Where Apple is aiming the puck

There weren’t too many surprises on the hardware front with the iPhone 7 release with the usual stream of supply chain leaks and rumours over the last few weeks leading up to the launch. The event pretty much reemphasized that the smartphone market, particularly the high end, has pretty much matured and Apple checked off the niggles over the entry level storage. Apple also broke a trend of sorts with the external design not changing considerably over the previous “s” year, another sign of a maturing market.

There was also a lot of clarity in their positioning of the Apple Watch with the focus shifting to health and fitness, while reducing the emphasis on communication (at least for the time being). It is going to be a while before the Apple Watch is able to turn into a standalone device. The new models in tandem with WatchOS 3 do address some of the performance concerns with the first model, but we’re still some time away from an always on display.

Apple also doubled down on their strengths with the focus on platform exclusives, 3D Touch and pushing the envelope on the camera capabilities. They have also increased the feature gap between the regular and Plus model this year with the camera having a tangible difference in addition to the screen and battery size, along with the increased RAM.

There was of course the loss of the headphone jack that many had predicted and the switch to a non clickable home button. The former is something that many of the Android phone makers have tried to preempt, while the latter is something a majority of the non-iPhone owners are used to. As for the A10 chip, it was a validation of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture that has been in use by the Android market for over 3 years. Big jumps in performance usually come through node shrinks, and with Moore’s law slowing Apple has its task cut out.

Here are a few thoughts on where things seem to be headed based on Apple’s moves this year:

  • They have pretty much set their sights on the pro camera market with the support for wider colour gamuts on the sensor and display. Plus (pun intended) there’s the dual camera lens bringing back a viable telephoto lens to the smartphone market (sort of – 56mm is closer to normal focal length). People who were hurt with Windows Phone and Nokia’s (Lumia 1020) demise have a proper alternative at last.
  • It’ll be a while before the longer focal length on the iPhone attains the quality of the wider one, but this is just the beginning and we can expect iterations to happen pretty quick now that the ball has been set rolling by the most focussed company. Also, you don’t have to look any farther than this comparison of the original iPhone camera to the iPhone 7 to see what can be done in 10 years.
  • Again, on the photography front, with the Plus introducing a second lens, we get closer to the “holy trinity” of prime lenses which typically refers to a wide-normal-telephoto combination of lenses to cover a majority of shooting options. Technically we’ve got the wide and normal lengths covered. Of course, the iPhone is not going to be replacing DSLRs for specialised purposes (birding, low light action) anytime soon, but you know where we’re headed.
  • This dual lens camera also enables the journey towards computer vision thanks to the depth of field perception. What is today a sort of gimmicky feature previously tried by Android phone makers can potentially be the stepping stone towards AR.
  • Those Intel fab rumours that have been around for the last couple of years might finally be coming true next year.
  • The currently gimmicky, but increasingly exhibited feature of 3D Touch is most likely a stepping stone to a future where the display lets you actually feel the textures of items shown. This would take interaction to the new level and iOS 10 has finally opened up the current haptic engine to developers. Just take a look at Apple’s patents to get a feel (yes) of where things are headed. Maybe it’ll arrive as soon as next year when people expect the 10th anniversary iPhone to have an all display front. Accessibility has been one of Apple’s strengths and they also support Braille displays with their iOS devices. This expertise might just help them overall bringing out the really 3D in the touch. As to what kind of stuff is possible, check out Disney Research (guess which companies share board members?).

So, where does this leave me personally? Well, I just replaced my iPhone 5s battery and it should last me another year quite easily given that the performance has all but improved with iOS 10 (I doubt anyone with a 3 year old Android phone can say the same thing). The iPhone 7 Plus camera is really tempting me to give up my DSLR entirely (I really love shooting with my Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens which on a cropped body like the 550D gives an 80mm equivalent focal length), it’s just the first iteration and I find the 5.5″ size too big. Apple Pay has also not launched in India either, so I’m not missing any major feature with the 5s barring the screen size and camera (I do use a Mi 4 as well, so the screen size is even less of an issue). Then there’s the next year’s iPhone of course.

Posted on by Aditya

Changing an iPhone 5s battery for Rs 600

My 2+ year old iPhone 5s battery had been behaving quite erratically in the last few months and it used to switch off with the battery levels in the 40s. I finally bit the bullet and decided to replace the battery last week on my own after lots of contemplation on whether to go to an Apple authorised service centre or one of the local Heera Panna like outlets. I did a bit of reading and online tutorial watching which made the whole process seem quite simple and decided to go ahead on my own.

Amazon turned out to be quite useful for the DIY crowd with the battery and toolkit available at throwaway prices (Rs 450 & Rs 140 each). The items arrived pretty quickly as well and I started off with the video open for reference.

What the video fails to convey is the really miniscule size of the screws and the fact that each screw is of a slightly different size. Nonetheless, I managed to take things apart.

IMG_20160829_211530.jpg
Taking things apart

Yes, those tiny specks you see in the pink bowl are screws, and they are of slightly different heights, so if you are planning a similar endeavour, lay them out in the right sequence with the protection cover to make life easier when putting things back.

Removing the battery was another ball game altogether. I ended up following the method shown in the embedded video and prising the battery off. This is not as easy as it looks in the video as the tape holding it to the body is quite strong. I ended up pretty much deforming the battery when taking it out.

IMG_20160829_212558
The old deformed battery next to the new one

Some online tutorials do recommend taking out the tape before removing the battery, which is probably a better option. But you would need to have some tape handy to hold the new battery in place.

Either way, putting things back was even tougher (did I mention the tiny screws?), but I managed to get things done and the phone switched on. Touch ID was the major casualty though the sound from the loudspeakers was also not working at first. I opened up the phone once again as per suggestions online for Touch ID, but to no avail. The loudspeaker fortunately started working after plugging in a headphone and removing it as suggested in this thread.

A week on, the new battery seems to be holding up pretty decently though it’s still not enough to get me through a whole day without a mid-day top up. Still, it’s a lot more reliable than a phone that switches off at 45% charge. Life without Touch ID is also liveable given that there’s no Apple Pay in India or on the 5s.

Posted on by Aditya 1

Mouse Pointer Disappears in Chrome

I faced this issue when working on my HP Pavilion x2 which has a touchscreen. The mouse pointer disappeared when moved over the Chrome but continued to show up in other applications. It seems to be related to the hardware acceleration settings and seems to have been around for quite a while on various Windows devices ranging from the HP Envy to the Surface and affecting both Windows 8.x and 10 (2 years at least going by the Google Group thread).

Anyway, the fix seems to be to disable Hardware Acceleration in the Advanced Settings of Chrome:

Go to Chrome Settings > System and uncheck the following –
 Use hardware acceleration when available

Also, hardware acceleration does seem to be buggy on Chrome causing a range of problems related to mouse pointer lags, at least on Intel GPUs going by this post (came up as the top result when searching for “Chrome hardware acceleration“).

Source: Mouse Pointer Disappears – Google Product Forums

Posted on by Aditya

When smart people get important things really wrong

Technology is but one of the tools to potentially solve a problem:

What’s hard is synthesis – learning to use technology as part of well-designed sociotechnical solutions. These solutions sometimes require profound advances in technology. But they virtually always require people to build complex, multifunctional teams that work with and learn from the people the technology is supposed to benefit.

Source: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me… or Can we design sociotechnical systems that don’t suck? | … My heart’s in Accra

Posted on by Aditya Link

“How-To”…Send an HTML e-mail from Outlook 2010 (update – works for Outlook 2013)

Basically use the “Insert as text” option when attaching the HTML file

UC Davis Bookstore TechTalk

Author:
Mike Adams
04/27/2012

Recently, I needed to send an HTML email to a list of graduating seniors here are UC Davis to let them know about some Adobe deals we had. How was I going to do this though? I researched Google and found several different options involving having to use Internet Explorer to “Send page by e-mail”. This was not what I wanted though. I wanted to send it through Outlook. So after even more digging, I finally found the solution and wanted to share it with everyone else. (Hopefully you don’t have to do as much digging as I did to find this page.) Read on after the break.

View original post 147 more words

Posted on by Aditya

Hands on with the Mi 5

I got a Mi 5 for my better half that was delivered today. I’ve been using a Mi 4 as my secondary phone for the last year and compared to that, the Mi 5 feels very different. It’s a bit taller but nearly the same width and definitely thinner. The weight is however in a different league coming in at just 129g, some 30-40g lighter.

I really loved the in hand feel thanks to the curved back and light weight. The metal sides also feel better due to the matte finish. The phone is also a lot snappier thanks to the Snapdragon 820 inside coupled with the fast storage. The charger is also quite compact and the USB Type C port finally makes things simple.

I’m yet to put in a SIM card or setup the fingerprint scanner but I did complete the initial setup and also got an OS update to MIUI 7.3.5. In terms of the UI, things are quite similar to the Mi 4 though the MIUI on the Mi 5 is based on Marshmallow compared to the Mi 4’s Kit Kat. The camera seemed to be quite faster as well with support for slow motion video. Haven’t done a side by side comparison yet, but the 4 axis video stabilization should make a world of difference.

Overall the first impressions have been really positive and barring a better camera, there’s very little you can get anywhere North of the Mi 5’s price of ₹25K.

Posted on by Aditya

Design for Time Well Spent

I’ve actually ended up doing quite a few on this list thanks to the limited storage and diminishing battery capacity on my iPhone 5s:

9 MINDFULNESS TIPS

How can we live more mindfully with technology today?

On iPhone:

  1. Create a Tools-Only Home Screen
    Limit your home screen to the top 4-6 tools you use frequently to get things done. Move all other apps off the first page and into folders.
  2. Open Other Apps by Typing
    Typing filters out unconscious choices while keeping conscious ones. Open apps by typing their name.
  3. Keep Only Two Pages of Apps
    With six pages of apps, we find ourselves swiping back and forth through them mindlessly. Keep to two pages, the first with tools and the other with folders.
  4. Turn Off Notifications, Except from People
    Only get notifications when people want your attention, not businesses or machines.
  5. Keep the M&M’s, but Hide the Wrappers
    Colorful icons are designed to trigger us to use apps unconsciously. Put these on the second or third page inside folders, and open them by typing instead.
  6. Stop Leaky Interactions
    Set your Alarm or Camera without unlocking your phone so you get kicked out automaticaly afterwards. Swipe up on the lock screen to quickly access.
  7. Reduce Phantom Buzzes with Custom Vibrations
    Create your own unambiguous vibration pattern to distinguish between when people need you vs. a machine. (Go to Settings > Notifications > Messages > Sounds > Vibration > Create New)
  8. Buy a Travel Alarm Clock and Charge Outside the Bedroom
    Waking up to check our phone sets our day off to a bad start. Get a separate alarm clock and leave your phone outside to charge.
  9. Know your Bottomless Bowls and Slot Machines
    Know which apps are bottomless bowls (trapdoors) and slot machines (constant checking) for you. Move them off the first page of apps.

Source: Design for Time Well Spent

Posted on by Aditya Link

Well-crafted website hints

I remember the AJAX evolution and the RIA craze pretty fondly myself:

A JavaScript API called XMLHttpRequest came along, originally only supported in a handful of browsers. This let a web page make a request to another URL and do something with the data — quite a revolutionary concept at the time.

XMLHttpRequest didn’t get a lot of adoption until the idea got a better name: Ajax.Jesse James Garrett’s famous blog post was successful because it (1) let people know that this technique existed and (2) gave it a much easier-to-pronounce name.

Source: The history of ‘this website is well-crafted’ hints | Holovaty.com

Posted on by Aditya

Typography for enhanced safety

These are particularly interesting:

NASA’s List of Design Recommendations

  1. Sans-serif fonts are usually more legible than fonts with serifs.

  2. Avoid using a font that has characters that are too similar to one another, as this will reduce the legibility of the print.

  3. Avoid using dot matrix print for critical flight-deck documentation.

  4. Long chunks of text should be set in lower case.

  5. If upper case is required, the first letter of the word should be made larger in order to enhance the legibility of the word.

  6. When specifying font height, or accessing graphs to determine the size of a lower-case character, the distinction between “x” height and overall size should be made.

  7. As a general recommendation, the “x” height of a font used for important flight-deck documentation should not be below 0.10 inch.

  8. The recommended height-to-width ratio of a font that is viewed in front of the observer is 5:3.

  9. The vertical spacing between lines should not be smaller than 25–33% of the overall size of the font.

  10. The horizontal spacing between characters should be 25% of the overall size and not less than one stroke width.

  11. Avoid using long strings of text set in italics.

  12. Use primarily one or two typefaces for emphasis.

  13. Use black characters over a white background for most cockpit documentation.

  14. Avoid using white characters over a black background in normal line operations. However, if this is desired:

    1. Use minimum amount of text.
    2. Use relatively large typesize.
    3. Use sans-serif to minimize the loss of legibility.

  15. Black over white or yellow are recommended for cockpit documentation.

  16. Avoid using black over dark red, green, and blue.

  17. Use anti-glare plastic to laminate documents.

  18. Ensure that the quality of the print and the paper is well above normal standards. Poor quality of the print will effect legibility and readability.

  19. The designer must assess the age groups of the pilots that will be using the documentation, and take a very conservative approach in assessing information obtained from graphs and data books.

Source: How Typography Can Save Your Life – ProPublica

Posted on by Aditya Link