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siglesiason At Apple, Tim Cook leads a quiet cultural revolution

As it is, 4S was developed under Jobs.

siglesiason At Apple, Tim Cook leads a quiet cultural revolution

Really? Let's look at diffs.

iPhone -> iPhone 3G: Addition of 3G, GPS. enclosure became plastic.

iPhone 3G -> iPhone 3GS: Video camera

iPhone 3G -> iPhone 4: Retina, significantly improved camera, new enclosure, addition of front facing camera

iPhone 4 -> iPhone 4S: Siri, better camera

iPhone 4S -> iPhone 5: New screen form factor, significantly improved enclosure, lightning connector, LTE

iPad -> iPad 2: thinner and lighter, cameras

iPad 2 -> iPad 3: LTE, Retina

iPad 3 -> iPad 4: lightning connector

I don't see any significant decline in diff quality over time.

edited for correctness

siglesiason Forebruary, an endless wall calendar

Cool! 2 thoughts:

1) Would be cool if it were a dry erase surface, both for writing the month on it and circling important dates, etc. 2) Many have mentioned the 31 days problem, but that's solved with a magnet of some kind to cover the 31 on months where that day doesn't exist.

siglesiason Show HN – Apptimize: A/B testing for native Android, iOS apps

Additionally, incumbent mobile A/B testing service http://www.leanplum.com -- I've used them for a while now and it's a pretty robust system with good support. Worth checking out IMO.

siglesiason Glass

Wasn't it just an extension of operating a typewriter?

siglesiason Apple’s Tim Cook: The Full D11 Interview [video]

He said they weren't religious about not supporting their software on multiple platforms. If that were true, iTunes would be on Android.

How does that follow? I think it's a rather strong signal that they're going to do it. Let's not forget that following his announcement that he wasn't "religious" about hoarding cash, a dividend program was announced. Let's not also forget that once upon a time they ported iTunes to a dominant Windows with incredible success.

HN: I don't think we should aspire to comments like the parent that are filled with vitriolic personal attacks and name calling.

siglesiason Ron Johnson ousted as JC Penney CEO

The discount also tells us "you should buy this now, because if you buy it later, the price may go up."

But who cares if it's average or even poor value at the current discount? My thinking should be, "which item offers me the best value as priced right now"? I think what you're suggesting is that the "full price" gives customers a "hint" about how much to subjectively value the item, which is also sad because the last person I want telling me how much something should be worth is the person selling it to me.

siglesiason Ron Johnson ousted as JC Penney CEO

What's sad is that these tendencies can be exploited (see attached pictures in my original post) and that we'll subject ourselves to all kinds of stress with regards to deal hunting just to find a bargain that might not end up being a bargain.

And while I know that humans aren't rational creatures (in fact it was my research for a number of years), some of this can be fixed with market leadership and "training" customers to understand that they're acting against their best interest by demanding an economy in which marked prices are in fact price anchoring deceptions.

siglesiason Ron Johnson ousted as JC Penney CEO

It's a sad state of affairs in American consumerism that folks are attracted more to discounts than low prices. Johnson's plan made sense: lower prices to what average selling prices are during promotions and cut back on promotions. Lower noise. Less discount anxiety. Too bad consumers aren't strictly speaking rational in this way (1, 2).

1)http://cl.ly/image/2y1T1L2M1s0e 2)http://cl.ly/image/1a3D3c1J1Z0I

siglesiason This Professor only has a PhD degree

And not just any PhD, a Cambridge PhD, using said Tractatus as the dissertation. Astonishing.

siglesiason Google Maps One-Hand Zoom on iPhone

Since you're using this with one hand, tapping anywhere other than the area where your thumb naturally rests would be uncomfortable.

Not any more uncomfortable than single tapping any other part of the screen one-handed. Of course this depends on screen size...

what if you wanted to zoom in to a position near the top of the screen?

Point well taken.

Assuming that the content of interest is a good centimeter or so in from the edge, you could map that point-to-edge distance to cover the remaining zoom scale. If it's inside that centimeter, zooming into the middle is useless anyway.

siglesiason Google Maps One-Hand Zoom on iPhone

Although it is rather unfortunate that it only zooms to the center of the view rather than where you double-tap.

siglesiason Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos

We might do it directly or indirectly, but there is no way to avoid it.

Sure, there's no way to avoid all of it, but we can avoid a heck of a lot of it. So why don't we? You seem to take a certain amount of carnism as a given, but I don't see for most people in the developed world why it should be a given, especially in light of the fact that meat isn't needed for subsistence.

If you agree that it is for taste and nothing essentially more, then we have to ask ourselves whether the suffering endured by slaughterhouse animals (in addition to the other environmental concerns I listed) is a worthy price for our pleasure. Without pointing to other irrelevant facts about nature or history.

siglesiason Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos

I'm not sure if this reply is timely, but I'll give it a go anyway. First, thanks for your considered response.

I'd like to point out, respectfully, that appeal to nature, or to evolutionary "purpose," is (especially vis. ethics) an argumentative fallacy (social Darwinism, anyone?). Animals (and, historically, humans) also rape each other. Some get mad and kill each other. So what? I don't see how this has any bearing on our capacity to reduce their suffering, especially given that with our neocortexes we've figured out how to subsist on nutritional sources that are not meat.

We've developed an entire slaughter system that is extremely unsanitary and wasteful from a water and energy perspective, and not to mention downright cruel, simply to satisfy what is increasingly looking like a human "taste" for meat. A pleasure. You talk about reducing food costs for the poor. Guaranteed that a food calorie from a vegan source is cheaper than one from the meat source. After all, where did the meat source derive its calorie?

I highly recommend following the audio podcast link in my original post and giving it a listen.

siglesiason Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos

I agree with you, but I only intend this as an introduction, a jumping off point. Regardless of the utilitarianism, the idea of extending our ethical frameworks to animals because they suffer, then considering evidence that they suffer, is a compelling proposition.

siglesiason Bills seek end to farm animal abuse videos

Animal rights is one of the biggest swept under the rug ethical issues of our day, and one in which I see lots of smart rational people stumble over themselves to justify their habits (or uncomfortably turn a blind eye). Recommended listening is Peter Singer's Philosophy Bites interview, which links animal suffering to utilitarianism: http://philosophybites.com/2008/05/peter-singer-on.html

siglesiason How long would it take for a Foxxcon worker to buy an iPad?

I'm all for higher wages for Chinese workers, but what does the final price of a manufactured good have to do with the manufacturing wage? If they happened to be applying their skills to something with a lower final price, like remote controls, wouldn't it be fallacious to assume that to be more just?

siglesiason Aaron Swartz commits suicide

If anybody is partial to listening to music during times like these, I recommend Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6 [1]. The fourth movement in particular is extraordinarily moving and an ice cold glimpse of disdain, depression, and ultimately the death (some say suicide) of a romantic genius [2]. Of course the entire work is something to behold in all its movements.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._6_(Tchaikovsky) 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLq8wj0p80

siglesiason The Maximum, Beautiful Product

I think as Jobs himself said, the iPhone would have been a successful product if it were simply one of the three products that it was marketed as: the phone, the widescreen iPod, or the "Internet in your pocket." Instead it was all three. In addition to that, they did Maps, Calculator, Calendar, a Camera, Notes, Mail, Stocks, and Weather. And before the damned thing even shipped they managed to get Youtube on there.

I think you'd have to do some pretty cruel and unusual things to the definition of "minimum" to get it to describe iPhone 1.0. That product went way above and beyond what it needed to do to get Apple a foothold in the phone market.

siglesiason The largest retailers in the US do not look very healthy

We needn't be pedantic here. These guys are essentially the black knight from Monty Python: "still alive!" but with no arms and legs.

siglesiason Google Designing 'X Phone' to Rival Apple, Samsung

Don't let the middlemen (Dell/HP for Microsoft, Verizon/AT&T for Google) define your user experience.

This is not, as you think, simple. There are no margins in commoditized devices. If they all trend toward being identical and low cost, all partners will find the most exceedingly clever ways to differentiate from each other or boost margins. Software is a prime target.

You also speak of "letting" vendors ship crapware. Let? This is an open platform. Google only has control if vendors desire the Google goodies that cost a little bit of money. Also, how much leverage do they have exactly against a carrier like Verizon, which is their primary sales channel? Not as much as you would think. As this article points out, forking Android (especially to Samsung) is becoming an increasingly viable alternative to playing ball with Google, and the consequences would be pretty disastrous if they were to do that.

This hedge of doing their own hardware represents yet another challenge with your shockingly simple solution: that supply chain management in this market is really difficult, especially if you have some killer ideas in mind for new kinds of hardware (i.e., using materials other than plastic, new experimental displays, sensors, etc.) How quickly did Nexus 4's sell out? It's very possible that demand was strong, but the double-glass enclosure probably proved to be more of a headache than originally conceived to manufacture.

So it's not simple. This market is difficult, fraught with trust issues and risks in doing it all yourself.

siglesiason How to Download Your Instagram Photos and Kill Your Account

Can somebody explain to me what the big deal is about Instagram and these new terms of service? I can't fathom that anything but 1% of 1% of photos taken there are good enough to be used commercially, and if folks are so afraid that their pictures of Starbucks lattes will be used in some kind of marketing campaign (in which case they should actually be flattered), what exactly is stopping users from removing location information from the pictures they want to keep private?

For me, if the local coffee shop here wants to dig up some pictures I took of their business to help them get more customers, why not let them? I'm not Richard Avedon, and I never, ever, expected to profit from my Instagram photography. I'm more than happy to support small businesses and Instagram. Have a ball, guys. It's all public anyway.

siglesiason Ask PG: What Changed?

1) The hit against English majors was entirely unnecessary.

2) I don't see how experiencing the real world would have gotten him any closer to the answer. HN seems to be a perfectly reasonable forum to ask. There might have been something interesting there.

siglesiason Miscellaneous Thoughts and Observations on iTunes 11

Modal means that you can't do anything else in the app when the window is up. In the other apps you mentioned I can open their preferences and still use the app for something if I have to without closing it.

siglesiason Apple releases iTunes 11

There's already a Music API on iOS. You can rewrite the entire Music app if you wish, as some have done [1].

1) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/track-8/id519363162?mt=8

siglesiason The Best Tech Ad I’ve Seen Lately

The edge of the iPad is aligned exactly to the edge of the magazine.

This framing suggests that the iPad is to scale and isn't scaled down (as it might be assumed to be if it were centered). All of the blank space is also supposed to give you a sense of how small it is relative to the magazine.

siglesiason Build and Analyze podcast ending December 17

It seems that with the success of The Magazine there's more than ever to talk about on B&A, but I'm guessing he's wanting to do something closer to what Gruber is doing: rotate authors through as co-hosts every week and have them discuss their articles and the latest Apple news. And I suppose this format is incompatible with the current way the show is structured with Dan.

siglesiason Show HN: I'm 15 years old, and I released my first NPM module: Wizardry

Why?

siglesiason Try hovering over or clicking twice on 'Im Feeling Lucky'

Seems to happen on hover too.

siglesiason My IQ

You guys are both right. The point really is that prior to hitting a career grand slam (a Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies") one can find oneself in a menial job where one is looked upon as an unfulfilled genius. There's nothing to say that this Target employee isn't writing the next great American novel in his spare time.

In summary, the "menial" job in and of itself should not be seen as a failing for the genius.