Linked List: September 22, 2010

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

102-Year-Old Lens on a Canon 5D Mark II DSLR ★

Dreamlike results.

The Twitter Hack: How It Started and How It Worked ★

Cogent explanation from Richard Gaywood.

‘ū—’: A Distraction-Free Writing Environment ★

Merlin Mann:

While some so-called environments that are less free of distraction may display one, three, or even more lines of text — all at the same time — we understand that if you could only achieve the theoretical removal of all theoretical distractions, you would finally be able to write something. And we want ‘ū—’ to help you almost do that.

So Tom Arah made an argument that, because Flash is popular now — installed on 97 percent of web browsers in use, by one count — it will always remain popular, and “should eventually become the natural cross-OS and cross-browser web platform for devices, just as it is for the desktop.”

Chris Pepper responds:

People who are aware of this struggle understand that h.264’s recent growth has largely been at the expense of Flash video, and because iOS doesn’t support it. If the iPhone and iPad supported Flash, we’d be watching (or trying to watch) videos in Adobe’s broken mobile Flash player.

We, as an industry, are either stuck with Flash forever, or it will go into decline because of one or more popular platforms that do not support it.

iWork for iPad 1.2 ★

Jason Snell:

All three apps now support transferring documents to and from the iDisk feature that’s a part of Apple’s MobileMe online service. Users without MobileMe aren’t completely out of luck, though: according to Apple’s release notes for the products, the apps can also transfer files to servers running WebDAV.

Joshua Benton Sees the NYT’s New Opinion Pages as Being Influenced by iPad App Design ★

See also: Khoi Vinh’s comments.

‘Tall Women Carrying Heavy Things’ ★

Eric Schmidt on The Colbert Report last night. Worth it.

Why Is RIM No Longer Announcing Average Selling Prices? ★

Dan Frommer:

RIM announced on its earnings call last week that it would stop announcing average selling prices (“ASPs”) after this quarter. RIM blamed the move on the increase in both the number of devices it sells and the number of countries it sells BlackBerry devices into, which “makes forecasting product mix and therefore ASP increasingly difficult.”

But it’s also possible that RIM doesn’t want to keep reporting ASPs because the trend is generally downward.

E-Z-Fynd ★

New search product from CP Labs. I’ve been beta-testing it, and can’t say enough good things about it.

‘I’ll Take 2 MasterCards and a Visa, Please’ ★

Brian Krebs on shopping for stolen credit cards.

The Real Secret of Apple’s Product Philosophy ★

Jeremy Toeman and Greg Franzese:

The real secret to Apple’s success is that there are no secrets.

We often hear that Apple “plays the game” better than Sony, HP, Dell, etc — that’s not quite right. Apple is playing an entirely different game. What’s most amazing about this? Nobody else seems to want to play with them, they just keep playing the “other” game, and poorly.

Brilliant. It’s that simple: Apple cares about details that no other company cares about, and these details matter.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Pricing Problem ★

Peter Rojas:

It’s attractive to think about tablets as big smartphones that need to be sold in the same way, but at the end of the day they’re just not. Tablets aren’t substitutes for smartphones, they’re complements, and for a lot of people they’re a third (or even fourth or fifth) mobile device, and expecting them to buy one with a data plan isn’t realistic.

To subsidize (with carrier contracts) or not to subsidize, that is the question.

Due — iPhone Reminder App ★

I’ve been trying this $3 app for a few days and digging it — a convenient, low-friction way to set short-term reminders and timers. Sort of like Pester but for iPhone. Focused and thoughtful design.

VLC Quality ★

It’s a cliffhanger.

The iPad as the Low-Price Leader in Tablets ★

Jeff Bertolucci:

But for now, Apple’s iPad pricing is impressively affordable relative to its Android competitors. Who would’ve known?

Um, how about anyone who’s been paying attention to what’s actually going on and what Apple’s executives are saying, rather than holding onto preconceived notions from decades ago that Apple products aren’t price competitive?

Pie Charts Showing Apple’s Share of the Mobile Industry’s Profits ★

The iPhone is doomed.

MI6 ‘Used Bodily Fluids as Invisible Ink’ ★

Yeah, that bodily fluid.

Apple Dominates University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index ★

Not only do they lead the PC industry, but, as Erica Ogg reports for CNet:

The Mac maker’s nine-point lead is now the largest lead any company has over its competition in any of the 45 categories that the ACSI study surveys — including home appliances, gas stations, autos, e-commerce, airlines, and more.

Redesigned NYTimes.com Opinion Pages ★

Nice layout, but it’s the use of web fonts that really stands out. Their website is really starting to look like the newspaper — not literally, but in the sense of having the same vibe.

Kevin Fox: ‘The First Step to Fixing the Android Marketplace Has Nothing to Do With the Android Marketplace’ ★

Spot-on analysis of how the fact that Android has both “home screens” (where some of your installed apps appear) and a second-level “launcher” (where all of your installed apps appear) hinders the conceptual prominence of the Android Market.