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The Guy Who Named the iMac Says iPhone Naming Sucks

Jeff Gamet ·

Ken Segall, the guy who came up with the iMac name, says Apple has totally blown it with the iPhone naming convention—or lack of convention. He says it’s confusing, and mixing Roman numerals with letters, and making those letters seem arbitrary at best. He says in a blog post,

Last year’s models set new standards for complexity. We had an 8, 8 Plus, X and SE. That’s two numbers, one Roman numeral, one paring of letters, plus an odd numerical gap between 8 and 10. Or, in Apple lingo, between 8 and X.

Now we have Roman numerals and letters, and odds are it’ll get worse next year with the iPhone X2. He adds, “Then, one year later, the Holy Grail of bad product naming will be within Apple’s grasp. An iPhone X2S will feature a Roman numeral, a number and a letter, all in one name.” Yep. Good luck with that one, Apple.

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AWS4 Love, Design Meets Science, Apple's PG TV Dreams - ACM 481

Bryan Chaffin & Jeff Gamet · · Add Comment

Bryan Chaffin and Jeff Gamet can’t get enough of Apple Watch Series 4, even though Jeff is wrong about the Infograph Watch Face. They also find it interesting that a designer got recognized by the world of science, and they weigh whether or not Apple’s plan to avoid sex, violence, and politics with its original TV shows will hurt its streaming service.

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Ajit Pai Couldn't Care Less About Rural America

Andrew Orr ·

Republicans don’t want the government to interfere with things…until they use the government to interfere with things. Rural America is notorious for its lack of broadband, and Ajit Pai couldn’t care less.

The Federal Communications Commission today finalized an order that will prevent city and town governments from charging wireless carriers about $2 billion dollars’ worth of fees related to deployment of wireless equipment such as small cells.

The $2 billion savings is less than 1 percent of the estimated $275 billion that carriers will have to spend to deploy 5G small cells throughout the US. That level of savings won’t spur extra deployment “because the hard economics of rural deployment do not change with this decision,” Rosenworcel said.

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Websites Can Access Your iPhone Sensor Data

Andrew Orr ·

As if apps collecting your personal data wasn’t bad enough, apparently websites in Safari can access your iPhone sensor data.

That mobile browsers offer developers access to sensors isn’t necessarily problematic on its own. It’s what helps those services automatically adjust their layout, for example, when you switch your phone’s orientation. And the World Wide Web Consortium standards body has codified how web applications can access sensor data. But the researchers…found that the standards allow for unfettered access to certain sensors. And sites are using it.