Linked List: July 31, 2009

Friday, 31 July 2009

Peter Ammon has released a major update to HexFiend:

This app is about exploring the implementation of standard desktop UI features in the realm of files too large to fully read into main memory. Is it possible to do copy and paste, find and replace, undo and redo, on a document that may top a hundred gigabytes, and make it feel natural? Where do we run into trouble?

Cultured Code ★

My thanks to Cultured Code for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote Things, their excellent, award-winning task management app for Mac OS X and iPhone. It’s no exaggeration to say that Things sports one of the most influential UI designs in recent years.

They have a coupon code for DF readers, but it’s in the form of a riddle:

When we designed Things — our powerful yet easy to use personal task management application — we followed the lead of a well known great mind, who said:

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”

If you guess our coupon code, you can get 20% off in our online store this week.

He’s Like Grand Moff Tarkin Come to Life ★

The NYT:

Mr. Ballmer defended Microsoft’s position in other markets. He laughed off Apple as a minuscule player in the computing market and mocked some of Google’s efforts to develop software to run on PCs.

“Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.”

Ian Betteridge Says I’m Wrong About Microsoft ★

Ian Betteridge:

Windows 7 isn’t a mediocrity. It’s good. It’s not going to get Mac users to switch, but it is going to stop a lot of Windows users from switching. And, more importantly from Microsoft’s perspective, something that will persuade the legions of their most important customers - IT managers - that it’s time to move on from Windows XP.

I say that’s a low bar.

Harry McCracken: ‘Will Windows 7 Win Back Defectors to the Mac? Probably Not. and That’s OK.’ ★

Harry McCracken:

But Gruber wasn’t talking about whether Windows 7 will stop more people from leaving Windows; he was talking about whether it’ll convince Mac users to switch from Macs, and saying that if Windows 7 is really good, it will.

I’m not so sure. History suggests that people don’t like to switch operating systems and the most striking significant shifts in operating-system market share have happened when one OS has been on alarmingly shaky ground. Back when the exodus from Macs to Windows 95 and Windows 98 that Gruber refers to happened, Apple’s OS was floundering and it wasn’t clear that the company was going to survive. And Apple has made major inroads over the past couple of years in part because Windows Vista was such a mediocrity.

It’s not so much that if Windows 7 were good, it would attract some Mac users, but rather that if Microsoft were driven by technologists rather than sales and marketing guys, they would be hungry to build an OS that wins those switchers back. It’s not that they need those customers, but that they used to drive the industry’s technical agenda, and now they don’t.

iPhone OS 3.0.1 ★

Fixes the SMS vulnerability.

Ridley Scott to Direct ‘Alien’ Prequel ★

This should be good.

Steve Ballmer on Apple and PC Pricing ★

Several of the objections to my “Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline” piece (e.g. here) are arguments that Microsoft wants PC selling prices to continue to drop. That’s just not so. Peter Burrows reports on Microsoft’s financial analysts meeting:

I’m at Microsoft’s financial analysts meeting in Redmond, where Ballmer joked about the many Apple laptops in use by the financial analysts in the room. “We have low share in the investor community. I see a lot of Apple logos,” he said during his opening remarks. “Don’t bother to hide them. I’ve already counted them. And it’s okay—feel free [to use the Macs], so long as you’re running Office.”

And:

Of course, Ballmer also explained that the company’s goal is to raise PC prices in the next year. That’s due both to expected popularity of a new class of higher-end and higher-priced netbooks, a new pricing strategy around Windows 7 that the company hopes will result in far more upgrades to premium SKUs, and a reversal of a strategy in the last year to cut prices to spur demand in emerging countries. “The theory was wrong,” said Ballmer, in that Microsoft didn’t tap enough untapped demand to compensate for the price hit. “You’ll see us address the theory. We’re going to readjust those prices north” with Windows 7.

Hacker News Thread on ‘Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline’ ★

Many thoughtful remarks, both in agreement and disagreement.

Motorola Is Betting on Android ★

Om Malik interviews Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha:

As part of our conversation, Dr. Jha stressed that handset makers need to pick a single smartphone OS and devote resources to it in order to win. He pointed to Nokia and Symbian, Apple and its iPhone OS and RIM’s BlackBerry OS. He used that logic to justify why his company was betting the farm on Google’s Android. Why? Because it’s the best option for the company right now.

I’d love to see a Motorola comeback. Ditching Windows Mobile and focusing on Android sounds smart to me.

Steven Frank Has Had Enough ★

Steven Frank:

I haven’t heard a single explanation for the rejection of the Google Voice app that makes a shred of sense at all. […]

My position is not that every app should be approved — it’s that rejected apps should be rejected for reasons that at the very least make consistent, logical sense, without garbage form-letter rejection notices that explain nothing, and with at least some sort of guidance available to the developer about how to fix the problem instead of meeting them with a brick wall.

“Consistent, logical sense” gets right to the heart of it. He’s putting his money where his heart is and switching to a Palm Pre.

Licensing Issue Threatens to Shut Skype ★

So let me get this straight. eBay paid $2.6 billion for Skype, but that didn’t include the licensing rights to the core technology?