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Not Bad…

For a phone that nobody was interested in…

iPhone 4S propels Apple to massive earnings | via CNet.com

Categories: Asides.

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On the Behavior of the iPhone Mute Switch

Gruber on the mute switch and the recent Mahler’s 9th iPhone stupidity:

I think the current behavior of the iPhone mute switch is correct. You can’t design around every single edge case, and a new iPhone user who makes the reasonable but mistaken assumption that the mute switch silences everything, with an alarm set that he wasn’t aware of, and who is sitting in the front row of the New York Philharmonic when the accidental alarm goes off, is a pretty good example of an edge case.

Whereas if the mute switch silenced everything, there’d be thousands of people oversleeping every single day because they went to bed the night before unaware that the phone was still in silent mode.

This is an excellent point but there is one further point that needs to be made here.

I have been to many venues and acted in shows where the announcement prior to the show states very specifically that cell phones should be SHUT OFF. I am pretty certain that the same announcement was made at this concert as well. If this phone had been shut off there would not have been a problem. No alarm, no marimba, no interruption of Mahler’s 9th.

Off, not mute, is always the best answer.

Have a look here for the entirety of Gruber’s article-> Daring Fireball: On the Behavior of the iPhone Mute Switch

Categories: Commentary, Featured.

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New Shins Album in the Wings

Yum!!

Port of Morrow by The Shins

Categories: On miPod.

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!@#&^%$!!!!!! (Cellphone Halts Mahler’s Ninth Mid-movement)

Holy freaking smokes. I DO NOT understand why people let their stupid phones ring OUT LOUD in public EVER!!!

!@#&^%$!!!!!! (Cellphone halts Mahler’s Ninth mid-movement) | via thousandfoldecho.com, via loopinsight.com

Categories: Asides.

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Ahhh, Nature… So Gentle and Lovely to Behold

As epic as any recent, multi-million dollar movie I’ve seen.

Note to self, the bad guys always win.

 

Categories: Asides.

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Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

There is a great story this week on This American Life (OK, they’re great every week) called Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory regarding working conditions at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China. Mike Daisey, the man behind the story, tells a pretty balanced tale and Ira Glass and crew are diligent about fact checking Daisey’s story which is clearly designed to entertain as much as enlighten.

One very interesting piece of information that comes out of this story is how much of what we use in terms of consumer electronics is handmade. Shocking, is the fact that, despite Apple’s (and I would hope many other companies such as Dell and HP) best efforts, 13 and 14 year old children are working on the lines in these plants.

This story is also interesting in light of what is going on at Foxconn this week. Workers for an unnamed company staged a protest over wages and were threatening to jump off the roof of one of the Foxconn plant buildings.

What is notable to me is how often we are beginning to see things like this coming from China. It has been 23 years since Tiananmen Square and, while these protests are no moral match for the protests of 23 years ago, it appears that the Chinese government is less inclined to “quiet” the revolution with mass murder. At least I hope that’s the case.

Categories: Commentary, Featured.

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HopStop Version: 1.7 Review

Great app. ‘nuf said.

My review of HopStop is up at Macworld.com

Categories: Featured, Macworld, Reviews, Writing.

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