The Daring Fireball Linked List

Tuesday, 9 Feb 2010

What’s New in Aperture 3 ★: Faces, places, and brushes.
ComScore Reports December 2009 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share ★: Palm, RIM, Microsoft losing market share; Apple and Google gaining. (RIM has the most to lose, of course.)
BashFlash ★: Nice complement to ClickToFlash — BashFlash monitors Snow Leopard’s Flash Player process and lets you kill it when it starts using excessive CPU time.

Monday, 8 Feb 2010

LESS CSS App for Mac OS X ★

CSS nerds: have you checked out LESS? If so and you dig it, you might be interested in this.

Panelfly ★

Gee, I wonder if e-comic-book distributors are excited about the iPad?

Wolf Rentzsch: MobileSafari Is Not the New IE6 ★

Wolf, responding to PPK’s argument that MobileSafari is the new IE6:

Mobile web developers, like most developers, are future-focused. We’d rather all mobile phones catch up with the iPhone we have in our pockets today, rather than bend over backwards to accommodate the current majority.

When Koch damns developers for professional hypocrisy and incompetence, I see a quiet revolution of mobile developers waiting for other phones to catch up to the iPhone.

Count me in with Wolf on this one.

An Even-Tempered Apology From White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel ★

Apologies to the Hulu-less.

‘Who’s Scruffy-Looking?’ ★

Philip Elmer-DeWitt on the highlights of this week’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco:

John Gruber. The ill-tempered author of the widely read Daring Fireball blog is flying from Philadelphia, presumably without his “What Are You Looking at Dicknose?” t-shirt, to discuss the “top 10 issues facing our world.” Friday 4:30 p.m. PT

First, “ill-tempered”? Second, everyone knows that shirt doesn’t have a question mark.

How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together ★

My favorite commercial of the night by far.

‘The Gadget Disappears’ ★

Love this line from the New York Times’s David Carr on the Charlie Rose show, regarding the iPad:

One thing you have to understand about this gadget is that the gadget disappears pretty quickly. You’re looking into pure software.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Carr is a business reporter, not a tech reporter. He sees the forest, not the trees. But this is really astute. I’ve been using a Nexus One Android phone for the last few weeks, and Carr’s quote summarizes the fundamental difference between Android and iPhone OS. On the iPhone, once you’re in an app, everything happens on-screen, with touch. Everything. You go outside the screen to the home button to leave the app or the sleep button to turn off the device. On Android, many things happens on screen with touch, but many other things don’t, and you’re often leaving the screen for the hardware Back, Menu, and Home buttons, and text selection and editing requires the use of the fiddly trackball. An Android gadget never disappears.

Before You Place Your Bets on Retrevo ★

Keep in mind that back in August, Retrevo released survey results showing that Apple’s MacBooks were getting killed by netbooks in the back-to-school market. That didn’t exactly pan out.

Retrevo: iPad Doubters ★

Retrevo, which bills itself as “the ultimate electronics marketplace”, has been getting a lot of attention in recent months for its consumer surveys on Apple products, including this one from Friday:

As we like to say, it’s the apps that sell smartphones like the iPhone and it could very well be those same apps that motivate buyers to run down to the Apple Store and get in line to buy a shiny new iPad. Whether this device becomes a big hit is anyone’s guess but based on this study it sure looks doubtful.

So let’s mark them down as bearish on the iPad.

Let’s also keep in mind that Retrevo is the same outfit who, just three weeks ago, released survey results showing that the most important features in an (at the time, hypothetical) Apple tablet were “long battery life”, “3G”, and “an e-book store with big selection” — and that the main thing people did not want was a required monthly data plan. Oh, and the price needed to be under $700. Sounds like something familiar.

Saints Beat Colts 31-17 to Win New Orleans’s First Super Bowl ★

A great win by a great team from a great city. Sports at its best.

Sketchpad ★

Simple web-based painting/drawing app. No Flash.

Sunday, 7 Feb 2010

Five Dials No. 10 (PDF) ★: Special issue of Hamish Hamilton’s excellent literary magazine, “A celebration of the life of David Foster Wallace with contributions by Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, George Saunders and others.” Designed by our old friend Dean Allen. So good — do yourself a favor and print it out.
Liquid Scale: Content-Aware Image Resizing App for iPhone ★: Remember this video from 2007, demonstrating a technique for content-aware image resizing that didn’t involve cropping or distorting the central elements of the image? Savoy Software’s Liquid Scale brings this technique to the iPhone. Pretty cool.

Saturday, 6 Feb 2010

The Second Post ★: Dan Phiffer’s second weblog post is about second weblog posts.

Friday, 5 Feb 2010

Radioshift ★

Radioshift is a Mac app that acts like a DVR for Internet radio stations. My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote it. Radioshift has thousands of preset stations from around the world (including, for me, all my favorite stations here in Philadelphia) and a great interface, including the ability to schedule shows to be recorded automatically. Download it for free, and through the end of February, save 20 percent when you purchase using coupon code “DARINGRADIO”.

Plus, Rogue Amoeba is exhibiting at Macworld next week. See them at booth #1545.

Microsoft Joins SVG Working Group ★

Bill Clinton was president of the United States when SVG started.

Greg Knauss: ‘The Days of Miracles and Wonder’ ★

So good.

If Global Warming Is Real Then Why Is It Cold? ★

Funny, never heard that one before.

How Long in the Works Was the iPad? ★

Ken Segall:

My point is, Apple has always demonstrated tremendous common sense. It’s just hard to believe they’d choose the name iPhone OS if iPad was already on the drawing board. My inner Sherlock tells me iPad wasn’t even a twinkle in Apple’s eye until well after March, 2008.

There’s no argument about it that “iPhone OS” no longer makes sense as the name for this OS. The iPad HIG and developer documentation is chock full of features and APIs and guidelines that do not apply to the iPhone (or iPod Touch). So there are features in the iPhone OS which do not apply to the iPhone.

I still say the iPad has been in the works for a long time. Many, many years. Certainly not the iPad exactly as it was announced, but the general idea — the final design of an Apple product is the result of non-stop iteration. I could be wrong, and Apple, of course, isn’t going to say. But I’d say the awkwardness of the “iPhone OS” name is proof only that Apple picks names from the gut — names that feel right rather than think right. “iTunes” is exhibit A.

Clang Successfully Self-Hosts ★

Doug Gregor of the LLVM project:

We built all of LLVM and Clang with Clang (over 550k lines of C++ code). The resulting binaries passed all of Clang and LLVM’s regression test suites, and the Clang-built Clang could then build all of LLVM and Clang again. The third-stage Clang was also fully-functional, completing the bootstrap.

Is there any other type of project that offers the same potential for recursive satisfaction as a compiler that can compile itself? It’s a singular milestone for LLVM.

Engadget Staff’s Initial Thoughts on the iPad ★

Remarkably dismissive overall. Nilay Patel is the only one who sees the potential.

Sling and AT&T ★

Chris Foresman:

AT&T made headlines Thursday by announcing that it had decided to allow SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone to stream video from a Slingbox over its 3G network. AT&T’s CEO claimed in the announcement that Sling Media modified the app to be more efficient on its network, but Sling has responded, saying it didn’t have to change a thing.

Update: Foresman has updated his article; seems Sling did do some lab testing with AT&T to prove that the app behaved well.

Apple: Core Location Not for Use Solely for Serving Location-Targeted Ads ★

Apple Developer Connection:

If you build your application with features based on a user’s location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.

Movist, Alternative Video Player to VLC for Mac ★

Federico Viticci on Movist, an open source Mac video player:

Where Movist really outstands the competition is in file support. It’s the only app that played my .mkv files perfectly, even when VLC was crashing. Not to talk about .mp4 and .avi support, pretty obvious. Moreover, Movist plays .wmw files faster than Quicktime, and you can also switch from FFmpeg to Quicktime playback with a single click on a toolbar button. Awesome.

Thursday, 4 Feb 2010

The Official Microsoft Blog Responds to Dick Brass’s NYT Op-Ed ★

Why in the world did they respond to this? And even worse, without refuting any of his claims, most especially his core premise that Microsoft is divided into dozens of bureaucratic fiefdoms that fight against each other to protect their turf?

App Store Previews Now on the Web ★

I’ve been waiting for this for so long — a way to link to App Store entries without requiring iTunes.

Jonathan Schwartz Tweets His Resignation in Haiku ★

Ran Sun into ground.
Schwartz cracks cute with jokey tweet.
Ignominious.

AT&T Gives Green Light to Sling TV Over 3G ★

Brad Stone:

AT&T announced Thursday morning that it will now allow the SlingPlayer iPhone app to stream live over its 3G network. “Since mid-December 2009, AT&T has been testing the app and has recently notified Sling Media — as well as Apple — that the optimized app can run on its 3G network,” said the carrier in a press release.

Comcast Rebranding as ‘Xfinity’ ★

Bob Fernandez, reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Comcast Corp. said yesterday that it would re-brand its TV, Internet, and telephone services as Xfinity on Feb. 12 to signal to customers that this isn’t the same old company. […]

This re-branding comes as Comcast has struggled to rebuild its reputation because of poor service and problems with its network that resulted in telephone and Internet outages. Its customer-satisfaction rating is among the lowest in the industry, but it has improved slightly in the last year. Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Khoury said the re-branding was not an attempt to distance the service from the Comcast name. “This is about our product. It is about providing our customers with products that just keep getting better.”

Many companies walk away from household name brands just for kicks. Sure.

James Kendrick Gets Poor Results From Palm Mobile Hotspot ★

James Kendrick:

My findings are disappointing to say the least. I found that both the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus performed virtually identically in the testing, which was expected given the similarity of the phones. The problem is I could never get anything above abysmal bandwidth with either phone.

I hope it’s something Palm can fix in a software update. It’s a killer feature on paper.

‘They Want the Thing in the Movies’ ★

Mike Monteiro gets it.

‘Microsoft’s Creative Destruction’ ★

Former Microsoft vice president Dick Brass, on Microsoft’s internal culture:

Another example: When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn’t like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.

Can you imagine the head of Apple’s iWork team declaring by fiat that there wouldn’t be versions of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers for the iPad because he didn’t like the concept?

Speaking of Gays in the Military ★

Speaking of which, this piece from The Economist is delightful.

Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Tweets His Support for Repealing ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Policy ★

Is there a more iconic sign of the times?

Firefox for Maemo RC3 ★

Stuart Parmenter:

We’ve decided to disable plugin (not to be confused with add-ons, which are supported) support for this release. The Adobe Flash plugin used on many sites degraded the performance of the browser to the point where it didn’t meet our standards.

Wednesday, 3 Feb 2010

Shut Up ★

Steven Frank:

shutup.css is a custom user stylesheet that can be applied to your browser to hide comments on many popular web sites without user intervention.

H.264 to Remain Fee-Less for Free Internet Video Through 2016 ★

MPEG LA

MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2016.

Corporation Says It Will Run for Congress ★

“Now that democracy is truly for sale, Murray Hill Incorporated is offering top dollar.”

More on iPad Widgets ★

Dimitri Stancioff, speculating on iPad widgets last week:

Can you imagine a full-screen Weather app (in its current incarnation) running on the iPad? Or a full-screen clock or calculator? Weird, right? Of course, Apple wouldn’t do that. They would have to improve on those apps to make them do more to better take advantage of the large screen. But doing so would actually stray from the purpose of these utility apps by adding complexity where simplicity is desired. In short, most utility apps don’t have any need to be any larger than they are on the iPhone.

iPhones Vulnerable to Forged Signature Certificates ★

Apple has a list of 224 root certificates that it trusts. As part of the attack, the anonymous researchers obtained a signature certificate from VeriSign for a company named Apple Computer. They backed the certificate up to disk, then used iPCU to create a mobileconfig file called “Security Update,” and attributed it to Apple Computer. They then exported it to disk without a signature as an XML file. They then signed the file and its CA trust chain and uploaded it to a Web server.

Opening the file with Safari on an iPhone results in the phone trusting the configuration file.

Charlie Miller verifies that it works, but also states it doesn’t lead to remote code execution. What popped out at me is that VeriSign issued a security certificate in the name of “Apple Computer” without, you know, verifying that it was Apple.

Softbank’s Net Profit Jumps 41 Percent on iPhone Sales ★

Kenneth Maxwell, reporting for the WSJ:

“When we launched the iPhone [in the summer of 2008], some people said those phones were not suited for Japanese cellphone users,” said [CEO] Masayoshi Son at a news conference. Most Japanese cellphones are smaller and lighter than the Apple device.

“But those [skeptics] have been proven completely wrong … The iPhone is selling so well that we are really feeling the boost from it,” Mr. Son said. He declined to say how many iPhones Softbank had sold, but described the handset as “the biggest contributor to third-quarter handset sales,” and “a major contributor to growth in data communication revenue.”

And here’s Apple COO Tim Cook from last week’s 2010 Q1 conference call:

In Japan what is going on there is the iPhone has been a runaway hit. The iPhone was up over 400% year-over-year during the quarter. So that is what is driving the huge revenue growth you see in Japan.

The Lost iPad Icon ★

Charles Ying reminds us that Apple only announced the iPhone YouTube app nine days before it shipped. The idea being that when they pre-announce something, they like to keep something back to have a new announcement just before it actually goes on sale. That’s what’s fueling this mania over the iPad secretly containing a camera. If there’s anything Apple hasn’t revealed about the iPad yet, I think it’s far more likely to be software than hardware.

Update: The site is back up.

Tuesday, 2 Feb 2010

Widgets for iPad? ★

Intriguing theory from Kevin Fox, regarding the built-in system apps from the iPhone that aren’t included — or haven’t yet been included — on the iPad. The glaring omissions are Weather, Stocks, Clock, and Calculator. Fox’s theory:

These apps are missing from the launchpad because they’re no longer apps. They’re dashboard widgets.

I’ve been thinking about the missing apps since Wednesday — I mean, the thing has fewer apps than the 1.0 iPhone. And Weather and Stocks seem like no-brainers. One thought I had was that they were just not finished yet, and would be there in March. Another thought was that they’d left these things off for third parties. But that doesn’t sound like Apple.

Widgets are an interesting explanation, and it never occurred to me that the missing ones were mostly widget-izable. In fact, until April 2007, the iPhone 1.0 Weather, Stocks, and Calculator apps were Dashboard-style HTML/JavaScript widgets. Jobs called them “widgets” on stage at the MWSF iPhone debut, and I later verified it with informed sources. (The iPhone OS 1.0 jailbreakers even found an empty /Library/Widgets/ folder.) Apple scrapped them and reimplemented them as native apps late in the game because the performance just wasn’t there — they all felt sluggish.

One thing that strikes me as off about Fox’s hypothesis is the Mac OS X Dashboard-style mode. No, I think they’d just live right on the Home screen. And then that might also explain why the home screen is so sparse. And maybe on the lock screen too? I like this idea.

Can You Get by With 250 MB of Data Per Month? ★

Glenn Fleishman:

This prompted me to check my usage, which you can do in the Settings app by tapping General → Usage, and then scrolling down to the Cellular Network Data section and adding the two numbers there. As far as I can tell, I haven’t reset the phone’s usage statistics: I’ve used a combined total of 1.9 GB over 7 months or about 270 MB per month, just over the limit. I checked my AT&T account to see how much I used in January, a month in which I traveled with the iPhone and no laptop - just 150 MB total.

Free Speech for People ★

“This campaign seeks to restore the First Amendment to its original purpose: to protect people, not corporations.”

Apple Demands Removal of USB Sharing Feature in Stanza iPhone App ★

Robin Wauters:

I’m sure Apple has good reasons to prevent people from being able to transfer files to iPhone and iPod Touch devices using a USB cable, and I believe this isn’t the first time they’ve asked developers of apps with this or similar features to remove them for new users. That said, I’m not 100% certain which rules were broken here, and since Apple requested Lexcycle not to discuss specifics we’re left guessing why Cupertino had an issue with the USB syncing features.

There are no public APIs in iPhone OS 3.1 that allow apps to sync via USB. This is a private API violation, not an e-book competition thing.

Update: More details, from David Sarno at the LA Times.

MG Siegler: ‘Apple Has Another Tablet in the Works. More Like a Mac Than an iPhone.’ ★

I’m going to go way out on a limb here and tell you that this is total bullshit.