By John Gruber
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Almost comically shameless.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Must-read letter from Layton Duncan, founder of the software shop Polar Bear Farm in Christchurch New Zealand, on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake:
Our city has been destroyed. It’s hard to find a natural disaster anywhere which has a larger effect on a country than this earthquake is having here. In relative terms, the effect on New Zealand is equivalent to around 8 Hurricane Katrinas, or around 3 2011 Sendai earthquake and tsunamis. Christchurch needs serious help to recover from this once in 10,000 year event. […]
On Wednesday 22nd of February 2012, all our apps will be reduced in price. 100% of the proceeds of all sales for the day will go into seeding the formation of a charitable trust with the explicit purpose of kickstarting the creation of a built environment for a safe, vibrant, sustainable downtown Christchurch people can inhabit again.
Great apps, great prices, great cause.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
ABC News’s exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Foxconn’s Apple product factories. I thought it was both fair and fascinating. Absolutely worth watching.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
I know what you’re thinking — you’re thinking this headline from The Loop’s Peter Cohen is an over-the-top bit of anti-Dell sensationalism. But it’s actually an accurate description of this artsy fartsy video.
Update: As Tim Coulter observes, it’s obviously a spoof, because the production values are too high for an actual video from Dell.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Christopher Meinck, EverythingiCafe:
In previous years, baseball fans who subscribed to MLB At Bat were charged an additional fee to use MLB At Bat for iPad and yet another charge for the iPhone app. This year, we’ve just confirmed that MLB At Bat 12 will be free with your subscription, which remains at $119.99 for existing subscribers. New subscriptions will be priced at $124.99. This enables you to receive 150 Spring Training games and all 2430 regular season games (some games are subject to blackout), with no added cost for either the iPhone or iPad apps.
I like this change. Previously they had separate free and paid apps, plus the subscription fee for watching live ballgames. This is much simpler: apps are free, subscriptions cost $125. Easy. (If you like baseball, trust me, it’s money well spent.)
(Via 9to5 Mac.)
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Dustin Curtis:
After basically admitting defeat in the consumer PC market and promising to focus on enterprise IT and “mobile services” last year, Dell has found itself in the midst of a confusing transition. It is caught between two markets that are dramatically changing. Consumer PCs are dying. Enterprise IT problems are being solved increasingly by “cloud-based” solutions using generic or custom-built equipment. The future viability of Dell’s hardware products, which already have razor-thin margins, does not look great.
Put another way, Dell has no strengths in any market that’s growing. They’re a relic.
As a side note, I found this quote from Michael Dell interesting. The Journal asked him what had most surprised him since returning as Dell CEO four years ago. He replied:
I’d say [the] rapid rise of the tablet. I didn’t completely see that coming. Tablets aren’t really new, in the sense that the tablet PC idea’s been around for a while. Obviously, more recent products have been much more successful.
“More recent products”. I’ve started to notice a trend where Apple competitors can’t bring themselves to mention the iPad by name. There are no other successful tablets. It’s just one: the iPad.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Dan Frakes:
With Messages beta, my colleagues don’t see me as being online. Fewer work interruptions, I suppose.
I had the same problem. I could see my AIM buddies, but none of my AIM buddies could see me. (Listeners of The Talk Show live broadcast last week could hear me discover this problem.) I think the problem only affects AIM users with a @mac.com AIM ID. When you upgrade from iChat to Messages, Messages assumes you want to use @me.com as your AIM ID. Apple itself treats example@me.com and example@mac.com as synonymous, but AIM does not. So what Messages is doing is logging you in as example@me.com, but you need to be logged in as example@mac.com for your buddies to see you.
Solution: Delete your AIM account in Messages’s preferences, then recreate it. In addition to restoring your visibility to your buddies, it also restores your ability to transfer files.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
I seldom use draft messages on the iPhone because it’s so cumbersome to get back to them. This tip might change that. (Via Dan Frakes.)
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
Newly announced project from Canonical to create Android phones which you can dock and get a full Ubuntu desktop. Perhaps the first realization of Philip Greenspun’s “Mobile Phone as Home Computer” idea from 2005? This is sort of the opposite of cloud computing. Cloud computing is “access your stuff from any device”; this is “take your stuff with you”. I don’t think this is the way to go, but it’s an interesting idea.
Jamie Keene at The Verge has a hands-on with a prototype.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
More on App Store scam apps, from Trevor Gilbert at PandoDaily. Apple needs a zero tolerance policy on this crap. (Via Shawn King.)