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Jay Yarow: >Turns out it had to skip native email support on the PlayBook because its architecture can’t support two devices with one person’s account, according to a source. Man, you would think with two CEOs you would be able to foresee this kind of thing.
Jay Yarow:
>Turns out it had to skip native email support on the PlayBook because its architecture can’t support two devices with one person’s account, according to a source.
Man, you would think with two CEOs you would be able to foresee this kind of thing.
Everyone is all hot and bothered by this new [MeeGo Nokia N9](http://swipe.nokia.com/) (wait didn’t they declare this [OS dead already](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/nokias-meego-based-n9-is-sleek-and-hot/) — wow that should help with 3rd party adoption). The phone is pretty looking, but it is comical to watch the videos they produced about the phone. The videos themselves are very good, but how…
Everyone is all hot and bothered by this new [MeeGo Nokia N9](http://swipe.nokia.com/) (wait didn’t they declare this [OS dead already](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/nokias-meego-based-n9-is-sleek-and-hot/) — wow that should help with 3rd party adoption). The phone is pretty looking, but it is comical to watch the videos they produced about the phone.
The videos themselves are very good, but how Nokia can pretend like what they created is anything new — well that I don’t get. They talk a lot about the “swipe” gesture — that’s great and all, but it’s not something new to cellphones. We have had the “swipe” since (guessing here) June of 2007.
As I mentioned above, this is likely the last MeeGo powered phone from Nokia for a while — so why in the world would a 3rd party developer create an app for this? They won’t — hard enough to get them to do it for Windows Phone 7. They list the Ovi store as the place to get apps, but those apps are created on a phone by phone basis and the N9 has yet to be listed.
Lastly they interface works in a way that a swipe from the left or right edge into the middle will put you into an app launcher or switcher — which is great, right up and until the point and iPhone/Android/WP7 user comes along and tries to “swipe” through their pictures only to find that it keeps kicking them to the homescreen. New concepts aren’t bad when they fix a broken system, but the current navigation on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7 isn’t broken — why break it?
[Charlie Sorrel](http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/nokias-meego-based-n9-is-sleek-and-hot/) says of the “swipe” that Nokia invented:
>This could be annoying or awesome, depending on implementation.
Given Nokia’s history, I am going with annoying.
Lastly, when Nokia claims “All it takes is a swipe” — is it just me or does it feel like they are “swiping” this entire concept from others with a much poorer implementation? Watch the videos and decide for yourself.
Today is newsletter day for those subscribed to the Read & Trust newsletter, the current edition is written by yours truly. It’s all about quality and creating quality. Sign up today and you not only get to see that one but you get the last four issues as well as news ones every week.
Today is newsletter day for those subscribed to the Read & Trust newsletter, the current edition is written by yours truly. It’s all about quality and creating quality. Sign up today and you not only get to see that one but you get the last four issues as well as news ones every week.
Arash Ferdowsi n the Dropbox blog: >Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom…
Arash Ferdowsi n the Dropbox blog:
>Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions.
This is a big deal and if you read through the comments on that post it is littered with pissed off customers, many claiming they won’t be using the service anymore. The smart move at this point is not to keep anything sensitive in Dropbox until Dropbox proves competent at security.
I have seen a few people worried about their 1Password data that they sync with Dropbox, it’s important to remember that 1Password data is encrypted before syncing. Meaning this data was still secure.
Dropbox, you can and need to do better.
Richard Muscat in what may be the best thing I will read all month: >Free rarely works, and all the times that it doesn’t, it undermines entrepreneurial creativity, destroys market value, delivers an inferior user experience and pumps hot air into financial bubbles. This is a *must* read if you always are wondering while I…
Richard Muscat in what may be the best thing I will read all month:
>Free rarely works, and all the times that it doesn’t, it undermines entrepreneurial creativity, destroys market value, delivers an inferior user experience and pumps hot air into financial bubbles.
This is a *must* read if you always are wondering while I loathe “free” options.
Claire Cain Miller: >Photos might not even be a part of Color in the future, he said, though an engineer hired away from the computer-in-a-pen company Livescribe is working on ways for people to doodle on photos. Analysts are curious about whether Color can pull off a do-over — and whether it and other high-priced…
Claire Cain Miller:
>Photos might not even be a part of Color in the future, he said, though an engineer hired away from the computer-in-a-pen company Livescribe is working on ways for people to doodle on photos. Analysts are curious about whether Color can pull off a do-over — and whether it and other high-priced start-ups can beat the long odds that all fledgling companies face.
They received $41 million for a half-cocked idea around social photo something. They spent almost as much money on domain names as Instagram used to startup and actually make a useable product.
The quoted App Store review sums it all up:
>“It would be pointless even if I managed to understand how it works,” one reviewer wrote in the Apple App Store.
I don’t think that sums up just the app, but also: the company, the investors, and the “idea”.
Brandon Bailey: >Calling it “breathtaking” and “out of proportion to any meaningful measure,” Google (GOOG) attorneys revealed late Friday that an expert working for Oracle (ORCL) has estimated Google may owe $1.4 billion to $6.1 billion in damages in a patent dispute over the popular Android mobile operating system. Trial isn’t scheduled until the fall,…
Brandon Bailey:
>Calling it “breathtaking” and “out of proportion to any meaningful measure,” Google (GOOG) attorneys revealed late Friday that an expert working for Oracle (ORCL) has estimated Google may owe $1.4 billion to $6.1 billion in damages in a patent dispute over the popular Android mobile operating system.
Trial isn’t scheduled until the fall, but it has been very clear from the outset that Oracle wants big money from Google for patent violations stemming from Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems and it’s Java programming language.
I’d say this is a far bigger deal than Lodsys.
“Everyone thinks that everyone reading on the iPad wants Flipboard. If I wanted it, I would read the web using Flipboard.” — Dave Winer
More and more people are using Twitter to post and comment on what they’re reading and writing. Tweed is an iPad app that keeps on top of this by filtering out just tweets with a URL in them and gives you a neat way to browse and short-list articles to read now or later. It’s…
More and more people are using Twitter to post and comment on what they’re reading and writing. Tweed is an iPad app that keeps on top of this by filtering out just tweets with a URL in them and gives you a neat way to browse and short-list articles to read now or later. It’s not another Twitter client, it’s an app you use along side your Twitter client to make sure you’re not missing out on news and articles amongst the conversation.
Check out the demo video [here](http://lithiumcorp.com/tweed/).
The icon is terrible and the market is saturated. Even with those caveats I think Bamboo Paper may have one of the best “ink” engines that I have seen. I actually think the replication of writing with a felt tip pen is done better in Bamboo Paper than it is in my old stand-by Penultimate.…
The icon is terrible and the market is saturated. Even with those caveats I think Bamboo Paper may have one of the best “ink” engines that I have seen. I actually think the replication of writing with a felt tip pen is done better in Bamboo Paper than it is in my old stand-by Penultimate.
I haven’t tried it with a stylus because I gave me stylus away, but even with your finger it works pretty well — as well as any other drawing/handwriting app. A few testers have noted that it doesn’t get tripped up when you rest your hand on the screen and I found that it still does get tripped up, but not to the degree that *most* iPad apps do.
Joseph Galante: >Skype Technologies SA, the Internet- calling service being bought by Microsoft Corp., is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter. Clearly Microsoft has shown that they have the management chops to run online services successfully. [Clearly](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-income-2011-1).
Joseph Galante:
>Skype Technologies SA, the Internet- calling service being bought by Microsoft Corp., is firing senior executives before the deal closes, a move that reduces the value of their payout, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Clearly Microsoft has shown that they have the management chops to run online services successfully. [Clearly](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-income-2011-1).
Casey Johnston reporting on this stupid decision: >Trying to access the paper via the Safari browser on the iPad results in a redirect page that points them to the app, as well as a few other basic services. and: >As a Murdoch publication, the NY Post appears to be getting pushed in the direction of…
Casey Johnston reporting on this stupid decision:
>Trying to access the paper via the Safari browser on the iPad results in a redirect page that points them to the app, as well as a few other basic services.
and:
>As a Murdoch publication, the NY Post appears to be getting pushed in the direction of The Daily, which exists only as a paid app on the iPad. The NY Post app costs $1.99 to download and gets the customer 30 days of access; after that, it’s $6.99 for one month, $39.99 for six months, or $74.99 for a year. By comparison, The Daily is free to download, and costs 99 cents a week or $39.99 for a year’s subscription.
I can just picture how this happened:
Old Media Guy (OMG) emails young middle manager (MM) in charge of the iPad app to say: “I thought building this iPad thing was going to make us millions like those Birds guys?”
MM: It is taking off a bit slower than expected, but the market is very new.
OMG: What are *you* going to do to fix this problem?
MM: I think *our* best course of action is patience.
**2 Days Later**
OMG: I was talking to my nephew and he said we could just block people on the iPad from visiting our website. That would force them into buying our iPad app. Let’s do that.
MM: Sir, we certainly *could* do that, but I strongly recommend against it. Here are some reasons why (Reader’s choice: add in three reasons that are logical here).
OMG: How about we just block them and see what happens.
MM: Yes sir.
At least this is how I imagine stupid decisions get made.
MG Siegler: >With some 700 million users, Facebook is one of the biggest forces in the tech world today. But their glaring weakness is that they do not ultimately control their own destiny. They have flourished on the desktop-based web, which is mainly open, but mobile is the key to the future. Facebook has been…
MG Siegler:
>With some 700 million users, Facebook is one of the biggest forces in the tech world today. But their glaring weakness is that they do not ultimately control their own destiny. They have flourished on the desktop-based web, which is mainly open, but mobile is the key to the future. Facebook has been doing pretty well here so far, but because they do not control the platforms they are on, things are likely to get hard for them going forward as rivalries intensify.
Which is why they are always rumored to be creating their own phone.
Shawn and I talk about my hatred of Comcast, beta software and he makes me feel bad for not being at WWDC. Big thanks to [Tweetbot](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/) for sponsoring the episode.
Shawn and I talk about my hatred of Comcast, beta software and he makes me feel bad for not being at WWDC.
Big thanks to [Tweetbot](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/) for sponsoring the episode.
This story itself isn’t very interesting to me, but last night, reading about this switch, I found it funny what wasn’t talked about. What isn’t mentioned is what happens if the device crashes, or the battery dies. Think about that for a moment. A major airline is switching to a computer for mapping and routes,…
This story itself isn’t very interesting to me, but last night, reading about this switch, I found it funny what wasn’t talked about. What isn’t mentioned is what happens if the device crashes, or the battery dies.
Think about that for a moment.
A major airline is switching to a computer for mapping and routes, all without worry about crashing the plane **or** the device. That’s pretty cool.
I want to thank Doxie for sponsoring this weeks RSS feed, they make a slick little USB scanner for your Mac/PC. What is really trick is the integration that the scanner has to many of the best apps and services out there. This scanner also does photos — something that my ScanSnap has never been…
I want to thank Doxie for sponsoring this weeks RSS feed, they make a slick little USB scanner for your Mac/PC. What is really trick is the integration that the scanner has to many of the best apps and services out there.
This scanner also does photos — something that my ScanSnap has never been great at.
If you really want to be paper free though, Steve Losh [wrote up](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2011/05/paper-free/) how for $220 he was able to go paperless with the Doxie (including buying the Doxie) — very neat.
Be sure to check Doxie out first if you are in the market for a scanner to file away all those bills.
Tiernan Ray reporting on a comment from Caris & Co.’s Robert Cihra: >But, “it appears RIMM has now sunk into eroding mismanagement, having delayed even just its evolutionary bold 9900 refresh multiple times.” It is amazing to me how fast RIM fell flat on its face, not even Microsoft could have handled things this badly.
Tiernan Ray reporting on a comment from Caris & Co.’s Robert Cihra:
>But, “it appears RIMM has now sunk into eroding mismanagement, having delayed even just its evolutionary bold 9900 refresh multiple times.”
It is amazing to me how fast RIM fell flat on its face, not even Microsoft could have handled things this badly.
Cody Fink commenting on why the $100 Back to School gift card promotion is better than the free iPod touch promotion: >Apple is leveraging this year’s Back to School promotion to make the Mac App Store popular. It makes way more sense for Apple to give out App Store/ iTune gift cards than it does…
Cody Fink commenting on why the $100 Back to School gift card promotion is better than the free iPod touch promotion:
>Apple is leveraging this year’s Back to School promotion to make the Mac App Store popular.
It makes way more sense for Apple to give out App Store/ iTune gift cards than it does to give out any hardware — I would also be willing to bet this offer is far more appealing to the buyers too.
Emily Singer uses a FitBit to track her calorie burning and it results are dismal during the work week. Standing, it would seem, is *the* way to go.
Emily Singer uses a FitBit to track her calorie burning and it results are dismal during the work week. Standing, it would seem, is *the* way to go.
John Paczkowski: >Add to this the fact that Apple shipped 432,000 MacBook Airs during that period, up 412.9 percent year over year at a time when the broader PC market was down 10.1 percent, and it’s not hard to see that the machine is building up quite a bit of traction in the market. If…
John Paczkowski:
>Add to this the fact that Apple shipped 432,000 MacBook Airs during that period, up 412.9 percent year over year at a time when the broader PC market was down 10.1 percent, and it’s not hard to see that the machine is building up quite a bit of traction in the market.
If you built it they will come?