Safari Omnibar

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I am a die-hard Safari user, but I do have Google Chrome installed on my Mac for the occasional need of Adobe Flash, since Chrome has a player embedded within, and I prefer to keep Flash off my machine otherwise.

One of the things I do love about Chrome is its Omnibar — the unified bar that handles addresses and search. Safari still keeps a separate search bar next to the address bar. Thanks to a post by Stephen Hackett, I have found a Safari extension that adds most of the Omnibar functionality to the address bar.

Now, Stephen talks mainly of a SIMBL plugin, which is a little hacky for my liking. In the update, he talks of an extension, which is Apple’s approved method. I’m using the extension.

The extension is available via the Safari extension page. It’s filed under Search Tools and is simply named Omnibar. The developer’s github page has some info on search shortcuts.

The one advantage of the SIMBL plugin over the extension is that the plugin can hide the standard Safari search field, much like Chrome’s look. But I’m still going to stick with the extension, as it sure seems much easier to deal with.

Hopefully Apple will someday hop on the Omnibar bandwagon.

'Open' to Infection

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Sara Yin at PC Magazine:

Symantec has discovered a new Android botnet that is still thriving in the Android Market and has already been downloaded several million times this year.

The Trojan ‘Android.Counterclank’ was packaged in at least 13 free games published by three different publishers, making it harder to trace. Symantec notified Google on Thursday and at press time, 9 of the apps were still available in Google’s official app store.

My parents currently have Android phones because that is what they were given as a freebie when their carrier was gobbled up by AT&T. They run an antivirus app on them. It’s pretty ridiculous, if you ask me.

Android’s openness is totally awesome.

[via Sebastiaan de With]

Demobilizer

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Demobilizer is a great little Safari extension by Junecloud, the makers of the wonderful Delivery Status.

What demobilizer does is take links mobile sites and redirects them to the full site. This is really helpful, as I click a lot of m.example.com links from Twitter. I also see this a lot with links I have saved to Instapaper.

It’s a handy extension that stays out of your way, but enables your way forward.

[via Fruit Bytes]

NORAD Santa Tracker

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One of my fondest childhood memories of Christmas was calling the NORAD Santa tracking hotline to check and see where St. Nick was at. I also greatly enjoyed using the [website] in the late 90's even though I was well beyond the childhood tales of Santa.

Here is how the story behind NORAD tracking Santa goes:

The program began on December 24, 1955 when a Sears department store placed an advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper which told children that they could telephone Santa Claus and included a number for them to call. However, the telephone number printed was incorrect and calls instead came through to Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup, who was on duty that night, told his staff to give all children that called in a "current location" for Santa Claus. A tradition began which continued when the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) replaced CONAD in 1958.

Now you can share the fun of tracking Santa with your kids on your iPhone or Android phone. Get it on the App Store or Android Market.

Speaking of Android Software Updates

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Vlad Savov:

Samsung has just distributed the worst news of this Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade cycle: the popular Galaxy S smartphone that sold 10 million units last year and the 7-inch Galaxy Tab tablet won't be upgraded to Android 4.0. The company's argument is that they lack sufficient RAM and ROM to run the new OS alongside TouchWiz and other "experience-enhancing" software. This will come as a massive blow to the great many users of the Galaxy S, who would have rightly expected the 1GHz Hummingbird processor and accompanying memory to be able to handle ICS — it's the same hardware as you'll find inside the Nexus S, and that phone is receiving Android 4.0 over the air right now.

The difference is the Nexus S runs pure Android, and the Galaxy S runs Samsung's own TouchWiz skin. Samsung (and other manufacturers who skin Android) always claim these skins enhance the experience. Those must be some wicked enhancements to forego the next generation of the OS.

A Good Smartphone Comes But Once a Year

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Chris Ziegler writes an amazing editorial at The Verge about the effect of dozens of Android phones released each year compared to one great iPhone.

One of the greatest detriments is not being able to update those seemingly countless devices in a timely fashion (if ever).

This one’s just simple math: more SKUs means more firmwares, and more versions of those firmwares. Each of those versions needs the care and feeding of an engineering team, and there are only so many engineers to go around. If a particular model is unpopular — which is more likely when you’re releasing a countless array of them — long-term support becomes an even greater risk.

Compare that to the iPhone 3GS, 4, & 4S, which are all capable of running iOS 5. The 3GS was released two and a half years ago. Can any Android phone make that same claim?

Shawn Blanc Reviews the Galaxy Nexus

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Shawn Blanc, who has used an iPhone for 4 years, used a Galaxy Nexus as his primary phone for the past week. Some of his findings didn’t really surprise me.

Regarding the screen that is so large you could serve a lunch on it:

This gives the Galaxy Nexus an aura that makes me wonder if it’s supposed to be a tablet that makes phone calls or a phone that you need two hands to use. I realize that’s a goofy and exaggerated statement, but I exaggerate it to make a point I am serious about: the phone is simply too big.

If this were my full-time phone, I’d be sad.

And 4G LTE’s effect on battery life:

Earlier this week I spent some time driving around Kansas City in order to field test the turn-by-turn navigation, the LTE network, and the battery life. At 11:30 AM I started out and the battery of the Nexus was at 43-percent. After 25 minutes the battery had drained down to 33-percent even though it was plugged into a car charger.

Think about that. If you’re on a road trip and want to use the 4G LTE network to provide you with driving directions, your drive had better be shorter than 4 hours because even when plugged into a car charger, the battery will not last.

Shawn poses a great question, which nerds should pick up on: Who is fighting for the users?

…the Galaxy Nexus seems more like a phone that its makers can brag about making rather than a device that its users would brag about owning. It has all sorts of features that seem great on posters and billboards and board meeting reports, but none of those features enhance the actual user experience.

And regarding the difference between Android and iOS:

Android has options for just about everything. But, in spite of all its options and ability to customize, I didn’t find Android to be more powerful than iOS. Of all the options and choices that I was given by Android, there was nothing in Android that I could not also accomplish on iOS. In fact, the options and choices usually got in my way.

Moreover, of the millions of users on Android, how many exercise this freedom of choice that is a part of the Android OS?

This has always seemed to be the crux of the whole Android/iOS debate to me. Android seems great for nerds who love to tinker, or who have a hard time ceding any control over anything. iOS is far more simplistic in that Apple tends to make the decision that will make most people happy, not just the vocal minority.

I’d even go so far as to say even iOS offers far more things than the average user will ever discover. But the absence of discovering these little features will not interfere with the normal usage of the device.

Android should be reserved for those who know what they are getting into. If someone I know needs a recommendation for what smart phone to get, I would not recommend Android to them.

To those who want to use Android, I say go for it. I don’t think that choice is wrong — there are many fine things about the Android OS and many things it does differently and better than iOS.

[…]

Moreover, there was nothing on Android that made me feel more empowered compared to using my iPhone.

Sure, there are bits of the Android OS that I like and appreciate, but never once was I wowed or delighted. Which is unfortunate, because those are important elements when you are using a device day in and day out every day of the year.

iOS and the devices it runs on often get teased for being described as “magical”. Guess what? Magic wows and delights. People enjoy magic. After years of using iOS, it still holds me in childlike wonderment.