What it’s like to share an article from one of these iPad magazines

mrgan:

Hey Dan, I was just reading an interesting piece in that new iPad magazine. I think you’d really dig it.

Isn’t it amazing how it’s 2011 and we can just share these things quickly? Remember when you first used email and you were like, whoa dude, did you just send a letter to a possibly hot possibly girl in Cambodia? And you mean to tell me that she is going to be able to read it before I’m done saying this senten holy crap she wrote back already! Remember that? So since it’s 2011 this is going to be so much more amazing, yeah?

Alright, let me find this bad boy. For some reason* I can’t search this app so let me simply swipe my way through every page of every issue until I see the article I mentioned. I appreciate your patience. Ok here it is. Hey also for some reason* I can’t directly email this or select it to send it to you, so let’s do this right. You ready?

(*The pages are just dead images. There is no text to search or copy lol.)

Ok, download Futurio from the App Store. Got it? Love the sound of FREE, yeah. Take that, 1999. Ok, now, scroll on over to issue #9, the one with the poorly compressed JPEG on the cover, oh wait, now it looks better. Ok, buy (sike!) that one. It’ll take a few minutes to download. No, we can’t play Words With Friends while we wait, are you nuts. Hell yeah the download would break and probably be impossible to continue later.

Got it? Oh sorry, yeah, I’m eating a chicken confit sandwich. I had time to make it while the thing downloaded. Anyway, the article, the article… Right, it’s on page number, uh, well, ok it’s a big red page towards the back. Got it? Ok, it’s down at the end. No, scroll down. More. More. More. Ok there it is.

I know! I also thought Amanda would love it. You should totally send it to her.

It’s only a little bit better with some magazines in Germany. Still:

(via Marco Arment)

The case for an IR remote for the Apple TV

In the tech publications I read and the podcasts I listen to, I’ve heard a lot of complaints about how the Apple remote is still IR-based, making line-of-sight a necessity for controlling the new — and old — Apple TV, and often bluetooth is named as the solution.

I don’t think so for the simple reason of reliability. A regular household is home to so many wireless devices, cluttering-up the wireless spectrum around the 2.4GHz mark, that even with bluetooth’s ’Frequency Hopping’ we’re faced with connection problems sometimes.

In episode 31 of Dan Benjamin’s ‘The Conversation‘, his guest Dave Nanian mentioned the “spousal approval factor”, talking about the long wait times and lack of responsiveness of the old Apple TV when loading content. He said that in moments like this, when you really just want to sit down, press play and have your favourite show start immediately, even the slightest delay becomes a nuisance.

Now imagine having to recouple the bluetooth remote, in order to be able to do anything with the Apple TV (or any other device for that matter).
I can picture any significant other sitting on the couch, folding his/her arms and frowning. 

I think Apple feels that inconveniencing customers with wireless-woes in this setting, is worse than forcing them to keep this inconspicuous little black box in the line of sight.