phone use

Second half of a 2017 Computer History Museum live event in which former Apple software chief Scott Forstall is interviewed by John Markoff about creating the original iPhone. He tells stories about Steve Jobs and the team and the origins of the iPhone software.

Kristy Viers demonstrates the iPhone Magnifier combined with VoiceOver to describe the user's surroundings. She shows how the built-in feature reports scenes, faces and lighting.

Louis C.K. on Conan explains why he won't give his kids cell phones. He argues that phones keep people from sitting with sadness and being alone with their thoughts, and that kids lose empathy when they cannot see another person's reaction.

A binaural audio demo, the 'Virtual Barber Shop', that places a barber moving around your head. It works best with headphones and closed eyes.

Tom Scott explains why hold music sounds worse than it used to, tracing it to old telephone exchanges and the audio compression applied by modern switches. It is a short visit to the Milton Keynes Museum.

A short demo of Inferno, the Plan 9 descendant operating system, running on an Android phone as Hellaphone. It shows calls, SMS and data working. The video quality is rough because the camera was held in front of the screen.

A WSJ investigation by Joanna Stern into iPhone thieves who watch victims enter their passcode, then use it to lock them out of Apple accounts and drain bank and payment apps. It explains how the thefts work and how to protect yourself.

Posy gives a short history of the computer mouse cursor, from early straight pointers to the tilted arrow, comparing Apple and Windows designs. He then explains why he designed his own cursor set and offers it as a free download.

Kirsten Dirksen visits retired mailman Russ Finch in Alliance, Nebraska, who grows oranges, figs and pomegranates in a backyard greenhouse without paying for heat. The greenhouse uses the stable temperature of the earth, with underground earth tubes, to heat and cool itself.

A short talk by Will Dayble of Squareweave arguing that you should design software as if the user were drunk: distracted, impaired in attention and vision, and prone to misreading. It is a user experience talk built around that framing.

Tom Scott visits a rotating house near San Diego and explains how electricity, gas and water keep working on the rotating part. It includes a 3D render of the utility connection system.

An excerpt from Steve Jobs's January 2007 Macworld keynote in which he introduces the original iPhone. It shows the pitch of a phone, music player and internet communicator, along with the live demo.

The full January 2007 Macworld keynote where Steve Jobs unveils the first iPhone. It covers the touch interface, multitouch gestures, the browser, maps and the pitch as an iPod, phone and internet communicator.

A two-minute satirical short film in which a woman leaves her phone at home and notices how everyone around her is absorbed in their screens. It became a viral comment on phone distraction and social disconnection.

An overview of the Quiet Logistics warehouse using Kiva Systems robots, narrated by company executives. The robots bring storage racks to human pickers at stations.

Mark Rober sets up elaborate glitter-bomb traps to go after phone scammers, working his way up their chain of command, and ends with a scammer being arrested. He also points viewers to fraud-reporting resources and to scambaiter Jim Browning's investigation.

Linus Tech Tips looks at whether buying a used GPU that was previously used for crypto mining is a good idea, as miners prepare to sell off cards. The video discusses how mining affects wear on cards and what to watch for.

JerryRigEverything puts the iPhone Air through scratch, bend and durability tests and is surprised that the ultra-thin phone proves very tough. The video is sponsored by dbrand cases.

A short PCWorld news clip from WWDC 2007 in which Steve Jobs announces Safari as the development platform for iPhone apps. Developers could build web apps with access to calling, maps and email.

A short xtranormal-animated comedy sketch comparing the iPhone 4 and the HTC Evo. It dates from the 2010 smartphone wars.

A short clip from Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown in which he and chef Sean Brock end a long night of drinking at a Charleston Waffle House. It celebrates the unpretentious, welcoming late-night diner. Bourdain's remark comparing the meal favorably to the French Laundry is what people remember.

A short, deadpan Sony instructional video from E3 2013 showing how to 'share' a PS4 game by physically handing the disc to a friend. It was Sony's jab at Microsoft's planned restrictions on used games and game sharing for the Xbox One.

A four-minute demo of the greenhouse effect showing how increased carbon dioxide raises temperature. It uses a simple setup that is dramatic and easy to understand.

Strange Parts spends four months, seven custom circuit boards and several disassembled iPhones adding a working headphone jack to an iPhone 7 in China. The build is documented in detail.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains how the greenhouse effect actually works, given that infrared is mostly absorbed low in the atmosphere already. She walks through why more CO2 still warms the surface.

The full 80-minute Macworld 2007 keynote in which Steve Jobs introduced the original iPhone. It includes the multitouch demos, visual voicemail and scrolling.

A JSConf 2014 talk visually breaking down algorithms behind everyday UI patterns, such as dropdown menus that vanish when the mouse drifts and picking the nearest target to the cursor. It shows how these are implemented in JavaScript.

A five-minute CGP Grey explainer arguing that a phone is effectively an extension of your mind, and that any backdoor or master key into encrypted devices will inevitably be abused or leaked. It frames the encryption debate as locks that are either unbreakable or absent.

Scotty Allen of Strange Parts travels through Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei markets and learns to upgrade an iPhone 6s from 16GB to 128GB by swapping its flash chip. It is part 3 of his custom iPhone series and shows the difficulty of the hands-on repair work.

Hugh Jeffreys tears down the iPhone 13 and assesses its repairability, showing how Apple ties parts like the display and Face ID hardware to specific devices. He demonstrates that swapping parts, even genuine ones, can disable features.

A compilation of the first four iPhone commercials from the June 2007 launch. The ads walk through using the device and stress real web browsing.

Hugh Jeffreys tests the iPhone 14 Pro and finds that swapping genuine parts between phones disables features, concluding that third-party repair is not really viable despite Apple's Self Service Repair program.

A 1979 BBC Tomorrow's World segment where Michael Rodd tries an experimental British cordless mobile phone prototype.

Timothy Roscoe of ETH Zurich delivers the joint USENIX ATC/OSDI 2021 keynote arguing that operating systems must reckon with modern hardware, which is a heterogeneous collection of processors, firmware and coprocessors rather than a simple machine. It shows how much runs below and beside Linux.

Alamo Drafthouse posted an angry voicemail from a customer who was kicked out for texting in the theater. The theater turned it into a humorous in-house preview.

Lin-Manuel Miranda performs an early version of the Hamilton idea, then called "The Hamilton Mixtape", at the White House poetry and spoken word evening in May 2009. He is accompanied by Alex Lacamoire and the audience laughs along at the premise of a hip-hop song about Alexander Hamilton.

Paul Turner of Google presents kernel interfaces for user-level scheduling of real threads, aiming at a uniform synchronous programming model across C++, Java, Go and Python. It introduces the switchto-style system calls behind Google's fibers.

Tantacrul gives a detailed UX and UI design review of the MuseScore 3 notation software and compares it with Sibelius. It examines visual appeal, navigation and notation quality.

A short demo of Code Bubbles, an IDE interface built around editable code fragments in bubbles instead of files. It was a research prototype for Java development.

A two-minute demonstration of LucasArts' iMUSE adaptive music system in Monkey Island 2. It shows music layers and transitions changing seamlessly as the player moves.