An amusing story, in three parts:
Yeah.
As you may have gathered from my recent post about scrolling, I'm attempting to get back into the blogging thing. I know it's been a while… ahem, a long while… so my apologies for that.
The devout readers among you may have noticed that DR has reverted to the (entirely capable) “Minima” template, thanks to the Blogger upgrade that Google launched last December, which kindly steamrolled my old custom template. Never fear, I'll revamp it sooner or later.
Hmmm… further updates: I think the content around here will be changing a bit, as reflected in the updated sidebar. Whereas before I posted about language and also lots of other… random stuff…, I'm now going to focus on user-interface design, technology stuff, Mac stuff, and certainly still the odd language point-of-interest.
Lastly, for your stalking pleasure: you can now follow my goings-on via Twitter. If you want to.
OK, here's a thought for those of you who have recently acquired a new toy: after about 24 hours of using my iPhone a lot and my MacBook a little, I sat down to browse the web on the laptop and found myself suddenly disorient(at)ed by the directionality of two-finger scrolling.
Fellow iPhone-ers can perhaps relate? On the MacBook, pulling two-fingers "down" the trackpad scrolls a window down, basically dragging the scroll bar down the page (with up obviously working the same way) — on the iPhone, in contrast, you actually drag the window itself, meaning that moving your finger up effectively scrolls down (and vice-versa).
I am now wishing for a way to invert the directionality of two-finger scrolling. Help?
If you've been following the technology news, then you know that Microsoft has lately been hyping something called "Origami", which, as was widely believed, is an "ultra-mobile PC" — basically, a laptop-handheld hybrid. The only big question about Origami before today's official announcement from Microsoft was whether it would be Microsoft-branded hardware running a Microsoft OS or third-party-branded hardware running a Microsoft OS. Turns out it's the latter. I honestly don't know why there was ever a question, though, because that's the way Microsoft does things — desktops, laptops, tablets, handhelds, and now ultra-mobile PCs.
Anyway, so that's Origami. What you should be thinking now is, what about Apple? Apple usually likes to be one step ahead of the competition, and this Origami business certainly gives the impression of poor Steve Jobs eating Bill Gates' dust — especially after Apple's underwhelming February 28 media event.
Well, let me tell you — Steve Jobs does not eat Bill Gates' dust. Ever. The reason Apple might look like it's behind Microsoft right now is that Apple is in the process of running circles around Microsoft.
DISCLAIMER: I like Apple. I think their design-style is sleek, minimalist, functional, and, in general, exceptionally well-thought-out. Label me a "Mac Cultist" if you will, but that's my story. What follows is the part that we Apple groupies live for — wild predictions about Apple's Secret Plans.
Apple is up to something. First, the facts:
- Exhibit A
- Steve Jobs' Keynote presentation at January's Macworld 2006 was 'a bit off'. It is widely believed by, um, Leander Kahney and me, anyway, that something exciting got pulled from the Keynote at the last minute. An 'inside source' apparently spilled some beans to Leander afterwards, advising him not to buy a MacBook Pro just yet because Apple has something "much cooler" in the works.
- Exhibit B
- Apple recently dropped big bucks on flash memory. A lot of flash memory. Said Steve Jobs, "we want to be able to produce as many of our wildly popular iPods as the market demands." Right.
- Exhibit C
- Apple has recently filed for a patent relating to a touch-screen interface.
- Exhibit D
- A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Apple had a product called the Newton, a precursor to the Palm Pilot, the first big PDA. The Newton was much loved by many, and, despite having been discontinued in 1998, still has a loyal fan base.
- Exhibit E
- In a nice bit of circularity, back to Steve's Macworld 2006 Keynote. Upon wrapping up his talk, Steve made a point of mentioning that April 1, 2006 will be Apple's 30-year anniversary. I don't recall his exact words, but, translated from plain English into Mac-fan-speak, it went something like, "it may be three months away, but you'd best start getting excited now."
So. All of that was relatively factual, but now I will transition to castles in the sky. Based on the above facts, I conjecture:
Apple is going to announce an exciting new product, and it will be targeted at the same audience as the MacBook Pro. The new product will be flash-memory based. Dreaming aside, flash is still too expensive for laptops; the new product will thus be sub-laptop-sized. The new product will have a touch screen, implying that it will be tablet- or handheld-esque.
Exiting. Small. Flash-based. Touch-screen. "Professional" audience. Put it all together, and what have you got? On April 1, Apple's 30th Anniversary, Apple will reincarnate the Newton as a flash-based, ultra-mobile PC with a touch-screen (multi-point? that'd be fun).
Well, it made sense to me, anyway. Whatever happens, just remember: you read it here first.
Alucky individual has officially purchased and downloaded the 1,000,000,000th song from the iTunes Music Store. For his troubles, Apple has awarded this fortunate fellow with an iMac, 10 iPods, and a $10,000 iTMS gift-card.
While I did purchase one song* from the iTMS during their promotional countdown (or count-up, as it were) to the Big Billion, I'm sorry to report that it wasn't me. No, this guy apparently goes by the name "Alex Ostrovsky" (of West Bloomfield, Michigan), and I wish him well. Also, I wonder if he might not have an iPod to spare?
Congratulations, Alex.
* It was 'Space Oddity' by David Bowie, if you must know.
Oh, the irony. As you've probably heard, Muslim groups throughout the Middle East (and elsewhere) are causing a ruckus in response to some satirical caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad published first in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and subsequently in several other European papers.
To quote from an article from the Canadian Press:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Tens of thousands of angry Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burned the Danish flag and called for vengeance Friday against European countries where caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were published.
The demonstrations were the latest sign of growing anger against the cartoons that has spread across the Muslim world.
Early Friday, Palestinian militants threw a bomb at a French cultural centre in Gaza City and many Palestinians began boycotting European goods, especially those from Denmark, where the cartoons where first printed.
"Whoever defames our Prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of other angry Muslims in the West Bank city of Ramallah."Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up," protesters in Ramallah chanted.
Fundamentalist Muslims protested outside the Danish Embassy in Malaysia, chanting "Long live Islam. Destroy our enemies" and accusing Denmark's Jyllands Posten newspaper, which first published the cartoons, of seeking to incite hatred."It's an uncivilized act. It's heinous," said Hanifah Maidin, youth wing spokesman of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party. "We want the Denmark government to tender an apology to the Muslim world."
[...]
It's shockingly hypocritical (and yes, ironic) that they can denounce cartoons as uncivilized and, in the same breath, call for death and destruction in response, and it's worrisome that governments are probably going to try to appease them rather than chastise them for it.
"Well, it's Groundhog Day... again..." and Punxsutawney Phil, that "Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary" (no joke), has seen his shadow.
Rats.
