Linked List: May 13, 2011

Friday, 13 May 2011

My thanks to VMware for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. VMware Fusion 3 is the best way to run Windows on a Mac without rebooting. Highlights of version 3.1 include:

It’s the first virtualization software that supports the full Windows 7 experience, including Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
Launch Windows apps from an applications menu even when VMware isn’t already running.
Run Windows apps alongside your Mac apps.
A PC migration assistant to move stuff from your PC to your Mac.

If you use a Mac but need Windows, you’re nuts if you don’t check out VMWare Fusion.

Delivereads: Curated Content for Your Kindle ★

New from Internet superhero Dave Pell, Delivereads:

Get great articles delivered to your Kindle without any extra effort.

I’ve been beta-testing the service, and it’s great. Easy to set up, and the pace of delivery is perfect — occasional, but regular.

The Rise of Apple, RIM, and HTC Among Phone-Makers ★

Another great piece by Horace Dediu:

If you look at the league table, RIM, HTC and Apple were at the bottom three years ago and now they are either in the top or the middle. RIM in particular deserves credit for reaching the fourth spot and staying there. HTC also has shown a late surge to fifth passing LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson in the process.

Combined, these vendors went from taking in about one dollar in 20 (6%) in Q2 2007 to nearly half the money (46%) in Q1 2011.

This chart, in particular, I find interesting.

Marco Arment on the New iMacs’ Reliance Upon Apple-Branded Hard Drives ★

I agree with Marco on this. OWC’s reporting on the technical aspects is interesting, and I can see how a company like OWC wants iMacs to have user-replaceable commodity hard drives, and I can see how technical-minded users would want the same thing, but that’s not what the iMac is.

Update: Think of it this way. The new iMacs’ hard drives are like the batteries in iPods and iPhones. Traditionally user-serviceable, and user-serviceable in most products in the same category. But if Apple thinks the advantages of a proprietary non-user-serviceable part outweigh the disadvantages, they’re going to do it. It’s that simple. People should know this before buying a new iMac. But it’s silly and fruitless to complain that Apple is somehow acting out of spite.

PCalc 2.4 for iOS ★

Long-time Mac developer James Thomson, developer of DragThing and PCalc, is one of the indies who’s been threatened by this in-app purchasing patent litigation. This patent thing is a shit deal for guys like James. He’s just one guy, designing and programming apps, supporting his customers. Lodsys is a company whose business is litigating patent lawsuits and extorting licensing fees. No matter what you think of their patent, on its merits, this sort of notice is a frightening and disheartening thing for a small business to receive.

I’ve known James for many years, and he’s a great guy with a ton of friends in the Mac and iOS developer community. And I’ve raved about PCalc many times before — it’s my favorite calculator app for iOS, hands-down. Let’s turn a bad day into a good one for him with a lot of sales of PCalc (and downloads of the free PCalc Lite, which also was updated today.)

Mat Honan on Lodsys ★

Mat Honan:

So what is Lodsys, and what’s its game? It appears to simply be in the business of licensing patents which it purchased from Dan Abelow.

We were unable to reach Lodsys, but reached Abelow by phone. He noted he had sold his patents years ago, and was unaware of this morning’s news. But that he isn’t completely surprised. “Those patents are from the 1990s,” he said. “It isn’t surprising that methods of communicating with a server would become more useful over time. As a result they have become increasingly valuable.” (Abelow did not know the exact patent off the top of his head, but the patent in question appears to be number 7222078, based on other reports.)

So it would appear that the object of our scorn is Mark Small (as per the Lodsys website), not Abelow.

Lodsys, LLC ★

Love the inspirational quotes from Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein.

Rock and a Hard Place ★

Interesting analysis by Adam Engst regarding Lodsys’s threatened patent litigation against App Store developers:

So what it comes down to is that Thomson, McCarron, and other iOS developers are being threatened by Lodsys for using Apple intellectual property under license from Apple, in such a fashion that they cannot even settle without violating the iOS Developer Program License Agreement. They can’t legally agree that Apple’s In App Purchase API violates Lodsys’s patents, and no matter what, there’s no way Apple would give permission for such a settlement due to the chilling effect it would have on iOS development in general.

Patent Troll Lodsys Threatens Small Indie iOS Developers Over In-App Purchasing ★

Here’s what Computer LogicX developer Rob Gloess told MacRumors, regarding a threatened patent lawsuit they received from a company named Lodsys:

Our app, Mix & Mash, has the common model of a limited free, lite, version and a full version that contains all the features. We were told that the button that users click on to upgrade the app, or rather link to the full version on the app store was in breach of US patent no 7222078, we couldn’t believe it, the upgrade button!?!

More coverage here, at GigaOm. This is extortion, pure and simple. These jerks at Lodsys are going after small developers — in some cases, one-man operations — because they know how expensive and time-consuming it would be to fight this legally.

‘Microsoft Needs a Swift Kick in the Ass.’ ★

Ben Brooks makes the case that Microsoft should fire Steve Ballmer.

I agree — and even talked about this a few days ago on this week’s The Talk Show — but I don’t think it’s going to happen. My guess is that it’s a pride thing. Gates controls the board, and Ballmer is Gates’s man. Acknowledging that Ballmer is a failure as CEO would amount to a tacit acknowledgement that Gates has failed as well. And so a once great company withers on the vine, milking (admittedly massive) profits from the same two products as they did a decade ago: Windows and Office.

The ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Jokes Continue to Write Themselves ★

Thomas Catan and Amir Efrati, reporting for the WSJ:

Google Inc. is close to settling a U.S. criminal investigation into allegations it made hundreds of millions of dollars by accepting ads from online pharmacies that break U.S. laws, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Internet company disclosed in a cryptic regulatory filing earlier this week that it was setting aside $500 million to potentially resolve a case with the Justice Department. A payment of that size would be among the highest penalties paid by companies in disputes with the U.S. government.

Google gave few details in its filing about the probe, saying only that it involved “the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers.”

Here’s another weird thing about their SEC filing: Google is applying the $500 million charge not to this quarter, but to the quarter that ended back on March 31, which they reported a month ago.