Linked List: May 8, 2012

Tuesday, 8 May 2012

Terrifically useful simple little utility for Mac OS X. Only $5.

The Point of Samsung’s Interest in Tizen ★

Same basic idea as Android, but without Google.

Benjamin Sandofsky:

The difference is shell apps come from the wrong mentality. They start from, “How do we reduce effort?” instead of “How do we deliver the best product?”

Great products require more work. They requires commitment, attention to detail, and leaving your comfort zone. Shortcuts are just a distraction.

(Via David Weiss.)

LG to Launch Google TV in U.S. in Late May ★

Miyoung Kim, reporting for Reuters:

LG Electronics Inc, the world’s No.2 TV maker, plans to launch Internet-enabled TV based on Google’s platform in the United States in the week of May 21, as the South Korean firm seeks to gain a larger share of the emerging Internet TV market, a senior LG executive said on Monday.

Perfect — just in time for summer.

Amazon’s Opaque Strategic Goals ★

Farhad Manjoo, writing at Pando Daily:

What struck me when I saw the zero price for The Hunger Games is that I simply don’t know what Amazon is up to with the lending library. This is not a novel sensation: I am frequently flummoxed by Amazon, the most inscrutable of all the companies I cover regularly. Amazon is the one major tech firm whose operations, investments, and short- and long-term goals are completely hidden from the reporters and analysts who try to watch its every move.

Samsung’s First Prototype Tizen Device ★

I don’t get it. What is the point of this OS? What am I missing?

Update: Via Twitter, Matthew Thomas argues that the same logic I applied regarding HP and Microsoft Windows back in 2009 applies here, with Samsung and Google Android. That’s a good point.

Mark Alldritt’s Postmortem on FaceSpan 5 ★

Mark Alldritt:

I am a self-funded Indie (lone) developer. I made a number of classic business blunders on the FaceSpan 5 project. I broke the golden rule: never (never!) rewrite a software product. I massively underestimated the effort required to complete the product. I set off without having sufficient resources to complete the project. Because I took so long to complete my work, the market moved on — AppleScript’s importance to the customers I intended to target declined. Some may argue that the market was never really there to provide a return for a product of this complexity. Finally, I didn’t pull the plug soon enough. Hindsight its great.

He may be right about that golden rule, but, his aborted rewrite of FaceSpan was truly a magnificent idea. It may well have been a doomed-from-the-start business idea, but it was a marvelous software idea.

How Apple’s 1944 Promotional Film Came to Be ★

Michael Markman:

One of my early Apple projects has just made its way to YouTube. It was a World War II movie made for the Apple International Sales Conference in the summer of 1984. Embedding is disabled, by you can find it here: 1944.

Here’s the backstory.