George Lucas Strikes Back — This is the best thing I have ever seen!

/Via Forkbombr

I don’t care and don’t want to have to care about the internal structure of your industry and the value chain and who pays for what when. If it doesn’t feel like a good deal, then no deal. All this says to me is “we think you’re a schmuck”.

I’m not unsympathetic to people trying to make a living in book writing or publishing. I merely note that any value proposition that includes within it something about “you, the customer, need to understand our cost structures and pressures” sadly contains the seeds of its own destruction.

I feel bad whenever I see that buying an e-book would cost more than just buying the physical copy. I would love to have all my books be digital, but it just doesn’t appeal to me to pay more for it for the same perception problem.

/via Brooks

You should encrypt your backups, if not for security reasons, for a big convenience gain: encrypted backups will include your email and Mobile Me passwords so you never need to re-enter them after a restore.

I didn’t even realise that there was a encrypt option. I completely missed the checkbox on the summary page.

/via Gruber

I cannot begin to tell you how good this ad for Google Chrome is. Reminds me of how I felt when I saw their Google Stories series. Good stuff…

/via Gruber

Releasing software is hard, but Apple seems to be the only one that can release half a dozen updates over the course of a year that both fix bugs and add functionality to users existing tablets and phones. Microsoft continues to release major updates as giant service packs that seemingly will come out twice a year. Google’s not saying much about their Honeycomb improvements and how or if they will even be distributed to existing tablet owners. If anything, RIM’s eighteen CEO’s keep it interesting by promising everything they can dream up.

To make a dent in Apple’s market lead, Google, Microsoft, Blackberry and HP (eventually) need to focus less on the hardware specs or openness of their platform, and more on getting software updates to their existing user base on a regular basis.

Smart thoughts. The problem with a lot of these competing platforms is that they are trying to compete with the iPhone/iPad as it is now with hardware alone. However, iOS is rock solid and only getting better with frequent updates that actually brings good value—which is something that everyone else is having trouble copying, let alone beating Apple at.

Instead, I gave some thought to why this app bothered me so much. It was a safe thing to be opinionated about, but if I’m being honest, that door swings both ways

A very nice piece on Tapbot’s Tweetbot, and more.

/via Brent Simmons, Inessential

Nevermind the weird audio clipping problems, here is the WebOS for HP’s TouchPad tablet. I have always loved the look of WebOS and seeing it on a tablet has me thinking this could do well, and contend pretty well with the iPad — assuming the TouchPad is marketed and priced well of course.

I swear this looks familiar…

Last year, we ripped Google for ripping off the design of Apple’s App Store for their Chrome Web Store. This actually might be worse. It looks almost as if Microsoft is ripping off Google ripping off Apple.

Unconfirmed still, but likely nonetheless.

/via Gruber