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.
Category: Links
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Apple’s Big Subscription Bet
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:
- Easy to use.
- Easy to Manage.
- Easy to quit.
- Offers privacy protection (companies don’t get your data unless you OK it).
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.
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Customising your WordPress theme for the DF Linked List plugin
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.
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The King of Apple Talk Radio
A well deserved title for a great guy and a great podcasting network.
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Apple Launches Subscriptions on the App Store
Apple PR:
Publishers who use Apple’s subscription service in their app can also leverage other methods for acquiring digital subscribers outside of the app. For example, publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple. Publishers must provide their own authentication process inside the app for subscribers that have signed up outside of the app. However, Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.
Two interesting things here:
- Developers can keep 100% of subscription revenue if the subscription is done outside the app, but (and this is a big but) developers must offer a subscription through iTunes for the same (or less) cost. I don’t see many new subscribers doing so outside the app.
- This is the killer part for apps like the Kindle. Developers are no longer allowed to kick users out of the app to buy things (such as books). This will be interesting to see how it plays out, especially since there is a limit to the amount of items you can buy in-app. Apple isn’t done changing the way you buy books just yet — I am guessing there will be more to this announcement.
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Why Nokia Needed Windows Phone 7
The Economist on why Nokia could no longer compete:
The first generations of modern mobile phones were purely devices for conversation and text messages. The money lay in designing desirable handsets, manufacturing them cheaply and distributing them widely. This played to European strengths. The necessary skills overlapped most of all in Finland, which explains why Nokia, a company that grew up producing rubber boots and paper, could become the world leader in handsets.
As microprocessors become more powerful, mobile phones are changing into hand-held computers. As a result, most of their value is now in software and data services. This is where America, in particular Silicon Valley, is hard to beat.
I typically don’t quote that much of any one article, but honestly this is a dead on analysis of what is going on in the mobile market right now. A shift from hardware driven sales (through design and the like) to software driven sales. That is why Apple can sell a rectangular glass slab with a silver band and have people swooning over it — it’s about the software.
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iPad Blogging
Brett Kelly on the pain involved in trying to blog using just an iPad:
Remember, I’m not saying any of this is impossible, just that it’s prohibitively cumbersome and difficult. Pursuing this route is inserting a clunky obstacle in your way when your tools should be extensions of your hand and appropriately fade into the background.
I agree with pretty much everything he says here. The WordPress app for the iPad is the best blogging app out there for WordPress users, but even so I rarely — if ever — use the damned app. I have yet to see a single solution for blogging on the iPad that would make me feel comfortable leaving for a long weekend without my MacBook Air.
My solution: use the web interface for WP after typing up your post in Writer — though this is far from good.
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Stylus Cap On The Go
Creating a cap for a Sharpie that double as a stylus seems like a great idea — until you accidentally use the Sharpie as a stylus without the cap and quickly realize why it is not a top-selling product. (Just sayin’)
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Research In Motion Acquires Professional Contact Manager Gist
Leena Rao reporting on Gist that RIM just purchased:
Gist, which raised $10.8 million in funding, launched in 2008 as a “professional” communications manager, aimed at satisfying the filtering needs of a business user. Like the web service, the app organizes your streams according to your email contacts so it’s a useful way of following your colleagues, friends and professional contacts.
Sounds very boring — which is the reason I think that RIM is struggling to compete with iOS in the enterprise. I know they still have a strong hold on the market, but more and more CEOs and others in the enterprise are preferring to use iPhones — Gist does not sound like a great iPhone type app.
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The Truth Behind the Failure of iPad Magazines
Andrew Losowsky nails why magazines on the iPad are by and large failing to be worth while and compelling for consumers.
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The Economics of Blogging and The Huffington Post
Nate Silver analyzing the traffic at HuffPo:
Their median blog post, by our estimate, gets only about 550 page views. That equates to about 1 in every 450,000 of the unique visitors that Ms. Huffington says AOL and The Huffington Post will have each month once they combine forces.
That is amazingly low for how big the site is. Quality > Quantity. There is some amazing and very sage advice in this post, so I leave you with this last bit:
Being a small fish in a very, very big pond isn’t always the way to build up a name for yourself, much less to make money from it.
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iOS Notifications
Federico Viticci on iOS notifications:
As you know, iOS notifications don’t have “quiet times”, which is annoying because you can’t set the iPhone to not get any notification (and thus, possibly, a sound) at night. Some 3rd party developers have deployed a quiet time option server-side.
That is the worst part of the notification system in my view. I can’t tell you how many times I am woken up moments after I go to bed because of a notification (I typically mute my phone at night, but I sometimes forget).
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iPad Fingerprints
Neat. Mine usually just looks like one big smear.
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Matthew Rex on Twitterrific 4
I agree with everything on this list, but my list is much longer. I hope to post my thoughts this weekend.
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Tricking-out Your OmniFocus Perspectives on Vimeo
A great video from Merlin Mann presenting at the Omni Group booth.
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Readability 2.0 Is Disruptive Two Ways
Zeldman on the new Readability:
For the first time, content monetization is no longer the problem of content creators. Writers can stop being salespeople, and focus on what they do best: creating compelling content. The better the content, the more people who engage with it via Readability, the more money writers will make—with no bookkeeping, no ad sales, and no hassle. This is huge subversion of the ad paradigm.
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How To Sync Any Local Folder to Dropbox
A clever little tip for using Symlinks on a Mac to sync folders ‘outside’ of the Dropbox folder. There are two utilities for hacking Dropbox one for Windows and one for Macs.
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iPhone Exploit Puts Passwords At Risk Within Minutes
Graham Spencer on the exploit:
The only way at this stage to prevent such an attack is to avoid the attacker from physically accessing the iPhone…
I have never had the delusion that my data was secure if someone else has my phone — do people really think their data is safe if they lose their phone?
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Full Instapaper API
Marco Arment on the Instapaper blog:
Full API access, but only for paid-subscriber accounts. In other words, all developers can use the Full API, but it will only work for customers with Instapaper’s $1/month Subscription memberships.
That is clever.