iOS 5.0.2 Coming Soon

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 04:04:37 PM. © Daring Fireball

John Brownlee, Cult of Mac:

According to German Apple blog Macerkopf, an Apple engineer hardat work in the iOS division tells them that Apple has finallylicked the battery problems, and will release the fix no laterthan the end of next week, bringing all iPhone 4Ses up to astandard 40 hours of standby and 10 hours of use.

Anecdotally, it seems like 5.0.1 was two steps forward, one step back, battery-wise. I’m sure 5.0.1 fixed some of the egregious battery-is-draining-really-fast bugs people saw in 5.0.0, but it seems like battery life under regular conditions — with no glaring bugs — has gotten worse. It’s not dramatic, but I’m getting noticeably worse battery life with 5.0.1, as is my wife, and as is Dan Benjamin.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.cultofmac.com/130213/ios-5-0-2-is-coming-next-week-to-solve-your-iphon
e-4s-battery-problems-while-ios-5-1-will-make-siri-even-smarter-rumor/

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Windows Forever

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 04:04:37 PM. © Daring Fireball

Matt Rosoff, reporting for Business Insider from Microsoft’s shareholder meeting:

The questioner asked what Microsoft thought about the contentionthat we’re in the “post PC era.” Ballmer started off in his usualenthusiastic fashion: “We are in the Windows era — we were, weare, and we always will be.”

Is he telling us that, or telling himself?

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Read The Full Article:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-15/tech/30400512_1_steve-ballmer-app-
makers-post-pc-era

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EU Bans Airport X-Ray Scanners Over Health
Concerns

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 04:04:37 PM. © Daring Fireball

Julia Whitty, reporting for Mother Jones:

Citing health concerns, the European Union banned from Europeanairports this week the same kind of X-ray scanners used by TSA inairports across the US. Here’s the EU’s wording:

In order not to risk jeopardising citizens’ health and safety,only security scanners which do not use X-ray technology are addedto the list of authorised methods for passenger screening at EUairports.

Must be nice.

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Read The Full Article:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/11/eu-bans-airport-x-ray-scanners-over-he
alth-concerns

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Walt Mossberg Reviews the Kindle Fire

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 04:04:36 PM. © Daring Fireball

Walt Mossberg:

To be clear, the Kindle Fire is much less capable and versatilethan the entry-level $499 iPad 2. It has a fraction of the apps, asmaller screen, much weaker battery life, a slower Web browser,half the internal storage and no cameras or microphone. It alsohas a rigid and somewhat frustrating user interface far less fluidthan Apple’s.

But other than that, how’d you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

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Read The Full Article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190504577040110511886588.html

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TPM OS Usage Share

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 03:04:49 PM. © Daring Fireball

Josh Marshall:

Only 56.81% of visits to TPM (November 2011) come from devices orcomputers using the Windows operating system.
For points of reference that number was 75% in Nov. 2007. Andit?s fallen steadily each year since. By most standards that?sa pretty precipitous drop.

Not indicative of the web as a whole, of course, but a trend nonetheless.

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Read The Full Article:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/11/the_changing_web_geeks_only.php?ref
=fpblg

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HP Envy 15 and 17 Press Photos

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 03:04:49 PM. © Daring Fireball

They got the name right.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.theverge.com/2011/11/16/2564285/hp-envy-15-and-17-press-photos#2577493

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Georgia Pro and Verdana Pro

post from Daring Fireball on 16 November 2011 03:04:49 PM. © Daring Fireball

May sound funny coming from a typography-obsessive whose website has used Verdana as the text face for its entire nine-year existence, but I just don’t care much for Verdana for anything other than use on relatively low-resolution displays at small sizes. (E.g. Verdana’s uppercase I and J. Ugh.) Interesting expansion of the two families, though.

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Read The Full Article:
http://georgiaverdana.com/

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NoodleWorks Interactive Launches Noodle Words - A
Kids's iPad Word Toy

Award-winning children's software designer, Mark Schlichting, has once again created a wonderful and interactive product for children. Noodle Words, an animated learning app for iPad, is now available on the App Store. Noodle Words is a word toy for kids ages 4-6, an innovative new concept for introducing words and their meanings through engaging interaction. Noodle Words includes 18 action words that convey their meanings through lively movement and sound.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-33998.htm

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New App Helps Christmas Shoppers Make a List and
Checks for Best Prices

This Christmas savvy consumers will be going shopping with a new secret weapon - a new iPhone app called MyList. MyList leaps ahead of its competitors because it offers users with 3G or later phones the ability to scan a product's bar code and seamlessly transfer the data to its powerful database where the information can be sorted and compared using several factors like price. MyList also allows you to take a photograph of the item being shopped for, which is especially helpful.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-33997.htm

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Tumblr on Internet Censorship Legislation

Tumblr:

Congress is considering two well-intentioned but deeply flawedbills, the PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act(SOPA).
As written, they would betray more than a decade of US policy andadvocacy of Internet freedom by establishing a censorship systemusing the same domain blacklisting technologies pioneered by Chinaand Iran.

That really is an accurate assessment of this legislation. Hats off to Tumblr for bringing so much attention to this — they’ve changed their dashboard interface to direct all Tumblr users to this page.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.tumblr.com/protect-the-net/

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