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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Microsoft Getting Closer To Apple, More Clues

Brier Dudley, Seattle Times

Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel and senior vice president, welcomed Apple's lawsuit as the opening salvo in a bigger effort to sort out who owns the technology used in smartphones and start collecting a standard set of royalties. License holders have been talking about this behind the scenes for some time, and Apple brought it out in the open, he said.

How Long Can Little Developers Hang On At Apple's App Store?

Peter Kafka, Wall Street Journal

One of the most interesting things about Apple’s App Store is that it is a level playing field, or at least it’s supposed to be. That said, it certainly helps to be one of the big guys.

Startup Developers Represent One In Five On Apple's App Store

AppleInsider

An estimated one in five iPhone developers are companies founded specifically to create applications for the iPhone, according to the latest Flurry Smartphone Industry Pulse survey. That represents the second-largest category of developers behind only preexisting online companies, including giants like Google, Facebook and eBay. Those established brands take up 22 percent of the iPhone developer share.

Apple Hires 'Senior Prototype Engineer' For Work On Wearable Computing

Seth Weintraub, Computerworld

Richard DeVaul's Linkedin status changed last month from Founder & President at AWare Technologies to Senior Prototype Engineer at Apple, Inc. This is a significant hire for Apple and one that shows the company is looking far ahead into the future of mobile computing.

Aperture Update Fixes Video Issues

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

Opinion: 'Less Is More,' The iPad Paradox

Mike Elgan, Computerworld

The truth is that people don’t buy consumer electronics for the quantity of features. They buy it for the quality of experience.

Things 1.3

Doug McLean, TidBITS

Busy people take notice: the latest version of Cultured Code's popular task manager Things is now available and comes with a big functionality boost. Version 1.3 brings a new Mixed Projects feature, enabling users to work with projects that have active, inactive, and scheduled to-dos all at once, something that wasn't previously possible.

The MacBundles Offers 'Build Your Own Bundle' Option

Ramu Nagappan, Macworld

The MacBundles has put a new spin on the now well established software bundling promotion. In addition to offering the usual “batch of a dozen software titles for $50,” the MacBundles has created a BYOB (Build Your Own Bundle) option that lets you customize the package.

An Ode To DiskWarrior, SuperDuper, And Dropbox

John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Three weeks ago the hard drive in my MacBook Pro went bad. So far as I can tell, I didn’t lose a single byte of data. Here’s how.

Surfing In Antarctica

Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater Blog

While the rest of the world iterates on existing solutions to known problems, Apple discovers and solves problems we didn’t even know we had.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Now It's War: Apple Poaches A Googler

The Business Insider

Apple and Google were alleged to have had a no-poaching pact for years . Now that they're enemies pitched in an Android versus iPhone battle, it appears that agreement is over.

Review: Strata Design 3D CX 6.1

Dan Ablan, Macworld

While most 3D programs on the market play nicely with Adobe’s industry standard apps, none have thus far created an integrated system that removes the guesswork for its users. That’s the strength of Strata Design 3D CX 6.1.

The iPad Developer's Challenge

Erica Ogg, CNET News

Applications meant for the iPhone may look similar to their iPad brethren, but they present new challenges to the people creating them.

TalkTalk To Drop PCs And Switch Staff To Apple

Nic Fildes, The Times

Britain’s second-largest residential broadband provider is preparing to switch its entire workforce to Apple laptops.

Apple has been a minor player in the enterprise market and does not make a priority of selling directly to corporate customers, outside the education and media sectors. But with more workers using Apple’s computers at home and downloading business applications and checking e-mails on their iPhones, the pressure on companies to switch to Apple’s products for work purposes is growing.

Readers Are Devouring Apple Book Apps

Olga Kharif, BusinessWeek

Demand for digital book applications on Apple devices gives developers and publishers fresh ways to make money—a mixed blessing for Amazon.

Apple's HTC Patent Lawsuit Is A Bluff

Joe Wilcox, Beta News

Apple's initial goals have little to do with protecting intellectual property as much as scaring away competitors.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

A Dream For Music, But Labels’ Nightmare

Brad Stone, New York Times

So moving our music into the cloud and piping it to any device, on demand, should be easy, right?

A Battle For The Future Is Getting Personal

Brad Stone and Miguel Helft, New York Times

While the discord between Apple and Google is in part philosophical and involves enormous financial stakes, the battle also has deeply personal overtones and echoes the ego-fueled fisticuffs that have long characterized technology industry feuds.

At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket.

Forbidden Fruit: Microsoft Workers Hide Their iPhones

Nick Wingfield, Wall Street Journal

Nearly 10,000 iPhone users were accessing the Microsoft employee email system last year, say two people who heard the estimates from senior Microsoft executives. That figure equals about 10% of the company's global work force.

iPad Swapped If Its Battery Fails, Apple Says

Paul Suarez, PC World

According to a recently-posted FAQ, Apple will replace your iPad if it "requires service due to the battery's diminished ability to hold an electrical charge," for $99 and a $6.95 shipping fee.