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Leica Sofort 2June 13, 2024
Grand Seiko SBGX261February 23, 2023
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Recent Articles

  • Windows 8 versus iOS 5 and the iPad 3

    Craig Grannell: >Kudos to Microsoft if they pull this off and ‘force’ software creators to make their products work brilliantly with pointers and touch, but I worry Windows 8 will be the same old Windows on the desktop, and also the same old Windows on a tablet, just with a touch skin overlay that works…

    Craig Grannell:
    >Kudos to Microsoft if they pull this off and ‘force’ software creators to make their products work brilliantly with pointers and touch, but I worry Windows 8 will be the same old Windows on the desktop, and also the same old Windows on a tablet, just with a touch skin overlay that works really well for very few applications.

    If you look back to that [Windows 8 demo video](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/jun11/06-01corporatenews.aspx), notice how they didn’t demo using Excel on the device — cause that would have been hilarious to see.

  • Twitter Archives and the Sendai Quake

    A fascinating look at Twitter, Facebook, design, reporting, and social networks through the eyes of Craig Mod who was in Tokyo the day the earthquake hit. What fascinates me most is his dissection of how each tool was used and why that is the way those tools were used and how the design of each…

    A fascinating look at Twitter, Facebook, design, reporting, and social networks through the eyes of Craig Mod who was in Tokyo the day the earthquake hit. What fascinates me most is his dissection of how each tool was used and why that is the way those tools were used and how the design of each played a part in that.

  • PayPal’s Missed Opportunities

    PayPal was once an up and comer — *the* hot web commodity — a service that users loved and were rightfully excited about. *Remember when it didn’t suck?* You probably don’t because for the past few years it has really been a miserable experience. The service is still the best out there, but that’s not…

    PayPal was once an up and comer — *the* hot web commodity — a service that users loved and were rightfully excited about.

    *Remember when it didn’t suck?*

    You probably don’t because for the past few years it has really been a miserable experience. The service is still the best out there, but that’s not saying much given that it’s only real competitor is Google and Google is only *now* starting to put an effort into it.

    I use PayPal for all the banking on TBR and the B&B Podcast, so I am regularly on the site. There are not a ton of transactions being made, but there are enough that I regularly interface with PayPal on both my phone and computer — I rely on it. My experience has been less than great since I started using PayPal again regularly in January, which surprised me because when I was regularly selling on eBay back in college, I remember being quite fond of PayPal.

    It’s not that PayPal as an idea or product is bad, but much like with Twitter, PayPal’s management and leadership is questionable at best. Quite honestly there are a lot of missed opportunities that PayPal could have snatched in order to move into a much stronger position than where they are today.

    ### History

    Here is, [according to PayPal’s own website](https://www.paypal-media.com/history), a list of the notable moments in PayPal history (my comments added in italics):

    ##### 1998

    – August: It Started at Stanford. *This is not referring to the founding of the company, rather a talk between two people that would later form a company.*
    – September: Levchin and Thiel dream up digital wallets. *Actually they founded a company that created a digital wallet on, primarily, Palm Pilots.*
    – December: Confinity is founded. *This is the company that actually started to work on money transfers between PDAs. This also marks the start of innovation.*

    ##### 1999

    – July: If you can beam $10, then why can’t you beam $4.5 million? *This is just the company raising funding, but they received the funding via their service. Neat, but hardly note worthy.*
    – October: PayPal is born. *Finally they come to realize that emailing payments maybe far easier than sending them between PDAs with IR. Though this is just a demo, it is huge for everyone.*
    – November: Get paid for referring pals! *I have no clue why they include this in the company history. No clue. It is just a referral program.*
    – November: PayPal develops the Money Market Fund. *Starting to become more like an online bank, stepping the right direction.*

    ##### 2000

    – January: PayPal’s first foray into eBay. *This was the money making moment, when they see that eBayers love the service they embrace it full on and PayPal jumps to 100,000 users. This is the best move on this entire timeline — hands down.*
    – March: One million and counting! *Three months later and they are still reaping the rewards of eBay users.*
    – March: Confinity becomes X.com. *Some background stuff, not that important at this point. Just goes to show that they were a hot company at this point.*
    – April: First customer service center. *No comment.*
    – August: Palm Pilots can’t beat the Internet. *PayPal has 3 million accounts and the Palm Pilot program has 10,000. The web was a smart move, eBay accelerated growth.*

    ##### 2001

    – March: The war on fraud. *CAPTCHAs!*
    – June: PayPal officially takes its name. *Another name change, everything is now officially PayPal. Also I start using the service regularly to buy and sell on eBay.*
    – September: Igor. *PayPal gets even more fraud protection. This is a trend we will see for a while.*

    ##### 2002

    – February: PayPal goes public. *Notably it is the first IPO after 9/11 and was a success.*
    – June: eBay Live! *eBay users demand that the service integrates with PayPal, nothing but good news for PayPal. May be the last time that people rally for PayPal.*
    – October: eBay Inc. acquires PayPal. *The most obvious acquisition ever.*
    – October: Bonjour, PayPal. *Paying with Euros and Pounds allowed — why did it take this long?*

    ##### 2003

    *PayPal has literally nothing listed. For an entire year the company did nothing noteworthy. This is amazing to me, and this also marks the slow down of my usage of the service. Wow.*

    ##### 2004

    – May: PayPal Web Services. *PayPal gets into the API game so that people can build off of the service. This is actually big and good.*
    – December: The British invasion. *PayPal is integrated with eBay UK and revenue surges by 300%. Good numbers, but it took this long to integrate with your UK parent company? Odd.*

    *Notice too that the only major thing PayPal did to outwardly improve and expand the service is to add an API. This most likely is a result of the eBay beast controlling PayPal and the pains of integrating the two companies.*

    ##### 2005

    – August: PayPal customers give back. *$2.1 million raised for Hurricane Katrina support.*
    – October: PayPal acquires VeriSign’s Payment Gateway. *More security and a smart move.*

    *Notice now that it has been well over a year since any type of innovation has taken place. One would have expected some huge consumer facing moves at this point.*

    ##### 2006

    – April: PayPal goes mobile. *Back in the days when ‘mobile’ used to mean texting.*
    – October: PayPal expands internationally. *Woah, it took that long to be ’officially’ international?*

    ##### 2007

    – January: Safety first. *More anti-fraud stuff, this time by way of a security key, thus complicating a super secure access process.*
    – March: PayPal continues international growth. *…*
    – June: Travelers take off with PayPal. *PayPal now a payment method for Northwest Airlines. They also note that PayPal is accepted as a payment means for all top 10 U.S. airlines. Meaning that now, in June of 2011, I am just learning about this. Seriously.*
    – August: PayPal debuts new logo. *Yippee.*

    ##### 2008

    – January: PayPal improves its safety features with Fraud Sciences. *They kicked off the year with a security acquisition.*
    – October: eBay Inc. acquires Bill Me Later. *eBay made this move, but the service was — from the outset — intended on being combined with PayPal. Right idea, poor service choice. Basically it makes PayPal a credit card company without the actual credit cards.*
    – November: PayPal expands globally. *Really? Just now? I thought we just talked about PayPal being international — I guess I don’t know the difference between the two.*
    – December: Happy Birthday, PayPal! *10 years old, just as ADD as a human 10 year old.*

    ##### 2009

    – August: The new way to ask Mom and Dad for money. *This was/is and allowance account thing. Truly though how useful is this unless your kid also has the PayPal debit card or something.*
    – October: October 2009, eBay and PayPal offer Bill Me Later. *A way to pay interest without having a credit card.*
    – November: PayPal now available in 24 currencies. *Again, just now?*
    – November: PayPal opens its global payments platform, PayPal X. *I won’t repeat my last. Also, I thought we were already global. Confusing, unless they mean another planet.*

    ##### 2010

    *2010 looks like it was a big year, at least a long list.*

    – February: Pay with PayPal on Facebook! *Wonder how long that lasts…*
    – March: Magento and PayPal Expand Relationship. *A small-ish partnership for payments. Move along.*
    – March: Send Money from your mobile phone! *Wait I thought we had that already back in April 2006? Oh wait, now we mean the iPhone.*
    – April: PayPal Mobile iPhone App Hits the One Million Mark! *Meaning 1/3 of the customers that you had in August of 2000 are now using the service on the iPhone. Congrats.*
    – April: Alibaba.com Introduces Payment with PayPal on AliExpress. *Here is another partnership for payment solutions. Boring.*
    – May: PayPal’s Mobile Payments Library Now Available for Android
    – July: PayPal Bling. *I honestly don’t even know what this is after reading the blurb about it. Honestly.*
    – August: PayPal Mobile App now for Android.
    – September: PayPal Expands Purchase Protections
    – October: Bill Me Later Comes to More eBay Shoppers
    – October: Take a Photo, Transfer a Check! *Finally a feature that truly benefits the end users. Man thought PayPal forgot about us for a minute there.*
    – October: PayPal Unveils New Payment Solution for Digital Goods. *Read: A way to pay without being routed through PayPal’s website.*
    – November: PayPal’s local Israeli site now available in Hebrew
    – December: PayPal and VIVO bring mobile payments to Brazil. *They are still expanding, wow.*

    ##### 2011

    – January: New Customer Support Center Opens in Malaysia. *Fun.*

    #### The Point Already

    My point is that while PayPal has expanded a lot and partnered with a lot of places, there really was no innovation happening. Look through that list and tell me where they were a first mover, or even where they had a novel idea anytime after oh, 2001.

    Everyone was doing an iPhone app when they did theirs. Every bank was offering picture deposits when they enabled it.

    Amazing.

    ### Mobile payments

    PayPal was a first mover in online banking and more importantly, in securing eBay transactions. They made eBay what it was 4-6 years ago: a juggernaut. If it weren’t for PayPal, eBayers would still number in the thousands and would be sending checks via snail mail — hey maybe then USPS would be in better shape.

    PayPal changed that.

    When the market changed and it became quite obvious to many that mobile payments was the new hot market, well, PayPal didn’t do much. You can most certainly pay back your friends and receive money from anyone for very low fees, but doing so on your mobile device is anything but fun and only works well when all parties involved have a PayPal account.

    Perhaps you disagree, but which would you rather use to buy a chair at a garage sale: PayPal or Square? If you know what Square is, then Square will be your choice hands down. Let me just say that Square wouldn’t require *you* to be a user of the service, just a passive payer as you are at most all stores.

    NFC? PayPal could have been, and should have been, the go to payment system for everything — yet their ambitions stopped at freelancers and eBayers. ((A nice market, but not as robust as what they should have at this point.)) If you think about it, iTunes probably handles more transactions than PayPal does in a year.

    ### Expanding Outside the Internet

    All of this is leading me to say that PayPal should have pushed to be people’s one and only bank — not just their online bank.

    You accomplish this much in the same way that USAA has done. By creating top notch customer service and making it easy for your customers to get money into their account (free deposit mailing envelopes for checks, mobile “scanning” of checks, and so on).

    You further establish yourself in such a position by ridding your customers of one of the most frustrating charges they face: ATM fees. Again, USAA, will reimburse you for ATM fees monthly up to about $15 with some other restrictions, even with restrictions that is a great deal, should have been a PayPal move.

    #### Brick & Mortar

    What really baffles me though is that PayPal never sought to expand into tech savvy retail locations to make themselves a payment option. Retailers already pay fees to Visa/AMEX and others for processing, one would think that with the rise in ‘self-checkout’ lanes at big box retailers — PayPal would be a natural payment option for customers. Login to your account using a secure pin, your member perks card is stored there and added to the transaction — receipt emailed to you. Done.

    I can’t be the only one thinking this…

    #### Customer Fears

    The biggest hurdle to becoming a full time, one stop banking solution is to reduce fear. The thing that scares me the most about PayPal is not someone breaking into my account, but PayPal freezing my account to sort out a dispute.

    Simply put, this should not happen. If a customer complains about a transaction (or vice versa), the entire balance of an account should not be frozen. Freeze the disputed amount and call it good until it is resolved — don’t screw over your customers because you are slow to act. ((Not sure what the laws are on freezing just a portion of a bank account, but I do believe it can be done given what I have seen in ‘traditional’ banking.))

    Hacking, simply put, should never happen to PayPal. If accounts get hacked because of weak passwords, stop allowing weak passwords. Fix the hole in the ship, don’t try to make it back to dock faster.

    ### Customer care

    Of course a large part of all of this is the customer service and care that PayPal shows towards its users — of which most of us see very little of.

    Here are some suggestions:

    – Better, top notch, fast dispute resolution tools for buyers **and** sellers.
    – Stop assuming that buyers are always right and instead take the approach that everyone is wrong and move from there. It seems that PayPal is biased towards protecting buyers and not sellers.
    – Escrow. Why PayPal isn’t heavy into the escrow game I don’t know — it could have been the leading way people to facilitate the sale of cars online and the transfer of things like domain names. Makes so much sense.

    ### Business Friendly

    Each month I get a ton of checks for all the properties that I manage, we also send out a ton of checks to different contractors and vendors. A lot of companies are trying to move to ACH payment methods to reduce the cost of stamps and administrative time (among other things). This is great, but presents some legal challenges for landlords (like me), of which we don’t need to get into.

    I have always wondered what PayPal could have done to solve these issues if they had made a stronger push into the business to business sector. What if all invoices just came via PayPal and you paid them with PayPal each time. Thus eliminating a ton of paper waste, stamps, and time for all parties involved… what indeed.

    ### Story of the Wrong Leaders

    Once again this is another case of poor, to little, leadership. There is no doubt that PayPal did well for itself, but it *could* have been so much more that it should make the top brass at PayPal cry.

    There were a ton of wasted opportunities and short-sighted strategies.

    PayPal became content with what they had and rested on that.

    They had one great first mover idea and stopped thinking.

    Too bad.

    -•-

    **Check please.**

  • Shawn Blanc on Dialvetica

    Shawn has a great write up of a neat dialing app for the iPhone called Dialvetica — a long time staple of my homescreen. I agree with just about everything Shawn says, except for the list annoying him with its constantly fluid nature. I find this to be a killer feature and here’s why: the…

    Shawn has a great write up of a neat dialing app for the iPhone called Dialvetica — a long time staple of my homescreen. I agree with just about everything Shawn says, except for the list annoying him with its constantly fluid nature. I find this to be a killer feature and here’s why: the people you tend to call a lot changes week in and week out.

    Shawn has set Dialvetica to default to texting, I set it to default to calling. So when I have a week where I am talking to the same people over and over again (say a plumber to troubleshoot a problem that will, hopefully, be gone next week) the list is accurate and helpful, the next week won’t be the same though and thus the list will readjust. The resorting is always saving me time. This is why the system works well for calling, and lacks for texting — with text messages I assume you aren’t constantly texting new people over and over, as we tend to text people that we *know*, versus people we don’t *know*.

    The one thing Dialvetica needs to figure out is how to show missed calls and voicemails (even if it just pops open the default app, but shows badge indicators). If it did that I could finally rid my homescreen of the default phone app.

  • iPhone 5 Likely to Support AT&T ‘4G’

    Eric Slivka: >The implications of an HSPA+ iPhone are significant in the United States, where Apple presently offers a separate CDMA iPhone running on Verizon. Even with both current models of the iPhone 4 limited to 3G networks, AT&T’s HSPA data network is already faster than Verizon’s EVDO data network. That disparity will be magnified…

    Eric Slivka:
    >The implications of an HSPA+ iPhone are significant in the United States, where Apple presently offers a separate CDMA iPhone running on Verizon. Even with both current models of the iPhone 4 limited to 3G networks, AT&T’s HSPA data network is already faster than Verizon’s EVDO data network. That disparity will be magnified with the next iPhone as AT&T users will be able to experience download speeds in the range of 5-10 Mbps under HSPA+ while users on Verizon will remain stuck on the carrier’s current 3G network running in the neighborhood of 1 Mbps.

    I don’t doubt that Apple wants to put in a faster wireless chip, but I do doubt that they would ever market the two iPhone models as having different theoretical download speeds. I *really* doubt it.

    So if Apple does do this, don’t expect them to say anything about it.

  • The Oatmeal vs. FunnyJunk

    The Oatmeal is perhaps one of my favorite sites on the web, but not just because it has funny comments — no Matthew Inman, the man behind the humor, sends the best email responses I ever see. Now he isn’t sending them to me, but to idiots that email him. The crap he and others…

    The Oatmeal is perhaps one of my favorite sites on the web, but not just because it has funny comments — no Matthew Inman, the man behind the humor, sends the best email responses I ever see. Now he isn’t sending them to me, but to idiots that email him.

    The crap he and others has to put up with surrounding FunnyJunk.com and other sites is shameful. I vote he sues, but that’s just me — the guy that thinks we *do* need software patents.

  • The Patent Balance

    Dr. Drang with a smart take on how we “fix” the patent system: >The solution, I think, is a patent system that recognizes that software and hardware are not the same.

    Dr. Drang with a smart take on how we “fix” the patent system:
    >The solution, I think, is a patent system that recognizes that software and hardware are not the same.

  • Previewing ‘Windows 8’

    There’s a lot we still don’t know after seeing this video. ((Apart from the [crappy audio](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/01/previewing-windows-8).)) What is clear is that the ‘start’ screen is a wrapper on Windows 8 and that is never a good thing. From what I have seen thus far, this is a pretty to look at and not great to…

    There’s a lot we still don’t know after seeing this video. ((Apart from the [crappy audio](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/01/previewing-windows-8).)) What is clear is that the ‘start’ screen is a wrapper on Windows 8 and that is never a good thing.

    From what I have seen thus far, this is a pretty to look at and not great to use move. That said, it sure is pretty.

  • Marco Arment on Software Patents

    Marco Arment makes a strong case for abolishing software patents: >The entire software industry works like this, and the use of patents is very rare relative to all software that’s written. The market rewards applied innovation, but doesn’t try to artificially inhibit competition. It combines the best parts of capitalism, collaboration, and a vast public…

    Marco Arment makes a strong case for abolishing software patents:
    >The entire software industry works like this, and the use of patents is very rare relative to all software that’s written. The market rewards applied innovation, but doesn’t try to artificially inhibit competition. It combines the best parts of capitalism, collaboration, and a vast public domain.

    I largely agree with what he is saying from a philosophical standpoint, but I *still* think it is not the right approach right now.

    It is much the same of how I would *love* for all iPhone apps and social services to be free, but I realize that we *need* to pay for them. That is to say, I agree with Marco and would very much like the system gone, but by the same token I don’t think that it is right move here.

    In my mind it is much more than just an overhaul of the patent system that we need, it is a rethinking of what is patentable and how we will — and should — be able to apply these things in the future.

  • Quote of the Day: David Sparks

    “Gold rush or not, nobody wants to get sued.” — David Sparks

    “Gold rush or not, nobody wants to get sued.”

  • Sarah Lacy on Twitter Ads

    Sarah Lacy asks the question, that Walt Mossberg should be embarrassed for not asking: >So if it’s so great, why only 600 advertisers? For the record, Mossberg decided to respond to the 600 advertiser number from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo with the following: >Echoed Walt Mossberg, it’s “the perfect wet dream of every marketer.” *Walt…

    Sarah Lacy asks the question, that Walt Mossberg should be embarrassed for not asking:

    >So if it’s so great, why only 600 advertisers?

    For the record, Mossberg decided to respond to the 600 advertiser number from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo with the following:

    >Echoed Walt Mossberg, it’s “the perfect wet dream of every marketer.”

    *Walt Mossberg: asking the tough questions… wait.*

  • Twitter CEO Says 80 percent of Advertisers Renew

    Sarah McBride and Alexei Oreskovic: >Costolo said the company counts roughly 600 advertisers, up from 150 advertisers at the end of 2010. and: >The company is expected to bring in about $150 million in ad revenue this year […] Do take note that in December they *raised* 200 million dollars in VC money, yet they…

    Sarah McBride and Alexei Oreskovic:

    >Costolo said the company counts roughly 600 advertisers, up from 150 advertisers at the end of 2010.

    and:

    >The company is expected to bring in about $150 million in ad revenue this year […]

    Do take note that in December they *raised* 200 million dollars in VC money, yet they are set to make *only* 150 million of that back this year. Add to that the fact that they had 450 less advertisers last year and it makes this last statement even more comical:

    >Costolo declined to answer a question about whether Twitter was profitable.

  • Five Things Eric Schmidt Said and What He Really Means

    God that guy creeps me out.

    God that guy creeps me out.

  • Twitter Photos

    Jack Dorsey on the Twitter Blog: >Over the next several weeks, we’ll be releasing a feature to upload a photo and attach it to your Tweet right from Twitter.com. And of course, you’ll soon be able to easily do this from all of our official mobile apps. A special thanks to our partner Photobucket for…

    Jack Dorsey on the Twitter Blog:
    >Over the next several weeks, we’ll be releasing a feature to upload a photo and attach it to your Tweet right from Twitter.com. And of course, you’ll soon be able to easily do this from all of our official mobile apps. A special thanks to our partner Photobucket for hosting these photos behind the scenes.

    Good move, I like that they don’t have to bear the cost and scaling of photo hosting. ((No doubt there are some back room deals that benefit both parties, so when I say “cost” I really mean all of the cost.)) I also like that Twitter is grabbing hold of this segment of the service — this needs to be controlled by Twitter, for the sake of Twitter.

  • iAWriterService

    Moritz Zimmer: >This adds a simple system wide action and/or shortcut to your Mac OS X installation to copy the current selected text of any application to iA Writer. With the notable shortcoming of not being able to move the text back into the original app. Sounds like support for tools like QuickCursor is coming…

    Moritz Zimmer:
    >This adds a simple system wide action and/or shortcut to your Mac OS X installation to copy the current selected text of any application to iA Writer.

    With the notable shortcoming of not being able to move the text back into the original app. Sounds like support for tools like QuickCursor is coming to Writer. Nice workaround though.

  • On Software Patents

    [Fred Wilson says](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/06/enough-is-enough.html) what we are all thinking about software patents right now. Though I agree largely with what he is saying, I don’t think abolishing software patents is the solution. Wilson’s first point is: >First of all, the idea of a transaction in an application isn’t novel. I fully agree that it *currently* is…

    [Fred Wilson says](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/06/enough-is-enough.html) what we are all thinking about software patents right now. Though I agree largely with what he is saying, I don’t think abolishing software patents is the solution. Wilson’s first point is:

    >First of all, the idea of a transaction in an application isn’t novel.

    I fully agree that it *currently* is not novel, but when this patent was granted that *was* not the case. As a result a patent was granted, that’s not a broken system — it is a short sighted one.

    The solution to such a problem is not abolishing the system, rather refining it — perhaps just by shortening the period of time that software patents are upheld.

    >Second, Lodsys didn’t even “invent” the idea. They purchased the patent and are now using it like a cluster bomb on the entire mobile app developer community.

    This is what irks most people, but it will hurt just as bad if the original inventor comes after developers. Don’t confuse the fact that quite often the “real” inventors are the ones that go after people, it just so happens that this is not the case with Lodsys.

    The fact isn’t that patent trolls shouldn’t exist — it’s that the patent system is so egregious that in order to protect patents inventors must rely on patent trolls. It’s that, as a society, we are not rewarding inventors for these inventions and instead are forcing them to do what ever they can to make money (selling patents to patent trolls).

    This is the whole “pay teachers more money” argument, but in this case replace teachers with inventors. If we embrace this and seek to reward these individual instead of cribbing their work — that’s when things change.

    >Third Apple and Google, the developers of the iOS and Android app ecosystems (and in app transaction systems), did license the Lodsys patents but that is not good enough for Lodsys.

    Plain and simple: I don’t think that is a fair or accurate statement to make. We don’t know the terms the license that Apple or others paid to Lodsys and the understanding that went with that. Is it shady? Yes, absolutely. Is it wrong? That’s for a judge to decide.

    The patent system is very much broken, but abolishing it is not the solution. You don’t abolish traffic by ridding the world of roads and highways. This is no different, it’s time to make a change — but that change is not abolishing software patents, that change is modifying the rules surrounding them.

  • Twitter’s Photo Service Rushed for iOS 5?

    MG Siegler has some interesting news on the new Twitter picture offering, including thoughts on iOS 5 integration.

    MG Siegler has some interesting news on the new Twitter picture offering, including thoughts on iOS 5 integration.

  • Lodsys’ Response

    Lodsys: > While it is true that Apple and Lodsys have an obvious dispute about the scope of Apple’s license to the Lodsys Patents, we are willing to put our money where our mouth is and pay you something if we are wrong. Therefore, Lodsys offers to pay $1,000 to each entity to whom we…

    Lodsys:
    > While it is true that Apple and Lodsys have an obvious dispute about the scope of Apple’s license to the Lodsys Patents, we are willing to put our money where our mouth is and pay you something if we are wrong. Therefore, Lodsys offers to pay $1,000 to each entity to whom we have sent an infringement notice for infringement on the iOS platform, or that we send a notice to in the future, if it turns out that the scope of Apple’s existing license rights apply to fully license you with respect to our claim relating to your App on Apple iOS.

    Well that is certainly a strong response, this is going to get ugly.

  • The Second Best Mac To-Do App

    The Hit List just launched version 1.0 and announced over-the-air syncing for $20/year ((Why would you pay monthly?)) . Thus it is immediately better than Things, yet still can’t touch OmniFocus. Though as [Shawn Blanc level-headedly points out](http://shawnblanc.net/2011/05/the-hit-list/): >In fact, for those that love the simplicity of Things but wish for the syncing of OmniFocus,…

    The Hit List just launched version 1.0 and announced over-the-air syncing for $20/year ((Why would you pay monthly?)) . Thus it is immediately better than Things, yet still can’t touch OmniFocus. Though as [Shawn Blanc level-headedly points out](http://shawnblanc.net/2011/05/the-hit-list/):

    >In fact, for those that love the simplicity of Things but wish for the syncing of OmniFocus, then The Hit List might be right up your alley.

    Time to forget about Things ((Things.app that is, not ‘things’ in general.)) .

  • Twitter + AdGrok

    At least this one makes sense…

    At least this one makes sense…