Linked List: November 11, 2009

Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Detailed analysis and info-graphic visualizations of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books, by Christian Swinehart. Beautiful and fantastically detailed work. Be sure to explore the sections of the site from the menu atop the page. Truly wonderful. (Via Andy Baio.)

Joe Hewitt, Developer of Facebook App, Quits iPhone Development Over App Store Review Policies ★

Joe Hewitt:

My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process.

Update: Regardless how you feel about Apple’s App Store stewardship, you have to admit there’s at least some irony here.

Wolfram Alpha Partners With Bing ★

Seems like a good deal for both of them. I don’t see the integration yet when I try their suggested examples, but Microsoft’s announcement claims the features are coming in the “next few days”. I thought this was curious, though:

Microsoft’s initiative and interest in Wolfram|Alpha began earlier this year. In fact, there is an interesting story that circulates within our walls around some of our early discussions with Microsoft.

Highlighting examples of Wolfram|Alpha to the most senior executives at Microsoft, Stephen Wolfram entered the query “2^2^2^2^2”. Upon seeing the result, Bill Gates interrupted to say, “What, is that right?”

A profound silence fell over the entire room. Stephen replied, “We do mathematics!”

Bill Gates still attends meetings like this at Microsoft?

‘We Don’t Lie to Google’ ★

Ben Casnocha on the contrast in Google suggestions for slightly differently-worded queries. (Via Kottke.)

Apple’s Pursuit of Profit Rather Than Market Share ★

And speaking of MG Siegler, he has a good piece about Apple’s pursuit of profit rather than raw market share. This might be the single key factor to understand about Apple as a business. The difference between Apple and its competitors can be striking. Siegler writes:

According to the report, Apple made $1.6 billion in operating profit off of the iPhone in Q3. Nokia, meanwhile, made $1.1 billion. Let’s put this in perspective. Recent numbers suggest Nokia controls roughly 35% of the worldwide handset market. Apple? About 2.5%.

Not 25%. Two point five percent.

Another way to put it is that Apple is concerned with unit share, but only in the most profitable segments of the market.

Birdfeed and Twitter Geo-Location ★

Speaking of Twitter, here’s MG Siegler on the imminent new version of Birdfeed, which has terrific built-in support for Twitter geo-location.

Evan Williams Explains Twitter’s New Retweet Feature ★

Great explanation of the thinking behind a major new feature.

One thing to keep in mind is that Twitter, having reached the size of a pop-culture (rather than mere tech-culture) phenomenon, is going to stir up loud complaints every time they change anything, regardless of the merits of the change itself. Good for them for not being afraid to keep moving the service forward.

Quote of the Day ★

James Cameron, from Dana Goodyear’s profile in The New Yorker:

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”

So true. (Via Jamie Dihiansan.)

Updated Version of Khoi Vinh’s Revenue/Payroll Baseball Table, Taking Into Account Mid-Season Trades and Acquisitions ★

Nice work from Punching Kitty.

Visualizing CNN.com’s Traffic ★

Nicholas Felton:

Ultimately, I think the most fascinating story here is the change in our news habits after September 11, 2001. After this day, a new and higher baseline for visits to the site is established, and the inference is that this event really established CNN.com and the greater Internet as a reliable, timely and indispensable source for news.

Hacker Tool Copies Personal Info From Compromised Jailbroken iPhones ★

Intego:

It is important to note that standard, non-jailbroken iPhones are not at risk; it is extremely dangerous to jailbreak an iPhone because of the vulnerabilities that this process creates. (Estimates suggest that 6-8% of iPhones are jailbroken.)

I am personally wary of jailbreaking, but more from a stability/reliability perspective, not security. I’m skeptical about the above blanket statement. To date, the only security problems that have arisen are not for jailbroken iPhones in general, but jailbroken iPhones running SSH with the default root password. What security holes have been identified that affect jailbroken phones that aren’t running SSH or on which the root password has been changed?

Update: OK, here’s a good security issue created by jailbreaking itself, from Dino Dai Zovi (whom I interviewed back in 2007):

Also, remember that jailbreaking your iPhone disables code signing enforcement. That’s the thing that makes exploits so hard on iPhone.

Google Tutorial Videos for Android 2.0 ★

Google’s tour through the Android 2.0 UI. (Via Dave Winer’s excellent new weblog, Droidie.)