Linked List: August 24, 2015

Monday, 24 August 2015

Galaxy Note 5 Design Flaw: A Backwards S-Pen Can Permanently Damage the Device ★

The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war.

Regarding my confusion over the weekend over which camera, front or rear, is the “iSight” camera on an iPhone 6, Wikipedia explains:

Apple introduced iSight at the 2003 Worldwide Developers Conference, intended to be used with iChat AV, Apple’s video-conferencing client. iMovie (version 4 and later) could also be used to capture video from the device. In April 2005, Apple released a firmware update for the iSight to improve audio performance. As of December 16, 2006, the external iSight was no longer for sale in the Apple online store or in retail locations.

Meanwhile, Apple began using the term to refer to the camera built into Apple’s iMac, MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro computers, and Cinema Display. In November 2010, Apple began calling them “FaceTime cameras”. However, the term was not retired, as the third-generation iPad, the fifth-generation iPod Touch, the iPhone 5S, the iPhone 5C, iPhone 5, the iPhone 4S, and the iPhone 4 all incorporate an “iSight” rear camera in addition to a front-facing “FaceTime” or “FaceTime HD” camera.

So “iSight” used to be Apple’s name for front-facing video chat cameras. Then they started calling the front-facing cameras “FaceTime”. Then they brought back the “iSight” name for rear-facing cameras.

Speaking of ‘Glory Days’ ★

Speaking of “Glory Days”, here’s my favorite live performance of the song, from the 1993 series finale of Late Night With David Letterman. Springsteen’s appearance was a true surprise, and served as a perfect ending.

Time Slips Away, and Leaves You With Nothing, Mister ★

Microsoft, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the release of Windows 95:

On Aug. 24, 1995, Windows 95 arrived. And if you were around then, you may remember the song that accompanied the commercial introducing it: “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this release, download the classic song for free until 11:59 p.m. PST from the Windows Store.

I humbly suggest a more apt song to mark the occasion.

Pac-Man 256 ★

Jason Kottke:

From the developer of Crossy Road (aka Infinite Frogger) comes Pac-Man 256, a Pac-Man game with an infinite board that gets eaten from below by the kill screen glitch from the 256th level of the original game. I love riffs on old school video games like this, and the infinite board is a particularly clever one.

Curse you, Kottke. Curse you. I play very few games, but Pac-Man 256 gives me joy.

(Unlike Kottke, I think the option to buy unlimited “credits” with a one-time $7.99 in-app purchase is a fair deal. Think of it as an $8 game that you can optionally play for free if you’re willing to watch ads. That’s a good price for a great game.)

Real-World Results of iOS 9 Safari Content Blocking ★

Owen Williams, writing for The Next Web:

The effect of using a content blocker on iOS is, to be honest, something publishers should be deeply afraid of. I don’t really care about advertising actually appearing on sites, I just care about how fast the site itself loads over a constrained connection.

Bloomberg and iMore are some of the worst offenders — both sites have almost finished loading entirely with Crystal enabled, before the page with advertising even shows on the screen.

Like I wrote last month, a reckoning is coming. iOS 9 Safari content blockers will dramatically speed up web page loading times, and they will remove unwanted cruft junking up the page. Everyone who finds out about them will install and use one.

Alan Adler, Inventor of the AeroPress Coffee Maker and Aerobie Flying Disc ★

Great short film profile of inventor Alan Adler by David Friedman.

Tim Cook to CNBC’s Jim Cramer: Still Bullish on China ★

Tim Cook, in a statement given to CNBC:

As you know, we don’t give mid-quarter updates and we rarely comment on moves in Apple stock. But I know your question is on the minds of many investors.”

A large part of the current market sell-off is driven by fears about China’s economy, and a significant factor in Apple’s valuation is the company’s extraordinary growth in China. So this is a rare case where Apple’s recent stock price drop is arguably rational: investors see problems in China’s economy, and it is a fact that China is Apple’s second-most important market. And in the long-term, it’s quite possible — inevitable, perhaps — that China will one day be Apple’s most important market.

I get updates on our performance in China every day, including this morning, and I can tell you that we have continued to experience strong growth for our business in China through July and August. Growth in iPhone activations has actually accelerated over the past few weeks, and we have had the best performance of the year for the App Store in China during the last 2 weeks.

Obviously I can’t predict the future, but our performance so far this quarter is reassuring. Additionally, I continue to believe that China represents an unprecedented opportunity over the long term as LTE penetration is very low and most importantly the growth of the middle class over the next several years will be huge.

Translation: Apple is still doing great in China, right now, but the real prize remains the long-term opportunities.

The trading day isn’t over, but as I type this, Cook’s email seems to have resonated.

Advice After Stock Market Drop: Take Some Deep Breaths, and Don’t Do a Thing ★

NYT investing columnist Ron Lieber:

Nobody knows for sure whether we’re in for a decline in the stock market of 25 percent or more. But if such a decline does happen and you are a regular investor, you’ll be buying more when prices are lower.

Which brings us to point No. 4: Long-term investors have time to recover. I know too many 70-year-olds who sold all of their stocks in 2009 and are healthy enough to live to 100. They’d be going on a lot more vacations now and be worrying less about long-term care if they had held firm.

Buy low, sell high.