Last week, I made the case for thumb-typing (among other things) on the iPad mini. Last night, John Gruber published his review of the iPad Air, which covers this aspect. Exactly what I wanted to know.
John Gruber’s iPad Air Review→
Fantastical 2 Review
Last month, I was discussing my schedule for this Fall’s check-ups with my oncologist. During our conversation, she asked me if I had a list of all the appointments and todos that I had saved for the next weeks because she couldn’t find the department’s calendar and she doesn’t save patients’ information in her personal one.
I know that my doctor has an iPhone, and I know that she uses Apple’s Calendar and Reminders apps to manage her own schedule, so I showed her the beta of Fantastical 2 that I had on my iPhone.[1] “You can search for events and reminders that match a keyword or location and get a single list showing all results”. She was intrigued. “For my appointments here, I save them with the hospital’s name, so I can just look for that if I want to see them all at once”. At that point, I’m pretty sure she was sold on the app. “But you can’t buy it yet”, I added with a subtle smirk.
Fantastical 2 for iPhone, released today on the App Store and on sale at $2.99 for a limited time, is one of the best iOS 7 apps I’ve tried so far and the best calendar and reminder client for iPhone, period. It improves upon several aspects of the original app and it introduces powerful new features while sporting a complete redesign that makes the app feel at home on iOS 7 without compromising its identity.
Fantastical 2 is, for my workflow, better than Apple’s built-in apps, and it builds upon the solid foundation of the original Fantastical to offer new functionalities and more flexibility. Read more
Jim Dalrymple on the iPad Air→
This smaller size is great. If you have decent sized hands you can type with two thumbs on the iPad in portrait, something I wasn’t really able to do with the last generation iPad without a lot of stretching. Clearly a full-size iPad is not something you will be thumb typing with all the time, but it does give you an idea of how much smaller the iPad Air is.
Jim’s review addresses a point that I was curious to know about, and he also talks about battery life with the LTE model he reviewed.
Ben Bajarin’s Review of the iPad Air→
When recommending products to consumers I always encourage them to look at it as an investment. Whether someone is buying a PC, TV, smartphone, or tablet, it is best to get one that is worthy of your money and will last. What makes the iPad Air interesting–from the view of personal computing–is the A7 processor.
Much has been written about the power of the A7. Creativity apps like iMovie and GarageBand run extremely smoothly and fast on the A7. I made a 4-minute high definition movie on the iPad Air and it exported in just under one minute. When I attempted the same on the iPad 4 it took just over three minutes. When it comes to exporting movies or even compressing video or a photo to upload to the web, send in an email, or even using AirDrop the A7 does it all faster.
Ben’s review of the iPad Air is different from the ones that have been published this evening, and he offers some practical advice.
A Brief Review of the Nintendo 2DS
Sunday afternoon was the first time I had stepped into a GameStop in years. The store was surprisingly packed, with people trading in old iPod nanos and an iPhone 4S, while others were purchasing 3DS games. Pokémon X and Y were the hot items, with kids and parents (who could probably think of more productive things to do) waiting their turn in line. On a whim I asked about trade-in values, went home, erased the data off my Xbox 360, and returned to GameStop to trade it in for around forty bucks, with an extra thirty percent earned on top since I turned around and bought a game off of GameStop’s “trade offers” list. I hadn’t touched my 360 since my early college days, and I determined I wasn’t going to get a better deal on eBay or Craigslist, nor was it worth the hassle. Might as well get rid of it now before it’s worth next to nothing once the next generation of consoles arrive.
I walked out with one of three 2DS systems that were left and a couple of games. Considering that I was trading in other items, I really didn’t have to spend a whole lot of money to gain access to a large library of fun titles. As an adult, I purchased a system that the press has written off as “cheap” and “just for kids.”
The Menu Bar Ep. 27: There Is No Show→
I had the pleasure of being on this week’s episode of The Menu Bar with Andrew Clark and Zac Cichy, who are some of the most laid back guys I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to in recent memory. I haven’t been on a podcast in a long time, and I’m glad they put up with my scatterbrain and ramblings. The show is 2 hours long… I’m sorry Andrew (who had to edit it all) and Harry. My fault.
Some of the things we chatted about:
- All the Mac blogs have grown up, everyone’s cool, and we all found our own niche
- iPhone 5c recommendation over iPhone 5s, and the A7 processor
- Everything’s going free and what it means for Apple
- The iPad lineup and potential pro offerings
- The Nintendo 2DS, the 3DS ecosystem, and the magic of Nintendo
- …and more!
I had a good time and needed to get some things off my chest, and I’m glad they gave me the opportunity to talk about some of the topics I’m interested in as of late. I do feel bad for talking over them sometimes: group chats are hard and I’ll get better with experience. I’m looking for feedback regarding things I could work on as far as speaking on a podcast, so shoot me a Twitter message or use our email and it’ll get to the right place. (Subject: Menu Bar if you go the email route.) Be nice tho!
Spoilers: Andrew bought a 2DS.
Macworld’s Transcript of Apple’s Q4 2013 Earnings Call→
Tim Cook:
In terms of new product categories, specifically, if you look at the skills that Apple has from hardware, software, and services, and an incredible app ecosystem, these set of things is very, very unique, I think no one has a set of skills like this, and we obviously believe that we can use our skills in building other great products that are in categories that represent areas where we do not participate today. So we’re pretty confident about that.
The Great Apple Lull→
But where Apple has disappointed recently is in novelty, or surprise. Perhaps this is unfair, but it’s real. Apple became the company that delivered “new”. People got used to hearing about new stuff all the time — iPod nanos, iPhones, MacBook Airs, iPads — and now it seems like it’s been a while. The more people got, the more they wanted. And then you have to work even faster.
What really happened? Steve Jobs spoiled us with two mind-altering substances in quick succession — the iPhone and iPad. Meanwhile, the majority of people who have ever owned Apple products likely bought their first (and second…) during this period. So all of a sudden, a bunch of people who didn’t really pay attention to Apple before — people who never had to boot up a Performa with Extensions off, or upgrade RAM in a Power Mac 8500 — are now expecting some crazy new toy to appear every few years, whether it’s realistic or not.
This is certainly an honest perspective by Dan Frommer. Being the “Apple guy” among my friends, I get regular questions about “what’s really next for Apple” or “when is the watch coming out”. There is a natural tendency for humans to want “new” – imagine by customers who got the iPhone and iPad in the past five years alone.
The software and products Apple released this year are great, but many of them (game controller API, Touch ID, and even iOS 7 itself) seem to suggest Apple is laying the foundation for interesting new things to come.
Apple Q4 2013 Results: $37.5 Billion Revenue, 33.8 Million iPhones, 14.1 Million iPads Sold
Apple has published their Q4 2013 financial results for the quarter that ended on September 28, 2013. The company posted revenue of $37.5 billion. The company sold 14.1 million iPads, 33.8 million iPhones, and 4.6 million Macs, earning a quarterly net profit of $7.5 billion.
We’re pleased to report a strong finish to an amazing year with record fourth quarter revenue, including sales of almost 34 million iPhones,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited to go into the holidays with our new iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, iOS 7, the new iPad mini with Retina Display and the incredibly thin and light iPad Air, new MacBook Pros, the radical new Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks and the next generation iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS.
For Q1 2014, Apple is providing guidance of revenue between $55 billion and $58 billion. Read more