Linked List: February 3, 2011

Thursday, 3 February 2011

Verizon Sold Out of iPhone 4 Pre-Orders ★

Just another phone.

Great piece by Kontra:

For any single iOS developer or company, it would certainly be best if everything was spelled out and stayed unchanged. Unfortunately, while Apple is the largest technology company in the world and one of the most nimble, it can’t foresee everything. About 65% of all Apple’s sales now come from iOS devices that didn’t even exist over three years ago.

Josh Topolsky on the Verizon iPhone 4 ★

When’s the last time Engadget ran a feature-length review of a seven-month-old phone? Actually, when’s the last time anyone did?

Snell on the Verizon iPhone 4 ★

Jason Snell:

One of the pleasant surprises of testing the Personal Hotspot was its range. I was able to connect to the device even from a decent distance away. This isn’t short-range networking; you should be able to set the phone down and roam around a room (or even an adjacent room) without losing your Wi-Fi connection. This should be great for hotel rooms without free Wi-Fi, for example.

Agreed. It’s nothing like a standalone Wi-Fi base station, but it worked well from anywhere in the same room.

Pogue on the Verizon iPhone 4 ★

David Pogue, on CDMA’s simultaneous voice/data limitation:

A second C.D.M.A. difference: When you exchange long text messages with non-Verizon phones, they get split up into 160-character chunks. G.S.M. phones are smart enough to reconstitute those chunks into one more readable, consolidated message.

I did not know that.

If the top of your screen says “3G,” an indication that you’re in a high-speed Internet area of Verizon’s network, incoming calls take priority and interrupt your online connection. If you’re online in an older, 2G area, you stay online and the call goes directly to voice mail.

I never encountered this because in my use, the iPhone 4 on Verizon has never had anything other than a 3G signal. And, unlike GSM iPhones, there is no switch in the settings app to turn off 3G manually.

Motorola Cliq XT Won’t Get Android 2.1 Upgrade ★

Christopher Trout:

Motorola’s dangled an Android 2.1 upgrade in front of CLIQ XT users for what seems like forever — now it’s putting away the bait indefinitely. In a statement released this morning, the company said that despite months of rigorous testing, the phone will remain on Android 1.5.

That’s OK, because Android is open. Cliq XT owners can just type “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make” and they’ll be all set.

Dan Frommer on the Difference Between the Market for Tablets and Smartphones ★

Dan Frommer:

But, you may say, Google Android just kicked Apple’s butt in smartphones! Why won’t this happen in tablets?

The fundamental difference between the tablet market and the smartphone market is distribution.

Whereas smartphone distribution is dominated by wireless carriers, we expect carriers to play a relatively small role in tablet distribution. Tablet sales will be centered around electronics retail — the Apple store, Best Buy, Walmart — and big e-commerce, and not around carrier stores.

Maybe the smartest thing Apple did in the last decade wasn’t the iPod, but rather its retail stores. Remember when people thought retail was a foolish move for Apple?

iCapitalism ★

Fascinating app, rejected by Apple from the App Store.

How do I play?
Click on the Play tab. Then click Increase Your Level. You will be presented with a list of level upgrades you can purchase with real money.

So there’s really no skill involved?
None at all! The person who pays us the most wins. The rest are displayed on a leaderboard in descending order.

Does my money get me anything besides a higher spot on the leaderboard?
When you increase your level you can enter a custom message. All other players can see this when you’re on leaderboard. The top payer player becomes the “Head Honcho,” and their (inevitably more important) message will be the first thing everyone sees when they boot the app.

I can see why Apple rejected it, but that’s actually a very clever idea.

Andy Pettitte Decides to Retire ★

A great Yankee and a clutch performer. 19 postseason wins, including two World Series-clinching victories. Not many players retire after making the All-Star team.

Howard Yeend on the Bing/Google Search Engine Spat ★

Howard Yeend makes the case that Bing isn’t doing anything wrong, only something clever. They’re tracking which links IE users click on — and IE users click on a lot of Google search results.

Related: MG Siegler tracks the back and forth sniping on Twitter between Google’s Matt Cutts and Microsoft’s Frank Shaw.

Update: Here’s what I think. What Microsoft is doing is clever, but I think it qualifies as a form of spidering. Bing’s automated web crawlers wouldn’t index Google search results because Google’s robot.txt policy forbids it. I think Bing’s click-tracker should obey robots.txt policies as well.

Basecamp Mobile ★

Jason Fried:

Basecamp Mobile is not an native app, it’s a web app. All you have to do is visit http://basecamphq.com on your mobile phone. No apps and nothing to install — it just works.

Sean Coleman argues that this strategy renders 37signals “obsolete”. He wants native apps, not mobile web apps.

I don’t think native apps and mobile browser web apps are in opposition. Web-based companies like Google, Twitter, Flickr, and more all have mobile-optimized web sites. They all also have APIs, which can be used for creating platform-specific native apps. 37signals is doing the same thing. Twitter and Gmail are probably the best two examples: great mobile web sites and great native apps. There are a bunch of native clients for 37signals’s services.

Webstock Interview: Michael Lopp and Yours Truly ★

Really looking forward to this conference. Have you seen the speaker lineup?

Smooth ★

The WSJ has posted a correction on the article that originally quoted a Samsung executive as describing Galaxy Tab sales as “quite small”:

Samsung executive Lee Young-hee said Galaxy Tab sales were “quite smooth,” according to a recording of the company’s conference call with analysts. This post relied on a transcript of the call, which quoted her erroneously as saying they were “quite small.” Samsung said the transcript, done by a third party and initially cited by a company spokesman, has since been corrected.

So the article now reads:

But during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Friday, a Samsung executive revealed those figures don’t represent actual sales to consumers. Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices that Samsung has shipped to wireless companies and retailers around the world since product’s formal introduction in late September.

Pressed by an analyst at an investment bank, the Samsung executive, Lee Young-hee, acknowledged that sales to consumers were “quite smooth,” though she didn’t give a specific number.

I don’t even understand what “smooth” means in this context.

The Daily: Indexed ★

Andy Baio has made a homepage for The Daily. Will be interesting to see if this lasts.

4-Hour Dentist ★

Charlie Nadler:

Congratulations! The fact that you’re reading this book means you’re on your way to achieving your WILDEST DREAMS. You want to be a dentist? I’m going to make it happen. And guess what? It only takes four hours. Let me repeat that: in four hours, you will be a dentist. Take a deep breath and get ready for the ride of your life.

(Via Merlin Mann.)