This week on The Prompt, Federico, Myke and Stephen talk about new apps, complain about the miserable service that is iWork for iCloud and think aloud about FaceTime Audio.
Come for the show notes. Stay for the iWork rant. Get the episode here.
Posts in Linked
The Prompt: TAKE ACTION→
Nintendo Doesn’t Need to Make Games for Mobile→
Kris Naudus of GDGT writes about Nintendo, how it won’t cede control, and backs up Nintendo’s motivations with some history, including a brief deal with Philips of all companies.
Nintendo won’t make the switch to iOS because it means ceding control to a company that doesn’t make gaming its #1 priority. And that’s important to the people there – Nintendo is a culture. And they will go to great lengths to preserve that culture; for example, where most companies flush with cash would go on a spending and acquisition spree, Nintendo doesn’t.
iPad mini as the Absorber→
I think it becomes apparent, then, why everyone assumes the iPad Air is the creator and the iPad Mini is the absorber. While both now have the same internals, the preconceived notion that the iPad Mini is not meant for creation has overruled analytical and advisory minds. It actually makes sense to associate “smaller” and more “portable” as an absorber.
Joshua Ginter makes some good points in his article on iPad Air vs. mini for content creation. My guess: many will reconsider the mini after they’ll try the Retina display in the smaller form factor.
Justin Williams’ Ultimate Developer And Power Users Tool List For OS X→
This year’s edition of the list takes into account the new tools I am using as part of my transition to working exclusively on iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, as well as an amateur designer.
Lots of good links in Justin’s annual list.
John Gruber’s iPad Air Review→
Last week, I made the case for thumb-typing (among other things) on the iPad mini. Last night, John Gruber published his review of the iPad Air, which covers this aspect. Exactly what I wanted to know.
Jim Dalrymple on the iPad Air→
This smaller size is great. If you have decent sized hands you can type with two thumbs on the iPad in portrait, something I wasn’t really able to do with the last generation iPad without a lot of stretching. Clearly a full-size iPad is not something you will be thumb typing with all the time, but it does give you an idea of how much smaller the iPad Air is.
Jim’s review addresses a point that I was curious to know about, and he also talks about battery life with the LTE model he reviewed.
Ben Bajarin’s Review of the iPad Air→
When recommending products to consumers I always encourage them to look at it as an investment. Whether someone is buying a PC, TV, smartphone, or tablet, it is best to get one that is worthy of your money and will last. What makes the iPad Air interesting–from the view of personal computing–is the A7 processor.
Much has been written about the power of the A7. Creativity apps like iMovie and GarageBand run extremely smoothly and fast on the A7. I made a 4-minute high definition movie on the iPad Air and it exported in just under one minute. When I attempted the same on the iPad 4 it took just over three minutes. When it comes to exporting movies or even compressing video or a photo to upload to the web, send in an email, or even using AirDrop the A7 does it all faster.
Ben’s review of the iPad Air is different from the ones that have been published this evening, and he offers some practical advice.
The Menu Bar Ep. 27: There Is No Show→
I had the pleasure of being on this week’s episode of The Menu Bar with Andrew Clark and Zac Cichy, who are some of the most laid back guys I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to in recent memory. I haven’t been on a podcast in a long time, and I’m glad they put up with my scatterbrain and ramblings. The show is 2 hours long… I’m sorry Andrew (who had to edit it all) and Harry. My fault.
Some of the things we chatted about:
- All the Mac blogs have grown up, everyone’s cool, and we all found our own niche
- iPhone 5c recommendation over iPhone 5s, and the A7 processor
- Everything’s going free and what it means for Apple
- The iPad lineup and potential pro offerings
- The Nintendo 2DS, the 3DS ecosystem, and the magic of Nintendo
- …and more!
I had a good time and needed to get some things off my chest, and I’m glad they gave me the opportunity to talk about some of the topics I’m interested in as of late. I do feel bad for talking over them sometimes: group chats are hard and I’ll get better with experience. I’m looking for feedback regarding things I could work on as far as speaking on a podcast, so shoot me a Twitter message or use our email and it’ll get to the right place. (Subject: Menu Bar if you go the email route.) Be nice tho!
Spoilers: Andrew bought a 2DS.
Macworld’s Transcript of Apple’s Q4 2013 Earnings Call→
Tim Cook:
In terms of new product categories, specifically, if you look at the skills that Apple has from hardware, software, and services, and an incredible app ecosystem, these set of things is very, very unique, I think no one has a set of skills like this, and we obviously believe that we can use our skills in building other great products that are in categories that represent areas where we do not participate today. So we’re pretty confident about that.