Linked List: January 22, 2015

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Horace Dediu, on Apple’s having paid $10 billion to App Store developers in 2014:

Put another way, in 2014 iOS app developers earned more than Hollywood did from box office in the US.

Although the totals for Domestic (US) Box Office are not the complete Hollywood revenues picture, Apple’s App Store billings is not the complete App revenue picture either. The Apps economy includes Android and ads and service businesses and custom development. Including all revenues, apps are still likely to be bigger than Hollywood.

Amazing Home-Brew Pac-Man for Atari 2600 ★

The official 2600 version of Pac-Man was one of the most spectacular failures in video game history: incredibly anticipated, utterly disappointing. The maze was all wrong, the colors were all wrong, Pac-Man didn’t even turn his head up or down — and the sound, good lord the sound was like something you’d play to torture someone. The Ms. Pac-Man sequel largely righted all of these wrongs, and was a pretty good game.

But here, this guy has created an almost impossibly good Atari 2600 version of real Pac-Man. If Atari had shipped this in 1982 instead of the turd they actually released, it would have been a sensation, and I might never have left the house. It’s painstakingly faithful to the coin-op in appearance, gameplay, and most amazingly, sound.

(Via Dave Dribin.)

Yamaha Introduces New Mixer Aimed at Podcasters and Gamers ★

Jim Dalrymple:

Usually when I write about Yamaha at NAMM, I’ll talk about new guitars or keyboards, but today the company introduced a new mixer it said was designed specifically for webcasting, podcasting, gaming and music production.

It’s a sign of just how popular podcasting and video game recording have gotten that a company like Yamaha would start building hardware for them.

MacBooks Used by the Press at Microsoft’s Windows 10 Event ★

How times change. When I first started attending Apple keynote events, around 2006 or so, it struck me that a majority of the media were pecking away on Windows laptops. Now, a majority of the press at Microsoft events are using MacBooks.

(Those seats sure look comfortable. The seats in Apple’s tiny Town Hall are more cramped than coach on an airplane.)

Obsidian ★

New from Hoefler and Co.: a decorative typeface with algorithmically defined 3D effects. Gorgeous.

See also: Margaret Rhodes’s story for Wired: “An Ingenious New Typeface Inspired by Old Maps, But Made With Algorithms”.

Microsoft Is Pulling an iMessage With Skype in Windows 10 Messaging App ★

Tom Warren, writing for The Verge:

The new Messaging app works by integrating Skype, allowing you to chat to Skype contacts or initiate video / audio calls. All the conversations are synced between PCs, tablets, and phones, and the new app looks like a lightweight version of Skype. It’s also identical to the Messages app on OS X, with the same two-panel interface and circular UI for contact photos. Microsoft has started linking Skype usernames with mobile numbers to make it easier to find friends who are using the service without having to know their user ID. That makes this whole approach a lot more like iMessage, allowing Skype users to chat to friends easily on the service. The main difference is that Skype is cross-platform so you can chat to friends on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and more, while iMessage is limited to Apple’s platforms.

I know that iMessage syncing is one of those “functional high ground” issues some people are still seeing, but for me, it’s been working great. Seamless hand-off and continuation of conversations across devices. Seems like a no-brainer for Microsoft to go this route with Skype and Windows 10.

Not sure how Google can follow it, with Android being so beholden to the whims of carriers in the mass market.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen Advocates for ‘App Neutrality’ ★

BlackBerry CEO John Chen:

Unfortunately, not all content and applications providers have embraced openness and neutrality. Unlike BlackBerry, which allows iPhone users to download and use our BBM service, Apple does not allow BlackBerry or Android users to download Apple’s iMessage messaging service. Netflix, which has forcefully advocated for carrier neutrality, has discriminated against BlackBerry customers by refusing to make its streaming movie service available to them. Many other applications providers similarly offer service only to iPhone and Android users. This dynamic has created a two-tiered wireless broadband ecosystem, in which iPhone and Android users are able to access far more content and applications than customers using devices running other operating systems. These are precisely the sort of discriminatory practices that neutrality advocates have criticized at the carrier level.

Therefore, neutrality must be mandated at the application and content layer if we truly want a free, open and non-discriminatory internet. All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system.

So Apple should be forced to build a version of iMessage for BlackBerry (and, presumably, Android and Windows Phone), and Netflix should be forced to stream movies to BlackBerrys. Good luck with that.