Linked List: August 29, 2012

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

Something’s Rotten, That’s for Sure 

Michael Wolff, writing at The Guardian, “Apple’s rot starts with its Samsung lawsuit win”:

This fierce defensiveness might be rightly understood in a psychological sense: Apple itself is based on stolen iconography. There was first the Beatle’s [sic] Apple and there was Xerox PARC’s desktop design. Apple’s self-righteousness masks its guilt.

Indeed, there have been several legal skirmishes between Apple Inc. (née Apple Computer Inc.) and The Beatles’ Apple Corps, but they negotiated agreements. As for the tired “Apple stole the ideas for the Mac GUI from Xerox” chestnut — seriously? Does Michael Wolff know how to use Google?

(It may be sheepish, too, about being more of a marketing organization than a technology company.)

Another greatest hit from Apple troll bag: Apple is a technology poser that merely dresses up in pretty “marketing” the engineering innovations of other “real” technology companies.

For some, Apple is always doomed. In the old days, because they were too small, dwarfed by Microsoft. Then, a decade ago, it was because the iPod boom would surely prove fleeting and soon go bust. Now, it’s because they’re too big, doomed by their success and the company’s institutional hubris.

An iPad Review, Sort Of 

Joe Posnanski:

I left my iPad on a plane the other day. The crazy thing about it — as if there needs to be an extra layer of crazy about leaving a hugely expensive and personal and professionally vital device on an airplane — was that I thought about it five minutes before I did it. Not after. BEFORE.

Apple Retail Rumors 

Chris Foresman takes this report from Gary Allen at ifoAppleStore and runs with it. (Google cache of the ifoAppleStore report.) I don’t see how that’s warranted, given the lack of evidence and thin sourcing in Allen’s original report. This story is predicated on the assumption that Tim Cook doesn’t understand what has made Apple’s retail stores so successful and popular. They’re going to start cutting back on maintenance and cleanliness? Do you think Tim Cook is a fool? I don’t buy it.

The Red Sox as the U.S.S.R. 

Nicholas Thompson, writing for The New Yorker’s Sporting Scene:

One of the greatest rivalries in professional sports history was surely that between the Red Sox and Yankees from 2003 to 2011. They were the best teams in baseball many of those years. They participated in two of the greatest playoff series of all time. They brawled. They fought over free agents. The Yankees were generally slightly better, but the Red Sox still triumphed in two World Series. They were like the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. But, now, as then, we have a winner.

What’s on Mayor Nutter’s Zune? 

Mixmaster Mike.