Linked List: December 11, 2008

Thursday, 11 December 2008

Killer App Store 

USA Today’s Ed Baig calls the iTunes App Store the iPhone’s killer app. Hard to disagree, and I think iPod Touch sales reflect this — my sources indicate the Touches are selling nearly as well as the Nanos this year, despite being much more expensive.

The Forgotten Sidekick 

Aaron Swartz thinks the Danger Sidekick deserves more credit than it gets.

Browser CPU Usage 

Brent Simmons:

The thing is, web developers should test their pages for CPU usage the same as app developers do. And anytime a page is idle, CPU usage should be at 0%. Same as with any other app.

Hallelujah.

Stephen Fry on the State of the Mobile Industry 

Stephen Fry, in a wonderfully rambling essay:

Apple have shown that there is a huge demand for exciting, innovative, lovable and imaginative consumer devices. All the rivals have to do is to … is to what? To produce cut price lookalikes or truly to pioneer and innovate? Well, the latter is what they should do, but the former is what most of them will do of course, because these dumb firms never ever learn. They are afraid to be good. They will blame stockholders, consumers, anyone but themselves.

Don’t you sometimes long to be CEO of a company like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Nokia or Microsoft? So that you can say to your coders, your designers, your development teams and your software architects: “Not Fucking Good Enough. I haven’t said ‘Wow’ yet. I haven’t gasped with pleasure, amusement or admiration once. Start again. Not Fucking Good Enough.”

Obama Nominates Nobel Physicist for Energy Secretary 

World-renowned scientist rather than oil company shill? Change.

Another List of iPhone Shortcuts 

From Jeff Richardson’s new site, iPhone J.D. (Via TechnoLawyer.)

Gmail Adds SMS Text Messaging 

You’ve been able to do this from AIM for years, and it comes in handy.