Apple made a lot of visual changes in release 10.10 ("Yosemite") of Mac OS/X. One of the most obvious was to change the system font, as used throughout the desktop, from Lucida to Helvetica. A lot of people love Helvetica, so presumably they were happy. Others were less satisfied, leading to a little rush of… Continue reading How to change your friend’s OS/X Yosemite system font to Arial
Category: Things That Are A Bit Like Other Things
What are, or were, Nintendo good at?
Marco Arment: At the high end, there’s room for a small number of huge-budget blockbuster titles that usually involve realistic sports simulations or killing people, none of which Nintendo does well. They compete by pushing the boundaries of cutting-edge graphics hardware, which Nintendo doesn’t produce anymore, and licensing real-life sports teams, which Nintendo doesn’t do.… Continue reading What are, or were, Nintendo good at?
Windows Phone: a bit like BeOS
Today's possibly stretching-a-point Technology Analogy In a previous article I compared the situation of Windows 8 on the desktop to that of OS/2 in the late 80s. Windows Phone 8 is in a different position. While Windows 8 gets its awkwardness from the need to provide compatibility with the dominant platform—which in this case means… Continue reading Windows Phone: a bit like BeOS
Windows 8: A bit like OS/2
Today in Technology Analogy Week... In 1987, three years after the world's perception of the possibilities of the PC had been changed by the Apple Mac and two years after the Mac's cheap knockoff Microsoft Windows had been released, the world's leading PC manufacturer released a new operating system. OS/2 was the perfected pinnacle of… Continue reading Windows 8: A bit like OS/2
More on Apple TV and games consoles
Further to my previous post: I'm used to thinking of iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) as undermining the PC. From that perspective, my response as a developer is partly skewed by frustration at seeing relatively open platforms replaced by more closed ones. Thinking about an iOS device as an alternative to the games console—the classic successful… Continue reading More on Apple TV and games consoles
Was Windows popular?
Paul Robert Lloyd writes: "As more services require a Facebook account to use them, I wonder if it’s set to become the next Microsoft Windows; a popular piece of software that becomes the only choice available." I first read this as "an unpopular piece of software that becomes the only choice available." Plenty of people… Continue reading Was Windows popular?
The Breakfast Post 