Linked List: February 2, 2011

Wednesday, 2 February 2011

Funny spot, well-done.

Greg Sterling on Honeycomb, the Android Tablet OS ★

Greg Sterling for Search Engine Land:

Apple has largely shunned the idea of producing smaller tablet (“nano”) devices. But the Samsung Galaxy Tab’s relative success shows a demand for the smaller sized, more “mobile” tablet — especially given the inferiority of the overall Galaxy Tab experience.

I thought the news this week was that the Galaxy Tab is a dud — Samsung itself described its sales as “actually quite small”, and even those that have been sold are frequently returned.

Expect Android tablet adoption to generally follow the path of Android handset adoption with a somewhat less aggressive growth curve because the iPad is broadly available unlike its sibling the iPhone.

Why expect the same adoption? Honest question. Android phones are all sold through carriers. iPads are sometimes sold through carriers, but many are Wi-Fi only models sold directly by Apple. What Android tablet maker has Apple’s retail strength? Where’s the HTC Store at your mall? And the iPad is already on more carriers, at least here in the U.S., than the iPhone.

Maybe Android tablets will follow the sales path of Android phones. I’d like to hear an argument for why that doesn’t involve the phrase “openness always wins”. (Not that Sterling said that, though. He offers no explanation at all for why he expects Android tablets to succeed.) And it sure doesn’t seem, thus far, that 7-inch and 5-inch form factors are winning moves.

AT&T Adding an Extra 2 GB to Phone Tethering Plans ★

Gee, I wonder what prompted this generous change of heart?

Rupert Murdoch on The Daily ★

From an interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto:

Cavuto: I want to ask you, how much are you making on that? Because it’s $0.99, but typically, typically Apple takes a third.

Murdoch: That’s correct.

Cavuto: Now, is it taking a third here?

Murdoch: At least the first year, yes. We’ll be getting $0.70.

Cavuto: All right. But it goes — so you say at least the first year. It goes down after that?

Murdoch: We — no. Up, we hope.

Cavuto: But down for Apple.

Murdoch: That’s subject to negotiation.

That surprises me. I really thought the “other shoe” that’s about to drop regarding subscription pricing (and in-app purchasing for apps like Kindle) is that Apple would be taking a smaller cut, more in line with being a payment processor than a store owner. The bottom line for why The Daily is major news is not that it’s particularly good (at least yet), but simply that News Corp. is willing to place a decent-sized bet on a publication that is only available on the iPad.

And Murdoch on Steve Jobs:

Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop. He’s now destroying them. That is an amazing life.

Making It Up in Volume ★

The second chart is rather striking.

Welcome to Android Market ★

Tap Tap Revenge was announced for Android earlier today. There’s already an updated version of the rip-off “live desktop” in the Android Market:

**TAP TAP REVENGE NOW FOR ANDORID, NEW VERSION** 50% OFF ALL DICEMBER, GET IT NOW!

iPhone = Internet ★

Bunch of great photos (as usual) from Egypt on The Big Picture, but the iconography on this one seems noteworthy.

‘Growing Is Forever’ ★

Take three minutes, a deep breath, and enjoy this beautiful short film by Jesse Rosten. (Via Coudal.)

They Don’t Make Them Like The Mick Any More ★

Mickey Mantle, in a letter to the Yankees in 1973, describing his “outstanding experience at Yankee Stadium”:

I got a blow-job under the right field Bleachers, by the Yankee Bull pen.

In the follow-up question, they asked him to “Give as much detail as you can”, and he obliged.

HTML5 and Web Video: Questions for the Industry From the Community ★

Long, detailed post by Microsoft’s Dean Hachamovitch on HTML5, H.264, and WebM. It’s a cogent take, with pointed questions for Google (and other proponents of WebM/VP8):

Offers of “free” or “royalty-free” source code and strong assertions that the technology is “not patent encumbered” don’t help when a patent holder files a complaint that your video, your site, or your product infringes on her intellectual property. The only true arbiter of infringement, once it’s asserted, is a court of law. Asserting openness is not a legal defense. Whether one supports open technology or not, there are practical liability issues today that need to be examined. These issues motivate different potential approaches to risk protection. One path is indemnification. For example, will Google indemnify Mozilla, a PC OEM, a school, a Web site, a chip manufacturer, a device company, or an individual for using WebM? Will they indemnify Apple? Microsoft? Will they indemnify any or all of these parties worldwide? If Google were truly confident that the technology does not infringe and is not encumbered by patents whatsoever, wouldn’t this indemnification be easy?

Crickets chirping.

Microsoft Releases H.264 HTML5 Video Extension for Chrome on Windows ★

Claudio Caldato, Microsoft:

Google recently announced that its Chrome web browser will stop supporting the H.264 video format. At Microsoft we respect that Windows customers want the best experience of the web including the ability to enjoy the widest range of content available on the Internet in H.264 format.

Today, as part of the interoperability bridges work we do on this team, we are making available the Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome, which is an extension for Google Chrome to enable Windows 7 customers who use Chrome to continue to play H.264 video.

Android Market Web Store ★

Browse and buy apps in your web browser, and apps download to your Android device automatically.

The Daily ★

Video tour of News Corp.’s new The Daily iPad app. Nothing groundbreaking, but better than most such efforts to date. The “carousel” feature — more or less Cover Flow view for pages in the current issue — is incredibly laggy. I can’t believe they shipped it like this. Scrolling elsewhere is OK, I guess, but nowhere near as fast as it should be in a native app. I think the rest of the app at first feels faster than it really is because the carousel — which is the default navigation — is so crushingly slow. (And the page thumbnails in the carousel are horrendously JPEG-compressed. I can’t even imagine how slow it would be if the thumbnails actually looked good.)

I like that navigation is a simple left-to-right affair; it provides a sense of place, and a sense of how much content remains. I don’t like how switching the rotation of the iPad sometimes — but usually not — puts you into an entirely different mode, rather than showing the same content in a different context. E.g. for today’s feature news coverage of the tumult in Egypt, landscape orientation shows you a slideshow of photos, but portrait shows you the news article.

Maybe they’ve hired a good staff of writers and editors, but they sure need better designers and engineers. The experience just isn’t good enough.

At a dollar a week, I’m not sure how to predict The Daily’s success. On the one hand, it’s competing with an almost uncountable number of free websites, and large number of free apps. On the other hand, it’s only a buck, and News Corp. can promote it heavily through its existing media outlets — the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, the New York Post, etc.

Macworld Expo Panel: The Future of the Mac ★

50-minute panel discussion on the future of the Mac from last week’s Macworld Expo, featuring Jason Snell, Dan Moren, Adam Engst, and yours truly.

‘The Daily’ Announcement Event Live Coverage From The Loop ★

Other liveblogs: Macworld and Engadget.

Everything Is a Remix, Part 2 ★

My mind is blown by some of these movie comparisons. Kirby Ferguson is doing amazing work on this project.