Linked List: January 10, 2012

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

MG Siegler on Google’s announcement today that they’re going to begin integrating Google Plus with regular web search results:

But when they use that natural monopoly to start pushing into other verticals, things get gray. Travel, restaurant reviews, etc, etc. We see more of it each year.

But this, at first glance, seems decidedly worse. Google is using Search to propel their social network. They might say it’s “not a social network, it’s a part of Google”, but no one is going to buy that. They were late to the game in social and this is the best catchup strategy ever.

Count me in with MG here. This seems like textbook monopoly abuse: using a legal monopoly in one market (web search) to gain a competitive advantage in a different market (social networking) through bundling. The idea from the outset was to frame “Google+” as an extension of Google, not something new. Hence the name.

It also occurs to me that there’s no company in tech with as many enemies as Google. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter — Google has taken the fight to all of them. In this sense they’re like Microsoft 15 years ago.

Sony Vaio Ultrabook Prototype Shown Behind Glass ★

Might as well include a floppy drive if they’re going to include that ridiculous (and thick) VGA port.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Tim Cook’s 2011 Compensation ★

Refuting sensational but misleading nonsense like this.

One Simple Test ★

Watts Martin:

And if you don’t agree with Siegler’s assertion that Apple, for all their warts, has more of the end-user’s interest in mind than Google does, I’d just like you to do one simple test. Go into an AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint store and set out a few Android models along with an iPhone and maybe a couple “none of the above” smartphones they sell. One and only one of those phones is going to be entirely free of the carrier logo. Don’t be under the illusion that’s merely an aesthetic issue.

Dan Lyons Showing Self-Awareness? What Self-Awareness? ★

Pitch-perfect riposte by Matt Deatherage.

TSA Defends Cupcake Confiscation ★

First they came for your neighbor’s cupcake…

Speaking of Podcasts ★

Guess who’s on Merlin Mann’s “Back to Work” show this week? Yeah, we’re talking about Star Wars and content management systems. Ladies.

‘Let’s Make Mistakes’ Moves to Mule Radio Syndicate ★

A good show (featuring my pal Mike Monteiro) on what looks to be a great new podcast network.

The Wirecutter: A List of the Best Gadgets ★

Unlike any other gadget site I’ve ever seen, The Wirecutter focuses on what’s best, not what’s new. Brian Lam’s best work.

Whose Problem Do Ultrabooks Solve? ★

Kevin C. Tofel:

I’d argue smartphones and tablets currently meet most, if not all of those needs; therein lies the problem for Ultrabooks. It’s not a consumer problem; it’s an Intel problem, as sales of traditional computers are declining, while sales of tablets and smartphones are rising.

Samsung Copying Apple? What Copying? ★

Dan Lyons:

The latest example is on Daring Fireball, a blog penned by John Gruber, a hardcore Apple fanboy. Responding to news that Samsung just turned in a barnburner fourth quarter, Gruber wrote:

So Jony Ive leads the design team at the two most-profitable phone makers. Impressive.

This is typical snarky Gruber stuff. But it’s so arrogant and patronizing that when I read it was brought up short. Because I realized, this guy isn’t joking. Gruber and people like him really believe that Samsung just sits around making copies of Apple products. In their view, Apple is the fountain from which all creativity flows, and Samsung just follows behind, stealing their ideas.

Really? This is where Dan Lyons wants to go? That Samsung doesn’t copy Apple? That “Apple fanboys” simply claim that they do as a knee-jerk response to Samsung’s undeniable success in the smartphone market? Never mind all these remarkable similarities in packaging and product design, or the Apple app icons Samsung put in a store kiosk — it’s all just a big coincidence? It boggles the mind.

Nobody is arguing that every aspect of every Samsung product is a rip-off of an Apple product. Nobody is arguing that Samsung doesn’t have some products that are utterly un-Apple-like. But this is the first time I’ve seen anyone argue that Samsung isn’t blatantly copying at least some things from Apple. I’ve also never made nor seen anyone else make the argument that Apple is the only company doing original work. This is just another case where the person wielding the word fanboy is the one making the over-the-top head-in-the-sand unreasonable argument.

If you want to defend Samsung, don’t do it by arguing that they don’t copy Apple. Go with the “good artists copy, great artists steal” argument. Argue that Samsung may be shameless but they’re not stupid; that it’s no coincidence that the Android handset maker that’s selling the most phones and growing the fastest is the one most closely mimicking Apple.

Intel Fakes Ivy Bridge Graphics Onstage at CES ★

A graphically intense game purportedly playing on a laptop was actually just a movie.

James Bond Is a Prick ★

I did not know the James Bond theme song has lyrics.

When Did Discover Get So Jackasstic? ★

David Freedman, writing for Discover magazine on the top stories of 2011, “The Man Who Gave Us Less for More”:

But while Jobs has left most of the world with the impression that he was just so brilliantly right about what the world needed, I can’t help pointing out that Jobs actually got a lot of things wrong. Who remembers the Apple Lisa, a chunky desktop that sold for $9,995 in 1983, or the Newton, a $700 PDA/paperweight?

That’s quite a scathing critique of Jobs’s career: one failed machine from 30 years ago that was created by a team that he was effectively kicked off, at which point he took over the team that created the Macintosh; and, even better, a PDA that was created by Apple after Jobs was forced out of the company, and which he shut down soon after his return.

Then there was the next [sic] computer, to which Jobs devoted a decade of his life, believing that it would win over academia. It was well regarded, but with prices starting at $6,500, Jobs sold only 50,000 units ever, versus the 150,000 he had expected to sell annually.

Yeah, whatever happened to NeXT and that crazy operating system of theirs?

I used to see Apple’s devoted fans as cultish, but now I’m the one who’s left in a cult: the shrinking cult of technophiles who want stuff that above all works well, solves problems, and delivers real value, and the hell with look and feel.

“The hell with look and feel” says a lot more about Freedman than it does about Apple. 20 bucks says he spent the ’90s railing against GUIs, in favor of the DOS command-line interface.

OK, so Steve Jobs proved to be a brilliant visionary after all. But there will always be a part of me that resents the fact that he empowered the world to force me to endure prettier, more-expensive technology for what will most likely be the rest of my 150 years.

La, la, la, fingers in my ears, I can’t hear you, Apple’s kit is overpriced — always was, always will be.

Race to the Bottom, Eh? ★

Aaron Ricadela, reporting for Bloomberg:

Personal-computer makers are counting on ultrabooks to challenge the MacBook Air, Apple’s best-selling laptop, which is less than an inch thick. Still, Hewlett-Packard isn’t trying to compete on price: The new Spectre is $100 more than a MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch screen. Hewlett-Packard is emphasizing the laptop’s premium features and design, a bid to reach the “savvy fashionista” market, said Page Murray, a vice president of marketing at the company.

“There’s always someone who wants to win the race to the bottom,” Murray said. “It usually ends with a splat.”

So, for the record, we now live in a world where HP criticizes Apple’s laptop pricing for leading a “race to the bottom”.

How to Use Services in Mac OS X ★

Nice piece by Kirk McElhearn on one of Mac OS X’s best features.