Category: Links

The once relevant and somewhat funny guy who wrote the “Fake Steve Jobs Blog”, Dan Lyons, had this to say:

But Apple’s big weakness is its control-freak nature and insistence that there is only one way to make a smart phone. No matter how many carriers sign on to carry the iPhone, in the long run, Apple has again set itself up to be a niche player in smartphones, just as it is in PCs.

Clearly the iPhone is niche — I mean it isn’t like your mom or grandparents want one. Obviously people hate the fact that Apple insists you do it their way, that is why iPhone sales are just tiny.

Wait actually my Mom does have an iPhone as do many grandparents and Apple is selling iPhones left and right.

The only thing clear is that Dan Lyons has now taken to writing garbage sensational headlines.

Jason Z. shaming the ‘Read the fucking HIG’ blog:

How can we expect our clients or users to respect the care we put into design if we don’t respect it ourselves? Instead of considering what went into the design, we point at laugh at someone’s “terrible design”, retweet and reblog then go on with our superiour existence.

Worth a read.

Sophia of Sophiestication Software explaining why she violated her promise:

First of all I‘m sorry for the confusion about the upgrade policy and version number. The License dialog clearly states 3.0, whereas the new version is labeled as 2.5.

However, this is the first paid upgrade ever in the four years that CoverSutra exists. My intent is not to make some quick dollars, it‘s to sustain the development costs of an app I love and use daily.

Now if you don’t know what this is about, basically she promised users free upgrades until version 3.0. Now though she is going back on that and making users pay for upgrades past 2.5 (though lowering the price by $15), all of this because she wants to maintain only one version of the software — that Mac App Store version. This is all well and good, except: you should never break a promise to your users.

Sophia:

If I thought of that license text I would have simply declared this new version 3.0. Calling me a liar is simply wrong and way over the top.

Over the top? Perhaps. Wrong? No way. Sophia, I don’t know you, but you did indeed lie. If the truth is that you forgot about your promise, then you need to state that up front and apologize, then find a solution.

Sophia again:

But seriously, what kind of reputation did I have if it‘s lost so easily? Didn‘t I prove often enough that I‘m fair and not interested in any fishy marketing tactics?

You did prove that, which is why people are so pissed about what you just did — I thought that was obvious. What really should irk users though is the way she ended it:

It‘s obvious that many of you are simply overreacting. Overreacting to some text I wrote over three years ago and forgot about until this thursday.

Where the fuck is the apology?

Looks like it was all a hoax. Bastards.

Zdzislaw Kotla as reported by Lisa Miller:

They’re essentially manipulating public perception of world events and facts, as reported by dedicated journalists, and there’s not much we can do about it.

Basically, there is a little box, that when plugged in, finds open wireless networks and allows a remote hacker to distort news that people on that network sees. This is both awesome and more than a tad worrisome.

Shawn brings up some great points and I agree with most of them. One thing that I don’t quite agree with though is the implied motivation for Apple to launch the App Store. Many think Apple launched it for profits, or to simplify their software — I don’t think I agree with those notions.

I think Apple launched the Mac App Store because they felt forced to open one. Perhaps that is silly sounding to most — they are a huge company and rarely listen to any one, so why would they feel forced to do anything? My guess is that if they truly did this as a simplification of the OS they would have waited until 10.7 — giving everyone a clean breaking point for making the transition. ((Not to mention a great bit of marketing material to push a new OS update.))

Apple felt forced because they wanted to keep their fantastic iOS developers in the Apple family.

They wanted to get them on the Mac.

Apple reached a fork in the road: they could have gambled on iOS developers being willing to develop for the Mac when they release 10.7; instead they chose a safer path of launching now, at the very moment interest in such a distribution channel was at its peak.

Sure Apple wants users to find great software, yes they want a cut of developers profits — all of that though could have waited until 10.7.

After all Apple isn’t hurting for cash right now and their users have been pretty happy without a Mac App Store.

Seth Borenstein on the odd events of the mass blackbirds that fell out of the sky and other mass animal deaths:

On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died of botulism in Canada.

I don’t know whether I should be reassured by this, or even more troubled by this.

Apple literally would have had 5 more sales if I could get on the MAPTORE. ((No way I am calling it MAS.))