By John Gruber
Mux — Video for developers
Linked List: September 17, 2008
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
- Microsoft Aims to Redefine ‘I’m a PC’ ★
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This Microsoft advertising story just gets weirder. Now they’re rolling out a commercial with a John Hodgman lookalike who declares, “Hello, I’m a PC, and I’ve been made into a stereotype.”
Directly responding to Apple’s campaign is weak. It’s playing Pepsi to Apple’s Coke, Burger King to Apple’s McDonald’s. It’s an explicit acknowledgement that Microsoft is the second-place brand.
- Valleywag: Microsoft to Announce Jerry Seinfeld Ads Cancelled Tomorrow ★
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What a mess Microsoft is in.
- What’s the Deal With the 4 GB Fourth-Gen iPod Nanos? ★
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Oddly, in addition to the two advertised capacities for the new Nanos (8 and 16 GB), there are also 4 GB models available in some European stores. Jeremy Horwitz speculates that Apple was originally planning 4 and 8 GB capacities, and moved to 8/16 late in the game in response to the new Zunes from Microsoft.
- Inside the iPhone App Store Acceptance Process ★
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Niall Kennedy on the App Store and the Podcaster saga. Includes this fascinating nugget regarding Podcaster developer Alex Sokirynsky’s decision to sell the app on his own, via ad hoc provisioning:
As of yesterday afternoon Podcaster had provisioned 1130 devices for distribution across 12 different copies of the application hosted on Google Code. Each new uploaded build included up to new 100 authorized devices after the publisher received payment via PayPal. It’s stretching the Ad-Hoc distribution model a bit but the application may have collected approximately $11,000 over the weekend through suggested donations of $10 per handset. At the time of writing Apple has not pulled the application or developer certificates from their central certificate authority.
- Regarding the Original iPod’s October 2001 Debut ★
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In my “Greatly Exaggerated” piece last week, I wrote:
To claim that this week’s [iPod/iTunes] event was in any way not normal is to ignore the fact that Apple has scheduled an event just like Tuesday’s during September every year since the iPod debuted in 2001.
This was followed by a footnote, which read:
The original iPod debut was in October, not September, 2001, pushed back one month in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
I based this footnote on my recollection of an interview with Steve Jobs in Steven Levy’s book about the iPod, The Perfect Thing. My recollection was wrong, however. Here’s the relevant passage from the book:
The subject turned to September 11. A lot of conversations back then did that. Jobs said that after the attack, Apple had given the introduction a lot of thought, fearing that the wrong note might offend. “I think that we’re feeling good about coming out with this at a difficult time,” he said. “Hopefully it will bring a little joy to people.” Such questions led to a discussion of Apple’s relatively low-key iPod launch event, which in other circumstances might have been held in a big city — if not San Francisco, maybe even New York. “It’s a tough time,” Jobs finally said. “But life goes on. It must go on.”
And so while the scale of the introduction was scaled back in light of the September 11 attacks, there is no indication that the date was changed. I’ve edited the footnote accordingly, and I regret the error.
- Canon EOS 5D Mark II ★
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21 MP, improved high-ISO performance, and a 1080p video mode. MSRP $2700, on sale in November.
Sample pictures and video footage here, but be warned that the link will resize browser windows.
- My Gal ★
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George Saunders’s piece on Sarah Palin in this week’s New Yorker is an instant classic:
I’m finding it hard to concentrate, as my eyes are killing me, due to I have not blinked since I started writing this. And, me being Regular, it takes a long time for me to write something this long.
Where was I? Ah, yes: I hate Élites. Which is why, whenever I am having brain surgery, or eye surgery, which is sometimes necessary due to all my non-blinking, I always hire some random Regular guy, with shaking hands if possible, who is also a drunk, scared of the sight of blood, and harbors a secret dislike for me.