Linked List: March 22, 2012

Thursday, 22 March 2012

More Consumer Reports Sensationalism 

Embarrassing.

In-Flight Wi-Fi Usage Growth 

Scott McCartney:

Virgin America, which has both wireless hot spots and standard power plugs on all its 50 planes, says some cross-country “nerd bird” flights between tech strongholds like San Francisco and Boston have averaged 26% of passengers paying for airborne Wi-Fi service, even on redeye flights. Overall, the airline is hitting about a 16% usage rate. Airlines say popular activities include book downloads, Facebook updates and real-time flight-tracking.

I’ll go to great lengths to book a long flight with Wi-Fi. For me it’s the difference between unproductive versus being more productive than usual. Best thing to ever happen to air travel.

Pictures From a Chinese Gangster’s Phone 

Answers a question I’ve long pondered: who buys those crazy-expensive Vertu phones?

WebKit Limit on Retina JPG Image Display 

Duncan Davidson ran into an interesting problem trying to serve retina-caliber photographs to the new iPad.

Related: Steve Streza on Quora on how best to add 2× graphics to a website.

Carriers Whine: We Wuz Robbed 

Great piece by Jean-Louis Gassée on the carriers’ complaints about the subsidies they pay to Apple for the iPhone.

On These Rumors of a 4.6-Inch iPhone Display 

Reuters:

Apple Inc’s new iPhone will have a sharper and bigger 4.6-inch “retina” display and is set to be launched around the second quarter, a South Korean media reported on Thursday.

Lots of attention on this rumor, but no one seems to be pointing out that if it’s true, this new iPhone would need way more pixels than the current 960 × 640 iPhone display. (If they increased the size but kept the pixel count the same, it would drop beneath Apple’s “retina display” threshold — not going to happen.) That means every app in the App Store would need to be redesigned/resized.

Sure, developers would get on board and support the new size. But why would Apple want to add another vector of fragmentation? For this reason and others, I say it’s bullshit.

Tim Cook’s Latest Promise to Apple’s Employees 

Horace Dediu:

Therefore Apple’s $10 billion dollar pledge is not only a commitment to shareholders that the dilution will be eliminated. It’s also a signal to employees: for at least three years, Apple will continue to offer shares as compensation and will do so in a ratio of 1:4 of wages.

This seems like a good use of cash.

Agreed.

Back to the Shareholders 

Matt Drance:

Apple said Monday’s news was all about cash, but it was really about stock. It highlights the company’s shift from an underdog-turned-juggernaut, to the world’s biggest company securing its position as the world’s biggest company.

Agreed.