Linked List: January 7, 2010

Thursday, 7 January 2010

Greenpeace and Apple, Sitting in a Tree ★

Apple now ranked first in Greenpeace’s rankings of consumer electronics.

Jackass of the Week: Henry Blodget ★

Remember how with the iPod, year after year, we were inundated with punditry arguing that the iPod would suffer the same fate as the Mac — “superior technology beaten in the market by cheaper commodity products because Apple tried to maintain too much control”. Or some similar analogy. That didn’t work out well for those pundits.

I haven’t seen as much of that with the iPhone, but Henry Blodget is giving it the old college try, positioning Android as the Windows in the analogy. Now, it’s true that Android is open and the iPhone isn’t, and Android is definitely gaining attention and market share. But the analogy has no legs. The mobile OS market today bears almost no resemblance to the PC market of the ’80s. Blodget can’t even muster an argument as to what Apple should be doing differently. Really: What? License the iPhone OS to other handset makers? Give me a break.

Anyway, this argument is stupid if for no other reason than that iPhone sales are still growing fast.

Nil by Mouth ★

Lovely piece by Roger Ebert, on whether it’s sad that he can no longer eat or drink.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss ★

Or, as Dominik Wagner quipped, “I, for one, welcome our {blue,red,yellow,green} overlords.”

Embarrassed Canada Zaps Thousands of Web Sites in Response to Yes Men Hoax ★

Hilarious prank leads to European web hosting provider pulling the plug on thousands of web sites. Egregious.