Project Beyond is the world’s first true 3D 360° camera. Beyond captures and streams omniview videos in stunning high-resolution 3D.
Teleport to the places and events you always wanted to see.
Be anywhere.Project Beyond – Think Tank Team – Samsung Research America (12 November 2014
Appropriately, I think seeing is better than reading in this case:
Read the full piece.
The site 9 to 5 Mac has done a comparison video and – stop right there, did you just think that there might maybe perhaps be a teeny bit of Apple bias in a site called 9 to 5 Mac? And if not on that site then on this, given that thirty seconds reading The Blank Screen will tell you Apple is better for productivity? But no. The 9 to 5 video does a good job of stepping away from the platform bias that both sides of the iPhone vs Android camps have.
(Just as an aside, isn’t it interesting how there can be this schism? I can’t comprehend how you have the patience for Android or why you can enjoy the necessitated twiddly fiddling to get it to work and Android fans are equally unable to understand what it’s like having a phone that works. I’m at times quite passionate about my kettle but I couldn’t even tell you who its manufacturer was, let alone when the last time there was an upgrade to its firmware.)
So. The 9 to 5 Mac video is fair, balanced, and therefore not all that exciting. I think it’s a good watch if you’re in the market for a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 or you’re in the market for an iPhone 6 Plus: it shows you everything you need to know to make your choice, you just have to sit through the bits about the other phone.
It’s hard to believe now but Apple was once within 90 days of going bankrupt. Samsung isn’t in as bad a way as that but it has just announced that its profits are down. A lot. Seriously, a lot. They’ve dropped 60%.
Cue lots of articles. Most go along the lines of how every technology and business advisor or expert in the world has said, suggested and sometimes demanded that Apple copy Samsung and give us cheap phones with massive screens. Apple’s ignored them all and suddenly, say the articles, is looking pretty smart.
I agree. It appeals to me as a writer, since we spend so long typing away, that Apple’s head-down working approach is paying off.
But I am frustrated. Today Samsung is deaths’-dooring and everybody understands why. (Short answer: the company leaps in quickly to copy existing hits like the iPhone and now other firms are leaping in to copy Samsung. Samsung was a ‘fast follower’ rather than the innovator everybody kept telling us and now everybody always knew that,)
It’s just that we’ve been told Android is the very best phone system in the world and it just never is when you pick the bleedin’ thing up. Quick aside? A respected, long-standing computer journalist handed me a Nexus 7 tablet one day and I agreed it was very good. The icons and the spacing of them looked a bit ugly to me but actually, I think the spacing of the icons on iPads is ugly too.
But I tried to swipe to the left and couldn’t because I was at the first screen. I can’t remember how this worked now but it had a very clear and obvious visual clue that I was at the first. I scrolled to the right, reached the end and had no visual clue. This journalist rolled his eyes and said it was because Apple ‘invented’ whatever you call that elastic-band-like thing when you reach the end of a list or a screen.
I call it crap. The designers of this Nexus couldn’t be bothered to do something at both ends of the scrolling, they just did one. Absolutely zero interest in making something useful, zero interest in having any pride in the work, just knock it out, tick the box that says there’s the elastic band like alternative, then claim it’s better than iPad. And wait for journalists to say it’s better than iPad.
If you like Android, great. Have a good time. You have far more patience than I do.
But if you like Android on Samsung, that’s now… interesting.
I have a problem with Samsung copying Apple, I have a problem with Android really, really copying iOS, I just also have a problem with articles saying that this 60% profit drop is the end of the line for Samsung.
Mind you, you know that 60% drop? It is for the quarter before the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus came out. The iPhones with the big screens that were previously an Android purview.
Dash over to The Onion for the full version of this: I particularly like a section with tech specs for the two phone’s cases.
It’s a bit of a barrage of tech specs but interesting to see the new iPhone next to a Samsung Galaxy Something.
My takeaways: God, but Android looks ugly. Also, the fella narrating has an odd way of saying ‘heralded’.
I might buy if it were really KITT. As it is, the actual product isn’t all that clear in this new ad but I’m fine with that. Unfortunately, I could be wrong but it doesn’t sound like William Daniels doing KITT’s voice. Boo.
If your dad maybe mentioned the show, I can’t say you missed out. But I liked the car. Which is odd since I’m not a car kind of guy, but. Have a look at Knight Rider yourself.
Chiefly because I’ve been reading this and it’s the weekend, let’s have a Weekend Read. This is an interesting and chunky piece by John Gruber of Daring Fireball – I do just like the name – about where Apple stands today and specifically about one recurring issue. Apple head Tim Cook has apparently taken to repeating the phrase that “only Apple” can do various things that it’s doing.
Sounds like typical marketing guff to me. Apple uses words like “magical” a lot and everything is “incredible” so I do rather tune that stuff out. But Gruber argues that there is a point, that there actually are things only Apple can do at the moment.
It’s all to do with how Apple controls its own hardware and software so it really controls the entire experience of getting and using its stuff. If something doesn’t work, it’s Apple’s fault. If something works brilliantly, it’s Apple’s fault. The suggestion, especially from Cook, is that there is simply no other company that is doing this on this scale and with this success.
Is this true, though? Is Apple the only company that can do this? I think it’s inarguable that they’re the only company that is doing it, but Cook is saying they’re the only company that can.
I’ve been thinking about this for two weeks. Who else is even a maybe? I’d say it’s a short list: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. And I’d divide that short list into halves — the close maybes (Microsoft and Google) and the not-so-close maybes (Amazon and Samsung).
Read the full piece for a careful, weighed examination of whether Apple is really different to those – and why it’s important.
This is going to be the norm for all computers soon but Macs soonest. You’re walking through your house writing a quick email on your iPhone and by the time you get to your desk, it’s becoming a long email. You’re wishing you hadn’t started it on the wee small screen there but you’re committed to it so you finish.
Not any more. From later this year when OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 are out, you’ll just put your iPhone down and carry on typing on your Mac. Exactly where you were. If it’s that long a bleedin’ email, you could then just pick up your iPad and head out of the house still writing it.
I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to between all three like that but I have regularly done that business with writing an email on my iPhone. I have very often had to leave for a meeting and therefore had to set things up on my iPad before I go. So the idea of just picking it up and going, I will do this. I will use this.
Apple calls it HandOff, as in handing off work to someone else or in this case some other machine. Samsung will probably call it OffHand and I rather like that better. But soon enough nobody will call it anything at all because this alchemy will be something normal that everybody uses everywhere.
I’ll also use this new business that if there’s no wifi for your iPad, it will connect to your phone and use that’s 3G or 4G connection. I do this now through tethering and it works fine, but it’s something else to remember to do. Something else to fiddle with instead of just working.
I am very big on not having to fiddle, not having to set up, not have to faff through a Wizard or something, but instead just getting on with the work I want to do.
That’s the big takeaway from this year’s WWDC for me. It’s really why I use and like Macs so that the annual announcement had more of this for both the Macs’ OS X and the iPhone/iPad’s iOS, I like that.
Speaking of iOS 8 and speaking of speaking, the only thing I wanted to see come some day was the ability to just talk to Siri on my iPhone instead of tapping a button first. Got it. The feature – it’s called HeySiri because that’s what you do, you say “Hey, Siri” and I’m not wild about that – will only work when the iPhone is plugged in but that’s fine. I add a lot of reminders to OmniFocus while I’m driving so that’s more than fine, that’s tremendous.
Speaking of more speaking of speaking, I’ve already tried an application that ostensibly let me make and receive phone calls through my Mac. It was rubbish. I regretted spending the money. But the odds are that with it part of OS X Yosemite, Apple will have made it work better. So I’m pre-sold on that one too.
I watched the WWDC video late last night and it was full of many little and large nuggets like this. Many, many times I’d nod thinking yep, I’m having that.
I did look at it from a very specific, biased view of simply what I was interested in and what I thought yep about. Possibly the best general roundup of all that was announced was done over on Wired. Do take a look, would you?
Especially as I did 5am-2am last night and swear to god I can’t remember who I am right now.