Linked List: February 26, 2013

Tuesday, 26 February 2013

Amir Efrati, reporting for the Wall Street Journal on those numbers from Good Technology regarding mobile device activations in large corporations, paragraphs one and two:

There are signs that Apple’s grip on tablets has been weakened among consumers, who are buying more devices made by Samsung and Amazon. Now the trend is trickling into the business market.

That’s according to new data from Good Technology, one of the biggest mobile device managers, known as MDMs, that give tools to corporate IT managers to oversee employee devices.

Stop reading there and what is the reader to think, other than “more bad news for Apple”? Two paragraphs later, we get the actual numbers:

Out of all of the tablets that installed Good’s management software during 2012, Android’s share grew from 2.7% in the first quarter to 6.8% by the fourth quarter, with the iPad grabbing nearly the entire rest of the market.

“We’re seeing some glimmers of Android tablet adoption,” said John Herrema, an executive at Good Technology.

And then only at the bottom of the article do we see that, according to Good, iOS is actually doing better than Android year-over-year:

Overall, Apple’s iPad and iPhone devices made up 77% of new devices using Good Technology software last year, up from 71% in 2011, with Android-powered devices making up much of the rest.

The headline for Efrati’s story? “Report: Android Tablets Gain on iPads in Business Market”.

Chromebook Pixel and Multitouch ★

Google’s marketing page for the Chromebook Pixel mentions multitouch and pinch-to-zoom, but their documentation page only mentions single-finger taps and scrolling.

Update: Multitouch does work in Maps for pinch-to-zoom, report a few readers who have the Pixel. But it doesn’t work system-wide, and doesn’t allow for zooming web pages. It’s something individual apps need to support explicitly, hence my initial confusion.

Chris Welch:

And now there’s another problem: breaking the token barrier means new downloads are as good as useless, but Vergès can’t deliver future updates to Falcon Pro if it’s no longer in Google Play. As such, he’s decided the best course of action is to hike Falcon Pro’s price into the stratosphere: it’s currently listed at $132.13 on Google Play.

Way to go, Twitter.

Post-PC Devices in the Enterprise ★

Lots of variety in Good Technology’s list of the top mobile devices activated in large corporations — some are iPhones, some are iPads.

Obsolete, Eh? ★

Brooke Crothers, reviewing the Chromebook Pixel for CNet:

Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook.

Glad we’re not jumping to hyperbolic conclusions.

Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G. What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close to matching the MacBook’s aesthetics.

Don’t get me started on the pointlessness of a touchscreen on a MacBook. But cellular networking — that, I agree, does feel missing at this point. I make do with hotspot tethering, but the fact that my iPad has cellular networking built-in (and shares the same Verizon account as my iPhone) makes it feel like my MacBook should have it too.

I’m not sure why Apple hasn’t offered it as an option yet, but my guess is that it’s because Mac OS X isn’t designed to behave differently while on different types of networks. With cellular networking, for example, you wouldn’t want iTunes to download new episodes of TV episodes or even podcasts in the background — a single episode could eat up your entire monthly bandwidth allotment.

Using the Microsoft Surface Pro for Drawing ★

Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade:

Sketching with the Stylus in Sketchbook was awesome. It’s important to note that you can lay your hand on the screen while you draw without messing up your work. There was no brush lag at all and the pressure sensitivity worked perfectly. The stylus itself felt exactly like drawing on my Cintiq except that the Surface screen is smooth whereas the Cintiq screen has a bit of texture to it.

How ironic would it be if the iPad becomes the dominant mass market computer and the Surface becomes the one for artists?

‘If You See the Computer They Blew It’ ★

Andre Torrez:

The difference is, of course, I can put the phone in my pocket the second you start talking to me. It is not part of our conversation and there is no screen alerting me to a new message or enticing me with some video. Putting the phone in my pocket is a way to say, “Okay it’s just you and me talking now.” But wearing that computer on your face is a reminder that, well, you have a damn computer on your face.

Josh Topolsky on Google Glass ★

In case you missed it Friday, Josh Topolsky got a hands-on demo with Google Glass. Definitely an interesting write-up.

I still don’t see the market for this as a product. It’s cool technology, but to me it doesn’t even look close to being a complete consumer product. This is to heads-up-displays as Jeff Han’s 2006 TED demo was to multitouch: a demo of cool technology, not a cool product.

And the idea that people will wear things like this everywhere (as opposed to special specific scenarios, such as workers in an environment where their hands are otherwise occupied, like, say, surgeons) strikes me as creepy as hell.