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Getwear has launched. It’s an online designer jeans store, a new site made in the bureau art directed by me
Wireless DJ redesigned
Wireless DJ is an iPad controller for Traktor Pro or any other MIDI-enabled DJ software. You connect it to a wireless network shared with your computer.
We have redesigned it. Before:
After:
Over ten years ago I made the diagram of Chelyabinsk trams and trolleybuses. That design turned out to be very successful
On iPhone sizes
In September, Apple introduced iPhones 6 and 6 Plus, both bigger than iPhones 5s and 5c. I’ve tried holding the new phones in my hand and found even the 6 to be way too big.
I would prefer an old-size phone but faster, with a better camera and with Apple Pay. I am not alone. But there are no new phones at the old size. If you don’t like the new size, you will have to get the last-year model.
Maybe Apple is saying goodbye to the 4-inch screens and we will have to accept this. But I am not sure that’s what Apple is doing. Look at this picture from the September event blog:
There is no clear separation between the last year models and the new models. This is simply “iPhone lineup” with the phones of three sizes: 4-inch, 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch. Showing three new devices at the same time could be just too much for one event. But Apple could update the 4-inch models next year.
A phone is a device where the size is a matter of preference, like a laptop or a TV. There is no “right” size: bigger screen shows more (good), but takes more space (bad). Apple has now accepted this truth. So maybe in the future when you buy a new iPhone, you will be asked not only “what color?”, but also “small, medium or large?”
A lot has been said about how bad iTunes is. What bugs me most is that some actions within iTunes prevent me from actually listening to music
A study in data visualization: Snooker results display
Check out my visualization of a snooker tournament results. The diagram shows Welsh Open 2007 down to a frame.
My friend and a great iOS developer Alex Babaev approached me with an idea to make a unit converter for the iPhone
On the left is how Apple Watch displays a swim workout, on the right is how it could
Uvildy road in the fall
Yesterday I was driving from Uvildy back to Chelyabinsk. Here is the beauty of the fall for you:
I’m very impressed by Instagrams’s Hyperlapse video stabilization. This place on the map.
See also: Uvildy ice.
Online video does not require an opening title
John Gruber compares iPhone and Apple Watch introductions
John Gruber compares iPhone and Apple Watch introductions in Episode 14 of Electric Shadow podcast (starting at around 1h 24m mark):
I think that the best was the 2007 Macworld expo keynote introducing the iPhone. Let’s see where they go with the watch, but I think even in the most optimistic scenario the watch doesn’t change everything the way the iPhone did.
The iPhone was pulled out of thin air. I think to this day — now we are 7,5 years after that — it was absolutely five years ahead of its time, maybe more. I think maybe if Apple had never released it, the phones we would have been using in 2012, five years later still wouldn’t have been like that. It was impossible. It really is just what it seemed like.
I don’t think they needed a good event, I think they could have had a shitty event to announce it, and if they released the exact same phone seven months later, it would have been fine. It would eventually, with the years, work out.
The advantage of having a perfect event to announce it though was that for the people who opened their minds and just paid attention to it, it gave us a head start as to just what it was that we’ve seen. Half of the people who were paying attention came out that event understanding: Wow. This is amazing. The entire tech world has just changed. And then the other half were, like, this is ridiculous, the thing doesn’t even have a keyboard, no one’s gonna buy it. But if you paid attention, the fact that the event was so perfect, it gave you the context to understand something without ever actually even getting to use the device.
Agreed.
Next iOS must be coming soon. What is going to be in it? I’m not sure where to draw the line between “predictions” and a “wishlist”, so here are my thoughts on things that either were speculated
How Apple Pay could work on Apple Watch without Touch ID
When Apple revealed Apple Pay, they first showed it on an iPhone with Touch ID and later mentioned that it would also work with the Apple Watch. But how does Apple Watch know that you are you without Touch ID?
Here is an idea.
Apple Watch requires the iPhone. It would make sense if Apple Pay on the Watch required the iPhone with Apple Pay support. The only such phones are the 6 and the 6 Plus. Both have Touch ID.
Apple Watch can tell if someone is wearing it using its heartbeat sensor. When no one is wearing the watch, it will not work with Apple Pay. When you put the watch on, it will still not work with Apple Pay, as it does not know who is wearing it. As soon as you use Touch ID for the first time to unlock your phone in a close proximity, the Watch will enter a “secure state”: now it knows that it is put on your hand. From that moment Apple Pay will work until you take the Watch off or the phone gets too far away from it.
The chance that you are trying to buy something before you’ve unlocked your phone for the first time during a day is almost zero. And in this rare case the Watch can just ask you politely to confirm the payment with Touch ID.
So, Apple still fighting for smaller SIM card standard for future iPhones. What? Why isn’t Apple fighting to kill the SIM cards?...
Ångström: convert time and time zones
The new version of Ångström codenamed Greenwich is now available. Everyone can now convert hours to seconds, weeks to minutes etc. Paid users also get timezone conversion:
What time is in New York when it’s five o’clock in London? Now it is as easy as typing “5lo”. We know when and where daylight savings time is in effect.
Also, we’ve finally done the rounded corners right:
Ah, so much better now! It took effort on Alex’s side to make this work fast and reliably on all supported devices.
We’ve added more currency symbols, including Turkish lira, Cambodian riel and Armenian dram (by the way, we’ve always had Bitcoin):
And finally, we do a little bit better job explaining what you get with an In-App Purchase. Instead of listing unit symbols, we spell out the whole names.
Thanks to Federico Viticci of Macstories for a great recent review:
The result is an incredibly fast conversion process that only takes a few taps and doesn’t require you to scroll long lists or bookmark favorites for quick access. For me, typical usage of Ångström goes like this: I open the app, type a number, insert the first letter of a unit, and I’m done.
If you are not yet using Ångström, you should:
Download in the App Store for free
Stay tuned.
Stopping
When you cancel a Time Machine backup, it takes some time to stop:
Actions of programs have no inertia, they can be stopped immediately. If stopping something would leave a system in an inconsistent state, and you need to clean things up first, that’s what the user interface should say. But “Stopping” makes no sense. Just stop.
This problem is not uncommon, and I was thinking about writing a post about it for some time. But here is what happened recently. Mail in Yosemite Beta had already been “Disabling” my account by “Closing” something for several minutes, so I decided to cancel it — and got this:
I had to force quit it after a couple of minutes.
Added in August, 2016: And here, Dropbox is “Pausing”:
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