It occurred to me after spending a few minutes yesterday perfecting my two-screen iPhone menu (thanks, 1.1.3!) that, even with plenty of available space on the “stuff I really do use, honestly” first screen, the iPod icon is on the second screen. Remember when everyone — including John Gruber — called it an “iPod phone”? (If I was a more boastful personality, I could point to my own pre-iPhone post, two months before the Macworld keynote and point out how right it was in retrospect, but I’m not, so I won’t.)
Not only does this say that the iPod, while incredibly successful, is clearly not incapable of blinding Apple (even if it did everyone else), but it also says that we’re perhaps too quick to define the future from the past, and that just doesn’t work with entirely new stuff.
In short, when you look for the next thing Apple releases with Multi-touch, don’t just fling a Newton into the microwave.
Speaking of iPhone — do you think the iPhone/iPod touch SDK will be available for Windows, too? (And will it be an Xcode port?) Will emulators be involved, or will it all be live on the device? Will the software be for sale on iTunes? Solely? If so, can you try out your own apps? And will there be some sort of amazing new iPhone Interface Builder? UIKit doesn’t exactly have NIBs.
Debris
And Now For Something Completely Different
As you know, it was time for some change around here. I christen thee waffle 3.0.
The new layout and design is not a complete change. It is different, though. The new logo/menu is slightly less theatrical. The text column is slightly narrower. I’ve taken the opportunity to upgrade to the current version of WordPress after lagging for quite some time at 2.1.
What might not be readily apparent is that this time, full iPhone/iPod touch optimizations are in effect and the site looks different on these devices. There, the entire site is customized to be easily navigable and fully readable (minus the dreck I like to call “content”, of course). It even has one of them 1.1.3 Web Clip icons going for it.
Feedback’s welcome.
About Affiliates
With my own search tool finally out the door, I feel I can talk about this more clearly.
About two weeks ago, it was discovered that Inquisitor mixed in, for certain queries, affiliate links to Amazon and the Apple Store at the top of the results, without in any way indicating that they weren’t results that come from Google or Yahoo. People justifiably reacted.
Unfortunately, people reacted rabidly. Dave Watanabe wrote a weblog post defending himself and the feature, and noted that most reactions were vastly overblown. He declared the existence of the feature “public knowledge”, and argued that “after over a year of soak-time in the public with no complaints it should be a non-issue”. Furthermore, he noted, “imagine my surprise when I wake up to a mailbox containing words unfit for publication, blogs declaring me as the biggest asshole in the world, and demands that people sabotage and steal my work”. (For reasons that will become apparent in just a bit, the weblog post has now been removed, so I can’t provide a link.)
After this reaction, I did what I thought I should do personally as someone who actually did pay for Inquisitor back when it was for pay, and who still uses it. I sent Dave an email. I told him that what was wrong wasn’t that the affiliate links were there, it’s that they were inserted without any mention of it. This destabilizes trust. From this point on, the possible thought chain is apparent: “If Inquisitor changes that, what else does it change? Am I not getting the entire story here? Will Inquisitor filter hits for competitive products, or censor results, since there are no qualms about altering the results?” None of these things apply - nor have they ever applied - to what Inquisitor does. But they are possibilities in a sea of outcomes, possibilities quickly approaching when you find out that the result list is in fact abridged.
That’s what I told him. I’ve supported Inquisitor once before, and I bet many of its users would jump at the chance to support it for, effectively, zero cost. I am under the impression that a lot of people thought the way I thought and sent similar emails.
Last Wednesday, Dave released a new version of Inquisitor which clearly marked the links as affiliates and offers the option to disable them. Even if you could perhaps argue that it should have been taken earlier, this was the perfect move.
Yesterday, as you may know, I released a new version of my own search tool, one whose newest feature borrows heavily from the kind of functionality Inquisitor has delivered first and best on Mac OS X. I had an opportunity to riff off of this. I opted not to. I believe in collegiality, and I believe that it is strongly to Dave’s credit that the next version that came out resolved every outstanding doubt. (To avoid accusations of just using this post to pimp my own product, which I’m not trying to do, I will omit its name and link here, although it’s really not hard to find in surrounding posts.)
Is there a point to this story? Yes. Be honest and forthright with those who use your product, listen closely to their suggestions and a better product will always follow. And, of course, respect each other. (As always.)
Monocle 1.5
I’ve finally - finally! - gotten Monocle 1.5 out the door.
It works on Tiger and Leopard, it provides suggestions and results as you type, it fixes a few bugs and changes some things around, and, I’ve been told, it is ridiculously awesome in many other regards.
Many man-hours died to bring you this information.