Google Chrome Beta Available For Mac∞
It’s nice that they now have a stable version for OS X. Er, a beta version. Stable version? Whatever. Either way, I’m using it now and it’s nice, except for the fact that the close button to the tabs is on the right.
Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due∞
iPhone developer Jake Behrens’s experience submitting an app to the App Store:
Apple called my client and said two things were holding it up, one was using an outdated version of Three20 that made private API calls and the other was some marketing speak that they wanted altered for clarification.
My first instinct is to be skeptical, because I have never heard of Apple calling a developer to tell them anything was wrong with their app—let alone WHAT was wrong—LET ALONE discuss the issues in any detail at all. But if it’s true, it would be good for Apple, good for developers, and good for consumers.
Let’s hope Apple has started to do things this way.
The Droid Battery Cover Problem∞
John Gruber:
Funny, I’ve never heard of any problems with the iPhone battery cover falling off.
Zing!
iPhone Owners Demand To See Apple Source Code∞
The crux of the issue is that the iPhone is exclusively available for AT&T, and that the 1.1.1 update bricked the phones of users who unlocked them to use on other carriers.
First, I want to say something about the fact that this is an antitrust lawsuit:
The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2007, accuses Apple and AT&T of violating antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, by agreeing to a multi-year deal that locks U.S. iPhone owners into using the mobile carrier.
In order to buy any subsidized phone (like the iPhone) in the U.S., you have to agree to a multi-year contract in which you are locked into using a mobile carrier. Many of those phones are also exclusive to a single carrier. Why is it monopolistic when Apple does it?
That said, the specific complaint is that Apple specifically tried to hurt the users of jailbroken phones with the 1.1.1 update, as opposed to the update coincidentally happening to brick the phones of jailbroken users. Given Apple’s track record of updates coincidentally
breaking compatibility with competing products or hacks, Apple’s legal team has its work cut out for it if they want to try to argue that it was a coincidence.
Unlike Apple’s back-and-forth with Palm about the Pre syncing with iTunes, I think Apple is in the wrong here. If I pay Apple for an iPhone, I expect to be able to do whatever I want with it—whether do what Apple wants and use it with AT&T or jailbreak it so I can use it with T-Mobile is my decision and mine alone. Apple is trying to tell users what they can and cannot do with something that they paid money for, and that is clearly not right.
Furthermore, unless I’m mistaken, the DMCA allows users to jailbreak a device or bypass any sort of protection or encryption for the purpose of using it with another network. If that is the case, Apple is violating users’ legal rights as well.
However, there’s really no way to prove it without getting access to the source code. To the plaintiffs, I say: good luck getting it from Apple, of all companies.
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— Chris Parrish, Warning: Love Hurts…Sometimes the ones you love reject you. If you are an iPhone developer this is probably a concept with which you are already intimately familiar.
Conde Nast preparing version of Wired for Apple tablet∞
Seems like a stupid idea really. If the Apple tablet does exist, which let’s be honest it probably does, it’s likely going to cost a lot. Which means not a lot of people are going to own one. Which means even fewer people are going to pay to read Wired on one.
Because high price points have really prevented all of Apple’s OTHER products from catching on, right?
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— John Gruber, Jim Dalrymple on the iPhone PlatformYou know who thinks the iPhone 3GS stinks? Steve Jobs. No one is working harder on an “iPhone 3GS killer” than Apple.
“Why I’m A Palm Fan And Not A Fanatic”∞
Great editorial by Derek Kessler at PreCentral about how Palm desperately needs to make some solid improvements to webOS and the phones that run it, stat.
The issue Kessler presents is that the Pre and webOS don’t compare favorably to other smartphones on the market, which is right on one level but wrong on another. The problem is, the level on which he’s wrong—where people who are genuinely interested and educated in these things can forgive some of the shortcomings for the advantages of the platform—matters much less in keeping Palm afloat as a company.
The other level is the one where the average person is comparing Palm’s offerings with those of Apple, HTC, RIM and every other phone manufacturer. This is where the vast majority of Palm’s sales come from. People will look at the Pre and say: “The Facebook app sucks, there is no video recording, the App Catalog has barely anything. This phone sucks.” And if that’s their first impression, they will likely always look at Palm phones like that—card metaphor, Mojo SDK and synergy be damned.
If I were Palm, I would be frantically scrambling to get things done. Because while Palm is spending their time on video recording and getting the graphics card sitting in the Pre to work, their competitors who already have these things down are widening the gap.
Apple Patents “Enforceable” Ad Viewing∞
This may just be the most user-hostile thing I’ve ever heard of—basically, the patent covers ads that can appear on a device at any time and lock out the user until they confirm that they’ve viewed the ad in the form of a question or some other similar measure.
I really hope this is one of those patents that sorta just get forgotten about. If Apple were to ever implement it as a feature in Mac OS X or (more likely) the iPhone, expect a TON of user backlash.
(via Slashdot)
Photo Of (Almost) Every Apple Product Ever Released∞
It’s missing the new MacBook, iMac and Magic Mouse, but it looks like a pretty comprehensive list.
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— Valhalla IslandWe get it, the app store is broken, AT&T sucks. I would kill for some fucking opinion or analysis on the Mac. Anyone remember that Apple makes computers?
Has Apple Blown Its Big Chance?∞
It seems like everyone loves to predict how Apple is doing something wrong, how they’ve missed this opportunity or shut out that market segment, but it always ends up being (as Jon Gruber might refer to it) claim chowder.
Apple isn’t INTERESTED in dominating the market. It doesn’t WANT to try and satisfy every customer. As a company (at least since Steve Jobs came back), Apple has clearly and consistently shown that they care about the quality of their products and their profit margins more than they do their market share.
Microsoft, on the other hand, tries to do everything and please everyone—and look where they’ve ended up. They make shitty products, and everyone knows it. If reviews of Windows 7 are to be believed, they’re desperately trying to change that, but so far there are very few Microsoft products that come even close to the quality that Apple demands of themselves.
Of course, you wouldn’t expect an article on MSN to take that angle.
Win Big By Doing Just A Few Things Well∞
Great post over at Signal vs. Noise about how focusing on a few things and doing them well can be better than trying to do everything.
The article cites some good examples (Nintendo, Flip video cameras) but misses some huge ones. Apple, for one. The iPod has no FM radio, no voice recording, no customizable equalizer, no removable storage, and no removable battery—yet it has somewhere around 70% of the market for mp3 players.
Twitter is another great example. Anecdotally, most people dismiss Twitter as “Facebook, except only the status feature.” But by taking that feature and doing it much better than Facebook, they found a huge audience. And while we’re on the topic, Facebook has fewer features than MySpace—you can’t customize your profile or set a profile song, for example—yet it’s more popular, especially with people over the age of 13 or so.
Bottom line: it’s better to do a few things and do them well than to try to do everything and fall short.
