Here is my short list of technology predictions for the future regarding Apple.

VOICE OVER IP
iOS will have built in voice-over-IP as it has iMessages today. Today iPhone knows that it is talking to another iPhone on the other side of iMessage App. It is just a matter of small step to include this detection progress into your phone addressbook and whenever you call aonther iOS (and you have bandwidth to support it) you get a free call. Well, not free free, you still pay for data, but you get the idea. Some people argue that this would be too big kick-in-the-balls for the telecoms. However, this already happened with fixed line telecoms. We all had land line phones. Then we upgraded this to include fast internet connection, and today those fixed line telecoms serve the purpose of only ISP. Most people I know no longer use "ordinary" land lines. This will happen to mobile phone carriers as well. Their "land line" will diminish and only internet connection will remain.

APPLE TV
Apple will build a TV. In essence, it will be a large iPad. There will be App Store to hold apps for TV which can be used with remote as interface, access to iTunes and all the shows and movies there. In combination with iCloud this is ideal. You never store anything on your TV, there is no need to download, only stream. Of course, the TV needs to have all sorts of connectors on the back so you can watch ordinary stuff as well. Why TV? Simple, Apple needs to extend the reach into consumer market even further. Not everyone is OK with the way iPad works and feels. For some, it is too complicated. And TV - if well designed - means more market. It's a no brainer.

SCREEN SIZE AND RESOLUTION
iPad will get Retina class display. But the physical size of displays in both iPod/iPhone and iPad will stay the same. People all over the internet debated why should it stay the same, and all sorts of answers arise. Most common is that on iPhone now, while you hold it with one hand you can use just your thumb to cover entire screen, there is no need to fumble your phone in hand. However, there is one more and I would say bigger reason: if you enlarge the screen while keeping the pixel count the same, things start to look more pixelated (obviously) and a lot of design tricks would no longer work. Using one pixel line on Retina class display makes that line almost invisible, yet it serves a purpose. It would be impossible for the designers to design high quality Apps when one pixel has a different thickness depending on the device. This would bring Apple into Android fragmentation world where designers have no clue how exactly their App will look like. No go.

SOFTWARE, NOT HARDWARE
Future Apple devices, primarily iPhone and iPad will make progress more through software and less through hardware. Yes, each new divce will sport faster processor, more RAM and better camera, but these are obvious upgrades. iPhone 4S has shown the obviousness of this trend: the biggest upgrade is software based; Siri. iPhone 5 will, of course, have bigger CPU, but any major breakthrough it will have will come through software. Maybe iPhone 5 will have that voice-over-IP in it? The point here is that the software will become the distinguishing detail between new devices, not hardware.

BUSINESS
Apple will sooner or later start tapping into business sector. It will be through corporate level software integration. Business-grade iCloud accounts? Integration of SIRI into business through some means ("Siri, pay invoice number 3451 which ACME inc. sent"). I am not sure how, but it will happen, and it will happen soon.

GOING BIG
Apple will extend their core business into a field which can further support their devices. Apple could branch out to be a mobile network carrier. And they would only need to use data, not regular GSM voice transfer. Simply because at this moment, the only weak link in the entire ecosystem is the carrier. From lousy support carriers give to their subscribers, to bad coverage, to occasional blackout. Most of Apple devices today are basically useless if there is no data network available, preferably high speed one. They will need to sort that out, and the only way to sort it is to go independent.

Some time ago Google implemented auto complete feature inside search input field. But I just noticed, it works as well if you start typing full domain name with protocol. Results are, I suppose, most typed things in search field. No matter typing url into the Google always fascinated me, the sites that show up fascinate me even more.

This is what shows up on google.com as first auto complete results if you start typing “http:”:

and this if you start typing "https:":

interesting.

After installing update of TortoiseSVN to version 1.7 the other day, I got pretty freaked out when TortoiseSVN asked me to update my local working copy of project I was working on to new file format and "make it unusable for older clients".

Since I love testing stuff, reinstalling os’s and making my life miserable by pressing YES, OK and Continue without reading or thinking about it - naturally, I performed the upgrade.

Nothing happened at first and I continued working on project as usual. After few hours I needed to copy some folders from my project to another folder in the same project, and since I am used to have trillions .svn subfolders in each folder of my project, after copying data, I immediately went for deleting those .svn subfolders so I can commit the changes. But – there were NO .svn subfolders!! Why? Read on.

Subversion 1.7 features a complete re-write of the working copy metadata management system of Subversion, code named WC-NG. A key feature of the changes introduced in Subversion 1.7 is the centralization of working copy metadata storage into a single location. Instead of a .svn directory in every directory in the working copy, Subversion 1.7 working copies have just one .svn directory—in the root of the working copy. This directory includes (among other things) an SQLite-backed database which contains all of the metadata Subversion needs for that working copy.
The process of upgrade itself is pretty easy and fast (well, depending on the size of your project that is):

Step 1 - go for project update:

Step 2 - Accept the file format upgrade:

Step 3 - Take a coffee break while upgrade is being performed:

Step 4 - Enjoy .svn-subfolder-less git style beauty.

It has been a while since I did some movie review, and what better movie to spark the talk than "The Tree of Life".

First, a digression. "Inception". Inception is a movie about making movies. If you haven't figured that one out yet, let me be the one to shine a candlelight at the obvious. In case you did not read that entire rant, which you should, here is just the quick version.

The main crew in Inception is a parallel to the main crew in making movies. The team goes into a dream which is setup by one person - parallel to the storywriter or scenarist. There is a guy for props, a guy who directs it all. There is a guy who finances the whole operation, etc. Every role in Inception has a parallel in the world of movie making.

The parallel becomes most obvious when they talk about people in the dream realizing something is wrong and they stare at the dreamer. Same happens at the movie when something in movie goes wrong, lately this means computer graphics done bad - entire movie audience stares at the screen because some glitch broke the illusion of perfect story.

And in the end the moral of the movie is simple; it's really not important if what you saw was real or illusion (or in Inception, it does not matter if the first world is real or a dream) as long as the movie touches you and makes you think - the film makers' job is done.

Everything in Inception is done correctly to convey the message about how movies should be made.

Back to "The tree of life".

This is a movie about how movies SHOULD NOT be made. I believe that Terrence Malick purposefully made a movie where absolutely everything is wrong so that there is another end of the spectrum to movie making. Inception is on the good side; that's how you make a movie, The tree of life on the other end; this is how you screw up.

[EPIC SPOILERS AHEAD, BUT PLEASE READ THEM]

THE STORY FAILS: In short, a movie centers about family of 5 (father, mother, 3 brothers). We first see a letter delivered to the family notifying them of their son's death. Then we jump into future where one of the brothers is grown up and relives through flashbacks his childhood. We see how father was strict in upbringing, and how mother was kind. At the end there is no moral to the story. No punchline. How one of the brothers died is never shown. Did the harsh upbringing from his father have to do something with his death? Why did he die? During the whole movie you have a feeling that parenting, and the way the family functions (disfunctions) will setup a platform for his death, and teach us something. Nop. In the end - the audience learns nothing. The movie shows us how not to end the movie. If you have shown to the audience that an important member of the story dies, and then you spend entire movie showing his upbringing - then bloody tell the audience what happened.

THE CASTING FAILS: The movie has Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in lead roles. At least that's advertised on posters. In reality, Sean Penn could have been replaced with a wooden plank. Brad Pitt is awesome tho, but this movie shows us how not to cast actors. Take Sean Penn - do nothing with him.

THE CAMERA FAILS: There are some nice shots in the movie, but overall, most of the audience started to get dizzy after an hour of rotating camera, weird angled and random spliced of frames. I have an iron-stomach. I never get dizzy or vomit. This movie almost made me vomit. It's clear that this movie teaches us how not to handle camera.

THE MUSIC FAILS: Some truly epic tracks were used in this movie. At completely wrong places. It's like playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy at the funeral.

THE DIGRESSION FAILS: At one point in the movie we are taken to the beginning of the universe. The Big Bang, forming of stars, the Earth, primordial soup, first proteins, evolution of life, we see dinosaurs and we see the meteor crashing on Earth spelling doom to the dinosaurs. What the hell has that to do with the movie? Nothing. It teaches us how not to digress, how not to show something else other than the main storyline.

"The tree of life". It sets the ZERO marker on the meter against which the movies are measured. Good job Malick, the International System of Units is bloody proud that you have helped define one more SI unit.

The new Android version, Ice Cream Sandwich, comes with the new default font:

The mighty "Roboto" and the mighty PR crap someone thought will diminish the fact that the font is an ugly construct of a few different typefaces. As the good folks at Typographica well put; because the font is a mixed salad of a few different font styles, depending on what word comes up on the screen the font will give away different "feeling". I will let you read the really good article at Typographica first. Go, do it. DO IT.

I am not sure why would someone call a Humanist/Grotesque looking font "Roboto", especially because it is on the platform called Android. The Android platform just calls for the Commander Data looking font. Something readable, yet mechanical. Guess Google has yet to figure that one out.

Now that you are aware of why "Roboto" sucks, here is what I have to say about it.

Letters and words form the majority of data we intake while using any digital platform. Yes, icons are there as well, as are pictures and video and even sound, but the vast majority of our interaction with digital platforms comes through words. Therefore, the font and the overall typography we look at is incredibly important.

Now, let's digress a little.

Linux Ubuntu desktop operating system has been around for years now. And every year Ubuntu developers swear that this is the year Ubuntu will overtake desktop market. And it never does. There are two main reasons it will never be (in the foreseen future) a force to be reckoned with in home desktop computing. First: it has lousy hardware support. Buy a new device, and chances are it will not be able to interface properly with Ubuntu.

Second: it looks ugly. Yes Ubuntu lovers, it looks ugly as hell. Not just the visual appeal, I am talking deeper. Even built-in applications are completely non-standardized. Buttons [Cancel] and [OK] vary in location from application to application. It is a logical and visual mess. And why is it so? Because designers do not use it.

Designers do not use it - therefore, there is noone competent to complain and maybe even suggest how to fix it - therefore, it will stay ugly. It is a closed circuit.

Back to Roboto and Android.

Android is ugly, and even tho Ice Cream Sandwich looks really nice at a glance, with Roboto it just got ugly again. No self-respecting designer will even look at that phone now because every word will look weird. Let's skip all the other details how Android is still laggy even tho it sports dual core processor and all that "under the hood stuff". It is just ugly. I do not know a single designer that uses Android phone. I know a lot of programmers that use it tho (same as Ubuntu).

Designers do not use it - therefore, there is noone competent to complain and maybe even suggest how to fix it - therefore, it will stay ugly. It is a closed circuit.