Chris Foresman of Ars Technica conducted an ambitious comparison of the iPhone 4S camera vs. an Olympus point-and-shoot and a Canon DSLR (as well as Samsung’s Galaxy S II phone). The results weren’t conclusive: Foresman says that the best camera is the one you have with you, which was always true and always will be true. But the story’s worth reading and the image samples show just how far camera phones have come.
Tag Archives | Apple
The Lost Interview: Steve Jobs, Unfiltered
Even an Apple cynic like myself must admit that Steve Jobs drastically changed the world we live in, and mostly for the better. I’m writing this on a Windows computer, I have a Creative Zen music player, and my smartphone is powered by Android. Yet I doubt that any of these would be in existence today without innovations for which Jobs played a significant role.
He was also a charismatic leader and public figure, who held people in thrall with his product announcements and presentations.
But does that mean you would enjoy watching a 16-year-old, 70-minute, videotaped interview, visually consisting of one continuous close-up of his face?
Surprisingly, the answer is Yes. That charisma, combined with the simple fact that Jobs had some interesting things to say back in 1995, make Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview–a film playing in special theatrical engagements around the country this week–a reasonably interesting and informative film. But it could have been much better.
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Still More on Mobile Flash
If you’re not sick of thinking about the end of Flash on mobile devices already, people are still writing stuff about it that’s worth reading:
Adobe’s Mike Chambers gives several reasons for mobile Flash’s death, but the first he mentions is Apple’s rejection of it:
This one should be pretty apparent, but given the fragmentation of the mobile market, and the fact that one of the leading mobile platforms (Apple’s iOS) was not going to allow the Flash Player in the browser, the Flash Player was not on track to reach anywhere near the ubiquity of the Flash Player on desktops.
And Mobile Opportunity’s Michael Mace–thoughtful as always–says that greed did Flash in:
So here’s what Adobe did to itself: By mismanaging the move to full mobile browsing, it demonstrated that customers were willing to live with a mobile browser that could not display Flash. Then, by declaring its intent to take over the mobile platform world, Adobe alarmed the other platform companies, especially Apple. This gave them both the opportunity and the incentive to crush mobile Flash.
I agree that there were a bunch of reasons why mobile Flash never amounted to anything, but I still think one of them trumps all others: It didn’t work. If it had been fabulous, even Apple might have had to reconsider the situation.
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Apple Patches iOS 5 Battery Bug
Apple has released iOS 5.0.1, its first update to iOS 5. It fixes a few things–most notably the bug(s) that left some users finding their batteries draining at an unnaturally rapid clip. See the screen shot above for other issues it addresses.
I haven’t installed it yet, since the battery glitch didn’t seem to affect my devices (and, last time I checked, I wasn’t Australian.) But I’m intrigued by the fact that it’s the first iOS update that most folks will get that’s installable over-the-air, with no need to download it to a computer first. (Until iOS 5 came along, over-the-air updates were a nifty feature that Android users had and iOS ones didn’t.) If you’ve snagged the update–either wirelessly or with a computer as middleman–let us know how it went.
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The UK’s Siri Speaks Out
Wait, in the United Kingdom, Siri is a guy?
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Siri is Sick
Tweets and blog posts are reporting that Siri–the iPhone 4s’s coolest feature–isn’t working, at least for some folks. (When I try it right now, she’s telling me she can’t connect to the network.)
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Sad About Sandboxing
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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Steve Jobs: The Computer Magazine Covers
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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More Stuff About the New Apple Store App
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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Native iOS Gmail: Imminent?
MG Siegler has me all excited over the possibility of Google releasing a Gmail app for the iPhone. (Hope it has an iPad version, too.)