Linked List: September 4, 2012

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Manual Transmission and the iPad Mini ★

Tom at The Unknown Coast has an interesting take on my automatic-vs.-manual transmission analogy from 2010:

But the European car market demonstrates that the current popularity of automatic cars in the US was not inevitable; or at least, it wasn’t an inevitable consequence of technological progress. It wasn’t something that had to happen given the intrinsic technological properties of automatic cars. Under a different set of cultural and economic circumstances, manual transmission could have remained the dominant technology in the US, despite the availability of automatic cars.

His thinking is that an iPad Mini might push the perception that iPads are peripherals to “real” computers, not the future of real computers. Perhaps another reason Apple might call it not the Mini but the iPad Air.

The Naming of Things ★

Jeremy Herrman:

The reason Apple dropped model numbers with the iPad has seemed obvious to me for months: because they’re going to be selling the current “new iPad” alongside the yet to be announced iPad Mini.

Think about it, if Apple kept the model number then consumers would have to choose between the iPad 3 and iPad Mini. What would Apple do for the next version of the iPads?

Smart. And he makes a good point about the implications of the new iPhone being named “iPhone 5”.

Get That Apple iPhone 5 Out of Jon Friedman’s Face ★

Jon Friedman, writing for MarketWatch:

Why am I so opposed to the iPhone 5, before I even have the opportunity to hold one in my hands?

It boils down to the old expression, Fool me once, shame on you — fool me twice, shame on me.

I already feel like I got taken by this company.

When did MarketWatch start hiring such whiners?

Apple Announces Special Event for September 12 ★

So I guess they are going to call it the iPhone 5.

AntiSec Leaks 1 Million Apple UDIDs Allegedly Obtained From FBI Breach ★

Well, this sounds like a total clusterfuck.