Linked List: September 9, 2009

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

iTunes 9 Breaks Palm’s WebOS Syncing Again 

Cat and mouse.

David Pogue Interviews Steve Jobs 

Pretty brutal on Amazon’s Kindle:

I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing. But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device. You notice Amazon never says how much they sell; usually if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody.

More on iTunes 9’s Use of WebKit 

Will Norris does some packet sniffing and figures out how to get results from the iTunes Store in the new HTML format.

For all previous version of iTunes, the store was displayed by a custom rendering engine and was marked up using a completely proprietary XML format that was definitely not even close to HTML. The new store for iTunes 9 is HTML (but, for now at least, the App Store section is still using the old XML format, even on iTunes 9).

Update: To be clear, though, iTunes 9 is still a 32-bit Carbon app.

Claim Chowder for Yours Truly 

I got the iPod Touch camera wrong, and had the low-end $199 Touch at 16 GB instead of the actual 8.

Steve Jobs’s Return to Stage and Opening Remarks 

Video from The Wall Street Journal.

Does iTunes 9 Use WebKit? 

Looks like it.

Nano Gets Video Camera 

Like the Flip, it apparently is just a video camera, no stills.

But — contrary to rumors, my own sources, and common sense — the iPod Touch does not have a camera. Interesting to note how the Touch is now billed: “a great iPod, a great pocket computer, a great portable game player”.

The new FM tuner in the Nano has a TiVo-esque live pause feature, and lets you “tag” songs you hear for identification in iTunes when you’re back at your computer.

Macworld’s Live Event Coverage 

Jobs is on stage.

Blogs and Baked Goods 

John August nails it:

Over the weekend, there was a lot of uproar about a worm attack on WordPress installations that wrecked some notable blogs. Amid the sometimes-smug observations by the unaffected, I found one point that needs to be elevated to basic principle:

Most people shouldn’t be running their own blogging software.

Apple Cuts Prices on Existing iPod Lineup 

I’d wait to hear about the new ones first.

Engadget on the Upcoming Palm Pixi 

Smaller and slower.

Andy Ihnatko on The Beatles and iTunes 

Andy Ihnatko:

Therefore (so my logic goes): there’s no upside to putting these tracks on iTunes on the 9th. All you’re doing is giving consumers the option of buying only the “White Album” tracks they like, instead of making them spring for the whole uneven pile.

My thoughts exactly. I say they debut the remasters on physical media now, reap the profits, then release download versions six months or so from now.

But maybe that’s just because I’m not attending this event and I’ll shit myself if I miss out on Paul and Ringo appearing and playing together.