Linked List: March 15, 2013

Friday, 15 March 2013

Help Us, Obi-Wan 

Lorraine Luk, reporting on the Galaxy S4 for the WSJ:

“The only hope for Apple and its suppliers is the possible launch of a low-cost iPhone later this year, which may help the U.S. company to gain market share in fast-growing emerging markets such as China,” said Capital Securities analyst Diana Wu.

Their only hope.

Bitsplitting: Episode 1 

Speaking of new tech podcasts featuring good friends of mine, Daniel Jalkut has just launched a new one, Bitsplitting. His first guest: Guy English. It’s good.

Google Reader Still Drives Far More Traffic Than Google Plus 

My own referrer logs look the same as Buzzfeed’s — lots from Google Reader, almost none from Google Plus. But I don’t know that that means Google made a mistake by shutting down Reader. I don’t think they want to drive traffic to other sites. Google Plus is like the late-’90s portal mania all over again — they want you to stay on their site, not go elsewhere.

Accidental Tech Podcast: Episode 5 

In between the time they launched and I thought, “Hey, cool, a new tech podcast with John Siracusa, Marco Arment, and Casey Liss, I should link it up because DF readers will love this” and me getting around to doing it, they’ve somehow already gotten up to episode five. Hurry up and subscribe before they get to episode 10 next week.

What Else Google Is Shutting Down 

Brent Simmons:

One of the interesting ones: the CalDAV API will be removed for all but whitelisted developers. CalDAV builds on WebDAV and is an open standard. Instead you’d have to use the Google Calendar API.

Open always wins, and Google is always open. Right?

Bloomberg: Surface Tablets Selling Like Crap 

Ian King and Dina Bass, reporting for Bloomberg:

Microsoft Corp. has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices, people with knowledge of the company’s sales said, a slow start in its bid to crack the fast-growing tablet market to make up for slumping personal-computer demand.

Microsoft has sold little more than a million of the Surface RT version and about 400,000 Surface Pros since their debuts, according to three people, who asked not to be named because sales haven’t yet been made public. The company had ordered about 3 million Surface RTs, they said.

Not good.

Photolettering 

Fantastic — and free — new iPhone app from the typographic masterminds at House Industries.

Dropbox Acquires Mailbox 

Mailbox:

Rather than grow Mailbox on our own, we’ve decided to join forces with Dropbox and build it out together. To be clear, Mailbox is not going away. The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. Plus, imagine what cool things you could do if your Mailbox was connected to your Dropbox…

Should be good news, as it’s not an acqui-hire (ugh, sorry, let’s say talent acquisition), but a simple product acquisition. Dropbox wanted the product, not merely the team.

Rene Ritchie on RSS, Post-Google Reader 

Rene Ritchie:

RSS is the file-system of news, in a post-file system world. It’s fantastic infrastructure, but the front end needs to evolve beyond traditional reader apps.

Great analogy.

Mat Honan: ‘The Samsung Galaxy S4 Is Completely Amazing and Utterly Boring’ 

Samsung has run into the same perceptual problem that Apple did several years ago: at a certain point, each generation of your device is an evolution, not revolution — but the critics crave constant revolution.

Tesla Is the New Apple 

Steven Johnson:

The question is whether Tesla is the Apple of 1985 or the Apple of 2005.

Google Removes Ad-Blocking Apps From the Play Store 

David Ruddock, Android Police:

According to Android developer Jared Rummler and a number of other sources, Google has begun purging known ad-blocking software from the Play Store today.

You don’t say.

New Samsung CEO Says There Is ‘Lackluster Demand’ for Windows Tablets and Phones 

You don’t say.

Browett Says He ‘Didn’t Fit’ With Apple 

Russell Lynch, reporting for The Independent:

The retail veteran John Browett struck a humble note over his brief six-month stint with the consumer electronics giant Apple yesterday as he said he “just didn’t fit” with the business.

You don’t say.

Samsung’s ‘Tone-Deaf and Shockingly Sexist’ Galaxy S4 Launch Event 

Molly Wood, writing for CNet:

The comically alcoholic one, DeeDee, then proceeds to demo how eye tracking can pause a video when you look away from the screen… as she looks away at a hunky gardener type who proceeds to take off his shirt.

“While the women are cooling down,” says the emcee, “why don’t you tell us about S Health?”

By then, it’s almost too easy to have there be a joke about marrying a doctor and then the one about eating too much cheesecake ohyeahthatoneIshouldhaveseenthatcoming. Of course those jokes are in there. Why would those jokes not be in there? We already had a tap-dancing tow-headed kid and a hot Brazilian girl.

I’d say they went right over the line from sexism to outright misogyny. You really have to see this thing, especially the second half, to believe it.