Linked List: February 15, 2013

Friday, 15 February 2013

Marco Arment:

I don’t think they need to wait until they can go to “4X” Retina density (in fact, I question whether that will ever be worth the battery cost), I don’t think they’ll care if it’s not exactly 720P, and they sure won’t give a damn that some Android phones shipped with higher-DPI screens and got worse GPU performance and worse battery life as a result.

I agree with every word of this one. The same people arguing that Apple “can’t” release a mere 264 PPI iPhone in a market with 300+ PPI Android phones (and the 326 iPhone 5 and 4(S)) are the same people who, last year, argued that Apple “couldn’t” ship a 163 PPI iPad Mini in a market with the 200-something PPI Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire.

‘A Simple Little Browser’ ★

From a 2003 CNet story, just after Apple’s release of first version of Safari:

Specifically, [Opera CEO Jon von] Tetzchner said that he had asked Apple whether it would be willing to license Opera either to replace KHTML, or to supplement the current Safari version, which Apple said is a stripped-down affair with a minimalist interface and limited feature set.

“We have contacted Apple and asked them if they want a third-party browser, and we’ll see what the answer is,” Tetzchner said. “They could say we want to use Opera as the core engine. If they want KHTML as a simple little browser, and also something more advanced, we would be happy to provide it. Obviously, if we don’t get any positive signs from Apple, then we have to think about it.”

I guess they’ve thought about it.

Anyway, called it.

Must Have Touched a Nerve ★

Daniel Glazman:

I just read Daring Fireball’s short so-called « analysis » of the Opera switch to WebKit. Even I perfectly know that guy is almost only an Apple PR guy, I’m again surprised by his limited ability to analyse a situation. The only question that is worth it is the following one: whatever is the strategic rationale that led to that choice, it’s obvious Opera had the choice between open-sourcing Presto to build a larger community around it and ditching it in favor of an already open-sourced rendering engine. So why did they choose the latter?

Here’s my piece he’s referring to. Not sure how a single word of it is about Apple at all. Anyway, open-sourcing Presto wouldn’t have solved any of Opera’s problems. Gecko has been open source all along and it too has fallen far behind WebKit. It’s pretty clear why Opera chose to switch to WebKit: WebKit is better, especially on mobile devices, and its lead is growing.

(Also, anyone else get the feeling the Mozilla guys wouldn’t be so worried about a browser engine monoculture if Gecko had won the war?)

Update: Glazman also writes:

And in terms of WebKit better than Presto, well, Opera has always been a better player with respect to standards than Apple.

In which case, Opera’s involvement with WebKit should help make WebKit even more standards-compliant. I fail to see a problem here.

Posterous Shitting Down in April ★

Sorry, I meant shutting down.