Linked List: July 5, 2007

Thursday, 5 July 2007

Better (or at Least Cheaper) Headphone Adapter for the iPhone ★

Derek K. Miller figured out that the headphone adapter that shipped with the Sport Case for the original iPod Shuffle works great as an adapter for the recessed jack on the iPhone.

Verizon Wireless COO on iPhone: ‘iWhatever’ ★

From a company-wide memo titled “iWhatever”, sent by Verizon Wireless COO Jack Plating:

In this area, too, we have an advantage — choice. We currently offer customers a choice of 18 multimedia devices — at various price points — that download music and surf the Web, wirelessly, at broadband speeds. Customers can choose from a wide range of device designs, colors and applications that best fit their needs.

Why stop at 18? Go for 30.

Outspring Mail — Vaporware Email Client for Mac OS X ★

Jeff Baudin:

Tentatively titled Outspring Mail, this product is a complete departure from conventional email readers. In fact, it is so radically different that we are working on and expect to be awarded no less than five unique patents for some of the features in OSM.

It must be good if it has patents!

Letterman’s iPhone Nano Sneak Peek ★

Also a breath mint.

‘It Could Work: A 3rd Party Email Client for OS X’ ★

Michael McCracken on whether there’s a market for a third-party email client:

I do think there is a market for a pro email client for OS X, and I’ll use another core app category to explain - Text Editors. I think they are a better analogy than music or browsers. Shipping in every Mac, TextEdit is a solid basic free editor, but everyone needs something more. […] How is the market for programmer’s editors? XCode is free and very good, emacs, vim, etc. are also free and excellent. But there are people making money selling text editors.

Probably the best categorical comparison, but the difference is that Mail is far more ambitious than TextEdit. Update: Via Twitter, John Siracusa suggests PathFinder as an example of a commercial “pro” app carving out a niche against a bundled, ubiquitous free app.

Microsoft Extends Xbox 360 Warranties to Three Years to Cover Defective Hardware ★

Costing them more than $1 billion, supposedly.

movabletype.org ★

Relaunched for the upcoming open source release of MT 4.

NY Times River ★

Dave Winer’s mobile-optimized news source pulled together from The New York Times’s various RSS feeds. Bookmarked on my iPhone.

Paul Kafasis: ‘The Rise of the OS’ ★

Responding to Brent Simmons’s musings on the email client market. In a comment, Kafasis writes:

I think a nice solution here, and perhaps in general, would be a MailKit framework, similar to WebKit. Mail could be built on top of it, and be free, and developers could build custom clients as well.

The Times Online: O2 Wins Rights to Sell iPhone in U.K. ★

The Times:

O2 has beaten its rivals to win the exclusive UK rights to offer Apple’s iPhone. The tie-up, the mobile phone industry’s most sought-after deal in years, marks a major coup for the 18 million-customer group. The final contract is expected to be signed imminently.

The phone, which should be on sale in time for Christmas, is expected to prove a key weapon in enabling O2 to win and retain customers in one of Europe’s fiercest mobile markets.

By the way, notice how Apple waited until after the iPhone’s U.S. debut to finalize deals with European carriers. Apple bet big on the iPhone selling well, and now they’re cashing in.

Gems for iPhone ★

Simple web game from Steven Frank, optimized for iPhone. Might be worth a bookmark.

Shooting With the iPhone ★

Example photos taken with the iPhone camera.

Mac OS X Audio Update 2007-001 ★

Intel-only update for 10.4.10 with a fix for the “popping” problem with external speakers.

Morty ★

“Who is this guy, Morty Seinfeld?”

Fake Steve on the Music Industry ★

Fake Steve:

Ironically the mistake the major labels made was the same one that IBM made when it gave the DOS franchise to Microsoft nearly 30 years ago. They were faced with a new market that they didn’t understand. They had a piece of work that they couldn’t do on their own or didn’t want to do on their own and they didn’t view it as critical or important, so they outsourced it to a partner. The partner turned that seemingly unimportant work into a way to accrue power and create a monopoly and control the industry.

Jesus Christ, is Fake Steve good. That’s like a Mickey Mantle home run analogy right there.

Danny Goodman: ‘Web Applications for iPhone’ ★

Danny Goodman has written some of the best books I’ve ever read on scripting for the Mac and web. Unsurprisingly, he’s now writing about iPhone web app development, including some practical developer notes. His first iPhone web app is a tip calculator. Someone call Ryan Block.

Apple Stores Are Nearly Sold Out of iPhones ★

The only two Apple Stores I see with iPhones in stock are the Shadyside store in Pittsburgh (great neighborhood — my wife lived there while attending Pitt) and the Bridgeport Village store in Tigard, Oregon.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to prices on eBay.

FlyGesture Now Free ★

Gus Mueller:

FlyGesture is now free!

Brent Simmons: ‘No Suitable Email Apps for Mac OS X’ ★

I see the problem as this: Of course Mac OS X needs to ship with a good, free, built-in email client. But Mail aspires to much more. Apple more or less intends for all Mac users to use Mail, everyone from simple users who get a handful of messages per week to developers who subscribe to dozens of high-traffic mailing lists and get dozens of personal messages each day. I don’t think it’s possible for a single email client to be great for all users; and in any case, Mail certainly fails. But the alternatives are all severely lacking and the presence of Mail — free, bundled, integrated — spooks developers from trying.