Linked List: November 5, 2010

Friday, 5 November 2010

Shaun Inman’s HTML5Audio Safari Extension 

New Safari Extension that replaces certain popular Flash audio players with the HTML5 <audio> element.

.tv 

My thanks to the .TV top-level domain name for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. If you’re publishing video online, what possible better top-level domain could you have? My friend and The Talk Show co-host Dan Benjamin uses it for his budding podcast empire, 5by5, for just that reason.

Marco Arment: ‘Developers Don’t Rush to New Platforms’ 

Spot-on analysis from Marco Arment:

The problem is that hardware manufacturers and tech journalists assume that the hardware just needs to exist, and developers will flock to it because it’s possible to write software for it. But that’s not why we’re making iPhone and iPad software, yet those are the basis for the theory.

We’re making iPhone software primarily for three reasons:

  1. Dogfooding: We use iPhones ourselves.
  2. Installed base: A ton of other people already have iPhones.
  3. Profitability: There’s potentially a lot of money in iPhone apps.

It’s a classic chicken-vs.-egg bootstrapping problem. Developers adopt new platforms with lots of users; users buy into a new platform if it has a lot of developer support. So how can a new platform get off the ground? Apple got past this with the iPhone by making it so damn compelling and useful right from the start. Not only did that get users in line to buy it without any third-party software whatsoever, but it even got developers interested in writing native iPhone apps before the iPhone even went on sale, because developers wanted to write the sort of inspiring apps Apple itself had written (and shown off) for the original iPhone.

Review — UI Mockup Preview App for the iPhone 

Even if you personally have no need for a UI mockup preview app, it’s worth checking out the website just for the cool magnifying loupe. (Via Matt Drance.)

Kevin Tofel on the Market for Chrome OS Netbooks 

Kevin Tofel on rumors that Chrome OS netbooks are set to start shipping soon:

The problem: The mobile computing landscape has changed since that announcement, causing me to wonder if there’s really a need for Chrome OS devices, or if Android has already won the day.

The market has certainly changed dramatically since when Chrome OS was announced, and with iPad-fueled touchscreen tablet mania, there certainly seems to be a lot less enthusiasm for Chrome OS today than there was a year ago. But I wonder if it might not prove to be a sleeper hit for Google. Maybe the lesson from the iPad is not specifically that no-keyboard touchscreen tablets are the future, but rather that Apple has broken the logjam of thinking that all computers need to run a traditional OS like Windows or Mac OS X. There are certain use cases where a hardware keyboard is a necessity, and Chrome OS might scoop up that segment of the mobile market.

If you wanted me to bet, I’d wager that Chrome OS is not going to succeed. I think Android is Google’s best mobile OS — it ought to be able to do everything Chrome does because it contains a great WebKit implementation, plus it has a native app layer that already has developer momentum. But I don’t think it’s a sure thing that Chrome OS won’t find a solid niche. And the idea of making notebook computers based on Android seems to have fizzled out.

Bank of America, Citigroup Said to Test Apple iPhone 

Hugo Miller, reporting for Bloomberg:

Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are considering whether to let employees use the Apple Inc. phone as an alternative to Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry for corporate e-mail, said three people familiar with the plans.

More good news for RIM.

Dell to Take on RIM 

Shayndi Raice, reporting for the WSJ:

In a direct shot at BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., Dell Inc. plans to move its 25,000 employees over to its own line of smartphones and then aggressively market a service to help other companies do the same.

“Clearly in this decision we are competing with RIM, because we’re kicking them out,” the computer maker’s chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, said in an interview.

Dell employees will be offered the upcoming Dell Venue Pro — which runs Microsoft Corp.’s new Windows Phone 7 software — in exchange for their BlackBerrys. Eventually, the company also will offer phones powered by Google Inc.’s Android software.

Embrace both Windows Phone and Android, ignore the iPhone, and target RIM. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but it sounds like a good strategy for Dell.

Fireballed.org — Caching/Mirror Service for Sites Linked From DF 

Great idea from Brian Stucki at Macminicolo — a mirror for sites I link to from DF:

All you have to do is change the domain name in the link. So, if the link is “daringfireball.net/linked/page” then you can use “fireballed.org/linked/page” to load the mirror.

And, given today’s Xserve news, quite a nice example of the Mac Mini’s utility as a server.

(And I can’t help but be curious how it’ll handle this very link.)

‘Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design’ 

New book by Khoi Vinh on grid-based web design. Hell yes.

The Abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans 

Creepy video by Teddy Smith, touring the abandoned Six Flags New Orleans, destroyed by Hurricane Katrina five years ago. (So nice to watch full-screen HD video without my MacBook Pro’s fan kicking in.)

Update 1: Here’s an aerial photo of the theme park taken on 14 September 2005. Unreal.

Update 2: Great Flickr set of photos from the park.

Ebert on ‘Superman’ 

Roger Ebert, on Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman:

More recent superhero movies are top-heavy with special effects and wall-to-wall action. Superman is more restrained in its telling, but doesn’t seem slow, probably because it tells a good story rich in archetypes. It started something. “It is to the superhero genre what Snow White is to animation,” writes the young Indian critic Krishna Shenoi. “It is literally the film that started the superhero film genre. Without it, there would be no Batman, no X-Men, no Iron Man.”

Superman pointed the way for a B picture genre of earlier decades to transform itself into the ruling genre of today.

Not a word, though, for John Williams’s score, which I’d argue did as much to make this movie work as anything visible on screen. Effects and scenes that looked like B-movie cheesiness instead felt like they were real, because of that music.

Apple Shitcans the Xserve 

Apple:

Xserve will no longer be available after January 31, but we’ll continue to fully support it.

More information in this PDF document. (Told you Apple wasn’t filling that North Carolina data center with Xserves — the writing has been on the wall for Xserve for a while.)

Damn You, Auto Correct 

“The power is out in my condoms”.

Update: Fireballed. Here’s a cached version of the home page.

Looking at Kinect Using IR Goggles 

Interesting. Update: Here’s another video showing Kinect’s projected IR dot grid.

‘I’m Here’ 

Magnificent short film by Spike Jonze. Probably the Spike Jonze-iest thing I’ve ever seen. Set aside 30 minutes for it. (Via Roger Ebert, who has links to it on YouTube in three parts here.)