Linked List: May 2, 2016

Monday, 2 May 2016

Daring Fireball RSS Feed Sponsorship Openings 

Two notes about the DF RSS feed sponsorship schedule:

First, the sponsor originally scheduled for this week needed to reschedule at the last moment. If you can pull the trigger quickly, let’s make a deal.

Update: Done.

Second, I’ve had this system in place for almost nine years now, and it has worked wonderfully as a business model. I make a good living writing DF. Sponsors are happy with the results, and frequently return for subsequent sponsorships. And you, the readers, seem to be happy, with what are truly non-intrusive (small downloads, no animation, no JavaScript) messages from sponsors who I think might truly be of interest to you. And it’s pretty cool that my model has paved the way for other indie writers to do the same thing.

But the ebb and flow of the schedule still surprises me. Back in January I was only sold out a week or two in advance. But in February I pretty much sold out through the end of April in a three-day stretch. Now, the schedule for May and June is pretty much wide open. (Some years June sells out before April and May do, in anticipation of WWDC.) So, as I always say in these reminders: If you’ve got a cool product or service you want to promote to the DF audience, please get in touch.

Bob Lefsetz Calls for Apple Board to Fire Tim Cook 

Bob Lefsetz:

And what does society want?

Something new and different that not only titillates its fancy, but demonstrates extreme utility.

Unlike the Apple Watch, which was good in theory yet dead on arrival, or after twenty four hours, when it ran out of juice. You had to recharge it, was it worth the effort, or were you better off just putting it in a drawer? And like a cult band from the eighties which hits a wall and goes no further, there was no word of mouth on the Apple Watch, some owners testified, but the rest of the populace just ignored it.

Tim Cook needs to be replaced. Apple doesn’t need a traffic cop, it needs a visionary. Execution is important, but it’s secondary to inspiration. The idea is king, never forget it.

Lefsetz has been banging the “Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs” drum ever since he died. Either he was right all along, or he’s fitting the facts to his narrative. Time will tell. But he’s a pretty high profile columnist (in the music and entertainment industry, specifically) to go so far as to call for Cook’s ouster.

This reads like reactionary crazy talk to me. He speaks of the Apple Watch as though it’s been pulled from the market, and equates current iPad sales (10 million units and $4.4 billion in revenue in the just-completed “bad” quarter) to those of the iPod:

Kind of like the iPad, replaced by the phablet, the large phone.

The iPad was killed by the phablet the same way the iPod was killed by the iPhone. What did Cook and company do? They doubled-down on the iPad, creating a Pro version with a stylus that was a marvel of technology but is something most people just don’t need. Meanwhile, there was this canard that the device was a desktop replacement when the truth is it’s nothing of the sort.

Here’s an interesting fact: the iPod never generated more than $4 billion in revenue in a quarter, including holiday quarters. The iPad generated more revenue for Apple last quarter than the iPod ever did, even in its heyday. Lefsetz has a point — one contributing factor to decreased iPad sales is the rise of large phones. But to go all the way to “killed” is a hell of a stretch.

GoPro vs. Phone Cameras 

Georgia Wells and Jack Nicas, reporting for the WSJ (paywalled, alas; a referral from Google search results might let you through):

Now GoPro is trying to expand into the mainstream. But the trouble is most people already have smartphones that are nearly as small and light as GoPro’s devices and come with cameras just as good.

Last year, GoPro bungled its attempt to reach mainstream customers by setting the price too high on its first everyman camera and not resolving kinks that make it difficult to use. It is now trying again, urging other companies to integrate GoPro cameras into products from cars to baby bouncers.

The stakes are high: GoPro expects its sales this year could fall by as much as 17% after rising to $1.62 billion last year, its first decline since it started selling its flagship product in 2010. GoPro could swing to a $167 million loss this year after reporting $36 million in profit last year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

Remember the Flip camcorder? That’s what’s happening to GoPro. Don’t bet against the phone, in any product category.

The Economist: ‘Craig Steven Wright Claims to Be Satoshi Nakamoto. Is He?’ 

The Economist:

This mystery may finally be solved: Craig Steven Wright — a 45-year-old Australian computer scientist and inventor who was outed against his will and with dubious evidence as Mr Nakamoto in December last year — now claims he is the real Satoshi. On May 2nd he published a blog post offering what he says is cryptographic proof that he is indeed the creator of bitcoin.

It’s an intriguing mystery, but I’d heavily emphasize the may in “may be solved”. Wright’s story still seems fishy to me.

Still, questions remain. Mr Wright does not want to make public the proof for block 1, arguing that block 9 contains the only bitcoin address that is clearly linked to Mr Nakamoto (because he sent money to Hal Finney). Repeating the procedure for other blocks, he says, would not add more certainty. He also says he can’t send any bitcoin because they are now owned by a trust. And he rejected the idea of having The Economist send him another text to sign as proof that he actually possesses these private keys, rather than simply being the first to publish a proof which was generated at some point in the past by somebody else. Either people believe him now — or they don’t, he says. “I’m not going to keep jumping through hoops.”

Such statements will feed doubts.

I don’t understand why Wright won’t sign another text, provided by The Economist. And there’s still no explanation for the backdated GPG key that was exposed last year. The backdated key doesn’t prove anything conclusively, but it sure is suspicious.

Update: Security researcher Dan Kaminsky cries foul:

Yes, this is a scam. Not maybe. Not possibly.

Update 2: The Economist is now backpedaling.