Linked List: April 21, 2010

Wednesday, 21 April 2010

New U.S. $100 Even Uglier 

Why are we making our money ugly? We’re ruining one of the greatest visual brands in history.

Scott Robbin’s iPad Split Keyboard 

I’d like something like this, although I think it’d be more useful in portrait mode than landscape. At least in landscape you can comfortably type with all of your fingers. The portrait keyboard is in a no-man’s land — too small for using all your fingers, too big for just your thumbs. Dan Provost suggested something similar on January 30.

Update: Just noticed that Robbin’s post was from January as well. All I can say is that in practice, iPad in hand, these ideas seem even better now than they did in January.

Jason Snell on Apple’s Great Quarterly Results 

Includes a different, and perhaps more informative, chart showing revenue breakdown by division (iPhone, Mac, iPod) over time.

The Conversation 12: The Gizmodo/iPhone Thing 

Earlier today, Andy Ihnatko and your humble narrator were on Dan Benjamin’s The Conversation, to talk about the Gizmodo/iPhone saga. Another good show from Dan.

Google Buys Agnilux, Semiconductor Firm Founded by Former PA Semi Employees 

Seth Weintraub:

Agnilux was founded by members of the PA Semi (originally “Palo Alto Semiconductor”) company that was purchased by Apple for $278 million in April 2008.  After the purchase, many of the top employees were reportedly upset at the pricing of the stock options Apple granted to them. They left to form Agnilux, the super secret early stage start-up that Google just grabbed.

Apple’s Revenue by Product Division 

Silicon Alley Insider’s chart of the day:

Apple’s iPhone business, which didn’t exist three years ago, now represents a whopping 40% of the company’s revenue, and has been the company’s biggest revenue generator for three quarters in a row.

Keep in mind, too, that iPod Touches don’t count toward the “iPhone” revenue numbers, even though they’re iPhone OS devices. Compare and contrast with Microsoft.

‘Someone Has It Backwards’ 

Interesting. Apple has responded publicly to Adobe’s Mike Chambers’s claim that Flash is an open platform:

“Someone has it backwards — it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” said spokeswoman Trudy Miller in a statement.

Spot-on.

HTML5 Is My Arcade 

Knocking at Flash’s door.

‘The Guy Was Pretty Hectic About It’ 

Jeff Bercovici called the owner of Gourmet Haus Staudt:

What [the “finders” of the phone] never did, however, was notify anyone who worked at the bar, according to its owner, Volcker Staudt. That would have been the simplest way to get the phone back to the Apple employee who lost it, who “called constantly trying to retrieve it” in the days afterward, recalls Volcker. “The guy was pretty hectic about it.”

Theft.