Linked List: April 19, 2010

Monday, 19 April 2010

Palm Loses Head of WebOS Development to Twitter ★

MG Siegler:

Last Friday, news hit that Michael Abbott, Palm’s head of software and services, the man in charge of its webOS platform, was leaving the company. […] Abbott will be joining Twitter as the company’s new vice president of engineering, we’ve learned and confirmed with the company.

New York Times Story on Gizmodo’s iPhone Prototype ★

Miguel Helft and Nick Bilton, reporting for the NYT:

The person who found the phone peddled it to Gizmodo, which bought it for $5,000, Nick Denton, chief executive of Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, said by instant message. […]

No sourcing from the Times to verify the phone was “found”, rather than obtained by some other means, other than Gizmodo’s own reporting.

By late in the day, reports began to surface on the Internet that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, had called Gizmodo to get the device back. Mr. Denton declined to comment, saying any conversation between Mr. Jobs and Gizmodo would most likely have been off the record.

What reports, where? Update: Presumably they were referring to this post at The Awl from Choire Sicha. Would have been good for the NYT to note that Sicha was a long-time employee of Denton’s, having served as Gawker editorial director.

“We haven’t had any formal communication with Apple,” he said. Brian Lam, the editor in chief of Gizmodo, said his publication would “probably” return the device to Apple.

“Probably” as opposed to what? There are a mountain of legal issues I believe Gizmodo has already run afoul of, but under what grounds can they possibly not return this unit to Apple? It is Apple’s property and Gizmodo is in possession of it.

Apple’s Mac OS X Resolution Independence Guidelines ★

Developers should be thinking in terms of points — physical units of measurement — not pixels.

Android’s ‘Density-Independent Pixel’ ★

Android devices have wildly-varying pixel-per-inch resolutions. To aid developers, the OS offers a “density-independent pixel” unit of measurement:

A virtual pixel unit that applications can use in defining their UI, to express layout dimensions or position in a density-independent way.

The density-independent pixel is equivalent to one physical pixel on a 160 dpi screen, the baseline density assumed by the platform (as described later in this document). At run time, the platform transparently handles any scaling of the dip units needed, based on the actual density of the screen in use. The conversion of dip units to screen pixels is simple: pixels = dips * (density / 160). For example, on 240 dpi screen, 1 dip would equal 1.5 physical pixels. Using dip units to define your application’s UI is highly recommended, as a way of ensuring proper display of your UI on different screens.

I suspect Apple will do something similar, except that by going straight from 480 × 320 to 960 × 640, everything just doubles in terms of pixels and nothing works out to a non-integer scaling factor.

Hulu iPad App in the Works, May Be Used to Test Subscriptions ★

Brian Stelter and Brad Stone, reporting for the NYT:

People briefed on Hulu’s plan believe it may test the subscription approach with its iPad app. They could not say when such an application might be available.

[Hulu CEO Jason] Kilar declined to talk about any future Hulu products, but he waxed enthusiastic about the coming wave of ultra-portable tablet computers like the iPad. “Typically media consumption in the house was confined to the living room or home office,” he said. Tablets, he added, “allow consumers to serendipitously discover and consume media in every room of the house.”

When Hulu ships its iPad app, what becomes the next “This is why Apple has to add Flash Player to iPhone OS” poster child? FarmVille? Uh, maybe not.

Photograph of Steve Jobs’s Office ★

Taken earlier today.

HTML5 Presentation ★

Slideshow-style presentation on HTML5 made using HTML5.

Andy Ihnatko on the ‘(Increasingly Plausible) Miraculous Engadget (and Gizmodo) iPhone 4G’ ★

Andy Ihnatko’s spot-on take:

Gizmodo has a lot of explaining to do.

For what it’s worth, Nick Denton says the backstory on how they got it is coming.

Gizmodo Paid for iPhone 4G Prototype ★

Gawker chief Nick Denton on Twitter, in response to this question about how Gizmodo came into possession of a prototype next-generation iPhone:

Yes, we’re proud practitioners of checkbook journalism. Anything for the story!

Consider that if the device was truly lost by mistake, they have cost at least one person their career. And if the device was not lost but stolen… well, the story behind this unit is almost certainly more interesting than the device itself. And the device is fascinating.

Anyway, I heard yesterday from multiple sources that Gizmodo paid for the unit.

Hearts and Minds ★

David Pogue on Google’s efforts to woo iPhone developers to Android.

Engadget Reviews the HTC/Verizon Droid Incredible ★

Clearly the new king of the Android hill.

Filed for Future Claim Chowder: DigiTimes Reports Apple to Use OLED Display in Second-Gen iPads ★

Max Wang and Joseph Tsai, reporting for DigiTimes:

Apple reportedly has started development of the second generation iPad using the same design concept as for the iPhone 4G, and will use an OLED panel, according to sources in the component industry.

But then they go on to point out that OLED displays of that size are prohibitively expensive:

Kuo noted that the current price of the 9.7-inch LCD panel for iPad is about US$60-70, but the price of a 9.7-inch OLED panel is about US$500. He said the price gap is unlikely to narrow significantly in 2010 or 2011.

In short, their report boils down to “Apple is going to use OLED displays in the next-generation iPad, even though such displays are impossibly expensive.”

(Given what I’ve seen with the Nexus One, I don’t think Apple will ever use today’s OLED, regardless of cost, because of the wild hyper-vibrant color reproduction. Perhaps future OLED displays will solve that problem, though.)

Gizmodo Has the Purported Next-Gen iPhone in Hand ★

It’s been an open secret to those of us in the racket that Gizmodo purchased this unit about a week ago, from those who claimed to find it. That this belongs to and was made by Apple is almost beyond question at this point. Just how much it looks like what Apple plans to ship this summer, I don’t know. Note that it’s thinner than a 3GS.

I’m mentioned in the article, and must respond. Jason Chen writes:

Apple-connected John Gruber — from Daring Fireball — says that Apple has indeed lost a prototype iPhone and they want it back:

So I called around, and I now believe this is an actual unit from Apple — a unit Apple is very interested in getting back.

Obviously someone found it, and here it is.

Note that I did not use the word “lost”. It is my understanding that Apple considers this unit stolen, not lost. And as for the “someone(s)” who “found” it, I believe it is disingenuous for Gizmodo to play coy, as though they don’t know who the someones are.