Linked List: September 12, 2010

Sunday, 12 September 2010

Most Common Words Unique to 1-Star and 5-Star App Store Reviews ★

Another wee bit of brilliance from Marco Arment. (I still think Apple should call them “comments”, not “reviews”.)

How Good Is Gartner at Predicting Smartphone Market Share? ★

So good that in 2006, they predicted that Windows Mobile was poised to take over the industry and attract the most developers.

Microsoft Workers Celebrated Windows Phone 7 RTM With Staged Funeral for iPhone and BlackBerry ★

So, so odd. For one thing, the iPhone and BlackBerry should not be the rivals they have in their sights. Android should be. Android is the mobile platform that is eating Windows Mobile’s lunch — a licensed platform for OEMs like HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc. If Windows Phone 7 doesn’t take market share away from Android, who’s going to make Windows Phone 7 devices?

But the whole thing is just so corny and embarrassing. Ignore the fact that Windows Phone 7 almost certainly isn’t going to slow the success of the iPhone. Let’s just concede, for the sake of argument, that Microsoft is exactly right and Windows Phone 7 will kill the iPhone and BlackBerry. This goofy “funeral” is still lame — and will look lame in hindsight. And that’s if Windows Phone 7 actually kills the iPhone and BlackBerry, which isn’t going to happen.

Microsoft has never been cool, has never had good taste, but their lack of cool and lack of taste are spiraling out of control.

Lanyrd — ‘The Social Conference Directory’ ★

Speaking of Dopplr, Simon Willison and Natalie Downe have launched Lanyrd, which is sort of like Dopplr but focused on one very specific thing: conferences. Interesting. See more on their weblog.

Remember Dopplr? ★

Jemima Kiss on the result of Nokia’s 2009 acquisition of Dopplr.