Jenny Ambrose, Design Festival, on the hatred of Comic Sans:

Just because you change the word you typed it in, does not change the fact that the whole essence of this font is built around childlike handwriting. That framework will always be present, it will always have a heavy-​​handed effect on the tone and voice of whatever is being typeset. And, can I remind you that the overuse/​misuse of any font, be it Comic Sans, Helvetica, or Times New Roman, was very much the reason for the creation of Comic Sans? I really don’t think that fact can be overstated.

Interesting and thought-provoking.

Henry Blodget, Business Insider, on disturbing news regarding Facebook’s initial public offering:

As I described earlier, at best, this “selective disclosure” of the estimate cut is grossly unfair to investors who bought Facebook stock on the IPO (or at any time since) and didn’t know about it.

At worst, it’s a violation of securities laws.

Basically, a Facebook financial executive told the three underwriters of the IPO that earnings might be lower than expected. Subsequently, those underwriters all cut their estimates for Facebook. They then selectively disseminated the modified earnings to institutional investors, while failing to inform retail investors. In doing so, the retail investors paid a price they might otherwise have been uncomfortable with given the reduced earnings forecast. Now that the information has spread, the price is falling to a level that institutional investors originally expected. This is bad news and further muddies what has been an ugly IPO.

Seth Weintraub, writing for 9to5Mac, gives details on the next-generation iPhone:

Both of these phones sport a new, larger display that is 3.999 inches diagonally. Apple will not just increase the size of the display and leave the current resolution, but will actually be adding pixels to the display. The new iPhone display resolution will be 640 x 1136.

My bet is that Apple decided keeping the 3:2 aspect ratio on a larger screen wasn’t worth sacrificing the iPhone’s fit-in-your-pocket form-factor. As a compromise, they retained the same width and stretched the vertical extent of the screen by 176 pixels. Since the screen will presumably retain its 326 pixels-per-inch resolution, the top and bottom portions of the bezel will each be reduced by approximately one-quarter inch. To visualize these changes, Weintraub included a mockup.

So why 176 pixels? As Weintraub goes on to explain, 640 x 1136-pixels at 326 pixels-per-inch works out to a roughly four-inch diagonal display. In addition, John Gruber notes that the display would qualify as a traditional widescreen display:

1136 × 640 is within five-thousandths of an inch of exactly 16:9. So I think Apple would be safe to bill an 1136 × 640 display as sporting a 16:9 aspect ratio.

This seems like a reasonable compromise to give users and developers larger screen real estate without joining the big-ass-phone arms race.

Eric Slivka, MacRumors.com:

In line with today’s claims of taller iPhone prototypes with 3.95-inch displays, one of our sources has provided us with images of what are claimed to be new next-generation iOS device parts being carried by a supplier. The most significant of these parts is a claimed front panel from the next-generation iPod touch, with the supplier claiming that the display would be taller than the current model and that the opening in the front panel measures 4.1 inches diagonally.

Yes, but does it have a huge-ass phablet pen?

Speaking of Panic announcing Coda 2, beta-tester Andy Soell offers an in-depth review:

Coda 2 is big. Really big. It’s been five years since the original version of Coda launched, and this new major release brings a lot of features that Coda users have been clamoring for, including code folding, MySQL integration, and more comprehensive books. There are even more features that I haven’t touched on, like Git support, full-screen support, and the promise of iCloud syncing (coming in a later version, from what I understand). If you’re a Coda user, you’re going to want this. If you were a Coda user and have since switched to other tools, you’re going to want to at least check this out.

Now I am even more excited.

Peter Cohen, The Loop:

Panic, makers of Transmit, Unison and other products, announced Monday the forthcoming release of Coda 2, a new version of their Web editor for Mac OS X. They also introduced Diet Coda, a companion software app for the iPad. Both are coming Thursday, May 24th.

I love Coda - like love love. I certainly code websites with Coda, but I also use it for my scientific work, including LaTeX, Fortran, Python, and more. It is a wonderful development environment. The update looks massive and seems to address all of the shortcomings voiced by users. I will buy Coda 2 on day one.

I have long used Panic’s iPad SSH client, Prompt. If Diet Coda is anything close to the quality of Prompt (I assume so), I will buy that without thinking. Given its description, I foresee Diet Coda replacing Textastic and Prompt as my iPad development environment. I think the feature I am most looking forward to is AirPreview, which allows you to use the iPad as a live-preview screen while coding on the desktop.

May 24th can’t come soon enough.

Jon Russell, writing for The Next Web:

The firm’s latest figures — spotted by Global Nerdy blogger Joey deVilla – show that Chrome’s line of usage creeped overtook IE’s for the first week ever, with Firefox, Safari and Opera completing the top five respectively.

The good news for Google doesn’t stop there. Russell goes on to note that Android Robot surpassed Opera in March as the leading mobile browser.

I’m not sure how Steve Ballmer is still leading the stagnation regime in Redmond.

Damon Lavrinc, Wired.com:

Whether developers recognize it or not, users still subconsciously desire some kind of visual feedback when flipping through multiple pages of content. Some of these visual cues are comically exaggerated (iBooks), some are more subdued (Instapaper’s “Fast Pagination” action) and others fit somewhere in between (Flipboard). But each presents a challenge to developers attempting to blend the tactility of real-world pages with the digitally native tablet aesthetic.

I hate, HATE, the faux page-flipping transition in iBooks. In my opinion, this is a good example of Apple adding skeuomorphic components that serve no purpose for the user experience. I’m not reading a book with physical pages, so to see a fake page flipping is absurd - and slow. I prefer the horizontal scrolling transitions from page to page, such as seen in the Amazon Kindle iOS app.

Jeffrey Zeldman addresses recent criticisms of his personal site’s redesign - namely large, prominent text with minimal cruft:

This redesign is a response to ebooks, to web type, to mobile, and to wonderful applications like Instapaper and Readability that address the problem of most websites’ pointlessly cluttered interfaces and content-hostile text layouts by actually removing the designer from the equation. (That’s not all these apps do, but it’s one benefit of using them, and it indicates how pathetic much of our web design is when our visitors increasingly turn to third party applications simply to read our sites’ content. It also suggests that those who don’t design for readers might soon not be designing for anyone.)

Zeldman hits the nail on the head. The very fact that services exist to strip away everything but text speaks volumes to the awfully distracting nature of many websites. I have long tried to incorporate these principles in this site’s design - a simple and clear layout devoid of unnecessary junk.

John Gruber, writing on Daring Fireball:

I am, uncharacteristically, genuinely excited to announce that my Oscar-, Emmy-, and Grammy-winning podcast, The Talk Show is now on Mule Radio Syndicate.

I was pretty shocked to hear this. Today’s episode of The Talk Show just wasn’t the same. I will, of course, continue reading John Gruber on Daring Fireball. However, I will not follow his show to Mule Radio.

In my opinion, Dan Benjamin kept the show on topic and provides a superior podcasting network as compared to Mule Radio. While I am sad to see The Talk Show leave, there are a slew of other great shows to enjoy. 5by5 earned my loyalty beyond a single show.