Linked List: January 7, 2011

Friday, 7 January 2011

My thanks to Mutual Mobile for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Mutual Mobile is a large mobile consulting firm based in the U.S., and has multiple job opportunities — they’re looking for experienced mobile designers, developers, and project managers. Clients include Google, Audi, and Beatport, and their website features example work from many more. The company plans to add about 100 employees this year; check out Mutual Mobile’s jobs page to apply.

Intel Exec at CES: Microsoft’s Tablet OS Too Long in Coming ★

Translation: “Fuck me? No, fuck you.”

CoverSutra Now Exclusively Available on the Mac App Store ★

Another Mac app that’s gone App Store exclusive. This one’s not a hit with existing users though, because Sophiestication previously promised “free upgrades until version 3”.

Cwora ★

“A continually spamming collection of unanswered questions created, edited and organised by no-one who uses it.”

The Future of Mac App Store Installs ★

Daniel Jalkut pokes behind the scenes of the Mac App Store installation process, and finds some interesting stuff:

What’s most interesting about all this is that there is clearly an infrastructure in place for allowing a wide variation of behaviors, all centering around the multi-purpose Buy/Installed button in the App Store.

For one thing, it seems like Aperture has access to some JavaScript scripting magic that third-party developers don’t have — or at least don’t have yet.

Nokia’s Ovi App Store ★

Step 1: Click on an app. Any app, just pick one.

You’re going to love step 2.

Verizon Sends Invitations to Press Event in New York Next Week ★

The horrendous JPEG compression on the invitation nicely conveys the sense that the carriers can’t do anything right.

It doesn’t say anything about the iPhone, but trust me, this is the iPhone-on-Verizon announcement. One tell: Gizmodo didn’t get an invitation.

TapeDeck Goes Exclusive to the Mac App Store ★

Chris Liscio:

TapeDeck’s customers have made it clear to me that licensing and demo limitations are the largest blemish on TapeDeck’s reputation. I am so glad to finally offer an improved solution for customers from now on.

I am also looking forward to a better track record for product updates in the field. Many customers requesting support appear to still be using older copies of the software, having chosen to disable the automatic Sparkle updates. I can only assume that the Mac App Store will make this a better experience by offering system-wide update checking.

Free updates to the 1.x product will continue for paid customers of TapeDeck. It means a bit of extra maintenance on my part, but I will do my best to keep my existing customers happy.

TapeDeck is a great app — with the sort of look-and-feel that makes you think it was designed with the App Store in mind all along. I suspect it’ll do well there.

BlackBerry PlayBook Has No Built-In Email or Calendaring ★

Matt Buchanan:

The question is: Who, besides BlackBerry users, is going to want to buy it? The core email and calendar apps are completely tethered to a BlackBerry. Without your BlackBerry, there is no native email or calendar app—just access through the (admittedly good) web browser.

Here’s my question. Is RIM doing it this way simply as a stop-gap measure? I.e., perhaps they want to get this to market as fast as possible, and requiring a tethered BlackBerry for email and calendaring saved them time. In that scenario, eventually, the PlayBook will have built-in email and calendaring and won’t require a tethered BlackBerry phone for anything. If so, this strikes me as a reasonable 1.0 compromise.

Or, does RIM actually think this is a good idea? If so, they’re lost.

Pixelmator Goes Exclusive to Mac App Store ★

Peter Cohen:

If you want to download Pixelmator, the popular image editing software for the Mac, the Web site will push you to the Mac App Store. The developers have taken the bold move of announcing that the Mac App Store is becoming their exclusive sales channel.

That is bold. Has anyone else done this?