Linked List: June 3, 2010

Thursday, 3 June 2010

DoubleTwist Media Player for Android ★

So much better looking than the default Android media player it isn’t even funny. Free download from the Android Market.

Tom Reestman on Sideloading Native iPhone Apps ★

Tom Reestman:

Can’t get your app on the iPhone? Write a web app. Oh, but then you wouldn’t get all the benefits of the App Store. Guess what? You won’t get those benefits from “open” apps, either. Which means many complaints about web apps will become the complaints about “open” apps. It won’t shut up the critics, it’ll likely make them louder.

Neven Mrgan on Web Apps ★

Neven Mrgan:

What’s becoming an itch, however, is the lack of a serious, native-like SDK for development of webapps.

Adobe CS5’s Non-Standard Indeterminate Wait Cursor ★

A lot of Adobe’s Mac UI decisions are the UI equivalent of speaking English as a second language. You can see the logic behind the thinking, but the result is utterly weird and wrong to a native speaker.

Michael Tsai on Apple and App Store Perception ★

Michael Tsai:

Much of the controversy over the App Store is due to Apple not sticking with the rules that it laid down. The developer agreement doesn’t forbid having a better mail app, better voice mail, or a better photo frame, and yet Apple found reasons to block them. It’s unfortunate that Mossberg and Swisher let Jobs spin so much. Why have a live interview if you won’t follow up to make sure that your questions are answered?

Tips and Tricks to Extending the HTC EVO 4G and Incredible’s Battery Life ★

Sounds like fun.

Apple’s Web Apps Directory ★

They’ve had this since before the App Store, if I recall correctly. They can do better than this, though. There’s also their listing of major brand websites “ready for iPad”.

Eric Meyer on the Potential of Mobile Web Apps ★

Eric Meyer:

But let’s assume that you’re personally invested in the iPhone/iPad ecosystem and can’t for some reason avoid or leave it. In that case, you’re stuck with that one single store, the App Store.

Except that’s only true because until now, nobody has launched an alternate store that offers web stack applications (WSAs). Maybe that’s because nobody is really building WSAs yet, at least not in numbers large enough to justify building a store to sell them. But then, maybe developers aren’t building WSAs because there’s no central place to sell them.

One thing to keep in mind: the iPhone has better support for mobile web apps than any other system, Android included. This was true when the iPhone debuted — and mobile web apps were the one and only way for third-party developers to write apps for it — and remains true today.

Court Begins Examining Jason Chen’s Computers ★

Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullaugh:

Stephen Wagstaffe, chief deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, told CNET on Wednesday that a court there had appointed a “special master” to search the items seized from the home of Jason Chen in late April. The court has asked the special master to collect only information that pertains to Gizmodo’s dealings with an iPhone prototype that the blog purchased for $5,000.

Birds Caught in the Oil From BP’s Spill ★

Distressing pictures.

Andy Ihnatko Reviews HTC’s Droid Incredible and Sprint EVO 4G ★

He likes both phones, HTC’s proprietary Sense UI, and the EVO’s physically larger 4.3-inch display. He couldn’t see the Incredible display in sunlight, and dings the EVO for terrible battery life.

Commissioner Bud Selig Refuses to Reverse Blown Call ★

What a dick.

Giant Sinkhole in Guatemala ★

Incredible.

‘10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple’s New iPhone 4G’ ★

Matt Warman wins the race as the first major technology writer to trash the unreleased next-generation iPhone, sight unseen. Unsurprisingly, (by my count) nine of his ten reasons are factually wrong.

NYT to Host Political Polling Site FiveThirtyEight ★

Brian Seltzer:

The New York Times said Thursday that it would begin hosting the popular blog FiveThirtyEight and make its founder, Nate Silver, a regular contributor to the newspaper and the Sunday magazine.

Mr. Silver, a statistical wizard, became a media star during the last presidential election season for his political projections based on dissections of polling data. He retains all rights to FiveThirtyEight and will continue to run it himself, but “under the banner and auspices of NYTimes.com,” The Times said in a news release.

Leroy Stick, the Man Behind BPGlobalPR ★

Leroy Stick:

One pickledick actually suggested that BP approach me and try to incorporate me into their actual PR outreach. That has got to be the dumbest, most head-up-the-ass solution anyone could possibly offer.

Do you want to know what BP should do about me? Do you want to know what their PR strategy should be? They should fire everyone in their joke of a PR department, starting with all-star Anne Womack-Kolto and focus on actually fixing the problems at hand. Honestly, Cheney’s publicist? That’s too easy.

Another Cheap Ad Hoc iPad Stand ★

Seems like it’d be quite a bit sturdier than the aforelinked business card holder. (Thanks to DF reader John Whalen.)

Chris Clark Wants a Services Menu for iPhone OS ★

A thousand times yes.

Rob Rhyne on Briefs’s Rejection From the App Store ★

Briefs is an ingenious tool for creating interactive prototypes of iPhone apps. Rob Rhyne introduced it at last year’s C4 conference, and it blew a bunch of us away. It’s a great idea, well-done, and it very much complies with the letter (and, I think, the spirit) of Apple’s App Store guidelines. To wit: the interactivity is, as stipulated by section 3.3.2 of the developer’s agreement, “interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s).” You cannot use Briefs to create or distribute actual apps, only mockups of apps.

Alas, Briefs was rejected. Rhyne suspects it is a misunderstanding — that the App Store reviewers, upon seeing what Briefs does, assumed it contains its own interpreter or otherwise executes arbitrary downloaded code. It does not. This one truly deserves reconsideration, Apple.

Learn more about Briefs at the spiffy website Rhyne created for it.

The $0.69 iPad Stand ★

This business card holder from Office Depot.

The WebOS App Market ★

Brian X. Chen:

“I made some of the crappiest apps for the Pre, and Palm is giving me $1,000 for each,” software programmer Pete Ma (right) bragged to Wired.com last week during a developer conference, adding that each of his five apps took less than an hour to code.

Ars Looks Back at the BeOS File System ★

Feel free to skip to the interviews on the third page.

Technologizer’s iPad Satisfaction Survey ★

Took me about two minutes to fill it out.

This Is How You Admit a Mistake ★

Umpire Jim Joyce, speaking to the press on his blown call in last night’s should-be perfect game by Armando Galarraga. No hemming, no hawing, no excuses. He admits he was wrong. (Via Keith Olbermann, who’s calling for commissioner Bud Selig to overturn the result of the call.)

Google to Add Picture Backgrounds to Search Home Page ★

Marissa Mayer:

Today, we’re introducing a new feature that brings a whole new level of personalization to Google by letting you add a favorite photo or image to the background of the Google homepage.

Step-by-step instructions to get it to work today:

Go to http://bing.com/
You’re done.

Bullshit From AT&T VP on New Tethering Charge ★

GigaOM interview with Mark Collins, AT&T senior VP of data and voice products:

GigaOM: What about the $20 tethering fee? It looks like a convenience charge.

Collins: That capability is enabling something you can’t do today. You can use one device and get multiple connections so it’s more useful to you. You’re going to use more data so the price is based on the value that will be delivered.

(Emphasis added.) This would be true if the data plan were still “unlimited”, but it’s not. You’re already paying for a capped amount of bandwidth — 2 GB — and what you consume via tethering counts toward that cap. You’re using the same amount of data but in a different way. And if you go over your cap, you’ll be charged the $10 overage fee for each additional gigabyte. There is no excuse for this $20 tethering charge other than greed.