Category: Miscellaneous

Sonderklasse

Let’s talk about cars for a second.

If you’re driving a car manufactured in the past five years, it’s likely it has anti-lock brakes. A standard feature at this point in time, but who came up with it first?

Mercedes-Benz first introduced it on the S-Class line back in 1978. It was a revolutionary technology and the first hint of how digital electronics would change the course of the automotive industry.

The S-Class pioneered many other safety innovations: crash crumple zones, air bags and traction control are a few of the most notable. This line has also become synonymous with comfort and luxury: it was the first Mercedes to be available with an automatic transmission. There’s even an armored version with a customized crocodile, gold and birch interior!

It’s clear this car is in a class by itself: “Sonderklasse”

“S-Class” is an anglicisation of “”S-Klasse,” a German abbreviation of “Sonderklasse,” which means “special class” (in the sense of “a class of its own”). In automotive terms thus refers to “a specially outfitted car”.

The current S600 model sports a 5.5L twin turbo V12 motor with a 7-speed automatic transmission. Enough power to propel a 4,950 lb vehicle from 0 to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds. And that’s before AMG gets their hands on it. Impressive automotive technology, to be sure.

More importantly, these special cars have been recognized as a driving force behind the company’s success.

And now…

Another premium technology brand has an S-Class product: iPhone 5s.

“Craftsmanship”, “Power”, “Safety & Security”, “Ahead of its time”. Are we talking about a car or a phone?

Look at the words that dominate the iPhone 5s features page: Forward thinking. That’s a strategy that’s worked superbly at Mercedes-Benz for almost 60 years. I suspect Apple will get a pretty good run out of it, too.

Written on September 11th, 2013 for Miscellaneous, Observation

It’s the Production Line, Stupid

“Apple Absolutely Has To Make An iPhone With A Bigger Screen”

(Warning: Business Insider link)

While that may be true, take a look at what happened at the end of last year: 47.8 Million iPhones Sold.

That’s a shitload of iPhones. But how many is a shitload?

47.8M iPhones
/ 90 days = 530K per day
/ 24 hours = 22K per hour
/ 60 minutes = 369 per hour
/ 60 seconds = 6 per second

That means that every second of every day you need six cases, six headphone jacks, six LCD screens, six batteries, six CPUs, six 10µf capacitors, six 10kΩ surface mount resistors, and thousands of other components.

Look at where all the leaks about new products come from: it’s always the supply chain that produces all these components. This should give you an idea of how many partners are involved.

Basically, Apple creates a pipeline that produces devices at an amazing rate. And it’s a finely tuned machine with a lot of inertia. You don’t just walk in and say, “Hey, let’s change the screen!” Doing so would throw that machine out of balance: a new screen means that some of the components (like the headphone jack) don’t change, while others would (the case, for example.)

A finely tuned production machine takes a lot of time and money to set up. Take a look at Apple’s capital expenditures. A mere $10B in 2012.

These capital expenditures show that Apple is planning ahead. At least 2-3 years, maybe more. You don’t just walk into Foxconn and ask for 50M iPhones. You need to predict the future.

Sure, it would be great to have a larger screen iPhone from what is known about current market conditions. But was a larger screen a sure thing 2-3 years ago? While you were falling in love with the new Retina display on your iPhone 4, I bet you weren’t thinking “Man, this display has got to be bigger!”

The cost to setup that production line is also a part of the final cost of the device. More frequent changes to the production line means that each device costs more or earns less profit for Apple.

As Apple continues to sell ever more devices, I see two things that could happen:

  1. A broader range of products (meaning more, smaller production lines to spread the demand)
  2. Increase the size of the production lines along with amount of time they stay online (meaning new devices are introduced every three years instead of two)

Given the highly competitive nature of the mobile space, I suspect we’ll see the first option come into play in the coming years. In the meantime, screens tick, while speed tocks:

Written on August 15th, 2013 for Business, Miscellaneous, Opinion

Launch Services Woes

For the past week or so, I’ve been suffering from slowness in the Finder, corrupted icons and terrible performance in our version control client (Versions).

Today, I decided to do something about it. The first step was to sample Versions while it was beachballing. The app was spending most of its time in [NSWorkspace iconForFile:]. That, along with the corrupted icons I was seeing in various apps made me suspect that there was a corrupted database somewhere. But where?

After a lot of Googling, I finally found this link. The path to lsregister has changed a bit in Mountain Lion, so this is the command I ended up using:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -r

My development machine immediately felt like it was running at normal speed (I refuse to say snappy until they update the Mac Pros.) And, of course, as soon as I figured that out, I found that someone smarter had beaten me to it.

So how did this happen? In looking at the documentation for the Launch Services database, there is a lot of information that’s collected when applications are first launched. As developers, we launch applications all fricken’ day. And we also know that pounding on a database is the best way to break it.

So, the next time you’re seeing general slowness on your Mac, don’t forget to give Launch Services a kick in the pants. Guaranteed to be more effective than zapping your PRAM.

Written on April 22nd, 2013 for Development, Miscellaneous

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Written on September 25th, 2012 for Miscellaneous

Homebase

A lot of people I know and respect have been commenting on problems associated with the iPhone mute switch:

John Gruber – On the Behavior of the iPhone Mute Switch
Andy Ihnatko – Unmuting on The Mute Question
Marco Arment – Designing “Mute”
Guy English – Mute This

Both sides of the argument have valid points-of-view. This really is a situation with no right answer given the current mechanisms.

That got me thinking that there might be something missing that’s causing this ambiguity. I’ve come to the realization that this is a problem bigger than just alarms going off at inopportune moments. What we really want is for the devices in our pocket to behave differently depending on where they’re physically located.

Let’s imagine a new feature in iOS called “Homebase”. A user would be presented with a simple UI that lets them select a location that’s a “safe” environment. After the setup is complete, your Homebase would be recognized by GPS coordinates and/or available Wi-Fi networks. The important thing here is that the user gets to define where they feel safe with their device.

With that information developers can make smarter decisions:

  • Alarms that go off while the mute switch is on make noise at Homebase and just vibrate elsewhere. There’s no need to worry about alarms going off in public places (such as concert halls) and you won’t oversleep when you go to bed with a mute switch on.
  • The lock screen doesn’t need to display a Passcode lock at Homebase. People who use the Remote app with their Apple TV will no longer be annoyed by an unnecessary security precaution, nor will folks forget to turn their Passcode lock back on when they leave for the local bar (where they’re certain to get a Poopin’ tweet.)
  • Apps, like Find My Friends, could use cached Apple ID credentials at Homebase and avoid asking the user for them over and over and over and over again.

Of course, this feature is needed most by people who don’t even know the Settings app exists. It’s my opinion that if developers are careful with this additional knowledge about the user and device, default behavior can be adjusted appropriately without additional confusion. It’s analogous to the Energy Saver on the Mac: people don’t question why the screen dims when the power cord is removed because it just “makes sense”.

The examples above use Apple’s own apps, but the Homebase status would be useful for third-party developers, too.

If you’d like to see something like Homebase in iOS, please be sure to file a duplicate Radar.

Written on January 16th, 2012 for Development, Miscellaneous, Observation
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