Linked List: September 17, 2012

Monday, 17 September 2012

How AT&T Paid Andy Zaky $173.82 to Switch to Verizon ★

Andy Zaky:

So essentially, what AT&T told me today was that I can stay at AT&T and pay $500.00 to upgrade two of our iPhone 4S’s to iPhone 5’s, OR I can leave AT&T pay $320 and then get the iPhone 5’s for the normal $199 price elsewhere. AT&T more or less told me that they would pay me $180.00 to go to Verizon.

I’ve gotten email from a few DF readers with similar stories.

What Is the One True Android and How ‘Open’ Is It? ★

Danny Sullivan:

It’s time for Google to give the Android Open Source Project a new name, I’d say, and end this confusion.

One model here might be a similar but different sounding name. Google uses the Chromium name for its open source browser project. That’s separate and distinct from the Google Chrome browser that Google itself controls.

‘Boring’ ★

The gaping chasm between the tech press’s reactions to new iOS devices and those of actual consumers is growing, not closing. At this point it’s getting absurd. Read these excerpts collected by Harry Marks and try to square them with the record-breaking pre-orders over the weekend.

Update: To be clear, I’m in no way arguing that mass market popularity should necessarily correlate with critical response. The best movies each year seldom make the most money; the movies that make the most money are seldom the best artistically. Transformers 3 made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office but was rightfully panned by critics. Just because many people paid to see it (or even enjoyed it) doesn’t mean it was a good movie. But that’s the thing with the “boring” tag being applied to the iPhone 5. These critics aren’t saying it’s a bad phone. They’re just complaining that, what?, it was predictable? That it’s what everyone expected?

Fission 2 ★

Major update to Rogue Amoeba’s excellent audio editing app for the Mac.

iMessage Service Goes Down for Many iPhone Users ★

Matthew Panzarino:

We’ve been getting reports this morning from tipsters that Apple’s iMessage service is down. These reports seem to be backed up by searches on Twitter which show hundreds of angry customers posting messages every minute.

This, after an iCloud email outage that affected about one percent of users.

Comments Are the Radioactive Waste of the Web ★

Mic Wright:

One national newspaper section editor proposed a thought experiment to me recently: what if newspapers printed comments along side the hard copy versions of their stories? His belief was that comments would be gone within weeks, the sheer insanity of them poisoning the well when placed in such a prominent position.

Which in turn shows that newspaper editors consider their websites second-class citizens.

iPhone 5 Benchmarks Appear in Geekbench ★

Arnold Kim:

The total Geekbench 2 score comes in at 1601. Poole notes that the average score for the iPhone 4S is 629 and the average score for the iPad 3 is 766. A comparison chart of previous iOS devices can be viewed at Geekbench. The numbers seem to validate Apple’s claim that the A6 processor is twice as fast as the A5 and any previous iOS device.

For reference, that’s a higher score than any PowerBook Apple ever shipped — looks like PowerPC laptops maxed out at just under 1000.

Google Buys Developer of ‘Snapseed’, Apple’s 2011 iPad App of the Year ★

Will be interesting to see what happens to their iOS apps. Snapseed really is a great app.

Update: Nik Software announced an Android version of Snapseed back in January, but it apparently still hasn’t shipped.

R. Matthew Ward on the EarPods ★

Another positive review:

For this style of headphones, at this price, Apple’s EarPods are impressive, and in my initial testing they appear to be a fantastic upgrade over the previous model. In my experience reviewing headphones, I’ve found that good headphones enhance the listening experience, while bad ones get in the way of it. The previous Apple earbuds got in the way; the EarPods instead fit right in the center of that range — not enhancing the listening experience, but not detracting from it, either.

Dave Hamilton on Apple’s New EarPods ★

Dave Hamilton:

For casual listening, talking on the phone, and certainly that day at the beach where you want to hear everyone around you while grooving to your tunes, Apple’s EarPods are perfect. My guess is the EarPods work just fine for far more people than their predecessors did, and that’s a good thing.

They really do fit better.

Lightning: The iPhone’s New Connector ★

Good piece by Dan Frakes on Apple’s new connector.

iPhone 5 Pre-Orders Top Two Million in First 24 Hours ★

Apple:

Apple today announced pre-orders of its iPhone 5 topped two million in just 24 hours, more than double the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S. Demand for iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, many are scheduled to be delivered in October.

Good thing no one’s excited about it, or Apple would have a real problem.

Google and Alibaba Continue Warring Over Acer Phone ★

I’m running low on popcorn.