Linked List: June 27, 2008

Friday, 27 June 2008

Visual Thinking 

Douglas Coupland:

Here’s another question I was recently asked: when I see words in my mind, what font are they in? The answer: Helvetica. What font do you think in?

LiveDiscKit 

Neat open source project from Rogue Amoeba.

Jackass of the Week: Douglas McIntyre 

Douglas McIntyre:

Apple may eventually end up selling 20 million iPhones worldwide every year. It will be faced with the unpleasant reality that now bedevils firms like Motorola and Nokia. Sales volume is not any good as a substitute for a high yield on each product. Low margins have never been part of the Apple formula for success.

Apple hasn’t switched to low margins for the iPhone 3G. They’ve switched from taking a cut of the monthly service fees to an up-front subsidy from the carriers.

Bleep 

Stephen Colbert gives George Carlin “The Word”. (Via Laughing Squid.)

The Big Leagues 

Robert Palmer:

We mentioned yesterday a rumor that Apple won’t cut a check for iPhone application developers until the dev’s share of the sales tops $250. A lot of commenters were upset about this, if it’s true: TomWBrowning said “So if you make an app that costs $1 you won’t see a penny even if 359 people buy it?”

From the (indie) developer’s perspective, this stinks.

If you’re thinking in terms of a couple hundred dollars, your app probably isn’t even going to get listed in the App Store. The App Store isn’t going to be like VersionTracker or MacUpdate, where every piece of junk gets listed as it’s submitted.

An Event Apart 

My thanks to An Event Apart for again sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Their slogan pretty much sums it up: “The design conference for people who make web sites.” Upcoming events include San Francisco on August 18-19 and Chicago on October 13-14. I’ve attended twice, and they’re crackerjack shows. If you care about good design and standards-based web development, this is the conference.

Daring Fireball readers save $100 off registration using discount code “AEADARE”. Register during an early bird period period and save a total of $200.

‘Browser’ 

This seems like a very accurate rule of thumb.

Rogers Announces iPhone Rates in Canada 

And — surprise, surprise — they suck. Stingy data limits and no unlimited data plan at any price.

Fake Steve on Palm 

Fake Steve:

Meanwhile Palm is getting inquiries from Chris Anderson of Wired who wants to do a big cover story on how “selling for less than cost” is the new future of business.

No Country for Raising Arizona 

Some similar shots from two very different Coen brothers movies.

99Rental.com 

What a great idea:

Every week Apple offers a special 99 cent movie rental on iTunes. 99Rental.com keeps track of the $0.99 iTunes Movie of Week for you. You can check the site or be notified automatically through RSS, Email, Twitter, or Dashboard Widget.

Subscribed.

Dino Dai Zovi on Mac OS X Security 

Dino Dai Zovi, who a year ago won a MacBook Pro in an exploit contest at CanSecWest, on the security-related improvements he’d like to see in Snow Leopard.

Ledger 

Good looking, simple new Mint theme from Super Colossal.