Linked List: June 12, 2014

Thursday, 12 June 2014

How Apple TV Might Disrupt Console Gaming 

Ben Thompson:

The net result is that traditional consoles are about as far removed from average consumers as they could be. There is clearly a core gamer market, and Sony and Microsoft are fighting ferociously for it, but no one is growing the pie. I think there is an opening.

Imagine a new TV product, with two models:

  • $99 with a full set of entertainment options, but no gaming
  • $179 with a full set of entertainment options, plus gaming

Thompson is overthinking it with the “two models” thing. I think there’ll be just one model, $99 (or even less). The only upsell for gaming would be optional controllers (including any of the third-party controllers iOS already supports).

Games are just apps. There’s no more reason to make a games/no-games split with Apple TV than there is to make an apps/no-apps distinction with the iPhone. Maybe you think you’re buying Apple TV just to watch movies and TV shows, but the App Store is right there waiting for you. Just like how many people bought the iPhone thinking they’d only use the built-in apps (Phone, Messages, Safari, Music, Email) and now have dozens and dozens of third-party apps.

Thompson’s basic premise is sound though. The A7 will be a year old this fall; I bet Apple could put it in a $99 Apple TV. Combine that with the Metal API for graphics, and Apple TV becomes a compelling device for games.

Update: Thompson himself, one year ago:

Imagine a $99 (or $129) “console” with an optional $49 controller and an App Store. That’s a lot of potential escapism, and a lot of user attention.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S First Look 

Joanna Stern:

The Tab S shares software DNA with the GS5, too. You get Samsung’s usual Android 4.4 trimmings, including the tablet trick that lets you put two apps side by side. (Samsung will also sell a $99 Bluetooth dock to turn the tablet into a laptop.) However, the amount of preloaded third-party and Samsung apps littering the homescreen is reaching unbearable levels. In fact, Samsung tells me, there are even more preloaded apps on this device because of the added promotional deals with LinkedIn, Marvel, etc.

Interesting to me that Samsung’s tablets continue to favor landscape as the default orientation.

But Samsung’s new SideSync 3.0 app seems worth keeping — at least if you have a Galaxy S5 phone. When both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, you can remotely navigate the phone via the tablet’s screen, transfer files between devices, access all your phone apps, and even text and talk on the phone.

Watch Stern’s video to see how weird the interface for this feature is. When you invoke it, you get a virtual Galaxy S phone on the tablet screen. The idea is cool, but compared to the Continuity features Apple announced at WWDC last week, it seems clunky and narrowly focused.

Apple’s Game 

Sean Heber:

This week Apple introduced app extensions into both iOS and OSX. When a 3rd party app wants a particular kind of service (such as photo editing), iOS presents the user with a list of other apps on their device that have the desired extension. Once the user picks one, the extension appears right within the 3rd party app so the user can use it without switching out of their current flow. This allows apps to interoperate in a controlled manner without sacrificing security, privacy, and convenience for the user.

One of the interesting things about this is how the underlying mechanisms actually work — the extensions themselves are entirely self-contained apps in their own right. They are walled off from all other apps — including their own parent app for the most part — and are given a limited view of the outside world that mostly only includes the data necessary to do the type of task the extension was designed to fulfill. This means that the extension apps are, essentially, entirely self-contained. As far as users are concerned, their flow is relatively uninterrupted and they’re able to do what they want when they want without iOS standing too much in the way. It should just work.

Heber goes on to speculate, intriguingly, on what these changes might mean for Apple TV and gaming. In short, don’t think new third App Store in addition to iOS and Mac, think instead Apple TV as another device for the iOS App Store and existing iOS games.

The Problem With World Cup Referees 

Joshua Robinson, reporting for the WSJ:

The world’s most popular sporting event uses a more democratic than meritocratic process for choosing referees. While the World Cup’s 32 teams must play their way into the tournament through a grueling two-year qualifying process, FIFA, the sport’s governing body, pulls referees from more than 40 countries out of a sense of fairness to all of its member associations. It is similar to how basketball’s world governing body plucks officials from around the world to work the Olympic tournament.

It’s a contrast from the meritocracy that determines who officiates the postseason for major U.S. sports.

So even if they’re not crooked, they’re in over their heads.

How to Tame Twitter’s Annoying Mobile Notifications 

After a long, long stretch of not really even looking at Twitter’s first-party iPhone app, I gave it a shot earlier this week. With a fresh installation and default settings, I was simply astounded by the barrage of notifications the app was getting, prompting this rant on Twitter.

This piece by Christina Warren for Mashable shows how to control these notifications:

So what’s the solution? You might think — just disable Twitter notifications on Android or iOS. But that means you can’t get alerts you might want — like a direct message or updates from a specific user. Fortunately, it is possible to refine those alerts within Twitter’s settings. Unfortunately, accessing those settings isn’t as straightforward as you might hope.

I consider myself a savvy user who is familiar with the various design patterns for getting to “Settings” in iPhone apps. I spent 15 minutes trying to find settings like these in Twitter for iPhone, and gave up, because I couldn’t find them.

2014 iPhone Photography Award Winners 

Not merely great iPhone photos — great photos, period.

Fixed Soccer Matches Cast Shadow Over World Cup 

Declan Hill and Jeré Longman, reporting for the NYT:

A soccer referee named Ibrahim Chaibou walked into a bank in a small South African city carrying a bag filled with as much as $100,000 in $100 bills, according to another referee traveling with him. The deposit was so large that a bank employee gave Mr. Chaibou a gift of commemorative coins bearing the likeness of Nelson Mandela.

Later that night in May 2010, Mr. Chaibou refereed an exhibition match between South Africa and Guatemala in preparation for the World Cup, the world’s most popular sporting event. Even to the casual fan, his calls were suspicious — he called two penalties for hand balls even though the ball went nowhere near the players’ hands.

Some dubious calls in today’s Brazil-Croatia World Cup opener.

#663399Becca 

With love and warm thoughts for the Meyer family.

‘You Forget to Lift Your Head Up to Appreciate What You Have.’ 

Jason Kottke:

Sometimes parents tend to get caught up in the minutia of parenthood: the logistics of getting from one place to another without losing your shit, the weary deflection of the 34th “why?” question of the afternoon, and all the rest. At least, I know I do. You forget to lift your head up to appreciate what you have. Author Elizabeth Stone once wrote that having kids was deciding to “have your heart go walking around outside your body”. Steve Jobs put it similarly: your children are “your heart running around outside your body”. That’s the truest sentiment I’ve ever read about parenting; it feels exactly like that to me. Reading Eric’s writing about Rebecca, a girl so close in age to both my kids, has affected me greatly. That could be me. My kids suffering. My heart, broken and dying. Imagining one of them…I can’t even do it, the tears come hard fast, washing away any such thoughts.

The Color Purple 

Jeffrey Zeldman:

All the caring and all the medicine, all the prayers and all the love from friends and strangers, could not stop this cancer from claiming this child. Caught between horror and hope, all of us watched as the Meyer family fought to save their beautiful middle child’s life. They did everything that could be done to save Rebecca. Then they did more.

Now it’s time to do something for them. Some little, heartbreakingly inadequate thing for a girl who got dragged into a fight no one could win, and stayed a pure, brave spirit to the end.

I met Rebecca Meyer two years ago — our families ran into each other by coincidence on vacation at Disney World. I remember a very happy and delightful little girl.

Rebecca’s favorite color was purple, and so today DF goes purple, for Rebecca and for her family.

Facebook to Use Web Browsing History for Ad Targeting 

Cotton Delo, reporting for Advertising Age:

But what Facebook is now enabling is far more expansive in terms how it uses data for ad targeting. In a move bound to stir up some controversy given the company’s reach and scale, the social network will not be honoring the do-not-track setting on web browsers. A Facebook spokesman said that’s “because currently there is no industry consensus.” Social-media competitors Twitter and Pinterest do honor the setting. Google and Yahoo do not.

“Google does it” is not exactly a badge of honor, privacy-wise. More and more, the entire advertising industry is turning into a threat to privacy. Advertising should be about attention, not privacy.

Facebook will honor the settings to limit ad tracking on iOS and Android devices, however.

On iOS, they have no choice. Apple’s privacy controls are in the hands of the user, not the developer or advertiser. That’s why the whole “Do Not Track” thing for websites is a joke. It’s like putting a “Do Not Burgle” sign on your front door versus installing a lock. (And even if you do install a lock, you can’t trust Google not to pick it.)