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Posts tagged with "Review"

Review

A Retina display-equipped iPad? Don't hold your breath.

Date: June 21, 2010 - 11:34pm (Last updated: June 22, 2010 - 12:48am)
Author: Mark Trapp

Updated at the end.

Every minute, some technology analyst is predicting the future. 99 times out of 100, they're wrong. And it's not really worth writing about. But every once in a while, there's a prognostication that's so crazy but written as though it's an inevitability is pains the mind.

Today, MG Siegler wrote an article about how the iPad looks like old news compared to the forthcoming iPhone 4. In it, he opines that, among the main problems the just-released iPad has, its display simply doesn't measure up to the new iPhone 4's display. I take him at his word: I haven't seen it yet, and nearly everyone who has says it's an amazing display.

But then this gem comes up:

Here’s why this really matters for Apple: the iPhone 4 likely points to the updates coming to the iPad in the not-too-distant future. Are there any doubts that the Retina Display and twice the RAM will make its way to that device? So why would you buy the iPad now if the device might get these updates in say, January? The proof will be right in front of your eyes on Thursday.

Hot damn, don't buy an iPad! Or if you already have, you poor bastard you, sell it on eBay! In January, we're going to have a new iPad (I'm calling it the iPad Unicorn) with a sick Retina display!

If you believe that, or if you can follow that logic, I'm going to save you some trouble now and tell you it's not going to happen.

Review

Twitter Lists Make Twitter Dangerous to Use.

Date: October 29, 2009 - 1:43pm (Last updated: October 30, 2009 - 3:38pm)
Author: Mark Trapp

Updated at the end.

The big buzz in the social media world lately revolves around Twitter's rollout of its "list" feature, which allows you and others to create lists of your followers: easily tagging them so you can share those lists with others. Robert Scoble thinks it's a game changer, and is pushing the value proposition for them hard. But I think lists, because they have no consent mechanism and because they can be made public, are boneheaded, broken, and ultimately make Twitter a dangerous tool to use for anyone who values their reputation.

Review

Real-time Killed the Web 2.0 Star.

Date: April 6, 2009 - 6:40pm (Last updated: April 6, 2009 - 7:03pm)
Author: Mark Trapp

Today, FriendFeed unveiled a redesign of its product, focusing on real-time communication as a principle design goal. Expectedly, there are more than a few detractors of the decision to place real-time at the forefront (see Steven Hodson's post on Inquisitr, Michael Arrington's post on TechCrunch, or do a search on FriendFeed). I think they're stuck in a paradigm that's lasted for years that real-time has now rendered obsolete: the "follow."

Review

URL Shorteners Are Playing with Fire.

Date: April 4, 2009 - 11:24am (Last updated: April 9, 2009 - 11:04am)
Author: Mark Trapp

Yesterday, Joshua Schachter had an excellent piece on the perils of the URL shortener: it's clear, concise, and scathing. Jason Kottke and Dave Winer had a few suggestions on how to mitigate the problem, or get us on the right track to eventually deprecating the use of URL shorteners.

I agree with Schachter's assessment, and I think Kottke and Winer are on the right track, but I think the URL shortener problem is far greater than what Schachter enumerates: no longer satisfied with controlling the initial click, URL shorteners have decided to add toolbars to promote ther content or to sell adspace: the most notable and recent addition to this group is Digg's toolbar, DiggBar. Dubious utility aside, they are trampling in the garden of an angry god.

Review

All Likes Are Not Created Equal.

Date: February 10, 2009 - 8:24pm (Last updated: March 3, 2009 - 5:42pm)
Author: Mark Trapp

Recently, Facebook released a feature in its newsfeed that allows people to "like" newsfeed items. As it's described by Facebook's program manager Leah Pearlman, the feature allows you to tell your friends you approve of what they posted:

This is similar to how you might rate a restaurant on a reviews site. If you go to the restaurant and have a great time, you may want to rate it 5 stars. But if you had a particularly delicious dish there and want to rave about it, you can write a review detailing what you liked about the restaurant. We think of the new "Like" feature to be the stars, and the comments to be the review.

This feature prima face copies FriendFeed's "like" functionality, right down to the interaction and the verbage. Not surprisingly, FriendFeed's supporters were outraged and appalled at Facebook's Machievellian drive to copy FriendFeed. But I think it's important to take a step back and talk about the value of a "like".

Review

My Perfect FriendFeed: Meme-less.

Date: January 20, 2009 - 6:10pm (Last updated: January 20, 2009 - 6:32pm)
Author: Mark Trapp

A couple weeks ago, one of the founders of FriendFeed, Paul Buchheit, asked the world their ideas on the perfect FriendFeed.

Review

BuddyFeed, a Native FriendFeed Client.

Date: January 16, 2009 - 7:56am (Last updated: January 16, 2009 - 8:35am)
Author: Mark Trapp

One of the things that's been missing from FriendFeed has been a native iPhone client. Sure, there's the iPhone version of the website, and there's FFToGo, but they both miss a lot of administrative features of FriendFeed and don't provide the lustery UI of a native app. Recently, a third-party FriendFeed iPhone app came out called BuddyFeed.

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