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How Apple's Rumored Tablet Will Be a Full-Fledged Mac, Too.
There has been some discussion and rumors swirling around about Apple and a tablet PC of some sort. John Gruber discussed it, as did Paul Bucheit, and the comments on Hacker News has some insights too. For the record, here is my prediction, from the software side of view:
Apple will release some sort of tablet device, as rumored, and the primary input method will be the touchscreen. The UI will be a more advanced form of the iPhone UI, as Gruber suggests. The tablet may have similar specs to the MacBook Air. Apple will position it as a partial replacement to a full-powered MacBook/Pro, again, as Gruber suggests, targeting casual Mac users who don’t need the full power of Mac OS X.
So far, I have not said anything new.
What no one seems to have realized, yet, is that Apple will also target more heavy users of Macs - perhaps those who write a lot for a living (writers, reporters, mid-level managers who seem to do nothing but generate email after email, etc).
Apple’s current mouse and keyboard are both Bluetooth-only. I predict Apple’s tablet will allow for a more conventional Mac OS X UI, and allow regular applications to run, and allow input using the standard Mac keyboard and the Magic Mouse.
How Apple accomplishes a seamless switch between the two disparate UIs (the conventional Mac OS X UI and the tablet-touchscreen UI) will be interesting.
A new blog: Sencepta Futura
Staying in California, working at YouNoodle
Enabled DISQUS
Retiring snippits
A while ago, I wrote Snippits, a Ruby program that performed text expansion, with quite a few useful features. I built is fairly quickly, because I had an itch to scratch: I hated typing the same thing over and over and over. Computers ought to be able to automate common tasks, and they can’t figure out how to do so themselves, we should be able to teach them. At the time, there was nothing that did text replacement on Linux (but several tools for Mac and Windows existed), so I set out to write my own.
I got pretty far - Snippits was functional, stable, and speedy enough to use daily, and I did so. Of course, it could have been more functional, more stable, and more speedy, but it was good enough for me - and, actually, a couple of users. I was proud of how Snippits had helped people, and I enjoyed using it immensely - there is something extremely satisfying to bypassing tedious typing and retyping of your name, address, email, or really, anything, over and over.
Working at YouNoodle
This summer I’ll be working at YouNoodle, an Internet startup based in San Francisco. YouNoodle has a social network for everyone interested in startups, and has several analytical tools they can use to predict the success of a startup. They’ve been covered by the Times.
I’m really excited about this summer! YouNoodle is a great company, and I’ll be working with an awesome team.
Lynx Bullet: Yeah, Right, Whatever
Sometimes ads unintentionally reveal a truer meaning. Lynx Bullet deodorant makes you totally sexy. So why is there only one set of footprints?
Thanks to Tom! Bigger version here!
Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Chatroulette
I spent about 30 minutes on Friday night on Chatroulette (very NSFW). You push the start button and you're instantly in a video chat with some random person. During my session, the average "chat" lasted about 5 seconds and I observed several people drinking malt liquor, two girls making out, many many guys who disconnected as soon as they saw I wasn't female, several girls who disconnected after seeing my face (but not before I caught the looks of disgust on theirs), 3 couples having sex, and 11 erect penises. In a Malkovichian moment, I was even connected to myself once...and then the other me quickly disconnected. In short, Chatroulette is pretty much the best site going on the internet right now.
Sam Anderson has a nice article in New York magazine about Chatroulette.
Tags: Chatroulette NSFW Sam Anderson