Linked List: March 29, 2012

Thursday, 29 March 2012

On Building Flipboard for iPhone 

Craig Mod:

There’s a feeling of thinness that I believe many of us grapple with working digitally. It’s a product of the ethereality inherent to computer work. The more the entirety of the creation process lives in bits, the less solid the things we’re creating feel in our minds. Put in more concrete terms: a folder with one item looks just like a folder with a billion items. Feels just like a folder with a billion items. And even then, when open, with most of our current interfaces, we see at best only a screenful of information, a handful of items at a time.

Study Tracks How Conservatives Lost Their Faith in Science 

Alan Boyle, MSNBC.com’s Cosmic Log:

An analysis of 36 years’ worth of polling data indicates that confidence in science as an institution has steadily declined among Americans who consider themselves conservatives, while confidence levels have been at steadier levels for other ideological groups.

No other trend has done more harm to the U.S. than this one.

Dell Ends Smartphone Sales in the U.S. 

Wait until they stop selling PCs.

BlackBerry ASP Takes a Nosedive 

Matt Richman:

Though the average selling price of a Blackberry has been very volatile over the last year, an almost $40 drop in ASP in one quarter is unprecedented. My data goes back to 2007, and I couldn’t find anything like it. ASP dropped by more than 13 percent in 90 days.

This shows just how bad a quarter it was for RIM: unit sales dropped precipitously but would have been even worse if they hadn’t also slashed prices to goose sales. When unit sales and average selling price are both dropping, that’s a death spiral.

RIM’s Fourth Quarter Financial Train Wreck 

Who didn’t see this coming?

Fair Labor Association Releases Audit of Foxconn Apple Factories 

Joanna Stern, ABC News:

The Fair Labor Association (FLA) has released the results of its independent investigation of Apple’s Foxconn supplier based in China, and has found “serious and pressing noncompliances” with its Workplace Code of Conduct and Chinese labor law, with forced overtime as the top concern.

UDID Is Now UDIDon’t 

Just in case there was any lingering doubt that Apple is rejecting apps for this.

Jeff Bezos Discovers Apollo 11 Rockets at Bottom of Atlantic Ocean 

Badass.

Condé Nast on the iPad 

David Wheeler on Conde Nast’s ham-fisted iPad magazines.

Google Has Profited Four Times More From iPhone Than Android 

Charles Arthur, The Guardian:

Android generated less than $550m in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011, if figures provided by the search giant as part of a settlement offer with Oracle ahead of an expected patent and copyright infringement trial are an accurate guide.

The figures also suggest that Apple devices such as the iPhone, which use products such as its Maps as well as Google Search in its Safari browser, generated more than four times as much revenue for Google as its own handsets in the same period.

I’ve said it before and will say it again: Google made a mistake by deciding to oppose rather than ally with Apple on mobile.

The New iPad’s Screen Is Underrated 

Dan Frakes:

My colleagues Jason Snell and Lex Friedman came to similar conclusions. Jason wrote, “Once you get a load of that Retina display, it’s hard to go back to anything else.” And Lex noted that, “If you envision yourself primarily reading on your new iPad, you may well benefit from getting that new iPad and its Retina display.”

I go a step further: The new iPad is the best device I’ve ever read on.

Agreed.

Paper 

Exquisitely well-done new drawing app. Note the complete lack of persistent on-screen UI chrome — there is a fork in this regard between Apple and third-party iOS developers. Cf. Clear for another recent example.

The tension is between simplicity and obviousness. Eliminating on-screen chrome is simpler, more elegant and beautiful. But Apple’s use of minimal but persistent on-screen chrome makes things more obvious. Big differences can result from a slight shift in priorities: simple and obvious vs. obvious and simple.

The Man Who Broke Atlantic City 

Mark Bowden on Don Johnson, the man who beat Atlantic City casinos for around $15 million — without counting cards.

Bowden is a bit misleading about card counting, implying that it’s a form of quasi-cheating (he says Johnson won “fair and square”). But card counting is totally fair — card counters are only making use of information that can be gleaned by observing the exposed cards. The difference between card counting and what Johnson did is more subtle and more interesting. Successful card counters must operate in secret, disguising what they’re actually doing, because the casinos don’t want to allow it. Johnson played openly. The casinos knew exactly what he was trying to do and they not only let him, but encouraged him.

Keynotopia UI Design Libraries 

Speaking of using Keynote as a UI design tool.

Lion’s Auto Save: If It Ain’t Broke, Fix It 

Pierre Igot on the shortcomings of Lion’s document auto-saving feature. I totally agree that BBEdit is the gold standard for auto-save behavior — it does exactly what I expect, and only what I expect.

Tim Cook Visits Foxconn iPhone Plant 

Now everybody’s going.