This is one of the cooler things I have seen in a while. The first minute or two is amazing, and who would have guessed at the physics behind levitating slinkies.
(via Daring Fireball/Kotke.org)
Watching The Apps Go By -or- 2 Of The 3 Percenters
Apple hooked up 100+ iPads and had them scroll through the top 20,000 apps downloaded since the beginning of the year. That’s about the top 3% of all apps. In years past they had a big board where downloaded apps fell from the top. I liked this one much better! Downloaded apps would twinkle for a second or two, at 100 downloads they would create a ripple. You could even press down on a spot and make the app icons jump. For some reason my video imported sideways:
Not only was the display cool but we found both powerOne Finance Lite and powerOne Scientific Lite in the list. Quite an honor!
Microsoft Surface: Awesome Looking Vaporware
Microsoft’s new Surface tablet *looks* awesome. The keynote *looked* great. The fold out keyboard *looked* innovative. No one was allowed to play with it afterward.
There is little reason for me to doubt Microsoft can pull this off. They’ve done hardware before, albeit nothing of this magnitude. But there is nothing to say they can pull it off, either. For reference, see its tablet history.
I’m 60 words in and that’s all there is to say. I could expound further on Microsoft moving into devices against their licensees, trying to sell it exclusively through their 20 stores, whether new-style Metro and old-style Windows can work on one device. But it isn’t worth my time.
Surface is vaporware. It will be available sometime in the future for some undisclosed price. And if I can say anything, Microsoft is exceptionally good at vaporware. After all, it was a Microsoft engineer that coined the phrase.
Apple WWDC Impressions: On The Verge Of Something Spectacular
Many people have described Apple’s worldwide developer conference (WWDC) as uninteresting. I think that Apple is turning up the heat. I felt a great tension in the air there.
Right now, Apple is filling in some gaps. We get these great API calls for more effectively making UI elements resize and retain relationships to other elements, we get new mapping apps, we get new ways of controlling devices and the ability to very very easily customize UI elements so everyone’s apps can feel the same while looking different.
But it feels like biding their time. There are so many hints and rumors, from Apple television sets to 7″ tablets to 4″ smartphones. Back to the Mac feels in flux, half way to completing its goals. Laptops and desktop computers are adding components that make them more powerful and more visually appealing, but only some of them get upgrades and only one gets a retina display. Half of the Mac systems have moved to SSD drives and half of them haven’t. Siri is a very interesting start that could change the way we interact with small devices, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it right now. Apple bakes in Facebook and Twitter, but only Facebook and Twitter. Apple demonstrates a new sharing API but it only offers sharing from a handful of services.
There was nothing earth-shattering announced, but at the same time there is an amazing groundwork being set for what feels like a burst of creative energy out of Cupertino, a blow your socks off moment, maybe more than one.
WWDC itself, conversations with people at Apple, conversations with other developers, it feels like that Giants-Astros game Wednesday night. It’s the ninth inning and the crowd, very passive earlier, suddenly senses history. Matt Cain has three outs to go, three outs to a perfect game, three outs to only the 22nd perfecto in baseball history.
We don’t know what is going to happen. It just feels like we are on the verge of something spectacular.
Seeing Perfection
I was going to post on my impressions coming out of WWDC last week but I saw something last week that only 550,000 people have ever seen, and frankly, as a baseball fan, it doesn’t get much more awesome than this.
Last Wednesday night we thought we’d have a night out and go to a Giants game. They were playing the Astros, who haven’t been all that good of late but I expected at least a decent game. By the end of the second inning, though, it was clear the game was over. It was 5-0 and the Giants would go on to score at least one run in each of the first five innings.
But there was something else to celebrate this night. I started messaging with my wife back home after the second. Matt Cain, the Giants pitcher, wasn’t giving up any hits. 6 up, 6 down. 9 up, 9 down. 12 up, 12 down. By the ninth inning, with no Astro reaching base, the crowd of 42,000 was on the verge of seeing a perfect game.
For those that aren’t baseball fans, a perfect game is when 27 batters come to the plate and 27 batters are retired. No walks, no hits, no runners reach base at all. In the history of baseball there have only been 21 of them before last Wednesday night.
About 3 billion people have seen major league baseball games in person over the last hundred years plus. I have seen between 50 and 100 games myself in my lifetime. I’ve seen some great games over the years, even got to go to the 1995 World Series to see my favorite team play in it for the first time since 1954. But seeing a perfect game will be hard to top.
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