DesignAday

Apple does the right thing… eventually.

Saturday morning, I checked my email before heading to a rehearsal. When I returned home, around 11:00, I discovered that my network was down. I looked over at my Time Capsule to see that the light was off. The Time Capsule is Apple’s back-up device that works with Time Machine. It contains a hard drive (Mine is 1 TB.) and also acts as a wireless router. I have three Macs that back up to it hourly.

I tried unplugging the power cord and plugging it back in. I tried pressing the reset button. It would not power on. So, I used my iPhone to do a quick search, and I found some reports of first generation Time Capsules dying after about 18 months. I purchased mine in April of 2008, so that puts mine at about 19. Apparently the power supply, which is inside of the unit, can’t handle the heat produced by the device and goes bad. Of course, the warranty is only a year.

After I got my Verizon router configured to provide the network, I found these threads on the Apple discussion forums. It seems a lot of people have been having this issue, starting back in August. I ended up calling Apple Care, even though I don’t currently have an Apple Care policy on my machines. Once I explained that I was experiencing the same power supply issue that a lot of others have had, the representative took down by serial number and put me old hold while he looked it up. When he returned, he told me that Apple will be sending me a replacement unit free of charge.

This is a rather serious issue. People are using Time Capsules as their primary means of backup. They should be more dependable than this. That said, I only use it for backup, so I haven’t lost data. Some people simply use it as network attached storage.

It has taken Apple a few months to finally decide to do the right thing and replace units that are obviously suffering from a design flaw. Many customers who were victim to the issue early on have already hacked there units to install external power supplies, or to remove the drives so they could retrieve their data. They won’t be eligible for new units. Many people already replaced their Time Capsules.

Apple has decided to do the right thing, and I applaud them for that. Once again, they have won my loyalty and proven that they are a good and trustworthy company. I must question, however, if I would feel the same way had my unit gone belly up back in August.

A litl More

After my brief post last week about the litl, I was contacted by James Gardner, litl’s VP of marketing. He pointed me to a post on Pentagram’s site and to a video on YouTube. As I was hoping, they painted a picture of very thoughtful design and filled in a lot more detail. In fact, as it turns out, they had an all-star cast working on this thing. Lisa Strausfeld lead Pentagram’s team in the design of the GUI, and Pentagram was also responsible for the visual identity, designed by Abbott Miller. The logo, business cards, and packaging are all exquisite.

The UI has the polish one would expect from Apple. Animated transitions bring a natural flow to state changes. The dial that is used for serial navigation in “easel” mode is repeated on the remote. They designed several channels that deliver specific information from the internet, like the weather, as well as a number of “widgets” like a clock or a feed reader. Visual treatments clearly distinguish between widgets, channels, and standard webpages. Arrangement of these items is automated much like the rearranging of photographs in iPhoto. It hooks up to your hi-def television with an HDMI cable to play movies or show photos. And, if you have more than one in the house, they can be set up to share things with each other.

Also working on the project were Cooper, Fort Franklin, and Fuseproject, although I don’t know what their contributions were. Fuseproject was also behind the OLPC XO laptop, so I’m betting they worked on the industrial design.

The video is pretty awful—lot’s of “um-uh” and fumbling around, but the product shows off well. They should really put together a professional video demonstration of the UI. I think they have a lot to be proud of. This could be a very successful product, although I’m curious to see if they’ve hit a low-enough price point. At $699 or $1,398 for a two-pack, it seems a bit much for something without local storage.

Like Magic

I started using Apple’s new Magic Mouse today, and I absolutely love it. I find it very comfortable, a perfect weight, and with just enough resistance as it slides across my desktop. Of course, the best feature of it is the swipe to scroll. I really liked the scroll ball on my old Mighty Mouse, but this is a vast improvement. The scroll ball worked well, but just like the wheels, it could only scroll as far as your finger tip is long. This required you to move your index finger repeatedly to scroll down a page. With the swipe, you have the entire length of the mouse. On top of that, they have added momentum scrolling, like on the iPhone, so that a good swipe can send your page scrolling quite a distance. Also, the scroll ball would collect gunk over time and stop working. Then you would have to turn the mouse upside down and rub it rapidly back and forth on a piece of paper to clean it. That will not be a problem with the Magic Mouse’s touch surface.

Apple has received a lot of criticism over the years for its mouse designs. This one is a winner—likely the best mouse ever. Of course, I’ve been partial to Apple’s mice, so make of my review what you will.

A Litl Something

A new netbook-type product has been released: the Litl. I find this one more interesting than the underpowered laptops we have seen thus far, however. It takes what I consider to be an Apple approach. The creators must have asked the question, “If we were to design a laptop that was strictly for web use only, what would it be?”

The Litl looks like a small laptop—it folds open revealing a screen in the top and a keyboard and trackpad on the bottom. However, the lid rotates around to an angle at which the device can stand like an easel. The hinge acts as a handle.

The biggest change is that they realized a typical desktop OS was unnecessary. Much as Apple did with the iPhone, they created a custom UI designed specifically for web use. It is truly a case of browser as operating system.

The one flaw, to my mind, is that it doesn’t have a touch-screen. Instead, they opted for a dial on the hinge that allows you to flip through selections. I haven’t yet seen a demonstration of the UI in action, but this is begging for touch input.

Toner Moaner Part 2

So, I’ve been using my printer for a couple months since it started telling me to replace all three color toner cartridges. I wrote about that back in September. Last night, I was trying to print out two pages of black text, and the printer refused to print, displaying an error message stating that all three cartridges were “end of life”. A quick search turned up a number of discussion forums with the instructions on how to circumvent this premature money grab on the part of Brother.

There are little windows on the sides of the cartridges through which you can see the toner. Apparently, the printer has some kind of optical mechanism for testing the amount of toner left. Of course, once the toner gets below a certain level, it no longer detects it, even though there is still some in there. According to the instructions, placing electrical tape over these windows causes the printer to think there is still toner in the cartridge. That doesn’t make much sense to me, as the chances of all three cartridges reporting empty at exactly the same time are highly unlikely.

I didn’t test that procedure, as there were also instructions on how to access a special menu via the console that lets you reset the life of each toner cartridge. This worked just fine, and I was finally able to print my pages. We’ll see how much farther I get before printed pages actually start showing signs of low toner.

In the Details: Lefty

I was working on my new MacBook Pro today and connected my mouse—there’s no way I’m using a trackpad to do real work. All of the ports on this model are on the left side (as you face it). I’m right-handed, so my mouse cord had to wrap all the way around the back of the laptop. The cords on Apple’s mice are designed to be the perfect length to plug into a port on the back of the keyboard and no longer. It made it around, but I was constantly pulling on it, like a dog on a short leash.

So, is the USB port placement sub-optimal, the mouse cord length stingy, or should I take the blame for using a corded mouse when the best solution is obviously to buy a wireless mouse and throw money away on batteries?

Lap Happy

For 18 years, I’ve been using Mac desktop computers. I started on an LCII, then got a PowerMac 6100/60. After that was an 8500, followed by a G4, a G5, and finally the Mac Pro I’m writing this on. The Macs I’ve used at work have followed a similar path, although there was a Cube in there. My G5 at work was getting long in the tooth, and it finally came my turn to upgrade. This time, I opted for a MacBook Pro.

There are a number of good reasons behind this decision, and they can mostly be covered by explaining why I have never been interested in a laptop before. Power was a significant factor in the past. Processor speed, memory, and drive space were all concerns that are no longer an issue. The biggest reason has been screen real estate. I’ve been using two displays at home since I put a second video card in the 8500. I started using two displays at work about 7 years ago. I just can’t get along with a single display (although Spaces helps). Of course, the Mac laptops drive a second display now. In fact, the 15.4” widescreen display on my new MacBook is higher resolution than the cheap, 17” Dell LCDs I have at my office. Finally, I’ve been attending more meetings than I used to, and it’s inconvenient to have to take everything I think I’ll need on a thumb drive and then ask to use somebody else’s PC laptop to show my slides. It’s even a little embarrassing at times to be the only one at the conference table that pulls out a legal pad to take notes. I’ve had customers rib me about it on multiple occasions.

So now I have a laptop, and I’m realizing all of the accessories I need to get for it. I just ordered a bag, a mini-display port to VGA adapter, and the Keynote iPhone app. Let me know what else I need.

Here’s to going mobile!

Courier

Perhaps I’m just jaded, but I can’t get excited over the two videos Gizmodo has put up demonstrating Microsoft’s Courier concept. First of all, Gizmodo is treating it as if it is a unique, unforeseen vision for a tablet computer. What exactly makes it so innovative? Is it the folding, two-page form factor? I don’t think so. Last year saw Negroponte’s announcement of the second-generation OLPC XO: the XO-2.

And there was the Canovo that made the rounds in 2007.

Then, of course, we’ve seen the dual screen eReaders by ASUS (2009) and iRiver (2007).

Well, then, is it the stylus? Surely not—we’ve had tablets and PDAs for years that have those. The iPhone was revolutionary for doing away with the stylus. Okay, could it be the multi-touch? Obviously not, as we’ve seen that in the iPhone, Surface, and any number of other demonstrations. And the combination of the two is already available in tablets such as Panasonic’s Toughbooks.

I’ve ruled out the form factor and input methods, so it isn’t the device itself or the technology behind it. Is the user interface especially innovative? There are some interesting ideas in it. Using the spine as a place to tuck things that you want to move from one page to another is a clever implementation of cut and paste, but beyond that, I don’t see any interaction patterns that I haven’t seen before. Quite frankly, I don’t find the scenarios to be very compelling. The UI has that “visionary concept” quality to it that suggests it hasn’t been fleshed out much beyond the script. The handwriting recognition is flawless, the screens show only the controls that provide access to the features showcased, and complex actions, such as selecting and copying a graphic and two columns of a 3-column table, are accomplished with a single touch of a finger.

Yes, it’s an interesting concept, and yes, there is value in creating such visionary explorations. However, I’ve seen far too many of these that don’t result in anything other than inspiration (not to say there is anything wrong with that), and Microsoft in particular has a horrible track record of delivering innovative products. Please pardon me for some uncharacteristic pessimism. I’m not going to take a deep breath, let alone hold it.

Tales from the Field: Postponement

Oil drilling platform technicians relate a tale common to maintenance in most industries. Rather than making a trip to the control room to grab a job card and document the work they just completed, they’ll continue to the next task, making a mental note to fill one out at the end of their shift. They’ll usually remember to do so, but even when it’s not completely forgotten, how accurate is the report hours later? Given a mobile computer, a technician can fill out a digital job card on the spot while the work is fresh in his mind and the equipment is present for reference. Much of the information may have already been populated from data entered during the maintenance procedure. As a result, important information is recorded in a timely manner with more detail and less errors.

Toner Moaner

I’ve only been the owner of a laser printer for less than a year, and while I’ve used plenty of them at work, and at school before that, I’ve never been responsible for the consumables. I was surprised when all of the color cartridges in my Brother color laser reported that they were low at exactly the same time. This seemed highly unlikely to me, and I haven’t printed all that much in color anyway. I headed to Amazon to see about ordering new cartridges and noticed that every review pointed out that the toner “level” is completely based on the number of pages printed, regardless of the actual amount of toner left in the cartridge. Everyone suggested rotating a dial on the side of each cartridge backwards to reset the print count.

This is an extremely non-useful feature. Perhaps this is the way all laser printers work, but that would surprise me. I expect the color cartridges to last well over a year, considering my low print volume.

Brother, do you want a satisfied customer? Don’t tell me to order hundreds of dollars worth of product when I don’t need it.