Tech - Patrick B. Gibson's Blog

The Semantics of "Backdoor"

There’s some confusion around Tim Cook’s February 16th letter to customers. Here are the salient parts: We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our

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Peak Objective-C

Since Swift’s introduction at last year’s WWDC, iOS and OS X developers have debated over the answer to a common question for platform newcomers: “Which language should I learn, Objective-C or Swift?” Until recently, there was no definitive answer. The nuanced truth was that both choices offered benefits

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Second Impressions

I’ve only had my Apple Watch for about a week, and so much has been written about it already that there isn’t too much I have to add, but I can’t resist adding my few, late, impressions: It’s the first mainstream Apple

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Push, The Web, and The Watch

Push notifications are a really big deal. They add tremendous utility to connected devices, especially for mobile ones. Push notifications are powerful in two different ways: They provide alerts to the user, obviously, but they can also provide alerts to applications. For example, a server can send a push notification

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Instagram Photo Size Conjecture

In a recent Instagram app update, the blue color of their UI shifted a bit deeper, resembling Facebook Blue a little more. Facebook has, so far, kept their promise of keeping Instagram at arms length from the rest of the company, and haven’t made any large user facing changes.

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What It's Like to Carry a 6" Phone

I carried a 6" phone for almost 2 weeks. It was a Nokia 1520, the largest Windows Phone currently available, running a beta of Windows Phone 8.1. It sucked. It didn’t suck because of the software. The Windows Phone OS is actually wonderful, and although there&

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Pay Attention in Math Class

While it’s one of the driest parts of any high school career, I can’t overstate the importance of math class. Over the past few years, my job has been becoming more and more about implementing incredible visual designs, and as such, has required more and more raw math

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Why You Shouldn't Install the iOS 7.0 Beta

It’s the time of year when many people ask me if I can help them install the new beta version of iOS on their phone. I am usually reluctant to help, and with iOS being more popular than ever, I would like to make clear exactly why you

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Apple in 2013

“And in the absence of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.” ― Stacy Schiff For the first time in about 8 years, Apple has gone nearly 2 full quarters without making any new product announcements. They aren’t expected to make any until WWDC, another 6

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The Facebook Cloud

The word “cloud” is being thrown around in the technology industry with a lot of carelessness and marketing hyperbole, so it has quite a loose meaning these days. In the interest of clarity, I’d like to describe what I mean when I say “cloud”

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Glass Interrupted

Have you ever had lunch with someone who puts their smartphone on the table, face up, next to their silverware? When the phone lights up to display an alert – any alert – their eyes break from yours and their attention is stolen by the device. It doesn’t matter if

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The NEX and Antarctica

I want to talk about two things: Antarctica and Sony’s NEX mirrorless camera line, specifically the NEX-5N and the NEX-6. Mirrorless cameras are the fast-approaching future of consumer / “pro-sumer” photography. Like traditional DSLRs, they offer large sensors and interchangeable lenses, but thanks to the lack of mirror and prism,

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The Magazines

Craig Mod wrote an extremely important essay about the future of publishing called “Subcompact Publishing” that you should read if you haven’t already. In his follow up, there were the echoes of an idea I take issue with, care of Ryan Singer at 37signals: “Tablets are waiting for their

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Apple and Twitter

My friend and co-worker Tom has a thesis about Apple’s biggest problem: Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at web services. I’m a long-time Mac user and a diehard Apple fan, and even I will admit that Apple’s approach to the