Linked List: April 13, 2012

Friday, 13 April 2012

My thanks to Everyme for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Everyme is a new social network with an emphasis on sharing not with the world, but rather between your own private “circles”. An Everyme circle is a private news feed between you and a group of people. Everyme for iPhone is a free download from the App Store. It’s a simple concept and a nice app.

See what others are saying about Everyme — MG Siegler, The Next Web, and Liz Gannes. One key feature is that everyone in a group doesn’t need the app — they can choose to send and receive messages using email or SMS.

Why Can’t Zach Phillips Use His Phone Number on Messages on Mac? ★

Another one from the “you can’t please everyone” file. Zach Phillips:

It would only take one feature to make Messages on iPad and Messages.app useful. Allow me to use my phone number as my iMessages account.

I’m sure there are others who feel like Phillips does, but that would drive me nuts. When you send an iMessage to my phone number, you know it’s going to my phone and nowhere else. You, the sender, know that it’s going to my phone, and so you know not to badger me with half a dozen messages one after another like you might do if you thought it were going to the IM-style Messages app on my Mac.

iMessages, as an enhancement to SMS, should never use email addresses.

Apple could, I think, grant Phillips his wish and allow the use of your phone number as an Apple ID. But they have to let you use your (email address) Apple ID for iMessage, because they want to allow iMessage for all iCloud users, not just iPhone owners.

In Defense of iTunes as It Stands ★

Scott P. Hall:

Like I said above: Apple is choosing to use one app to manage our digital lives, excluding photos. I wonder how many would scream if they had to use, say, four apps instead. One for music, one for movies, one for iOS sync…you get the idea. That would be a mess.

You can’t please everyone, but it sure seems to me like there are more Mac users who wish Apple would break iTunes into a set of smaller tighter-focused apps (like on iOS) than there are iPad users who wish the Music, Video, App Store, and iTunes Store apps were combined into a single app (like on Mac and Windows).

iTunes’s Ball and Chain: Windows ★

Allen Pike:

Except that they can’t split iTunes into multiple apps because many, if not most iOS users are on Windows. iTunes is Apple’s one and only foothold on Windows, so it needs to support everything an iOS device owner could need to do with their device. Can you imagine the support hurricane it would cause if Windows users suddenly needed to download, install, and use 3-4 different apps to sync and manage their media on their iPhone? It’s completely out of the question.

Just tossing an idea out there, but what if Apple broke iTunes apart into several smaller apps on Mountain Lion (iOS-style), and kept the monolithic iTunes for legacy users on older versions of Mac OS X (Lion, Snow Leopard, Leopard) and Windows?

‘Here Comes the Pizza!’ ★

My friend Paul Kafasis buys a brick at Fenway Park.

Apple Releases Java for OS X Lion 2012-003 ★

Apple:

This Java security update removes the most common variants of the Flashback malware.

This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets.

Apple Denies E-Book Collusion ★

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr, in a statement to All Things D:

The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

The ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Lego Sets That Never Existed ★

Including a six-foot long, nearly 4,000-piece model of the Discovery. (Via Jim Coudal, of course.)

Instarchive ★

Great idea:

Sign into your Instagram account and we’ll send your photos down to your computer in a convenient zip file. It’s quick and easy, we hope you like it.

The San Carlos Hotel ★

Remember that list of working titles for Dr. Strangelove I linked to last week? Sharp-eyed DF reader Matthew Marshall noted that Kubrick had written an address on that sheet: “150 East 50th St.” That’s The San Carlos Hotel, which if you search the web for along with “Kubrick”, brings you to the Eyes Wide Shut screenplay, which contains a reference to it.