Thermoneuclear on Android

Jobs angry about Android, article.
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told his biographer. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

I have a feeling Jobs was the kind of person who many things (all things?) personally, very personally.
The kind of temperament which can be very hard on one's health, by the way.

Front-lit Kindle screen?

[Thanks to Len]

We might get an e-ink screen which is somehow lit not from the back, but from the sides. It's not really clear to me how this works, but it sound's interesting, if it makes the grey Kindle screen easier to see without having the glare that LCD screens have.

Spec Obsession Disorder

Spec Obsession Disorder: The Incurable Techie Malady, NYT article.

I had a similar rant recently, but of course David Pogue puts it across with much more eloquence, that's why he gets the big bucks.

One more screen comparison

I noticed that compared to the iPad 3, the screen on the iPad two has an odd, micro-grainy, shimmering effect on flat backgrounds, surely due to the pixels being (just) visible. The screen on the iPad three, when compared, is just flat and sharp and dead-calm, like a high-quality book print. (And I mean really high quality, much better than a cheap paperback.)
I think this visual "uneasiness" of the iPad 2 screen was one of the reasons I was so much looking forward to a big Retina display.

Well, it turned out that I can't capture it on camera. But at least here is one more close-up text comparison.
iPad 2:

iPad 3:

(Both clickable. The resolution difference really becomes clear then.)

Consumer Reports: Now We Love the iPad

Consumer Reports: Now We Love the iPad, article.
“The high-resolution screen of the new iPad establishes a new benchmark in excellence, providing the best rendering of detail and color accuracy we’ve ever seen on a tablet display,” 

I agree. And like Len Edgerly said to me, like others have said and I have thought myself: very quickly the Retina Display started to seem no so much like an "outstanding feature" but more like: this is simply the way a display should be. It just seems so natural that everything is pin sharp and nary a fuzzy letter or a pixel is to be seen anywhere.

Frankensteinian book-holder

I once referred to my otherwise beloved book- and iPad-holder as "Frankensteinian". And I have to admit that part of that is this:

I have *two* wraps like that on the flexible arm. Why? Because the design of it is so... mmm... not "bad", but... "shortsighed" or perhaps "unpolished"... that when you bend the arm two sharp edges come together in a corner, and if your finger happens to be there, it can be very painful indeed.
(The cords don't hold anything together, they are just for the iPad, and wrapped around so they don't flop around so much.)

So what I'm saying is, I'm looking forward to my Flote getting here. If it works as well as it looks, it'll be very nice.

I'm surprised it took two years for anybody to make something like this, a floor stand for tablets. It's such an obvious niche needing filling. I guess it's just because it is a difficult thing to make really right, less so than cases and bags, of which we seem to have nigh-unlimited options to choose from. I hope the Flote will be a hit. Sitting or half-lying on the most comfortable seat/bed in your home, reading or watching video on your tablet, with coffee in one hand and carrot-cake in the other, is heavenly.