Oh, the things I do for Vine, my favorite new thing. This ridiculous fake quiz page became a part of Quiz Show.
Vine scratches a very particular creative itch for me, one that goes all the way back to October of 2008 when I created a video called My Day, Yesterday. I shot throughout a full day and then edited it down to 90 seconds, with no added music or effects. A few days later I shot a follow-up called My Day, Yesterday: Going to Vegas. These two videos have generated nearly 50,000 plays, 1,000 likes/favorites, and they spurred a whole group of folks to create their own My Day, Yesterday videos. When Stacey and I travelled to Sydney in 2011, I shot another edition called Sydney in a Day and a few months later when we visited Seattle I made Seattle, Day One. (The Seattle video has music overlaid, something I had never done in one of these projects before.) These projects were exceedingly fun to create, very difficult to edit, and I love watching them.
Vine is perfect for me because it takes this style of filmmaking and distills it down to its core fundamentals. You can shoot individual clips, in order, for six total seconds of footage. You must touch the screen to record so you can’t set the iPhone on a tripod and walk away—you have to work around holding the camera. And you can’t preview your work as you go, you have to push through to the end and possibly redo the entire video if you’ve messed up a single shot (which I’ve had to do numerous times, much to my wife’s chagrin). The app is buggy, sure, but in general it works well enough that, with care and consideration, you can create complex works over the span of hours (see my video Friday Night for an example).
Vine is fun not just because of the tools or the format, but because the constraints force you to think creatively. Six seconds is long enough for a mini-story or a full joke, and lots of fun editing tricks. The best Vine videos I’ve seen are little masterpieces—they’re not just a bunch of static shots. Anyone can make a moving picture (Flickr built their whole video system based on this notion) by pointing the camera at one object or setting for two seconds and then something else for two more seconds. But in most cases, those videos would actually be better as photos, unless they’re particularly pretty or unique viewpoints. Not every Vine video needs to be a massive undertaking (see A Perfect Fit! for an example of a simple video that was easy to shoot), but creativity is key.
Shawn and I discussed this process yesterday and decided an accurate description of the whole concept is “high-stakes pointless videos”. But it sure is a lot of fun.
(You can, of course, find me on Vine by searching for “Garrett Murray” or following me on Twitter and using the Twitter friend finder inside Vine.)
The Nintendo Wii brought the motion sensor to the masses. Back when the console launched, motion sensor video gaming was brand new and everyone wanted to join in. People stood in line for days on end trying to get their hands on the console. (Probably fake) stock shortages skyrocketed demand and excitement. Normal, non-gaming people lost their minds trying to get one and when they finally did, most of them played Wii Sports and other group games for a while and then never looked at their Wii again. Truthfully, the Wii’s motion sensor and controllers were never particularly accurate or sensitive. Nintendo released the “Motion Plus” adapter to address it, but once the Microsoft Kinect and Sony Playstation Move crowded into the market with more sensitive and fun implementations of the motion tracking technology, the Wii lost its unique appeal. (This is conjecture, of course, but it’s based on a decent amount of time spent using all three technologies. The Wii’s was the easiest to use out of the box but the least accurate. The Kinect works surprisingly well but requires too much floor space and pristine lightning conditions. The Playstation Move wins for me—it’s absurdly accurate and feels like a better implementation of the Wii controller.)
With the Wii U, the gimmick is the GamePad. Nintendo sees Apple selling millions of iPads and iPod Touches on which people are gaming like crazy, so that must be the future. But Nintendo can’t deliver on Apple-quality hardware or software, so the GamePad just feels like a frankenstein of features, and overall it seems more like a miss than a hit at this point.
Nintendo doesn’t know what the Wii U is, and neither will consumers. Is it the Wii with upgraded HD graphics? Is it the Wii + a Nintendo DS? Is it a crummier version of an iPad + the Wii? Is it an attempt at all of those things? Yes. Does it succeed at any of them? Maybe. Is it a must-have console? No.
And what about the future? Has Nintendo released a console capable of competing with whatever Microsoft and Sony release next year? Doubtful. Consider the Wii U’s slot loading disc drive: It’s the smoothest slot loading drive I’ve ever used, but Nintendo still makes you insert discs and run them from the drive, without being able to install games to internal memory. Sure, you can buy games in digital form from the Nintendo eShop, but not every game is available. A large number are (and seemingly will continue to be) in disc form, which means ridiculously slow loading times for a console released in the age of SSD. Both Microsoft and Sony have been letting users install games for years now, and I’m willing to bet the Xbox 1080 and the Playstation 4 (or whatever) will push even further into digital delivery and SSD storage and further away from slow disc drives and physical media. The Wii U’s disc drive is apparently some proprietary version of Blu-ray, but it doesn’t play Blu-ray (or DVD) discs, which seems like another miss. If you’re going to saddle us with another disc drive, at least make it useful for more than one thing.
Graphically, the Nintendo Wii looks decent, but it still pales in comparison to the older Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, which means new consoles will blow it out of the water. A common response to this is, “People don’t care about graphics, they care about the gameplay and the experience.” This is true, in general, but if all games look sub-par on the Wii U, game developers will focus their efforts on platforms where both the gameplay and the visuals are top-notch. This is what happened to the Wii, and it seems destined to happen to the Wii U in two years.
The GamePad offers unique gameplay possibilities, definitely. But most of the launch titles don’t do anything interesting beyond a larger map view or inventory management. Call of Duty: Black Ops II offers an interesting feature that allows two players to play multiplayer at once—one on the TV (with a Pro controller) and one on the GamePad. But other games squander the feature by simply duplicating what’s on the TV on the GamePad screen. This creates a very awkward experience—which screen should I look at?—and doesn’t add anything new or fun to gameplay. Apparently Nintendo is angling this as the ability to play Wii U when the TV is occupied, but it’s a reach because only certain games work this way, and the Wii U GamePad’s screen is lower resolution and smaller than an iPad.
Hardware and System Software
The console itself is nearly a foot long, it’s made from shiny plastic, and it feels like little to no industrial design went into it. It’s heavy, ugly, and it’s big. This time around, Nintendo was smart enough to go high definition from the start (and they even included an HDMI cable, which neither Microsoft nor Sony do with their consoles). It still includes the Wii Sensor Bar and it has a giant external power brick (a quick aside: I’ve always complained about Microsoft’s Xbox 360 having an external power supply, and now about the Wii U as well, because Sony’s Playstation 3 does not have one and it feels so much more svelte. But then again, the PS3 overheats after 20 minutes of gaming or watching a Blu-ray disc and turns its fans up to fighter-jet levels, so give me external power supplies over that any day). The Wii U’s hardware is boring, but then again who cares? It’s not offensive, so if you’re the type who keeps your consoles visible, it will be fine.
The GamePad looks one half of a giant Nintendo DS and features a large touchscreen, two analog sticks, a camera, a microphone, a gyroscope, and all that other kind of stuff. It also has a button layout different from every other game controller on the market, which is very frustrating if you play Xbox or Playstation regularly. It’s unclear why Nintendo refuses to change BA to AB… and it annoys the hell out of me when I try to play any first-person shooter or game that controls similarly to a non-Nintendo game, because it’s always exactly backward. Nintendo also placed both analog sticks above the lettered buttons, which is the opposite of how the Xbox and Playstation do it. This creates a lot more travel for your right thumb, and it breaks muscle memory. The GamePad also features NFC support, a stylus, a proprietary port on the bottom and OH MY GOD WHO CARES. Basically, the GamePad is Nintendo’s answer to the iPad. Only its touch screen is non-capacitive (and therefore quite poor), its resolution is lower, it’s thicker, heavier and uglier, and you can’t play games on it without being in reach of the Wii U console. Playing for an extended period of time on the GamePad is very fatiguing because the GamePad is large and quite a bit heavier than any other game controller on the market.
System-software-wise, every single built-in Wii U app takes a ridiculously long time to load (including the root menu itself, which presents a secondary loading screen from time to time). It’s actually confusing—how poor is this SDK and operating system that loading the Settings app takes 19 seconds? The software is so slow I have become overly careful when using the GamePad so I don’t accidentally touch the wrong icon and launch an app I didn’t want because I can’t stand waiting the (often up to) 20 seconds to return to where I was. Nintendo needs to hire a group of people to make this whole thing faster and more useful. After some painful testing, here’re some app load time averages:
Returning to Wii U Menu from any other app or game: 25 seconds (!)
Mii Maker: 22 seconds
Parental Controls: 17 seconds
Daily Log: 16 seconds
Settings: 19 seconds
Miiverse: 28 seconds
Nintendo eShop: 27 seconds (!!)
Notifications: 15 seconds
Internet Browser: 19 seconds
Wii U Chat: 40 seconds (!!!)
Netflix: 42 seconds (!!!!!!)
(Keep in mind it took 25 seconds on average to return to the Wii U Menu after loading each of these others apps, so if you were to start each app listed above once and return to the Wii U menu afterward, it would take eight and a half minutes, not including initial startup and loading time, to do it. That can only be described as fucking insane.)
The Wii U can run YouTube and Hulu and Netflix, but who cares… what can’t run those things these days? If you don’t have an Apple TV or a Roku or an Xbox 360 or a Playstation 3 or a modern TV or a Mac Mini or a Windows Media PC or TiVo or a Blu-Ray player or… seriously—if the Wii U is the first device you own that can play Netflix on your TV, this review probably isn’t for you. Pretty much every piece of electronic technology released in the last four years can play Netflix on your TV.
The “Internet Browser” is decent (but again, does anyone need this at all?) and rendered most sites I visited well. I’ll never use it again.
The First-Run Experience
This is a bit unfair because this isn’t a permanent issue, but the first-run experience two days after launch was terrible. After setting up the hardware, I was greeted with a mandatory system software update, which promptly took two and half hours to download. My experience was not unique. During that two-hour period, the GamePad remained on and by the time it was finally done, 10 seconds into playing New Super Mario Bros. U for the first time, the GamePad ran out of battery and shut off. You can’t play single-player “story” mode without the GamePad, so that was it for me until the controller was charged.
Nintendo President Iwata apologized for this out-of-box experience, so at least they know this is something that needs to be much better. No luck thus far, however: As I wrote this my Wii U performed a new required system update which took 49 minutes.
Wii Support, Sure, But Bring Your Glasses
The Wii U has a Wii emulation mode, in which you can play all the older Wii games as well as old Virtual Console titles (which are not currently for sale in the Wii U store). To enter this mode, you must use a Wii Remote (and have the sensor bar plugged in), and you must enter the Wii emulation software, which effectively reboots the Wii U into Wii mode. And then you remember that until a month ago, Nintendo’s console was standard definition.
Going from the Wii U menu to the Wii menu is painful. The Wii looked bad on modern televisions before but now with this direct juxtaposition it’s even more glaring. Having given away my Wii back in 2008, I never got a chance to play the newer titles in two of my favorite series, so I bought a copy of Metroid: Other M, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. These games were obviously SD because the Wii was SD, and it’s rough to play them. They look blurry as hell, and they really highlight just how poor the Wii was, graphics-wise. For some reason, Wii mode also paints a thick neon green line on the right side of my TV, which I cannot get rid of (or ignore).
1st Party is the Only Party
Nintendo has a few cherished, amazing first-party franchises: Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Most of Nintendo’s core gamers have been playing games from these series for decades and they always rally to new releases regardless of their quality (*cough* The Adventure of Link, *cough* Metroid Prime Hunters, *cough* Mario’s Time Machine). Of course, that means it’s fairly disappointing to have a new Nintendo console with only one new franchise title, and a boring one at that.
New Super Mario Bros. U is a fine game, but it feels lifeless. Clinical is probably the right word. Compared to the thrill of Super Mario World for the SNES or Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64, NSMBU is a love letter to SNES' Super Mario Bros. 3 made with far more technical prowess and far less passion. I found myself playing through levels quickly without much interest in the game. It was hard to play for more than 30 minutes at a time. Something about it doesn’t feel right.
The Wii U isn’t the first of Nintendo’s consoles to launch without other franchise titles (remember the Gamecube’s Luigi’s Mansion fiasco?), but given the 6 years between the Wii and the Wii U, I would have hoped we’d see some new stuff here. The problem is Nintendo recently released new franchise titles for their aging Wii console (Mario and Metroid in 2010, Zelda in 2011), which seems like a mistake to me. As a fan, I would have preferred new, HD titles for the new console in 2012.
From everything Nintendo and developers are saying, it sounds like a new Zelda game is coming in 2013, as well as a new Metroid game, but nothing is concrete. This is a wasted opportunity. Sure, you can play Wii U versions of multi-console releases like Call of Duty: Black Ops II, but Nintendo’s game systems have never excelled in this regard.
What Now?
Based on my experience over the past two weeks with the Wii U, I’m not exactly bullish on its likelihood of massive success. But then I wouldn’t have thought the Wii would explode the way it did either. It’s possible I’m too jaded or interested in maturely-themed content to appreciate the confusing playfulness of Nintendo’s newest console. From a technology standpoint, I think the Wii U is too small of a step forward (and, in many ways, a step sideways) to compete with forthcoming consoles from the other big two companies.
Perhaps new Zelda or Metriod games will make me feel like a fool, but if all they use the GamePad for is inventory management and a larger map, we’ll know the Wii U was a misstep. So far, that’s the direction in which things are headed.
For now, I’ll be here waiting for the system menu to load.
A common response to the verdict in Apple v. Samsung is that this is great for Apple and bad for consumers because the patent system in the United States is fundamentally flawed and allows large companies to wield their patent portfolios like hammers, smashing innovation and stifling the market. While I completely agree the patent system can lead to some truly horrendous and unfortunate circumstances (cf. “Lodsys sues developers over patent infringement”), I don’t believe this is the case here. Should Apple be allowed to patent a screen full of rounded rectangles? Personally, I don’t believe so. But even if they were unable to patent this, should Samsung be allowed to blatantly copy Apple’s work, tweak it (for the worse) and release it as their own? I’m not a fan of software patents, but I am a fan of ethical and respectful business practice.
As was mentioned in the case several times, it took Apple five years to design and develop the iPhone and it took Samsung three months to copy it and bring their third-rate hardware to market. Internal documents showed a willful campaign to copy every aspect of the iPhone, from hardware to software, and to do it without care or quality. Samsung has made an effort on every front of their business to ape the Apple look and feel, and regardless of how you feel about patents, you’d probably agree a company should not be allowed to do this.
What this case holds for the future of Apple’s patent protection or smartphone legal cases remains to be seen, but for now I don’t foresee consumers losing. That Samsung might be forced to create truly unique and interesting hardware and software to compete with the iPhone means consumers win, long-term.
Kickstarter has been hugely successful and I love it. I’ve written about it at length before, and while the results of many of the projects I’ve supported have been less than stellar, the idea and the service are terrific and they fill a gap that has existed in the creative world for a long time.
Recently, however, spam has become a serious issue. At least once a week I receive an unsolicited request to fund a project. These messages are rarely offensive in and of themselves–they’re usually just information about the project and a paragraph or two of generic “please help us out” text–but they’re still spam. They’re usually sent to a blind carbon copy list, but occasionally someone will screw up and send it out via plain CC, exposing all the email addresses they’ve targeted.
On Monday, Jacob Pino of mavonOG sent spam to a huge list of folks, myself included, advertising his Kickstarter campaign. He didn’t BCC everyone, he included every email address in the CC field. He clearly sent multiple emails because the group I was in were all people whose names started with E-H. The email started:
Hey Family and Friends,
It’s back! Project MIA has been retouched and relaunched.
Please help build support for Maven OG’s Kickstarter project, ‘Project M[ade] I[n] A[merica]’. Maven OG is seeking to stimulate the American economy by having their revolutionary bamboo and organic cotton material manufactured right here in America.
Learn more about Project MIA and Maven OG by clicking on the photo below; forward this email to your close family and friends; and lets help make America, American made!
Hey, great! I must be this guy’s friend. Or a family member! So too must be all 37 other folks in this batch spam email. Angry but not surprised, I responded:
It’s not very polite to email people unsolicited in a non-BCC thread (especially people you do not know–I am not a family member or a friend). This means you’ve basically shared my email address (via spam) to a bunch of other people. Please remove me from your list, and please be more considerate in the future.
This isn’t a new thing with Kickstarter, but usually the spammer has the decency to hide the email list. I was annoyed but I flagged the original message as spam and let it go. That is, until 20 minutes later when I received this amazing pile of bullshit from mavenOG:
My sincerest apologies to all of those that were contacted without discretion regarding our Kickstarter project. Apparently our account has been hacked and our project used to promote a Kickstarter spam list that has been floating around. Again please accept my deepest apology and know our team is working diligently to resolve the issue.
Seriously? Am I meant to believe your account got hacked and the hackers used it to promote your Kickstarter campaign? What a joke.
This is a growing problem: When you back a Kickstarter project you’re giving the creators your personal information and some of them are clearly selling it. Kickstarter needs to figure out a way to stop this from happening soon, and they need to punish any creators who resort to it by removing them and their project from the service immediately.
A while back when writing about my Kickstarter happiness rating being 40%, I mentioned I was hopeful for the future and listed projects I had backed which had not shipped, among which was the iCache Geode. I described it thusly:
Geode from iCache is a dream I’ve had for years, potentially fulfilled at long last. If this thing works as well as they depict it, goodbye wallet.
Three months later and the Geode is in my hands. It was with great excitement that I unpackaged, configured and crammed my phone into it today and then I headed out into the world to see if it could truly replace my wallet. Unfortunately, my results were less than stellar. The iCache Geode is a great idea and a decently made product that simply doesn’t deliver on its concept. That, and it might just be a hugely dangerous object to be selling to the public.
The Hardware
It’s decently made, but boy is it big, bulky and heavy. It makes the iPhone 4 twice as thick at least, and about three times heavier. It felt like it was weighing my jeans down and it fit snuggly in my back pocket. It’s not hideous but it’s not all that attractive–it’s a big, black box. The back is a little nicer because of the e-ink screen and the Geode card sticking out, but it still looks many orders of magnitude less sleek than the iPhone itself.
Getting the iPhone into/out of the case is a bit laborious because of the rubber inside, so it’s not something you’d want to do over and over on a daily basis. Unfortunately, because it’s so big and heavy with the case on you’re probably going to want to do just that every day. I wouldn’t want to use the iPhone in my home office with it inside the Geode case–it feels quite silly.
Generally, the hardware seems to work. My card reader worked and the Geode programmable card seems to take an imprint. One weird thing I wasn’t expecting: When you imprint a credit card to the Geode card you have to whack the card to enable it and the card will then flash a small LED. Because of this extra technology, the Geode card is noticeably thicker than a standard credit card (which lead to issues as you’ll see below). It’s also very strange. I’m not sure why this is necessary technically, I just know it’s one additional strange step you have to take when trying to pay with the Geode.
The iCache Geode is meant to replace your wallet, but it’s missing one key feature necessary to do so: A place to hold your driver’s license/ID.
The Software
It gets the job done, and it feels mostly bug-free. I’ve seen lots of complaints in the App Store, but those appear to be mostly hardware-issue-related. It’s a fairly pretty app and it makes it very easy to add new cards, manage existing cards and choose cards to imprint. The biggest problem is this whole process isn’t terribly speedy–if you’re in a checkout line you must open the Geode app, choose a card, imprint it (and wait for the imprint to happen), remove your Geode card and whack it before you can pay. Suggestion: Start doing this as soon as they start ringing you up, because it took around 30+ seconds on average for me from start to finish.
Real-World Failures (and Minor Successes)
I ran several errands this afternoon and tried to use the Geode for all of them. I brought my wallet with me just in case, and I’m glad I did because I had nothing but problems:
Petco
The customer-facing card reader wouldn’t read the Geode card no matter how I swiped it. It always registered a specific error message. The clerk tried to swipe it herself on the register card reader without luck. Paid with the real card because the line behind me was long and I felt bad wasting everyone’s time.
Bank of America
I tried to use the Geode card at the ATM, but the machine wouldn’t accept the card at all. Because the Geode card is slightly thicker than a standard credit card, it seems the ATM knew and wouldn’t let it in. After failing at the ATM, I used the Geode card at the counter and it worked (Bank of America’s system is to have customers swipe their cards through a reader at the counter and enter their PINs). The first swipe was successful, although the customer service person was very uncomfortable. He asked what kind of card it was, if it was an official BoA card, and where I got it. He seemed to think I was running some sort of scam. But it worked. Unfortunately, this means with Geode you can never use an ATM (or, at least, BoA ATMs).
Best Buy
Ten swipes on the customer-facing card reader, all failures. The clerk then swiped an additional ten times on his register without success. But he had heard of the iCache Geode before and was excited to see it work, so he tried twice more–very slowly–and the second time it worked. I got excited. Perhaps the other issues were flukes? Then he looked at the card and asked, “Wait, how do I get the CCV?” I told him I had it and I could tell him. He said that should be fine, although normally they must see it themselves on the actual card. This is something I feared since many companies require verifying the CCV of American Express cards at point-of-sale.
Walgreens
Customer-facing card reader seemed to swipe successfully but the clerk reported the register claimed an error trying to process the payment each time. He tried swiping it and had the same problem–the swipe worked but the card wouldn’t successfully complete the transaction. Had to use the real card again.
Yuko Kitchen
A small Japanese restaurant near our apartment that I love and proceeded to annoy trying to get the Geode card to work in their little credit card machine. The waitress tried about ten swipes without luck (nondescript error each time), after which I re-imprinted the card and asked her to try it very slowly. No dice. Had to use my real card again (and apologize).
Five stops, one success (Best Buy) and one partial success (Bank of America). That’s about 20%. If I had left my wallet at home I wouldn’t have been able to get anything done.
I’d love to say I know these issues can be worked out with software and firmware updates, but I have no idea. The Geode card itself is thicker, contains more electronics than any other credit card (LEDs and such) so it seems very complex and, honestly, sketchy.
The Security (and Legal) Implications of this Device
The iCache Geode has a fingerprint scanner, so your credit card information is relatively safe. If someone stole your phone they wouldn’t be able to get into the Geode app to read your data without your prints (or, at least, not easily–I’m not a security expert so I’m not sure how hard it would be to crack the Geode app).
The real security issue is the iCache Geode comes bundled with a credit card reader (a small USB hardware dongle you attach to the case which has a slot to read from magnetic card swipes) which digitizes credit cards instantly. It’s great for setup purposes: You swipe each card in your wallet and you’re done. Consumers having easy access to a credit card reader is not a new thing–Square and the like have been shipping them for years now. But there is one key difference making the iCache Geode much scarier: It contains an imprinting system that can effectively masquerade as any credit card.
Unlike Square, where swiping a card only gives you the account number, Geode can be used to read and clone any credit card nearly instantly. Imagine giving your credit card at a restaurant to a waiter who walks into the back, takes out his Geode and scans your card. He now has a real, usable, cloned version of your credit card. He can walk into any store and imprint his Geode card with yours at point of sale and use it (assuming he actually gets it to work). Frankly, I’m surprised the iCache Geode is legal to sell in the United States. It could effectively be used as a skimming and cloning system. The price point of the iCache Geode is low enough that nearly anyone could afford to buy it and go around cloning credit cards.
Then again, the Geode card works so poorly at this point we don’t have much to worry about.
Let me get this out of the way: The Retina MacBook Pro is the finest computer Apple has ever made. The industrial design is spectacular. The rMBP feels stronger and more precise than any other computer on the market–it immediately reminded me of the first time I picked up the iPhone 4. The rMBP is thin, light, quiet and beautiful. And it’s fast. I chose the built-to-order option with the fastest processor and 16GB of RAM, with the 500GB SSD.
This thing screams.
I have only one nitpick and that’s the missing MacBook Pro logo from the bezel. I assume they did it to remove distraction, but it’s very strange to look at an Apple laptop without any visible branding. (This sounds ridiculous, but it makes me think of the rMBP as reference hardware, which couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll eventually get used to it, I’m sure.)
It’s going to be a long road
Using the Retina MacBook Pro is a combination of beauty and horror. The screen looks like a finely printed magazine sitting on a light table. Icons are gorgeous. Text, for the most part, looks phenomenal. Images, however, look relatively poor in most cases. In the first week of using this computer, most of my favorite apps looked ridiculous. Sparrow and Reeder both suffered from the same everything-but-the-webview-is-blurry problem. Thankfully, both of these apps were updated quickly. Only a handful of other non-Apple applications have been updated for Retina displays, so much of my time on this machine is spent using blurry apps, hoping for updates.
The app landscape will improve with time, but the internet is a different story.
Creating Retina graphics for every single website is a large enough undertaking (most people and companies probably didn’t design their sites at 2x to begin with, so everything will need to be recreated), but serving Retina graphics is still not the easiest thing to do.
There are quick and dirty ways that simply use Javascript to look for @2x versions of any <img> tag with a special CSS class assigned, but that means the browser downloads both versions of the image, adding quite a bit of bandwidth overhead. Replacing images from the start via CSS is much friendlier to bandwidth but will require tinkering with layouts in a lot of cases.
I went the first, lazy route with my site Maniacal Rage because I had only a single header image (my stupid face–if you’re paying close attention you’ll notice that image gets sharper just after the site loads), and the longer, smarter route with my company website. Redoing Karbon only took a little bit of work, but it’s an extremely simple one-page site. I haven’t bothered to make the lookbook Retina yet because it’s a pretty massive undertaking.
Going forward, hopefully, most thoughtful folks will make new websites Retina-ready from the start. When I created the site for Scratch, I did just that, and it looks amazing on this new rMBP. But for the most part the internet will look relatively crummy on Retina displays for quite a while.
Is it necessary?
Much of the initial criticism of the Retina MacBook Pro is based on the notion that the Retina display is an unnecessary, expensive addition which adds nothing to the experience other than some sort of Apple fanboy bragging rights. People see the cost of the base-model rMBP and compare it to the 15-inch MacBook Pro and determine the $400 difference is too much for such a useless feature. With this argument they ignore the industrial design differences, the addition of USB 3.0, the blazing-fast SSD and the rMBP’s doubled memory. All of that and the Retina display. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t buy the Retina model for $2,199 when the base 15-inch MBP is $1,799. That $400 difference buys you so much more than the display upgrade.
Is it strictly necessary? Hell no. In fact, you could just buy one of those awful Eee PCs and be done with it. Spend less than the total price difference we’re talking about the for the entire computer. Arguing about the usefulness of pixels-per-inch in a display seems like a waste of time. If you want your computer to have the best display on the market, get the rMBP. If you don’t care, or you can’t afford to buy it, don’t. It’s not worth yelling about what matters more. It matters to me, most certainly, but I’m not you. But I don’t think it’s fair to claim a Retina display is meaningless technological masturbation. Much like the iPhone 4’s screen, everyone cried foul until they saw it for themselves, then Apple sold a billion of them. I’m willing to bet the same thing will happen with the Retina MacBook Pro.
A common theme among responses to yesterday’s piece is that I was wrong about the RAM bit. I wrote:
How many people outside of the tech and computer industry regularly upgrade their RAM? Especially more than once? Most people I know who are not in the tech industry–all of whom are smart folks–haven’t upgraded their own RAM since around 2002. RAM is cheap these days, even from Apple. Sure, soldering it to the board means you have to make your RAM decision at point-of-sale, but anyone shelling out over $2,700 USD is probably going to be capable of deciding which amount of RAM they’d like. Do consumers care about this? No. Do companies who sell third-party RAM and installation services? Absolutely.
A lot of people claim they still want to buy after-market RAM and install it themselves, and that they wish to do this at some point down the road. But I think the truth is even simpler: People want cheaper RAM.
Most people who buy after-market RAM and install it themselves months after purchasing a computer and do so to both save money on RAM and lower the initial sticker price of the computer. If you’re spending over $2,000 USD on a computer, saving $200 can be quite helpful. A consumer might think about getting a lower initial RAM size and plan to spend $85 a few months later to upgrade. What I’m trying to get at here is that users probably wouldn’t care at all about Apple soldering in the RAM if it was extremely cheap. Would people buying a Retina MacBook Pro complain about having to choose a RAM upgrade at point-of-sale if the difference in price between 8GB and 16GB was $40? Probably not. I don’t think the issue here is the ability to upgrade RAM later, I think the issue is users feeling like they have to spend more right up front.
These days, Apple treats the POS of a consumer product much like the automobile industry does. When you purchase a car, you have to make certain decisions up front: Do I want all-wheel drive? Do I want a standard transmission or automatic? What about safety features? You wouldn’t walk into a Toyota dealership and expect to purchase a 4-cylinder Camry and then later convert it to a 6-cylinder. And while cylinders on a car are obviously more complex than installing RAM chips, I do genuinely believe Apple solders RAM into the board for reasons more interesting than trying to screw John Doe. To make RAM swappable requires more vertical space (for the attachment apparatus), a relatively simple way to get to that slot without making it easy for the average user to destroy something, and plenty of other technical things too complicated for me to understand. It means making a beautiful, sleek case less beautiful and sleek. It means more customer support when people do stupid things to the logic board. And when you add all that overhead, what do you truly get for your trouble? 5% of your users will install RAM six months after buying a computer.
(I had this whole additional point I was going to make about how the automobile industry is headed in the same direction as Apple with regards to its serviceability, but then Ole Begemann went and did a beautiful job of it for me with his post comparing the engine of a new Mercedes to that of one from the 1980s. Thanks to John Gruber for the link.)
Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, wrote a gem of an editorial for Wired just after Apple released the new Retina MacBook Pro. Mr. Wiens' business is in DIY repair and replacement parts, so he’s obviously affected whenever Apple releases a new machine containing harder-to-replace components. His editorial is so out of touch with the common consumer–Apple’s target market–that it’s laughable and, at times, completely inaccurate and misleading. Let’s take a look:
This week, Apple delivered the highly anticipated MacBook Pro with Retina Display — and the tech world is buzzing. I took one apart yesterday because I run iFixit, a team responsible for high-resolution teardowns of new products and DIY repair guides. We disassemble and analyze new electronic gizmos so you don’t have to — kind of like an internet version of Consumer Reports.
Likening yourself to Consumer Reports right off the bat seems like a bad idea considering CR’s recent history with regard to Apple products, but we can let this go.
The Retina MacBook is the least repairable laptop we’ve ever taken apart: Unlike the previous model, the display is fused to the glass, which means replacing the LCD requires buying an expensive display assembly.
Are a lot of MacBook Pro users ordering replacement LCD components and repairing their screens? I doubt it. Are third-party computer repair shops concerned about this? Undoubtedly.
The RAM is now soldered to the logic board — making future memory upgrades impossible.
How many people outside of the tech and computer industry regularly upgrade their RAM? Especially more than once? Most people I know who are not in the tech industry–all of whom are smart folks–haven’t upgraded their own RAM since around 2002. RAM is cheap these days, even from Apple. Sure, soldering it to the board means you have to make your RAM decision at point-of-sale, but anyone shelling out over $2,700 USD is probably going to be capable of deciding which amount of RAM they’d like. Do consumers care about this? No. Do companies who sell third-party RAM and installation services? Absolutely.
And the battery is glued to the case, requiring customers to mail their laptop to Apple every so often for a $200 replacement.
“Every so often” is ridiculous hyperbole. The 15-inch MacBook Pro I’ve owned since 2010–a computer I plugged into a 27-inch Cinema Display all day, every day for the first 12 months I owned it and then which has been off and in a closet for 13 months–still gets almost the entire advertised battery life. It’s complete nonsense to state that most customers will have to mail their laptop to Apple “every so often”. And because the Retina MacBook Pro’s daily battery usage rating is so much higher than previous models, corporate types won’t even complain about needing to carry a second battery.
The design may well be comprised of “highly recyclable aluminum and glass” — but my friends in the electronics recycling industry tell me they have no way of recycling aluminum that has glass glued to it like Apple did with both this machine and the recent iPad.
Since Mr. Wiens doesn’t back this up with any facts or figures, we’ll have to trust that Apple’s just lying about its environmental report for the Retina MacBook Pro. But there’s good news–Apple will recycle your machine for free. Make it their problem to solve.
The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole.
Completely accurate. Consumers get a faster, slimmer, lighter piece of technology with a screen twice as dense as it was a year ago. They’re able to create large-scale graphics, work with huge photos at nearly full resolution and edit 1080p video in one quarter of the screen. All quickly, all nearly silently, all on the go. The tech industry has more bullshit edge-cases to complain about.
Four years ago, Apple performed a market experiment. They released the super thin, but non-upgradeable, MacBook Air in addition to their two existing, easily upgradeable notebooks: the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. Apple’s laptops had evolved over two decades of experience into impressively robust, rugged, and long-lasting computers. Apple learned a lot from the failings of the past: the exploding batteries of the PowerBook 5300, the flaky hinges of the PowerBook G4 Titanium, the difficult-to-access hard drive in the iBook.
The MacBook Air was not a market experiment. The MacBook Air was a revolution. Every single other company has been trying to replicate its success. Do you think Dell and Sony and Asus and Lenovo are all coincidentally performing the same “market experiment”? Apple designed and built the world’s thinnest, lightest computer and then year-after-year they made it better. The MacBook Air is the future–everyone knows it. People don’t want huge, heavy “robust and rugged” laptops. They want ultra-thin, ultra-light, insanely fast computers that are affordable. Apple delivered.
“The exploding batteries of the PowerBook 5300” is a cute touch. Nothing says you know what you’re talking about quite like referencing a computer Apple made 17 years ago which had a 100-unit recall for battery issues (of which no customer experienced an “explosion”).
The 2008 Air went in a new direction entirely: It sacrificed performance and upgradeability in exchange for a thinner design. Its RAM is soldered to the logic board (as in the Retina MacBook Pro), so upgrading it means replacing the entire expensive logic board. And like all laptops, the Air has a built-in consumable. The MacBook Air’s battery was rated to last just 300 charges when it was introduced. But unlike laptops before it, replacing the Air’s battery required specialized tools and removing some 19 screws.
It’s quite unfair (and a bit deceptive) for a computer repair specialist to say the MacBook Air’s battery was rated to last “just 300 charges” when Mr. Wiens knows it was actually rated for 300 cycles–significantly different meanings for a consumer. Most people don’t cycle their computer down to zero and back up every day, meaning 300 cycles will last much longer than implied by his statement. I have a 13-inch MacBook Pro here at home that has been in constant use for over two years and it currently has 126 cycles on the battery. Considering the number of times this has been used with and without being plugged in, I’d say it’s fair to think a 300-cycle battery could easily last four years before the battery was severely degraded.
When Apple dropped the MacBook Air to $999 in 2010 to match the price point of the MacBook, they gave users a clear choice: the thin, light, and un-upgradeable MacBook Air or the heavier, longer lasting, more rugged, and more powerful MacBook. Same price, two very different products. At the time, I wasn’t very happy with the non-upgradeable RAM on the MacBook Air, but I respected that Apple had given their users a choice. It was up to us: Did we want a machine that would be stuck with 2GB of RAM forever? Would we support laptops that required replacement every year or two as applications required more memory and batteries atrophied?
Consumers overwhelmingly voted yes, and the Air grew to take 40 percent of Apple’s notebook sales by the end of 2010.
What’s the argument of this editorial again again?
The success of the non-upgradeable Air empowered Apple to release the even-less-serviceable iPad two years later: The battery was glued into the case. And again, we voted with our wallets and purchased the device despite its built-in death clock. In the next iteration of the iPad, the glass was fused to the frame.
Seriously, what’s the argument? Consumers love these devices and are buying them in droves and are not complaining about any of the “issues” Kyle Wiens declares massive problems for the industry on a whole–what is the point here?
Once again, with another product announcement, Apple has presented the market with a choice. They have two professional laptops: one that is serviceable and upgradeable, and one that is not. They’re not exactly equivalent products — one is less expensive and supports expandable storage, and the other has a cutting-edge display, fixed storage capacity, and a premium price tag — but they don’t have the same name just to cause confusion. Rather, Apple is asking users to define the future of the MacBook Pro.
I’m willing to bet Apple knows exactly what the future of the MacBook Pro is. That’s why they called this new Retina version MacBook Pro and not something else. And I’m willing to bet users are going to buy it in record numbers.
Even the MacBook Pro was originally touted as an accessible, repairable machine — at Macworld in 2009, Steve Jobs said, “Our pro customers want accessibility: […] to add memory, to add cards, to add drives.”
This is just flat-out inaccurate. Steve Jobs said this in 1999, 10 years earlier than claimed. He’s standing in front of a PowerMac G3 and he says this just before showing off the easily-openable case. So 12 years ago Steve Jobs said Apple’s pro customers wanted to add hardware to their machines and Mr. Wiens feels Apple should be held to this claim regarding its present-day laptop line. Absurd. Keep watching that YouTube clip and you’ll see Steve Jobs wax poetic about Apple’s new CRT displays and how amazing they are. Talk about a time capsule.
We have consistently voted for hardware that’s thinner rather than upgradeable. But we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Our purchasing decisions are telling Apple that we’re happy to buy computers and watch them die on schedule. When we choose a short-lived laptop over a more robust model that’s a quarter of an inch thicker, what does that say about our values?
This is just horseshit. I was going to try to debunk it, but it’s pure garbage. We don’t need lines in the sand. If you don’t like Apple’s computers, don’t buy them. But don’t begrudge them making amazing devices consumers love just because you wish your business was going to make more money.
Today, we choose. If we choose the Retina display over the existing MacBook Pro, the next generation of Mac laptops will likely be less repairable still. When that happens, we won’t be able to blame Apple. We’ll have to blame ourselves.
Consumers don’t want to repair their own computers. People don’t want to install RAM or try to replace a broken video card. They want to buy amazing hardware and know the company they’re doing so from has equally amazing customer support and repair services to boot. Turns out Apple has it all. And people keep voting with their wallets–this is the right direction. When’s the last time you overheard an average person in an Apple Store asking about how many PCI cards you could install in a Mac?
The reality is, if we want thinner and faster and more amazing computers we have to sacrifice easy repairability and it’s a tradeoff most people are willing to make. This isn’t only true for computers. My Prius is probably far harder to repair than a 1995 Honda Civic, but I also get 53 miles per gallon in Los Angeles and it has 20 times more safety features.
I can’t wait for the next generation of Apple laptops. If the first-generation Retina MacBook Pro is this thin, imagine what they’ll be able to do in three years. If Kyle Wiens wants to blame himself, he should feel free. Me, I’ll be in line to get one.
Good friend and all-around smart guy Sean Madden, in a recent Fast Company Co.Design article:
Last month, I talked to Amazon customer service about my malfunctioning Kindle, and it was great. Thirty seconds after putting in a service request on Amazon’s website, my phone rang, and the woman on the other end–let’s call her Barbara–greeted me by name and said, “I understand that you have a problem with your Kindle.” We resolved my problem in under two minutes, we got to skip the part where I carefully spell out my last name and address, and she didn’t try to upsell me on anything. After nearly a decade of ordering stuff from Amazon, I never loved the company as much as I did at that moment.
He goes on to describe exactly what makes Amazon so great with customer service–they collect useful information about you and know when and just how much of it is appropriate to use when giving you support:
When I meet an old acquaintance at a party, she remembers my name and asks one or two questions about things we discussed last time we spoke. The fact that she remembers establishes rapport; the fact that she doesn’t list out every bit of information she possesses makes me feel comfortable. Without even thinking about it, humans are very good at conveying just the right amount of information in personal conversation.
Companies need to do the same.
Every interaction I’ve had with Amazon support has been terrific. Fast, smart and completely satisfactory. My least favorite kind of customer support interactions begin with being asked 100 questions, including my address, phone number, recent purchases, full name, security question, et cetera. In a majority of support cases, none of those questions need to be asked or help solve the problem. The beauty of Amazon’s call-back support option is that security is built in–you have to log into the account and then provide a phone number. This allows Amazon to cut through some of the nonsense and get right to helping you, only asking you for security information if it’s required to solve your problem later in the call.
Other companies should be taking lessons from Amazon in this regard.
A writer for The Verge, Paul posted his plans on the site to much internet acclaim and kudos:
At midnight tonight I will leave the internet. I’m abandoning one of my “top 5” technological innovations of all time for a little peace and quiet. If I can survive the separation, I’m going to do this for a year. Yeah, I’m serious. I’m not leaving The Verge, and I’m not becoming a hermit, I just won’t use the internet in my personal or work life, and won’t ask anyone to use it for me.
Cute idea, and a fun challenge if you want to randomly cut things out of your life to earn some strange badge of honor. But my question to Paul and everyone who gave him virtual pats on the back is: Why?
What’s the problem that needs solving?
I’m in firm disagreement when it comes to people claiming the internet is bad for your health or your soul or your ability to interact with the outdoors. Much like anything else on earth–food, exercise, sex, television, video games, even water–if you overindulge or let yourself lose control, there will be a negative effect on your health and life. But the internet itself, and computers, are not unhealthy. Every few months some wacko on CNN proclaims using Facebook for too many hours a day will shorten childrens' lives and turn them into zombies, but that’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Paul gives lose reasoning for his internet abandonment project:
I feel like I’ve only examined the internet up close. It’s been personal and pervasive in my life for over a decade, and I spend on average 12+ hours a day directly at an internet-connected terminal (laptop, iPad, Xbox), not to mention all the ambient internet my smartphone keeps me aware of.
Emphasis added. I’m not sure what “examined the internet up close” means, but I’ve emphasized the real problem in that paragraph–instead of removing yourself from internet access entirely, how about just, you know, cutting back? It’s called self control. It’s very useful. Paul continues to justify his cold-turkey approach:
Now I want to see the internet at a distance. By separating myself from the constant connectivity, I can see which aspects are truly valuable, which are distractions for me, and which parts are corrupting my very soul. What I worry is that I’m so “adept” at the internet that I’ve found ways to fill every crevice of my life with it, and I’m pretty sure the internet has invaded some places where it doesn’t belong.
Paul knows exactly which parts of the internet are truly valuable to him–he mentions several of them in his post’s accompanying video. He says Wikipedia is one of his favorite sites, he mentions using Yelp and eBay–it’s a bit ridiculous to pretend you don’t know what you value on the internet and then use an internet video service to tell people exactly what you value. More justification:
I’m also interested in a sans-internet reality as a technology writer. There was a time when technological innovation didn’t seem intimately linked to the internet. Most pre-80s sci-fi, for instance, explored those futures. Now I’d like to examine what modern technology looks like in a TCP/IP vacuum. Is the internet truly the oxygen of our electronics, or just an important piece?
Perhaps this has its place–writing about the internet on the internet is a metaphor for… ugh, nothing–but at least I see the kitsch appeal. Still, this is a real stretch. Especially considering since Paul isn’t allowed to use the internet all, anything he writes will be completely devoid of experience. That doesn’t make for great writing, in my experience.
Eventually, Paul gets to the final reason he’s leaving the internet for a year, and it’s a doozy:
In my wild fantasies, leaving the internet will make me better with my time, vastly more creative, a better friend, a better son and brother… a better Paul. In reality, I’ll still be the same person, just with a huge professional and personal handicap. The things I’ll miss most, like playing StarCraft with my friend from high school who lives in another state, or sharing Rdio and long read links with a co-worker at the next desk over, I hope to replace with more direct interactions, and more “meaningful” activities - whatever that means. The worst case scenario is that a year from now I’ll be found wandering in the woods somewhere, muttering URLs to myself.
In psychiatric circles, I believe this is referred to as delusion. Paul Miller believes that by ceasing use of the internet, he’ll become a better person. By forcing himself to do all the things he doesn’t do today, he’ll realize this perfect life where he’s always having deeply meaningful interactions with society. The problem is, Paul could do all of these things today, while still using the internet. He could hang out with friends more frequently, send fewer emails, spend less time trolling Facebook. The internet isn’t the cause of Paul’s (assumed) boring, meaningless life. Paul is. Walking away from the internet won’t make fixing any of this any easier. But Paul thinks it will.
The solution and new problems
So Paul Miller is leaving the internet for a year. He purchased an old Nokia phone, disconnected all of his cables, and turned off Wi-Fi. Now what? Turns out, because Paul works at an internet company, he makes his problem everyone else’s problem. To work, Paul writes his Verge stories locally on his laptop and then puts them on a USB flash drive and hands it to his editor, who must then deal with this extra step every time. To print something, Paul must walk over to the printer and plug in a cable. I don’t see how any of these things will make Paul a better person.
And how exactly will Paul write for The Verge? Will he get his story ideas from the AM New York newspaper? Will he be assigned stories from editors and then write them in a vacuum? Will he only write about things that happened in the local library? How can a writer for a technology website in 2012 not use the internet and write anything meaningful? Let’s suppose this isn’t an issue, and Paul somehow manages to write amazing stores for The Verge. Does it now fall upon other writers/editors at the company to read feedback on his stories and share it with Paul? Why is this their problem?
(As an aside, I feel I need to point out the irony of using “I’m leaving the internet for a year” as a way to drum up as many page visits to your internet website as you can. If you’re going to leave the internet, and you feel it’s extremely toxic in your life, why would you feel the need to make a video, write a post, answer questions on Reddit, et cetera? Just unplug and be done with it. If this is truly about personal well-being, then why try to make it an internet sensation?)
It should also be noted that by not using the internet, Paul is indirectly (or in some cases directly) using more electricity, gasoline and expelling more carbon. Sure, Paul rides a bicycle (as is shown several times in his video), but it takes a lot of power and dead trees to print all those phonebooks and newspapers he’s going to be using. When he visits friends for these “meaningful” interactions, if they live out of biking distance, he’ll be using more cabs. And all that snail mail he’s sending to let family members know he’s alive will travel on trucks and planes to for days to get to their destination. Perhaps this is a minor issue for most people, but as someone who cares about carbon footprints, I don’t think it’s responsible for someone to waste more power and add more pollution to the earth so they can feel good about not playing Starcraft all day.
People have done this before (spoilers!)
In Paul’s Reddit IAmA just before pulling the plug, Reddit user EatingSteak wrote about his own experience of leaving the internet for a year from 2009-2010. Unsurprisingly, he recommends against it for various simple reasons:
It wasn’t nearly as challenging as I had expected. I mean, I still had a job and a car, and stuff like buying groceries and walking in the park hadn’t changed.
The minor conveniences really showed through. I had to use a PHONE BOOK to find a locksmith. A PHONE BOOK (really, first time in over 10 years). Booking plane tickets was a pain in the ass. Finding a newspaper or whatever to get movie showtimes. What time does this restaurant close, etc etc. What’s going on [in] the city this weekend…
It became rather dull rather quickly. The movies, TV shows, and games I had saved on my computer became stale rather quickly. When I bought games in the store, they always ran like shit [be]cause my comp[uter] wasn’t patched. Had to have a friend get updates/drivers onto a CD, bleh (is that cheating?).
Everything happened more slowly. You’d be surprised how much interesting stuff you have to talk and learn about of you actually read something that isn’t cat pictures. And how boring you seem when you don’t.
Regained some appreciation for “old” forms of media, but was more often reminded of how much they suck. I fired through a lot of books, which was nice (and easier, when you’re not getting bombarded with emails and Facebook requests, and crap like that). Other than that, news from a paper or on TV is just insufferable. Ew.
Life just seemed to pass me by a bit more. I was always behind what games, movies and TV shows were hot, what news was interesting, how far battery technology or cell phone trends had developed (heh, I almost completely missed the decline of Blackberry).
The reality is, the internet is one of the best tools for being alive. Need to find a new car? Internet. Need to hire a pet-sitter? Internet. Need to know what time the next train leaves your local station? Internet. Need a recipe for cheesecake? Internet. Need to invite all of your friends to a party you’re throwing? Internet. Sure, it’s possible to do these things without the internet, just like it’s possible to build a house without power tools. Possible, yes. Best way to do something? No. The internet is a tool that makes your life immeasurably easier. Good luck using your phone books (where do you even get one) and driving from business to business when evaluating pet-sitters and visiting Barnes & Noble every time you want to make a meal that isn’t in one of your currently-owned cook books. Everything becomes more time consuming and expensive, while not becoming any more meaningful.
If you feel you have a problem with using the internet too much, use the internet less. Nothing is gained by making it ten times harder to order a pizza on a Friday night or find a homeopathic cure for a rash. If you feel like you’re not being creative, do something creative. Turning off Wi-Fi isn’t suddenly going to make you a different person. You’re going to have all the same problems you had before, only now they’re going to be even more annoying to other people. Paul doesn’t need to quit the internet for a year, Paul needs to control himself and reduce his use to reasonable limits, get some creative hobbies, and spend more time with his friends.
The internet isn’t the problem with our society, the problem with our society is impulse control.
