Linked List: July 2, 2012

Monday, 2 July 2012

Does Google Have Any Social Skills at All? 

Good piece by Sam Biddle at Gizmodo. Same goes for Andy Rubin’s public admission that the Nexus 7 has “no margin” — why admit that publicly? Not just because it surely annoys their OEM partners who are trying to build Android devices for a profit, but why be proud of this at all?

Uncle Drew 

NBA rookie of the year Kyrie Irving plays pick-up basketball disguised as an old man. So great. (Thanks to my dad, Bob Gruber, for the link.)

Windows 8 Pro Upgrade Price: $40 

Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft:

We set out to make it as easy as possible for everyone to upgrade to Windows 8. Starting at general availability, if your PC is running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 you will qualify to download an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for just $39.99 in 131 markets. And if you want, you can add Windows Media Center for free through the “add features” option within Windows 8 Pro after your upgrade.

Harry McCracken:

By comparison, the Windows 7 Pro upgrade is $199.99; even the less full-featured Windows 7 Home Premium one lists for $119.99.

Disruption.

Mac and iOS App Icons Compared 

Extensive comparison from Chris Sauve.

Where the Growth Is 

Fred Wilson, “Mobile Is Where The Growth Is”:

There is a significant shift going on this year, much more significant than we saw last year, from web to mobile. It is most noticeable in games, social networking, music, and news, but it is happening across the board and it presents both great opportunity and great challenges.

Mobile native services like Foursquare and Instagram have the most to gain from this transition. Big feature rich web apps like Facebook and Google have the most to lose from this transition.

A sea change is indeed underway, but Wilson either misses it or is being obtuse. Companies Wilson mentions: Microsoft, Google, RIM, Facebook, Yahoo. Not mentioned: Apple.

There’s no mystery here. We’re talking about two platforms: iOS and Android. (Microsoft is doing its best to join that party with Windows 8.) It’s not “mobile vs. the web”. The web is a huge part of what people do on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. It’s post-PC vs. PC, in Apple’s parlance. Modern vs. traditional computing devices. Pretty much every instance of “mobile” could be replaced by “modern” in Wilson’s piece, and it would read better.

RIM’s Tailspin 

Horace Dediu illustrates RIM’s decline.

By the numbers, Nokia looks like it’s on a similar trajectory, but there’s one key difference: Nokia has their next-generation phones on the market. It doesn’t seem like the Lumia handsets are setting the world on fire, but at least they have a chance. With RIM’s next-generation phones not coming until 2013, they’ve got no chance.

Tampa Bay’s Fauxback Uniform 

Paul Kafasis on the Tampa Bay Rays’ fake throwback uniforms. I don’t mind that they made up a fictional uniform, but it’s a shame they didn’t do something more than just change the colors of those classic ’70s Padre uniforms.

A Weekend With Chrome for iOS 

Virtual Pants:

Edge swiping to switch between tabs works great and hopefully will make its way into other iOS apps in the future. Switching between tabs on the iPad is even better, as you can switch between multiple tabs with a single swipe. Opening a new tab instantly refreshes the tab, showing you the old version of the page in black and white until the new one is available. Sounds pretty great. So, why switch back to Safari? Here’s why.

I agree with pretty much everything in this review. Chrome’s experience is all about the omnibox. Me, I actually make pretty heavy use of bookmarks (and bookmarklets), so it makes a big difference to me that Safari puts those one tap away. Especially on the phone, I prefer tapping to typing.