Apple Product Rumors

On September 12, Apple is staging another event to announce the release of the next version of the iPhone – and possibly an iPad mini. The rumors are flying about the big reveal, but the thing I’m most stoked about is the possibility of an iPad mini. According to Apple Insider such a device would come with a 7 inch screen and be considerably thinner than the 9 inch iPad. Plus, it would be less expensive!

A new iOS release always brings with it a ton of cool new features. The way Apple’s system works is to make the new iOS available on all iOS devices such as iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. So even if there are no new devices like the rumored iPad mini or the rumored new iPod Nano, there will be exciting changes to current iOS devices as they upgrade.

To get ready for the newest Apple gadgets, you can find advice about when to buy a new iPhone at TechCrunch. Geek Sugar provides advice on how to prep an old iPhone for sale.

iPad Mini, Please

There are so many tablet devices competing with the iPad – Kindle Fire, Nook, Surface, Nexus, and more. Like anything that isn’t Apple, all the competing devices are less expensive. I’m crossing my fingers in hopes that predictions like Mashable’s statement that, “a device around $300 would hit the sweet spot for customers,” are true. Even better, Apple Insider is talking about a price between $200 and $250.

There are mockups and concept designs (such as the one in the image above) and much discussion about how an iPad mini would look. Is it going to look like an iPad, only smaller, or like an iPod Touch, only bigger? Daring Fireball parses each detail of the potential design. I want smaller, lighter, and cheaper.

Have you tried holding a iPad up in front of your eyes at a distance comfortable for reading a book? Those suckers get heavy quickly – much like the way a 10 pound baby parked on your hip can start to feel like a ton after a few minutes. Even my iPhone, which I use to read books, starts to get tiring to hold up. I like the bigger format, but not the weight. An iPad mini would be just the right compromise. And a much more affordable price.

Other Rumors

Other rumors talk about a taller screen on the iPhone, and about the possible resolution of the new devices. The rumors about a new iPod Nano are simply that there may be one.

Which rumors are you hoping turn out to be reality? Is an iPad mini on your wish list, too?

Cross-posted at BlogHer.

Useful links: Gamification, Karen Sandler, Cyber Law, LEAKED

How Gamification Results in 21st Century Learning talks about the work of Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Geek Time with Karen Sandler is a video interview with  Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation

What is Cyber Liability and Why Should You Care? is a great overview of copyright. It would make a good reading assignment for those just venturing into the world of publishing on the Internet.

I’m going to post something tomorrow about the rumors about the next Apple product release. Concurrent with that, a friend of mine was talking to me about how her sons curate their boring, unemployed existence on Facebook and Twitter to make it appear that they are cool and awesome. Then, thanks to spydergrrl, I learn that there’s this video LEAKED: Official Apple iPhone 5 Promo Video. Serendipity strikes again.

 

Useful links: Accessibility, Incentives, Apple rumors

10 Great Ways to Make Your Content Portable and Accessible at .net magazine is terrific in many ways. It has videos showing you what it’s like to try to get content using Voice Over. It has tips for making your content work. Take it to heart.

LA Restaurant Gives Discount for Staying Off Your Phone. An example of the right incentive.

There may be an iPad mini. If there is, will it look like an iPad only smaller? Or will it look like an iPod Touch only bigger? These and other questions are parsed in detail at Daring Fireball. Apple is cool as much for how it looks as for how it works. What’s your design opinion?

What is the incentive to build an accessible web site?

Lately the news has been full of stories about why change doesn’t happen because the incentives are wrong. Yesterday I listened to a podcast of Fresh Air in which Times-Picayune reporter Cindy Chang talked about why Louisiana is the prison capital of the world. It seems sheriffs are paid for keeping the jails full. The wrong incentive.

A discussion on HuffPostLive yesterday between Jennifer Beals of the short film Lauren on YouTube about sexual abuse in the military, Nancy Parrish of Protect Our Defenders and Sandra Lee, an ex-military sexual assault survivor, dealt with incentives. What I heard in that discussion is that Army officers are penalized when sexual assaults are reported within their commands. Reporting an assault is handled as a mistake on the part of commanding officers and they are encouraged to dismiss or lessen the charge. The wrong incentive.

In public education, teachers are evaluated on how students perform on standardized tests. Therefore time is spent not on educating children but on preparing children to pass tests. The wrong incentive.

a rocky climb
photo credit: Blyzz via photo pin cc

Today I read an article called 5 Reasons Businesses Should Take Web Accessibility Seriously on WebAxe. If we are still trying to convince people that creating accessible web sites is a good idea then we have a problem of offering the wrong incentive to web designers and business owners.

There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of blog posts written a few years back trying to convince businesses that using web standards was good for the bottom line. Now we’re repeating that history with accessibility.

Government sites have an incentive to create accessible sites because of the Americans with Disabilities Act Section 508 laws. Some businesses may feel an incentive to try to comply because of well-publicized lawsuits brought by the American Federation for the Blind. Some designers may have been encouraged by contact with other designers to believe that accessibility is “the right thing to do.”

On the other hand, many people hanging out a shingle as a web designer and doing business in their particular sphere are self-taught and may not know about accessibility. Or, what about some big-name gurus like Evan Williams and Biz Stone starting a new site called Medium? Well, according to John Foliot, Medium Scores Low on accessiblity tests.

Really, what’s the incentive for most of the people building websites to learn and use accessibility principles and practices?

Can we figure out an incentive to help web designers realize the value of accessibility?

Useful links: normalize css, media queries, flexbox

All CSS today. Get your styles on.

normalize.css is a new, free to download, suggestion for a standardized set of CSS base line rules.

Resolution in media queries is meant to  help designers deal with styling for retina displays.

Chris details the changes to the Flexible Box Layout Module in Old Flexbox and New Flexbox.

What’s in YOUR Address Book?

I subscribe to a daily newsletter from Netted, where I frequently find great apps I love. Sometimes the newsletter mentions an app I’m not interested in, which is fine – I don’t have to love and use every app out there. This week an email was titled Call Me, Maybe and was about two new address book apps. The two address book apps definitely interested me. More precisely, what interested me was how others would feel about them.

Current Caller ID screenshots
Current Caller ID screenshots from Google Play

The two apps are Current Caller ID for Android and Brewster for iPhone and iPad. They both do approximately the same thing. They aggregate all the information on a contact in your address book to include data from sites such as Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare.

Netted explains Brewster,

Brewster corrals everyone you know from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, and your phone’s contact list and creates a universal entry for each person, including all contact methods and a photo.

Besides putting a face to a name, Brewster uses information culled from social networks to help you use your contacts in a whole new way. It can remind you to call Dad on his birthday, compile a list of people you’ve lost touch with, and even search by hometown or occupation.

Netted describes Current Caller ID,

Current Caller ID takes that same information — like the caller’s latest tweets or their location’s current weather — and flashes it on the screen when you receive a call. The app also creates infographics showing how you communicate with each contact and what’s the best method and time to reach them — or avoid them.

The two apps received good reviews from users, from the folks at Netted, and from the press.

Call me old-fashioned, but when I put someone in my address book I want to call them, text them or email them. For good friends and family I may have a photo connected to the contact. My address book contains a lot of business contacts – some of them are not even real names, but a blog name with an email address, and definitely no phone number or photo.

Okay, fine. If I don’t want all that extra information on everyone in my address book, I don’t have to download the app. Easy peasy.

Except what about the other people who are using the app and seeing all that information about YOU in their address book?

I’m wondering what your thoughts are about these two apps. Have you used them? Are you excited to give them a try? Do they seem invasive or do they seem harmless? Are they too much information or just what you want to know? What do you think?

[Note: Cross-posted at BlogHer in a somewhat different form.]

Useful links: Mobile first, Google search results, design problems

The Many Faces of Mobile First is thought provoking read. The photos used in this article are powerful as well.

An Update to Our Search Algorithms on the Google blog explains that search results will now take into account the number of valid copyright removal notices  for any given site. Google says, “Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results.”

Top responsive web design problems – and how to avoid them is in .net magazine by James Young.