Linked List: June 25, 2012

Monday, 25 June 2012

On Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels ★

Dana Mattioli, reporting for the WSJ (behind the paywall, alas):

Orbitz Worldwide Inc. has found that people who use Apple Inc.’s Mac computers spend as much as 30% more a night on hotels, so the online travel agency is starting to show them different, and sometimes costlier, travel options than Windows visitors see.

The Orbitz effort, which is in its early stages, demonstrates how tracking people’s online activities can use even seemingly innocuous information — in this case, the fact that customers are visiting Orbitz.com from a Mac — to start predicting their tastes and spending habits.

To be clear, this is about defaulting to showing Mac users higher-priced, better-rated hotels first, not about charging Mac users more money for the same hotel rooms.

No use making jokes here — Matt Novak wins. (At least I think that’s a joke.)

Flipboard in Content Deal With New York Times ★

Interesting deal:

The New York Times said on Monday that it would make its articles available through Flipboard, a popular app for browsing news and social media on phones and tablets. It will be the first time that the newspaper has allowed subscribers to get full access to its Web content through a third party.

I’ve been thinking about it recently, and it seems to me I’ve been using the New York Times iOS app less frequently since it moved into Newsstand. I’ve pretty much got everything I want on my first iPad home screen; I’d rather have the Times app there than inside the Newsstand folder. For me, Newsstand is a place where apps go to be forgotten.

I might be more likely to read The Times in Flipboard than in the NY Times app not because it’s a better reading experience but simply because I’ll see the Flipboard icon right there on my home screen when I’m looking for something to read.

Microsoft Says They Won’t Build Their Own Phones ★

Paul McDougal, reporting for Information Week:

A Microsoft executive said the company has no plans to manufacture its own company-branded smartphones, denying reports to the contrary that emerged after Redmond last week roiled the PC hardware industry by unveiling its own tablet computer.

Asked in an interview if Microsoft planned to apply that strategy to the smartphone market, Greg Sullivan, senior marketing manager for Windows Phone, said, “No, we do not.”

Mary-Jo Foley, interviewing Microsoft’s Roz Ho two years ago:

Ho — the former head of Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, who became the leader of PMX (Premium Mobile Services) in 2007 — wanted to make sure I knew that Kin isn’t a Microsoft phone. Neither of the models announced today are going to be Microsoft-branded. The Kins are Sharp phones, she said, and Sharp is just one of a number of Microsoft OEM partners on the mobile front.

“This (Kin) is another Windows Phone,” Ho said.

I asked her whether other OEMs had been considered to produce the Kin phones and was told “Microsoft talks to a a lot of partners” (which I am taking as a polite “no”).

Or as Darth put it, “Deja vu all over again.”

Jacqui Cheng on Glassboard 2.0 ★

Glassboard was so great at WWDC this year. At this point I don’t know how I did conferences without it.

How to Use Preview in OS X Lion to Digitally Sign Documents ★

I’m guessing a lot of people don’t know about this feature.

Glenn Fleishman Reviews the New AirPort Express ★

Glenn Fleishman:

Having both bands available at once in the 2012 AirPort Express (a feature added in 2009 to the Extreme and Time Capsule models) allows your network to perform at the highest possible speeds no matter how distant a device is from the base station while it remains in range of a signal. That’s a significant improvement, and makes the Express a much better value, especially compared with equipment from competing manufacturers, such as Linksys.