<blockquote>
The Final Cut Pro X launch was not one of Apple’s best. In the launch, Apple introduced Final Cut Pro X, and killed the entire Final Cut Studio suite and Final Cut Server.
Normally, when new versions come out, old versions die. But, in this case, there were three missing elements:
<ul>
<li>FCP X could not read FCP 7 files, so there was no upgrade path for current FCP 7 projects</li>
<li>There was not feature parity between FCP X and FCP 7</li>
<li>Not all the software in Final Cut Studio was replaced, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Color were gone.</li>
</ul>
The reaction was swift, bitter, and emotional; and instantly colored everyone’s perception of Final Cut Pro X.
So, in thinking about Final Cut Pro X today, you need to separate in your mind your reactions to the launch from your perception of the product.
Personally, I think the launch was terrible, but that FCP X is quite good.
</blockquote>
...
<blockquote>
ISN’T FINAL CUT PRO X SIMPLY IMOVIE PRO?
Well, you can believe that if you want, in the same way that a Ferrari is simply a super-charged VW Beetle. They both have four wheels and an engine, but the results are totally different.
Just as you can not say that since a Ferrari and a Bug are both cars, therefore they must do the same thing, you can not say that because iMovie and Final Cut look similar, they must BE similar.
</blockquote>
Has anyone who says this actually, you know, used iMovie? I have — or rather, I have tried. The two should not be confused. iMovie is very difficult to use for anything and frankly I don't even know how consumers get along with it. Final Cut X, while different and hard to use if you are used to FCP 7, is not that hard to get along with.
Anyway, listen to the man, he has been the voice of reason throughout this whole process. And this one is a good read.

Larry Jordan

Is Final Cut Pro X Ready for Professional Use?

<blockquote>
In spite of the fact that the world is moving “post-PC,” and that consumers are flocking to tablets and smart-phones to consume content, someone still needs to create this stuff.
For developers and media creators, speed, power, flexibility, interconnectivity are still critical. While it is nice to create a home movie on an iPad, I would certainly not want to create Avatar on one.
As I’ve written, the new iMacs are fast and well-suited for most computer tasks. But not everything.
If Apple cedes the high-ground of computing power to Windows/Linux systems, they lose the ability to control what developers develop or media creators create. If a developer is creating media on a Windows system, they will naturally tend to want to make sure that content plays first on Windows devices. Same thing for Android.
It seems obvious to me that Apple’s long-term health requires it to provide developers and media creators with high-performance hardware tools that keeps them on Apple hardware.
As Paul Isbicki wrote in his posting: “What will the future bring for editing, Grfx, 3D, Photoshop, Illustrator, animation? How ’bout CAD and CNC, architecture, design, a thousand apps relying [on the power of a professional system.]?”
</blockquote>
This!
This is exactly right. What does Apple expect it’s iOS developers to use? Sure they can and do use iMacs and MacBook Pros, but many want and need professional towers — Mac Pros.
I've said it before and I will say it again: for me as a professional, the Mac is the Apple product I use the most, and not just by a little bit. Because I am a creative professional using Macs, all of my household runs on all sorts of Apple products. My TV is powered by the Apple TV, my wife has a MacBook, my WiFi router is an Apple AirPort, we both have iPhones. And my immediate family has a nontrivial amount of Apple hardware. My mom has an iMac, my dad has a MacBook Pro, my sister has a MacBook Pro, several members of my family have a varying amount of iPods and iPod Touches (iPods Touch?). This can loosely be related to the fact that I as a creative professional use Apple products and recommend them to others and actively encourage others to get Apple products. If Apple stops serving my needs and I am forced to use other computing solutions, the halo effect goes away. Apple has a lot of consumer traction and it would be hard for them to fail completely — to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as it were — but should Apple start getting really stupid about serving the professionals, in many ways the market drivers, then I think we will see a slow erosion of everything Apple has built.
Side note: whatever Apple does with the Mac Pro or it's successor, I really hope they move away from the sharp-edged cheese grater look and feel.

Larry Jordan on A New Mac Pro

So here it is, the BlackBerry 10 OS no the BlackBerry Z10 hardware. It's taken RIM FOREVER to get here, but I'll say this, I have not seen anything that really looked competitive with the iPhone like this since the Palm Pre OS (was it called Web OS I think?). Yes Android folks, you read that right.
The one thing though is, I'm not sure about all these swiping gestures for key features — they just aren't discoverable. That said, this looks like it has real potential. Also, this is notifications done right. I mean seriously, I don't have many complaints with iOS, but one of my big ones is that Apple STILL doesn't have notifications right (and again for you Android people, neither does Android). But I like the look of this notification system.

BlackBerry 10 vs. iPhone 5

<blockquote>
Headlines are whirling this week with talk of a cheaper iPhone, but Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller is apparently balking at the rumors.
Schiller allegedly admitted to the Shanghai Evening News (<a href="http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&#x26;depth=1&#x26;hl=en&#x26;ie=UTF8&#x26;prev=_t&#x26;rurl=translate.google.com&#x26;sl=auto&#x26;tl=en&#x26;twu=1&#x26;u=http://translate.google.com/translate%3Fsl%3Dauto%26tl%3Dde%26js%3Dn%26prev%3D_t%26hl%3Dde%26ie%3DUTF-8%26eotf%3D1%26u%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fnewspaper.jfdaily.com%2Fxwwb%2Fhtml%2F2013-01%2F09%2Fcontent_954119.htm&#x26;usg=ALkJrhhaaDunR17f-QvrAlM5_LWQsLiq0A">translation</a>) in an interview that his company is not developing a cheaper <a href="http://viglink.pgpartner.com/mrdr.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fviglink.pgpartner.com%2Fsearch_attrib.php%2Fform_keyword=smartphone&#x26;mt=~~~~~~~~n~~~">smartphone</a> to “grab market share away.” He reportedly said the <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=iphone+5">iPhone 5</a> is the best iPhone for Apple and his company is not concerned with market share.
</blockquote>
...
<blockquote>
He indicated cheap smartphones are popular, but they will never be the future of Apple’s products.
</blockquote>
I'm not a fan of theory that Apple is going to produce another, less expensive iPhone. I believe their strategy of selling last years iPhone at a bargain, and the 2 year old iPhone free on contract is a really great one. That said, I would like to pont out that he said “cheap” smartphones will never be the future of Apple products. He did not say “inexpensive”. They are never going to make cheap junk, that's just not Apple.

9to5Mac

Schiller and Cheap iPhones

<blockquote>
Everyone was clapping that Apple embraced open source. Happy, happy, happy. And they were just certain what was coming next. Then Steve moved a new slide onto the screen. With only one word, “KHTML” — six-foot-high white letters on a blue background.
If you listen to that video I posted, notice that no one applauds here. Why? I’m guessing confusion and complete lack of recognition.
What you also can’t hear on the video is someone about 15 to 20 rows behind where we were sitting — obviously expecting the word “Gecko” up there — shout at what seemed like the top of his lungs:
“WHAT THE ****!?”
KHTML may have been a bigger surprise than Apple doing a browser at all. And that moment was glorious. We had punk’d the entire crowd.
</blockquote>
Don Melton has been posting some stuff about his time working on Safari and it's awesome stuff. While I think Firefox and the Gecko layout engine sort of jumpstarted the browser revolution, Safari is still, despite some of it's flaws, my current daily driver. My fall back browser is Chrome, which is also based on Safari's WebKit rendering engine. Firefox is a very VERY distant third at this point. I also really enjoyed going back and watching Steve introduce Safari to the world in the <a href="http://donmelton.com/2013/01/07/macworld-2003-keynote/">Macworld 2003 Keynote</a>. This was the beginning of Apple's heyday.

Don Melton

Safari is released to the world

<blockquote>
I happen to think 3D in movie theaters is still a gimmicky distraction from storytelling that will (once again) die out over time. I happen to think 3D on your TV in the home is ******* ridiculous and was dead on arrival. Good riddance.
</blockquote>
Right on. I don't like 3D either. I've <a href="http://www.moviebyte.com/entry/2012/11/dimensions">said so before</a> and I'm saying it now. The sooner it goes away, the better.

MG Siegler

MG Siegler on 3D

Let me tell you a little bit about something I like and enjoy.
(Warning: spoilers for Portal and Portal 2 follow)
One of the things I have been enjoying in my precious few spare moments after my work is done for the day and the kids go to bed is Portal and Portal 2. A friend of mine had our family over for the evening a few weeks ago and he introduced me to Portal. Of course I had heard of it before. But in my mind somehow it was linked to first person shooter games and the like. I'm not into those so I never thought to check out Portal.
But Portal is not a first person shooter. Sure it's played in the first person, which I don't usually care for. But that's about as far as the similarities go. Portal and its successor, Portal 2, are essentially puzzles that must be solved with differently positioned portals. The portal gun you carry can shoot two differently colored portals, orange and blue. Think of the colors as corresponding to sides. If you go in an orange portal, you come out of a blue portal and vice versa.
Portal is actually a fairly short game, especially when you play it the second time around, but it's been a long time since I had so much fun with a game. The plot is fairly simple. Your character, Chell, wakes up from what is apparently some sort of stasis sleep, and an AI tells you that testing is ready to begin. A portal opens, you go through it and begin advancing through the stages of "testing". As you go, the AI (if you know Portal's story and lore you know her name is GLaDOS) seems to get more and more menacing until finally, she leads you to a chamber of fire where she intends to kill you. But you portal up and go behind the scenes, eventually finding the nerve center of the AI and destroying her.
Words cannot do this justice, solving the puzzles, advancing, figuring out how to kill the AI is so much fun.
Portal 2 is a much longer, and even more fun and satisfying game. In Portal 2, GLaDOS is resurrected from her destroyed pieces. Wheatley, another AI we meet, is trying to help you get to GLaDOS control room. When you get through GLaDOS' testing with Wheatley and show up in her chamber, another computer voice announces that a corrupted core has been detected, but a new core has also been detected and would you like to install it.
After installing Wheatley and ousting GLaDOS, Wheatley seems to be corrupted by the power, and drops Chell down a shaft all the way to the bottom of the facility. Now you have to make your way back up to the top and face off with Wheatley. This is the heart of the gameplay and it is even more fun than the original Portal. Along then way you meet up with what's left of the GLaDOS core, now powered by a potato battery. You and her ascend back to the top to face off with Wheatley. Wheatley has gone stark raving mad and once you get back up to the facility proper, he begins testing you in a similar manner to GLaDOS, only much more deranged.
In the end, after a battle with Wheatley, he is sucked into space by firing a portal at the moon.
None of what I am writing here can convey just how much fun both of these games are. They are available on a variety of different platforms, including <a href="http://store.steampowered.com">Steam</a>, and I can't recommend the game highly enough.

Portal

<blockquote>
The February issue of Consumer Reports will include the graphic above, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/consumer-reports-iphone-5-2013-1">clipped by Business Insider</a>, that ranks numerous Android devices above the <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=iphone+5">iPhone 5</a> in its “What’s Hot” February 2013 list. On every carrier, the Samsung Galaxy S3 ranks higher than the <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=iphone+5">iPhone 5</a>. Even the LG Optimus G and the Droid RAZRs top the iPhone on various carriers.
</blockquote>
Consumer Reports: Continuing their trend of irrelevance into 2013 and beyond. Meanwhile, Apple continues to sell the most popular and best selling and second best selling smartphones.
I think someone in power over there at Consumer Reports has a chip on their shoulder about Apple products.

Consumer Reports Irrelevance

<blockquote>
One is focused on the new <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FmipwLsHc">EarPod headphones</a>, while another shows off the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtm4ySJQPOc">new Panorama feature</a> in iOS 6, and a third touts the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4IRsCjMqdI">larger screen</a> of the iPhone 5. The fourth ad shows how the iPhone 5 is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Rc4MDmr8o">perfect size for "your thumb"</a>, a subtle jab at the larger screens of some Android phones that can be difficult to use with one hand.
</blockquote>
Now these are good ads. I don't know what went wrong and where it went wrong with the last batch of Mac ads, but these are great.

MacRumors

iPhone 5 Television Ads

One of the more strange phenomenons that takes place is the "disappointment" surrounding iPhone events for the last couple versions of the iPhone. Consider.
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/iphone-5-has-enterprise-potential-but-disappointing-overall-7000004202/">ZDNet - iPhone 5 has enterprise potential, but disappointing overall</a>:
<blockquote>
For consumers, though, the iPhone 5 will not be evolutionary like the iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 was in terms of form factor, user experience and software, Nath said, adding that the latest release is not very different in terms of the way it looks and behaves.
The new smartphone also had been "highly hyped" with many carrying high expectations, especially since they had expected the iPhone 5 to be unveiled last year but <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/analysts-disappointing-iphone-4s-could-be-fastest-selling-to-date/60175">got iPhone 4S instead</a>, he noted.
</blockquote>
Don't get me started about how utterly stupid that business about "they expected iPhone 5 but got 4S instead" is.
Extreme Tech, in an article with the link baity title, "<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/136100-the-iphone-5-less-innovation-than-android-and-wp8-in-a-bigger-package">The iPhone 5: Less innovation than Android and WP8, in a bigger package</a>," says:
<blockquote>
The rest of the hardware is nothing to really write home about. It has a <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/136085-whats-inside-the-iphone-5s-a6-soc">faster dual-core processor</a>, but lots of phones do. It has LTE, which is also commonplace. There’s no NFC, which I still think is a mistake even without a payment platform (sharing content with NFC is extremely handy). Instead of adding interesting hardware features, it seems like Apple spent its time making the phone very pretty.
There were plenty of rumors about what Apple was going to do with those extra pixels on the iPhone’s screen. Surely <a href="http://www.extremetech.com/computing/130797-apple-ios-6-vs-android-google-has-some-work-to-do">the previous iOS 6 announcement</a> wouldn’t have revealed everything, right? Actually, there was no grand plan to revolutionize the interface — the extra resolution went to another row of icons. This seems like the most boring use Apple could have come up with.
</blockquote>
Wired, again with the asinine title, "<a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/09/the-iphone-5-is-boring-and-amazing/">The iPhone 5 Is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring</a>" says:
<blockquote>
Yes, it’s better than the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 4 or just about any other phone you can buy. It’s faster with a bigger screen and an LTE antenna so you can suck up data from your carrier like Michael Phelps at a table full of pizza. But mostly it is the Toyota Prius of phone updates. It is an amazing triumph of technology that gets better and better, year after year, and yet somehow is every bit as exciting as a 25 mph drive through a sensible neighborhood at a reasonable time of day. It’s not going to change your life. It’s not even going to offer a radically different experience.
</blockquote>
I could go on, and on and on. There are a lot of articles and posts about how "disappointing" the iPhone 5 is. But as it turns out, perhaps the iPhone 5 wasn't as disappointing to consumers as it was to technology journalists with their head up… Ahem, anyway. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443995604578001920943462306.html">The Wall Street Journal reports</a>:
<blockquote>
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&#x26;symbol=T">Apple</a> Inc. said customers placed more than 2 million preorders for the iPhone 5 on the first day it was available, doubling previous results and exceeding initial supply of the smartphone.
</blockquote>
...
<blockquote>
The initial reception surpassed sales of the device's predecessor, the iPhone 4S, which received more than 1 million preorders during its first day of requests Oct. 7, and easily tops the 600,000 handsets preordered after the debut of the iPhone 4.
Apple executives have said that each new iPhone has outsold all of its predecessors combined as the smartphone reaches new markets and expands within existing ones.
</blockquote>
Huh. Well look at that. Consumers did not agree with the journalists and analysts. They thought the iPhone 5 was just dandy. What gives?
I think this disappointment is a direct result of the fact that Apple has sprung several leaks in it's normally tightly sealed ship. Secrecy has always been Apple's ally in the past, but as Apple gets bigger, sells more devices, and grabs more of the watching world's attention, it becomes very, very hard to keep secrets. Third party supply chains leak, unscrupulous employees let things slip out, and human mistakes are bound to happen.
When Apple announced the first iPhone and blew the world away with the undeniably sleek and awe inspiring device, no one knew anything about it. No one outside Apple had seen it, indeed few inside of Apple had seen the device in full. And it was completely revolutionary. Consider also that this was six months before the device began shipping, and before suppliers began ramping up production. Coupled with the fact that the world was not yet really watching Apple in this space, and you have a very well kept secret.
Now the problem is Apple has already revolutionized the space so they don't have anything as earth shattering as that first iPhone to announce. And supply chains just can't keep their big fat mouths shut. I, and all these tech journalists and analysts already knew pretty much everything there was to know about the iPhone 5. So the lack of anything new beyond what had leaked, let alone earth shatteringly revolutionary, was seen as a disappointment by certain people who do not represent the average consumer. When the pre-order gates opened, the average consumer was polled, and the vote is in. The people have spoken, and they like it.
In the end, Apple still makes the best smartphone by miles, and they keep pushing it forward. Disappointing? The best Smartphone on the market, disappointing? Whatever you say people.

Leaking Disappointment

I have not yet watched the <a href="http://www.apple.com/apple-events/september-2012/">video of the event</a>, and it’s starting to look like with all the things I have going on I just won’t have the time. But I did follow the live-blogging of the event and I know what went on, and of course I know all the details about the iPhone 5. My geek card is intact.
<h2>Six, or Five?</h2>
Apple has by all appearances lost the ability to count and put a 5 in the name of their sixth generation iPhone. Yes, that’s right, the iPhone 5 is really the iPhone 6. The math works like this:
<ul>
<li>iPhone (first generation)</li>
<li>iPhone 3G (second generation)</li>
<li>iPhone 3GS (third generation)</li>
<li>iPhone 4 (fourth generation)</li>
<li>iPhone 4S (fifth generation)</li>
<li>iPhone 5 (sixth generation) (huh???)</li>
</ul>
So what gives? As much as it annoys the ever living stuffing out of me, sometimes Apple just rolls with the punches so to speak. Everyone and their mother and brother and… well everyone but a handful of us nerds have been referring to the phone that comes after the iPhone 4S as the iPhone 5. Everyone was disappointed that the 4S wasn’t the iPhone 5. Everyone assumed that the next iPhone would be the iPhone 5. So I think Apple really just figured it would be way too much trouble to convince everyone that iPhone 6 was a logical name. They didn’t want to deal with everyone who would be talking about how Apple skipped a generation. Everyone was already calling it the iPhone 5 and anticipating it, they had the mindshare and the expectation. So: <a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/">iPhone 5</a>.
<h2>Lanky Teenager</h2>
With the iPhone 5, iPhone is now in that awkward teenage growth stage where it suddenly shoots up but doesn’t put on any weight. Well okay the analogy starts to break down because I don’t know that I want it wider. The truth be told I’m not jazzed about it being taller either. I am very happy with the size of my 4S. These big boat Android phones are really uncomfortable to use frankly, and I don’t want a big iPhone.
But I think that, again, Apple has to make a phone that others want. No, Apple doesn’t cave to the demands of what people think they want as a general rule. But on the other hand, they do have to strike a balance here — make a good phone, make a marketable phone. For some reason people have it in their heads that bigger is better <a href="#fn:notaste">1</a> and it was getting to the point where the iPhone was the smallest smartphone on the market. So to some extent, I think Apple felt that they needed to make the phone bigger.
Another problem with the perception of people is that most think they need change for the sake of change. When the new iPhone comes out, there’s always irritation from various people that it is essentially the same phone with slightly better internals. The problem of course is that the iPhone is the best phone it can be, how do you make it better? Not by changing it for the sake of change, that’s for sure. So this time, Apple has changed the form factor slightly — they’ve made it taller.
One more angle on the taller design. I think Apple is running up against the limitations of the battery technology available today. We all, including me, gripe and moan about the battery life of our iPhones, but this is the fact of the matter, iPhone is very battery efficient. Apple has squeezed out every bit of battery they can, but they want to make a faster, better phone. They upgraded the internals and they need a bigger battery to power those internals for the same amount of time. A taller iPhone allows for a bigger battery.
<h2>Design Language</h2>
Coming back to my point about not changing for the sake of change, one of the things that is remarkable about the iPhone 5 is how much like the iPhone 4 and 4S it actually is. Just glancing at it, you may not immediately identify it as a different model of iPhone than the iPhone 4 and 4S. Of course it wouldn’t take long to fix that perception with just a slight study of the phone, but at a glance it looks a lot like the previous two phones. It is, in many ways a more refined version of the iPhone 4/4S design language. Though of course I have yet to get my hands on one, it looks like they’ve gone to the next level with the fit and finish, slightly beveling the edges of the antenna band and things like that.
And they did fix one important thing that I have always thought was just a little odd about the iPhone 4 design: they changed the back of the phone to something a little less breakable. Making both the front and the back of the phone out of glass may look cool, but why make parts of the phone that don’t need to be glass out of glass when that makes it more breakable? When I first saw the leaks of the aluminum back with glass top and bottom <a href="#fn:radiotransparency">2</a>, I was not at all sure I liked it, but the design has grown on me. And I certainly favor the idea of a less breakable back on the iPhone, though I have never cracked one myself.
<h2>The Long Term Evolution</h2>
iPhone 5, as expected, is a 4G LTE capable phone. This is not surprising since the iPad came out earlier this year with the capability as well. Apple has done well here too in that the iPhone 5 battery life is not worse than the iPhone 4S. This is a rarity in the emerging radio technology world. Anyone who keeps up with cellular radio technology knows that in the early stages of new cellular radio technology development, those new radios are power-hungry and big. Yet Apple has managed to cram all the radio technologies they need onto one chip. This is a huge feat and they did it at a slight cost. Though Apple does and will do it’s best to make this process transparent to the user, there are actually <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/09/12/apple_to_sell_3_variants_of_iphone_5_for_international_lte_coverage">3 variants of the iPhone 5</a>. This is necessary because of the divergent radio technologies and frequencies among carriers. Those three models are as follows:
<ul>
<li>AT&#x26;T and Canada Version (GSM model A1428)
This model supports UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA on 850, 900, 1900, and 2100 MHz, GSM/EDGE on the same frequencies, and LTE bands 4 and 17.</li>
<li>Verizon and Sprint (CDMA Model A1429)
This model supports CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B on 800, 1900, and 2100 MHz, UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA on 850, 900, 1900, and 2100 MHz), GSM/EDGE on 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz, and LTE bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25.</li>
<li>Europe and Asia (GSM model A1429)
This model supports UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA on 850, 900, 1900, and 2100 MHz, GSM/EDGE on 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz, and LTE bands 1, 3, 5.</li>
</ul>
As you can see the primary discrepancy is the LTE bands each phone supports (though the CDMA version certainly seems crammed with radio technology). You know it had to kill Apple to do this, but if they didn’t support LTE I suspect there would have been a bit of backlash. And the 3 models seems the be the price paid for supporting LTE. And really, in the long run, this is fine. Most people buy carrier specific phones and sign two year contracts so it works out fine.
<h2>Making Connections</h2>
The iPhone 5 features an all new Dock <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1168555/what_apples_new_lightning_connector_means_for_you.html">Lightning connector</a>. It is far smaller and it’s reversible (yes!). Contrary to what some people love to spout off, I do not believe Apple did this because they could, or because they like changing one proprietary standard for another. I think they did it because they needed to. Those opposed to this connector are divide into two camps. The first think that Apple should have just gone to, yea, should have always just used the Micro USB standard <a href="#fn:micro">3</a>. The second camp grumble that Apple didn’t need to change the connector and they’re just doing it to be mean and sell a lot of adapters and a lot of new accessories.
But the fact of the matter is the iPhone has been using borrowed technology in this department since it’s inception. The iPod Dock connector has been around since 2003. It’s nine-year-old technology, it’s big and bulky and un-Apple like at this point. And it was getting in the way of designing a smaller, thinner, and better iPhone. The Dock connector had a good run and long life. It was time for retirement.
<h2>Pods</h2>
Another thing that the new iPhone will be coming with is the redesigned set of headphones they are calling EarPods. This is another area where I am glad to see Apple doing something. I have made do with the earbuds Apple previously included with their iPhones but they have never been great. And I have always had trouble keeping those things in my ears. While I have not yet used these new EarPods, they look like they will be far better. Those that have had a chance to play with Apple’s new EarPods say the quality of both the build, and the sound are far better.
<h2>Evolution</h2>
The iPhone 5, while sporting perhaps the most radical design change yet in changing the dimensions of the screen, is still an evolutionary upgrade to the best smart phone on the planet. And that is not a knock against it. I remember having this type of conversation with people about the Unibody MacBook Pro. “Hey TJ, do you think next year they will redesign the MacBook Pro?” “No.” “Well they need to do something, it’s got to look new and better and shiner!” “Why?” And that’s the question isn’t it? Why? More to the point, why would you redesign something that is already the best? That’s why, when the retina MacBook Pro came out, it looked like a Unibody MacBook Pro. There’s nothing to redesign, it’s already as good as it can be with the technology available. The same holds true for the iPhone in my opinion. What would you change about the design language? Those minor things that I would have wanted changed did change. But since I think the overall design language of the iPhone is top of its class, why change it?
<h2>So Will I Put My Money Where My Mouth Is?</h2>
Well, no. See I upgraded to the 4S just a little less than a year ago. I upgrade my phone every two years. And even if I were eligible for AT&#x26;T’s midway point subsidy <a href="#fn:subsidy">4</a>, I really am not interested in signing another contract with AT&#x26;T right now. I have the itch to jump to Verizon again, a real bad itch to do so. I’m hoping it will be feasible next year when my contract is up with AT&#x26;T.
Interesting side note, it’s anecdotal, but almost every single person I follow on Twitter who is getting an iPhone 5 is switching from AT&#x26;T to Verizon. It makes me wonder if the mass exodus from AT&#x26;T predicted when Verizon got the iPhone was just delayed. I really think it’s because AT&#x26;T is so far behind on their LTE roll out <a href="#fn:behind">5</a>. It will be interesting to watch what happens on that front.
The iPhone 5 is a good phone and if I were in the market to upgrade, the iPhone 5 would certainly be the phone I would get.
<hr>
<ol>
<li>
These people have no taste, but that’s another story for another day. <a href="#fnref:notaste">↩</a>
</li>
<li>
Presumably for radio transparency. <a href="#fnref:radiotransparency">↩</a>
</li>
<li>
The question being, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Mini_and_Micro_connectors">which one</a>. <a href="#fnref:micro">↩</a>
</li>
<li>
I’m not as far as I know right now. <a href="#fnref:subsidy">↩</a>
</li>
<li>
Just like they were with their 3G roll out. Anyone else seeing a pattern here? <a href="#fnref:behind">↩</a>
</li>
</ol>

The iPhone 5

Almost a year ago now, <a href="http://brooksreview.net/2011/12/failure/">Ben Brooks did a take down of The Verge</a>.
<blockquote>
As I said above I was pretty excited about The Verge and what the crew behind it was trying to do. I think they created a great independent site that gets excellent access to companies they cover. I think that they created a great brand and image.
But I think the site’s content is pretty lackluster.
Push aside the press release re-writes that contain little to no commentary — this is par for the course (unfortunately) — and you are left with tech specs.
When the most interesting thing you write on your site — from a reader’s perspective that reads 300+ tech sites in his RSS reader — is a rebuttal to another site, well I think you have big problems.
</blockquote>
At this point I was also a bit disappointed with The Verge, but there have been some redeeming qualities — like their video reviews which are top notch. So I didn't give up on them yet.
I've also been a bit irritated by The Verge's editor-in-chief, Josh Topolsky here and there. He tends to be an arrogant moron who really doesn't always know what he's talking about. But I let that slide. Everyone is entitled to their personality.
Things sort of blew up yesterday when <a href="http://www.marco.org/2012/09/10/elephant">Marco Arment made a passing comment about The Verge in his link post</a>:
<blockquote>
Like The Verge, Engadget naturally <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/10/hp-spectre-one-all-in-one-envy-20-envy-23-pavilion-20/">made no mention</a> of the HP Spectre One’s many obvious similarities to the iMac.
Big “gadget” blogs depend on maintaining very friendly relationships with the companies whose products they cover so they can continue to get exclusives, interviews, press badges to events, and early access to products. Maintaining these relationships while retaining credibility isn’t always an easy choice for many sites, and many choose poorly.
</blockquote>
This is also one of my irritations with the big tech news outlets of late. They seem to go out of their way to not mention the obvious. I know all the people who hate Apple will accuse all of us on this side of the fence of fanboyism, but really, these examples of which we link to and are talking about are so obvious it's unreal.
So then <a href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/09/10/marco-design">Gruber had a theory</a>:
<blockquote>
My theory is that it’s not about access; it’s about not pissing off the vocal anti-Apple contingent of their readerships. Those who claim to truly believe the iPhone is just a black rectangle with round corners.
</blockquote>
Previously, <a href="http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/30/samsung">Gruber had also posted</a>:
<blockquote>
Serious question for The Verge: how do you run an article about these things without even mentioning that the industrial design is a blatant rip-off of the MacBook Air?
Who has less integrity: Samsung for “designing” this, or The Verge for pretending it’s legitimate?
</blockquote>
Well, that didn't sit to well with Topolsky <a href="https://twitter.com/joshuatopolsky/statuses/245199223715409920">who tweeted this</a>:
<blockquote>
When Marco, or Gruber, or anyone else puts in the work we do in the way that we do it, let me know.
</blockquote>
Wow. Talk about arrogant. Look, I know John Gruber and Marco Arment can be arrogant — well you know whats — too, but this is just way over the top. But Topolsky wasn't finished yet. Topolsky <a href="http://joshuatopolsky.com/post/31285353423/integrity-and-bullies-with-blogs">takes to his personal tumblr blog</a>:
<blockquote>
But, just as I felt compelled to respond to Michael Arrington when he attacked the work I (and my team) did at Engadget, I am now responding to Marco Arment, John Gruber, and anyone else who sets up a minimal Wordpress blog and thinks that the ability to publish text onto the internet gives them insight into what journalism is or what I do for a living.
</blockquote>
This is neither here, nor there, but I just have to comment on this because it's funny. It's funny that he talks about a minimal WordPress blog when both Gruber and Arment are both well known non-users of WordPress. Gruber <a href="http://daringfireball.net/colophon/">uses Moveable Type</a>, and Arment uses a <a href="http://www.marco.org/secondcrack">static blog publishing engine he custom-built himself</a>.
But moving on.
<blockquote>
Without going down a rabbit hole of he-said she-said, Marco and Gruber are just basically wrong. We of course mention this kind of thing all the time in our writing. Like <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/12/3117889/dell-xps-14-review-2012">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/4/2677801/hp-envy-15-review-late-2011">here</a>, for instance — in reviews especially, where that kind of critique is actually useful. Here’s our senior editor Paul Miller <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/hp-envy-13-and-15-bring-luxury-to-the-everyman-look-like-macboo/">talking about it in 2009</a>. You guys getting this over there? Welcome to three years ago. Still not getting it? Here’s us <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone-no-seriously/">making fun of Nokia in 2007</a> for an Apple-style design. This is old hat. We mention it plenty, we talk about it on the Vergecast plenty. Nilay and I have been ripping Samsung to shreds over it for years. Gruber and Marco are plainly and simply wrong.
</blockquote>
Yes, I think this is actually our point. No one is saying it is never mentioned. But we have all noticed a trend lately that they don't mention it nearly as much as they should or used to. The point is that there is an elephant in the room that is very often overlooked. The lack of journalistic integrity is astounding, actually.
Jonathan Poritsky <a href="http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/09/10/topolsky/">had this to say</a>:
<blockquote>
I get Topolsky’s knee-jerk reaction in publishing this post, though for the life of me I don’t understand why he took to his personal blog and not The Verge’s forums, let alone publishing an editorial comment on Verge proper.<a href="http://www.candlerblog.com/2012/09/10/topolsky/#fn:2">2</a> He has been hurt by two of the tech community’s heaviest hitters, so he’s upset or trying to rally his troops or whatever.
</blockquote>
...
<blockquote>
The Verge, it seems, is primarily aimed at people who read The Verge. You think they don’t mention Apple? They did! Two months ago! Eight months ago too! Listen to The Vergecast. Read the rest of the site. Everything is there.
</blockquote>
Yeah. Pretty much.
So, I'm pretty much done with The Verge. I've had enough of the drama, nonsense, and lack of journalistic integrity.

Posts tagged “Opinion” from the blog