Linked List: November 3, 2010

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

Apple Begins Accepting Mac App Store Submissions ★

Still an awful lot of questions about how this is going to work.

iTunes Song Samples to Expand From 30 to 90 Seconds ★

I never thought 30 seconds was long enough, but I’ll bet the music industry resisted even that.

Update: Previews for the App Store remain at zero seconds.

The Effect of Flash on Battery Life ★

Chris Foresman, in his review of the MacBook Air for Ars Technica:

We did find (quite by accident) that Apple may have more reasons behind not installing Flash by default other than the stated reason of ensuring that users always have the most up-to-date version. Having Flash installed can cut battery runtime considerably — as much as 33 percent in our testing. With a handful of websites loaded in Safari, Flash-based ads kept the CPU running far more than seemed necessary, and the best time I recorded with Flash installed was just 4 hours. After deleting Flash, however, the MacBook Air ran for 6:02 — with the exact same set of websites reloaded in Safari, and with static ads replacing the CPU-sucking Flash versions.

Two hours of battery life, just by keeping Flash Player uninstalled. (Via Steven Frank.)

Wings — The Making of Field Notes 2010 Fall Edition ★

Just like it says on the cover, “Proudly printed and manufactured in the U.S.A.”

Official Twitter App for Android Updated to Resemble iPhone App ★

The icon on the far right of the toolbar (and the tweet details panel) looks like a pair of underpants, no?

T-Mobile myTouch 4G Commercial ★

Fascinating commercial from T-Mobile. It’s a parody of Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign, but it brands the iPhone as being appealing, in and of itself. The insult target is AT&T. T-Mobile is practically begging to carry the iPhone.

Jason Calacanis Threatens to Sue AOL/TechCrunch ★

Mike Arrington:

Jason Calacanis, our former partner on our TechCrunch50 events, is threatening to sue us.

Lovely story.

Apple Support Document on the iOS 4.1 Daylight Savings Time Alarm Bug ★

Apple:

To resolve this behavior for existing alarms, set the repeat interval to Never. You will need to reset these alarms for each day you need them.

After November 7th, 2010, you can set your alarms to repeat again.

The bug is apparently fixed in iOS 4.2, but I doubt 4.2 is shipping before November 7 anyway.

Shawn King Gets Email From John Casasanta ★

Delightful, as ever. Don’t miss the follow-up.

Pearl Jam, the Perils of Fame, and the Trouble With Avoiding It ★

Great piece by Steven Hyden for The AV Club on Pearl Jam’s rise and sort of purposeful halt in the 1990s. (Via Bill Simmons.)

Super There Will Be Blood ★

As Kottke says, pitch perfect.

Don Draper Says ‘What?’ ★

Oddly hypnotic supercut.

Horace Dediu: ‘What Do You Have to Believe for an Android Dominated Future?’ ★

I like his categorization of “modular” vs. “inter-dependent” smartphone architectures. He makes a strong case that no single platform — Android, iOS, or other — is going to dominate the smartphone market any time soon.

Garmin Profit Up, but Exits Phone Business ★

The AP:

Garmin Ltd., maker of GPS devices, reported higher earnings but lower revenue Wednesday for the third quarter, and said it would abandon its efforts to break into the smartphone market and instead focus on selling GPS hardware to plane and boat makers.

So long Nuvifone, we hardly knew you.