Khoi Vinh's Blog, page 136
July 1, 2013
J-Cord Headphones
A few years ago I accidentally bought a pair of earbud-style headphones with what I later came to learn was a “J-cord” design — one side was longer than the other, so that you could wrap the longer side around the back of your neck and let the earbuds hang off your shoulders when they weren’t in your ears. They were a little awkward to manage at first, but when I eventually mastered them I also became a huge fan of the asymmetrical design. It’s incredibly convenient if you pop your earbuds in and out regularly.
Apparently, J-cords have fallen out of fashion now, as it’s become almost impossible to find a manufacturer that still makes them. Several weeks ago I asked Twitter for recommendations on finding new models, but got back almost nothing — there were plenty of suggestions for good earbud headphones, but almost all of them were the more traditional, symmetrical Y-cord style.
I did get one useful suggestion though: @joranovski recommended RHA’s MA450i earbuds, which sound excellent and are reasonably priced. They have a traditional Y-cord style design, but the cord is long enough that you can wrap it around the back of your neck before splitting the two cables, giving you much of the benefit of a J-cord. It’s not quite as elegant because I find myself sometimes losing track of which way I’ve wound the cord, and unwrapping it can be somewhat comical. The cording is also made of a braided fabric material which is quite pleasing to the touch, though it will pick up ambient sound on a blustery day, echoing a bit like a faint, howling wind. On a busy New York street, though, it’s hardly noticeable.
Anyway, there’s no big moral to this story other than J-cords are great. Someone should bring them back. In the meantime, though, the RHA MA450i’s are a decent substitute.
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June 28, 2013
Vesper and DB5
I’ve been remiss in not mentioning John Gruber, Brent Simmons and Dave Wiskus’s little gem of a notetaker, Vesper before now. It’s a smart, crystal clear piece of software that defines a very specific problem — quick, frictionless capture of ideas — and polishes the heck out of it. Maybe even more interesting is the way that the product was shaped: developer Brent Simmons created a CSS-like method of manipulating the display variables — color, spacing, fonts — that his colleagues could edit independent of the main code. This is the next step for native app development; abstracting the display layer so that designers can have direct access. Simmons calls his system “DB5” and you can read more about it here. You can also learn more about Vesper.
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June 27, 2013
Saying Goodbye to Google Reader
Barring a miraculous, last-minute reprieve from its corporate parents, Google Reader will shut down in just a few days. I’ve been trying out a few alternatives: Feedly, Feedbin and Digg Reader (in beta for the Web but just out today for iOS), among others. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but I’m struck by how much they all look like Google Reader — a list of feeds and folders occupying the left third of the screen and a stream of articles in the right two-thirds.
When Google Reader’s demise was announced, in my head I pictured a slew of new products vying to take its place by reinventing the very idea of an RSS reader. I was looking forward to seeing some radically new user interface approaches that would challenge my notions and habits around feeds. I haven’t seen that, at least not yet.
However, when I think more carefully about what I like and don’t like about these contenders, I realize that in truth I’m actually not looking for something different at all. What I want are the very same paradigms that Google Reader used, the same keyboard shortcuts, the same auxiliary features — basically the exact same interface. When one of these products omits something that Google Reader featured, or takes a slightly different approach, I think to myself, “Well that’s not right.”
Changing habits is hard, especially with something that’s as geared towards expert usage as RSS. It just goes to show how biased towards advanced users Google Reader was; acclimating yourself to its quirks took some time, but once you adopted Google Reader-specific habits, they become ingrained and you never wanted to give them up. Software for experts tends be like this, I find, and in many ways that is exactly the opposite of what a software company wants if they want to build a huge audience. I guess Google Reader never really had a chance.
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June 25, 2013
Tokens for Mac Feed Sponsorship
Tokens is a Mac app for managing App Store promo codes
Tokens gets promo codes from iTunes Connect, creates shareable URLs for each code and notifies you once they’re redeemed.
The first step to getting your app noticed is inviting bloggers to try it. Promo codes let you give away free copies of your app, but unfortunately they’re laborious to create, awkward to redeem and impossible to track.
With Tokens you create a code with one click and bloggers can redeem it just as easily. By naming the token you can tell who has tried your app and follow up with them. You can also reuse any unredeemed codes before they expire.
Tokens is available now at usetokens.com/syndicate. Subtraction readers get a special 20% discount until July using this link.
June 19, 2013
MightyDeals.com Feed Sponsorship
Ask anyone who’s ever tried to knock in a nail with a screwdriver: having the wrong tools is a major hindrance. Access to the right tools saves time, increases the quality of your work and adds to the pleasure of doing a job well.
The trouble for designers & developers is that there are so many tools out there, it’s hard to know what’s worthwhile, let alone being able to afford half of the resources we want.
That’s where MightyDeals.com comes in. We negotiate promotional deals with suppliers and often manage to agree up to 97% off regular pricing.
And what’s more, these aren’t just any tools, some of the best companies on the web promote their products through MightyDeals.com.
So if you’re looking for great deals, or just want to stay in touch with the latest fonts, applications, themes and resources, visit MightyDeals.com or sign up for our newsletter today.
New Google Maps Tour
The redesigned Google Maps comes with a handy virtual tour to acquaint users with what’s changed. That’s hardly revolutionary, but in a very nice bit of user experience engineering, the tour has some extra smarts built in. If, like me, upon first getting access to this new version you immediately start poking around and trying out various searches and only click on the tour option later, the tour’s messaging will cleverly acknowledge that state:
Messing about with a new product unguided is a completely natural first use case for just about any product, and my guess is almost everybody does this. So creating a corresponding behavior for this tour makes perfect sense. Instead of assuming that the tour will commence with the product in its virgin state, this opening message says “It looks like you’ve already started exploring the new Google Maps!” and guides the user from there.
This took a little bit of extra design and engineering, and the end result does not make or break the product. But to me, it’s significant in that it clearly signals how much thought and care the product team has invested into the app. That’s worth loads.
If you don’t already have access to the new version, you can request access at the preview site, or read Google’s announcement from last month.
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June 18, 2013
Michael Heilemann Takes Apart iOS 7
Heilemann, interface director at Squarespace, takes the new design to task in a few short, punchy and very incisive posts. The first one calls Apple on the fact that iOS 7’s lock screen is not just a usability faux pas, but a huge problem in that it is the gateway to the world’s most popular mobile computing experience. The second article cites an example of the OS’s poor attention to detail. And the third talks about the difficulty of understanding whether the OS is signalling a button or a state. Well worth reading.
Update: Wait, there’s a fourth article too. Also well worth reading.
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Payphone Graveyard
The photographer David Bledsoe found a graveyard of now obsolete pay phone stands underneath Manhattan’s West Side Hideway.
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June 17, 2013
Me Discussing iOS 7 on “On the Verge”
Last week I stopped by The Verge for an appearance on their weekly video podcast “On The Verge.” The topic was, of course, iOS 7, focusing on what was announced last Monday and what’s been made publicly available on Apple’s Web site. Watch the video here.
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NYT: Future of 3D Television Is Murky as ESPN Ends Its 3D Channel
Apparently if the jocks don’t like it, then what everyone else knew to be true is finally validated. I know 3D television and 3D movies are two different things, but I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of the end for this overrated technological excuse to inflate ticket prices at the box office. Full article here.
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