Linked List: June 6, 2013

Thursday, 6 June 2013

Six months ago Brent Simmons, Dave Wiskus, and I formed a new company, Q Branch, and went to work on an iPhone app. Today we shipped.

Vesper is a simple and elegant tool for collecting your thoughts. I’ve been using it all day, every day for months now. I think you’ll like it.

Apple Is Not Throttling iPhone or iPad Cellular Throughput via Carrier Bundles ★

Brian Klug, writing for AnandTech:

Yesterday there were some allegations made about whether Apple is intentionally throttling cellular data throughput on iPhones and iPads via some files used for network provisioning. The original source post has since been deleted, so I am linking to the always-awesome Tmonews instead. The reality is that this is simply not the case. […]

There’s no arbitrary capping of UE Category (User Equipment speed category), throttling on-device, or anything else that would prevent the device from attaching and taking full advantage of whatever the network wants to handshake with. If you’re going to read anything, just take that away with you, as the full explanation gets technical fast. If you’re willing, however, let’s walk through it.

Good news.

Reuters: Apple to Sell Audio Ads on Streaming Music Service ★

Poornima Gupta, reporting for Reuters:

Apple Inc is gearing up to sell audio ads on a music-streaming service it intends to unveil at its developers conference next week, according to people familiar with the plan, going up against Google Inc and Pandora Media Inc in the increasingly competitive market for mobile tunes.

So Google’s streaming music is a paid service, and Apple’s is going to be free with ads. Got it. Wait, what?

Understanding App Store Pricing ★

Michael Jurewitz, in part one of his excellent series on App Store pricing, compared the prices of apps in the Top Paid (most downloads) vs. Top Grossing (most revenue) in the Mac App Store:

It would seem there really is a substantial difference between this data. In fact, if we take a look at the percentages, apps on the Top Grossing list are, on average, 294% more expensive than apps on the Top Paid list. Meanwhile, the median price of an app on the Top Grossing list (again, the middle of the dataset) is 329% more expensive than the Top Paid list.

The whole series is worth reading, and his talk on the subject from Çingleton Deux serves as a great summary. If I made an app, I’d study his advice closely.

‘I’m Not Comfortable Discussing the Contents of That Meeting.’ ★

Philip Elmer-DeWitt:

“I’m not comfortable discussing the contents of that meeting.”

That’s what Russell Grandinetti, Amazon’s vice president for Kindle content, said when asked in court Friday about a meeting he attended in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Seattle boathouse on Sunday Jan. 24, 2010. It was the only question in more than four hours of testimony that Grandinetti declined to answer. […]

Although Grandinetti wouldn’t say anything about the meeting in Bezos’ boathouse — not even if Bezos attended it — documents presented into evidence showed that the next day, Jan. 25, Amazon began developing its own terms for an agency contract.

I don’t get it. If he’s under oath, how does he get to just decline to answer questions?

Bing Translator ★

Microsoft:

The Bing Translator app is based on years of Microsoft Research’s investments in advancing machine learning — a way to find patterns that humans can’t see, helping people interpret the words and worlds around them.

Translating content whether browsed, typed or scanned is nearly instantaneous. Just point your device’s camera at printed text and watch as the translation is automatically overlaid over the video stream — creating subtitles for everyday life. You can also type to translate with your keyboard and hear translations spoken with a native speaker’s accent.

Seems like something Siri should do.

Matthew Modine in The Loop Magazine ★

Not a story about Matthew Modine — a story by Matthew Modine, including one of his on-the-set photos from Full Metal Jacket.

‘Topping the Charts and Racing to the Bottom’ ★

John August wants Apple to eliminate the “top charts” from the App Store:

These lists — a sidebar in iTunes, a tab on the App Store — show what’s downloaded the most. But let’s not mistake downloads for popularity. These are apps that people may have downloaded, used once, then deleted. What you really want is a list that shows what apps that people like you are using and enjoying. That’s the kind of information that companies like Amazon and Netflix are terrific at leveraging.