Read this: Stephen Fry visits the Apple headquarters

There are few writers I enjoy reading more than Steven Fry.
He was given the opportunity to visit Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, talk to Steve Jobs and try the iPad.
Give this article a read, you won’t regret it.

via

Nintendo is doing it wrong

Without wanting to sound too much like a fanboy, I believe Nintendo should take a leaf out of Apple’s book and shut up about the “3DS” until they actually release the hardware.

Well, at least Nintendo was smart enough not to announce any supposedly game-changing features, which they’d scrap in the actual product.

via The Loop

Hypocrite Thurrott on Copy and Paste

Paul Thurrott you blazing hypocrite!
Apple not including a “basic OS feature” is bad and “unbelievable”, but when Microsoft omits this feature from one of their products it’s fine, nothing to be mentioned?

The only reason I can think of, why Microsoft hasn’t implemented cut/copy and paste into Windows 7 Phone Edition, is that they haven’t found a way to do it without obviously copying Apple’s or Google’s solution.

Here are some of the passages I’m talking about, from Daring Fireball:

Paul Thurrott’s Curiously Shifting Thoughts on Copy-and-Paste

Delightful catch by Chris Grande. Here’s Paul Thurrott in July 2007, regarding the iPhone:

And what’s up with the lack of cut/copy and paste? This is a basic OS feature that Apple included in the first Mac OS almost 25 years ago. It’s inexplicably missing from the iPhone, unavailable in any application or the wider system itself. Unreal.

And here’s Paul Thurrott two days ago, in a post titled “I Love Windows Phone”:
The multitasking is limited. Users will only be able to get apps from the Marketplace, and not from third parties. Gasp! Is it true that there’s no copy and paste?
No matter. Windows Phone combines those very few things that were right about Windows Mobile — primarily some business functionality — with a much wider set of new functionality that is exciting in both scope and possibility.

Unreal, indeed.

Cultured Code working on cloud-based sync for Things

The arrival status says it’s at “Full Speed”… whatever that might mean, I’m happy!
I’ve been using the app since it’s inception and it is an integral part of my everyday work(flow).

The ability to synchronise my tasks over the internet would make things even better (no pun intended).

“But the truth is that people don’t buy consumer electronics for the quantity of features. They buy it for the quality of experience.”

—

The iPad paradox: Less is more - Mike Elgan, Computerworld, offering a similar positive perspective as Fraser Speirs’ Future Shock essay from January.

(via chartier)

I’d like to add that this is something that so many companies have yet to understand, even though it is a basic principle of strategic management: “Do things right, and do the right things!”

The Download Squad has it wrong

This post over at Daring Fireball got me thinking.

Download Squad: ‘Microsoft Set to Destroy Apple in Every Games Market’
Oh, you thought the gaming news was all sunshine and roses for Apple today? Not so, reports Sebastian Anthony at Download Squad:

Apple, with its locked-down, isolated sandbox is in trouble. Do game developers have any reason to continue working on games for the iPhone or iPad now that Microsoft is offering so much more? […]
Can Apple really see themselves competing, with a minuscule desktop market share and 25% of the smartphone sector? Steve Jobs has announced Apple’s intent to move into mobile gaming, but can you really see developers siding with the iPhone when Windows Phone 7 is just around the corner?

The sandbox is exactly what Apple has going for them in this case. A clearly defined platform, which developers can build upon. They don’t have to worry about hardware incompatibilities and driver problems.
Microsoft has it’s own sandbox, the Xbox and the only thing they’re doing, is making that sandbox bigger. They understand that they have to keep it a sandbox, in order maintain a high level of control and quality.