The Brydge Pro is an excellent alternative to Apple’s Smart Keyboard Folio for the iPad Pro. It packs a much sturdier design that matches perfectly with the unibody build of the iPad itself. It’s not perfect, but it’s a very enjoyable experience overall.
When it comes to deciding whether you should use the Brydge Pro or Smart Keyboard Folio with your iPad Pro, a lot of it boils down to how you use your iPad. If you’re regularly taking your iPad in and out of keyboard cases, the Brydge Pro slightly complicates that process due to its very tight prongs. If you plan on extended typing sessions, however, the Brydge Pro is a far better experience with backlighting, a function row, and more.
IE6 had been the bane of our web development team’s existence. At least one to two weeks every major sprint cycle had to be dedicated to fixing new UI that was breaking in IE6. Despite this pain, we were told we had to continue supporting IE6 because our users might be unable to upgrade or might be working at companies that were locked in. IE6 users represented around 18% of our user base at that point. We understood that we could not just drop support for it. However, sitting in that cafeteria, having only slept about a few hours each in the previous days, our compassion for these users had completely eroded away. We began collectively fantasizing about how we could exact our revenge on IE6. One idea rose to the surface that quickly captured everyone’s attention. Instead of outright dropping IE6 support, what if we just threatened to? How would users react? Would they revolt against YouTube? Would they mail death threats to our team like had happened in the past? Or would they suddenly become loud advocates of modern browsers? We openly daydreamed about cubicle workers around the world suddenly inventing creative “business” reasons for needing upgraded browsers. Grandparents would hold their technically savvy grand-kids hostage, demanding they fix their “YouTubes”. What had begun as a team therapy session started to materialize into an actual plan, a plan we quickly realized we were uniquely positioned to execute on.
Beyond the economic and legal details, there’s also a larger struggle over the cultural meaning of Big Tech. After a period in which technology entrepreneurs in particular were often celebrated as “good guys” of the business world — especially in contrast with the bankers of Wall Street — critics are aiming less at a specific legal point and more at a general sense that the richest companies in the world (and the billionaires who own them) are part of the problem. At the same time, antitrust law is a blunt-force weapon, having been developed over the decades to deal with a set of concerns that only partially overlap with the nexus of issues people have about modern technology conglomerates.
I am looking forward to the day when I no longer need to read emails or check my calendar.
(Or will this day be the day that I die?)
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Thanks for reading.