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Twitter wants to be your home for watching live shows
Twitter's livestreamed content has been mostly sports and politics over the last few years, with fans able to watch and tweet about the latest boxing match or presidential debate right on Twitter itself. The company is set to double down on the strategy with twelve new content deals for news, sports, and live entertainment. The deals were announced today at an event with CEO Jack Dorsey and a host of other Twitter executives who took the stage with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, various sports stars like NFL's A.J. Green and even Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald.
The Iconfactory's David Lanham on building homescreen-worthy icons
When you admire an app icon on your Mac or iOS device, chances are that it may have been designed by The Iconfactory's David Lanham. I had the unique experience of having him sketch me over FaceTime for a custom avatar portrait, and he's a talented and friendly artist. The Verge's Ellis Hamburger recently interviewed Lanham about his work, his training and the reason why eye-catching icons are so important. Lanham, who has created such classic and whimsical icons as Twitterific's "Ollie," Acorn's acorn, Coda's leaf and the gorgeous calendar for Fantastical, notes in the interview that "icons are the face and branding of an app, and they set the tone and give people an idea of what to expect for an app's purpose, quality and content. It's extremely important to really nail the message and content of the icon if you want the best chance of someone initially checking out your app as well as keeping it on their device (or at least out of a subfolder)." Personally, I was happy to hear that Space Doggy is one of Lanham's favorite drawings, since I've used that drawing (a small fragment of which is seen below) as my Mac desktop for two years. It's a great interview with one of the people who makes working with Apple products such a joy.
Interview with Paul Mayne, developer of Day One for iOS and Mac
For people who want to keep a journal of their everyday lives, Salt Lake City-based developer Paul Mayne's Day One app is a godsend. The app stores journal entries in the cloud, runs on iOS (US$4.99) and OS X ($9.99), and is highly regarded in the Apple universe. The Verge published an interview with Mayne today, accurately describing him as "one of the rare developers who can effortlessly create a powerful yet minimalist and refined user experience." In the interview, Mayne notes that the runaway success of the app may be primarily due to the minimalist design of the user interface. "It's capturing personal thoughts and ideas in a way people are already familiar with, without having to share these writings publicly. It's focused, it's designed in a way that's clean and not overwhelming, and it's easily accessible in a way that makes the idea and motivation of keeping a journal fun," says Mayne. Mayne points out, "People today are busier than ever and rarely take even a minute to stop and reflect on the day. Formalizing the direction in one's life is generally a trait of geniuses, and having a medium to do so is useful. Keeping these things private and expressing them without filters is liberating." The interview is a great read about the developer of an app that many of us here at TUAW use each and every day.
Samsung reportedly working on new anti-Apple TV ad
Samsung may have lost the first round of its US legal battle with Apple, but that loss is not holding the company back from attacking Apple with its marketing dollars. According to a report from The Verge, the Korean manufacturer is working on another advertisement that makes fun of Apple fans waiting in line for their next device. Previous commercials showed a Samsung Galaxy S II owner walking by Apple fans who are waiting for the next iPhone. The Samsung owner flashes his phone at the line-waiters, who are focused on blogs reports about the new iPhone. Once they realize it's a Samsung device, the iPhone owners shake their heads and proclaim they've been "Samsunged." The leaked information from The Verge claims Samsung's upcoming commercial will feature a fake Apple store, fake signage and fake employees. One thing that won't be faked is the response from Apple fans, who will likely too busy with their iPhone 5 to care. You can view photos and read more about the Samsung commercial at The Verge's website.
Side-by-side browsers on MacBook Pro with Retina display
The biggest selling feature of the next generation MacBook Pro is its Retina display. The notebook has an impressive 15.4-inch LED-backlit display with 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch. The specs look great on paper and according to a display-focused review by The Verge, the display looks amazing in person, too. This improvement is best seen in a side-by-side shot of Chrome on the non-Retina MacBook Pro and a Retina MacBook Pro. Text, which has blurry edges on the MacBook Pro, is crisp and defined on the Retina MacBook Pro. As noted, the Chrome team is already working on a Retina update; you can see the effect already if you want to run the Chrome Canary bleeding-edge nightly builds. You can check out the short review of the display and a full review of the Retina MacBook Pro on The Verge's website.
Tony Fadell: First iPhone almost had a clickwheel
Tony Fadell recently appeared on The Verge's On The Verge talk show/web series, and he shared a tidbit about early versions of the iPhone, which he worked on as Senior VP of the iPod division at Apple back in 2006. The Verge says that Apple "seriously considered" a hardware keyboard for the original iPhone, according to Fadell, but if you watch the clip itself, you can see that Fadell confirms Apple never made a keyboard for it. The issue was "definitely discussed," he says, but nothing was ever made into a prototype. Fadell also says there were three different "gestations" of the iPhone during development -- first an iPod plus phone, then an actual "i-Phone," and then "there was the next generation iPhone, and that's the one that shipped," he says. Fadell says they did work with the iPod's original clickwheel on iPhone hardware, which reminds me of those old fake mockups that designers put together before the iPhone was announced. At any rate, says Fadell, Apple was open to anything. "Sometimes you have to try things in order to throw it away," he says. Given Apple's history since the introduction of the iPhone, we'd say it was all worth it.
Windows 8 tablet versus the iPad, side by side comparison
Yesterday, Microsoft held a press event at Mobile World Congress which showcased Windows 8. It's Microsoft's next generation operating system that'll run on both desktop machines and tablets. If you want to see what Microsoft is using to compete with OS X and the iPad, then you should check out this new video from The Verge which pits the iPad against a Windows 8 tablet.
