Linked List: June 27, 2012

Wednesday, 27 June 2012

‘The Future Is Invented by the People Who Don’t Give a Shit About the Past’ ★

Michael Lopp:

One of my favorite Apple product announcements happened on September 7, 2005. In an Apple music event announcement, Steve Jobs got on stage, gave the usual state of the business update, and then he did something I’d never seen before. He killed a wildly successful product.

On the Profitability of iOS Game Development ★

Aaron Souppouris, writing for The Verge:

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in Taipei today, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, told the audience that the iOS title Infinity Blade is “the most profitable game we’ve ever made — in terms of man years invested versus revenue, it’s more profitable than Gears of War.” The mobile franchise passed the $30 million mark this January and Infinity Blade II made over $5 million in its first month on the App Store. Sweeney said he was “very, very surprised to see how fast smartphone and tablet devices are improving,” adding that the pace was faster than Moore’s law.

Interesting, to be sure, that a game that sells for $5.99 would prove so profitable.

T-Mobile USA CEO Philipp Humm Suddenly Resigns ★

I sure hope it wasn’t because he read that bogus Gizmodo story yesterday.

The Inspiration for the Tape Recorder in Apple’s New Podcasts App: the Braun TG 60 Tape Recorder ★

Nice find by Ben Lenarts — no surprise it’s a Dieter Rams design. More images.

The Resale Market for Kindle Fires ★

As we wait for the Google I/O 2012 day-one keynote address to begin, it might be worth noting the resale market for the current market-leading 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire. A DF reader in New York searched Craigslist for Kindles for sale, and found that the going price is well under $100. (Screenshot, for posterity.) Kindle Fires retail for $199. E-ink Kindles suffer no such indignity — it’s hard to find an e-ink Kindle for sale for much less than the retail price of a new one. Same is true for iPads, unsurprisingly.

So is the problem that 7-inch tablets are a bad size, or that the Kindle Fire is simply a bad 7-inch tablet? Or both?

Update: On Twitter, Carl Anderson suggests another possibility: that these cheap Kindle Fires on Craigslist are scams. Certainly possible, but then why aren’t there similar scam listings for e-ink Kindles and for the far more popular iPad?

Alex Knight on Apple’s New Podcasts App ★

Alex Knight does not like it:

The navigation experience for discovering podcasts is clunky. Instead of a simple grid or list layout for shows based on category, you have to switch views to access the iTunes store — which surprisingly caused the app to crash the first time I used it. I can let that slide, as that’s standard experience in other apps like iBooks where you need to tap to switch between the library and store. Where things get really wonky is in the skeuomorphic design of the audio player itself. Whilst playing an episode, you get a custom playback controller, so no standard iOS widgets there (that’s been an increasingly worrying trend), as well as an old reel-to-reel tape deck that displays in the background. The effect of the tape deck is subtle, and admittedly very well designed, but it seems a bit off putting to me.

Maybe I’m getting loopy as I get older, but I like the tape deck animation. If you don’t like it, swipe down and you get album art for the currently-playing show.

Where I think Podcasts falls short (and Knight touches on this as well) is in providing for a single iCloud-backed set of podcast subscriptions. If I subscribe to a podcast in iTunes on my Mac, it should show up as a subscription on Podcasts on my iPhone. And, yes, there should be per-device subscription options — I might want to keep an archive of old shows on my Mac with its big-ass hard disk, but only the most recent new episode on my iPhone and iPad. But I shouldn’t have to sync my devices with iTunes on my Mac just to sync podcast subscriptions. Podcasts seems like a perfect example of something where iCloud should be my digital hub — just like how iTunes Match works for music.