“Inspired” by Apple

Daniel Wajda featured my iOS homescreen on his excellent tumblelog* Swipe the Linen, where you can ogle (for want of a better word) the homescreens of the Apple-techblog-erati (and that of mine). My learned outcome from this is that I appear to use an iPhone in a completely and utterly screwed-up way.

I’d quickly like to reaffirm my comment about Instapaper. This app has totally revolutionised the way I read online content. If you don’t use Instapaper, I can only assume that you don’t like reading, and that you are an idiot, and a crazy person.

So go, now - open an account, buy the iPhone/iPad app, then subscribe, and support Marco. He’s got a kid on the way and, frankly, you wouldn’t want this dog to starve would you?

(via Swipe the Linen. Daniel’s own website is Bicycle Mind and you can follow him on Twitter here and here)

*every time I type this, I have to double check the spelling.

A lack of inspiration of Samsung proportions leads there to be no new gadgets this evening. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about - I have an entire folder of ROFLy funny pictures - but more that my snarky muse seems to have abandoned me today. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow. I do hope you’ll come back*. Instead, I’ll link to two sites which you might like to visit.

I was flattered that “Inspired” by Apple was linked to by Kirby Ferguson on his Everything Is A Remix site. If you didn’t come here via that, and you haven’t already, you should check out the various parts of the “Everything Is A Remix” film which appear on the site. The standard response given to the “ZOMG! SAMSUNG TOTALLY STOLE THAT!” statement is that, naturally, Apple didn’t “invent” rounded corners, brushed metal or glass. Kirby shows, along with other examples from Hollywood and the record industry, that Apple took the basic elements of creativity - to copy, to transform and to combine - and created something new. As others have pointed out, Everything Is A Remix is an important modern documentary, so watch it now, so that you can say you did so before it was cool. 

You should also watch this mini-documentary from an 80s Australian TV show about sampling, back when nobody knew what the hell was going on and whether it was legal or not. A few points stand out - for example, the befuddled views of the major pop-stars of the time and the presence of Steve “Valerie/Call On Me” Winwood - but I particularly like the presenter’s closing statement, which neatly sums up the entire clip.

Goodness, writing properly is *hard*. I’ll stick with snarkiness in the future…

(sampling documentary via Gizmodo)

*If there’s one thing that I‘ve learnt from doing this site, it’s how Google Analytics works. Other than to show that the vast majority of daily views are returning visitors, for “Inspired” by Apple, the stats aren’t very interesting. For my other project, Trollem Ipsum, the results are more amusing - for example, the city where most of the site’s viewers have come from.

Engadget’s review of the HP Envy 15 is in:

But HP stumbles in several critical areas: the Envy 15 is heavier than other laptops in its class, and in exchange for toting that extra heft, you’re rewarded with middling battery life. The keyboard’s alright, but we did have to type in a deliberate way to ensure it recognized our every press. The display appears to have some color calibration problems. Most importantly, though, the laptop’s saddled with a finicky, stiff touchpad — a nuisance large enough to slow down your entire workflow. A shame, since this is an otherwise speedy machine. Because of these shortcomings, the Envy 15 doesn’t best the MacBook Pro, though it admirably undercuts its lofty $1,800 starting price. All told, the Envy 15 offers some compelling features for the money, but before you pull the trigger we’d suggest you also check out the Dell XPS 15z, which is lighter with a comfier keyboard / trackpad, as well as the long-lasting Samsung Series 7 Chronos. If you do go for the Envy 15, we hope you have a pretty stationary setup in mind: you’ll want an outlet close by and also, a mouse.

Sounds great!

(image from Engadget)