February 2012
15 posts
Apple blocking books that link to Amazon →
Or, at least Seth Godin’s new book:
I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books I mention in the bibliography. Quoting here from their note to me, rejecting the book: “Multiple links to Amazon store. IE page 35, David Weinberger link.”
Godin argues that while...
The Verge's Windows 8 Consumer Preview →
Compare the way Microsoft is bringing Metro elements to Windows to the way Apple is bringing iOS elements to OS X. For all the grumping about OS X’s “iOSification,” OS X 10.7/10.8 still look definitively like desktop operating systems, adding new features that are inspired by iOS but unique to the mouse-and-windows environment. With Windows 8, Microsoft is bringing the actual...
When to call bullshit
A few days ago I made a snarky comment here about how I was perfectly willing to peddle crappy products for money, which makes it sound like I’m in the “we’re in a new Internet bubble” camp. I’m not really willing to peddle crappy products, of course—and I’m actually in the “we’re always in a bubble” camp. Some bubbles are just more...
Nokia announces great pocket camera with crappy... →
The somewhat boggling 41-megapixel sensor in the PureView 808 is not designed to take 41-megapixel photos, but rather to oversample pixels and come up with nearly noiseless shots at 5 or 8 megapixels. As for the phone,
If you’re thinking that [the 640x360] display won’t cut it in the modern smartphone world, things get worse once you look at the operating system: it’s Symbian...
In light of the ongoing controversy about Silicon...
I would just like to note that I am totally down with plugging your crappy product if you give me enough money. (Don’t offer equity, though, unless you think you can sell out in 12 months, ’cause this bubble ain’t gonna make it through 2013.)
The big news about OS X "Mountain Lion"
…is that Apple is really starting to reach for big cat names. Can you guys just give up and go for OS X Timber Wolf next time? (I would suggest “OS X Coyote,” but if we want our computers to play tricks on us and generally be randomly infuriating, we already have Adobe products.)
Is this the beginning of the “Success by UX” era? →
Andrew Cross:
I believe we are in the beginning of an era where new products with a great UX will rapidly take down established, but outdated players. You could make a valid argument that this is the normal lifecycle of tech, but there’s something different here. New entrepreneurs have never been so acutely aware of the importance of UX, and I think a lot of the credit goes to Apple.
At...
3 tags
“People complain about the cost of software, then act surprised when companies...”
– Marco Tabini, via David Chartier
Two contradictory thoughts about Apple and Path
Apple doesn’t get a full pass on this. While I frequently find myself agreeing with the colorful and not very shy John Welch, I only mostly agree with his take on last week’s Path flap. He responds to a post from Dustin Curtis who argues that (in Welch’s words) “it’s up to Apple to make sure developers who have an ethics problem can’t do this”:
It is...
W3C co-chair: Apple, Google power causing Open Web... →
At least, that’s the way CNET’s Stephen Shankland reports it:
The problem right now, [the W3C’s Daniel] Glazman said, is that programmers use -webkit prefixed features without including -o for Opera, -ms for Microsoft IE, or -moz for Mozilla’s Firefox. That happens even when those other browsers support the CSS features in question. “I am asking all the Web...
Kodak to stop making cameras to cut costs →
Reuters:
The company, which generates three-quarters of its revenue from digital, plans to instead focus on seeking licensees to expand its brand licensing program. It plans to continue to offer online and retail photo printing, and desktop printers. In addition to its consumer businesses segment, Kodak has a commercial segment that includes enterprise services, graphics, entertainment, and...
Shockingly, an Apple television may require...
Canada’s Globe and Mail has a story that’s been getting a bit of buzz, as it relates to the television the world is (somewhat inexplicably) waiting for Apple to produce:
Rogers Communications and BCE [Bell] are in talks with Apple to become Canadian launch partners for its much-hyped Apple iTV, a product that has the potential to revolutionize TV viewing by turning conventional...
Slate: Is Facebook really a good business? →
Farhad Manjoo:
I have a more general skepticism about the utility of the “social layer” that Facebook wants to build under the entire economy. In a letter to potential investors, Zuckerberg argues that most products and services can be improved by making them “social.” This has become received wisdom in the Silicon Valley; nowadays every site, app, game, and store plugs into some kind of...
Technical help question
Okay, Apple nerds: for years I had a MacBook Pro and used either its internal display or an external monitor with the MBP’s lid closed. If I put the MBP to sleep, I could connect the external display and USB keyboard, press a button on the keyboard, and it would wake up, with the internal monitor off. That’s pretty much what I wanted. (I’ve never had any desire to run the MBP...
37signals: Developing for old browsers is (almost)... →
David Hansson:
It used to be one of the biggest pains of web development. Juggling different browser versions and wasting endless hours coming up with workarounds and hacks. Thankfully, those troubles are now largely optional for many developers of the web.
Hannson takes the now-obligatory shot at IE (“the favorite punching bag of web developers everywhere for a very good...