Linked List: June 20, 2011

Monday, 20 June 2011

Proper Credit for Last Week’s Link on the Golden Ratio in iCloud’s Logo ★

I first saw this on Alan van Roemburg’s Tumblr blog, and there was no indication that it wasn’t his own work. Ends up, though, that Van Roemburg took the image from Takamasa Matsumoto. (Van Roemburg has since added a “thanks to Takamasa”, but that wasn’t there when I first linked to it.) My apologies to Takamasa Matsumoto.

Integrity, AOL/TechCrunch-Style ★

When I want to brush up on my ethics, I always turn to Mike Arrington.

Why Mobile Web Apps Should Stop Trying to Act Like Native Apps ★

I love this piece by Craig Villamor:

If you’ve decided to deliver your app via the Web, you should embrace the capabilities and constraints of the Web. Don’t spend time and resources making a pretender app, spend that time making a great app that works on the Web.

Villamor cites Bagcheck as an example of a mobile web app that embraces its webbiness and doesn’t pretend to be a native iPhone app. I’d cite 37signals’s mobile version of Basecamp as another. Basecamp maybe veers closer to the pretending-to-be-a-native-app line, but it doesn’t cross it. I like the mobile version of Basecamp more than the “full” version.

(Via Faruk Ateş.)

HP TouchPad Goes on Sale July 1, Available for Pre-Order Now ★

To me, easily the most appealing iPad competitor. But I think the Pre is the most appealing iPhone competitor, and it hasn’t fared well. HP has matched the iPad’s pricing: $499/599 for 16/32 GB Wi-Fi models.

I think the problem facing HP is summed up in the sub-head on this promotional page:

The ultimate in entertainment with Beats Audio and Adobe Flash.

That’s not a compelling answer to “Why should I buy this instead of an iPad?” I mean, who has even heard of “Beats Audio”?

Update: Lots of feedback arguing that Dr. Dre’s Beats brand has good consumer recognition. I remain skeptical that this is a flagship selling point for a tablet, though, no matter how popular their headphones are.

And Glenn Fleishman had a good quip:

Whenever a hardware maker has to put the name of another company in its ads as a selling point, it may already have lost.

‘Why Should Somebody Buy This Instead of an iPad?’ ★

Harry McCracken:

As a lover of competition, though, I’m itching to see other tablets arrive that deserve to do well, too. So that question — “Why would somebody buy this instead of an iPad?” — is stuck in my head. I’ve been trying to figure out how an Apple rival can come up with a tablet that pretty much answers that question for itself. And I’ve come up with thirteen ways it could happen.

Great analysis. Nothing particularly original, but a comprehensive look at the entire iPad competitive landscape. Lay it all out like McCracken has and you see just how strong a position the iPad is in.

One quibble, though:

But there are people who take their Flash so seriously that they won’t buy a tablet that doesn’t support it.

Really? Who? I think the people who are Flash-die-hards aren’t buying tablets, period. They’re sticking with their Windows PC laptops.

Man Robbed Bank for $1, Hoping to Be Sent to Prison, So as to Obtain Health Care ★

NBC News:

That’s right, James Verone says he has no medical insurance. He has a growth of some sort on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. He is 59 years old and with no job and a depleted bank account. He thought jail was the best place he could go for medical care and a roof over his head. Verone is hoping for a three-year sentence.

Only in America.

The Theory That Hardware Is Easily ‘Mimicked’ ★

Steve Lohr posits that IBM is the model for companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google to follow:

In recent years Apple has been unmatched in applying its core assets to new markets. Its hallmark skills are the intuitive usability of its software and the inspired design of its hardware — talents long appreciated by loyal Mac users. Yet in the PC industry, Apple machines are still dwarfed by those running Microsoft’s Windows.

Dwarfed in unit sale numbers, but number-one in profit share.

Apple looks to be riding a money train for some time. Its current model is focused on selling its stylish devices; the company’s online software and marketplace (for digital media and mobile apps) are mainly servants of the hardware, pleasing consumers so they are more apt to buy iPods, iPhones and iPads.

Yet Apple’s product designs, however impressive, will eventually be mimicked and come under price pressure, just as the mainframe did, predicts Michael A. Cusumano, professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In time, he says, Apple may want to borrow a page from I.B.M. and rely increasingly on software and services for its livelihood.

I wonder if the professor thinks companies like, say, Rolex and BMW ought to shift to “software and services” too? I don’t think this guy understands Apple at all.

SecondConf ★

Three-day single-track conference in Chicago for iOS and Mac developers, with a great lineup of speakers. Almost explicitly a replacement for the late great C4, and I mean that as a high compliment.

John Paczkowski: ‘Consumers Don’t Want Tablets, They Want iPads’ ★

Or as Marco Arment put it back in December: “There really isn’t much of a ‘tablet’ market.”

This is, perhaps, the most polarizing topic of punditry in tech today. Will the iPad’s long-term share be more like the iPod’s or the Mac’s? High-end and market-dominant? Or high-end but niche?

Skype Said to Fire Executives, Avoiding Payouts After Microsoft Takeover ★

Joseph Galante, reporting for Bloomberg:

Skype Technologies SA, the Internet-calling service being bought by Microsoft Corp., is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Cue the Nelson Muntz “Ha-ha!”

NYT Article Asks Whether It’s a Good Idea for Investors to Pump Tens of Millions of Dollars Into Startups With Half-Baked Poorly-Conceived Ideas ★

Claire Cain Miller, writing for the NYT:

Two of Color’s photo-sharing competitors, Instagram and PicPlz, exemplify the lean start-up ethos. They started with $500,000 and $350,000, respectively, and teams of just a few people. As they have introduced successful products and attracted users, they have slowly raised more money and hired engineers.

Color, meanwhile, spent $350,000 to buy the Web address color.com, and an additional $75,000 to buy colour.com. It rents a cavernous office in downtown Palo Alto, where 38 employees work in a space with room for 160, amid beanbag chairs, tents for napping and a hand-built half-pipe skateboard ramp.

The difference between Instagram/PicPlz and Color isn’t just how much money they needed to get going. It’s that Instagram and PicPlz are easily understood, clearly appealing concepts. It’s easy to see what they do, and why one might want to use them. Color is just a mess. That they raised a ludicrous sum of money proves only that fools and their money are soon parted.

So what is Color going to do? Double down on the crazy:

Mr. Nguyen said the company had taken the criticism to heart and charted a new course. He fired Color’s president, Peter Pham, and its engineers are building a new version of the app to be released later this summer.

Mr. Nguyen outlined an ambitious plan to compete with Apple, Google and Facebook by tying together group messaging, recommendations and local search, all while making money through advertising. He plans to build applications that will use data from Facebook to create temporary social networks, say at a conference or sporting event, to help users meet people who grew up in the same town or like the same band.

“It’s literally going to turn your Facebook network from 500 people to 750 million people,” Mr. Nguyen said.

Sounds great.

The New York Post Turns Off Web Access for iPad Users ★

They’re telling iPad web users to download their app from the App Store — and the app requires a paid subscription. I think this is a bad idea, and likely doomed to failure, but it shows just how problematic the web is, financially, for traditional newspapers.

Dave Winer:

Okay this is bad. This is breaking the web. If no one used the iPad it wouldn’t matter. But lots of people use it.

I wonder how Apple feels about this? I can’t imagine they like it. I can see the ads now. “Get an Android tablet to read the web.”

Mika Mobile on Android Development ★

Interesting take on Android development from Mika Mobile, who ported their game Battleheart from iOS to Android. Much of their story runs contrary to the conventional wisdom: they’re making money on paid downloads for Android, and it doesn’t seem like device fragmentation was a major problem (thanks to the game being built atop Unity). But customer support is a major issue: many Android users have problems with simply downloading apps.

Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday ★

Fascinating, smart interview between Fox News’s Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart. Example from Stewart:

“The bias of the mainstream media is toward sensationalism, conflict, and laziness.”