The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Apple’s Strategy Tax

    John Siracusa:

    Apple’s long-term success is tied to the success of its platforms. These platforms, in turn, rely on the efforts of third-party developers—that’s the very nature of a platform. Given this, if the health and success of the platform is to be maintained, anything that hurts third-party developers must be offset by some other advantage to customers.

    Which is precisely why I think we have yet to see the whole picture surrounding the new in-app purchase rules and the new subscription model. (Perhaps we will find out more in less than an hour.)

  • Android developers form ‘union’ to protest Google policies

    Joel Falconer:

    Among the Android Developers Union’s demands are a renegotiation of the 32% Google cut on applications sold through the store, more payment options and public bug tracking.

    That extra 2% is just down right greedy. ((Sarcasm.)) But it is interesting that these developers actually felt a need to form a union and that they think a union will actually help.

  • “Mobile Notifications”

    Fred Wilson:

    The reason I think mobile notifications, done right, are a game changer is that notifications become the primary way I use the phone and the apps. I rarely open twitter directly. I see that I have ’10 new @mentions” and I click on the notification and go to twitter @mention tab. I see that I have “20 new checkins” and I click on the notification and go to the foursquare friends tab. I see that I have “4 new kik messages” and I click on the notification and go to my kik app.”

    This strikes me as a view point of a very reactive, or perhaps passive, mobile phone user. That is, the type of person that is only reacting to changes and is not actively using these applications. The type of user that only looks at DMs or the type of user that only responds to certain beeps and pings.

    Or, not me.

    I go out of my way to turn off as many notifications as I can — instead I prefer to actively move to those apps when I want to use them (which is quite often in the case of apps like Twitter and Mail). I don’t need, nor do I want, a ton of notifications because often I am already aware of what these notifications will say before the notification actually goes off.

    That is the real crux of any notification system and is only compounded on mobile devices: how do you meet the needs of the different user classes without alienating the average, non-technical, user? Too many options breeds too much confusion and frustration. Too few options pisses off people (case in point: iOS).

    I don’t even know if a “happy medium” exists here.

  • “Dirty Percent”

    John Gruber with an excellent take on Apple’s controversial 30 percent cut of subscriptions:

    It is, in Apple’s view, a privilege to have a native iOS app.”

    A revocable one at that.

  • A Calmer Reading App

    Cennydd Bowles imagining a calmer reading app:

    An estimated reading time accompanies each article, calculated from its word count. It’s harder to estimate the scale of a digital work than its physical counterpart, since we can’t skim to the end or feel the paper it’s printed on. The reading time estimate helps users to fit reading around their schedules, reducing the chance they’ll have to abandon an article halfway through. It also promotes the understanding that it’s OK to graze on short articles. Reading needn’t be just about marathons of concentration.”

    I love that idea and I hope it is one that Instapaper includes. (In fairness Instapaper currently uses vague dots to signify article length — this is better than nothing, but a time estimate would be killer.)

  • Oh Man…

    Gary Marshall on the iPad 2:

    Make no mistake, the iPad 2 we see tomorrow will be a disappointment. But it won’t be a disappointment because it’s a bad device, or because it doesn’t take the iPad forward.

    It will be a disappointment because it isn’t the entirely imaginary device the internet has been happily inventing for the last few months.

    Umm, ok…

  • The Very Rich Indie Writer

    A fantastic look at how a large group of previously unknown writers are striking it big by solely publishing with the Kindle store. The 100,000 sales a month mark set by Hocking isn’t likely, but there is a huge group hovering around 2,500 a month — that is enough to earn a living off of I would guess. ((I figure the publisher nets $3 after Amazon’s cut on average for $7,500 a month.))

  • New In-Game Advertising Model

    Christopher Mims on Tap Me’s new game advertising model:

    So imagine your in-game avatar is about to start its race across the game world. Want a speed boost? OK, here’s one for free — but it’s got the Nike logo plastered across it. Want the ability to fly? Why not let Red Bull give you wings? It’s not hard to see how brand advertising could integrate with a mobile game.

    That is rather clever.

  • The B&B Podcast – A Technology Talk Show

    Halfway into January Shawn Blanc and I had an idea to start a technology talk show, we both quickly began learning about podcasting and getting some sweet high-quality microphones. During all this we recorded practices episodes, until a few weeks ago we kept things hush-hush. A few weeks ago we teased our Twitter followers with an unofficial first episode that we could also use to submit to iTunes and now we are launching full scale.

    Yesterday we pushed our first episode of The B&B Podcast and you can go check it out here and you can subscribe in iTunes here.

    If you like what you hear please leave a rating and/or reviews in iTunes. Thanks!

    [Updated: 2.28.11 at 2:10 PM]

    Shawn posted a little bit about the name “The B&B Podcast”. Also we are looking really good in iTunes right now, thanks to everyone who has rated the podcast!

    Lastly, I dig the logo and I know you do too — big thanks to Shawn for designing that, looks fantastic.

  • How To Turn A Laser Into A Tractor Beam [Not Ready for the Enterprise Yet]

    The Technology Review:

    If the scattering angle is just right, the total momentum in the direction of propagation can be negative, meaning the particle is pulled back towards the source and the light becomes a tractor beam.

    I don’t know what I want more now: a laser that cuts through walls or a tractor beam. Nah, who am I kidding — I want the cutting laser.

  • The Brooks Review in the Kindle Store

    If you are interested in getting TBR’s article only feed pushed directly to your Kindle check then this is for you. Unfortunately I don’t decide the pricing and Amazon has chosen $1.99 a month for the service. Remember this is for the articles only feed, so you won’t be bombarded with linked list items.

  • “Apple gets back to basics in Mac OS X Lion”

    David Chartier on Lion:

    Just like switching between apps on an iPad or iPhone, or even restarting the device, Resume is Lion’s official support for third-party Mac apps to pick up right where they left off, even after a restart. That’s not merely a good idea in iOS, it’s just a good idea for any reasonably complex computing device—especially one that is designed to multitask and juggle many apps and open windows with ease.

    That really is a killer feature — can’t wait to see Windows try and implement that one.

  • DropPhox

    I have been wanting something like this for a while: take a picture and have it instantly uploaded to DropBox. It is a great little app with a very specific user in mind: me.

  • Why Is Scrolling Backwards In OS X Lion?

    Leander Kahney:

    Confused? You will be. It undoes years of muscle memory. So why would Apple do this?

    Confused the heck out of me — I had to turn it off. But I do know they did this for those who are confused as to why iOS and Mac OS scroll differently.

  • 2011 MacBook Pro – CPU crunch

    Bare Feats:

    The fastest 2011 13″ MacBook Pro runs faster than the fastest 2010 17″ MacBook Pro.

    Wow and the new 17″ is really fast, impressive speed bumps.

  • MLB.com At Bat 11

    It’s baseball season and that means that one of the best iOS apps is back: MLB at Bat ’11. I bought it for both the iPad and iPhone and I have to say it is just as good as ever.

    Go M’s

  • OS X Lion Adds TRIM

    TRIM support is key to the long-term viability of SSD based storage, glad to see that it has been added.

  • [PSA] Girl Scout Cookies

    I got lucky on Sunday and a friend of my wife’s hooked us up with a lot of Girl Scout cookies (we paid). Here’s the thing: I bought seven boxes of Thin Mints — why? Because Thin Mints are clearly the best, I don’t care what you think.

    The Girl Scouts should be showing up at a location near you soon and I highly recommend that you buy copious amounts of their cookies.

    A Side Note for Those in Seattle

    Say its four months from now and you really would like a Thin Mint fix, if you are in Seattle you can get Thin Mints year round — so long as you don’t mind them mixed with delicious mint ice cream. It’s called Scout Mint and you can get it here.

  • Spotting Influencers in Big Companies

    Lauren Cox reporting a on new business tool for analyzing your internal communications network:

    Johnson says Syndio Social also works with companies undergoing mergers and acquisitions. “It’s making sure the right folks who hold things together aren’t fired in the merger,” he says. “If you have a company that has three people who tie things together, even if they aren’t the highest performers in numbers, you want to make sure they stay.”

    Pretty great tool if it works.

  • CrunchGear’s Motorola Xoom Review

    John Biggs:

    Is it – or will it be – the best Honeycomb tablet out there? I doubt it, but Motorola has offered a strong showing out of the gate and I was very impressed at the build quality and attention to detail, at least when it came to UI and physical design.

    From what I have seen that sounds like a pretty accurate summation. I found this but odd though:

    Battery life is about 18-20 hours on one charge although your mileage may vary.

    Especially when Engadget says they only got about 8 hours and 20 minutes.

    Though 18-20 hours of battery life would be killer — something tells me that CrunchGear is a little (a lot really) off.