Linked List: February 21, 2014

Friday, 21 February 2014

An Event Apart 

My thanks to An Event Apart, the design conference for people who make websites, for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. An Event Apart is an intensely educational two-day learning session for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. If you care about code as well as content, usability as well as design, An Event Apart is the conference for you.

An Event Apart has events this year across the U.S., including Boston, San Diego, Washington D.C., Chicago, Austin, Orlando, and San Francisco. I’ve attended a few times over the years, and in every regard — content, presentation, venue, food, even the design of the badges — An Event Apart is simply top-notch. Highly recommended.

WWE and Apple TV 

Nick Paglino, writing for Wrestle Zone:

When the WWE Network launches on Monday, WWE will be offering a free one week trial of the Network, and it should be noted that customers who are interested in the free trial will still have to provide credit card information. The actual Network subscription fee will be charged to the card you provide if you do not cancel the subscription before the trial period ends.

In related Network news, The Wrestling Observer is reporting one of the main reasons why it’s not being made available via the Apple TV is because Apple is demanding a 50% cut from all Network orders placed, whereas other streaming devices such as XBox and Roku are only taking a 30% cut.

Background (via DF reader Brian Papa): The Wrestling Observer is a highly-regarded long-standing subscriber-only newsletter; much of what they report is then re-reported by free sites like Wrestle Zone.

This strikes me as ominous, if it’s accurate. Apple has steadily stuck to a 70-30 split for digital content. That’s how they split music sales, apps, in-app purchases, and books. Why press for 50-50 on Apple TV? Especially since WWE could, presumably, launch an iPad app that uses AirPlay to stream to Apple TV. A native Apple TV channel is just a convenience for the user, not a reason for Apple to press for a bigger split.

My gut feeling is that there’s something wrong about this report.

Update: I missed this MacRumors story on February 3:

WWE Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer Michelle Wilson did, however, say that the service would also be available on “a connected device I am not allowed to mention at this press conference,” presumably alluding to the Apple TV. Attendees at the service’s introductory event were also given Apple TVs to take home.

I think the confusion here stems from a confidentiality agreement that prevents the WWE from saying anything about Apple TV until the channel actually launches in an Apple TV update — presumably sometime in the next few days.

Update 2: The WWE channel appeared in a software update for Apple TV on Monday, 24 February. So yeah, the report was wrong.

Harry McCracken on iOS’s App Advantage 

Harry McCracken:

The current situation seems to me to be a largely happy one for both iOS and Android users. They’re two great platforms, each with some unique strengths and access to vast quantities of apps. But it’s not the scenario long predicted by the market share ūber alles crowd. And there aren’t even any isolated incidents that should set off little alarms in Apple’s head — a hot app or a big company announcing that it’s decided to go Android-first.

It’s a good piece, but the headline — “The Smartphone App Wars Are Over, and Apple Won” — oversells it. Nothing here is “over”. The point is, though, iOS continues to be the leading mobile developer platform, despite years of predictions of impending market-share-imposed doom. A better headline would be this line from McCracken’s piece: “Android’s gain has not been iOS’s loss.” That is the central fact that market share fanatics can’t get through their heads.

Look at PCs. Windows still has an overwhelming monopoly-sized market share. Mac OS X has better apps. iOS has way more users than Mac OS X has. If apps on the Mac can thrive in the face of Windows, apps on iOS can thrive in the face of Android. These Church of Market Share fanatics act as though the Mac died in 1997.

Most developers who want to make artistically great mobile apps make them for the iPhone; users who want artistically great apps buy iPhones. Back in 2002, my colleague Brent Simmons wrote the following on why he was writing Mac apps despite Windows’s market share:

One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that, when it comes to user interface, this is the big leagues, this is the show. That’s probably what Joel would call an “emotional appeal” — and to call it that, that’s fine by me.

TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired by Apple 

Speaking of Apple and small acquisitions:

Apple spokesperson Kristin Huguet provided the following, which is as close to a confirmation as Apple ever gets: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

In a shocking development, TestFlight shut down support for Android earlier this week.

Tim Cook on Big Acquisitions: ‘We Have No Problem Spending Ten Figures for the Right Company’ 

Re: the previous item, here’s Tim Cook just 15 days ago:

WSJ: Apple has never made a billion-dollar acquisition. Google is snapping up everyone including your old friends at Nest. Does this alter how you think about bigger deals?

Cook: We’ve looked at big companies. We don’t have a predisposition not to buy big companies. The money is also not burning a hole in our pocket where we say let’s make a list of 10 and pick the best one. We’re not doing that. We have no problem spending ten figures for the right company that’s the right and that’s in the best interest of Apple in the long-term. None. Zero.

But we’re not going to go out and buy something for the purposes of just being big. Something that makes more fantastic products, something that’s very strategic — all these things are of interest and we’re always looking regardless of size.

So maybe my pointing out that Apple has never made a big acquisition like WhatsApp is irrelevant. Cook makes very clear that Apple would if it wanted to, if it were “very strategic”. I think my point stands though, that iMessage and FaceTime have Apple’s interests covered strategically.

Perhaps a better example based on observation of Apple’s history: I can’t recall Apple ever buying a competitor just to eliminate the competition. Facebook is taking an “If you can’t beat them, own them” approach. Apple doesn’t do that. They only make acquisitions that integrate.

Hello, iMessage? 

Jessica Lessin, in her weekly column for The Information (paywall):

As Google and Facebook vie to buy fast-growing apps for billions, I have one big question: Where is everyone else?

If Google and Facebook believe WhatsApp and messaging are strategic enough to pay $19 billion or more to own them, what are Apple, Amazon, Samsung or Twitter thinking? (Let’s ignore the fact that WhatsApp may not have wanted to sell to them and think of it from the point of view of how hard these companies should have tried to buy the startup.)

Perhaps they see themselves as being in different businesses. Or they think Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg are a little bit nuts. Time will tell on the second, but I think the verdict on the first is already clear.

I’m sure Apple never even considered acquiring WhatsApp. For one thing, Apple has never done a mega-billion-dollar acquisition. They tend to buy small companies. But for another, what could WhatsApp offer Apple? They already have iMessage, which has (I’m guessing here) at least 200 million users, and sends over 3 billion messages per day. (Sources for guesses: in June 2012, Apple claimed 140 million iMessage users; a year ago, they claimed 2 billion messages per day. I haven’t been able to find more recent numbers; if you can, let me know.) FaceTime offers video and audio calls; WhatsApp has neither. Apple has exactly the messaging platform it wants: one that adds value to its hardware products. And, with the App Store, it has a software platform that means its users also can freely use WhatsApp, Line, Viber, Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM — whatever.

The other thing that struck me about Lessin’s piece: she didn’t even list Microsoft among those companies.

iOS 7.0.6 

Fixes a serious security flaw:

Impact: An attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS

Description: Secure Transport failed to validate the authenticity of the connection. This issue was addressed by restoring missing validation steps.