Linked List: June 24, 2014

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Android Police, on the “100 MB of free Verizon cell service for two years” rip-off for Chromebook Pixel owners:

For their part, Google seems to be dealing as best they can with Verizon’s stonewall. Customer support agents at Google don’t have any sway over Verizon, though they say that they’ve escalated the matter. The text describing the free data for the Pixel LTE listing on the Play Store previously read: “includes 100MB/month of mobile broadband service from Verizon Wireless, free for 2 years.” That’s been removed and replaced with the following: “This Pixel LTE is currently not eligible for any free Verizon data plans.”

How is that “dealing the best they can”? Verizon didn’t sell these Chromebooks with the promise of two years of free service — Google did. You buy Chromebook Pixels directly from Google’s own Play Store, and until recently, when you did, they were sold with the promise of two years of free 100 MB per month data service from Verizon. Google can and should make this right by paying Verizon whatever it costs to fulfill this promise.

Update: Now Google is offering Pixel owners who were promised two years of LTE service $150 on prepaid Visa gift cards. That’s better.

Angela Ahrendts: ‘Starting Anew’ ★

Angela Ahrendts, writing on LinkedIn:

Also, trust your instincts and emotions. Let them guide you in every situation; they will not fail you. Never will your objectivity be as clear or your instincts sharper than in the first 30-90 days. Cherish this time and fight the urge to overthink. Real human dialogue and interaction where you can feel and be felt will be invaluable as your vision, enabled by your instincts, becomes clearer. In honor of the great American poet Maya Angelou, always remember, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I would argue this is even more important in the early days.

An executive from any other company posting this to LinkedIn would be no big deal. But I’ve never seen anything like this from an Apple executive. Tim Cook’s Apple is opening up.

Mozilla to Develop $4 Million Comments Platform With New York Times and Washington Post ★

Leslie Kaufman, reporting for the NYT:

The New York Times and The Washington Post announced on Thursday that they had teamed up with Mozilla to develop a new platform to better manage their readers’ online comments and contributions.

The platform will be supported by a grant of roughly $3.9 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which promotes innovation in journalism.

I have an idea that could save them $4 million: just get rid of the comments.

Bloomberg: ‘Apple’s Big iPhones Said to Start Production Next Month’ ★

Tim Culpan and Peter Burrows, reporting for Bloomberg:

Apple is ramping up on two bigger-screen iPhones, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. One model will have a 4.7-inch screen that may be available to ship to retailers around September, said two of the people. A larger 5.5-inch version is also being prepared for manufacturing and may be available at the same time, the people said.

What are the pixel dimensions?

Is one of these phones a higher-end model than the other, like the iPhone 5S and 5C? Or are they two different sizes of the same-spec’d device, like the iPads Air and Mini?

Apple is getting ready for its annual unveiling of new iPhones, with bigger screens beyond the 4 inches of its current iPhone 5s after rivals including Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp. released smartphones with displays that are as large as 5.7 inches. Consumers have been gravitating toward larger-screen devices — in China, 40 percent of mobile gadgets based on Google Inc.’s Android operating system that were sold in 2014 had display sizes of more than 5 inches, according to an estimate from Forrester Research.

What about the 4-inch size? Is there going to be a new 4-inch iPhone too? If the logic for Apple making a big iPhone is that lots of people are buying big-screened Android phones, doesn’t it also hold that they should keep making 4-inch iPhones, given the immense popularity of the iPhone as it stands today?

Most people keep presenting this as a “bigger is better” situation, and that Apple has thus been caught flat-footed and behind, and now with the introduction of bigger-display iPhones they’re catching up. (Insert a finally here.) But to me it makes more sense to see it as a situation where an array of screen sizes to choose from is better than one-size-fits-all. Why not keep the 4-inch size and add a bigger iPhone (or two?).