I’ve written about the fabulous journaling app Day One before, but exactly a month ago, I crossed the 1,500-entry threshold. I began journaling on-and-off on a trip to San Francisco in 2013, but began again in earnest about two years later. Since June 2015, I haven’t missed a day. I find that journaling is enjoyable … Continue reading Day One: 1,531 Entries
Samsung’s newest flagship phone, the Galaxy S7, has received generally favorable reviews. One caveat seems to be that, like many other phones, the Galaxy comes preloaded with a frustrating number of preinstalled apps. The New York Times has an article succinctly titled “Samsung’s Smartphones Aren’t the Problem (Just Prune the Bad Apps).” In this piece, the Brian X. … Continue reading Preinstalled Apps
Walt Mossberg wrote a column in Re/Code last week, highlighting what I’ve often felt: The iPhone is the best phone on the market (and its desktop hardware often among the best), but Apple’s own apps are pretty subpar. He cites iTunes for desktop, as well as Mail, Photos, and iCloud more broadly. Mossberg writes: I hold … Continue reading Dented Apples
It seems that everyone – news outlets, sportscasters, poets, comedians and companies – is podcasting. How many people are profiting is another question, but, as The Economist pointed out this week, podcasting is in the midst of yet another renaissance: It is hard to identify the moment when podcasting took off, because it keeps having them. In … Continue reading Everybody’s Podcastin’
Carmakers have announced the list of 2016 models that will feature dashboard displays that are compatible with iPhones. Given how much I use my iPhone for navigation, music and podcasts in the car, I feel as though CarPlay may well factor into my decision the next time I’m in the market for a new set of … Continue reading CarPlay in ’16
In iOS 9, Apple now permits users to move Newsstand apps out of the dedicated folder. It’s nice to see Apple loosening these restrictions. I suspect it’s because it was hard to keep a firm lock on what was really considered news: Would apps from, say, Buzzfeed or Vice be considered news or content? The … Continue reading All the News That’ll Fit to an iPhone Screen
The Google Blog announced the other day that upcoming Android Wear watches will work with newer iPhones. I’d been curious whether or not Google (and its OEM partners) would go down this path. In general, iPhone owners enjoy the same Google apps that their Android counterparts use. However, given Google’s stabs into integrated hardware – Nexus … Continue reading Android Watch on iOS
Juan Pablo Vazques has an article in Harvard Business Review about how Apple Pay’s reliance upon credit cards is ultimately iterative, but not disruptive. He writes: Apple executives could have negotiated with retail banks, just as it did with the recording labels, to launch Apple Pay. If it had, Apple Pay would have been a … Continue reading Apple Pay’s Credit Card Reliance
In 2013, Facebook tried and failed to create its own phone. Now Facebook has come back with a more considered vengeance, and announced today at F8, its developer conference, the inception of Messenger Platform, which will play nice with third party apps, and ultimately, I believe, achieve some of the results Facebook sought back in 2013. Facebook seems … Continue reading Facebook Messenger: The Trojan Horse
Facebook recently announced the rollout of a payments service which will be embedded within its popular Messenger app, leveraging its already-vast user base. This move was obviously a long time in coming, and it follows on the heels of Google Wallet, Apple Pay, and, most similarly, Snapchat’s Snapcash feature. I am certain that, down the line, Facebook … Continue reading Facebook Messenger, Now with Payments
Silicon Spatula 