The next James Bond movie is coming out in November. I'm excited for it… it's the only movie I really want to see all year. Spiderman, Batman… they can wait. This is the first of a few 50th anniversary videos that have been released lately and I'll share more of them as the days go by.
I use a countdown timer for my son to let him know that playtime will be ending soon or that he’s in a time out for some reason. The Apple Clock.app isn’t the easiest to use.
So when I came across this simple and minimalist timer, I jumped on it. It’s free with ads which you can turn off for a buck.
Underneath it all are some different ways to customize the behavior. But on the surface, it’s the best looking and easiest timer to use.
Iain Broome on the problems with linked posts:
“The flip side of link posts is that they can quickly become an easy way to publish regularly, but with little thought. If you don’t have time to consider a subject properly, you can simply post a link to someone else’s work, add a quick sentence or a couple of words of your own, and feel like you’ve gotten away with it.”
I don’t agree at all. First, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Just because you use linked posts doesn’t mean you can’t write a longer article to prove a point. Just as important, always linking and never writing more long-form doesn’t mean you can’t make your own insightful point, either.
There are so many trusted bloggers/writers/whatever who use linked posts and still provide valuable insight and commentary without a drawn out argument. This is a quality vs quantity discussion and we’ve seen it over and over that quick quips, short replies, and less lengthy discussions does not mean the quality is less.
Ignore the ethics of pointing people to the content which drives a lot of people to choose that method of posting; its really irrelevant to me. It’s the content that matters and whether it’s 140 characters or five to eight paragraphs (or more), good ideas are what’s important.
In other words: Regardless of its size, it’s the content that matters.
John Gruber wrote a great (as usual) and well thought (also, as usual) article on the rumored, smaller, iPad with a potential 7" screen. It’s so good, I could quote almost every paragraph.
For me, his article – and Apple’s possible intentions with a smaller iPad – boils down to this:
Apple is repeating the same process with the iPad as it did with the iPod (and to an extent, the iPhone with the different price points). Changing the form factor, price, whatever, to compliment an existing ecosystem and offer a variety of products to satisfy different market segments. And if Apple has to radically shift it’s own profit and product offerings to help ensure long term growth by defining new segments or stealing volumes from others, it will.
So the quote I think I’ll offer (though read John’s full post for context) is this:
Apple followed that strategy a decade ago with the iPod. Though the stakes are now far higher, I see no reason they wouldn’t do the same this decade with the iPad.
I hope they don’t call it an iPad Mini or a Mini iPad, though. There’s got to be a better name than that.
From Bryan at the Daily Exhaust:
“Mediocrity is invisible when it stands next to hideousness.”
Since I don’t use the Kindle app for the iPad, I never noticed any of the changes people complained about. Nevertheless, I find it striking that Amazon would react so quickly to satisfy the users of a competitor’s platform.
Did anyone notice this reaction with the Kindle Fire or do people ignore it – the a Kindle Fire, that is.