Linked List: August 2, 2013

Friday, 2 August 2013

My thanks to SmugMug for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed to promote their all-new photo websites. Stunning designs, cutting edge features, super easy to use, and above all, a focus on great photography. Check out their website and you’ll see what I mean. Even the signup process is design-focused. So great.

‘Going to a Wal-Mart and Calling for More of the Kinds of Jobs It Offers’ ★

Week-old news, but it captures the “competitive” book market the DOJ has seen fit to protect:

Another possible reason for Amazon’s boldness is its apparently cozy relationship with the Obama administration — whose Justice Department pursued the agency model case, which mainly benefited Amazon. This relationship will be highlighted this coming Tuesday, when the president will give another major speech on the economy and aiding the middle class at, of all places, the Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tenn. This is roughly equivalent of going to a Wal-Mart and calling for more of the kinds of jobs it offers.

DOJ Calls for Apple to Terminate Existing Publisher Deals, Allow Rival Bookstores to Sell Books Within Their iOS Apps ★

Amazon must be loving this.

PR Agency Caught Bribing StackOverflow Users to Say Good Things About Samsung ★

Shocking that a company as scrupulous as Samsung would stoop to this.

Retina vs. Battery Life ★

Katherine Boehret, reviewing the new Nexus 7:

Another drawback: In my test, the new Nexus 7’s battery life was underwhelming. Compared with the same battery test of the iPad Mini and first Nexus 7, it fell short at just six hours; the others clocked in at 10 hours and 27 minutes and 10 hours and 44 minutes, respectively. Google claims the battery life can last over nine hours, but the company tests it in Airplane mode (Internet connection off), with screen brightness set to 44% while playing video. I keep Wi-Fi on in the background and screen brightness at 75% while playing video.

This is the main reason I’ve been so skeptical about the iPad Mini going retina this year. I don’t think Apple would accept a severe drop in battery life like Google has. Nor do I think they’d make the Mini thicker and heavier to pack a bigger battery inside, like they did with the iPad 3 — its size and weight are too central to the iPad Mini’s purpose. But then what? Another year at 1024 × 768? That feels off too — the current Mini already sticks out as Apple’s only non-retina iOS device.

We demand magic — a retina iPad Mini with no decrease in battery life, but no increase in thickness, weight, or price. And they need to produce at least 20 million of them by Christmas. Something has to give.

WSJ: ‘Apple’s Next iPad Mini Will Likely Have “Retina” Display From Samsung’ ★

Lorraine Luk, reporting for the WSJ (behind the paywall, alas):

Apple routinely tests various designs and has been known to make changes late in the design process, so it isn’t clear whether the proposed new product will make its way to market. However, an iPad Mini with a retina display appears more likely, particularly after Google Inc. released its latest Nexus 7 tablet last week with a high-resolution screen.

Great news, if true, but I’m not sure why there’s so much hedging in the above paragraph. I don’t know whether this year’s Mini is retina or not, but either way, at this point, the decision has been made.