Facebook: The List of Incompetents
Zuckerberg’s refusal to play the Wall Street game is admirable, in some respects — but at the same time is completely inconsistent with a desire to sell $16 billion of shares at a $104 billion valuation.
Yes. Exactly this. There was a wave of “why should Zuckerberg wear a suit?” sentiment on Twitter; this quote is why that sentiment made no sense to me.
Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover
Whatever you think of the hoary old “the iPad is/isn’t perfect/awful for content creation” debate, there are few bloggers who’d argue that it’s a lot more practical for writing on when coupled to some sort of physical keyboard. The on-screen one keyboard is OK for modest amounts of text, but the prospect of writing a 5,000 word TUAW post by hammering my fingers against a unyielding pane of undifferentiated glass doesn’t fill me with joy. Plus, it takes up half the screen — leaving me feeling like I’m peering through a letterbox at my document.
I’m not going to do a full review of the keyboard here. For that, I’d recommend you read the excellent reviews by David Chartier or Steven Sande. These are just a few of my notes, elaborating on a few details I would have liked to known before ordering it.
Key size
Here’s the Ultrathin (bottom) compared to the iPad’s on screen keyboard (top) and the standard Apple keyboard (middle):
Clearly, key size alone is not a significant reason to pick the Ultrathin over the on-screen keyboard, as the keys are actually somewhat smaller than either of the other keyboards. In use, I must confess I have found the Ultrathin to feel a little cramped — both on the main keys and particularly on the half-width punctuation keys on the right hand side of the keyboard.
Size and weight
Many reviewers have commented that the Ultrathin is remarkably thin and light. Considering there’s a full keyboard in there, that’s definitely true. However, the Ultrathin is going to spend its life attached to your iPad, which is also very thin and light; so the important question is, how does it feel compared to the iPad itself?
Consider the size first of all. Obviously, width and height are indentical to the iPad. But what about depth? Here’s the Ultrathin, compared to the iPad itself and an Apple Smart Cover:
As for mass: my iPad (3rd generation, Wifi) weighs 655 grams. My Apple Smart Cover is 137 g — 21% of the weight of the iPad itself. The Ultrathin is 333 g, which is 51% as much as the iPad. That’s just a little less than the standard Apple keyboard — the smaller one, without a numberpad. At 355 g, the Apple keyboard is 54% of the iPad’s weight.
So, at 988 grams, an iPad plus the Ultrathin is still a bit lighter than even Apple’s tiniest laptop, the 11” MacBook Air (which weighs 1080 g). Unavoidably, however, it does feel significantly thicker and heavier with the Ultrathin attached.
Magnets
The Ultrathin has a similar arrangements of magnets to the Apple Smart Cover. Magnets attach it to the side of the iPad via the same sort of hinge, and other magnets turn the iPad on and off when you open and close it.
The magnet attach mechanism means that, like the Smart Cover, attaching and detaching the Ultrathin is a breeze — just pull apart to detach, and wave the iPad vaguely near the hinge to reattach. Also, unlike the early Logitech iPad keyboard case design, there’s no irritating ridge around the keyboard’s outer edge.
There’s also magnets inside the slot that positions your iPad when you are typing on the keyboard. As long as you put the iPad’s left side into the stand, these magnets hold it into place very well. They prevent the iPad slipping sideways out of the slot if you are typing on an uneven surface like a lap, and they are strong enough so that if you pick the iPad up the keyboard comes with it.
Typing
On a flat surface, the keyboard is steady and secure, even with the iPad in portrait. Note that the bottom surface of the Ultrathin has no feet on it, though, so if you slide it around on desks you can expect its aluminium surface to pick up some scratches.
In my lap, I found the experience to be a bit more mixed. To balance the iPad, I found I instinctively moved the keyboard further towards me than I would with a laptop. The keys were about where the palm rest would be on my MacBook Pro. This then cramped my wrists uncomfortably after prologued typing. Plus, as its only eight or so inches across, I couldn’t make it balance very well across my thighs — I found it was always in danger of falling between my legs whenever I shifted in my seat.
Key layout
My keyboard, which I ordered from Logitech’s UK site, came with a full UK key layout: shift-3 is £ instead of #, and (more importantly), it has a double-height Return key rather than a double-width one. Many cheaper iPad keyboards only seem to come with a US layout, and that’s what’s pictured on Logitech’s site, so this was a welcome surprise.
Smaller matters
- Price: It’s not cheap in the UK; the $99 US price point somehow becomes £89.99. That’s a hefty 18% markup after you subtract VAT. Not cool, Logitech.
- Battery life: I have no idea. Logitech claim the integrated LiIon cell is good for about 350 hours of use, so I certainly haven’t managed to flatten it yet.
- Charging: It charges from a micro USB cable (included) connected to any USB charger (not included). If (like me) you now travel with these handy things that means it takes the same cable as the your Apple kit.
The bottom line
It’s not perfect. The keys are small, certainly. It’s not going to eclipse my aging MacBook Pro for in-lap use. It’s perhaps fractionally heavier and thicker than you might think from reading other reviews. It’s overpriced in the UK.
With those nits picked, though, I can safely say: it’s the best damned iPad keyboard I’ve seen yet. Recommended.
Via Gizmodo UK, some data on Android fragmentation from Open Signal Maps. The post presents a lot more data on API version, screen resolution, and other interesting metrics. It was based on 681,900 devices that downloaded the client software — not an unreasonable survey size.
It looks pretty bad (and I’m sure that’s the angle most reporting of this story will take, particularly from Apple bloggers), but there’s an upside, OSM says:
Developers tend to bemoan Android fragmentation yet there’s much here to be celebrated.
We’ve collected signal data from 195 countries - the variety of Android devices and manufacturers has been crucial in allowing the OS to reach so many markets. For example the 5 countries where OSM gets most use are: US, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico. From what we’re seeing the developing world is no longer developing but leading Europe.
While the number of different models running Android will continue to increase we’ve seen Samsung take the lion’s share of the Android market, most of that due to the Galaxy product line. Testing on the most popular Samsung & HTC devices will get you a long way.
In particular, I think this part is noteworthy:
With many devices under $100 unsubsidized, Android phones and tablets are able to reach a market that can’t afford netbooks. For the majority of the world’s population smartphones (and not computers) will be the must-have devices. We hope that OpenSignalMaps will be a must-have app.
I think that price point — and the advantages it gives OEMs in the developing world — is under-discussed. It’s impossible to get a contract-free iPhone in the UK for anything less than £319 ($510), and that’s the old-as-the-hills 3GS. You can buy three or four Android handsets of similar spec for the same money.
Go to the original post for more interesting data from this study.
A brief and definitely incomplete survey of the computer storage space I have in my house. All figures are in terabytes.
We live in an age of wonders.
“Windows RT” versus “WinRT”
Windows RT is the newest member of the Windows family – also known as Windows on ARM or WOA, as we’ve referred to it previously. This single edition will only be available pre-installed on PCs and tablets powered by ARM processors … For new apps, the focus for Windows RT is development on the new Windows runtime, or WinRT, which we unveiled in September
So WinRT is the runtime that runs the apps. Windows RT is the OS that hosts the runtime. Presumably, Win is short for Windows and RT is an abbreviation of RunTime.
From everything we know about Microsoft’s matrix management, it sounds like practically anything needs sign off from dozens of people. That suggests dozens of people with an IQ presumably above double digits looked at those two names and collectively decided: “Yup, nothing wrong with that. No-one will be confused by this. Future developers looking for information with Google won’t curse our names, and we have no Job done, people!”
What the bloody hell?!
Ben Brooks
Ben Brooks prefers style to substance!
It’s interesting to me that Shawn types faster on the mechanical keyboards — that alone makes me want to try one. But there is no way in hell I am putting any one of those keyboards Shawn reviewed anywhere near my desk.
They are hideous, repulsive, and offensive looking.
Even if I was more productive with them, the tradeoff of adding in wires and ugliness is simply not worth it.
Ben Brooks celebrates ignorance!
This also marks where I stop reading anything about [Google Drive] and thus don’t follow news about it.
I’m sure the latter point won’t stop him holding an opinion on the service though.
OMGPOP goes the weasel
Shay Pierce was the only employee at OMGPOP who didn’t take Zynga’s money when the company sold out following the smash-hit success of Draw Something.
Pierce chose to reject Zynga’s offer for good reasons. Firstly, he disagrees strongly with Zynga as a company:
When an entity exists in an ecosystem, and acts within that ecosystem in a way that is short-sighted, behaving in a way that is actively destructive to the healthy functioning of that ecosystem and the other entities in it (including, in the long term, themselves) — yes, I believe that that is evil. And I believe that Zynga does exactly that.
Secondly, Pierce asked formally if Zynga would definitely not be asserting ownership or forcing the removal of Connectrode, a game Pierce self-published on the App Store. He was told no such promise would be made. Connectrode doesn’t make any money to speak of, but Pierce still didn’t feel comfortable going forward with the deal. I don’t blame him one bit.
Pierce rejected the offer of a role at Zynga, rendering himself unemployed. He received fair compensation for his small equity in ZOMGPOP as part of the takeover deal, however.
OMGPOP’s CEO, Dan Porter, didn’t like this one little bit, and took to Twitter to make his feelings public :
The one omgpop employee who turned down joining Zynga was the weakest one on the whole team. Selfish people make bad games. Good riddance! What’s so interesting about success is the number of failures who try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is just one of many…
It would appear Dan Porter is a callous dickhead with no respect for the work of people who built the firm that just made him very wealthy indeed. In the face of huge backlash on Twitter and Reddit, he’s now trying to walk the bad PR back, which should be entertaining to watch, at least.
God speed, Shay Pierce (who has gone back to being self employed).
UPDATE: Porter has deleted the two tweets I put above, and tweeted:
I’m sorry for what I said on Twitter last night. No excuses.
Amazing scenes.
The dilution of “4G”
So, iOS 5.1 changes iPhone 4 and 4S handsets on AT&T to show “4G” instead of “3G”.
4G was originally defined in 2009 by standard body ITU-R as “peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users)” (quote from wikipedia). Then the carriers got hold of it and started redefining any old thing they had as “4G” because it sold better that way. The latest trick is that even absoultely-just-3G-with-bells-on standards like HSDPA are “4G” too. The graph below shows just how low we’ve come.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Apple stands firm against the worse excesses of the carriers. This is pure capitulation to AT&T’s marketing department.
Update: According to various folk on Twitter, some recent Android handsets indulge in this too. Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, shows a far-more-honest “H” to denote go-faster 3G modes like HSDPA. The Windows Phone 6 handset I was using in 2006 did this too.
I am also grateful to several Twitterers who introduced me to the perfect phrase to describe this shady re-branding: “faux G”.
(HT to Brian Klug for checking my numbers for me.)
Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math
By me, for TUAW. A deep dive on exactly what a “Retina display” should be defined as, and what this means for the rumours of Retina display Macs.
