Linked List: March 2, 2012

Friday, 2 March 2012

My thanks to Mac DVDRipper Pro for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Mac DVDRipper Pro is a great app for converting DVDs to formats compatible with just about any device imaginable — including the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. Download the free demo (fully-featured for the first five rips) and check out the quick start guide for an overview of the features.

‘Why the iPad 3 Won’t Replace Your Laptop’ ★

Eric Grevstad, writing for PC Mag:

That’s because, for all the talk about whether the iPad 3 will have a quad-core processor or a retina display or a VW Beetle bud vase, we already know one thing about it: It won’t be a laptop. And we know, if we’re honest, that the iPad is no substitute for a laptop. Never will be. Isn’t supposed to be.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, every time I go into a coffee shop or airport, I see people using iPads for things which previously required a laptop. That the iPad is not a substitute for a laptop for everyone does not mean it is not a substitute for anyone. That’s the key to the iPad’s success. Many people don’t need a laptop for their away-from-the-desk computing needs.

Apple: Job Creation ★

New promotional page from Apple touting the jobs the company has created, including over 200,000 jobs in what they’re calling the “app economy”:

With more than 550,000 apps and more than 24 billion downloads in less than four years, the App Store has created an entirely new industry: iOS app design and development. The app revolution has added more than 210,000 iOS jobs to the U.S. economy since the introduction of iPhone in 2007. And Apple has paid more than $4 billion in royalties to developers through the App Store.

Also:

While many companies locate their technical support call centers overseas to save money, we’ve decided to keep our call centers in the U.S. The vast majority of our customer support calls are handled by U.S. employees.

What prompted this? I’m guessing it was the first piece in the New York Times’s “iEconomy” series, which focused on manufacturing jobs that have gone to Asia, and made the case that engineering and support jobs tend to follow manufacturing jobs overseas. Not so with Apple.

Update: The bit about creating jobs at Corning implicitly confirms that Apple is using Gorilla Glass in at least some of its products — presumably the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

WTF QR Codes ★

Just what it says on the tin.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III ★

Just announced this week, available now for pre-order. If I didn’t already have the Mark II this is the camera I’d buy. (Pre-order from Amazon and I’ll get filthy rich from the affiliate kickback.) Those bastards at The Verge already have their hands on one.

Retina Display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math ★

Terrific number-crunching analysis by Richard Gaywood for TUAW regarding “retina displays” and the general math of display pixel density. He makes a strong case that “retina” Mac displays, unlike the iPhone and iPad’s, would not necessarily need to be doubled from their existing resolutions.

The Verge: ‘Apple TV Stock Shortages Appear, Sources Say New Model Imminent’ ★

Stock shortages are a pretty good predictor of an imminent new product, so now I’m thinking there might be an Apple TV announcement as part of next week’s event.

Foursquare Says Goodbye to Google Maps; Who’s Next? ★

Who’s next to ditch Google Maps? Drawing a total blank here; can’t think of any Google Maps-using platform from a company with a tempestuous relationship with Google.

Yay Codes ★

“A free service that makes it painless for developers to distribute promo codes to their customers.” I often hear from developers that managing App Store promo codes is a pain in the ass.

‘Welcome to the Mutually Incompatible, Silo-Based, Platform-Dependent and User-Unfriendly Future of Books.’ ★

Mathew Ingram on the e-book landscape:

As we’ve described before, Apple and Amazon come at the e-book market from different perspectives: Apple sees books as just another form of content that it can use to sell iPads and other devices, whereas Amazon sees devices like the Kindle and the Kindle Fire as ways it can lock people into its content ecosystem and sell them more books, movies and so on. But both are dependent on having users locked into their products, and so they make it as difficult as possible to move from one to the other.

This is pretty much why I was so down on DRM e-books all along, and why I like Nick Carr’s idea to bundle e-books as downloads that accompany good old-fashioned printed books.

Lego Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube in 5 Seconds ★

Not bad.

How Sandboxing and Gatekeeper Will Affect AppleScript ★

Lex Friedman:

To the average user, the two new security technologies coming to OS X this year — sandboxing and Gatekeeper — should be virtually invisible. But they could be all too visible to more advanced users, particularly those who use AppleScript and Automator.