Day: February 16, 2012

Test 1-2, test 1-2

There is no substantive content in this post, really. At least I suspect as I write it that there won’t be. I’m merely testing the capabilities of the latest version of the WordPress app for iOS, released today, which I disparaged in passing (based on my experience with a much earlier version) during a podcast while pondering the merits of Tumblr.

Already I see many improvements since the last time I bothered to try using this app. There’s actual formatting in the text entry box, for one. And you can even insert pictures taken with your phone!

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Yes. I just took a picture of what’s right in front of me, right now, which happens to be the view from my living room couch. And yes, we still have Christmas Valentine’s Day lights up. You got a problem with that?

Clearly, Tumblr has lit a fire under WordPress’s backside, and the iOS app is one way the Automattic bucket brigade is attempting to extinguish it. Time to give this app another chance!

Mountain Lion. Clever?

Apple just announced the next version of (Mac) OS X: Mountain Lion. And they did so in an rather unusual fashion. Grubes has the scoop:

The recurring theme: Apple is fighting against cruft — inconsistencies and oddities that have accumulated over the years, which made sense at one point but no longer — like managing to-dos in iCal (because CalDAV was being used to sync them to a server) or notes in Mail (because IMAP was the syncing back-end). The changes and additions in Mountain Lion are in a consistent vein: making things simpler and more obvious, closer to how things should be rather than simply how they always have been.

But a lot of the chatter (chirping?) on Twitter concerns the name:

I “get” what Apple’s doing with the name. Mountain Lion (10.8, presumably) is to Lion (10.7) as Snow Leopard (10.6) was to Leopard (10.5): a refinement, a continuation of the same direction in OS X’s evolution as the version that preceded it.

But it is rather odd, if you think about the actual cat names involved, especially since a mountain lion is essentially the same thing as a cougar, also known as a puma or… a panther, which Apple already used as the “big cat” codename for Mac OS X 10.3 way back in 2003.

Beyond that, Lion always seemed like something Apple was building up to… the “king of the jungle.” That version 10.7 was named Lion seemed to suggest the “big cat” lineage, version 10.x of Apple’s Mac OS, and perhaps even the “X” (which is pronounced “ten” after all) was done. And here we have… Mountain Lion? A decisive step backwards in the awesomeness of the big cats. Heck, mountain lions have even been spotted here in Minnesota for crying out loud!

So… anyway… I think the point is: Apple is not taking this whole “big cat” thing too seriously, and neither should we. Mountain Lion looks pretty great. I can’t wait to try it out!

Update: After some research, it turns out Apple already used Puma, too, for 10.1. But as I recall, they didn’t start using the big cat codenames in marketing until 10.2, Jaguar. And I still have the Jaguar mousepad on my desk to prove it!