William Eggleston is a photographer who rose to prominence in the 1970s for his photos of American life, many of which are now iconic. Those decades of pictures have come from dozens of different cameras, and Eggleston himself was kind enough to share with the Wall Street Journal a picture of some of his tools of the trade.
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Notification Center debuted in iOS 5 and began transforming Apple's old, unscalable, model alert system into something less obtrusive and more robust. Unfortunately, iOS 6 spent so much time setting up the future -- kicking Google to the curb, outsourcing social, and improving support for Asia -- that notifications were left pretty much at a standstill. Hopefully iOS 7's flatter and more consistent redesign won't occupy the lion's share of attention this time around, and Notification Center will not only catchup, but leap ahead. And hopefully it'll start with the transition from informational alerts to actionable ones.
This isn't a new request by any means. Many people have made it many times, including me last year. Palm had the beginnings of it in webOS, jailbreak apps like BiteSMS have been doing for ages, and Google started adding it to Android in 2012.
And here's why -- whether we're tired, busy, or just plain lazy, having to go hunting for apps -- even widgets -- just to reply to a message, reset a timer, change a song, or do any other trivial activity is outdated and inefficient. It's pull in the age of push.
It's well past time for actions, like information, comes to us.
In the current version of iOS, if we're using an app or playing a game or just fiddling around on the Home Screen, and an SMS, iMessage, IM, Hangout, or any other short bit of text is sent our way, we get a roll-down banner notification. If we tap the banner, it rips us from our current activity and sends us carousel-ing into whatever app owns that bit of text. At that point, we have to wait for the host app to wake up, connect, and download the actual message. (Even if all of it was shown in the push notification, the information isn't passed along and the app has to make its own, post-launch request to get its own, post-launch copy.) Then, after replying, we have to either use the fast app switcher to go back to our previous app, or the old Home button click/icon tap combo. There's no insta-back button or gesture for that.
Imagine instead that, once the banner notification rolls down, we could not only tap on it to go to the app, but drag it down to get an actionable dialog. Then we could quickly enter and send a response, at which point the dialog would disappear and we could immediately resume what we were doing. No carousel app switching, no need to click and tap our way back.
Apple already does a lot of the out-of-app heavy messaging lifting today, in Share Sheets. Launch the Photos app and pick a photo. Tap the Action button, tap Mail, Messages, or Twitter, and an embedded Mail, Message, or Tweet sheet slides up from the bottom. Type and send a message. The message gets sent and the sheet slides down again, allowing you to continue right where you left off. In fact, Notification Center already has buttons for calling up Twitter and Facebook sheets.
The current system only works to create new messages, and only for Apple's built-in and integrated partner apps (Mail, Messages, Twitter, and Facebook). It's not impossible, however, to imagine it working for replies as well.
And with third-party messaging apps. At worst, Notification Center could simply keep pulling the icon to identify the app. In a perfect world, those third-party apps could include parameters for/register with with Notification Center to use in presenting their own embedded sheets (similar in spirit to how Passbook provides for some level of design in third-party passes).
With Notification Center maintaining control of the transactions, communications could be handled more securely and power efficiently as well.
The same basic system could also work for changing alarms. Right now, just like with messages, if an alarm goes off, we can either okay it or put it to sleep, but we can't change it. If we want to do that, we have to mishandle the alert in someway, then go track down the app (typically Clock) to do something about it.
In a push-interface world, the alarm would go off and the banner could be pulled down into, or the popup would already be, a widget that could not only be dismissed or slept, but altered right there and then.
Even if it was kept model, a timer could be scrubbed back from 00:00 to 00:30, for example, right on the alert.
Likewise, an alarm could be deferred, but could also be quickly changed to another time.
Controls are trickier, because they're persistent rather than event-driven. No one wants a constant banner with audio controls in it, for example, which is probably why Apple annexed them into the fast app switcher in iOS 4.
They might make more sense in Notification Center, however, where instead of being a double-click and horizontal swipe away, they're just a downward swipe. The brightness and AirPlay controls could easily live there as well, as could all the other settings most people never use, but the nerds among us want faster access to -- everything from Wi-Fi to Bluetooth to hotspot to Airplane mode, to the kitchen sync in there as well. They could be set to off by default, so mainstream users aren't bothered by them, but there and ready to be enabled by those who want them.
As much as we like to compare platforms and talk about who and who isn't innovating, who's blazing ahead, who's copying, and who's playing catchup, the truth is every major player is mostly just giving us variations on a theme.
Siri, Google Now, and Kinect are starting to break down the old concepts, not just with natural language and gesture-based control schemes, but with dynamically generated, contextually aware interfaces. They're still new, still experimental, still layers on top of far more static Home screens, apps, and activities, but they're getting there.
If Apple wants to get really avant guarde, Notification Center could become contextual, presenting information, actions, and options depending on the time of day, our location, and what we're doing when we invoke it. And, of course, helpfully nudge us with actionable banners when we haven't invoked it -- the classic example being "Traffic has changed, you will now have to leave 10 min. earlier for your meeting, would you like me to message attendees?"
From the Apple II to the Mac, Apple's been at the forefront of making ever more accessible types of interface mainstream. Actionable notifications could be a piece of the whatever's-next puzzle, and I hope we see it from Apple sooner rather than later.
If you've used webOS notifications, or Jelly Bean notifications, or BiteSMS, or if you're just tired of switching apps every time you get an alert, let me know what you think -- should the future be actionable, and how?
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/FSTYMygDLwQ/story01.htm
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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) ? New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie plans to speak with Rutgers officials about a report that the woman hired to clean up the university' scandal-scarred athletic program quit as Tennessee's women's volleyball coach 16 years ago after her players submitted a letter complaining she ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse.
Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak says the governor is aware of the report about Julie Hermann in the Star-Ledger of Newark, but wants to get more details before commenting.
The newspaper reported Tennessee players wrote that the mentality cruelty they suffered when Hermann was coach was unbearable, adding she called them "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled."
Hermann was hired to replace the ousted Tim Pernetti, who was let go after basketball coach Mike Rice was fired for abusive behavior.
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A heron takes flight over a flooded baseball field, Sunday, May 26, 2013, in San Antonio. Heavy rains and flooding are being blamed for at least two deaths in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A heron takes flight over a flooded baseball field, Sunday, May 26, 2013, in San Antonio. Heavy rains and flooding are being blamed for at least two deaths in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
An onlooker passes along a flooded intersection, Sunday, May 26, 2013, in San Antonio. Heavy rains and flooding are being blamed for at least two deaths in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
The Olmos Basin Municipal Golf Course and Basse Road in San Antonio are underwater Saturday May 25, 2013 as a result of heavy rains in San Antonio. Saturday was the second wettest day in San Antonio history with the National Weather Service recording 9.83 inches of rain by 10:30 a.m. (AP Photo/San Antonio Express-News, Billy Calzada) RUMBO DE SAN ANTONIO OUT; NO SALES MBO
Debris gathers around street signs on a flooded road, Sunday, May 26, 2013, in San Antonio. Heavy rains and flooding are being blamed for at least two deaths in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SCHERTZ, Texas (AP) ? The search intensified Sunday for a teenage boy believed to have been swept away by floodwaters as he tried to swim across a swollen creek near San Antonio, authorities said.
After helicopters and divers were used earlier, several search and rescue teams in inflatable boats were moving through the muddy water trying to find the teen in Schertz, where he was reported missing Saturday.
Avron Adams, 18, and a friend got caught in the swift waters of Cibolo Creek after about half a dozen friends swam across. One friend held onto a tree branch and got out, but Adams did not, officials said.
"We're hopeful, but at this point, you just don't know," his father, Kenneth Adams, told The Associated Press as his wife stood nearby. "It's very hard. We're just keeping the faith."
The usually dry creek in Schertz, northeast of San Antonio, had dropped about 10 feet since Saturday. Other rivers in the San Antonio area and surrounding counties continued to drop after peaking above the flood stage, but flood warnings remained in effect Sunday. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for seven counties until 6 p.m. Sunday, saying thunderstorms could produce heavy rainfall.
Two women died Saturday after being swept away by floodwaters, some as high as 10 feet on some roads. One who was trapped in her car climbed to the roof before being swept away, and her body was found against a fence, said San Antonio Fire Department spokesman Christian Bove. Emergency officials also recovered the body of a woman in her 60s, whose car was carried away by water as firefighters were trying to rescue her. Authorities did not immediately identify the women who died.
On Sunday, about 20 people were at a shelter set up by the American Red Cross, including some whose apartment complex roof caved in under the weight of the heavy rainfall.
Roxanne DeLeon arrived there Sunday with her 18-month-old son, 6-year-old daughter, 15-year-old daughter and husband, a day after escaping through waist-deep water in their rented home with nothing but what they were wearing, her purse and some diapers. They didn't even have time to grab shoes.
DeLeon said they spent the night on the floor of a relative's home because family members don't have enough room for all of them, and their insurance agent cannot provide help that would get them into a motel or apartment until after Memorial Day.
"It feels like we're stuck," DeLeon said Sunday. "One relative can keep my son part of the day while I'm at work, but who's going to pick up my kids from school? I never thought my family would go through something like this."
The San Antonio International Airport recorded 9.87 inches of rain Saturday, the second-highest official daily rainfall in city history.
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Associated Press writer Angela K. Brown in Fort Worth contributed to this report.
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By Arshad Mohammed
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - The United States on Friday called into question the credibility of Iran's presidential election next month, criticizing the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access.
On a visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also warned that time was running out to resolve the deadlock over Iran's contested nuclear program.
Iran's Guardian Council, the state body that vets all candidates, has barred a number of hopefuls from the roster in the June 14 ballot, including former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is seen as sympathetic to reform.
"The Council narrowed a list of almost seven hundred potential candidates down to...officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime's interests," Kerry said shortly before flying out of Israel.
"That is hardly an election by standards which most people in most countries judge free, fair, open, accessible, accountable elections."
Most of the remaining eight men left on the Iranian ballot are seen as loyalists to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Kerry, whose country's decades-old rift with Iran has widened over the latter's nuclear ambitions, said Washington saw "troubling signs" that the Iranian government was slowing down or cutting off Internet access to its citizens.
"Ultimately the Iranian people (will) be prevented not only from choosing someone who might have reflected their point of view, but also taking part in a way that is essential to any kind of legitimate democracy," he said.
Israel and most Western powers, including the United States, believe Iran is seeking to obtain nuclear weapons - something Tehran has denied.
Israel, which is assumed to have its own nuclear arsenal, has warned it might attack Iran if it does not halt its atomic work, but Kerry said he hoped a diplomatic solution could still be found.
"Our hope is, for the sake of the region, the world, the Iranian people, ourselves, that we can have a peaceful resolution, but it is going to have to be demonstrated much more affirmatively than it has been to date that Iran is interested in that kind of a solution," he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said this week in a report that Iran was trying to accelerate its uranium enrichment program.
"The clock is clearly ticking," Kerry added.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Writing by Crispian Balmer)
(This story is refiled to fix typo in headline)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-casts-doubt-credibility-iranian-election-114156689.html
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Is it just us or are towers getting taller and taller these days? Broad Group, a Chinese developer, recently announced plans to scale up its prefabricated building technology to unparalleled proportions. The proposed Sky City outside Changsha will be the tallest on earth at 838 m or 2,749 ft, just barely inching past the Burj Khalifa in the UAE. And, as if this weren?t astounding enough, the tower will purportedly be assembled on site 90 days.
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