on October 5th was a unique moment in computing history. And as an ex-computer magazine person, I’m fascinated by how the computer magazines that are still around chose to handle the news, which many of them put on their covers. The issues that do so are just now coming out–read on, and I’ll show you some of them, borrowed from Zinio and other sources.

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Who’s Using What to Visit Technologizer

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 2, 2011 at 4:08 pm

John Gruber of Daring Fireball was moved by the release of new Net Applications mobile browser stats that show Apple’s Mobile Safari with more than three times as much usage as Android to disclose his own site’s mobile usage numbers. Which moves me to share Technologizer operating-system stats for the past month. I’m going to include all operating systems, not just mobile ones.

Here you go:

Windows: 47% (the easy overall winner, but even it doesn’t have a majority)

OS X: 26%

iPhone: 10%

iPad: 8%

Android: 4%

Linux: 3%

iPod: 1% (is this iPod Touch?)

Everything else: 1% (including .06% via Chrome OS, and .01% apiece via Wii, Google TV, and OS/2)

Looks like 19% of visitors are using iOS, vs. about 2 percent two years ago. Prediction: At some point, iOS will surpass OS X for second place. (No, I’m not guessing when.)

Oh, and if you consider iOS to be a version of OS X–which it is–then OS X is just slightly behind Windows. Or to put it another way: Almost half of visitors come here on an Apple device.

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4 Questions About Grand Theft Auto V

Posted by Jared Newman on November 2, 2011 at 1:40 pm

Rockstar has released the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto V, and as expected of a game with no release date in sight, it doesn’t reveal much. The narrator speaks of returning to southern California–the fictional Los Santos, presumably–to get away from “that line of work” and to start a family, his voice accompanied by establishing shots of the city and of crimes in progress.

With so much information left off the table, here’s what I really want to know about Grand Theft Auto V, the next major sequel to one of the most iconic video games of all time:

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Gmail App for iOS Launches, Breaks

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 2, 2011 at 11:26 am

Yesterday, Google’s official Gmail app for iOS was a rumor. Today, it’s live on the App Store. But as Sarah Perez of TechCrunch is reporting, the Internet’s gut reaction is not a happy one–especially since the app launches with a cryptic error message right now. (Maybe not 100% of the time, but I got it.)

My biggest disappointment: The app doesn’t support multiple accounts. If you have two Google accounts–one for work, one for personal use–you know that any solution that supports both of them is instantly more useful than any one that doesn’t. I’ve been using a $1.99 third-party app called G-Whizz Google Apps Browser to traverse almost instantly between both of my accounts. Looks like I’ll still need it…

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How Courier Died, Part II

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 2, 2011 at 10:11 am

Here’s the second half of Jay Greene’s story on Microsoft’s two-screen Courier tablet, and why it never saw the light of day except as a spellbinding concept video.

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GameStop Starts Selling Android Tablets, But Why?

Posted by Jared Newman on November 2, 2011 at 5:25 am

Earlier this year, GameStop said it would either find some tablets to sell or build its own. Now, the retailer has chosen option A, launching a handful of familiar Android tablets with some free games inside.

So far, the lineup includes the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Asus Eee Pad Transformer and Acer Iconia Tab A100. They’re available online and in 200 U.S. stores, according to Joystiq. The free games are Dead Space, Monster Madness, Riptide HD, Re-Load, Cordy and Sonic CD. GameStop is also pre-loading its Flash game portal Kongregate Arcade, and is selling a Bluetooth game controller for $39 extra.

The strategy seems a bit puzzling to me. When GameStop said it wanted to sell tablets, I assumed the retailer would use them as a foothold for selling downloadable games. GameStop owns its own digital distribution platform, Impulse, and also has some streaming technology from Spawn Labs that could allow tablets to stream high-end video games from consoles or PCs. Neither of those services are present in this first wave of Android tablets, or if they’re on board and in hiding, GameStop’s not saying so.

GameStop isn’t getting onto the tablet business just so it can sell Bluetooth game controllers.  There must be more to the story than this. My guess is that whatever GameStop really has in mind isn’t ready yet, and these tablets are just filler–a way to sell more stuff to holiday shoppers until the real GameStop tablet is ready.

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More Stuff About the New Apple Store App

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 1, 2011 at 5:05 pm

Jonathan Geller of BGR has more details on the upcoming Apple Store iOS app. He says it’s launching on Thursday and will enable in-store pickup of items you order from home and self-checkout, among other things. For me, the biggest drawback of the Apple Store is that it can be hard to attract the attention of an employee–oftentimes, they’re patiently answering the questions of clueless newbies–and so I love the idea of being able to shop there with as little human interaction as possible…

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GarageBand Comes to the iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on November 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm

When Apple brought its OS X music app GarageBand to the iPad earlier this year, it was a convincing counter-argument–one of many–to the increasingly tired theory that the iPad is only good for consuming stuff, not creating it. Now it’s taken that iOS version of the app and made it work on the iPhone (and iPod Touch), too. (It’s one universal $4.99 app for all three devices.)

On the iPhone, GarageBand is a nicely shrunken-down version of its iPad self, with virtual pianos, organs, drums, guitars, and the ability to record and play with samples and plug in a guitar. You can record music and transfer it to the OS X version of GarageBand (which is part of iLife) for further work.

I don’t even qualify as an amateur musician, but GarageBand is fun to play with, and the general level of polish and ambition is exceptionally impressive. I’ll be fascinated to see what people who know what they’re doing do with it. Images after the jump.

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