Death to the mouse: Apple’s trackpad hits the shops
The first whiff of an Apple trackpad was as far back as 2008, with a fresh bout of enthusiasm when the patent application was unearthed earlier this summer . Now the rumour has become a reality with the first Magic Trackpads released for sale through the Apple Store. Why yet more fuss for yet another Apple product? Because it symbolises the end of an era - the end of the mouse. As ever, Apple's brilliance is in refining consumer electronics to a form factor usable by the mainstream; the trackpad indicates the much needed death of the RSI-inducing mouse, another piece of hardware that Apple didn't invent, but did popularise . Magic trackpads are £59, wireless, 80% bigger than the trackpads on a MacBook Pro and work from 10 metres away. Eventually, a touchpad could replace both keyboard and mouse through a touchscreen interface
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Death to the mouse: Apple's trackpad hits the shops
Curated computing is no substitute for the personal and handmade | Cory Doctorow
Bespoke computing experiences promise a pipe dream of safety and beauty – but the real delight lies in making your own choices The launch of the iPad and the general success of mobile device app stores has created a buzzword frenzy for "curated" computing – computing experiences where software and wallpaper and attendant foofaraw for your device are hand-picked for your pleasure. In theory, this creates an aesthetically uniform, and above all safe and easy, computing environment, as the curators see to it that only the very prettiest, easiest-to-use and most virus-free apps show up in the store. I'm all for it. After all, I've spent the past 10 years co-curating Boing Boing , a place where my business-partners and I pick the websites that interest us the most and assemble them into a kind of deep, wide, searchable catalogue of things that you should know, do, and marvel at. We've recently launched a store, the Boing Boing Bazaar, consisting of the most interesting inventions, clothing, gadgets, decor, and assorted gubbins that our readers have created, as picked by us. My Twitter account mostly consists of retweets from other twitterers – my collection of the best tweets I've seen today. I am a born curator, and have spent my life amassing collections and showing them off. But there's something important to note about all these curatorial roles I enjoy: none of them are coercive. No one forces you to read Boing Boing, and if you do, there's nothing that prevents you from reading another weblog (or a couple hundred other weblogs). Order as many gizmos as you'd like from the Boing Boing Bazaar, we'll never tell you that you can't fill your knick-knack shelves from anyone else's curated wunderkammer . Follow me on Twitter if it pleases you, and feel free to follow anyone else you find interesting. The beauty of noncoercive curation is that there are so many reasons we value things, it's really impossible to imagine that any one place will serve as a one-stop shop for our needs. Two categories in particular won't ever be fulfilled by a curator: first, the personal. No curator is likely to post pictures of my family, videos of my daughter, notes from my wife, stories I wrote in my adolescence that my mum's recovered from a carton in the basement. My own mediascape includes lots of this stuff, and it is every bit as compelling and fulfilling as the slickest, most artistic works that show up in the professional streams.
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Curated computing is no substitute for the personal and handmade | Cory Doctorow
Apple posts highest ever quarterly earnings after success for Mac and iPad
Steve Jobs says tech firm had enjoyed "phenomenal quarter" after revenues rise 88%, with net profit up 78% at $3.25bn Record sales of Mac computers and strong demand for the iPad has helped Apple post its highest ever quarterly earnings. Steve Jobs declared last night that Apple had enjoyed a "phenomenal quarter", after it smashed analyst forecasts. Revenues rose 88% to $15.7bn (£10.2bn) in the three months to 26 June, with net quarterly profit up 78% at $3.25bn.
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Apple posts highest ever quarterly earnings after success for Mac and iPad
Glastonbury festival: The full lineup as a spreadsheet
Glastonbury festival kicks off today, with Gorillaz replacing U2 as the Friday headliners. Check out the bands that will be playing and plan your weekend here • Get the data Glastonbury opened its doors to festivalgoers this morning. Revellers at Worthy Farm can look forward to a weekend packed with bands, including Damon Albarn's side-project Gorillaz, who hastily took a headlining spot after U2 were forced to pull out last month when Bono suffered a spinal injury. But Glastonbury is about so much more than the headline acts. Who else will be rocking Worthy Farm over the weekend of 23-27 June? Now the official Glastonbury site has put up the full timetable of acts - we've excised them for you and put them into a spreadsheet. Check out the embedded table, or download the spreadsheet, for the full line-up across all the main stages and venues. Last year, @RichardAblewhite created a magnificent visual mash-up by combining the Datablog's Glastonbury dataset with content from several other sites. He's created another excellent mash-up for this year's Glastonbury festival , which together with this dataset from Clashfinder General and the Orange GlastoNav app will enable data-savvy festivalgoers to plan their weekend with military precision.
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Glastonbury festival: The full lineup as a spreadsheet
Naoko Mori: ‘I’m a gadget freak’ | Celebrity squares
Actor Naoko Mori loves all things Apple – except for the iPhone What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life? There's a lot. I'm Japanese, I'm a gadget freak – I like anything with buttons. I want to say my computer, but if I had to choose one, I'd say my mobile phone. This is almost sacrilegious, because I'm a complete Macophile, but I actually still have a BlackBerry – I just prefer the buttons. I'm still on the fence with the iPhone because of the buttons and the texting. When was the last time you used it, and what for? Eight minutes ago, checking emails. What additional features would you add if you could? I travel so much – I'm in the US a lot, and in Japan – that I currently have three phones.
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Naoko Mori: 'I'm a gadget freak' | Celebrity squares
Tech Weekly podcast: iPhone 4, Like-jacking and searching with Wolfram Alpha
Aleks Krotoski and Charles Arthur welcome Tom Watson MP in this week's lively Tech Weekly discussion about open data, the newest iPhone announcement from Apple, and the most recent problems plaguing social network Facebook. Watson, who was instrumental in helping the previous Labour government understand the value of opening up its public records, shares his view on the reasons why openness should be valued – and what he had to do to convince his political colleagues. Charles Arthur speaks with Wolfram Alpha creator Conrad Wolfram about one of the potential applications of the government data, and how more like this should be released for the benefit of his service – and of mankind. Charles also reveals the specs of the newest handset in the Apple iPhone lineup, announced on Monday. But how did the leak of a prototype affect the launch? The team also discusses Steve Jobs' visions of the future, and how similar they are to Microsoft. Finally, we hear how to avoid being "likejacked", or scammed by hackers who've taken hold of a new Facebook feature that allows you to share where on the web you've been with your social network friends. Don't forget to ... • Comment below • Mail us at tech@guardian.co.uk • Get our Twitter feed for programme updates • Join our Facebook group • See our pics on Flickr /Post your tech pics Aleks Krotoski Charles Arthur Scott Cawley
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Tech Weekly podcast: iPhone 4, Like-jacking and searching with Wolfram Alpha
Apple’s next trick: the trackpad for desktops
What's better than iPhone 4.0? How about a new Apple touchpad to replace keyboards for its desktop computers... Published on Engadget , these images were leaked with perfect timing [insert marketing conspiracy theory here] hours before Steve Jobs will introduce the [spoiled] next generation iPhone at Apple's Worldwide developer conference in San Francisco. Take a metaphorical look backwards at Apple's road map: iPhone spent three years training consumers how to use a touchscreen, and was then followed by iPad. Take a look forwards, we'll all be using touchscreens at our desktops, as I said on the Guardian Tech Weekly podcast recently. Beyond that, it probably gets a bit conceptual and Minority Report. But here it is: The leaked images were published by Engadget , who point out John Daring Fireball Gruber and MacRumours wrote about an Apple trademark application back in for a ' Magic Trackpad ' and rumours dating back to 2008 . Digital media Apple Computing iPad iPhone Steve Jobs Jemima Kiss guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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Apple's next trick: the trackpad for desktops
Jakob Nielsen critiques the iPad’s usability failings
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen has just published a report on the iPad, and thinks Apple should allow more diversity on its platforms – including the option for Adobe Flash Apple's iPad has usability problems , and shows an "overemphasis on aesthetics", according to usability guru Dr Jakob Nielsen, who has just published a free 93-page report on iPad usability. He was in London last month where his company, Nielsen Norman Group , was holding a usability conference. Since he had an iPad in his hotel room, I asked him how well it had turned out. "In some ways, less well than I expected," he said. "There were really a lot of usability problems in this first-generation of iPad applications. It's often quite difficult for people to discover what they have to do because the options are not very visible. I have to say of both the device itself and the content, it's very attractive, which is good.
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Jakob Nielsen critiques the iPad's usability failings
Video: Stephen Fry collects his iPad and gives his verdict
Author and broadcaster Stephen Fry was among the crowds waiting to get an iPad from the Apple store on launch day. He gives his verdict on Steve Jobs's latest innovation
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Video: Stephen Fry collects his iPad and gives his verdict
Joel David Moore: ‘On a PC I’m like a monkey trying to hump a football’ | Celebrity squares
Filmmaker Joel David Moore is a Mac man and an iPhone addict – but is desperate for a spell-check What's your favourite piece of technology, and how has it improved your life? Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say the iPhone. It's the most used piece of machinery I own. But it's a love-hate relationship with the typing – if I didn't go back every three words to fix a typing error, it would look like an alien language. And not a good one, it would be an alien race that never left the planet and still hadn't figured out fire. When was the last time you used it, and what for? I'm using it to answer these questions. But not without switching over every couple questions and playing a tower defense game. geoDefense is what I'm addicted to now. It's like thumb crack. What additional features would you add if you could? Well, a physical slide-out keyboard, but that'll never happen so I'd settle with – I know this sounds crazy, but – SPELL-CHECK!!! It's ridiculous without it.
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Joel David Moore: 'On a PC I'm like a monkey trying to hump a football' | Celebrity squares