The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • Where is the White iPhone 4?

    John Gruber making observations about Apple’s iPod event from last week:

    THE WHITE IPHONE 4

    Not even mentioned, let alone shipped. Embarrassing.

    I had forgotten about this, but yeah that does suck (I really wanted a white one).

  • Knowing is Half the Battle: Apple Releases New Review Guidelines for iOS Apps

    You can’t see them unless you are a registered iOS developer, however John Gruber has done an excellent job recapping it. Take a look at the points that he calls ‘interesting ones’.

    Of note Apple is flat out saying that if your app is crap they will reject it, likewise if it is the same as 10,000 other apps without improving upon them. Really interesting is that the higher the price the more time they spend on it, which from a consumer stand point is really great.

  • AT&T Has a Lot of Work to Do and Has Done a Lot Already

    A bunch of great quotes that TechFlash got from the AT&T President for the West Region Fred Devereux, here are some of my favorites:

    Nationwide, the company is spending $18-$19 billion on wireless and wireline improvements this year, a 5-10 percent increase over last year.

    “Of the four major carriers in the U.S., we carry half of the mobile data traffic,” he said.

  • Om Malik Thinks Oracle is trying to Distract HP

    Malik:

    Chaos at HP essentially helps Oracle.

    Sound theory, and I wouldn’t put it past Ellison to try something like this.

  • The Ultimate Ellison Response to the HP Lawsuit

    Quentin Hardy of Forbes speculates on a possible Oracle acquisition of Dell, which is really interesting. What I know about Ellison is that without a doubt he loves taking over companies, especially when they start to resist. This would make for a great story if Oracle buys Dell and inserts Hurd as the CEO.

    [via DF]

  • 8 Common Dishwasher Mistakes

    #8 is duly noted, who knew.

  • Archos 101 Android Tablet

    Charlie Sorrel:

    We don’t have any reports on the power use, but apparently the scaled-up cellphone interface doesn’t work so well.

    Gee who would have thought.

  • Apple releases iOS 4.1 for iPhone, iPod touch

    Go get it.

  • Oracle Responds to HP Lawsuit

    Oracle via a press release:

    “Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees.   The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace.”

    Here is how I read this, “back off, we (whereby ‘we’ I mean me, Larry Ellison) is bigger and more powerful than you. This is going to be so good, I am glad Oracle responded, this is going to be great.

    [via DF]

  • Macworld Introduces Macworld Insider

    In a rather pathetic attempt to make money Macworld magazine has launched a subscription model to their website, it gives you all the features that they should be giving everyone for free already (except the ad free part) along with this little gem:

    Special community status and features. Members of Macworld Insider receive a special Insider badge on every post they make in the Macworld Forums.

    Yay a special badge for only $40 a year!

    Among the new features here are the ones that they should already be offering for all readers of the site:

    • Full-text RSS feeds
    • Back-issue magazine archive
    • One-page article view

    Given the stupidity of this I felt compelled to post about it.

  • HP Files Civil Complaint Against Hurd

    Hani Durzy for the HP Corporate Blog:

    In response to the news of Mark Hurd’s intention to join Oracle, HP today filed a civil complaint in the California Superior Court (County of Santa Clara) against Hurd. HP’s statement on the matter:

    “Mark Hurd agreed to and signed agreements designed to protect HP’s trade secrets and confidential information. HP intends to enforce those agreements.”

    Sounds like a whole lotta crying over at HP. Larry Ellison is going to have a field day with this, God do I wish Ellison had a blog of his own.

  • An iPad Buyer’s Guide and Other FAQs from Shawn Blanc

    Shawn Blanc:

    The greatest value the iPad has added to my life is that I read much, much more.

    I agree with just about everything he says, though I do regret not having a 3G model even though I have a MiFi.

  • Idea Quote of the Day

    “Idea generation is an addiction. It is an engaging, brain-spinning indulgence that must be practiced in moderation.” –Scott Belsky

  • Basecamp Notifications Delivered to Your Desktop

    BaseApp:

    BaseApp is a menubar application for Mac OS X that helps you stay on top of everything that happens in your Basecamp accounts.

    Works great, and a great idea to boot.

  • Google’s Privacy Policy Changes

    Pretty interesting page from Google showing the edits to their Privacy Policy set to take effect next month. I really like that they have this page for people, but really I don’t remember getting a notice about this, and there are a lot of edits.

  • The Atlantic Will Follow Paid iPad Edition With New ‘Atlantic Premium’

    Staci D. Kramer on The Atlantic for iPad:

    In coming weeks, the magazine publisher plans to convert single-issue app sales to an iPad digital newsstand app—and to launch Atlantic Premium, a daily bundle of everything the magazine produces online for a monthly access fee.

    I like the idea of more publishers creating monthly subscriptions for their magazine apps, but I worry that they think $4.99/mo is acceptable. You can subscribe to a paper magazine for $15-20 a year, sure there is ads but hey that is not a bad price. iPad magazines however cost $2.99-4.99 an issue and you still get ads, which is just absurd.

  • Windows Phone 7 Ad Promises A Forthcoming Revolution

    If the hardware depicted in the ad is real, then the iPhone may have a real competitor in the hardware arena. That is a sexy looking phone.

  • Tumblr Fixes Content Attribution

    David Karp:

    When creating a post, you can now attribute its content (eg. a pull quote or image) to a source outside of Tumblr. That source gets clearly attributed everywhere that post is reblogged on Tumblr. 

    A much needed update for Tumblr, making a great blogging platform even easier, though I am still a huge WordPress fanboy.

  • Think you’re a ‘supertasker’? Probably not

    MSNBC.com:

    Supertaskers only make up about 2.5 percent of the general population, however, said study team member James Watson of the University of Utah.

    “Given the number of individuals who routinely talk on the phone while driving, one would have hoped that there would be a greater percentage of supertaskers,” Watson said.

    Possibly one of the best quotes from a scientist.

    [via Rands on Twitter]

  • One Man’s Vision of a Social Workplace

    Here is an interesting post, sticking with the recent email theme we have been doing, by Amy-Mae Elliot about Luis Suarez’s email vision:

    “We will still have e-mail in ten years,” says Suarez. “I don’t want to kill all e-mail, but I want to help people re-purpose it. We will see traditional tools like e-mail redesigned to be used for what it was originally designed for.”

    For Suarez, the e-mail of the future will look something like this:

    “You get an alert, telling you how and where you can go and grab content … it won’t just be a notification system, but a read-write opportunity with the option to engage back so that information is no longer stuck in an inbox.”