Linked List: June 17, 2011

Friday, 17 June 2011

My thanks to iStockphoto for again sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. iStockphoto is the web’s leading source of royalty-free stock photography. Great photos, great search, affordable prices.

Their best-selling collection — The Vetta Collection — includes photos, video, and illustration. It’s great stuff, check it out and see for yourself.

‘Brain Drain’, Indeed ★

Dan Lyons yesterday at The Daily Beast, on “Apple’s Brain Drain”, an “exodus” of top executives:

But in recent months two top lieutenants have left the company, and while it is way too early to say that Apple is in trouble, it seems we may be seeing a changing of the guard at the company, one that will mark the end of an era that began in 1996, when Jobs returned to the company he co-founded and launched the most remarkable turnaround in corporate history.

The latest defector is retail chief Ron Johnson, who announced yesterday he would be leaving to become CEO of retail giant J.C. Penney.

In March, Apple lost Bertrand Serlet, a revered software engineer who oversaw development of operating-system software for Macintosh computers. Serlet had been working with Jobs since the days of NeXT, the computer company Jobs founded in the 1980s after being tossed out of Apple.

“Defector”? “Exodus”?

Jobs has been out of the loop since January, when he announced he was going on yet another medical leave.

“Out of the loop”?

Pretty sure Lyons should have stuck to the Fake Steve schtick.

Ars Technica: ‘iOS 5 Finally Brings Nitro JavaScript Speed to Home Screen Web Apps’ ★

I like the “finally” in the headline. It’s been three months.

Man of the Week: Republican New York State Senator Roy McDonald ★

On reversing his opposition to gay marriage in New York, Sen. Roy McDonald:

“You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing.

“You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing.

“I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.”

More like this, please.

Martin Pittenauer’s Short (and Admittedly Biased) History of Collaborative Editing ★

Nice historical overview from SubEthaEdit co-creator Martin Pittenauer.

Today’s Edition of ‘Good Luck With That’ ★

Stuart Sumner for Computing:

Apple cannot continue to lock down its iOS platform and restrict the types of software developed for it, says security firm Kaspersky’s CTO Nikolay Grebennikov.

Speaking to Computing, he said: “Apple simply can’t continue with its current closed approach, and in my opinion, to remain competitive it should be looking to open up its platform within a year.”

“The Android platform, which is growing its market share, is much more open than the Apple iOS and it’s easier to create new applications for Android, including security software,” said Grebennikov.

MacDailyNews’s translation:

“We wish Apple would make its platform insecure like Google, so that we can sell ‘security’ to hundreds of millions of iOS users.”

From the DF Archives: Why RIM Is Screwed ★

Yours truly, back in May 2008, on the trouble the iPhone posed for RIM:

There is marketing. There most certainly is design. But at the core of this market — by which I mean the market for handheld multitasking web-surfing networked-everywhere “phones” which are really computers — is engineering.

Apple is the best handheld computer engineering company in the world today, hands down. They’re also the best handheld computer user experience design company. And they’re not sharing.

I.e., RIM was bringing knife-making skills to a gun-making market battle. Starting with the iPhone, the mobile industry shifted from phone/messaging to full-on mobile computing, and RIM wasn’t prepared for that. And in hindsight, that’s why Android has fared so well in the three years since I wrote the above. Android is a mobile computing platform, not merely a phone/messaging platform.

‘A Computing Platform Runs on Momentum’ ★

Michael Mace, on “What’s Next for RIM?”:

To restore momentum in a faltering platform, you need a hit product. Can RIM generate one? The company says it will accelerate the introduction of new products, which sounds sensible in the abstract, but if it’s possible to develop products faster, why didn’t RIM do it before? And considering RIM’s history of shipping buggy devices, I tremble at what its products might look like if they were developed even faster.

I think Mace has RIM pegged.

Apple Could Buy the Mobile Phone Industry ★

Horace Dediu:

Given the current valuations, it would not be difficult for Apple to acquire every phone vendor except for Samsung with cash alone.

Dear Photograph ★

“Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.”

‘Nice Shirt, Handsome’ ★

Just posted: episode 47 of The Talk Show:

Dan and John discuss the latest post-WWDC Apple news, Project Spartan, Mobile Me’s transition to iCloud, The Living Daylights, and more.

Brought to you by FreshBooks and Sound Studio 4. Our show last week did over 800,000 downloads — if you have a product or service you’d like to promote to the world’s smartest and best-looking audience of nerds, get in touch with Dan Benjamin.

Backslapping as Waterloo Burns: Tough Times Ahead for RIM’s Co-CEOs ★

Tom Krazit at PaidContent on the conference call yesterday with RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie:

“This is fun,” Lazaridis said during the conference call, of his 20-year partnership with Balsillie. “We’re changing the world.”

The truth is that RIM hasn’t produced anything that has changed the world in a very long time. No one would deny that RIM did indeed help change the world with one of the most iconic mobile products ever produced over the last 20 years. But the technology industry — and the mobile world in particular — is very much a “what have you done for me lately?” world, and RIM executives will never be caught answering that question honestly in public.

Laugh it up.

The Android Tablet Problem, Nicely Summarized by One Review’s Conclusion ★

Marco Arment dissects/translates Ryan Paul’s review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 for Ars Technica:

The main users who will find the Tab 10.1 appealing are Android enthusiasts who like the platform’s flexibility, are tightly bound to Google’s Web service ecosystem, and are comfortable using Android phone applications on a 10.1-inch screen.

“Only die-hard Android fans should buy this, and even most of them won’t enjoy it.”

More grading on a curve.