Linked List: March 14, 2013

Thursday, 14 March 2013

An Unforced Error 

Phil Schiller, in an interview yesterday:

“And that extends to the news we are hearing this week that the Samsung Galaxy S4 is being rumored to ship with an OS that is nearly a year old,” he said. “Customers will have to wait to get an update.”

But it ends up the S4 is — to Samsung’s credit — shipping with Android 4.2.2, the latest available version. Not sure why Schiller would speculate on something like this based solely on rumors.

Samsung Launches Galaxy S4 

Nice rundown by Danny Sullivan.

OS X Mountain Lion Update 10.8.3 

Finally.

Just Making Stuff Up 

BBC News, on the launch of the Galaxy S4:

With Apple suffering from a dipped share price, and a few recent missteps with product launches, the time is perhaps ripe for Samsung to pile pressure on the iPhone-maker.

What “recent missteps with product launches”? The iPad Mini is the best-selling, best-regarded small tablet in the world. The iPhone 5 is the most profitable and best-selling smartphone in the world. The iPad 3/4 is the best-selling tablet in the world, and is single-handedly transforming the entire PC industry. Retina MacBook Pros — best laptops in the world. MacBook Airs? Better than ever.

The one and only recent product launch you can point to as a “misstep” is Apple Maps, and even there, there is now a free Google Maps app available to all iPhone users, and it has seemingly had no ill effect on the sale of iOS devices. Most companies would do well to have Apple Maps be their worst “misstep”.

Google, Destroyer of Ecosystems 

Aldo Cortesi:

The truth is this: Google destroyed the RSS feed reader ecosystem with a subsidized product, stifling its competitors and killing innovation. It then neglected Google Reader itself for years, after it had effectively become the only player. Today it does further damage by buggering up the already beleaguered links between publishers and readers. It would have been better for the Internet if Reader had never been at all.

Photos of Children From Around the World With Their Most Prized Possessions 

Really sweet. And then you get to the kid from the Ukraine.

(Stolen, with no shame, from my wife.)

‘No Kind of Work for a Grown Man’ 

This week’s The Talk Show won’t record until tomorrow, but if you’re in the mood to hear me on another show, Glenn Fleishman was kind enough to have me as his guest on The New Disruptors, to talk about how I turned DF into a career.

Eight Years Later 

Fascinating before/after comparison of St. Peter’s Square in 2005 vs. 2013.

Google Reader Lived on Borrowed Time 

Om Malik, interviewing Google Reader co-creator Chris Wetherell:

“When they replaced sharing with +1 on Google Reader, it was clear that this day was going to come,” he said. Wetherell, 43, is amazed that Reader has lasted this long. Even before the project saw the light of the day, Google executives were unsure about the service and it was through sheer perseverance that it squeaked out into the market. At one point, the management team threatened to cancel the project even before it saw the light of the day, if there was a delay.

Thanks for telling us now.

MG Siegler on Phil Schiller’s Interview Yesterday With the WSJ 

Different take on it than mine, including the keen observation that Schiller’s derision was aimed only at Android at a whole — he never mentioned Samsung specifically, even though the interview was clearly timed to take some air out of today’s Galaxy S4 launch. (MG is my guest on this week’s The Talk Show; we’ll talk about this for sure.)

Called It a Few Months Ago 

I was at least half-joking with this tweet, but I’ll take credit anyway.