Hasta La Gadget!

Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, has never been one to mince words. Today’s no different as demonstrated in an interview with the Dutch-language De Telegraaf newspaper in The Netherlands. The first revelation is an admission that Apple had collaborated with a well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time. Woz is quoted as saying that while Apple was content with the quality, it “wanted something that could amaze the world.” Obviously, the phone was shelved followed by Apple’s announcement of the iPhone in January 2007.

Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. Woz stressed that the iPhone, “Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading.” However, he then conceded that, “Android phones have more features,” and offer more choice for more people. Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS.

Steve closed the interview with a jab at Nokia calling it, “the brand from a previous generation” suggesting that the boys from Finland should introduce a new brand for a young consumer. Hmm, so we guess he’ll be in line for the launch of the MeeGo-based N9 then?

Update: We’ve contacted Steve (an Engadget commenter) for clarification. He says he was misquoted by De Telegraaf.

[Thanks, Nguyen T.]

Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As of just a few weeks ago, Java‘s legacy of write once, debug everywhere was looking in doubt. Apple‘s flavor of the Java 6 runtime was deprecated and all those .class and .jar files on Macs were looking like they’d swirl to a lingering death in the great coffee pot in the sky. That all changes today with an announcement from both Apple and Oracle that Cupertino developers will “contribute most of the key components” for OpenJDK Java SE 7 implementations on 32- and 64-bit flavors of OS X, with runtime virtual machines set to cover both Snow Leopard and the upcoming Lion release. Additionally, Apple will continue to make the SE 6 version of Java available, while Oracle will take over responsibility for ownership and distribution of version 7 and those to come. Makes sense — Apple might be pulling away from the enterprise and server markets, but there are lots of Java devs using Mac OS X out there, and it’s only natural for Oracle to pick up support for them.

Continue reading Apple contributing to OpenJDK project, ensures continued Java availability on OS X

Apple contributing to OpenJDK project, ensures continued Java availability on OS X originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 09:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iOS 4.2 coming Friday with iTunes and Mac OS X updates, sans AirPrint? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everyone at once: “freakin’ finally!” While PCs — even lowly netbooks — have been enjoying the spoils of SuperSpeed USB for months on end, those in the Mac realm… well, haven’t. We’ve even seen purported email replies from Steve Jobs noting that USB 3.0 simply isn’t mainstream enough to be included as standard gear on new Macs, but that’s not stopping LaCie from hurdling the hurdles that lie ahead. The company has just announced bona fide USB 3.0 support for OS X, but the unfortunate part is that new hardware is still required; not only will you need a gratis USB 3.0 driver, you’ll also need a LaCie USB 3.0 expansion card ($49.99 for PCIe; $59.99 for ExpressCard). In other words, LaCie’s USB 3.0 driver won’t magically make any ole USB 3.0 PCIe card play nice in your Mac Pro. But hey, there’s always hope, and frankly, hope’s all ya need.

Continue reading LaCie brings USB 3.0 to Mac: all you need is a driver and an expansion card

LaCie brings USB 3.0 to Mac: all you need is a driver and an expansion card originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Resolution independence, or the lack of it, is one of those nagging problems most users don’t even realize have a name. But the concept is simple: user-interface elements like icons, buttons and window borders on the same OS should be the same physical size no matter what screen you’re using.

From the 1980s until just a few years ago, the gold standard for computer screen resolution was 72 dots per inch (dpi). This wasn’t an accident.

“When the Mac first came out, one of its great WYSIWYG features was that a pixel on the screen was supposed to be equal in size to a printer’s point: 1/72″,” says Mac blogger Dr Drang. “Back then, onscreen rulers matched up quite well with physical rulers, and 12-point type on the screen looked to be the same size as 12-point type on the printed page. But those days are long gone.”

Manufacturers can fit an ever-larger number of pixels onto screens. This is generally a good thing, as it makes images sharper, clearer and more like physical objects. But it also makes anything defined by its pixel-count resolution smaller.

Operating systems, including Mac OS X, began to move away from 72dpi in the middle of this decade. “The old assumption that displays are 72dpi has been rendered obsolete by advances in display technology,” Apple said in 2006, in a developer overview of OS X 10.5 Leopard. “But it also means that interfaces that are pixel-based will shrink to the point of being unusable. The solution is to remove the 72dpi assumption that has been the norm.”

Leopard and then Snow Leopard were supposed to do away with pixel-defined resolutions, allowing developers to draw user interface elements using a scale factor. But while screen resolutions kept getting sharper, resolution independence never quite came.

That is, it never quite came for the desktop. For iOS, resolution independence is essential, mostly because the UI elements need to match our bodies. On the desktop, if icons get smaller, well, pointers and cursors get smaller too. Your fingertip is always the same size.

But even on the iPhone and iPad, resolution-independence is only partial. Yes, icons might register at the same size, but images within the application don’t. Developers who built a pixel-defined app for an older model iPhone find those apps not looking quite so sharp on the higher resolution of a retina-display iPhone 4 or blown up onto the larger screen of an iPad.

For Dr Drang, the absolute size of interface elements matters less than their variability. “On an 11-inch MacBook Air, a 72-pixel line—which would measure 1 inch long against an onscreen ruler—is just 0.53 physical inches long. On a 21.5-inch iMac, that same line is 0.70 inches long. User interface items, like buttons, menu items, and scroll bars are 30 percent bigger on the iMac than on the Air.”

Application developers are necessarily conflicted. Keeping UI tied to pixel counts saves them work rewriting their apps. On the other hand, they can’t count the physical uniformity of experience across every device. Desktop publishing and design pros also have to factor in differences in size from the screen to the page, or one screen to the next. Images and text all materialize differently.

“Microsoft has universal settings to change the size of UI elements,” Dr Drang adds. “Even X Windows allows you to set a screen dpi for fonts. Apple has nothing. With screen resolutions increasing at an accelerating pace, this has to be addressed soon.”

See Also:

• Apple Tablet Will Likely Support 2 Kinds of Apps
• Buy Big or Don’t Bother: Five Tiny Gadgets That Suck
• iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims Are False Marketing
• IPhone 4 ‘Retina Display’ Suffering from Discolored Blobs
• Better Than Retina: The Next Big Display Technology