Author Archives: Trapped Speed

iOS 7 Icon Suggestion: Siri and Voice Memos

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The icon changes to iOS 7 have not been without some controversy. Having lived with iOS for several months now (after upgrading to the iPhone 5S), there is a sense of acceptance and familiarity with the new look of iOS. For better or for worse, the icons just live amongst each other without much thought from the user. Two icons in particular feel out of place  though; reversed even. The icons for Voice Memos and Siri feel like they would be more effective if switched.

The new icon for Voice Memos in iOS 7 features a linear graph of sound, while Siri went with a microphone. It seems that this is the wrong use of two great icons. Voice Memos doesn’t just look at your voice, it records the audio. Like a microphone does. And Siri: it doesn’t record your voice for playback later, it listens your voice, like an analyzer. Siri even betrays this mix up, as it uses both the microphone icon and an animated wave of the sound when listening to your voice.

Hopefully someone at Apple with the power to act will feel the same way, and swap these two icons to their logical places.

Turning The Ship Around

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Good news recently in the efforts to gradually improve consumers’ energy efficiency:

Ever since the recession, Americans have been driving less, getting fewer licenses, and using less gas. … All of these changes have something intriguing in common: They started well before the financial crisis and recession. The number of cars per household peaked in 2005. Miles-per-driver peaked in 2004, as so did gas use. (The Atlantic)

The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher. (Associated Press)

The annual cost to charge an iPad is just $1.36, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit research and development group funded by electric utilities. By comparison, a 60-watt compact fluorescent bulb costs $1.61, a desktop PC adds up to $28.21 and a refrigerator runs you $65.72 in the U.S. (Huffington Post)

While we are unlikely to remove the need for centralized power plants, it seems like reducing energy consumption even further is possible. By responsibly designing products and implementing a distributed network of renewable energy production, it could be possible to reduce our energy consumption even more.

Reinventing the Square

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Kyle Vanhemert, Wired.com:

“Jesse Dorogusker is used to working tiny. Before becoming Square’s VP of Hardware, he spent eight years leading the accessories division at Apple, heading the development of the works-both-ways Lightning connector. With the new Reader, he had the chance to take a crack at a flagship product.”

An interesting story on the design and development of the new Square credit card reader. It’s clear Jesse brought many Apple philosophies with him to Square; the refinement and iteration of a simple product, attention to details, end-user consideration, doing what is best over what is easy, and finally developing custom solutions.

The NSA’s Betrayal Explained

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Charles Seife, Pando Daily:

“The implications are clear. The NSA has abandoned half of its mission; it no longer feels obliged to help Americans keep their communications secure from outside attackers. Just the opposite. The NSA now feels that to fulfil its intelligence-gathering function, it must undermine the cryptographic security of American citizens and corporations. The NSA of the 1970s was trying to protect our digital infrastructure against exactly the kinds of attacks that the NSA of the 2000s is successfully carrying out again and again.”

This article helps put into perspective the magnitude of what has been revealed by the Snowden leaks.

A Tale Of Two Narratives

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“For a large, established company, having to use an executive recruiter to find its next CEO carries a profoundly bad aroma. It means that the directors failed at one of their most important duties: succession planning. Behind this first failure, a second one lurks: The Board probably gave the previous CEO free rein to promote and fire subordinates in a way that prevented successors from emerging.”

Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note 

or

I spoke with Todd Brix, Microsoft’s General Manager, Windows Apps and Store, and he … [said] “Right now, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone in terms of our prospects.”

… But of course it’s not just the mobile story that Microsoft is counting on to regain the lead. Interestingly, it’s the integration story with its other successful lines of business which will help lift its mobile line to surpass Apple’s within four years.

Mark Fidelman, Forbes

So either the Titanic Microsoft is slipping under the water, having already struck the iceberg, or it’s poised for exponential growth in a carefully planned comeback.

 

 

iOS Suggestion: Bright Idea

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This would be a nifty trick for iOS: adjust the screen brightness based on input from the ambient light sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope.

By using the sensors to detect a finger tapping on the ALS the screen brightness could adjust in graduated steps. This would allow for a shortcut style gesture to quickly control the screen brightness.