Linked List: July 29, 2009

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

WSJ: Apple to Exhibit at CES 2010 

Ben Charny, reporting about CES for the WSJ Digits weblog:

Apple plans to attend the show’s 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.

Stated as fact, but there’s been no such announcement. There have been rumors, but no announcements. Interesting.

Justin Williams: ‘Where Do I Sign Up?’ 

iPhone developer Justin Williams:

With the latest app rejection being Google Voice, I am one step closer to selling off my iPhone products and focusing entirely on the Mac once more. I can’t help but feel that I’ve wasted the past 9 months of my life building on a platform that is so hostile and anti-developer.

And he makes a strong point here:

Rather than saying duplicating functionality, I wish Apple would just own up and say why they are really rejecting these apps: they compete with existing Apple products or Apple’s carrier partners. Google Voice and GV Mobile compete with Apple & AT&T by offering an alternative to hefty minute and SMS plans.

This “duplicate functionality” explanation is worse than no explanation at all, because it just can’t be the true reason. If “duplicate functionality” were disallowed, there’d be no third-party note apps, or timers, or calculators. If Apple is not willing to say that they removed Google Voice apps because AT&T required them to (and who knows, perhaps their contract with AT&T prevents Apple from saying so), it’d be better if they just said “We will not explain the reasons behind this decision” than to offer an explanation that doesn’t make sense.

Layton Duncan: ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ 

Scathing critique of the entire App Store from iPhone developer Layton Duncan. Here, on iTunes Connect:

Any developer who has experienced the business side of the App Store, iTunes Connect, the app submission process, is well aware that there is virtually zero care and attention to detail taken, it barely works for it’s intended purpose, and that lack of care and attention even creeps into the customer facing App Store. Put simply, the whole thing is entirely unprofessional, bordering on incompetent, and Apple should be highly embarrassed by it. The astounding thing is that this is so at odds with what most people expect from Apple: it’s certainly a far cry from the usual obsessive attention to detail in most of it’s consumer facing products.

Earlier in the piece, Duncan focuses on how everything is skewed toward 99-cent prices.

There are exceptions, to be sure. Cultured Code’s Things is $10, and is a consistent top seller in the productivity category. But there’s no denying the overall dollar-store atmosphere.

I’m wondering how much of the problem is that the App Store is built on the foundation and framework of the iTunes Music Store, which was designed from the outset specifically as a venue for selling 99-cent downloads.

MobileMe iDisk App for iPhone 

Works great.

Update: Playing around some more, not so great. Every time I play a QuickTime movie from my iDisk’s Movie folder, the app freezes.

Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule 

I so deeply love this simple piece from Paul Graham:

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.

A day with nothing scheduled, nothing at all, feels like a holiday to me.

Like Talking to a Brick Wall 

Riverturn — the developers of VoiceCentral, one of the Google Voice-based iPhone apps yanked from the App Store yesterday — posted a paraphrased transcript of their phone call with an Apple representative regarding the decision.

AT&T’s Inability to Handle the iPhone 

Spot-on, must-read piece by MG Siegler:

AT&T is constantly promising that network upgrades are coming, but Apple keeps selling more and more iPhones. While it would never admit it, I think it’s beyond time to wonder if AT&T can handle the exclusive iPhone partnership anymore. I’m not saying that the situation would be different had it been Verizon who got the exclusive deal, I’m simply stating what is on everyone’s mind: AT&T is simply not working the way it should be for customers who are paying close to, or in excess of, $100 a month.

Siegler’s piece is titled “Can AT&T Handle the iPhone?”, but it needn’t have been posed as a question. They have shown that they cannot. However much they’ve improved their network over the past two years, it hasn’t been enough to keep up with the growing demand from iPhone users. Coverage here in Philadelphia has gotten far worse over the past few months. iPhone users were unhappy with AT&T’s network quality in 2007; it has only gotten worse since then.

Of course, AT&T is said to be working hard to extend the exclusive deal with Apple beyond next year. But that will be a nightmare for everyone involved. We have no shortage of sources, some very close to Apple, now telling us that as mad as all of us (the customers) are with AT&T, Apple is just as mad, if not more so. Apple can speak in platitudes all it wants during earnings calls about its partnership with AT&T — behind the scenes, trust me, they hear our complaints loud and clear.

Apple slagged AT&T twice during the WWDC keynote, for their inability to offer iPhone users either MMS or tethering. These are not advanced cutting edge mobile phone features. That was seven weeks ago, and AT&T still hasn’t said a peep about making either feature available. Of course Apple is furious. They are dependent on an incompetent partner in their biggest market.

Mind Share vs. Market Share 

Steven Hodson, regarding the iPhone/Google Voice affair:

It is amazing that Apple continues to do business in this heavy handed way and still get away with it. If Microsoft ever did anything like this the howls of outrage would be resonating through the tech world an the Department of Justice would be seeing its phones ringing off the hook.

This is no-longer about a computer manufacturer with a minor market share. We are talking about the iPhone here which is now one of the biggest powerhouses in the mobile computing space. It is at the point that if Apple sneezes everyone runs to grab the Kleenex.

To be clear (and judging from my email yesterday, I haven’t been clear), I think this decision stinks. But it’s bad because it erodes trust in the iPhone platform, not because it’s illegal. The iPhone’s actual market share of the total phone market remains relatively small. Antitrust regulators don’t measure mind share. Microsoft must play by different rules with Windows because Windows is a genuine monopoly. The iPhone isn’t even close to that. And in the meantime, acting like protectionist bastards is not illegal.

(I do think it’s the case, though, that if the iPhone eventually garners a monopoly-sized market share, that the current App Store model will be unsustainable. But I think the current App Store model will prove itself unsustainable in the market long before the iPhone reaches monopoly-size market share. It’s already bursting at the seams.)

Palm’s Pre Can’t Offset Sprint’s Subscriber Losses 

Larry Dignan on Sprint’s dismal quarterly results:

Sprint called the launch of the Palm Pre a success, but it wasn’t enough to offset a net subscriber loss of 257,000 in the second quarter. The subscriber loss, which came amid a churn rate of 2.05 percent, illustrates Sprint’s challenge. The company is launching new handsets—Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct s30, HTC Snap and the BlackBerry Tour—but is still having trouble retaining customers.

Meanwhile, Sprint reported a wider-than-expected second quarter loss, a fact that may be worrisome given the carrier’s big bet on the prepaid market, which includes a bunch of subprime customers.

Related: Verizon will have the Pre starting in “early 2010”.

Microsoft and Yahoo Make Deal for Search 

Pending regulatory approval, Yahoo gives up on its own search and becomes a front-end for Bing.

Simon Willison asks a good question: What happens to the Yahoo Search APIs?