When you watch Steve Jobs’ demo of the iPhone, he makes the argument that the fixed keypads on mobile phones have many disadvantages and no advantages. But today plenty of people are talking about the advantages of keypads. With my Pebl, I can get my phone out of my pocket, open it, and call my [...]
Entries from January 2007
Keypads are useful
January 10th, 2007 · 1 Comment
iPhone Questions
January 10th, 2007 · 3 Comments
In thinking about the iPhone, it occurs to me that it is more a small handheld computer with a telephony application than it is a traditional mobile phone. In this vein, I have some questions about the iPhone:
How easy is it going to be for third party software developers to create applications for the iPhone? [...]
Why I’m excited about the iPhone
January 9th, 2007 · 4 Comments
I’m not normally a gadget person, and I am almost always a late adopter. I didn’t try out an iPod until the third generation was released. It took me forever to get a mobile phone and a digital camera. I’m always in that group of people who would prefer to feel the smug [...]
iPhone
January 9th, 2007 · No Comments
I admit that I can’t wait to see Apple’s iPhone up close.
Update: Gizmodo is rocking the keynote coverage. (Engadget’s coverage is great as well, and really, why not follow them all?)
The trouble with icons
January 5th, 2007 · 3 Comments
Scott Rosenberg, in discussing the new version of Microsoft Word, makes the following observation about icons:
Maybe I’m unusual, but I have always found the dizzying array of toolbar icons in Office programs profoundly unhelpful. Icons are fine when they are small in number and used constantly (think of the stop, reload, back and [...]
The unit testing gap
January 4th, 2007 · 8 Comments
As I have mentioned many times before, I’m a big adherent of unit testing. If you have a comprehensive suite of unit tests, seeing them all work before you commit a bug fix or feature to an application provides at least basic assurance that you haven’t screwed things up too badly. In the case of [...]
Predictions for 2007
January 2nd, 2007 · 3 Comments
To remind readers from last year, I’m constraining my predictions to areas where I have some expertise (meaning no political or current events predictions), and avoiding areas where any predictions would be completely speculative, like future product releases from Apple.
I expect that in 2007 we’ll continue to be blown away by the progress we make [...]
The execution of Saddam Hussein
January 2nd, 2007 · No Comments
Jim Henley:
And it’s also true that the US and its Iraqi allies chose to try Saddam on one of his relatively minor crimes because if they did so they could get him safely hung before they had to try him for the major ones, the gas attacks and massacres that happened during The [...]