The New York Times:
Another person who is in direct contact with Apple also said that the company would not make a smaller iPhone at this time, in part because a smaller device would not necessarily be much cheaper to manufacture and because it would be more difficult to operate.
Also free MobileMe (believe it when I see it).
Liam Cassidy on why he switched back to Things from OmniFocus:
Things, on the other hand, is so simple it requires almost no learning.
The above can be both a good and bad thing. It is both the reason people love Things and the reason people love OmniFocus. Make no mistake though, OmniFocus is not annoyingly complex like, say, Microsoft Word.
This is a really interesting take on the current venture capitalist landscape and it would explain those stupid ‘worth‘ numbers people are bouncing around. Basically the idea is that the VCs first to invest at a company get a high valuation so that new investors come in — then the first set of investors get their money back. This repeats and repeats.
I don’t know if this is really what is going on, but it is certainly and interesting theory for a very… unique person.
Craig Grannell has this to say about the restrictions now in place for the App Store:
This is about getting Kindle off of iOS, because it competes with iBooks. Thing is, Kindle being booted off iOS won’t make people switch to iBooks—it’ll make people buy Kindles. And time people are using their Kindles is time they’re not using their iPads and iPhones, potentially reducing the likelihood of them making purchases.
I disagree, I think that if that is truly what Apple wanted they would have bundled iBooks into iOS and then rejected the Kindle app under the dubious ‘duplicating existing functions’ title. Apple clearly has easier means to booting Kindle — this is a play for more money, not for a monopoly situation.
A few items to follow-up on my ‘Thirty Percent’ post from yesterday — I am getting tired of answering the same emails over and over. Here goes…
Justin Pennington gets it:
@BenjaminBrooks I totally agree with you, I’m not sure why people are so against it. 70% of something is better than 100% of nothing.
Wil Shipley (developer of Delicious Library) makes a valid point:
Traditional book publishers, for instance, will give an author about $1 on a hardback sale. Solution: authors should dump publishers.
I could cherry pick tweets all day long, but the bottom line is that this is nothing new in the business world — it is just something new in the App Store.
A few people have written in to say this will kill any profit that a magazine would get. Except that remember you can have a paper magazine, printed and mailed to your home twelve times a year for the bank busting price of $10. Magazines and newspaper have never made money off of the price of subscriptions — they make money from the sales of ads inside the publications. Apple isn’t stopping that — serve them up for all readers care, nothing new.
Even more people wrote in wondering how crazy I was for thinking that getting rid of all apps that act as ebook readers — except iBooks — is a good thing. I don’t and I doubt those apps are going away. Apple thinks this stuff through and I am confident that the complete picture has yet to be painted, be patient.
At the very least offering just the reader for Kindle should be sufficient — I doubt many Kindle users struggle to remember Amazon’s URL to go buy a new book. Yes, it would be less convenient, but it isn’t a death blow by any means. Beyond that book distributers have a really screwy deal to begin with — it’s an industry ripe for change.
Perhaps the most heated emails were from people that are upset about the consequences this may have on Netflix. Again we don’t know the entire story here, but my guess is that if Netflix is going to die because they now must give Apple a 30% cut of their monthly subscriptions — then, well, Netflix’s business was on the verge to begin with.
Netflix costs $7.99 a month for streaming only and from that we can’t really derive what is profit, but we do know that they will send you a DVD and a return envelope for $9.99 a month plus streaming. Now that isn’t just one DVD a month, but only one DVD at a time. So for $2 more Netflix can afford to ship and house DVDs back and forth — to and from — people’s houses. I can assure you that sending someone one DVD a month and the return envelope (with associated warehouse costs) eats up more than just $2. If anything Netflix wants the Apple subscription model to work because it will mean more profit to them, not less.
The same probably isn’t true for music subscription services, but honestly you are streaming so you need a net connection for it to work. Which is to say that a slick HTML5 app may be better suited for these services — it would be cross platform and incur them no fees from Apple.
Again though, I really think that these services will reach an economy of scale where the 30% take isn’t worth arguing about when you are talking about a subscriber base in the millions. Bottom line: a 30% cut is far less destructive than Apple starting a streaming iTunes store — now isn’t it.
Stephen Hackett:
However, linking to stories about how long someone has left to live is a different thing entirely — and is way over the line. Gizmodo, 9 to 5 Mac, Cult of Mac and others all crossed that line today.
Amen.
Joel Mathis:
There are so many iPads in circulation, Stephenson said, “whatever Apple charges, you have to be there. Don’t fight it, run with it.”
People are really hung up on this 30% issue. I think it is dumb to get hung up on this — doesn’t matter if you are a developer or a consumer, let it go. I say this because there is only one way to get Apple to reverse this policy: make the App store fail, therefore Apple is forced to change its game. I don’t think any person wants to see the iOS App Store go away any time soon — it is a source of many peoples income and millions of peoples entertainment.
The problem with the current mind set is that people are looking at this from the following perspective:
“My app is worth $10 a month. If I sell 10 subscriptions I should get $100 a month, but Apple is taking a 30% cut of that and now I will only get $70 a month. Oh crap, I really need $100 a month, so now I need to raise my prices by 43%. ((Source, via Ian Hines on IM)) I can’t believe that Apple is taking this much money!”
Here’s the thing about that logic: it’s wrong. Apple isn’t taking jack from you because without Apple you wouldn’t have a business developing iOS apps. Plain and simple. People really need to get this. If Apple did not create, maintain, pay for, hire people, construct, scheme, profit from the App Store — there would be no App Store to speak of. If there is no App Store then there is no revenue for any iOS developer. ((Sure Cydia is around, but that user base is minuscule and piracy laden.))
So stop thinking about 30% being stolen from you and instead ask yourself if it is worth $3 for every $10 in subscriptions to have your product put in front of 100 million+ consumers which can subscribe with only a hand full of taps. I think it is.
Next you need to ask yourself if your time is better spent supplying content to subscribers, or managing subscriptions. Apple is giving you an out from customer service. If someone needs to unsubscribe or has issues with their subscription — it is no longer your problem, Apple needs to fix that.
Here’s what else you don’t have to do (if you don’t want to):
I don’t know about you, but not having to deal with this stuff is well worth 30%.
Go for it, but remember: people on Android don’t pay for things, iOS users do. Would you rather serve ads, or sell apps/subscriptions?
There is good reason for many people to leave the App Store over this. In fact 37signals’ David Heinemeier Hansson has already tweeted: “FYI, if Apple comes hunting for 30% of software subscription revenues through iOS, we’re dropping Campfire/Highrise apps in a Chicago second”. It makes sense for them to leave rather than pay 30% — most of their users are desktop/laptop based, not iOS based. So they already need those systems in place that I talked about before — on the flip side it doesn’t make sense for iOS only apps like ‘The Daily’ to leave over this, as they (theoretically) don’t have such systems in place to begin with.
This system also doesn’t make sense for book distributers to use — 30% is their entire profit. But I don’t think we have heard the end of how these book apps will work under the new iOS rules — personally I think we are all jumping the gun a bit on this one.
Rules change when you play in someone else’s backyard — it sucks, but if you are smart you can still be wildly successful. The 30% cut isn’t great (though it does look great from a strict consumers view), but it isn’t the end of the App Store — I bet it only makes the App Store better by ridding it of more junk apps.
“Smile, breathe and go slowly.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
Chris Rawson does a great job breaking down why the 4″ iPhone 5 screen rumor is a bit off base.
To control many of the settings you have to dial seemingly random numbers with Verizon — AT&T has sliders in the Settings.app. Oh and no holding or conference calls with more than two people on Verizon.
But wait, AT&T doesn’t allow you to dial a hard pause — touché Verizon, touché.
Matt Burns:
This pricing puts the 32GB Xoom nearly on par with the 32GB iPad. Both tablets ask $600 for the WiFi-only version while the 32GB 3G iPad is just slightly less at $730.
Not bad pricing and with carrier subsides the price could be even more attractive — but can the software really compete?
MG Siegler follows up on why this move makes sense, is not in fact evil and this:
Apple is betting that the allure of being tied into their incredibly efficient iTunes payment ecosystem (along with its 100 million + accounts tied to credit cards) will outweigh the downside of having to pay them a 30 percent fee. The same 30 percent fee they currently take from the thousands of app developers collectively making billions of dollars off of the App Store. And the same 30 percent fee they currently take for all other types of in-app purchases.
As I told a couple of you who emailed about this: Apple is providing the billing, payment processing, infrastructure, and willing/able buyers for only 30% — seems like a steal to me.
Pat Dryburgh points out that using a web optimized font through Typekit will render ugly in IE if you also use the -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased trigger in your CSS file. I was using that with this site and turning it off proved to render FF Meta Web Pro a lot better in IE 8 — so to the 3% of you that view this site in IE, you are welcome.
Also if you miss the ‘old’ look install this Safari extension.
Stephen M. Hackett the man behind Forkbombr was kind enough to interview me for his new series “Writers I Read”. I had a great time and talk a bit about photography and Lightroom vs. Aperture.
MG Siegler on why Apple played its hand this way:
Further, Apple absolutely had to force the prices to be the same (or better) as they are outside the app environment to ensure the system would work at launch. Without this key component, the system would be DOA. Companies would undoubtedly be okay with this system if they could jack up the prices to pay for Apple’s 30 percent cut, but that would undermine the entire system. Apple’s stance on this will piss companies off, but it’s the right one for consumers.
I am tired of hearing non-developers whine about this move. The bottom line is that this is the best possible move consumers of iOS devices could have hoped for.
A system that is:
Yes, this gives developers the shaft. Yes, 30% is a huge chunk. BUT, what’s the cost of you not getting potentially hundreds of thousands of new users? Far greater than 30% — that’s for sure.
The developer of the excellent DF Linked List plugin that I use created a guide that helps you customize your theme files to make the plugin work. Please check this out if you want to use the plugin — know many of you have emailed asking how to do this.
Don Southard posted an Applescript ((via MacStories)) on his site today that allows you to grab a task in OmniFocus and send it to someone using Sparrow. This is a great script, but since I don’t use Sparrow it has little utility to me.
So I tweaked it, the result of which is a script that grabs the selected task in OmniFocus and creates a Mail.app message based off the data. I like it.
Couple of notes:
Set this script with a keyboard command using the excellent FastScripts (I am using ctrl+opt+d) and you are ready to roll. I don’t know just how useful this will be right now — but hey I’m adding it to the collection.
Download my version for Mail.app here.
[Updated: 2.15.11 at 1:58 PM]
Reader David Messent sent in a modified version of this Applescript that embeds an OmniFocus link to the script that will allow another OmniFocus user to add it with just a click — very cool!
A well deserved title for a great guy and a great podcasting network.
Continuing with what I started yesterday with my post about Simplenote naming — and expanded on by Ian Hines, Dave Caolo, and Stephen Hackett — here is some more about how I name things on my Mac.
When it comes down to how people ‘file’ stuff on their computers I see three main methods people use to file: ((Most mix and match two of these methods.))
I doubt that most of us fit into just one of these categories — in fact most of you are probably hybrids of two of these options. I am a hybrid of 1 and 3. That represents a sweet spot for me, but no matter what, you really need to make sure you are properly naming files and that you aren’t a full 2.
I am a huge fan of Dropbox and instead of keeping a ton of files in just the main top level Dropbox folder I have a series of sub-folders. The main reason for these subfolders is so I can find what I need quickly in the iOS app for Dropbox. (This is doubly important when you have clients looking over your shoulder at your iPad when you are looking for the file. I like to pull up the relevant folder prior to the meeting.)
So inside my Dropbox folder I have a series of subfolders. These subfolders are classified for the various parts of my life (Work, Home, Blog and so on). So I have my office, my back up, my reference, my Simplenote and so on. Most folders residing at the first sub-level of the Dropbox folder are items that are in place for syncing only or strictly for other programs to interface with.
The real business happens inside the folder labeled: Inbox.
My inbox folder is where I keep 90% of all files I am currently working — the only stuff not in the folder are large files that would throw me over my Dropbox limit. Initially I just kept a ton of files in the folder, but as time wore on I realized that to find things quickly in iOS I really needed a few subfolders — but not too many.
I keep one subfolder in Inbox that is called ‘Projects’, inside of this folder I keep others that tie directly into OmniFocus projects that I currently have active. Thus the Inbox structure looks like this: Inbox > Projects > Project Name, where the ‘Project Name’ folder is linked into OmniFocus. I keep other files that are single action in nature in the Inbox folder itself (more specifically scans and the like).
This is as far as I take my subfolder routine. From here all files are named with a rather cryptic looking description — much like how I talked about naming Simplenote files.
TBR_P_2011_02_14_Name
The above is a representation of the basic structure I use for naming a file. What the above name tells me is that the project is TBR (designated always between 2-3 letters). The second piece, the P, tells me that the file category is a ‘Post’. I use a single letter to help designate a general category (P for post, O for outline, D for design). This way I can have two files with the same name, but different types:
TBR_P_2011_02_14_PlutoTBR_O_2011_02_14_PlutoWhere the first would be a post with the name Pluto for the project TBR and the second would be an outline named Pluto for the project TBR. Basically I can run a search in Spotlight for: TBR + Pluto and get both files and know the difference between those files. Likewise I could also search TBR + O and see just outlines. This allows for very scannable file names, while keeping them easily searchable.
I do the same for all projects — I even label my website files this way when they are on the Mac.
I always create a TextExpander snippet for file naming, this way I don’t waste time wondering what day it is and where the underscore key is (both happen more than I like to admit). What I know without a doubt is that this file naming system will not work for you. You need to come up with your own — I am sharing mine with you to help you see how I do it and perhaps you can steal portions of this to help your filing.
I want to mention why I do two things in the above naming scheme that I haven’t touched on. Specifically why I use underscores over hyphens and why I use dates in the file name.
We need to borrow from Patrick Rhone’s philosophy of ‘enough’ here. Your file naming and folder structure should be nothing more detailed and nothing less obscure than what works for you. A good place to start (and where I would start now) would be with moving everything into one single folder and then naming the files with a very detailed name. From there play with the naming of the files and add back folders only as needed.
I recommend doing it this way because people tend to never remove folders if they start with many and will rarely add more information to file names if they start with abstract names. A big bucket forces good naming and good naming will reduce the amount of folders needed. Plain and simple.
Lastly, if you are a person that files everything on the desktop: stop and stop now. Again, you can thank me later on this one.