It might be from the developers behind the popular to-do app Clear, but Hatch is the antithesis of a productivity app. It's an attention-sapping reimagining of Tamagotchi and the countless other virtual pets that were all the rage in the late '90s. And it's adorable.
As someone who queued for the first Tamagotchi release in the UK back in 1997, I'm a sucker for things like this. If you need me, I'll be feeding my Fugu.
An interesting side note to yesterday's post on the iPad Air is that while the iPad killed off my desire to carry a regular notebook computer, it hasn't obviated my need for a desktop Mac. In fact, it's made the iMac an even more essential part of my daily workflow.
I'm not suggesting I'm typical in this: Indeed, in the first six months of using the very first iPad I wondered aloud just how long it would take for the iPad to replace my workplace desktop computer. Maybe this was because I was stuck on a pretty old, low-on-RAM iMac at my office which took longer to load web pages or fetch my email than even the original RAM-cosntrained iPad. Maybe not though: Even before I upgraded to a 2012 slimline iMac for work I found myself coming back to using the desktop and the iPad as complementary devices, suited to sometimes subtly different tasks, or to different approaches.
What really altered my previous trajectory towards an iPad-only workflow was OS X, or rather the changes that we began to see with 2011's Mac OS X 10.7 Lion release. This was the OS X release heralded as representing a "Back to the Mac" approach, with Apple bringing the best elements of iOS to its Mac line. While more than a few long-time Mac users complained about changes like autosave, the beginning of the App Store sandbox shenanigans, and 'natural' direction scrolling, Lion also represents the beginning of the line that led rapidly to iCloud syncing, and eventually to last month's 'unification' of iWork apps across iOS and OS X.
The significance of these changes can't be over-emphasised. We're at a place now where it's possible to move relatively seamlessly between a large screen Mac desktop and a portable iOS experience; where I can start an email on the iPhone during a commute and pick it up at my desk, and where I can finish a Keynote presentation on my iMac and present it moments later through a web browser on a classroom PC.
The way that iOS increasingly shares an infrastructure with OS X has actually made my iMac more useful, not less as I originally suspected it might. The iPad might have become my mobile computer of choice—snuggling up with me on the sofa to finish a blog post after dinner or sneaking out of a noisy office to find a quiet cafe where I can write an important email—but the iMac feels more like the nerve centre of operations where I can sit back and see everything that's happening in an increasingly crowded and connected work life.
Gorgeous new Bluetooth LE stylus from the company who made the wonderful, essential, Paper app. When this ships in the UK I'm all over it. Walnut, for those of you wondering.
However in the 21st century, storytelling has the opportunity to spark innovation that pushes beyond the entertainment industry. Earlier this year, without much fanfare, David Cronenberg quietly licensed the fictional technology and science found within his films Shivers, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome and eXistenZ for a mind-bending eight-figure sum. While it is common for a film’s IP to make its way into other mediums, such as books, television or games, it is highly unusual for a film’s fictional elements to become actual biotechnology.
As a long-time Cronenberg fan, I love this.
If you were to ask a Finnish child 15 years ago where they wanted to work one day, the answer was almost always “Nokia.”
But as the company imploded in recent years — long before Microsoft acquired Nokia’s mobile division for $7.2 billion in September — former executives and staffers who left or were cut loose started to build their own businesses. Soon, hundreds of new companies popped up across the country.
Exciting times ahead for the Finns, post-Nokia's dominance.
I've been using the iPad Air as my primary (and pretty much only) iPad since it launched on November 1st, and thought that it was about time that I shared some of my thoughts.
After carrying the first three full-size iPads pretty much everywhere for two-and-a-half years, I'd switched to the Mini full time last year. While for the most part this changed little other than being much easier to carry around all day (and meant I could more often switch to a smaller bag when popping to a cafe for a few hours), the Mini came with a couple of caveats.
Firstly, the screen resolution. In just six months or so of using the third-generation iPad I'd become very acclimatised to the retina display. While I don't wear glasses I probably should, and moving to a smaller, and decidedly lower-resolution screen really irked me, and almost certainly meant I did less reading on the Mini than I otherwise would have. When I did read for any length of time, I was frequently irritated by how much poorer the display was than on the iPad 3, though I comforted myself by occasionally picking up the older device and reminding myself how much it weighed.
Secondly, the screen size. While it's a pretty obvious part of the trade-off in choosing a Mini, and while 7.9 inches is a whole lot more useful than the widescreen 7-inch displays packed by many other small tablets, there are still a fair few websites (and web services) that I use on a day-to-day basis that just aren't built for tablet-sized screens. Some of them are barely usable on the full-size iPad, and using them on anything smaller is to enter a world of scrolling and zooming.
Trying to balance both of these concerns put me right on the border of the use cases for both sizes of the iPad. The Mini's new retina display solves the one issue perfectly, while the dramatic weight reduction (and slightly less-dramatic size reduction) in the iPad Air solves the other. The almost identical performance of the two new devices makes the choice even more difficult (as almost everybody has already written).
In the end, the choice for me came down partly to availability (the Air shipped in good numbers on the 1st November, the Mini is only just shipping and is much more constrained), partly to curiosity (was it the Mini's size that made it my favourite device, or its weight?), and partly to a desire to understand how some of the more desktop-equivalent Apps that have shipped over the last year might change the way I use the iPad. Long story short: I queued up on launch morning and snagged a 64GB Space Grey cellular model.
Much has been written about how significant the weight reduction is with the Air, and I have nothing more to add, other than this: I genuinely can't tell the difference between having the Mini in my bag or the new Air. I imagine that if I was in the habit of only carrying a handbag with me I'd think twice about bringing the Air along, but even carrying it one-handed around my workplace all day isn't an issue. I'm appreciative of the switch to the new-style Smart Cover, which removes some additional weight, and the move to the A7 chip (which the Retina Mini also gets) is yet another nail in the coffin of the traditional notebook computer. I honestly can't think of a situation in which I'd rather carry an 11-inch MacBook Air than this device (though if Apple really has a radically thin 12-inch MBA in the works for 2014/15 I'm betting it looks a lot like the iPad Air).
I'll share more on specific use cases and how I'm getting along as the opportunity arises. One final thing though: When Apple announced the iPad Air, quite a few of us half-expected an iPad Pro to complete the range. I'm still thinking that a larger-screen iPad is a distinct possibility, though—for now—the iPad Air is as close to a desktop replacement as I could have hoped for.
On its website, Microsoft makes a big deal about how the Surface 2 is “thinner, faster, and lighter than before.” Yes, technically the new tablet is thinner and lighter, but let’s moderate our Kool-Aid intake before this party gets out of hand. Compared to the model it replaces, the Surface 2 is just two one-hundredths of an inch thinner, and one one-hundredth of a pound lighter. If you can notice the difference, you’re a piece of scientific measuring equipment, and not a human being.
Ouch. In comparison, the iPad shed almost 80g when it went to its second-generation (the 3G-version lost 117g), and the new iPad Air is 280g lighter than the original version.
A millennium from now, a massive amount of today's digital data may have vanished or become unreadable, so a collective of artists in the Netherlands is trying to ensure that modern culture is preserved until then. The collective, La Société Anonyme, has created a book called The SKOR Codex, which contains encoded sound recordings, images, and diagrams that can be converted back into usable digital information.
Only eight copies printed. Print began life as the means for setting information free; it ends as the means of capturing and preserving it.
Ben Evans has interesting data on how the tablet market is splitting:
If this theory is correct, it suggests that Apple's $300 Mini really isn't a competitive problem, because the iPad doesn't yet face a strong competitive threat (quite unlike the iPhone). Rather, there are actually two quite different markets: the post-PC vision, where Apple is dominant, and a ultra-low margin product that’s also called a tablet but which is really a totally different product.
Precisely what I said to Mail Online after Tuesday's Apple Event, though they chose only to use a small quote in a mostly Apple-bashing piece.
Birmingham City University's Views@BCU blog asked me to share some thoughts on iPad, as we head into the inevitable release of the new models:
The fifth-generation iPads (and second-gen iPad mini) that we’re expecting in a few days will be released into a very different technology landscape than was the original. The idea of doing at least casual computing on a tablet is now accepted by pretty much everyone, and the iPad has plenty of competitors lining up to steal its place in the popular imagination as the tablet that matters (and more than a few companies prepared to sell them at wafer thin margins – or even at a loss – to get market share).
In truth though, these myriad tablets compete well with the early perception of iPad as a device for consuming media – games, books, movies – but barely register as devices for getting real work done. It’s there that I expect Apple to put in the most effort over the next year, and to some extent we’ve already seen the beginning of this with the ‘desktop class’ 64-bit A7 processor that appeared last month in the iPhone 5s.
I was tempted to link to this Eweek piece with a sarcastic sneer and little else, but a few of the suggested "improvements" deserve more thorough rebuttal. For the most part their list spans the blindingly obvious and the astoundingly dumb. Here, in order:
1. 5-inch screen: A fairly safe start. Apple will increase the screen size as it's able to balance resolution, colour accuracy, power consumption, usability, development fragmentation, cost, yield, size and weight. If they can get extra screen area whilst considering all those factors then we'll see it as soon as they're good and ready. Next year? Your guess is as good as Eweek's.
2. A8 Processor: No shit, Sherlock.
3. Better Battery Life: Ditto. I don't think any consumer technology company is more focused on power management than Apple is, and there's no-one in the smartphone business better-placed to deliver on it. I'm also not hearing big complaints about this year's iPhones in terms of battery life. I'd say my 5s is better than my 5 on this front.
4. Infra-red: You have got to be freaking kidding me.
5. Wireless charging: Ah the perennial dream of a cable-free future. Sadly, you still have to plug in a charging mat or dock, and you still have to include a socket for the times when you don't have the mat with you. That is to say, almost all of the time. So, no.
6. Near Pro-quality camera: Sure, Eweek can imagine a better camera.
7. Radical new materials: Yes Eweek, Apple likes to experiment with new processes and materials. You can bet their labs are full of these experiments. Thankfully, unlike some companies, Apple doesn't test its experiments on consumers.
8. NFC: No Freaking Chance.
9. New wireless standards: Yep, 802.11 ac would be nice. Finalisation of the spec isn't expected until 2014, though Apple's already added it to the Time Capsule. I have no idea what implications it has for power consumption or cost though, and neither does Eweek.
10. 128GB: I know some people who want 128GB storage on their phone, but I know a lot more who buy 16/32GB every time. I had personally hoped that the 16/32/64 price points would have been replaced by 32/64/128, but I also want a pony.
Four or five half-sensible suggestions does not constitute a list of "10 improvements", Eweek.
Michael Gira of Swans has been hand-making limited editions for years now, but this might be the best yet. Check out the options for fans who want to spend more than the basic $40.
Least surprising lawsuit of the week:
British manufacturer Dyson is suing Samsung over claims that the South Korean firm "ripped off" one of its inventions.
The dispute centres over the launch of the Motion Sync vacuum cleaner which the South Korean firm showed off at the Ifa tech show in Berlin last week.
Dyson alleges that the machine infringes its patent on a steering mechanism for cylinder cleaners.
A spokeswoman for Samsung said it had no comment on the matter.
Microsoft has finalized the design of its Surface Pro 2 refresh and plans to ship it later this year. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed to The Verge that the Surface Pro 2 design will be largely the same as the original, but the company is planning to include an adjustable kickstand on its latest tablet. The kickstand won't be fully adjustable, Microsoft is planning to support two positions of use with the Surface Pro 2: one traditional "laptop" mode and a new angle that's designed to make the device easier to use on uneven surfaces.
This has been around for about a week, but still amazes me:
Also important will be the Galaxy Gear's battery life. It does use the Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy standard to communicate, but at 315mAh its battery is decidedly small. Samsung promises "about a day" of endurance from the Gear, but by the end of our briefing with the company, the cameras on most of its demo units were refusing to turn on due to the watches running low on power.
I gave up wearing my 2011 iPod Nano as a watch not because it lacked features, but because I needed to charge it every day. The next thing I wear on my wrist needs to have a considerably longer battery life, especially at $300.
Sony has just announced PlayStation Vita TV, a 6 x 10 cm console and set-top box that connects to a TV. It's based on PS Vita hardware, and besides playing Vita, PSP, and PS1 games, also offers access to a range of entertainment services and PlayStation 4 cross-functionality. It will cost 9,480 yen, or around $95 excluding sales tax, and is out in Japan on November 14th.
Not enthused by the name, but in conceptual terms it looks like Sony understands where the battle lines are being drawn.
According to a report by Reuters, Samsung's prior "series of record profits" from smartphones is now being seen by analysts as linked to a segment that "may have passed its peak this year as the market saturates and competition from cheaper phones intensifies."
What goes around, comes around, eh? On the bright side, If they're lucky Apple might soon have a mid-price strategy that Samsung can copy .
Apple's Cupertino event is expected to see that launch of a new flagship iPhone 5S and a lower-cost iPhone 5C that will have internal components similar to the iPhone 5 encased in new colored plastic shells. In a report last month, the iPhone 5C was projected to give Apple a "huge boost" in China, with its lower cost making it an attractive choice for the market.
I've recently speculated that, internally, Apple considers the 5C its "China iPhone". A medium-cost iPhone that's not a two-year-old model could go gangbusters in South East Asia.
Great piece on the Microsoft Nokia buyout:
If there is one upside, then I do believe that this just might be the best thing to happen to Finland and the Finnish startup scene. A lot of the talent draining out of Nokia will look for new opportunities in their areas of expertise — radio engineering, manipulating sensors and embedded systems. If anything, this is Finland’s big opportunity to become the epicenter of the Internet of Things.
For what it's worth I'm not sure where this leaves Microsoft either, other than with a big obvious candidate to be Ballmer's preferred replacement.
I'm in two minds about the Nintendo 2DS.
On one hand it's a solid strategy: When I was introduced to the 3DS on launch day (in a Currys/PC World/Black store) the very first thing the shop assistant showed me was how to turn off the 3D. I've met literally no-one who tells me they bought one for the 3D, and I know of dozens of kids who are gaga over the DS/DSi. Even my own daughter (who has, and loves, her iPod touch) revisits the DS (the original silver version which I imported at the US launch!) regularly. The 3DS is way too expensive this long after launch (even second hand). The 2DS could sell shedloads of households on the next generation of games, and leave those old DS models at the back of a drawer.
On the other hand it seems like a botched, reactionary move, designed to sell those (struggling?) games in a market dominated by free-up-front iOS games perfectly designed to occupy young minds and hands for short bursts of play, yet crippled in design terms by a hingeless slab design that won't fit into any jacket pocket ever designed. The 2DS brings nothing new to the table, and repackages old technology in a bid to extend the razor-and-blade business model for one last generation.
Like I say, in two minds.
Another thought: What if Apple uses what it learns in building a more affordable mass-market iPhone 5c to launch a more affordable mass-market iPod touch? What then Nintendo?