Linked List: May 7, 2010

Friday, 7 May 2010

William Shatner Says He Never Made $600M From Priceline ★

Shatner:

Someone stupid said a stupid thing about me making $600M. It ain’t so. Relatives are coming out of the woodwork. Too bad it never happened.

So much for this then.

Judge Denies Media Request for iPhone Prototype Warrant ★

Declan McCullagh:

The reason for the sealing is that the documents contain the names of two individuals of interest, whom police do not want to alert, an attorney for the media coalition said after talking to Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney.

Direct Mail ★

My thanks to E3 Software for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote Direct Mail, their mailing list management and email tracking software for Mac OS X. Direct Mail offers the convenience of a hosted solution, but also the privacy and flexibility of a desktop Mac app. Check out their feature comparison charts to see how Direct Mail stacks up against web-based and other Mac products.

Direct Mail has a great Mac interface, seamlessly integrates with other Mac OS X apps (like Daylite), and is free to try for as long as you like. As usual, the screencast video is the best way to get a quick feel for how Direct Mail works and what it can do.

The Inquirer Says Apple Might Regret the iPad ★

Nick Farrell:

The iPad has doomed Apple, according to market analysts that are expecting the tablet to spell trouble for its maker. […] Rather than killing off the netbook, the iPad is harming sales of the iPod and MacBooks.

Uh-huh. Sure. Doomed.

Scribd in HTML5 ★

Using their new HTML5 document presentation technology to explain their new HTML5 document presentation technology.

Nintendo Prepares for War Against Apple ★

Leo Lewis, reporting for The Times of London:

Nintendo is preparing to unleash the full force of its development and marketing artillery against Apple after profits tumbled at the Japanese giant for the first time in six years. […]

Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo president, is understood to have told his senior executives recently to regard the battle with Sony as a victory already won and to treat Apple, and its iPhone and iPad devices, as the “enemy of the future” .

Marco Arment on App Store Keyword Scammers ★

This is the sort of dishonest trickery the review process ought to prevent. I wonder whether the developers of Angry Birds filed a trademark complaint to the App Store?

(Also, for what it’s worth, my six-year-old son tells me Angry Birds is an excellent game.)

Tim Bray on Android and Private APIs ★

Nice explanation from Tim Bray on Android programming APIs:

The Google-provided SMS app has its own database that it uses to stash away the SMS history, and it sets up its own Content Provider for its own internal use. It turns out that if you read the source code, you can figure out how to reach in and access that Content Provider. Which is probably a bad idea, because it’s part of an application that might not even be there.

I personally think the benefits of an Open Source platform exceed this sort of cost — when someone uses the source to figure out how to do something that really isn’t very smart.

There are several significant differences between Android and iPhone OS application APIs, but the biggest difference is one of policy. Every complex platform has APIs that third-party developers shouldn’t use. Android is like Mac OS X (or Windows, or other non-console-style systems) where developers can choose to use these private APIs, against the vendor’s advice, and take their chances. With the iPhone OS, Apple enforces a ban on their use via the App Store review process. That’s the difference.

Mark Cuban: ‘Tax the Hell Out of Wall Street and Give It to Main Street’ ★

Regarding yesterday’s stock market panic, Mark Cuban suggests a 25-cent-per-share trading tax, which would mostly affect traders (who buy and sell constantly), rather than investors (who buy and hold stocks for the long run).

iPad Available in Nine More Countries on May 28 ★

Apple PR:

Apple today announced that iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on Friday, May 28. Customers can pre-order all iPad models from Apple’s online store in all nine countries beginning on Monday, May 10.

My condolences to those of you in countries not yet listed.

No. ★

Do you like numerals? You’ll like this. (Via Coudal.)