¶ The Eleventh iTunes

I’ve been using iTunes for a long time. I remember using it when it debuted on Mac OS 9. I remember making the jump to purchasing my music on the iTunes Store when it arrived in 2003. To say I am invested in iTunes is an understatement.

Over the years Apple took that foundation of a music player and kept bolting on new features such as managing iPods, movies, TV shows, iPhones, apps, books, and all sorts of other things on top of the same basic design. iTunes has felt cluttered and stretched to the seams for years.

And for years I have been wanting Apple to do something drastic with iTunes. To trim the bloat — even through reorganization — and make something interesting and fun to use again.

Enter iTunes 11. The first major overhaul to how one uses iTunes that I remember. The sidebar that showed all your libraries, devices, the Store, and playlists is gone. Well, I should say it is gone by default — you can resurrect it in the View menu. If you are reaching for that menu right now, stop it. Give the new design a chance for a week or two. There is a reason the sidebar is gone.

In the past all those things in the sidebar held the same level of significance, even though they aren’t all of the same significance. It was a hodgepodge of where your priorities should be.

Now, whatever you are viewing at the moment is of the utmost significance. The bar along the top has a button on the left to switch the primary context of iTunes — Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, Books, Apps and Tones. The center of the bar further whittles down the view of each of those categories. Let’s focus on Music, since that is probably the most prominent.

Music

With Music locked and located for the context, the center of the bar displays Songs, Albums, Artists, Genres, Video (that’d be music videos), and Playlists. Songs gives you the old style list of all your music. Albums, however, is now the primary way to interact with music in iTunes.

Albums shows a grid of all your albums and their artwork. This view, at first blush, is not all that new. In iTunes past, you would double click and album and get a song list view of it. Now, a single click on an album cover has a new twist — Expanded view.

If you’ve ever used an app folder on iOS, or in Launchpad on the Mac, Expanded View will seem familiar. The screen splits open to show the content of the album. I also shows the album art a little bigger, and iTunes color matches the view to the colors of the album. I honestly really like Expanded view. It is both beautiful and functional. And when you don’t need it, it is simply out of the way.

Another great part of the Music context of iTunes is Playlist creation. You can use the Playlist view, or, from any other Music view, just start dragging a song or album and a panel slides out with Playlists ready, and you simply drop the music into the playlist. The Panel then scurries away, out of sight.

However, my favorite part of the Music context is Up Next. Start playing an album or playlist and all of it is added to Up Next. However, if you need to satisfy a quick ear worm, you can click on an arrow next to a song and tell it to play next. This jumps it to the top of the queue. When it’s done, you go back to your regularly scheduled programming.

One final great feature I want to mention is the new Mini Player. Activated by a small glyph in the upper right of the screen, the mini player is a great way to have iTunes tucked away into a corner of your screen. The Mini Player has been around for a very long time (maybe since iTunes first debuted?). Though for the first time it is truly useful. You can use search from the Mini Player and queue up more music into Up Next. You can manage Up Next. It shows music information but changes to player controls when you hover over it. The new Mini Player is a tiny powerhouse of musical awesome.

Context, Context, Context

I spent the majority of my thoughts on the Music context of iTunes. But much of what has become iTunes over the years is still there. I cannot escape the idea of context, though. iTunes 11 has taken a page out of iOS. With, say, an iPad, the device is whatever you are using at the moment. The use case of the entire device changes from the context you place on it from the app you are using.

While iTunes 11 doesn’t fully reach this ideal, it gets close. When you want Music, all you see if music. When you want to browse the Store, all you see is the store. When you want to manage an iOS device, that is all you see.

And as I mentioned with Playlist creation, where a panel slides out when you start dragging music — things are only present in the context of them being useful. This is why I am happy to see the obfuscation of the sidebar. I don’t need to see all that stuff when I don’t need to use any of it. Seeing my playlists does not matter when I am managing my iPhone.

A lot of people dislike that Apple is making much of their ecosystem more like iOS. Many nerds are afraid the Finder will someday disappear from OS X. Honestly, I find iOS to be a breath of fresh air. The file system is not something most people know how to deal with, and they often shouldn’t. It is okay to abstract complexity away. Apple has achieved much of this with iOS. They are slowly making inroads toward it with OS X. And now they are bringing the abstract of singular focus and context back to iTunes.

We’ve never been great multitaskers. Be honest. We are really great at switching our context focus quickly. Maybe instead of having anything and everything available at once begging for our attention, we could allow ourselves to slow down with a more singular focus in our computing habits. Singular focus abstracts complexity. And less complexity is more enjoyable.

More enjoyable is exactly what iTunes 11 is.

¶ Why I Use Squarespace

techēse has resided at Squarespace since its inception in January 2010. Over time, the service has become better and cheaper, and I can’t really imagine techēse being anywhere else. I hope to move to Squarespace 6 soon, once the growing pains have subsided.

Squarespace is located in New York City, which was hit by a hurricane a few days ago. Squarespace warned there would likely be downtime — maybe even days of it.

So far, Squarespace hasn’t gone down, thanks to the heroic efforts of their staff. The entire story is chronicled here.

It is effort like this which I consider to be above and beyond, and that is one of the many reasons I am proud to use Squarespace.

¶ A Terrifying, Nightmarish Lesson on Security

Over the past three decades, more and more of our lives have transitioned from analog to digital. First, paper and typewriters yielded to word processors. Next, music went from albums, to cassettes, to CDs, to files on an iPod. Then our photos went from film to JPGs.

It used to be, in the analog, the only ways you’d really lose something is if your home were hit by a natural disaster, or you were burgled.

Not anymore. Mat Honan found this out the hard way. He was hacked. Hard.

At 4:50 PM, someone got into my iCloud account, reset the password and sent the confirmation message about the reset to the trash. My password was a 7 digit alphanumeric that I didn’t use elsewhere. When I set it up, years and years ago, that seemed pretty secure at the time. But it’s not. Especially given that I’ve been using it for, well, years and years. My guess is they used brute force to get the password (see update) and then reset it to do the damage to my devices.

The backup email address on my Gmail account is that same .mac email address. At 4:52 PM, they sent a Gmail password recovery email to the .mac account. Two minutes later, an email arrived notifying me that my Google Account password had changed.

At 5:00 PM, they remote wiped my iPhone

At 5:01 PM, they remote wiped my iPad

At 5:05, they remote wiped my MacBook Air.

[…]

I still can’t get into Gmail. My phone and iPads are down (but are restoring). Apple tells me that the remote wipe is likely irrecoverable without serious forensics. Because I’m a jerk who doesn’t back up data, I’ve lost at more than a year’s worth of photos, emails, documents, and more. And, really, who knows what else.

This is horrifying. A nightmare. As I read Mat’s post this weekend, I could feel a sense of dread creeping on me. I knew I had vulnerabilities to some of my accounts, where I had traded some security for convenience. It’s no excuse. I’m a faithful user of 1Password on all my devices. I have no excuse for not having great passwords.

Except, in this case, not even the strongest password would have helped. The hacker didn’t even try to figure out the password. They had a back door.

From Mat’s follow-up piece on Wired (emphasis mine):

But what happened to me exposes vital security flaws in several customer service systems, most notably Apple’s and Amazon’s. Apple tech support gave the hackers access to my iCloud account. Amazon tech support gave them the ability to see a piece of information — a partial credit card number — that Apple used to release information. In short, the very four digits that Amazon considers unimportant enough to display in the clear on the web are precisely the same ones that Apple considers secure enough to perform identity verification. The disconnect exposes flaws in data management policies endemic to the entire technology industry, and points to a looming nightmare as we enter the era of cloud computing and connected devices.

[…]

On Monday, Wired tried to verify the hackers’ access technique by performing it on a different account. We were successful. This means, ultimately, all you need in addition to someone’s e-mail address are those two easily acquired pieces of information: a billing address and the last four digits of a credit card on file.

If you lost your wallet, let’s say it contained your driver’s license, your credit card, and a business card with your iCloud email address. That is all someone would need to destroy your digital life.

Thankfully, Apple and Amazon have, for now, closed the loophole while they tighten security.

Here’s the thing: what happened to Mat has been going on for a while. These loopholes have existed for quite a while. Mat was just the first person to get hit that had a significant audience.

Unfortunately, that’s usually how these things are discovered.

I’d love to see Apple take Marco Arment’s advice on how to make password resets a better:

And ideally, before resetting a password by phone, they’d send a forced “Find My”-style push alert to all registered devices on the account saying something like, “Apple Customer Service has received a request to reset your iCloud password. Please call 1-800-WHATEVER within 24 hours if this is unauthorized.”

Then make the person call back the next day. If you forget your password and the answers to your security questions, it’s not unreasonable to expect a bit of inconvenience.

Marco is right. If you forget how to access your account, a little inconvenience of waiting a day to get back in is okay.

---

I am largely sympathetic to Mat. What he went through sucks. But I can’t get past his one blunder. He didn’t have a backup of his Mac.

How does a technology writer not keep backups? Heck, he uses a Mac. OS X has had backup built-in for 5 years. Here’s a free tip, folks: go learn about Time Machine and then use it.

For even better backup practices, go read Shawn Blanc’s backup tips.

Macworld’s Dan Moren & Lex Friedman have some security tips, as well.

As for me, I’ve disabled Find My Mac on iCloud. The Find service is more practical for devices like the iPhone and iPad, but the idea of someone being able to remote wipe my Mac gives me the willies. I keep backups, but the whole idea just doesn’t sit right with me right now. Anything on my iPhone or iPad already exists on my Mac, so I’m not worried about those devices ever being wiped.

I’ve lost some trust in Apple and Amazon. It was ridiculous how easy Amazon let someone into the account.

And Apple? Well, they deservedly bear the brunt of mistrust. Why? Because they have been asking us to trust them more and more over the years.

I created an Apple ID for the iTunes Store in 2003. Back then, it was only for music. But over the years, it has grown to house music, movies, apps, and now my email, contacts, calendars, notes, reminders, my location, and the keys to wipe my devices.

I’ve realized many of us have a lot of our eggs in one basket. A basket we trust not to tip over.

My advice? Use the basket, but don’t trust it entirely. Keep backups. Use really good passwords (and go buy 1Password for all your devices). And, since 1Password can help you fill in credit card info on a site in a couple clicks, consider not storing credit card info on the web.

¶ Ruminating on Updates

Just a little late night ruminating on the eve before OS X Mountain Lion hits the App Store.

Gatekeeper

I’d say my Applications folder is pretty evenly split between App Store apps and non-App Store apps (hereafter referred to as direct apps), once you take away the system apps.

Of the direct apps, I honestly haven’t seen as many as I thought I would gain Mountain Lion and/or Gatekeeper support. Gatekeeper is Apple’s new security system in Mountain Lion that ensures a developer of a direct app is known by Apple. And, if a direct app does anything nefarious, Apple can shut down that app’s developer ID, stopping the spread of malware cold.

Here’s the thing: Gatekeeper is on by default. And if developers have not updated for Gatekeeper yet, users will either have to exempt each non-Gatekeeper app one by one, or disable Gatekeeper entirely, rendering this new layer of security moot.

That isn’t good.

If users disable Gatekeeper, they will likely never reenable it. I guess they compute at their own risk, huh?

The far greater risk, however, is users becoming used to allowing any direct app that asks to circumvent Gatekeeper to do so. If they develop a Pavlovian response to clicking Allow every time an app wants through the Gate, they will have a false sense of security if a malicious app does someday surface. The trained response should be to say no to such prompts.

iWork

Another thing that has been bugging me is Apple’s lack of showing off any truly significant updates to iWork — Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. We know iWork will be gaining iCloud’s Documents in the Cloud feature with Mountain Lion, so the apps will need to be updated in some fashion.

My concern is whether this will just be yet another bolt-on update to the current versions of iWork — which have been around since January 2009 — or whether iWork will truly get a proper update for 2012.

Furthermore, Apple only allows App Store apps to take advantage of Documents in the Cloud. Like I said, iWork has been around since 2009, well before the App Store existed on the Mac. My copy of iWork came on a DVD.

Now, Apple certainly has the right and the ability to give the non-App Store versions of iWork access to iCloud, much like my non-App Store version of Aperture can use Photo Stream. But I can’t help but feel like iWork has been deprived of a significant rethink for too long. I’d like to see iWork 2012 (or 2013, or just plain iWork) in the App Store tomorrow.

---

Transitions are always awkward. The transition to Gatekeeper will take some time. I just thought more developers would have been ready for it.

I’d also like to see Apple start wrapping up the transition from the apps that were sold on physical media to App Store versions by putting iWork ‘09 to rest, and giving the trio of apps a much needed update in this era of refinement.

¶ (In)Consistent Experience

About a week and a half ago, Twitter’s Michael Sippey penned a letter on Twitter’s developer blog about the service’s ambition of delivering a consistent Twitter experience.

A lot of speculation has swirled around Sippey’s post the past week, primarily because of this paragraph (emphasis mine):

Back in March of 2011, my colleague Ryan Sarver said that developers should not “build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” That guidance continues to apply as much as ever today. Related to that, we’ve already begun to more thoroughly enforce our Developer Rules of the Road with partners, for example with branding, and in the coming weeks, we will be introducing stricter guidelines around how the Twitter API is used.

Why is this important to you and me? Well, it probably isn’t if you are happy with Twitter’s official clients. But for those of us who use third party clients like Twitterrific, Tweetbot, Echofon, or Plume — this potentially spells disaster for our favorite client.

I see this thinly veiled threat from Twitter being fully revealed in one of two ways:

1. Third-party Twitter clients will have to introduce Twitter’s promoted tweets (ads) into the stream, and possibly modify how they present tweets to be in line with Twitter’s guidelines on Twitter Cards.
2. Twitter kills all third-party clients by revoking their API access completely.

If the first option is what happens, I don’t see that as a bad thing, really. Twitter has to pay its bills, and they’ve chosen to do that through ads (I, honestly, would have paid a subscription for Twitter). Third-party clients get to use Twitter’s API for free, and many of them are paid apps. So, third-parties are making money for themselves while not having to provide direct revenue to Twitter.

I can live with ads in the tweet stream. Heck, if you use the official client, you already do.

Now, the second option. This is the tough one. I honestly don’t know if I could stomach using Twitter if third-party clients were killed. Why?

Because Twitter is a hypocrite. Here they are, claiming they want to deliver a consistent experience. But have you used various official apps from Twitter? They are anything but consistent.

The iPhone and Android apps behaves somewhat like the website experience, having both the Connect and Discover areas. However, the iPad app has hardly any of the same features as the phone apps and web. It also has a vastly foreign user interface in comparison.

And I don’t even want to get started on the Mac app, which has been neglected for over a year — its last update was on June 1, 2011. The Mac app cannot even upload an image to Twitter’s own picture service.

Now, maybe there are big updates in store for Twitter’s first-party apps that will unify the experience. But for a company that is implicitly saying it doesn’t want third-party clients in the ecosystem because they are “inconsistent”, they have been showing through history that they do not care about a consistent experience.

So let’s talk about a consistent experience. Go try Twitterrific out on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Everything is laid out relatively the same and the apps are updated consistently at the same time, rolling out new features to all platforms at once. If you use Twitterrific on one device, you know how to use it on the other.

The same goes for Tweetbot. Currently, Tweetbot is on the iPhone and iPad, and if Twitter doesn’t pull the third-party rug out, there will soon be a Mac version. On the iPhone and iPad, the Tweetbot experience is consistent and easy to move between one device to the next. I assume the Mac version will be very similar.

Simply put: third-party apps like Twitterrific and Tweetbot have proven they do a much better job at maintaining a consistent Twitter experience than Twitter itself does.

I know that when a company builds their product on top of another company’s product, they should expect that the rug could be pulled out from under them at any time. But it seems such a shame the way Twitter treats third-party developers, since I doubt Twitter would be half the juggernaut it is today without having been built up by third-parties in the first place.

Twitter, historically, has been largely unoriginal in how it has developed new features. Things like mentions and direct messages came from users, not Twitter. Twitter had to buy the leading third-party iPhone app (at the time, Tweetie) to offer the first version of an officially branded client. Even the use of the word tweet and associating a bird icon came from a third-party developer.

If Twitter pushes third-parties out the door, I don’t see a bright future for Twitter. The evidence shows they have little original inspiration and even less commitment to a consistent user experience.

¶ Five Years of iPhone

Five years ago today the original iPhone was released. I lived in South Dakota at the time, which, back in 2007, didn’t have an iota of AT&T service (now the entire state has it).

I do, however, remember the first time I saw an iPhone. It was July 16, 2007. Two days after I married Karen. My bride and I were sitting in the Denver airport, awaiting our connecting flight to Seattle. A young woman sat down next to me, on my left, and she pulled out an iPhone. I politely asked her a few questions about it, and after a couple moments she received a phone call.

A few days later Karen and I made our way to an Apple Store in Seattle, specifically because I wanted to play with an iPhone. The store was packed, and I had to wait a few moments to have a chance to try out one of the many display models.

When I picked up an iPhone for the first time, I was blown away. The fit and finish of that original iPhone was mesmerizing. I immediately went to Safari and looked at my website on it. I went into the iPod app and checked out Cover Flow, which was completely novel at the time (I honestly can’t stand it now). I watched a minute or two of an episode of LOST. And then…

…then I wondered if it would be okay to make a phone call. All the staff were quite busy. I decided to give it a whirl. I called my parents back in South Dakota. As I recall, they were a little surprised to hear my voice when the Caller ID said Apple was calling.

Then I called my friend Nathan, who — just days earlier — stood with me as a groomsman at my wedding. Nathan and I have always enjoyed discussing technology.

I left the Apple Store knowing I desperately wanted an iPhone. But, without any sort of service (not even roaming, as South Dakota only had CDMA towers at the time) in my state of residence, I knew I could be waiting a while.

I was satiated a couple months later with the release of the iPod touch. The iPod touch started out extremely sparse compared to the iPhone. This was, after all, before the App Store. It came with just a few built-in apps. That January, Apple gladly took $20 from me to add Mail, Notes, Weather, Stocks, and Maps.

In the Spring of 2008, we decided to move to Lincoln, NE. It turned out that Lincoln had AT&T. Fast-forward to July 11, 2008. Here I am, standing in line in Omaha at the Apple Store for the iPhone 3G. Karen was pregnant and due at pretty much any moment, so, I was a little nervous about being an hour away.

I got the iPhone 3G, and had it set up a while later. Four days later, my son was born. It is amazing how useful the iPhone was the day he was born. I timed contractions using the built-in stopwatch. And while I didn’t take the first photos of him with the iPhone, the first one most of our friends & family saw was taken with it. I had drafted an email a couple days earlier, leaving blanks for length, weight, time of birth, etc. I had also set up a MobileMe Gallery (because the iPhone couldn’t copy & paste yet) and inserted that link into the draft. So, I took a photo of Jonathan, uploaded it to the gallery, filled in the statistical information and sent it off. I did all that without needing to leave the side of my resting wife & son. Without needing to pull out a laptop.

I’ll never forget my son’s birth. And in those memories, the iPhone is there. It sounds silly (believe me, it does). But the iPhone played a very important role that day.

In this day and age, our phones are important to us. They are certainly the most personal computer we own. They are almost always within arm’s reach. We plug them in to charge right before going to sleep. We pick them up to check the news and weather and what not moments after awakening.

In one way, that can seem quite sad and pathetic. In another way, the barrier of technology in our lives has melted away. I can’t imagine feeling this close of a connection with the Motorola RAZR I owned five years ago. I can’t imagine not having my iPhone today.

I often think about the future. Much of that thinking is spawned by watching my son, who is about to turn 4 years old in a few weeks. He has Karen’s old iPod touch, with all the restrictions turned on, and loaded with kid games and Pixar movies. He knows what our Macs are, and he is interested in them a little. But not like his iPod. Not like our iPhones. And certainly not like my iPad.

My son has never known a day of his life without one of these devices present. Certain apps on his iPod helped him learn how to read and write earlier than many of his peers (you read that right, he can read a book on his own and has a pretty good grasp on early writing, and he isn’t even 4! Sorry about the Daddy Brag, but I’m proud of him!).

There isn’t a doubt in my mind that when he goes to college, he’ll take something that looks more like an iPad than a MacBook. Heck, typing on a screen may very well be the way he learns to type.

A lot has changed in the past five years of computing. I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that the iPhone isn’t the catalyst that inspired or outright started those changes.

Here’s to the next five years.

¶ WWDC 2012 | Next Generations

While it could be said of just about any product announcement, Apple seemed to have a clear message earlier this week at WWDC 2012: the coming year is about the next generations of hardware and software.

By generations, I don't simply mean just a slight reiteration from last year. I mean the next year will set the foundations for the next decade of products.

Apple touched on three major areas of their ecosystem — Mac hardware, OS X, and iOS.

Mac

We all love new Macs, right? Well, Apple refreshed their entire notebook lineup. The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models received some very nice revisions.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air received the latest Intel processors and integrated graphics, faster RAM, a faster solid-state drive, USB 3, and an upgraded FaceTime camera which now captures HD at 720p. It also received a new iteration of MagSafe, Apple's magnetic power port. MagSafe 2 is thinner.

Another nice upgrade is what exactly you can upgrade. You can order an Air with up to 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Basically the computer I'd really like to have if I had to replace mine.

MacBook Pro

The MacBook Pro as we know it received better processors and graphics, as well as USB 3. And that's about it.

The Next Generation MacBook Pro

Ever since the MacBook Air's big revamp in 2010 — the one where the Air really started to sell like hotcakes — many of us have wondered when we'd either see a 15-inch version of the Air or if the MacBook Pro would begin to take after the Air.

Hint: it's the latter.

Apple imagined what a powerhouse of a notebook computer would look like without all the legacy technology. Hard drive? Gone, replaced by an SSD. Optical drive? Gone. FireWire 800? Usurped by Thunderbolt and USB 3. Ethernet port? Too big, gone. And it sports the new MagSafe 2 port.

What we have ended up with is a 15-inch notebook that is lightning fast and weighs as much as the old-style 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Oh, and it has a retina display.

Talk about a dream computer.

It's also very expensive — starting at $2200. But it would serve us well to remember the first MacBook Air in 2008 — that was very expensive, too. And its second take was much more affordable.

This new MacBook Pro is the clear vision of what Apple plans to do with all their portables. Thin & light. Super fast. Retina displays.

I envision within a couple years time Apple's notebook lineup will pretty much be the 15-inch MacBook Pro and the 11- and 13-inch MacBook Air equipped with retina displays.

This new MacBook Pro is the forerunner for the future of the Mac as we know it.

OS X Mountain Lion

One of the best kept secrets in recent Mac history has been OS X Mountain Lion. I remember waking up and reading tweets about Mountain Lion's existence back in February and being completely surprised.

Mountain Lion is the cat that eluded the rumor mill.

Well, now we know when we'll get our hands on it and how much it will cost. We'll see it in July on the Mac App Store for $20. For comparison, Snow Leopard and Lion each cost $30.

And, if you are one of those who is still on Snow Leopard, you can go directly to Mountain Lion for the same $20.

I can't wait for Mountain Lion. It will bring tighter iCloud integration, separating Notes from Mail and Reminders from iCloud and into their own respective apps. Not to mention finally bringing Documents in the Cloud to the Mac.

iMessage, the fantastic way to not use text messages on iOS devices, is coming in the form of the new Messages app, which replaces iChat.

In iOS 5, Apple revamped Notifications to have fairly unobtrusive banner alerts that roll in for a few seconds, then roll away. And with a simple gesture, you can bring in the Notification Center which stores all of your notifications.

Apple is bring that same concept to the Mac, giving a universal notification interface, and a gesture-activated Notification Center.

Mountain Lion also integrates Twitter and Facebook, which should be quite handy.

Two things that were revealed at WWDC that we didn't know about Mountain Lion before are Power Nap and Dictation.

Power Nap is for Macs that come standard with an solid-state drive. These Macs will be able to update Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac, and Documents in the Cloud — all while the Mac is closed and/or sleeping. And, if plugged into power, it can check for and download software updates, and back up to Time Machine.

Dictation is something we first saw in the iPhone 4S, accompanying Siri, and in the retina display iPad. I have been using dictation like crazy with my iPad the past couple months, so I am thrilled that it is coming to the Mac. Simply place your cursor where you want text, tap the fn key twice, and speak away.

There is a lot more coming to Mountain Lion, which you can check out here. And of course I'll go over it in detail once Mountain Lion is released.

iOS 6

Lastly, Apple showed off iOS 6 for the first time, available this fall. It has a significant smattering of refinements, but Apple detailed ten up close.

Siri is getting smarter and coming to the Retina iPad. You'll be able to find out scores and stats for sports, find reviews and showtimes for movies (and even ask for a trailer to be played), make reservations at restaurants, and — my favorite — launch an app by name. Siri can also tweet and post to Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, that is coming baked into iOS in the same way Twitter did last year. In addition to using Siri to speak updates into the two big social networks, there will be tweet and post buttons in Notification Center. All of this will be great for me, as I often just want to quickly publish a quip without having to spend time loading up an app.

Photo Stream is getting a sharing component, which will hopefully make it easier for me to get pictures of my son to the grandparents in a more timely manner (I have severely neglected Flickr).

We'll also get to use FaceTime over cellular, though I imagine many of us, at least in the USA, will force ourselves to use it on Wi-Fi, since many of us now have limited data plans.

The phone app is getting a nice little feature to decline a phone call and either follow up with a canned message or set a reminder to call the person back. I can definitely think of a handful of situations where this will be very useful.

The iPhone is also getting a new app called Passbook, which will store things such as boarding passes, movie tickets, coupons, and gift cards. A nice touch with Passbook is that can alert you if your flight's gate changes or a coupon is about to expire. It can also put a notification on your lock screen when you go into the coffee shop that your gift card is from or when you arrive at the airport.

Speaking of Notifications, iOS 6 is bringing a feature called Do Not Disturb, something I have desired for some time. And it works exactly how I imagined. Flip the Do Not Disturb switch and notifications will no longer make sounds nor light up the screen. You can even schedule the hours in which you sleep.

In typical Apple fashion, they have paid attention to the details with Do Not Disturb. You can set exemptions for phone calls, such as your Favorites list or another group. Also, if someone calls you twice within three minutes, the call will go through, as it may be an emergency. I am literally ecstatic about this feature.

By far the biggest announcement for iOS 6 is that Apple is ditching Google Maps as the provider for the Maps app. Apple has rolled its own mapping solution, bringing vector-based maps (the tiles won't have to reload as you change the zoom level), turn-by-turn navigation, and a new view called Flyover, which gives a 3D, bird's-eye view of cities. The feature set is impressive and Apple's cartography is stunningly beautiful.

There are a few other things about iOS 6 that I haven't taken the time to cover, so I suggest you go check out the preview page.

---

Apple has definitely set the bar high for the future of Mac hardware. OS X is becoming more in tune with its sibling iOS, and iOS is taking a few cues from OS X. The new, more annual development schedule of OS X is helping to keep it and iOS in parity.

And iOS 6 is really showing one big theme: Apple is hurting Google where it counts — eyeballs, or rather the lack of them — on Google's ads. Google has sponsored locations in Apple's Maps app. That's going away. Siri is bypassing what many people would use Google Search for and giving results directly from great sources. And Passbook has the potential to put the hurt on Google Wallet. The message is clear — Google was unwise to make an enemy of Apple.

Maps were essential for Apple to bring in-house. Siri and Passbook are chipping away at what is left.

All in all, Apple is leading the way forward to the next generation, where Apple defines the entire experience.

¶ What I'd Like Apple to Take Away in iOS 6

In a few days Apple will give its keynote address at WWDC, where it will more likely than not show off OS X Mountain Lion in final detail and offer a glimpse of what is to come in iOS 6 this fall.

In years past, I have led up to WWDC with my predictions and/or wish list of features I want added.

I’ve decided to try something different this year. While there are many things I would like to see added to iOS, there’s a few things I’d actually like to see taken away.

Cover Flow

I remember when I got the first iPod touch, I loved rotating it sideways and flipping through album covers to select songs. There’s a problem with Cover Flow, though: it’s more beautiful than it is functional. Quite frankly, it just isn’t that easy to use. I invoke it accidentally far more than purposely these days.

The novelty is gone. Maybe it is just because I have grown out of Cover Flow’s eye candy, but I have to wonder if new users to the iPhone and iPod touch find any usefulness in Cover Flow.

I wouldn’t mind seeing Cover Flow find its way to retirement in iOS 6. It makes for a neat demo to a new user, but more often than not it just introduces friction and lag when it pops up at the slight tilt of your hand.

Ping

Speaking of lag, the Ping integration in the Music app is a constant source of frustration for me. I find that I cannot act on the play/pause or track forward/backward buttons until Ping has polled Apple’s servers for whether I have previously “liked” or commented on a song.

This is one more thing that I think could be pruned from an overcrowded Music app, let alone the entire iTunes ecosystem.

Google’s Maps Data

There have been plenty of rumors going around that Apple will ditch Google’s map data from the Maps app in favor of its own data in iOS 6. I hope they come true.

Don’t get me wrong, Google’s maps are a fantastic service that I use nearly every day, and the data is very comprehensive.

But I just don’t think Apple can afford to rely on Google for such an important part of iOS when they are each other’s top competitors.

YouTube

The YouTube app seems slightly irrelevant these days, given that is somewhat out of date with YouTube’s current feature set, and YouTube’s mobile site is more than functional. Heck, let Google roll their own YouTube app onto the App Store.

I just don’t see much advantage to having a built-in YouTube app anymore. And let’s face it, the icon is hideous.

Newsstand

And speaking of icons, it seems Newsstand is reviled by nearly everyone I know with an iPhone or iPad. I would like a way to at least hide the Newsstand icon when it is empty. I do not subscribe to any Newsstand apps, and I don’t foresee myself doing so any time soon.

So, instead, I have Newsstand shoved off onto the very last page of my home screen. I’d rather be able to toggle it off and keep it out of sight.

---

I have a much larger mental list running of things I’d like to see improved or added to iOS. The fact there are so few things I’d like to see removed is a testament to how well Apple has done in making an overall appealing system.

The New Nike+

I started using Nike+ with my second-gen iPod nano in January 2007. I ran weekly for a solid 6 months, right up to my wedding. But that final month was painful. As a complete novice, I had no idea that all running shoes were not created equal. I had the wrong shoe for my feet, and I developed a really bad injury to my left foot.

I pretty much took a couple years off, only running occasionally.

I decided to get serious about it again in January 2011 by starting to train for a 5k to take place that March. I went to a running store and was fitted with a proper set of shoes, and I used Nike+ to track my progress, and Felt Tip's excellent Run5k (née Couch to 5k) to give me a training plan.

I've always enjoyed Nike+. I think it is a creative system to encourage fitness, and I need a lot of encouragement. I use their Nike+GPS app in lieu of the built-in Nike+ app on my iPhone now, as Nike has shown more love to the service than Apple has in recent years.

My one longstanding gripe with Nike+ has been the site has been entirely written in Adobe's Flash since its inception. I'm not a big fan of Flash.

Today, Nike launched the new Nike+. It's built on HTML5, and is refocused around Nike Fuel — Nike's metric for measuring different types of activity throughout the day. Gone is the white and orange interface, along with the comical — and useless —"mini" characters. Now there is a sleek white and black interface with green accents.

Everything is smoother and faster. Maps of your runs have a more interactive feel to them, graphs look sharp, and information is easily accessible.

This reworking of Nike+ has been needed for a very long time, and I am pumped to finally use it.

¶ Fussy Coffee

On episode 87 of The Talk Show, John Gruber jokingly shared the three things necessary for becoming Internet Famous:

• You must have a fussy way to make coffee.
• You must have a clicky keyboard.
• You must have a Sodastream, so you can over-carbonate your water.

Now, I do not have a clicky keyboard, nor do I have the desire to have one. I would gladly accept a Sodastream, as I love carbonated water with a little lime in it. I do, however, make my coffee in an extremely fussy way.

I start off my coffee making process by setting my Cuisinart PerfecTemp kettle to 200°F. While that heats the water for a few minutes, I weigh out 12g of coffee beans from my favorite local roaster.

Here is where the fussiness sets in. I then grind my coffee manually in a Hario MSS-1B Mini Mill Slim grinder. After grinding the beans, I use an AeroPress to brew a single cup of coffee into my awesome coffee mug.

I repeat this process 3-5 times a day.

So why bring all this up, other than to give fellow coffee nerds a peek at my secret public vice?

It's a matter of craft. The built-in OS X dictionary's primary definition of craft is:

an activity involving skill in making things by hand

An alternative definition is:

skill in carrying out one's work

It is often all too easy in this digitally driven world to lose the tangibility of accomplishment. When you labor physically to make something excellent — yes, even a cup of coffee — you benefit greatly from the achievement.

As far as coffee goes, my comparatively laborious method yields a much better tasting cup of coffee than my automatic dripolator can provide. Quality over quantity.

As our society has moved to the intangible, it has become easy to forget what craftsmanship looks like. People scoff when a great app is not free. A dollar is deemed as spendy when it comes to software, for example.

But you know what I noticed? Many of the very best apps — the ones where it is apparent that the developer sweats every detail — cost more than a buck. It's these kinds of apps that are my favorite. And that is because their makers are true craftsmen. And I'd wager that they sweat the details and fuss over other tangible things, as well.

I think what I am really trying to get at is if put a lot of care and detail into something tangible, it will help you to apply that same care and detail into intangible work.

Get fussy.