Linked List: October 8, 2009

Thursday, 8 October 2009

Louis Gerbarg on the Technical Details of Flash iPhone Apps ★

Louis Gerbarg, after inspecting the contents of the IPA file from an iPhone app produced with Flash CS5:

Technically speaking, these do appear to basically be within letter of the SDK agreement, modulo the fact that Adobe appears to making private API calls. They should be able to do what they need to without making those calls, so ultimately that should be a non-issue.

Now, the notion that what this thing emits is indistinguishable from something Xcode emits is laughable. They are very different, and not in a good way. While the apps may get acceptable frame rates on an iPhone 3GS, they don’t on earlier hardware, and they almost certainly uses substantially more power battery than native games.

(Via Michael Tsai.)

Survey: 22% of Upper-Income U.S. Teens Want to Buy an iPhone; 15% Already Own One ★

It’s not a fad, it’s a long-term trend.

Update: It’s definitely worth noting that the survey results were not for all U.S. teens, but rather were the results of a survey of “middle-class and upper middle-class teens… representing the top 30% of U.S. households.”

Mac OS X DP3’s Purple Button ★

For those who didn’t get the reference the other day, here’s John Siracusa review of the third developer preview of Mac OS X from February 2000.

AT&T Wireless CEO Hints at ‘Managing’ iPhone Data Usage ★

Incompetents.

WTF of the Week ★

Popular Mechanics, in their list of the “10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009”, includes the TechCrunch Crunchpad, which does not yet exist as an actual product.

HTC Profits Down ★

No surprise: they’re the world’s biggest maker of Windows Mobile phones.

Creator Codes and Modern File Browsing ★

Interesting observation from Thomas Worrall on a subtle shift in UI abstractions between the old and new Mac eras.

Pogue Reviews Garmin’s Nuvifone G60 ★

GPS-maker Garmin’s first entry in the phone market, originally announced almost two years ago and much-delayed, is finally out. Looks interesting but expensive, with nickel-and-dime monthly costs and, according to Pogue, a crummy touchscreen.