Linked List: August 16, 2012

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Video Clip of Speaker Brought in by Retail Chief John Browett to Motivate Apple Retail Employees ★

“Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”

Anil Dash: ‘What Twitter’s API Announcement Could Have Said’ ★

Anil Dash does a nice job here writing Twitter’s MBA-speak written-by-committee gibberish (surely it pained Michael Sippey — who is a great writer — to put his byline on that thing) into plain English. But along the way, he also makes some assumptions about Twitter’s intentions, e.g. with this passage:

Oh, and if you need a lot of user tokens (like, more than 100,000), get in touch with us and we’ll take care of you personally. If you try to make that volume of calls without a special request, you might get shut off.

In Dash’s version, it sounds like popular apps would have to ask for but would probably be granted additional user tokens after hitting the 100K limit. In Sippey/Twitter’s actual version, there’s no such “we’ll take care of you” vibe whatsoever:

Additionally, if you are building a Twitter client application that is accessing the home timeline, account settings or direct messages API endpoints (typically used by traditional client applications) or are using our User Streams product, you will need our permission if your application will require more than 100,000 individual user tokens.

Matthew Panzarino on Twitter’s New Guidelines ★

Matthew Panzarino:

That means that no third-party client can ever have more than 100k users, unless given special permission by Twitter or it already has over 100k right now, in which case it can have double that amount.

This move puts a life span on most for-pay clients, as they’ll reach a point where there is no longer any reason for them to continue offering these apps for sale. Let’s call it Max Reach . If you’re a user of a favorite third-party client already, you’re in, but those who wish to get in on one in the future will need to get cracking if they want to get in under the cap. […]

Basically, Twitter just told all developers exactly how much money they can ever make selling a for-pay client. The future of Twitter is its official apps.

And it’s a huge discouragement for starting any new Twitter clients. Regarding Twitter’s new “Display Guidelines”, Panzarino flags the same rule that caught my eye:

Section 3b. is also an interesting one, as it says that “no other social or 3rd party actions may be attached to a Tweet”. This appears to indicate that actions like “send to Instapaper” or “view in Favstar” are outlawed, but that’s unclear still.

Upheaval in Apple Retail Stores? ★

Gary Allen, writing at IfoAppleStore:

But according to those with close ties to the retail stores, Browett feels the stores are “too bloated” with employees, and he is willing to gamble the stores’ legendary customer experience to gain back a few points of profit margin. Browett’s decision reportedly came despite strongly-worded advice from Retail segment veterans that reducing personnel ahead of the annual Back-to-School promotion and the September introduction of the iPhone 5 could create a customer service catastrophe. Browett disagreed with his staff, and said the chain needs to learn to run “leaner” in all areas, even if the customer experience is compromised. […]

Update: Within 24 hours of this posting, a story by The Wall Street Journal stated that Browett had admitted the personnel changes were a mistake and the changes had been rescinded. However, he denied that any employees had been laid off.

“Even if the customer experience is compromised” are Allen’s words, summarizing what he heard from his sources, not Browett’s. But if they’re accurate, it’s hard to conclude anything other than that Apple made a terrible decision hiring him.

Wren ★

Lovely super-simple little tweet-posting app for the Mac. Obviated, perhaps, by Mountain Lion’s tweet-from-notification-center feature, but Wren is very well done. Thank goodness Twitter wants to put an end to apps like this.

Twitter to Client Developers: Drop Dead ★

Michael Sippey of Twitter has posted another hard-to-understand-what-they-really-mean update on Twitter’s evolving stance on third-party API usage. Scroll down and look at that insipid four-quadrant matrix, where the top-right quadrant represents the stuff Twitter is discouraging. In the “good” quadrants are bullshit terms like “Social CRM”, “Social analytics”, and “Social influence ranking”. Sippey writes:

In the lower-right quadrant are services that use Twitter content for social influence ranking, such as Klout.

In the upper right-hand quadrant are services that enable users to interact with Tweets, like the Tweet curation service Storify or the Tweet discovery site Favstar.fm.

That upper-right quadrant also includes, of course, “traditional” Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Echofon. Nearly eighteen months ago, we gave developers guidance that they should not build client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.” And to reiterate what I wrote in my last post, that guidance continues to apply today.

So Klout, which is utter vainglorious masturbatory nonsense, that’s OK. But services like Storify and Favstar, which are actually useful and/or fun, those are no good. And don’t even get me started on Twitter turning against client apps. For chrissake Twitter’s own app started life as a third-party client.

On Apple’s Acquisition of Fingerprint Sensor Maker AuthenTec ★

Interesting analysis by Matt Brian at The Next Web regarding the negotiations between Apple and AuthenTec, as gleaned from AuthenTec’s SEC filing on the acquisition:

On May 8, after consultations with its board and investors and discussion of whether it would be able to pursue takeover deals with other consumer electronic companies, AuthenTec countered Apple’s bid and said that it would require $9.00 per share for talks to continue. Apple said it would not offer more than $8.00 per share, and over the next three weeks the two parties worked on finalising the deal. […]

After much deliberation between AuthenTec, Apple, Alston & Bird and Piper Jaffray, a deal was agreed on the evening of July 26. Apple would pay $8.00 per share, provide $20 million for AuthenTec’s technologies and license its technologies for up to $115 million.

I can’t agree with Brian’s conclusion, though:

Throughout its meetings with AuthenTec, Apple was keen to express that work on the new technology must continue unhindered, regardless of whether it entered a commercial agreement (which involved royalties, patent licensing and its exclusive use) or it acquired the company.

Will we see fingerprint technology in the new iPhone (or iPad)? It seems almost certain.

The only thing that seems certain is that Apple has been hard at work on something related to AuthenTec technology. That doesn’t mean it will ever ship in an actual product, let alone in products that are set to be announced this year. A new iPhone or iPad that Apple would announce next month would have been in EVT prototype production back in April or so, and DVT prototype production this summer. Decisions like adding a new type of sensor have to be made relatively far in advance. If Apple was working hard and fast in mid-2012 to incorporate fingerprint sensors in a product, I bet that product isn’t hitting the market until 2013 at the earliest.

Hipstamatic Lays Off All but Core Employees, Including Designers and Engineers ★

Matthew Panzarino:

Toy camera app company Hipstamatic has fired all but 5 of its core staff, including engineers and designers, The Next Web has learned. The company had been staffed up and working on a new release, but has only released one update in the last several months.

My pal Jonathan Wight was one of the engineers let go:

Would love if the entire team could get snapped up by someone. Really is an awesome fucking team. Totally squandered where we were.

Some really smart guys on that team, including Wight and Justin Williams.

Because That’s Where the Content Is ★

MG Siegler, on today’s WSJ report that Apple is in talks with cable companies about a deal for an Apple TV product that works with cable TV:

This should surprise absolutely no one. In fact, the news isn’t even actually new. Apple has been talking to these guys for years. And they’ll keep talking to them right up until they debut whatever it is they’re going to debut.

It seems that the shock of this news is more around the fact that Apple may not actually completely transform the industry overnight. No shit. You know what other industry they didn’t transform over night? The mobile industry.

Or the music industry for that matter. The iTunes Music Store wasn’t some all-new thing that obviated the existing music industry — it was built on top of the existing music industry.

Speaking of Cheaters ★

Kyle Hightower, reporting for the AP:

One of the top young Scrabble players in the country has been kicked out of the game’s national championship tournament in Florida after he was caught hiding blank letter tiles, organizers said Tuesday.

Melky Cabrera, Star Hitter for San Francisco Giants, Suspended 50 Games for Doping Testosterone ★

Like with Ryan Braun last year, this just makes me sad. Even worse, Cabrera, batting .346, not only might win the NL batting title, but is the projected favorite to do so.

‘Your Honor, First of All, I’m Not Smoking Crack.’ ★

Nerves getting frayed in the Apple-v.-Samsung courtroom.

Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ Thread With Members of NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover Team ★

Fascinating stuff. TPM has an article summarizing the most interesting answers.