Linked List: August 27, 2012

Monday, 27 August 2012

New Senior Vice President Lineup at Apple 

Apple PR:

Apple today announced that Craig Federighi, Apple’s vice president of Mac Software Engineering, and Dan Riccio, Apple’s vice president of Hardware Engineering, have been promoted to senior vice presidents. Federighi and Riccio will report to Apple CEO Tim Cook and serve on Apple’s executive management team.

Makes sense, especially in Federighi’s case, after Mountain Lion shipped on time and to great reviews.

Apple also announced that Bob Mansfield, who announced his retirement in June, will remain at Apple. Mansfield will work on future products, reporting to Tim Cook.

That’s interesting, given that it’s utterly unexplained and that, with Riccio’s promotion, Apple now has two senior vice presidents of hardware engineering.

(Also worth noting: Apple now has their executives (after Tim Cook) listed in alphabetical order.)

Samsung Shares Drop $12 Billion After Apple’s Court Victory 

Reuters:

Samsung Electronics shares slumped 7.5 percent on Monday, wiping more than $12 billion off the South Korean giant’s market value, as a sweeping victory for Apple Inc in a U.S. patent lawsuit raised concerns about its smartphone business - its biggest cash cow.

Android, still winning.

Where Did the Tweetbot for Mac Alpha Go? 

Paul Haddad:

As some of you may have already noticed the download link for the Tweetbot for Mac alpha no longer works. Twitter’s latest API Changes means now we have a large but finite limit on the number of user tokens we can get for Tweetbot for Mac. We’ve been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we’ve decided it’s best for us to pull the alpha.

What a mess. Nice job, Dick Costolo.

Stephen Coles on the New Microsoft Logo 

Stephen Coles:

It follows the visual identity that it already established in Microsoft products and marketing for years, and it reflects the style of typography that is at the core of their Windows Phone and Windows 8 (formerly “Metro”) operating systems. But I think it’s the wrong choice. Or maybe the right one, but several years too late.

For another, more strident, argument along the same lines, see this piece by Andrew Brett Watson. Me, I don’t see Segoe (Microsoft’s identity font) as being that close to Myriad (Apple’s). But they’re quite obviously along the same lines.

Retina MacBook Pro Review as a Mac Pro Owner 

Speaking of Marco Arment, I found myself nodding my head throughout his review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display:

My only regret about the Retina Display is that I can’t buy a standalone one for my desk, and this one’s not big enough to just prop up the laptop on a stand and use it as the only monitor in a desktop setup.

Passing the Costs Along 

Marco Arment:

Unoriginal manufacturers will need to pay for their unoriginality. The most reasonable course of action, therefore, is to truly innovate and design products that aren’t such close copies.

Agreed. What this verdict might lessen is the low-risk, low-cost, (and as Samsung’s smartphone sales have shown, potentially high-reward) strategy of simply copying what truly innovative, risk-taking companies have shown to be successful.

Andy Ihnatko: ‘Near-Total Victory for Apple Stifles Phone, Tablet Design’ 

Andy Ihnatko:

Samsung will be fine. The biggest losers here are consumers. If the verdict stands, then the costs of the judgment will be reflected in the cost of mobile devices. Furthermore, other manufacturers will feel the need to buy Apple’s official permission to build useful phones, passing down the possible $20-per-handset fee.

I disagree. I think the licensing fees will come out of the profit margins of the handset makers. We’ll see.

And it’s possible that the next great phone, the one that shames the iPhone the same way that the iPhone buried the Blackberry, will never make it to market. Designing and selling an advanced smartphone just became a dangerous business.

I disagree. I do agree that the mobile phone market is the realm of those who possess deep patent portfolios or the enormous cash reserves to license them, and that’s unfortunate. It is extremely unlikely in this landscape that the next great phone could come from a small upstart. That is unfortunate, and it’s a great argument against the U.S. patent system. But I don’t think there’s anything in this verdict that would prevent Google, Nokia, Microsoft, Samsung, HTC, Sony, or RIM from creating a new phone that is way better than the iPhone. Better necessarily implies different. What this verdict should prevent is any of them making phones that are disturbingly similar to Apple’s.

NYT: ‘After Apple-Samsung Verdict, Concern About Innovation’ 

Nick Wingfield, writing for the NYT on the aftermath of Apple’s courtroom victory over Samsung:

Consider the case of Windows Phone, Microsoft’s operating system for smartphones, which looks almost nothing like the Apple software for iPhones and iPads. Reviewers have praised Windows Phone for its fresh, distinctive design, with bold typography and a tile system for using phone functions.

But the phones, including the Lumia 900 from Nokia, have not sold well.

How is that something to consider here? If Wingfield’s argument is that Windows Phones are not selling well simply because they’re different from the iPhone, and that the only way to succeed is to be like the iPhone, isn’t that an argument against innovation?

Thermonuclear 

Is Apple’s victory over Samsung the end of its Android litigation, or the beginning? The bigger potential target: Google.