Linked List: July 7, 2014

Monday, 7 July 2014

Bloomberg: ‘Samsung Sees Phone Rebound After Earnings Miss Estimates’ ★

That’s the current headline from Bloomberg. Look at the URL slug to see the original: “Samsung Profit Misses Estimates as Cheap Phones Struggle”.

Tim Cook Damned if He Does, Damned if He Doesn’t ★

From a mostly pointless Daisuke Wakabayashi piece on Tim Cook in today’s WSJ:

Mr. Cook has pledged that Apple will enter a new product category later this year. People familiar with the company’s plans say that Apple is working on a smartwatch with advanced sensors to track a user’s fitness and health. Apple is expected to introduce the new device, as well as a larger iPhone, in the fall, these people said.

One challenge facing Mr. Cook is what Wall Street calls the law of large numbers: even a successful new product may barely move the needle for Apple, which generated $171 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ended last September. A flop could underscore that Apple’s product heydays are tied to the late Mr. Jobs. […]

Mr. Jobs’s repudiations bruised feelings while making sure the company stayed focused on a few projects. Under Mr. Cook, current and former employees say Apple may be spreading itself too thin, pursuing too many ideas and compromising the “laser focus” that Mr. Jobs used to create the iMac, iPhone and iPad.

Last year Apple desperately needed new products and Tim Cook was failing as CEO because Apple wasn’t delivering them. Now that they seem poised to deliver new products, Cook is “spreading the company too thin” and even a successful product won’t affect the bottom line so why even bother, right?

Look for that refrain to be repeated; it seems to be the new Apple narrative.

Marques Brownlee: ‘This Is the Sapphire Crystal Display From the iPhone 6’ ★

Purported iPhone 6 component leak shows incredible scratch resistance and durability.

Update, 8 July 2014: Question that occurred to me about this today: This certainly looks like an iPhone component (if it’s not, it’s a preposterously elaborate hoax) — but how do we know this is sapphire, not Gorilla Glass? Gorilla Glass is scratch resistant and surprisingly flexible too (see 0:22 in this video).

New TSA Restrictions on Uncharged Devices on International Flights ★

NBC News:

The Transportation Security Administration will not allow cellphones or other electronic devices on U.S.-bound planes at some overseas airports if the devices are not charged up, the agency said on Sunday.

The new measure is part of the TSA’s effort announced last week to boost security amid concerns that Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamist Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, are plotting to blow up an airliner, U.S. officials said.

Shouldn’t that second paragraph be unnecessary? Isn’t the entire point of the TSA that we assume there are people trying to blow up commercial airliners? And the airport is a common place for travelers to have their phones run out of power.

And isn’t the whole notion predicated on the assumption that a would-be terrorist couldn’t just pack the explosives into a laptop or other device that can still turn on the display?

The Paradox of Civilization ★

Alan Jacobs quotes a beautiful, thought-provoking passage from Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques. (Via Nicholas Carr.)

Recode: Google to Expand Shopping Express ★

Jason Del Ray, reporting for Recode:

Though Google over the years had experimented with letting consumers buy goods with the help of services such as Google Wallet and Google Checkout, it accelerated this strategy in 2013 with Shopping Express. The service lets shoppers buy things from local retail stores through Google, which then delivers them to consumers from the physical retail store on the same or next day.

A source familiar with the company’s plans says senior Google execs have set aside as much as $500 million to expand the service nationwide. Google declined to comment on the size of the investment but made no secret of its ambition.

The most striking thing about Google to me is that they’re taking on almost every single consumer-focused major company in tech. Every one. Android against iOS. Chrome and Docs against Windows and Office. Google Plus against Facebook. Google has no allies or partners for anything other than the manufacturing of Android and Chrome OS devices, but even there, they have a contentious relationship with Samsung, the one hardware company that’s making any actual money from Android.

Grand ambition or hubris? — that’s the question.