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The other day, after I tweeted a link to my website, someone replied saying the link was broken. After a couple minutes of investigation, I found out he uses TweetDeck, and that broken link was TweetDeck’s fault.

If you visit @daringfireball’s twitter page on a Mac, you’ll most likely see the ✪ character on all the URLs. If you’re on Windows, there’s a chance you’ll see a square instead. Why? Because that special character is not part of the default system font, so it displays a generic square as an alternative.

Despite not displaying the right character, the link is not affected, because it is converted to the right URL. It’s called a punycode.

TweetDeck, a vastly used Twitter client, simply removes those special characters, it doesn’t even replace them with a generic one, it just removes them. Therefore the URLs don’t work because they are transformed. http://oogle.com is not the same domain as http://google.com, as much as http://df.ws is not the same as http://✪df.ws.

Well TweetDeck displays http://✪df.ws URLs as http://df.ws. Ditch TweetDeck, you cannot rely on a program that transforms links.

It wasn’t a secret at all, before today’s unveiling, everyone knew the iPhone 4 would have a front-facing camera. To me, front-facing camera meant iChat for iPhone. Well, I was wrong, and Apple found an easier way to implement it.

Putting iChat on the iPhone, would have meant to use either an AOL or a MobileMe account. I thought it could have been a good strategy for Apple to try pushing more people to sign-up for MobileMe through iChat. However, not everyone is ready to spend $99/year for it. Apple could have offered a ‘lite’ version, but what’d be the point? Creating an account just to use a software is too tedious for most people, and would refrain a lot from using the service.

Forcing people to sign up to a service to use video-conferencing is the way we have been used to. Yet Apple found a better way: no sign-up.

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There is something that no one seems to have caught about the iPad 3G, that will make it the best computer for travellers. Not only it is light, small and easy to carry, but the 3G version makes it an appealing choice for people who travel to foreign countries.

Until now, to use your smartphone in a foreign country, you had pay high data roaming fees, that it made it impossible to use.
But this is going to change with the iPad 3G.

• First of all, the iPad 3G is not locked to a wireless carrier. That means you can use any micro-SIM card, from any carrier in the world.
• Secondly, iPad data plans offered worldwide don’t require to sign a contract. They are automatically renewed every months, but you can simply cancel any time.

Both points mean you can travel in a foreign country, buy a mico-SIM card with a data plan for your iPad 3G, use it anywhere during your trip, then cancel the plan before you leave.

And with the upcoming iPhone OS 4, people will be able, for example, to let Skype run in the background and receive/make calls.

The new Apple’s iPhone SDK License Agreement generated lots of talks since last week. Many developers are complaining about new terms regarding the programming language to use to make an iPhone app.

Let’s be clear, when you see any license agreement / terms of service / whatever legal stuff, and click the ‘Agree’ button, that means you agreed. If you don’t agree, don’t click it. It’s that simple and it also works with any contract that you sign. If you don’t agree, you don’t sign.

Now I don’t mind that people fight for their cause, but Apple is not the only player in the mobile industry, so developers are free to go ‘have fun’ on other platforms like Android…

Everyone is disappointed that the iPad doesn’t have a camera for video-conferencing, but the reason why it’s not there might in fact be pretty simple.

When the iPad was introduced, the Apple team was proud to show that there is no specific way to hold it. It can be upside-down, portrait, landscape, it doesn’t matter. Also, the large frame around the screen is made so that you can hold it without touching the screen. But you would then put your fingers over the camera…

Considering this, where do you put the camera? Last year, AppleInsider reported that Apple filed a patent for a camera hidden behind a screen, maybe this is the answer, and Apple is still working on a way to do it.

Since its launch, the iPad has been presented like it’s gonna “change the world”, but now that the honeymoon is over for a lot of the early admirers, they start wondering where the device stands. Where do you use the iPad? How much can you do with it? Can it really replace a computer? Can my mom use it instead of her computer? Lots of questions that so far are not so easy to answer.

First of all, everyone agrees that the iPad is a new kind of device that introduces a new way to use a computer. Reviewers explain that Apple filled a gap, but I’d rather say they created a need. Is the iPad a necessary device? Absolutely not. Do you REALLY need an iPad? Probably not.
Though, Apple made the iPad such a cool product that everyone wants one. It’s always the same with every new Apple gear. That’s definitely what gets everyone very excited about it. But what surprises the most is that the iPad is really fun to use.

However, compared to a computer, the iPad lacks a couple things. First one is file handling. Most people need to share files, and the iPad is pretty locked when it comes to file management. It doesn’t support printing as well, so you need a computer to print files.
But what can be a real deal-breaker for many is the lack of camera. Someone who wants to use Skype for video-conferencing will have to turn to a netbook for that.
Last but not least, the iPad does not support multi-tasking yet. I bet that when OS 4 will be released for iPad this fall, its sales will increase quite significantly.
It is hard to rely solely on the iPad unless your computing needs are very basic (web browsing, email, music…). If someone has the choice between an iPad and a netbook as a one and only computer, I think they will choose the netbook simply because they can do more, and for less money.

Regarding its use, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad sitting in a comfortable chair, and all the ads show people manipulating it in a calm environment. And indeed, as I’m writing these lines on my iPad, I’m just moving away from my desk to sit on my couch, it just feels more natural. The iPad is a product you want to use while relaxing. I also found myself using it in the metro and cafes, and every time I go out with a bag, my iPad comes with me as it’s easy to pop out and take notes. However, after using it for a long period of time, the neck starts to hurt by looking down. It’s clearly made for casual use and definitely not a machine to work on all day.

So in the end, the iPad is an amazing and very promising product. It has a tremendous potential, especially when it will run OS4. But still, it needs hardware and software improvements to be considered as a real replacement for a computer. It currently stands between a mobile phone and a computer. And most people right now think of it more like a nice gadget, like the iPhone when it was released 3 years ago. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have… yet.