Category: Links

Glenn Fleishman:

On the whole, AT&T’s 3G service options are still rather remarkable, with unique or rare elements on pricing, extending service, upgrading, and cancellation that make it flexible enough for occasional use but affordable for regular use. Watch that streaming video, though.

I didn’t go 3G because a) I had a Verizon MiFi already and b) I already pay AT&T for a 3G plan on my iPhone. If AT&T let’s you use the same data plan on both devices then I will get a 3G iPad.

Mark D. Rasch:

I don’t know what the sentence could be, but it could be significant as they’re going to say what he stole wasn’t something worth $150 or $400, it wasn’t even worth $5,000, but they’re going to say it’s worth the entire development cost of the iPhone prototype, which could cost tens of millions of dollars.

I also love this quote when asked if he had ever worked on a similar case:

There was a case I worked on many years ago in which a Soviet pilot defected to Tokyo and under the law he was granted asylum. The Soviets wanted their Mig25 plane back, but we had never seen a Mig25 before. So we and the Japanese had to return it because it was the property of the Soviet Union. But before it was sent back, it was taken apart, every piece measured, every piece replicated and put back together and then returned. Did we steal it? No. We returned it.

The really interesting point here is not who will be found right, but rather who will wave the white flag first. This is going to be expensive for Gizmodo, and Apple. I tend to think that Apple is the only one who can afford it.

Cult of Mac is running an excellent series of posts about Steve Jobs told from the perspective of David Bunnell who founded Macworld magazine.

The look inside of how Jobs operated back then is incredibly relevant to anybody who is interested in learning more about why Apple is the way it is today.

David Pogue for The New York Times:

The statistics on distracted driving are pretty scary. Just making cellphone calls increases your chances of crashing by four times; sending text messages increases the risk 23 times.

We know this, we get this, but we keep doing it. About half of all teenagers admit to texting while driving, for example, no matter how many statistics and horror stories we pass along to them.

and

In any case, it might be worth considering a text-blocking app for your teenager — or even for yourself, if only to make your phone so inconvenient while driving that you won’t bother with it. Because the world already has enough horrifying driving-distraction statistics; you should avoid becoming one yourself.

This is a great idea, it will be interesting to see how the debate of “driving while on the phone” progresses over the next couple of years. States have already started to enforce hands free laws, so it will be intriguing to see if the Feds step in to enact some laws.

I would suspect that if the Feds to enact some laws it would revolve around the punishment for accidents that occur while on the phone. As in if you were yapping away and killed a pedestrian it is some serious jail time.

Dan’s Data:

If a developer doesn’t spend quite a lot of time on getting a graphical interface right, this is the sort of hideous disaster that’s likely to result. To avoid it, developers often find they need to make at least some effort to fight the good fight via usability testing; even if you spend months on assembling an interface that looks good to you, it may not work very well for normal users.

A great look at why knowing command-line interfaces is still so important today.