The Adventures of Systems Boy!
Is it just me or does it strike anyone else as somewhat strange that the new Find My iPhone application is for the iPhone?
Uh, guys, if I can install an app on it, it's probably not that lost.
I mean, how many of these things do you think I own?
Oh... A lot, I guess.
This is how still images in Final Cut Pro 7 looked to me after installing and updating to the latest version (7.0.1):
This is my dog:
She is not normally purple and green and swirly colored.
After an hour or so mucking about, reinstalling the application, trashing prefs and otherwise performing the usual maneuvers, I decided to take my own medicine and reboot. Why I don't just always do this first — like I tell everyone else to do — is beyond me. But sure enough, it worked.
Ah! That's better! Crazy mutt!
If this is what the rumored Apple tablet is going to be — basically a bigger version of the iPod Touch — then I'll pass. I mean, really, what's the point of a device like this? It's too big to be an iPod or an extremely mobile computing device like the iPhone, and I already have an iPhone anyway. Yet it's too small and underpowered to be useful in the ways a laptop is useful, as a real computer that just happens to be portable. In fact, the only niche I see a device like this filling is the netbook niche, which Apple has already eschewed, and which I agree will prove to be a flash in the pan, a fad. I guess it's possible they could be going for gamers, but that seems unlikely to me. The Apple tablet that I'm hearing about sounds like a netbook with a touchscreen, which, frankly, just isn't compelling in the least.
Besides, I thought the advantage of tablet computers was that you could draw on them. I thought they were for artists. This thing doesn't look like you're meant to use it that way at all. And isn't the whole reason Apple went with a virtual keyboard on the iPhone because of the small size of the device, to conserve space? What would be the purpose on a larger device?
I realize all is speculation at this point, and maybe I'm missing something about this thing that isn't obvious because the device hasn't even been announced. I mean, who knows, maybe it's something completely revolutionary, like nothing we've ever seen before, with fabulous, new untold uses and capabilities. Or, hell, maybe you can draw on it. That would be great.
But if this thing's for real and it's anything like the rumors say it is, I'm amazed anyone's excited about it at all. It sounds like a computer without a purpose.
Oh, and one more thing: when it comes out they should call it the Ablet. Right? Don't you think?
Totally.
So for, like, forever Google apps — in particular, Gmail and Google Calendar — have bore a beta label. Now, no one has any idea why this has been the case, but this week Google has decided to remove the beta label with little more than PR-speak as an explanation:
"We realize this situation puzzles some people, particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of “beta” software as not being yet ready for prime time." (via John Gruber)
Gruber himself retorts:
"Imagine that — people thought that what Google meant by “beta” was what everyone else means by “beta”. Shocking"
Classic Gruber.
Now, I've heard Google spin it this way all over the web, but what I keep wondering is what Google's special, newfangled, hi-falutin' definition of beta actually is. The closest I've seen is this:
"Others say that, over the last five years, a beta culture has grown around web apps, such that the very meaning of "beta" is debatable. And rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we're moving to a world of rapid developmental cycles where products like Gmail continue to change indefinitely."
Um... What the hell are you guys talking about? Really. What is a "beta culture?" Seriously. What is that? And are you telling me that Google's apps are the only ones to "change indefinitely." That's funny, because I keep running these software update thingies on my computer and all its applications. And every year or so I install new versions of said apps, loaded with new features. So tell me again: How is your definition of beta different than everyone else's? And why in the name of sweet merciful heaven has Gmail been beta for the past five years?
Ridiculous! And the more you try to spin it the more arrogant and full-of-it you come across.
Just admit it. You're afraid to commit. It's okay. We get it. There's no shame in that.
The oddest thing is that Google clearly thinks of the term beta as completely meaningless:
"Don't despair... for those of you long-time Gmail-ers who might feel some separation anxiety, we've got a solution. Just go to Settings, click on Labs, turn on "Back to Beta," and it'll be like Gmail never left beta at all."
That's right. You want the beta label back? Just turn it on. Which begs the question, why did they use the term for the past five years?
It's just stupid.
Here's a fun one: Tap the microphone image in the Voice Memos application in iPhone OS 3.0 and the virtual VU meter will respond.
The peak light will even flash red, just like a real recorder attached to a real mic.
Blowing into the screen will do nothing, however.
