Automobiles have been around for well over a century. During that time, we’ve gotten pretty good at designing and building their basic components and controls: seats, doors, pedals, steering wheels, mirrors, etc. But when today’s automakers decide to make an electric vehicle (EV), they seemingly forget much of what…
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My interest in file systems started when I discovered how type and creator codes 1 and resource forks contributed to the fantastic user interface on my original Macintosh in 1984. In the late 1990s, when it looked like Apple might buy Be Inc. to solve its operating system problems, the Be File System was the part I…
Nearly 15 years ago, I wrote my first review of Mac OS X for a nascent “ PC enthusiast’s " website called Ars Technica . Last fall, I wrote my last . Though Apple will presumably announce the next major version of OS X at WWDC this coming June , I won’t be reviewing it for Ars Technica or any other publication…
I first read about the “ blue ocean ” strategy in a story (probably in Edge magazine ) about the Nintendo Wii . While its competitors were fighting for supremacy in the game-console market by producing ever-more-powerful hardware capable of high-definition visuals, Nintendo chose not to join this fight. The pursuit of…
Ever since the story broke , I’ve had one overriding thought about the Hey.com App Store rejection controversy. It’s a point I’ve already tried to make on a recent episode of ATP and on Twitter . Before WWDC arrives with its own wave of Apple-related news, I’d like to take one more run at it. Here goes.
“The Plumber Problem” is a phrase I coined to describe the experience of watching a movie that touches on some subject area that you know way more about than the average person, and then some inaccuracy in what’s depicted distracts you and takes you out of the movie. (This can occur in any work of fiction, of course…
I subscribe to a lot of streaming video services, and that means I use a lot of streaming video apps. Most of them fall short of my expectations. Here, then, is a simple specification for a streaming video app. Follow it, and your app will be well on its way to not sucking .
I must confess, I was neither surprised nor disturbed by last month’s announcement that the Opera web browser was switching to the WebKit rendering engine. But perhaps I’m in the minority among geeks on this topic.
Automobiles have been around for well over a century. During that time, we’ve gotten pretty good at designing and building their basic components and controls: seats, doors, pedals, steering wheels, mirrors, etc. But when today’s automakers decide to make an electric vehicle (EV), they seemingly forget much of what…
The xMac has been back in the news lately—the idea, if not necessarily the name. Whether it’s called a “ Mac minitower " or a “ Mac Pro mini ,” we long-suffering Mac Pro fans are all looking forward to the “really great” thing Tim Cook told us to expect this year.