September 2009
1 post
Apple shouldn't ship software with security... →
John’s right that Apple probably picked the last best stable version of Flash for the Snow Leopard GM on August 7. But Apple also updated the Snow Leopard installer to automatically download critical system updates during the install process, so once users were done they would feel secure in knowing they had an up-to-date system. Why wasn’t Flash included in these updates when SL...
August 2009
6 posts
Wireless carriers don't charge huge companies the... →
“Like the Kindle, it will have free always-on 3G. Considering how much I pay per month for 3G for my phone, I don’t get how the economics work out for these deals.”
John seems to think Sony and Amazon paying the same rates for ereader wireless data that he does for his iPhone. Of course, thirty seconds of introspection would lead him to realize that these massive corporations are...
Android makers are all skinning Android, not... →
“Don’t screw with the software. Let Google worry about that. The whole advantage Android offers for handset makers is that they only have to worry about the hardware — but so far they can’t even get that right.”
HTC and Samsung are only two major manufacturers shipping Android devices right now, and their products — four in total, including the first-ever Android device, the G1...
Facebook is not irrelevant →
“Facebook is a good match for FriendFeed, insofar as I’ve never understood why I’d want to use either of them.”
John thinks Facebook and Friendfeed aren’t worth his time, implying that anyone who does use Facebook or Friendfeed is foolish. Of course, millions of people have made Facebook a social phenomenon that’s had a cultural impact across demographic lines, but John...
MS is doing Office on Symbian so Nokia will do... →
“Prediction: Microsoft, gunning for market share, eventually tries to pull a Yahoo on Nokia and get them to switch to Windows Mobile.”
This is roughly the equivalent of saying Microsoft develops Mac Office in order to convince Apple to switch to Windows. Symbian has more marketshare than any other mobile OS, and Nokia’s next-gen mobile OS is called Maemo, which it’s...
Pre location gathering →
“But I don’t understand why Palm would collect location information.”
Of course, if John had just done a little research, he’d have found out that the Pre sends location data to Google in the background, which the user has to explicitly enable upon starting the phone for the first time. http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/12/pre-phones-home-with-your-location-which-explains-the-black-hel/
i4i is not a patent troll →
“Patent trolling at its worst.”
The i4i / Microsoft suit has been going on for years, and it stems from MS essentially stealing i4i’s Word XML plugin in Word 2003. i4i is a 30-person company with a history of leadership in databases design and XML — it was actually responsible for a complete revamp of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s entire database. How is this...