Linked List: October 25, 2011

Tuesday, 25 October 2011

From Anand Lal Shimpi’s review of the Asus Zenbook laptop:

In our earlier coverage I pointed out that ASUS had moved Microsoft’s required Certificate of Authenticity to the power brick, something that’s usually located on the system itself. Microsoft mandates the sticker’s placement on the system, however there is a clean PC program an OEM can apply for in order to somewhat skirt the requirement. ASUS did apply for and was approved, allowing it the luxury of moving that CoA sticker to the power adapter. While it does improve the beauty of the machine, it also means that if you lose your power adapter you do lose your CoA.

Microsoft and Intel were also petitioned to allow greyscale versions of their respective product logos. ASUS’ request was also approved, which is why you see less obnoxious Intel inside and Windows 7 stickers on the Zenbook.

Fewer stickers on the laptop itself, and the grayscale ones are more tasteful. But you know what’s cool? Not slapping stickers on laptops in the first place.

Stephen Fry on Steve Jobs ★

I missed this when Stephen Fry wrote it a few weeks ago, just after Jobs’s death. Brilliant:

As always there are those who reveal their asininity (as they did throughout his career) with ascriptions like “salesman”, “showman” or the giveaway blunder “triumph of style over substance”. The use of that last phrase, “style over substance” has always been, as Oscar Wilde observed, a marvellous and instant indicator of a fool. For those who perceive a separation between the two have either not lived, thought, read or experienced the world with any degree of insight, imagination or connective intelligence. It may have been Leclerc Buffon who first said “le style c’est l’homme — the style is the man” but it is an observation that anyone with sense had understood centuries before. Only dullards crippled into cretinism by a fear of being thought pretentious could be so dumb as to believe that there is a distinction between design and use, between form and function, between style and substance.

The whole piece is great, and so much great stuff has been written about Jobs and Apple in the last month, but the above paragraph is just perfect.

Steve Jobs Solved the Innovator’s Dilemma ★

James Allworth:

They can do it because Apple hasn’t optimized its organization to maximize profit. Instead, it has made the creation of value for customers its priority. When you do this, the fear of cannibalization or disruption of one’s self just melts away. In fact, when your mission is based around creating customer value, around creating great products, cannibalization and disruption aren’t “bad things” to be avoided. They’re things you actually strive for — because they let you improve the outcome for your customer.

Is Mobile Safari Faster on iOS 5? ★

Spoiler: yes.

Rolex ★

From a Slate story by Seth Stevenson, on Rolex signing Tiger Woods to an endorsement contract:

Privately held since its formation in 1905, Rolex is a notoriously tight-lipped company. It doesn’t release revenue figures, or explain leadership transitions. (It had a total of three CEOs from 1905 until 2008, when then-CEO Patrick Heiniger resigned under mysterious circumstances.) Even the corporate structure is a bit murky. Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf died childless in 1960, leaving control of his company to a charitable foundation he’d established. The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation runs Rolex to this day. When I emailed a polite-but-elliptical media-relations woman to ask whether Rolex is essentially a nonprofit, and who the foundation’s major beneficiaries are, she responded with this sentence: “The principal focus of the foundation is to support a variety of philanthropic endeavors.”

I did not know that.

The Ubuntu Font Family ★

I don’t particularly care for it, and don’t think it’s going to age well, but it sure strikes me as better than Roboto. Update: The monospace variants of the Ubuntu font are really nice.

AirPlay TV ★

Joe Hewitt speculates on AirPlay’s potential regarding these “new TV by Apple” rumors. In short: latency, latency, latency.

Bloomberg: Jeff Robbin Working on Next-Gen TV Project at Apple ★

Adam Satariano, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. is turning to the software engineer who built iTunes to help lead its development of a television set, according to three people with knowledge of the project. Jeff Robbin, who helped create the iPod in addition to the iTunes media store, is now guiding Apple’s internal development of the new TV effort, said the people, who declined to be identified because his role isn’t public.

If it’s true, and if it ships, put my money down on “iTV” as the name. (I know, that was the code-name of the Apple TV during development, and Apple apparently changed it because of the ITV network in the U.K. But the “iPhone” trademark was held by Cisco, too.)

Steven Levy Profiles Nest Labs ★

Steven Levy:

The problem was that the thermostat would draw power only from the tiny trickle of electricity from its wires. “We spent cumulatively more than 10 man-years working on the technology to enable remote control over the Internet while the device is on the wall, asleep, without using external power,” says Matt Rogers. “It basically took all our years at Apple to do that. What makes an iPod play music for 24 hours is what enabled us to do this for the product.”

A big part of my talk last week at the Çingleton Symposium was about how dominance leads to influence, and how because Apple now dominates the tech world, its influence is beginning to spread. We’re going to see more products and companies that adhere to Apple-like ideals and priorities.

Google Reader and Mac/iOS RSS Readers That Sync ★

Brent Simmons on the recent changes to Google Reader:

I’m not an RSS reader developer any more. But if I were, I’d start looking for an alternative syncing system right now.

Troubleshooting a Battery-Sucking iPhone 4S ★

This is one of the nerdiest sentences I’ve written in months, but here goes: I loved this iPhone 4S battery-life troubleshooting story by Chris Breen.

Fraser Speirs’s Week With iOS 5 ★

Fraser Speirs spent a week on vacation with only his iPhone and iPad:

Put it this way: I’m home now and there’s not one task that cropped up during the week that I had to say “I’ll have to wait until I get back to my Mac to finish this”. That, to me, is the interesting bit.

Entrepreneurs Who Go It Alone ★

Speaking of Marco Arment, here’s a Time magazine piece on the rise of one-man-show businesses, using Instapaper and Maciej Ceglowski’s Pinboard as examples.

Official Marco.org In-Depth Review of the iPhone 4S ★

From Marco Arment’s copiously-detailed iPhone 4S review:

I don’t notice the speed increase.

It’s easier to notice by going back to the no-S iPhone 4 for a few hours.

Labeling the Back Button ★

Good rule of thumb: label the button with where you’re going back to.

Being able to label the back button is a big reason why the iPhone’s on-screen buttons are better than Android’s hardware Back button. A dedicated hardware Back button can never answer the question “Where?”

Nest — New ‘Learning Thermostat’ ★

Looks gorgeous and clever. Reminds me of HAL. Here’s CEO Tony Fadell — that Tony Fadell — introducing the company in a blog post:

“So what are you working on lately?” a friend asks over lunch.

“I started a new company. We make thermostats.”

They chuckle, take a bite of their salad, “No, seriously. What are you doing?”

“I’m serious. Thermostats.”

Comparing the iPhone 4S Camera Against Others ★

Lisa Bettany:

A photo comparison from all iPhone version cameras (first generation iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the new iPhone 4S), a point-and-shoot camera, the Canon S95 ($500), and a professional dSLR, the Canon 5DMKII ($4000+) in two situations: 1. A macro setting to test detail and quality of the cameras; 2. A backlit skyline shot.

Not bad for four years of progress.