Say whaaaat? Apple approved Opera Mini Browser for the iPhone. Why is this a huge deal?
In case you didn’t know, Apple has a tendency to reject apps from its beloved App Store on the grounds of “duplicate functionality.” So if your app does something even remotely close to a feature that’s already found on the iPhone (or a feature that may be found in the iPhone at some future date) Apple will reject it flat-out.
This has been a lousy reason for rejection because, c’mon Apple, if someone can do the same thing you do, but better, don’t whine about it and not let them on your platform. Instead, man up and give the users the best possible experience, even if that experience doesn’t come from you.
Well, that’s exactly what Apple did. It allowed a rival browser on the iPhone and…it’s fast. And good. And has more features.
Kudos to Opera for creating a great browser and kudos to Apple for actually approving it. Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a new era.
Dear Leader announced the next version of the iPhone operating system last week. Amongst its more notable features was the inclusion of multitasking, or at least a crippled version of it. Above is El Jobso with a screenshot of what it looks like.
According to Engadget, “It’s not a ‘true’ multitasking system…You just double click the home button and see a list of your apps, and you can just tap to switch between apps.”
Hmmm… this is all sounding (and looking) very familiar…
A couple of months ago I mocked up the above screenshot and described how Apple could fake multitasking:
“What if Apple enabled a three finger downward swipe which would pull up a dock of your four (or in the case of the iPad, six) most recently used apps. Those apps aren’t open – they’re just the ones you used most recently.”
Eerily close to the way they’re really implementing multitasking? Yes.
Was Apple working on this months before I posted it? Maybe.
Do I really think Steve Jobs reads my blog? Absolutely I do.
Hi Steve.
Top image courtesy of Engadget, obviously.
There you have it. The first ever picture of The Other Drummer on an iPad. Now don’t you feel special?
I got to play with one for about a half hour on Tuesday. I must say, it’s a sexy piece of hardware. Downside: it’s quite heavy, to the point where it’s uncomfortable to hold with one hand.
The weight also made it hard to prop up on my crossed leg – it kept sliding down requring that I keep one hand on it. Kind of annoying.
But it’s fast. Oh, my is it fast.
Like greased, hyperactive torpedo fast.
And it’s incredibly smooth. Makes my iPhone 3GS look like a Commodore 64.
Yes. The screen is beautiful.
Yes, apps built for the iPad are on a completely different level than iPhone apps.
Yes, the keyboard is quite doable.
Is this going to change the face of computing? For some people, yes. Will it change the way we consume media? Almost certainly.
Of course, those are just my impressions after a half hour with it.
What about you? Have you had any hands-on time? If not, ask any questions you may have in the comments.
Discovered something today after I wiped my home iMac and reinstalled everything all sparkly fresh and fast: If you put the Activity Monitor in the Dock you can choose to have it display live usage stats instead of the static application icon. It’s a handy feature for Firefox users like me who have to keep an eye on those memory leaks.
Nicely done Apple.
Google and Microsoft,
You have more money than you know what to do with – literally billions sitting around. (As of the end of 2009 Microsoft has $9.4 billion and Google has $10 billion.) So how about you put a little more effort into making your products a more visually pleasing?
And by “more visually appealing” what I mean is “less ugly.”
I’ll even tell you how to do it: buy away designers from Apple and UX gurus from Adaptive Path.
Offer them $250,000 per year and the final word on how your products should look. Give them the ability to do what they do best and get out of their way.
Then take the committee of engineers, middle managers and their spouses who have been making those decisions, and put them to work doing something useful like cleaning staplers or minding their own business.
Lord Vader image via here.
