Linked List: June 25, 2014

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

New episode of my podcast, with special guest star Paul Kafasis. Topics include the ongoing World Cup and the sport of soccer, Google Glass, mockups of devices in rumor reports, Amazon’s Fire Phone, the New York Times’s profile of Tim Cook last week, Apple’s growth, and the agonizingly slow death of Blackberry. Lastly, Paul brings up a devilishly tricky question regarding whether Apple will support a particular new addition to the Emoji specification.

Google Design ★

By far my favorite thing announced at I/O today, this new set of design guidelines describing a universal design language for web and mobile apps is really very well conceived. This is the first time, ever, that Android has looked to me like a nice platform to use or to design software for.

Pre-Matias Duarte, Android was a horrid mess. Post-Duarte attempts at improving Android’s design were lipstick on a pig — taking something badly designed and trying to make it look better. This though, seems like a thoughtful, pleasing, ground-up design framework — something that finally feels like it came from the same mind that brought us the delightful WebOS.

If there’s a hitch, it’s that Google seems to be promoting this as a cross-platform design framework — a way to design just one interface for both iOS and Android. Google’s own apps for iOS already feel like weird moon man apps; now they’re encouraging third-party developers to follow their style rather than iOS’s.

Volvo and Honda Cars to Be Cross-Compatible With Both iOS CarPlay and Android Auto ★

Volvo answers a question I had about CarPlay and Android Auto:

Volvo Cars will also include Apple CarPlay interoperability in all new models based on the new Scalable Product Architecture. This will make it possible for Volvo car drivers to connect the most widely used smartphone platforms directly to their car’s touch screen display.

9to5Mac reports that Honda and Hyundai systems will be cross-compatible as well.

Sony and PlayStation TV ★

The most surprising (to me) part of Google’s Android TV announcement today was that Sony would be integrating it into their 2015 TV sets. Why in the world would Sony agree to integrate what is obviously a direct competitor to Playstation TV in its own TV sets?

‘Sixth Time’s the Charm’ ★

Joanna Stern and Wilson Rothman, writing for the WSJ, take a look at today’s Android TV announcement and review Google’s track record with previous TV endeavors.

Eli Wallach Dies at 98 ★

Fantastic career. “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”

Google Introduces New Gmail API ★

Eric DeFriez, Google technical lead for Gmail APIs:

For a while now, many of you have been asking for a better way to access data to build apps that integrate with Gmail. While IMAP is great at what it was designed for (connecting email clients to email servers in a standard way), it wasn’t really designed to do all of the cool things that you have been working on, which is why this week at Google I/O, we’re launching the beta of the new Gmail API.

Designed to let you easily deliver Gmail-enabled features, this new API is a standard Google API, which gives RESTful access to a user’s mailbox under OAuth 2.0 authorization. It supports CRUD operations on true Gmail datatypes such as messages, threads, labels and drafts.

Is this the beginning of the end for IMAP and SMTP access to Gmail?

Mike Wehner on Today’s Google I/O Keynote ★

Mike Wehner, writing for The Daily Dot:

Google spent a good deal of time talking Android, showing the developers in the crowd some new UI elements they’ll be able to use in future apps, along with still-in-development versions of new software for in-car entertainment systems and TVs, named Android Auto and Android TV, respectively.

Then came a string of demos that Google probably wishes it could redo, including apps that wouldn’t load, a game graphics demo that was flickering and repeatedly cut out, and a coding example that had to be attempted three times before it displayed properly. It was all very strange, and the awkward mumbling from the audience whenever something broke certainly didn’t help matters.

After two hours of technical talk, with nary a mention of new hardware or consumer-level software, the attendees began to get a bit bored. It was at this point that Twitter briefly became a strange meta-I/O, with dozens, or perhaps hundreds of attendees hopping on their Twitter accounts to talk about how bad the show was — while it was still going on.

I watched the live stream, and agree with Wehner’s assessment. After the first 45 minutes or so (during which there were some truly interesting announcements), the whole thing just fell apart. Disorganized, unrehearsed, and worst of all: boring.

Now imagine if Apple held a WWDC keynote like this, and the shit storm that would ensue. The reactions would be apoplectic. There’d be pundits calling for Tim Cook to be fired. On the other hand, the fact that Apple never holds events this bad, never wastes time or attention like this, is a huge factor why Apple keynotes garner so much more attention than those of any other company. They deserve it.

Medium Hires Steven Levy ★

David Carr, reporting for the NYT:

Medium, the online writing platform created by Evan Williams, one of the founders of Twitter, has been something of a tabula rasa. Its publishing system and pretty interface has drawn raves, but as a media business it has been tough to pin down.

But Medium made its editorial ambitions clearer on Wednesday with the announcement that it had hired Steven Levy, an author and longtime technology writer who worked at Wired and Newsweek, as the editor in chief of an as-yet-unnamed technology site.

Mr. Levy, 63, will continue to write deep, long reports about the role of technology — perhaps broken up into smaller articles that will unfurl over days. He will also be commissioning articles from other writers.

Mat Honan’s Summary of Today’s Google I/O Keynote ★

Great summary from Mat Honan at Wired.

The Long-Awaited Switch to Android-First App Development Hasn’t Happened Yet ★

Dan Frommer:

Looking at 119 recent Y Combinator incubator participants and Google Ventures seed investments, of those offering apps, more than 90% had iOS apps, about half had both iOS and Android apps, and fewer than 10% only had Android apps. Among those with both, their iOS app typically launched several months ahead of their Android app.

This seems counterintuitive, perhaps, given how badly Android is beating iOS in sales. And indeed, some smart industry watchers had predicted that Android development would have passed iOS development by now. One example: Chris Dixon, a venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz, wrote last summer, “The switch to Android first hasn’t happened yet, but at least based on conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs, it seems likely to happen in the next year or two.”

It has been a year now, but Dixon concedes in an email to Quartz, “I don’t think it has happened yet.”

He doesn’t think.

Yahoo Aviate ★

Android home screen replacement from Yahoo. They call it “simple” but it sure seems like they’re putting a lot of features into a home screen.

The Verge: First Look at the LG G Watch ★

Looks like a small phone strapped to your wrist. (Or a regular-sized phone strapped to Craig Hockenberry’s wrist.)

$229. Good luck with that.

Cardboard ★

This is the more valuable of the two things Google gave to I/O attendees on their way out of today’s keynote.

Update: Prior art?