Doug Hamlin's Brain

When Twitter cared

doug — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 14:34:12 +0000

Me, three years ago yesterday, naively:

Twitter buying @atebits and @tweetie becoming official iPhone client http://bit.ly/aQxLs4 Great news

— Licorissse Nesbit (@doughamlin) April 10, 2010

I trust @twitter will be hiring a few new Cocoa Touch programmers to assist @atebits in developing a kickass @tweetie app for iPad.

— Licorissse Nesbit (@doughamlin) April 10, 2010

Turns out it wasn’t great news. Tweetie was considered by many to be the first great iPhone app and its creator Loren Brichter gets due credit for inventing the now ubiquitous pull-to-refresh gesture. Instead of cultivating that greatness, Twitter bastardized its own iOS app into something that serves advertisers — not users — and has all but killed the market for third-party clients. I use Tweetbot across Mac, iPhone and iPad, but I am just waiting for the day when it stops working.

(Now would be a good time to again encourage everyone to join App.net, which actually cares about its users and developers.)

iOS notification center

doug — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:17:10 +0000

Is there any order whatsoever to how apps are listed in the settings for notifications on iOS? Because I have certainly never spotted the pattern.

My home screen, always changing

doug — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 05:25:19 +0000

I am always interested by what people find worthy enough to put on their home screens. I have posted mine here and elsewhere in the past.

My iPad home screen was feeling a bit stale, so I just gave it a shake up. Mine is a mix of which apps I think I use the most and which ones I should use more.

I wish iOS provided a way to see which apps I actually use the most. It might vary quite a bit from this.

Fun with Android adoption numbers

doug — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:53:03 +0000

Google was out touting Android version adoption yesterday, saying more than 50 percent of Android devices now run one of the two latest versions of the operating system. That’s a far cry from where they were in January, and the difference seems to come entirely from new adoption of Jellybean, with ICS holding steady at 29 percent and Gingerbread still making up a significant portion of the install base.

Of course Google had to change their methodology to get Jellybean adoption to that point:

The new device dashboards are based on the devices of users who visit the Google Play Store (rather than devices that have checked-in to Google servers). As a result, the dashboards more accurately reflect the users most engaged in the Android and Google Play ecosystem—and thus most likely to download and use your apps.

It actually makes sense from a developer’s perspective to only show the part of the pie that might actually download your apps, but I wonder how far these number vary from the full pie and how much smaller the engaged pie is. If there is a significant difference in the size of the pies, that would seem to support the theory that many Android phones are not used as “smart” phones.

Why doesn’t Google open that kimono? Open is always better than closed, right?

Why Tablets Are Just a Fad

doug — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:28:46 +0000

Some claim chowder (to borrow a phrase) from PC World two years ago predicting a short life span for tablets. Weird that a publication called PC World would be bearish on tablets.

Actually, tablet sales are soaring, says every analyst.

(Found via Timehop.)

The internet’ll still exist

doug — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:30:56 +0000

What doofus approved this copy?

(Seen at 11th and Harmon Place in Minneapolis.)

Flipboard magazines

doug — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:15:38 +0000

Flipboard just launched a new version that lets anyone edit their own magazine. It’s a cool idea, but in my first few minutes with it, I can’t tell how it is anything more than a link blog.

Here is my first attempt at a Flipboard magazine: http://flip.it/ZHdxM

The Supreme Court on gay marriage, as imagined by the Onion

doug — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:32:51 +0000

It is a big day at the Supreme Court and there is plenty of serious analysis being written about a potential decision that would affect countless couples, but thankfully The Onion has this take on today’s Prop. 8 hearing that is surely happening in some emotionally honest, less-backward parallel universe:

“Yeah, of course gay men and women can get married. Who gives a shit?” said Chief Justice John Roberts, who interrupted attorney Charles Cooper’s opening statement defending Proposition 8, which rescinded same-sex couples’ right to marry in California. “Why are we even seriously discussing this?”

“Does anyone else up here care about this?” Roberts added as his eight colleagues began shaking their heads and saying, “No,” “Nah,” and “I also don’t care about this.” “Great. Same-sex marriage is legal in the United States of America. Do we have anything of actual import on the docket, or are we done for the day?”

Google Reader shutting down

doug — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 03:24:58 +0000

I’ve been reading and retweeting comments both smart and sassy about Google’s announcement that they will shut down Reader on July 1, but this one got my goat because its Dave Winer being a goddamned asshole, i.e. himself:

Next time, please pay a fair price for the services you depend on.

Would have loved to, Dave, but Google never made that an option.

Stupid lightboxes

doug — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:58:47 +0000

“Hey, Larry, how about we put this ugly, unreadable infographic in a lightbox that will make it slightly smaller and less readable when users click on it?” —someone at Comscore