Designing for the Future

Guy English, spelling out what Apple's Push Notifications already do and how they relate to iCloud:

The “Push Notification” persistent connection enables:

• Push Notifications. In badge, sound and text flavours.

• Find My iPhone. Asks the device for its position and provides for sending a message, locking or remote wiping a device.

• FaceTime calls. Works with iPhones, iPods (let’s drop the ‘touch’, iPod Classic is dead) and iPads. Oh, and now Macs.

• iBooks bookmark syncing. Transparent and works across all iOS devices.

• Enterprise Wireless Configuration. iOS provides a mechanism through which enterprise customers can remotely reconfigure the devices they have in the field. It’s all very boring until you think about how that might work.

So there’s a fair amount of functionality we take for granted in iOS devices that’s already being provided over this one persistent connection. Not all of these features are likely to run entirely over the persistent push connection, but it is the control line that kicks things into action. iOS 5, and the set of services branded as iCloud, seem set to blow this pipeline wide open.

And then Tim Ricchuiti, hitting the nail on the head:

It’s kind of funny, actually. I can’t say whether Apple planned it this way, but the push notification system should be regarded as a failure if it’s purpose was simply for notification. Apple’s implementation of the more Android-style notifications in iOS 5 is an admission of that. But as failures go, it’s pretty good, being that it will be the backbone of what is generally regarded as the most significant development for Apple’s platforms since the announcement of the original iPhone.

I, for one, wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple had a long term plan when they designed Push Notifications. I certainly thought they were kind of a half-baked way to do just notifications, but in the context of iCloud now, it sure makes the whole thing look amazing.

Relentless

Tim Ricchuiti gives his take on an Apple that has no problem Sherlocking some third-party developers and implementing other features similarly as competitors have.

But I also don’t think Apple spends a significant amount of time worrying about whether a given move on their part will take a chunk out of someone else’s business.

And here’s the thing: that’s exactly what I want as a consumer of Apple products.

I’ve been tossing around this idea in my head for the past two weeks, and basically, it comes down to this: I’m much more comfortable with an Apple that makes the best improvements to iOS they can, implementing the best features they can think of, than I am with an Apple that avoids good ideas simply because they weren’t the first to get there.

I buy Apple products because of their eye for hardware and software design, their relentless, iterative improvements, and their ruthless competitiveness in the market. Not because they’re nice or charitable.

Does this make Apple evil? No, I don't think so. It makes them competitive. And in any sort of competition, be it a business or a football game, someone is going to be edged out. You may say that it isn't fair for Apple to add things that exist within their own development community. I say if they didn't do that, OS X or iOS would never improve.

Let's take the Safari Reader with Reading List feature that Apple demoed. That hedges in on a bit of Instapaper's turf. But is Marco worried? Nope. Marco thinks it will actually bring him more business.

Back to Tim's thoughts, how about Apple stealing from competitors?

To me, the fact the Apple implemented notitifications so similarly to Android tells me that it really is the best way to do notifications. ‘Cause if Apple could have possible done it any other way, don’t you think they would have? As John Gruber put it on the The Talk Show, kudos to Android: they got it right.

I think Tim hit the nail on the head. Android got it mostly right. Apple took that idea and made a few improvements. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see Google take some of those changes Apple made and roll them back into Android. And hey, for anyone complaining about Apple ripping off Android…well, Android is "open".

Apple’s going to do what they need to in order to continue to expand their platform. If it means a few toes get stubbed along the way (or perhaps even hacked off), then so be it.

Relentless.

Passwords Matter

With Sony getting hacked every other day (or so it seems), and other major players like Sega, Citi, & WordPress also getting hacked, now is a good time to remind everyone to take password security very seriously.

My favorite tool for managing passwords is 1Password. It's available for OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android. By all means, go get this app, or something a heck of a lot like it.

Also, if you have 1Password already, but you're still just using one password within it, it is time to change that. Trust the software, let it make unique passwords for all the sites that you have accounts with. Do it now.

The beauty of 1Password is that I only need to remember one master password. If a site I use becomes compromised, I can rest assured that the password that was scraped cannot be used to log in anywhere else. Then I can just generate a new password for that site.

The only weak link, then, is that master password. Thankfully, AgileBits, the makers of 1Password, handed out some pointers today. It's a long read, and could be a bit difficult to wrap your head around, but if your care about your own online security, you'll give it a read through and apply it to your digital life.

Putting the Scope of iOS 5 into Focus

My dear friend Nik Fletcher made some astute comments in reference to David Barnard's assessment of the mobile platform landscape:

For the v5.0 moniker applied to iOS 5, I can’t help but feel Apple sees this as the first major iteration of iOS — at risk of knocking all the leaps the iOS SDK took from launch to iOS 4 it certainly seems everything prior to this was just 1.x.

I can't convey how much I agree with Nik's sentiments. I've been using iOS since it was called iPhone OS 1.1, and that was on a first-generation iPod touch. And after pondering Nik's comment, it really does feel like Apple has been doing minor alterations, improvements, and polishing all this time. From what I have seen of iOS 5 via Apple's demoes and videos, and some hands-on with development devices, it really does feel like Apple took a look at everything in iOS to see what needed to be addressed.

iOS 5 makes previous versions seem like Apple was just warming up.

Shawn Blanc: RSS v Twitter

Some nice research from Shawn Blanc breaks down readership from RSS and Twitter. The main question is "which is better"? For techēse, traffic seems to roll in nicely from RSS, but a few lucky retweets can really spike traffic.

In the end, though, I don't think sheer traffic numbers are the goal. The goal is to inspire critical thinking and conversation amongst readers. Whatever methods are available to facilitate that is fine by me.

50 Percent

Out of the many nice things coming in iCloud, one of the best is backup for iOS devices to the cloud.

David Chartier reports:

A little birdie says that about 50 percent of Apple Store customers who need to get their iPhones swapped have never plugged them into iTunes after the initial activation and sync. This is a big reason, according to this birdie, for why Apple Store Geniuses are excited about iCloud.

Backupophobes can get away with never touching iTunes after activating an iOS device. But folks obviously need to plug them into some kind of power source to recharge which, combined with a reachable WiFi network, is what triggers iCloud’s automatic backup feature.

Fifty percent doesn't surprised me at all. I know far too many iPhone (and iPod touch and iPad) users who never sync their devices. Ever. They don't even realize that there is a built-in backup solution.

Don't even get me started on how few people I know back up their computers.

[via DF]

One Hundred Fifty

A few days ago, I came across this article that states humans are limited to maintaining about 150 active friendships. The article relates this to social networking sites, especially Twitter.

I have been thinking about all this a bit over the past days, and I largely agree from my own observations. When I first started using Twitter, I only followed those who I considered friends. I distinctly remember when I started branching out and following tastemakers and news sources, I shot up over 150, and then sort of became overloaded.

Right now I follow 245 accounts. Now, I know a fair amount are accounts for apps I use that infrequently post news regarding those apps, so those don't factor into the "active friendship" limit. I could honestly filter some of these into lists, as you can add accounts to lists without following them. Others are simply writers I follow, and definitely want to know what they say, but also aren't an "active friendship", even though I may have a short back and forth with them.

Now, I do happen to follow quite a few people in my city. This is where I get a little overwhelmed once this category reaches around 150 people. Every once in a while, I will go prune out some folks who I seldom converse with, who are more acquaintance than friend. Sadly, some folks take that extremely personally, and I wish they wouldn't. A follow does not equal friendship. There are rare gems where a follow does equal friendship.

All said, I think there is some truth to the 150 rule.

The New Mothership

Last night at the Cupertino City Council meeting, a handful of mere mortals were granted an audience with Steve Jobs. Apple has always referred to its campus as the mothership, and this new one they plan to have completed by 2015 certainly fits that. The entire video is worth watching.

If you ask me, from above it kind of looks like a Stargate.

[via TechCrunch]

Update on 2011-06-09 18:23 by Chris De Jabet

"We Are South Dakota"

[…] I am a South Dakotan, we are South Dakotans. We don’t give up. We always keep fighting because we don’t know it any differently.

Heather has been a friend of mine since kindergarten. We've known each other most of our lives. And now she is a journalist for my hometown paper. In case you haven't been following along, my hometown is about to undergo its first flood in 59 years.

I am proud to be a South Dakotan.

"Logical Punctuation".

Slate Magazine details the rising popularity of logical punctuation. To be honest, I didn't even know such a thing existed until today. It just so happens that I often write using logical punctuation, then question myself, look up what is supposed to go inside quote marks and what goes outside. Let's face it, American style is inconsistent and slightly befuddling.

I'll be using logical punctuation from now on.

{via Daring Fireball}