parislemon

Retina Ready: Apple’s New Year’s Resolution?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:32:40 -0800

Retina Ready: Apple’s New Year’s Resolution?

The Revenge Of The Black Bar

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:32:00 -0800

I started seeing an updated Google nav bar earlier today and figured it was a mistake or bug related to the new Chrome beta that shipped today. The new (and much delayed) Google Bar actually looked good — but this was a step back. It was a weird hybrid of the Google Bar and the old, ugly black bar.

Turns out it’s not a mistake.

Sigh.

Apple $500

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:36:00 -0800

Apple $500:

Remember a month ago when Robert X. Cringely predicted that there would soon be an “insurrection” at Apple to overthrow Tim Cook?

“If you are wondering when Apple will peak, well we’re about there folks,” Cringely wrote.

Since then, Apple has posted holy-fucking-shit earnings (in their first official quarter under Cook). And the company is now a full $100 billion more valuable than it was when Steve Jobs passed away.

Apple’s stock nearly touched $500 a share today. It will probably hit it tomorrow. The company’s market cap surged past $450 billion. It will hit $500 billion soon.

The second most valuable company in the world is Exxon — at $400 billion. Apple is worth more than Microsoft and Google — combined.

What’s the opposite of an insurrection?

Get Ready For Google Hardware

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:31:15 -0800

Get Ready For Google Hardware:

As Amir Efrati of The Wall Street Journal reports:

Google Inc. is developing a home-entertainment system that streams music wirelessly throughout the home and would be marketed under the company’s own brand, according to people briefed on the company’s plans.

The effort marks the Internet company’s first full-fledged effort to design and market consumer electronics devices under the Google brand, and represents a sharp shift in strategy.

As I said last week:

If I were a betting man, I’d bet on Google getting into the hardware game with an unexpected device at some point this year.

Today’s news and last week’s news are directly related, but most people overlooked the key aspect last week: Google is getting into hardware.

If 2 GB is excessive, why is AT&T selling 3 GB mobile data plans?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:29:47 -0800

If 2 GB is excessive, why is AT&T selling 3 GB mobile data plans?:

Great question.

Still Fucking Hate Email

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:35:00 -0800

Fred Wilson took some time this morning to go off against email. Clearly annoyed, he writes:

I write these posts occasionally to let people know. The result is hundreds of comments about how I can make email work better for me. Please don’t leave those comments. I don’t want to make email work better for me. I don’t want to hire an assistant to do email for me. I don’t want to try some new magical app that will make email better for me.

Amen.

I complain often about email as well and everyone comes out of the woodwork with some idea for how to fix my problem. The reality is that there is no fix. Trying something else is an even bigger waste of time.

Wilson says he devotes about three hours a day to email and he still can’t nearly get through it all. I’m in roughly the same boat; some days more, some days less. It’s also a boat I put myself in when I left my job as a writer (tons of email) to become a VC (shit tons of email).

The only real “solution” is to change the way people think about email. It needs to be considered more of a stream than an inbox. That is, it needs to be more like Twitter and less like a to-do list.

On Twitter, it’s acceptable not to respond to every Tweet sent your way. With email, it’s considered rude not to respond. That’s a problem.

But there’s a problem with changing the mentality about email because most people don’t get as much email as Wilson or I do. So it just looks like we’re complaining for being popular or something. BUT the fact of the matter is that as more and more of the world spends more time online, more and more people will feel email overload.

What isn’t a problem for you now, will eventually be a problem.

The other, smaller problems with email are the formalities and the speed at which online email services work.

“Dear”, “Sincerely”, “Hello” — we’ve transfered the centuries-old elements of formal letter-writing to email. And we’ve added some new nonsense: Subject Line!

Meanwhile, many of us facing email overload use online email services like Gmail. These services are great because they work anywhere thanks to the cloud and you can keep all your old emails (including those you missed) and search them for later reference! But these services are still Way. Too. Slow.

There’s a point of nearly every morning where I want to put my fist through my monitor because it takes Gmail 30 seconds to load one email. It sounds silly, but imagine watching this happen for 80 emails a day.

Meanwhile, native clients aren’t built to handle huge email loads. Oddly enough, my best email friend is often the iOS Mail app which is so much faster than Gmail — swipe-to-archive, swipe-to-archive, swipe-to-archive. But again, it’s not ideal if you need to search all your old email.

Jesus. I’ve just written 500 words about email again. I fucking hate email.

AT&T Spouts Off Some More Bullshit

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:56:01 -0800

AT&T Spouts Off Some More Bullshit:

Reports Brian X. Chen for The New York Times:

Mr. Siegel said that even if you do exceed 2 gigabytes of data usage and qualify as one of the top 5 percent, that doesn’t absolutely mean you’re going to be throttled. AT&T will only reduce speeds for the top 5 percent of users in areas where network capacity or spectrum is insufficient, he said.

Read: only in areas where AT&T is completely incompetent. Read: San Francisco and New York City, among other places. You know, small towns that no one lives in.

What jackasses.

The Ides Of March?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:46:20 -0800

The Ides Of March?:

iPad 3 (or whatever it will be called) will be announced during an event in San Francisco in the first week of March, reports John Packowski. Makes sense — that’s exactly what Apple did last year.

The only question I have is on the specific timing. Last year, Apple announced the iPad 2 on Wednesday, March 2 and shipped it on Friday, March 11.

But this year, March doesn’t start until a Thursday. Do they do it on that Thursday or Friday or wait until the following week? I only wonder this because last year, the device launch coincided with SXSW, which seemed like it might be a headache at first, but thanks to some pop-up shops in Austin, ended up as great press for Apple. They were the talk of the event despite have no real presence there.

SXSW starts on Friday, March 9 this year, so that launch date would make sense again. And it happens to line up perfectly with a snippet of carrier code found yesterday that suggests iOS 5.1 will launch on March 9.

So does Apple do a Thursday/Friday unveiling (not unheard of, but they typically do Tuesday/Wednesday)? Or do they wait until the following week and then ship the iPad just days later? Do does the iPad ship the week after SXSW Interactive? The Ides of March?

None of this really matters. I’m basically just thinking out loud so I can plan my trip to Austin.

Two-Face: Will Google Become The New Patent Villain?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:44:35 -0800

Two-Face: Will Google Become The New Patent Villain?

‘The Bourne Legacy’ Teaser Trailer

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:38:27 -0800

‘The Bourne Legacy’ Teaser Trailer:

The new Bourne film looks like it could be good. The first three were all great, but all had Matt Damon as the base. They’re moving to Jeremy Renner now, but smartly keeping several other elements intact — namely Joan Allen, Albert Finney, David Strathairn, and Scott Glenn.

And Renner isn’t Jason Bourne, he’s another agent from Bourne’s program. The tagline of the film plays this up: “There was never just one”, and Bourne is mentioned in the trailer. Smart way to handle it.

As an aside, interesting that Renner seems to be successfully taking over both the Bourne and the Mission: Impossible franchises — and he’s doing it as neither Jason Bourne nor Ethan Hunt.

[via /film]

Google Close To Launching "Drive"

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:06:00 -0800

Google Close To Launching "Drive":

Amir Efrati reports that Google is close to launching a new product called “Drive”, a would-be Dropbox/Box/iCloud/etc competitor.

Before I left TechCrunch full time, I was hot on the trail of this project. Yes, Google had a Google Drive project that will killed off years ago, but a new one emerged last year and was being extensively used internally once again.

Last I heard, this new Google Drive was said to be much better than the one that was killed off (which was killed off because many thought it “sucked”). It included a web component as well as Dropbox-like software piece that runs on your desktop. Mobile will be key as well, obviously.

The most recent thing I heard supports what Efrati is reporting: that the prices are going to be more competitive than Dropbox.

"Stealing" Your Address Book

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:42:00 -0800

"Stealing" Your Address Book:

Dustin Curtis more directly states something I hit on earlier with regard to the Path address book situation:

I did a quick survey of 15 developers of popular iOS apps, and 13 of them told me they have a contacts database with millons of records. One company’s database has Mark Zuckerberg’s cell phone number, Larry Ellison’s home phone number and Bill Gates’ cell phone number. This data is not meant to be public, and people have an expectation of privacy with respect to their contacts.

This really isn’t a secret, ask around. There are a lot of apps you use on a daily basis doing the same thing. Some have for a long time. None (that I know of) are doing it to be evil, they’re doing it because it’s a connection/spreading mechanism that iOS allows for.

And again, from what I hear, Apple is likely to change this soon as well. But I’m with Curtis, I can’t understand why this unrestricted access was in place to begin with. I really can’t think of a good reason.

Justice Department Poised to Clear Google-Motorola Deal

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:56:32 -0800

Justice Department Poised to Clear Google-Motorola Deal:

Here we go. This is going to be fun to watch.

"A Nightmare For Carriers"

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:44:00 -0800

"A Nightmare For Carriers":

It certainly looks true that the iPhone is a “nightmare” for the carriers, as David Goldman of CNN Money suggests. But context is important. It’s a nightmare for their margins — it’s a dream from a product offering perspective.

A few other things here:

1) Boo-fucking-hoo. The carriers have raked consumers over the coals for years with things like SMS charges, which have a near-infinite margin.

2) This shows the position of power Apple has now. This is a direct result of going exclusive first with AT&T to ensure they got the deal they wanted. Once the iPhone took off and AT&T started stealing customers, it forced the other carriers to bend to the same deals.

3) This shows why the carriers need Android and are willing to spend a lot to promote it. All the OEMs besides Samsung are basically getting dicked over when it comes to making money off of Android devices, but the same is not true of the carriers. They love it.

4) Sadly, this will still end with the consumers getting screwed. To be able to pay the Apple subsidy and maintain their huge margins, carriers are going to continue to raise rates and/or put in ridiculous restrictions like this.

Making the Real World Easier to Use

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:17:47 -0800

Making the Real World Easier to Use:

Speaking of Foursquare, I’ll be talking with co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley at SXSW this year.

It will be at 3:30PM on Saturday, so I shouldn’t be too hungover by then. Should be a fun talk.

New Foursquare Explore

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:14:37 -0800

New Foursquare Explore:

Great update for the Foursquare app. I personally love the option to filter by places “New to me”.

Tweetbot For iPad

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:53:00 -0800

Tweetbot For iPad:

I’ve been testing out Tweetbot for iPad for a few weeks now, it’s brilliant. Well worth the $2.99 price. If you’re in any way a Twitter power user, this is the client to get.

And I say that as a huge fan of Twitter’s official client for iPad. My concern is that, like the iPhone version, it will soon be “upgraded” — which, in many of our eyes, has unfortunately meant “made worse”.

On that topic, Tweetbot has unleashed a one-two punch today and also unveiled Tweetbot 2.0 for iPhone (also $2.99 as a separate app from the iPad version, but the upgrade from version 1 is free). I’ve also had the chance to try that out for a few weeks, and it’s my go-to Twitter client on the device now. It’s in my dock.

For full reviews of both, be sure to check out Federico Viticci’s takes on Macstories. Here’s his review of Tweetbot 2.0 for iPhone. And his review of Tweetbot for iPad.

Apple's $100 Billion Run

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:32:00 -0800

Apple's $100 Billion Run:

Phillip Elmer-DeWitt’s data from earlier today is already almost out of date. The stock is now closer to being $100 billion up than $90 billion (as he stated earlier) since the day before Steve Jobs passed away.

Apple’s stock is past $475 a share now. The market cap is approaching $450 billion. Exxon is far in the rearview — almost $50 billion in the rearview.

As a reminder to the reminder, if you sold your Apple stock back in October, you were a huge moron.

Path, Not Pathological

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:59:00 -0800

As an iOS lover and Path champion, a number of folks have asked for my take on the Path address book situation of yesterday and today. I’ve avoided weighing in for two reasons: first, I wanted to talk to some other actual developers about the situation. Second, the fact that CrunchFund is an investor will render my take moot by some. But there are still a few things not being said that should be.

First, I agree with everyone that there should be a prompt to send your address book data to third-party servers. And with their newest version out today, Path is doing just that.

One thing overshadowed by this situation is that there’s a reason Path was doing this — and it was anything but nefarious: it makes the service more useful. Path is about your personal connections and the best way to establish those connections is for Path to find your true friends also on the network. What’s a great signal if someone is a true friend? If their information is in your address book and if you’re in their’s.

Path wasn’t trying to gain your address book to cold call all of your friends and bug them to join Path. Nor were they going to sell this data to marketers. They weren’t even auto-friending people (which way too many apps do). It was simply to ease the connection building process by giving users good recommendations.

Here’s the other key thing: a number of your favorite social apps do the exact same thing. And some have for a very long time — for years, actually.

The fact that there hasn’t been an issue in all these years as a result is a good sign. It shows that these apps, like Path, were simply using the access which iOS provides to strengthen social connections within apps.

Yes, it’s weird that Apple, which has the App Store approval process on lock-down and requires prompts for things like accessing location information doesn’t do the same for address book information. My understanding is that Apple has been looking at this issue and it will probably change in a future iOS update.

For what it’s worth, I’m told that Apple’s iOS developer agreement does contain some wording that may prohibit such actions, but the wording is too vague. And again, Apple screens all these apps and hasn’t rejected one as a result of this address book transfer yet.

Given Path’s mission to be your most personal and most private network, I think it’s fair to hold their feet to the fire about this issue simply because it wasn’t stated that it was happening. My CrunchFund partner Michael Arrington publicly called on Path to “nuke” this data collected before the prompt, and they have. Good call.

But if we’re going to freak out about this situation, it’s naive to freak out about it over one app. Again, this is happening all across the iOS ecosystem. And no one has said a thing. For years.

The good news: look for all of this to change. I’ve spoken to a number of developers planning to implement some sort of opt-in-to-address-book-data prompt, just as Path did today. Again, this wasn’t some sneaky attempt to steal your data and sell it off or whatnot, it simply utilizing an option that was put in front of these developers. And they all seem happy to do that in a more transparent way.

The Elevation Dock About To Set Kickstarter Funding Record

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:11:00 -0800

The Elevation Dock About To Set Kickstarter Funding Record:

As Trevor Gilbert notes on PandoDaily, the “best dock for the iPhone” project has now surpassed $900,000 in backing and is closing in on LunaTik’s (you know, the awesome iPod nano watch) record of $942,578 with 3 days to go.

If you want to know how much thought and care was put into the Elevation Dock, just watch the video on the Kickstarter page by creator Casey Hopkins. He out-Apple’d, Apple. Let’s push this thing to the record.

Update: And the record is their’s. That didn’t take long.