Software is a Sentence.

Apple's living room Conestoga, AppleTV, was refreshed this week, taking a step forward with HD movie rentals and buy-through-the-remote music and videos. It took a surprising step backward though, when it comes to handling media the user already owns. It's revamped menus move "My Music" from first to last on the list. Further, new toys like a covers view and search—sorely needed if your dipping into an even modest music library—have been reserved only for the act of buying from Apple.

The bottom line is Apple has produced a compelling jukebox with a focus on pay-to-play. However, Apple's ordering of the features belies their business priorities. I don't expect any further improvements to "My Music" as Apple has authored a very clear sentence on their idea of an ideal experience.

You can check out screenshots at Matt Haughey's PVR blog.

Presented with little time to comment:

"Steve Kitchen's Space Shuttle."

A great segment on a great episode. Steve talks lucidly about writing as analogous to game design.

How well choreographed is Apple's "digital hub"?

In trying to get "first" to an online flight check-in, I was carefully watching the clock on my MacBook desktop as it approached 6:55 exactly. Meanwhile, I sent a text message or two on my iPhone. I noticed the iPhone's handsome time display was synched to the same minute.

Really wanting to hit "send" at the very top of the minute, I watched the red second hands of my many time-zoned Dashboard widgets. As that second hand—which is so finely animated as to include a small vibration following each movement—passed the top of the clock, the iPhone snapped to ":55."

I'm not sure what the benefit is, but the precision is remarkable. Now for comparison, note that the bedside alarm clock was (likely intentionally) nine minutes fast. Presumably the iPhone synchs the clock when it docks with my Mac, but it had suffered two time-zone changes since. Talk about one finishing another's sentence.