I don’t take today’s news (and update of podcasts.app) to mean iOS is going to start looking like Metro. Things will still be gorgeous, they’ll just be simple gradients instead of mimicking real world textures. Just between iOS 5 and 6 we can see this trent in UINav and Tool bars loosing their gloss for smooth gradients. We also saw OS X go from heavily textured brushed metal to a smooth low-contrast gradient. But to extrapolate that we’re headed towards just solid colors is ridiculous. 8 bit designs don’t look good. That’s why we stopped using them. Metro looks refreshing, sure, but that doesn’t imply nice. It looks nicer than Android (which is also very flat) because Segoe is a nice font and roboto is a collection of stolen sans serifs.

The reason we hate certain skeuomorphic designs varies by each one. Address book doesn’t need to be symmetrical. Notes doesn’t need to flap. iCal doesn’t need torn pages or to be month by month (please someone make a rolling 5 week calendar). Find my Friends actually has a very usable interface, it’s just the awful puke yellow color of the leather that’s a turn off.

I would like for iOS 7 to gain the chrome look of iOS Maps.

I barely used the keyboard dock for the original iPad as a keyboard, or dock for that matter, because it didn’t fit around the case

I’m writing the first part of this review after immediately taking the thing out of the box, because I think measuring the learning curve matters. For the record, this is my first time using any keyboard with an iPad, full sized or otherwise, so if any of the quirks I find are just the way iPads work with BlueTooth keyboards I apologize.

First, no matter how awkward this may be right now, it’s still leagues ahead of touch typing for me, even dual thumbing on it in portrait. Not having to switch virtual keyboards for numbers is immediately noticeable.

Regarding the form factor: makes infinitely more sense than the flaccid Surface keyboard. While docked in landscape it stays up easily on any surface including a single knee. Try doing that with a 22 degree kickstand. Folded up, it still fits easily into the back pocket in my jeans. Also unlike the Surface, the lack of any extra space around the keyboard (like a trackpad) places your fingers much closer to the screen. Result: you remember to touch it.

One week later, I can say the keyboard makes a lot more possible with my iPad mini. Of course this was always technically true, but since both the mini and this keyboard fit in my back pocket, it’s the first time I have both with me literally every time I leave the house. Combined with LTE and I’m writing more, being more active on social networks (instead of just liking), and I’ve even been writing some server side scripts.

The logitech has a clever strategy to keep keycaps as big as possible. It consolidates Tab and Caps Lock into Q and A respectively, and on the other side of things shrinks the lesser used (unless you’re writing code) symbols. I prefer this over say the Belkin keyboard which moves the location of these keys.

Conclusion? I’m keeping it. I’m recommending it. I’m surprised. I really thought double-thumbing was good enough. They’re available in Apple stores and from Logitech directly (not yet on Amazon from any official sources).

Amazon Affiliate Link (Benefits Me)

I successfully charged a 3rd and 4th generation retina iPad in the car at the same time using only one plug. Belkin makes it. It also conveniently comes with a lightning cable. For the longest time, I had been using these AC inverters with the official wall adapters (its built in USB port, like all my old chargers, does not charge a big iPad).

In the picture, you can see my auxiliary audio in is right next to the power port inside the armrest. I used to use a charger that had a nice 6 inch audio cable coming out of it (and a dock connector for your iPod – I bought it in like 2005) but I unfortunately have not been able to find a replacement, so for now it’s just a standard audio cable and I have to plug in TWO THINGS. The car’s bluetooth is paired to my girlfriend’s phone since, you know, it’s her car.

I’m not sure what the point of this post was, but there you have it. You can finally charge two iPads without the mess of inverters, but that particular inverter is also worth owning because it has passthrough (so you don’t eat up your only port), USB for non-iPads, and three outlets. Just do your math ahead of time and read the labels on your car. Most ports only actually output 100 watt, and a 65 Watt MagSafe 2 takes up most of that, but charging 10 iPads should be fine.

Panic’s digital A/V adapter teardown inspired me to write down some of my own findings with the adapter that now make a little more sense.

When connected with a passthrough, the device doesn’t show up in Xcode, Image Capture, etc. This is frustrating because I can’t see console messages for debugging but at least I can do most of my testing using an AppleTV which I CAN use while connected to Xcode

The adapter tries to use a display’s native resolution, which it does as long as you’re not using something that accepts higher resolutions (TVs and projectors that are 1366×768 or 1280×800 often accept 1080p input and do their own scaling). When you programmatically try to set it to something else, it resizes the context and stretches it via software.

It doesn’t actually let a developer see a display’s actual resolutions. When I use the old digital A/V adapter on this 1600×1200 display, I get 1280×1024 (5:4 ratio) as a choice. When using the new A/V adapter, I don’t get it anymore, and instead get 1200 x 900 (4:3, like the display actually is). Interestingly, although the new A/V adapter sets its output to 1600×1200, 1600×1200 is not a choice in the list, so no matter what I do things will be scaled.

What makes the Mac Pro the Mac Pro? Some say expandability. Some say the raw speed. Which can you cut? Get ready, you’re about to get really angry.

If my experiences with thunderbolt are to be used as a guide, it’s time to stop dreaming of an “expandable” xMac because we’re more likely to get a Xeon cluster node. A single thunderbolt port can give you gigabit ethernet, USB 3, FireWire 800, 5mbit SATA, eSATA, and a 4K display, all without a single driver. But no amount of ports can turn a Core i7 into a Xeon, so here’s what I imagine for the next “Mac Pro”

• One or two Xeons, as new as possible
• 4 fully buffered ECC RAM slots per CPU
• 2 PCI slots, at least one double height
• One 2.5″ drive bay for SSD
• One 3.5″ drive bay for HDD for fusion drive
• maybe, just maybe, another SDD/HDD pair
• 2 Ethernet, 1 FireWire 800, 6 USB 3 (2 front), TOSLINK and Standard audio
• more than 2 Thunderbolt ports*
• No ODD or even room for it
• still starts at $1999

Apple would sooner change all the ports on the back of a Mac Mini to 6 Thunderbolt ports before making an i7 “prosumer” mid 90s PC tower xMac.

* I don’t think we know yet if Thunderbolt on the Motherboard can use a PCI GPU. If that’s the case, I wonder if Apple would do non-video Thunderbolt on the on the chassis (fallback to integrated GPU) just in case you wish to use a video card that doesn’t have Thunderbolt on it. I imagine at least one GPU choice will have 4 on it, so maybe 2 more on the case.

It’s hard to predict what shape this will have but I do have some vague ideas.

It will retain the Mac Pro’s “feet” or something like them that keeps the chassis off the ground.

It will not be an easy-to-tip slim-tower nor a fat mini tower. Apple’s more creative than that.

It will be “unibody” in the sense that the Mini is: all aluminum is one piece plus one more piece that’s the access door.

You’re really going to hate me for this, but you know it to be true. The only thing Thunderbolt can’t fix in a Mac are CPU speed and RAM, so that’s all we’re going to get in a new Mac Pro, and they are going to be top-of-the-line priced.

My parents just booked our camping reservation for this summer – a trip we’ve taken almost every year for my entire life (and going back generations). Sure, we camp at a state park with a bathroom building (which it is illegal to not use, btw), but it’s still a life without electricity, air conditioning, heat, or refrigeration – which was exactly how I lived for 12 days because of Hurricane Sandy. Not only did a lifetime a semi-camping make me mentally ready to live without a few amenities, it also meant I already owned a lot of stuff I’d need.

Things I Had

The most crucial (and expensive) piece of equipment is a 100 Watt general purpose AC battery. I haven’t shopped around since it was a gift (and probably overpriced) but it has a hand crank that recharges it faster than it charges an iPad (or two iPhones) so you’re good to go instead of wasting your car battery. Like all batteries, higher wattage will drain it more inefficiently so if you’re using it with your MacBook, inappropriately use a 45watt 11″ MacBook Air charger. Sure, it’ll say “non charging” if you’re using it heavily enough, and may even net drain if you’re using it really heavily, but the moment you stick a 65W magsafe in it the fan turns on and that obviously wastes power. (also recommended: just using the Air).

As a happy camper, I’m also well stocked on various light sources. After the first 24 hours, stores will be out of C and D batteries, so buy LED based light sources that use AA and AAA batteries. They’ll be much easier to find. Also, any lights you can easily mount in a high place and are wide angle will help make things feel more normal when you’re using them to light your whole apartment. I put a set of these string lights between some clothes hangers and hung them on curtain rods and cabinet doors. Their white is luckily white-white (neither blueish nor warm white) so they won’t drive you too insane… (see next section).

If your house has a fireplace, learn how to use it – with real wood not prepacked duraflame logs. Buy firewood ahead of time (don’t chop down your own trees, please – firewood is farmed specifically) and keep a rolling stock going. Add a little romance to your winter during non-disasters. On that note, remember that you can totally use your barbecue during winter. Unless it’s a snowstorm that knocks out your utilities, it might be too warm to simply leave your freezer items outside and it’s not worth trying to buy ice every day. Just eat it.

Since we didn’t have heat (including hot water) for the first week, I took to using a generic spray bottle filled with water to perform sort of a half-shower ritual. For the record, I’m pretty sure showering in ice water during the winter kills you so don’t yell at me for not toughing it out in the shower.

More important than anything else, have friends and family. We spent the weekend between weeks without power at the girls’ parents house 40 minutes away and disaster free. They may not have the fastest internet (I continued tethering while I was there) and their stores were just as ransacked as ours but it was nice to have a break. My parents and grandparents (backdoor neighbors) consolidated their survival efforts. Even if they can’t help improve your situation, talking to people can help you keep sane.

Shelf stable milk (which is available in every supermarket) will disappear after the storm hits, but no one remembers to buy it before hand. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated until it’s opened and it tastes like diner coffee creamer (in a good way).

Things I wish I had

Warm. White. LEDs. This was after we set the clocks back so it was getting dark at 4:00 and the blue-white lanterns were driving me insane. I was happy to have less light and use only my white-white LEDs and burn through my candle stockpile. I’ve since purchased bulk warm-white LEDs on Amazon and will spend the next disaster playfully wiring them around the place. As a plus, lights you make yourself aren’t constrained to any particular battery, so although I’m designing these to run off of a single 9V (because I can use a simple wall adapter while developing) it’s no big deal to splice in a row of AAs and take out a resistor should the need arise.

Whatever carrier your iPhone is on, buy your next LTE iPad on the OTHER carrier, whichever that may be. Depending one which towers go out and which towers stay on, who’s the dominant carrier could change in an instant. AT&T LTE was fast enough to stream election night coverage, but only by taping my phone outside the window. AT&T worked great _outside_. Maybe Verizon didn’t fare any better, maybe they did, but it’s better to be over-prepared. Plus, the iPad doesn’t have to be activated. So, although I got my iPad mini on AT&T LTE (continuing my grandfathered unlimited plan) I bought an iPad 4 on Verizon, (potentially my last big iPad ever) as an insurance policy for next time.

More curtain rods and insulating curtains. When your heat (or AC for that matter) isn’t working, it helps to quarantine your living space into hot-cold zones. We had cooking gas so we hung a curtain in the kitchen doorway and moved a table in there so we could eat food that didn’t instantly get cold when we brought it into the living room. If I had more extra curtains and rods, I would have fully isolated every room to store localized body heat.

I’m also going to look into the cheaper alternatives to the Brookstone to add to my battery capacity. There was a shortage of powered gas stations so I’m not assuming I can run things off of the car, even though it is a Prius (and thank god for that – Prius’ don’t burn gas while you’re idling in a gas line and it’s 600 miles to the tank). I’m also looking into deployable (not permanent) solar panels. If it’s enough to keep an iPad charged while I use it on a cloudy day that’s plenty.

Despite Apple’s apparent stance on this, this “feature request” just won’t go away, and I don’t think “7 days of full featured functionality” is the stupid simple answer here.

We’re talking about an ecosystem of $1 and $10 apps here. The most “expensive” app I use is the $14 iTap Windows Remote Desktop client. So, before I get into potential implementation details I’m going to say upfront that I come down on the side that’s not convinced these will lead to more revenue to developers or even the store as a whole.

Trial vs Refund

Let’s first assume that apps are left in the dark about their trial status and it’s up to the OS to decide what happens on day 8. This is what’s known as a “full featured trial”. The app just works, until day 8, when it stops. A lot can happen in 7 days: you can finish the game, you can fix that messed up photo you took, you connected to that server and fixed a line of code that saves your company $2.4M. The app held up its end of the bargain, now what?

Your common “woa $1.99 is WAY too expensive for an App!” user would prefer the app just sits there on your home screen, and prompt for payment should they ever try to launch it again – and developers of single function apps would see downloads explode while revenues plummet.

The only way to do this in a way that would make sense for developers to still make money would be to hold the purchase price of an app on a user’s credit card, and on day 8 if they haven’t purchased/deleted the app, charge them or release the credit as needed. There’s obviously some backend charges associated with that that aren’t worth it for $.99 transactions but let’s assume Apple’s willing to eat it. In order for this to work, Apple would have to require a credit card to try apps (if you weren’t aware, you can create an iTunes account without a credit card and download free content).

Turns out…

As it turns out, Apple already allows demos and refunds. Developers are free to make “lite” versions for free full of in-house ads for the full version. Developers are also free to offer a single free app with a “Full Version” in-app-purchase. Some of the top grossing apps employ this strategy (Photoshop Mobile comes to mind).

In reality, the demand for mandatory trials isn’t from people who want to try before they buy, it’s from people who just don’t want to buy, and developers who take pride in their work are more than willing to lose their “business” to ad supported and freemium alternatives.

The problems Apple has to address with the app store are the eroding “middle class” of apps – apps below the top 10s that have exponentially less downloads because of visibility issues related to the so-called “long tail”.

Copy all your old drives to a new very big one. Copy the big one onto another big one. Repeat every time you run out of space or 4 years.

A while back, I lamented the lack of Thunderbolt hubs and Macs with multiple Thunderbolt ports. I’ve since been using a retina MacBook Pro with its dual Thunderbolt ports + HDMI and have been having a lot of fun with those three external displays. Unfortunately, my displays don’t have Thunderbolt passthrough and neither do the firewire or gigabit ethernet Thunderbolt adapters, I had to unplug to use external drives or deal with USB 2 (or even worse, AirPort) speeds.

LaCie, who I know a lot of people hate for various reasons, has been supplying me with drives (that still work) for over 10 years now. And by supplying I of course mean I’ve been buying them. No sponsors here. Anyway, I decided to give them some of my employer’s money and ordered a 2x512GB SSD and 2x4000GB HDD Thunderbolt drives. That’s when things started to get stupid…

First, my employer doesn’t order from Apple directly, so even though Apple had the SSD drive in stock, I couldn’t get it because CDW and even LaCie didn’t. They suggested I look at other Thunderbolt drives and that’s when I started getting angry.

Although Little Big Disk I originally wanted and the 2Big (as well as their clever esata breakout box) have two Thunderbolt ports (and boast the benefits of plugging 6 into each other), Many Other Drives Don’t, including LaCie’s “Rugged” and multi-interface d2 series.

Daisy chaining is THE critical feature of Thunderbolt. Without it, it’s just a really fast interface that can be adapted to lots of things – in other words, indistinguishable from USB 3. (Yes I’m aware that it’s impossible on bus powered devices – but then they should have optional power ports).

Surface Pro manages to be substantially smaller than my MacBook Pro, and yet it occupies even more space on my lap. Now think about the implications that has for cramming this thing on the tray table of your cattle-class flight. – Peter Bright – Ars Technica

There are a lot of Surface Pro reviews coming in and they seem more harsh than the RT model’s reviews (probably because we thought the Pro would be our Savior from the RT). If there’s a ray of light in all the Surface Pro reviews, it’s that we’re discovering just how important the clamshell adjustable hinge is – and why there’s so much demand for iPad keyboards that emulate it.

I think Logitech actually has the solution to the “problem” Microsoft was trying to solve – we want to use our tablets as tablets, but a real keyboard is nice to have for some serious typing, especially symbol-laden code or scripts (I do a lot of webserver admin on my iPads with Diet Coda and Textastic – recommend both!). Logitech’s idea here is to similarly make the keyboard the cover using the smartcover magnets which lets you effortlessly get rid of it when it’s Angry Birds time, but unlike the Surface, instead of using a kickstand, you detach the iPad from the hinge, and place it into a notch that holds it in a hopefully ideal angle – solving the “more space than my MacBook Pro” problem.

The picture links to the Mini keyboard from logitech which also looks like it has a clever way of not making keys too small – it keeps all of the alpha keys the same size as their big-iPad keyboard and squashes everything else even more. It might take a day or two to get used to, but it’s probably easier than typing all the nonsense you have to go through to type <?PHP $string="&amp;"; ?> on the software keyboard, even in Diet Coda and Textastic which try their best to help by adding these keys to an extra row above the qwerty row.

I bought the original iPad keyboard dock and never used it because it wasn’t portable and was only portrait, and I do occasionally use the Apple BT keyboard if I’m planning and taking the iPad somewhere specifically to type something, but so far I’ve found the 11″ Air or dual-thumb-portrait typing to be the superior experience. I will give the Logitech Mini a try when it ships.