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"That the past zigzagged along - just like the present does - with nobody knowing what’s coming next.
Only we do it more complicatedly, and it’s because our lives are that much more complex than theirs were that it’s worth bothering about the past.
Because if you don’t know how you got somewhere, you don’t know where you are. And we are at the end of a journey - the journey from the past."James Burke in Connections 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You
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desirable, very.
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I’ve jailbroken my iPhone and you should too.
For some reason I found myself jailbreaking my iPhone this weekend and I have to say: It’s worth it.
I used evasi0n to jailbreak, but please double check if your device and iOS version is supported. Don’t blame me if your break your phone ;)
There are some tweaks and tools which makes some UX decisions by apple less sucky. Below a quick list of great additions:
Auxo
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
Replaces your app-switcher with an all-new, feature-rich one. Allows you to change the brightness, enable flight-mode, 3G and such without opening the settings-app.
Watch a video of auxo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZWHKtsxY90
f.lux
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
Well, f.lux - but for your shiny iOS gadget.
Heat Tip: @jkleske
autoprotect
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
Disables Passcode Lock when the device is connected to user specified wifi-networks.
Heat Tip: @jkleske
swipeSelection
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
THE tweak to make the keyboard suck less. Basically transforms your onscreenkeyboard into a touch-ball for much easier typo-correction and text selection.
Watch a video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h2yrBK7MAY
manualcorrect
Reverses the default auto-correction. Instead of tapping a suggest to dismiss it - at tap on a suggestion accepts it.
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
Sparrow+
Enable Push for Sparrow and allows you to set sparrow as default mail app.
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
Browser Changer
Allows you to use any browser as default browser + open links in google maps instead of apple maps.
Download (tap this on iOS after jailbreaking)
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stay calm.
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A lonely banana in times of #photowar.
It all started with this yummy banana:
But what is a banana without an instagram effect? Just a plain, boring, banana. Let’s add the instagam-touch!
Wait, what if we add a fancy flickr effect to that banana. On top of the instagram banana? making it all a lot more juicy!
We all know that we need three things to make things good, right? So we add a twitter-effect as well. Because we can!
I ended up eating the banana, without any filters. It’s taste was yummy, even though it did not look like someone rescued it from a nuclear-war-zone.
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Yay for user experience!
I noticed a change when looking at and using apps as well as services within the last few months. It seems that many are being more integrated and are fulfilling obvious user needs much nicer.
The past
Until a few years ago we had no “smart” devices, no data in our phones and no connected services.
We had a few smartphones that where capable of making things easier, PDAs, and a bunch of other single purpose devices. Companies tried to put as many possibles features into phones without considering in what user oriented contexts they might be used. The motto seemed to be: We can do it, regardless of it’s being useful or not.
This is not another “The iPhone made everything better”-Post, but it must be noted that Apple changed how customers are using devices, what they are expecting and it may defined some ground for the changes that I am posting about here.Hardware
We’re seeing a great approach to create new, physical products.
We should all hug Kickstarter because, even though they recently changed their policy regarding hardware, they play a big role in this movement.
There are littler helpers, new lifestyle or tech products evolving around this eco-system. Arduino and alike systems are important for this as well.
All off the sudden small companies and individuals can prototype and develop such gadgets easier, cheaper and faster than ever. Not even thinking about 3D-Printing in a few years!Paul Grahm wrote about The Hardware Renaissance last week, which relates a lot to this as well.
Some of these new products are making use – or are coming with – services and apps by syncing and controlling hardware or by sharing data while some are focussing on play. What they have in common is a focus on user experience and solving actual problems. They make things easier, faster, less cluttered, more integrated, smarter and they often look really neat.
A few of these gadgets are:
- The new HERO3 camera for example: Being fully controlled with your smartphone.
- Nike-Fuel bands & fit bit and other quantified-self devices are not only collecting data about yourself all the time, we are accessing the data using our phones and uploading the data to other services – and some of them allow us to access the data using APIs
- lockitron which basically is a, phone-controlled, remote control for your keyless lock.
- memoto, a small camera which claims to document of whatever you’re looking at – all the time.
Focus on user experience in software
Companies, especially start-ups, are unlocking richer user experiences within apps and services by creating design-driven products and not seeing “design” as an annoying, graphical requirement to apply to a product.
They also realise that a great user experience is a whole perception and not just a cool animation or a fancy button.
We came to a point where we carry enough computing power around all day, allowing all these things to happen and allowing consumers to interact with apps, hardware and services in a smarter way.Such services are sharing and syncing our data: Photos, contacts, messages, files, what we’re listening to, what we’re reading, where we are and with whom, appointments… all those things just got much easier recently. This allows us to be in touch with friends and family, socialise around the globe, have access to our data wherever we are and whatever we’re doing.
Such services are
- Yesterday: Print photos from you phone and get them delivered via good old mail. Isn’t that simply beautiful?
- “Cloud storage” like dropbox or iCloud, while this approach is not new, they’re making it so easy that we just don’t have to worry about uploads, downloads and syncing anymore.
- Picle by Made By Many captures not only a photos and location but also the sound of the given moment.
- Platforming Books by Craig Mod is neither an app nor a service, but it is a good example on how classic content can – and should be – delivered platform independent.
- Lightt: Which captures moments by creating a series of photos and sharing those with your social graph. If that is going to be a “big thing” has to be seen, but it is a nice and fresh user experience compared to “just photo-sharing”
- Readmill: Introducing Send to Readmill-Button, which allows publishers and web-stores to deliver eBooks straight to their customers Library. This is something that the then Amazon kindle (whispersync) does as well, but the noticeable difference - and good user experience - is that Readmill can integrate with any eBook distribution platform and is not locked to one source.
- cobook replaces your mac address book with a nice and simple tool to match your contacts with twitter, google contacts, Facebook and linkedIn.
- Wander, somewhat having certain approaches of tumblr, instagram and foursquare by creating a (mobile) blog-platform where users write about places. (Disclaimer: I do work for wander, but regardless: I think they create a great user experience, otherwise I would have not started to work for them)
I am curious to see what else will happen in this context, there is definitely a lot on the horizon. Internet of things, 3D-Printing, even faster mobile data, more powerful mobile operating systems, gesture based user interaction…
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I’ve been doing some work for wander since July, things are shaping up!
Find all the places I wander to, dream about and what else not at fabianmu.onwander.com.
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Just spotted a bike-shop at *Tempelhofer Park* . How awesome is that?
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How to configure iMessage to be less confusing across your devices
I won’t go much into details, but Apples new messaging service as part of iCloud lacks some obvious configuration hints. They totally screwed that one up. Anyhow, here are some tips to make that service less confusing.
Some things you should know in this context:
All devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and your mac) can receive messages through the new “Messages” app as long as you have an “iMessage” Account. It is all build in in Mountain Lion and as far as I know as of in iOS 5.1 on your mobile devices.
The iPhones default “Caller ID” is your phone number - but that is the only device that is aware of your phone number. ALL other devices are using your primary “Apple ID” (Which is your email) as “Caller ID”. You can not add that phone number to any other iMessage-capable device to neither send nor receive messages. This seems to confuse a lot users. Some people get messages on their phones, but not on their mac. Or the other way around.
You can, however solve that by changing the default “Caller ID” on ALL devices that you’re using with iMessage.
On iMessage on the mac just go into
Settings > Accountand choose your iMessage account and select the desired E-Mail as Caller-ID.On the iPhone/iPad these settings are a little more hidden:
Settings > Messages > Send & Receive > Start new conversation from(this is how it works in iOS 6, very similar in iOS5 just that the wording is a little different).Changing this still allows you to receive messages “send to your phone number” (just as any SMS does), but when you send a message to someone else on iMessage your Caller ID will be that email.
I also added all my “known” E-Mail addresses to my iMessage account (do that on all devices…). You should do that in case you have several E-Mail addresses and, ah well you know how it is with emails. One guy has that new E-Mail, someone else has an older one of yours. But when you have an option to unify all these, make sure that people can reach you.
Another general note for messages on the iPhone: When you send a message and the “send” button is green the message will be send as a plain, good old SMS. When the send button is blue, the message will be send via iMessage.
With “Messages” on the Mac, when you send a new message to someone, try sending them to the users email (a blue speech bubble indicates if that email is connected to an iMessage account). That will most likely get the message pushed to all devices.
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“It’s a once in a lifetime chance, take it!”
I’ve heard this quite often throughout my 30 year long presence on this planet: “It’s a once in a lifetime chance, take it”.
Maybe I just have not had that one chance yet, which would make the next lines completely obsolete, but I begin to wonder if such things are complete nonsense.
I went to New York in 2004 for three month, more or less out of the blue. The only thing I knew back then was that I’d be at an e-biz-distribution company, run my a friend’s dad. I did not really care about what I would do there nor how much cash I would get. I wanted to go on an adventure.
That trip turned out to start my freelance career, unleashed some of the skills I have and defined the grounds for many other things I have done in the following years. I went back and forth throughout five years and I took down the chance to relocate five years in a row. Many people told me that I should take this chance, it will not happen again. Ever since, there are people in New York that I’ve stayed in touch with and worked with. And here it is again: An offer to relocate. Maybe the “one chance” in that context was getting over there in the first place.During the last, meanwhile 8 years of freelancing, I tried one full time gig. I have been with Readmill for ~6 month and I left when I figured that, being employed at a company, I was simply on the wrong side of the table (at least in the position that I was in). I got payed to get a job done and build a product, but that was not what I wanted to do. While freelancing, even though that kind of work can be lonely once in a while, I get to know people, products, ideas and I am just more flexible to look at chances, opportunities, meet people and more important: Actually build and create these opportunities.
After leaving Readmill I’ve heard it again: “How can you do that? It is such a big chance!”. Well, it wasn’t for me, even though I believe in their product.A few month later, back in the freelance jungle, I am getting great offers, I pick the gigs I want to work on, I am extending my network, I started building an own product and I got an offer to join a company as CEO (which I most likely will turn down because I don’t feel emotionally attached to the product). Again, a “once in a lifetime chance”? I doubt it.
I know that I could do that kind of job and I’d very much like to be in that role. But the one thing I’ve learned within the last couple of years is that one new thing on the horizon is often just the beginning for other good things to happen. There will be other chances.I actually think that the smaller decisions that you make throughout your way are the ones that might have a bigger impact.
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Arm signals for bicyclists by artist Wendy MacNaughton (previously), from Robin Sloan’s fantastic NYT piece on biking and “the wiggle of least resistance.”
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Have you seen a four year old kid using a computer?
A few years ago a friends kid watched me clicking a link on twitter, leading to a youtube video.
A few hours later that kid was browsing and actually searching for videos on youtube using his dads laptop. The evening before he did not want to tell me his password to his webkinz account.
I did not even knew the alphabet when I was four and my horizon ended with LEGO. And that kid knew how to use a computer, a keyboard and what a password is!
I am quite looking forward to see what that generation will create.
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Apple doesn’t need a social network (anymore).
Social networks are made to gather data about people, many people. Social networks are made to turn that data into money by analyzing and selling it.
Apple tried to come with an own one, but they failed and now they’ve canceled it.But fact is: They don’t need an own social network anymore.
All they have to do is to re-shape their software and implement the existing ones. They collaborate with Facebook and co (except google+, of course) by providing them easier access to what users do and like by making it easier to share to those platforms.
In return, apple probably gets access to their data (At least some obvious data).
They do not just integrate third party platforms into mobile devices, but with Mountain Lion, also into our laptops and desktop computers.
One good example on how that integration looks are Facebook events. All of the sudden my phone shows me all these people and allows me to interact with that data:
A Facebook event in the calendar app
RSVP infos
List of people
Interact with contactBut not only that they simply integrate other social networks, they also provide hardware, software and the infrastructure within we consume content (music, books and apps that is).
With iCloud, syncing our contacts, calendar, photos, app-data (it’d be possible that all apps on apple devices store their users data in iCloud) and backing up all our content from iPhones and iPads they know a lot about each of us already.
One step further, in iOS 6 & Mountain Lion they also sync our URLs - meaning they know what pages we visit & how often (maybe also how long).
And with that, they know more about our browsing behavior than Facebook and Google do. Since that applies to all websites that we visit, not only the ones with Facebook or Google tracking.Another nice, new feature in iOS6 called “Do not disturb” allows them to track when we sleep and for how long, which is also some interesting data to have.
If you take all these informations: Music, Books, Apps, User-data within apps, Photos, Contacts, Passbook, When we sleep (and how long), Events + all that connected to other social networks PLUS location on all that data… they have data about people, many people.
So, why would they need an own social network?
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In the Year 2012, New York Times
