Following up on my last post about the iPod (and by that I mean all iOS devices) being an “anything device,” New York’s JFK and LaGuardia airports now feature iPad-based food ordering systems with a custom menu application. The food gets delivered to you or something, but you know what? I don’t care. If I’m going through the airport and I see a chance to use an iPad, I’m much more likely to approach than if there was the friendliest order counter you’ve ever seen. People love iOS devices, even if they don’t know what they do.
Granted, a few years back I thought this would be done with Microsoft’s Surface, but $500 (or less) portable iOS devices generally win out over $15,000 boxes the size of a desk (do Surface units still cost that much? I haven’t heard any updates in a while.)
Word on the street (depending on the street) is that Firefox now runs on the iPhone – kinda. Rather than try to get an actual alternative browser into the App Store, this is a way to provide access to your Firefox browser history, open tabs, and bookmarks by way of Firefox Sync.
I’ve been using a single computer for most of the year, so I’d forgotten about Firefox Sync, but I remember it being fairly handy, and yeah, I could see this as being pretty useful if I actually used my iPhone browser in cases where it wasn’t absolutely necessary (the iOS 4.0 upgrade really killed my enthusiasm, but the reality is that I haven’t been in a lot of situations where I’ve been away from a desk and wanted to browse the internet.)
What gets me most about all this is that it highlights the widening gap – in some areas, at least – between Firefox and Safari. I’m using Safari pretty much exclusively right now, but the lack of remembered tabs keeps pulling me the other way, frankly. Things like this just keep reminding me to think about switching again.
The problem with minimal design, sometimes, is that the few features that are implemented can be so hidden that you don’t even realize that they’re there.
If it wasn’t for this link, I would have been left with the feeling that I’d bought a very very beautiful program whose sole purpose was to kick my ass in chess every time.
(It’s a really good game)
