Disqus - Latest Comments for richarddas

Re: Provision iOS IPA App for In-House Enterprise Distribution

richarddas — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 07:43:29 -0000

Just wanted to say THANK YOU for writing this up. You just saved my bacon! 🍻

Re: Components: taking a step back from Dependency Management

richarddas — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 09:40:51 -0000

How is this better than cocoapods?

Re: “Apple Maps Is Not Intended To Be A General Business Directory”

richarddas — Wed, 25 Feb 2015 16:39:01 -0000

Just a note on this: I'm in the UK with a private limited company that I do my consulting through. My home address is the registered business address, but I do not see clients at home (nor would I want to!)

Whatever database Apple Maps ingested to populate their data, they've managed to get my company name and address.

End result: if I search for my company name in Apple Maps, it shows my home. This is undesired behaviour, because while I am happy to promote my business through a search engine, I do not really want people ringing my doorbell at home.

I've reached out to Apple Maps with my issue, but have not heard a reply yet.

An odd detail: the url they have associated with my business completely wrong (the url of a company based miles away), as is a slight misspelling of the company name.

Re: Mobile platforms and technical debt

richarddas — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 06:03:03 -0000

Regarding technical debt, there is none bigger than the gaping hole in privacy and security baked into most modern software. This threatens the fundamental building blocks of what we take for granted, and eventually will have to be addressed.

Re: Nokia N1 vs Apple iPad mini 3: What's the difference?

richarddas — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:55:41 -0000

While Lollipop does introduce some battery saving features, previous versions of Android were significantly less power efficient than iOS. So saying it's an improvement does not equate to "better battery life than iOS", it just means it's less terrible than previous versions of Android.

Re: Nokia N1 vs Apple iPad mini 3: What's the difference?

richarddas — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 08:53:26 -0000

In case anyone was still wondering if Nokia was relevant, I guess they've answered that question and thrown in an "And we have no integrity either!" for free. So not only are they making crappy products, but it's a company who also believes that copying or theft is ok… not exactly the sort of people you want to be giving your money to.

Re: This is who should have played Apple’s iPhone 6 event

richarddas — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 06:07:37 -0000

Foo Fighters played Sept 2012 Apple Event: https://vimeo.com/49416506

Re: Phablets, pain and iPhone 6 Plus

richarddas — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 12:23:18 -0000

Devices are personal. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for the next. Judged as a pocketable device? Sure 6 Plus loses to 5 - or even 4S! But compared to fitting an iPad Air in your pocket? Winner.

For me the main attraction of the Plus is the battery life, and the large screen for reading/writing. As someone who uses their phone for business 90% of the time, everything about it is attractive, and the slightly-uncomfortable-in-the-pocket is worthwhile compromise.

If I were only using the phone for different activities - instant messaging, browsing Facebook and swiping on Tinder, perhaps the tradeoff would not be worth it. For those, there is the 6. Or the soon to be announced iPhone mini (2015) https://www.dropbox.com/s/y...

Re: Phablets, pain and iPhone 6 Plus

richarddas — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:56:10 -0000

What we do with our "phones" has changed over the years too. Not too sure iOS5 would have supported larger screens very well, without Metal, the A8 processor, the advancements in power efficiency or economies of scale and price. An iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, in 2012, would have probably cost twice as much, and lasted ½ as long on battery. Hardly a compelling product.

Re: Beautiful renders of new iPhone 6 packaging make us drool

richarddas — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 06:31:48 -0000

"Instead of the cardboard boxes… Hajek imagines the iPhone 6 selling in a… plastic box"

My point was just that the design doesn't take into account the limitations of the material: Hajek proposes switching back to plastic, away from paper - but dissolvable plastic doesn't exist (the link John referenced is to cardboard packaging that Apple uses on the newer EarPods). Not to mention that there's no such thing as transparent paper either, which poses a problem for the design which relies on a transparent cover?

So yeah, nice 3D renders, but not really a great 'design' as such since it just ignores certain limitations.

Lastly, rounded corners on the packaging would likely require them to have stabilisers inserted when shipping international to minimise friction (When shipping long distances even tiny amounts of motion can result in friction, causing damage to packaging).

Basically, there's a reason that Apple designs their packaging the way they do (paper, rectangular prisms, etc.) because of all these factors. In order to be an improvement on the existing design, the new design would have to achieve more not less.

Re: Beautiful renders of new iPhone 6 packaging make us drool

richarddas — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 18:09:36 -0000

Totally missed the point. Apple packages their products in cardboard which is bio degradable. Why on earth would they switch to non Eco friendly plastic?! Before you can design something you need to learn about all the factors influencing it. Shortsighted on the packaging front.

Re: Hollywood Romance: 18 most iconic Apple Cameos in cinema

richarddas — Fri, 09 May 2014 08:14:40 -0000

What about Mission: Impossible in 1996? That was one of the earliest films to feature both heavy Apple product placement and a dedicated Apple-backed $5M marketing campaign. They built an online game (in 1996!!) using QuickTimeVR, hosted at mission.apple.com, and ran tv spots (https://www.youtube.com/wat... for the 540c — although it was the 5300c that was featured most prominently on screen. These were the first Apple computers using PowerPC's RISC based architecture, a detail even name checked in the script when actor Ving Rhames' character asks for the latest technology to complete their heist.

Re: The Android Design Cheat Sheet

richarddas — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 06:36:39 -0000

Thanks for contributing this. Getting to grips with Android design is certainly a minefield.

I've started using the app Sketch by Bohemian Coding and found it invaluable in production. I can design at either mdpi (baseline) or hdpi and then use a script that will auto-export all my assets into the correct folder hierarchy for Android. Since it's an entirely vector-based app, there's no need to scale-up or scale-down anything — it's exported directly at the correct dimensions.

Just a minor suggestion to the infographic: perhaps the "Max number of icons suggested per screen size" bubble (to the upper left corner of the "Action Bar icons" circle) would work better as a horizontal row of icons, with an indicator at the appropriate cutoff points?

Re: Harlan Haskins - Software Developer

richarddas — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 06:01:33 -0000

Are you familiar with the Quantum Bogosort? Please use it with caution: http://www.mathnews.uwaterl...

Re: Harlan Haskins - Software Developer

richarddas — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 06:00:16 -0000

Interface Builder, she's not bad she's just unique. Learn to love her and she'll love you back.

Re: Blocks and Table View Cells on iOS

richarddas — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 06:15:21 -0000

Instead of creating a new block and adding the target to the button, why not set the cell's delegate and implement the button inside the cell to call that? That would better encapsulate the logic.

Re: Kinect finally fulfills its Minority Report destiny (video)

richarddas — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:52:27 -0000

Yes, his name is John Underkoffler. You can see him demo his system here (he also mentions how he was an on-set technical advisor for the film, and trained the actors to use realistic hand motions):

http://www.engadget.com/201...

Re: Windows Phone 7 review

richarddas — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:51:58 -0000

I don't understand the conclusion: " It still feels like the company is a good year behind market leaders right now, and though it's clear the folks in Redmond are doing everything they can to get this platform up to snuff, it's also clear that they're not there yet. But that isn't -- and shouldn't be -- a deterrent to taking a close look at the handsets being offered."

How is the fact that Microsoft are somehow invested in making it better any rationale for spending good money on an unfinished product right now, when there are perfectly viable, mature (and fully working) alternatives?

Re: UI Scraps: user interface designs found by Jason Robb

richarddas — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:34:16 -0000

check out adobegripes.tumblr.com and you'll notice that this is not the *only* bug in Adobe's products....

Re: Marketing Genius

richarddas — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:14:22 -0000

Isn't "Sith" mentioned in Episode IV in the conference room on the Death Star, where Vader puts chokes the Imperial dude, but is told to release him?