Linked List: April 12, 2010

Monday, 12 April 2010

iPad as E-Reader for the Blind 

Benjamin Clymer:

Ask any PC-loving computer nerd why Apple products have become the de facto choice of the masses, and you’ll likely hear something like, “People buy Apple products because they’re pretty.” That may be true for many, but one group of consumers who care little for Apple’s prodigious aesthetics are the blind.

They care more about how Apple products actually work. And while the iPad may be Apple’s most controversial launch in recent memory, the blind community is unanimous in its support.

Here’s why it should not be surprising. Apple doesn’t think design is how something looks, but rather how it works.

NewTeeVee: ‘Google to Open-Source VP8 for HTML5 Video’ 

Ryan Lawler:

Google will soon make its VP8 video codec open source, we’ve learned from multiple sources. The company is scheduled to officially announce the release at its Google I/O developers conference next month, a source with knowledge of the announcement said. And with that release, Mozilla — maker of the Firefox browser — and Google Chrome are expected to also announce support for HTML5 video playback using the new open codec.

And after that, I’ll bet we never hear another word about how Ogg Theora is really just as good as H.264.

Questions: Will Apple or Microsoft support VP8? And will Google support it at YouTube?

Opera Mini Approved for App Store 

Told you so — if you’re surprised that Apple accepted Opera Mini, you don’t understand what Apple is doing with the App Store.

Apple Against the World 

Jason Snell, on Apple’s moves to maintain control over the App Store and native iPhone app development by prohibiting the use of third-party meta-platforms:

Sounds good, but the develop-once-run-anywhere philosophy is something that makes more sense to bean counters and development-environment vendors than it does to platform owners and discriminating users. In the ’90s we were told that Java apps would be the future of software, because you could write them once and deploy them anywhere. As someone who used to use a Java-based Mac app on an almost daily basis, let me tell you: it was a disaster. Java apps didn’t behave like Mac apps. They were ugly and awful and weird, but hey, at least they ran on the Mac.

It’s the same way I feel about Adobe’s AIR environment today.

Microsoft Announces Kin, Its Next Two Failed Phones 

Entire web site is Flash. These two phones are neither Windows Mobile 6 nor Windows Phone 7. It’s as though the company is self-destructively attempting to sabotage its own mobile efforts.

Redmond Hot Tub Time Machine 

Paul Thurrott on iPhone OS 4:

Based on the announcement, they’re making some obvious but important updates to the product and, perhaps for the first time ever, they are clearly responding to their increasingly aggressive competitors, especially Google (Android) and Microsoft (Windows Phone).

Yes, iPhone OS 4, set to ship this summer, is a response to Windows Phone 7, set to ship after this summer.

Apple’s Wager 

John Siracusa:

Apple’s decisions regarding its mobile platform in particular have been extremely protective from the very start. Cumulatively, these actions represent a huge bet placed by Apple. The proposition is this: Apple is betting it can grow its platform fast enough, using any means necessary, that developers will stick around despite all the hardships and shoddy treatment. Each time it chooses to do what it thinks is best for the future of the iPhone OS platform instead of what will please developers, Apple is pushing more chips into the pot.

Alice for the iPad 

How does the Kindle compete with this?

Conan O’Brien to Host Late Night Show on TBS 

I wish him well, but going from The Tonight Show to TBS is like going from the New York Yankees to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Jean-Louis Gassée Gets It 

Jean-Louise Gassée:

Who, in his right mind, expects Steve Jobs to let Adobe (and other) cross-platform application development tools control his (I mean the iPhone OS) future? Cross-platform tools dangle the old “write once, run everywhere” promise. But, by being cross-platform, they don’t use, they erase “uncommon” features. To Apple, this is anathema as it wants apps developers to use, to promote its differentiation. It’s that simple. Losing differentiation is death by low margins. It’s that simple. It’s business. Apple is right to keep control of its platform’s future.

It really is that simple. That’s a perfect one-paragraph summary of the situation. His detailed analysis (and historical perspective — much of it first-person) is spot-on.

A New Google Docs 

No better comparison of the cultural differences between Google and Apple than to compare Google Docs and iWork. iWork has no form of cloud based syncing or collaboration; the appeal of the apps (both on the Mac and iPad) is that it helps you create beautiful documents. Google Docs is all about cloud-based syncing and collaboration; its example documents are downright homely.

The Conversation, Episode 10 

Yours truly, Craig Hockenberry, and special guest Jim Coudal were on Dan Benjamin’s The Conversation this afternoon, talking about Twitter’s purchasing of Tweetie, the iPad, iAds, and more.

I Can See the ‘Mountain View, Start Your Photocopiers’ Banner Hanging at WWDC Now 

Ashlee Vance and Nick Bilton, reporting for the NYT:

But Google is going one step further, exploring the idea of building its own slate, an e-reader that would function like a computer.

Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.

Robert Love on iPhone OS 4 and Multitasking 

Google Android engineer Robert Love:

As I stated in my previous post, the real concern with multitasking on an embedded, swapless device is memory consumption. Battery life is a straw man. So how do services solve the memory consumption problem? Alone, as described in the event, they don’t. But iPhone OS will continue to kill applications that leave the foreground. Thus, applications will need to be refactored into a client and server pair: a user-facing application that only runs when in the foreground and a background service. The point being, services have a small memory footprint and they are limited in number. Without the risk of unbounded multitasking, this greatly relieves memory pressure.

I think his overview of how multitasking works on iPhone OS is the best I’ve seen, and a decent layman’s explanation. And he’s absolutely right that the biggest constraint is RAM — that’s why older iPhones and iPod Touches are cut off from these features.

Update: Some of his specific technical guesses are wrong, though. This statement, for example, is flat-out incorrect:

Thus, applications will need to be refactored into a client and server pair.

Adobe Unveils Creative Suite 5 

Adobe has a chart to help you decide which version has the apps you want.

Louis Gerbarg on Apple, Adobe, Game Interpreters, and Section 3.3.1 

Best piece I’ve read on the whole thing, by a long shot. Must-read.

Bloomberg Reports Palm to Put Itself Up for Sale 

Serena Saitto and Ari Levy, reporting for Bloomberg:

Palm Inc. , creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation. [...]

Taiwan’s HTC Corp. and China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. have looked at the company and may be potential bidders, said the people. Dell Inc. also looked at Palm, though it decided against an offer, according to two of the people.