Action at a Distance

Facebook: The List of Incompetents

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:15:43 +0100

Zuckerberg’s refusal to play the Wall Street game is admirable, in some respects — but at the same time is completely inconsistent with a desire to sell $16 billion of shares at a $104 billion valuation.

Yes. Exactly this. There was a wave of “why should Zuckerberg wear a suit?” sentiment on Twitter; this quote is why that sentiment made no sense to me.

Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover

Sun, 20 May 2012 20:21:26 +0100

Whatever you think of the hoary old “the iPad is/isn’t perfect/awful for content creation” debate, there are few bloggers who’d argue that it’s a lot more practical for writing on when coupled to some sort of physical keyboard. The on-screen one keyboard is OK for modest amounts of text, but the prospect of writing a 5,000 word TUAW post by hammering my fingers against a unyielding pane of undifferentiated glass doesn’t fill me with joy. Plus, it takes up half the screen — leaving me feeling like I’m peering through a letterbox at my document.

I’m not going to do a full review of the keyboard here. For that, I’d recommend you read the excellent reviews by David Chartier or Steven Sande. These are just a few of my notes, elaborating on a few details I would have liked to known before ordering it.

Key size

Here’s the Ultrathin (bottom) compared to the iPad’s on screen keyboard (top) and the standard Apple keyboard (middle):

Clearly, key size alone is not a significant reason to pick the Ultrathin over the on-screen keyboard, as the keys are actually somewhat smaller than either of the other keyboards. In use, I must confess I have found the Ultrathin to feel a little cramped — both on the main keys and particularly on the half-width punctuation keys on the right hand side of the keyboard.

Size and weight

Many reviewers have commented that the Ultrathin is remarkably thin and light. Considering there’s a full keyboard in there, that’s definitely true. However, the Ultrathin is going to spend its life attached to your iPad, which is also very thin and light; so the important question is, how does it feel compared to the iPad itself?

Consider the size first of all. Obviously, width and height are indentical to the iPad. But what about depth? Here’s the Ultrathin, compared to the iPad itself and an Apple Smart Cover:

As for mass: my iPad (3rd generation, Wifi) weighs 655 grams. My Apple Smart Cover is 137 g — 21% of the weight of the iPad itself. The Ultrathin is 333 g, which is 51% as much as the iPad. That’s just a little less than the standard Apple keyboard — the smaller one, without a numberpad. At 355 g, the Apple keyboard is 54% of the iPad’s weight.

So, at 988 grams, an iPad plus the Ultrathin is still a bit lighter than even Apple’s tiniest laptop, the 11” MacBook Air (which weighs 1080 g). Unavoidably, however, it does feel significantly thicker and heavier with the Ultrathin attached.

Magnets

The Ultrathin has a similar arrangements of magnets to the Apple Smart Cover. Magnets attach it to the side of the iPad via the same sort of hinge, and other magnets turn the iPad on and off when you open and close it.

The magnet attach mechanism means that, like the Smart Cover, attaching and detaching the Ultrathin is a breeze — just pull apart to detach, and wave the iPad vaguely near the hinge to reattach. Also, unlike the early Logitech iPad keyboard case design, there’s no irritating ridge around the keyboard’s outer edge.

There’s also magnets inside the slot that positions your iPad when you are typing on the keyboard. As long as you put the iPad’s left side into the stand, these magnets hold it into place very well. They prevent the iPad slipping sideways out of the slot if you are typing on an uneven surface like a lap, and they are strong enough so that if you pick the iPad up the keyboard comes with it.

Typing

On a flat surface, the keyboard is steady and secure, even with the iPad in portrait. Note that the bottom surface of the Ultrathin has no feet on it, though, so if you slide it around on desks you can expect its aluminium surface to pick up some scratches.

In my lap, I found the experience to be a bit more mixed. To balance the iPad, I found I instinctively moved the keyboard further towards me than I would with a laptop. The keys were about where the palm rest would be on my MacBook Pro. This then cramped my wrists uncomfortably after prologued typing. Plus, as its only eight or so inches across, I couldn’t make it balance very well across my thighs — I found it was always in danger of falling between my legs whenever I shifted in my seat.

Key layout

My keyboard, which I ordered from Logitech’s UK site, came with a full UK key layout: shift-3 is £ instead of #, and (more importantly), it has a double-height Return key rather than a double-width one. Many cheaper iPad keyboards only seem to come with a US layout, and that’s what’s pictured on Logitech’s site, so this was a welcome surprise.

Smaller matters

Price: It’s not cheap in the UK; the $99 US price point somehow becomes £89.99. That’s a hefty 18% markup after you subtract VAT. Not cool, Logitech.
Battery life: I have no idea. Logitech claim the integrated LiIon cell is good for about 350 hours of use, so I certainly haven’t managed to flatten it yet.
Charging: It charges from a micro USB cable (included) connected to any USB charger (not included). If (like me) you now travel with these handy things that means it takes the same cable as the your Apple kit.

The bottom line

It’s not perfect. The keys are small, certainly. It’s not going to eclipse my aging MacBook Pro for in-lap use. It’s perhaps fractionally heavier and thicker than you might think from reading other reviews. It’s overpriced in the UK.

With those nits picked, though, I can safely say: it’s the best damned iPad keyboard I’ve seen yet. Recommended.

Via Gizmodo UK, some data on Android fragmentation from Open...

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:13:00 +0100

Via Gizmodo UK, some data on Android fragmentation from Open Signal Maps. The post presents a lot more data on API version, screen resolution, and other interesting metrics. It was based on 681,900 devices that downloaded the client software — not an unreasonable survey size.

It looks pretty bad (and I’m sure that’s the angle most reporting of this story will take, particularly from Apple bloggers), but there’s an upside, OSM says:

Developers tend to bemoan Android fragmentation yet there’s much here to be celebrated.

We’ve collected signal data from 195 countries - the variety of Android devices and manufacturers has been crucial in allowing the OS to reach so many markets. For example the 5 countries where OSM gets most use are: US, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico. From what we’re seeing the developing world is no longer developing but leading Europe.

While the number of different models running Android will continue to increase we’ve seen Samsung take the lion’s share of the Android market, most of that due to the Galaxy product line. Testing on the most popular Samsung & HTC devices will get you a long way.

In particular, I think this part is noteworthy:

With many devices under $100 unsubsidized, Android phones and tablets are able to reach a market that can’t afford netbooks. For the majority of the world’s population smartphones (and not computers) will be the must-have devices. We hope that OpenSignalMaps will be a must-have app.

I think that price point — and the advantages it gives OEMs in the developing world — is under-discussed. It’s impossible to get a contract-free iPhone in the UK for anything less than £319 ($510), and that’s the old-as-the-hills 3GS. You can buy three or four Android handsets of similar spec for the same money.

Go to the original post for more interesting data from this study.

A brief and definitely incomplete survey of the computer...

Sat, 12 May 2012 17:46:41 +0100

A brief and definitely incomplete survey of the computer storage space I have in my house. All figures are in terabytes.

We live in an age of wonders.

"Windows RT" versus "WinRT"

Fri, 11 May 2012 19:53:00 +0100

Blogging Windows:

Windows RT is the newest member of the Windows family – also known as Windows on ARM or WOA, as we’ve referred to it previously. This single edition will only be available pre-installed on PCs and tablets powered by ARM processors … For new apps, the focus for Windows RT is development on the new Windows runtime, or WinRT, which we unveiled in September

So WinRT is the runtime that runs the apps. Windows RT is the OS that hosts the runtime. Presumably, Win is short for Windows and RT is an abbreviation of RunTime.

From everything we know about Microsoft’s matrix management, it sounds like practically anything needs sign off from dozens of people. That suggests dozens of people with an IQ presumably above double digits looked at those two names and collectively decided: “Yup, nothing wrong with that. No-one will be confused by this. Future developers looking for information with Google won’t curse our names, and we have no Job done, people!”

What the bloody hell?!

Ben Brooks

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:40:36 +0100

Ben Brooks prefers style to substance!

It’s interesting to me that Shawn types faster on the mechanical keyboards — that alone makes me want to try one. But there is no way in hell I am putting any one of those keyboards Shawn reviewed anywhere near my desk.

They are hideous, repulsive, and offensive looking.

Even if I was more productive with them, the tradeoff of adding in wires and ugliness is simply not worth it.

Ben Brooks celebrates ignorance!

This also marks where I stop reading anything about [Google Drive] and thus don’t follow news about it.

I’m sure the latter point won’t stop him holding an opinion on the service though.

OMGPOP goes the weasel

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:06:00 +0100

Shay Pierce was the only employee at OMGPOP who didn’t take Zynga’s money when the company sold out following the smash-hit success of Draw Something.

Pierce chose to reject Zynga’s offer for good reasons. Firstly, he disagrees strongly with Zynga as a company:

When an entity exists in an ecosystem, and acts within that ecosystem in a way that is short-sighted, behaving in a way that is actively destructive to the healthy functioning of that ecosystem and the other entities in it (including, in the long term, themselves) — yes, I believe that that is evil. And I believe that Zynga does exactly that.

Secondly, Pierce asked formally if Zynga would definitely not be asserting ownership or forcing the removal of Connectrode, a game Pierce self-published on the App Store. He was told no such promise would be made. Connectrode doesn’t make any money to speak of, but Pierce still didn’t feel comfortable going forward with the deal. I don’t blame him one bit.

Pierce rejected the offer of a role at Zynga, rendering himself unemployed. He received fair compensation for his small equity in ZOMGPOP as part of the takeover deal, however.

OMGPOP’s CEO, Dan Porter, didn’t like this one little bit, and took to Twitter to make his feelings public :

The one omgpop employee who turned down joining Zynga was the weakest one on the whole team. Selfish people make bad games. Good riddance! What’s so interesting about success is the number of failures who try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is just one of many…

It would appear Dan Porter is a callous dickhead with no respect for the work of people who built the firm that just made him very wealthy indeed. In the face of huge backlash on Twitter and Reddit, he’s now trying to walk the bad PR back, which should be entertaining to watch, at least.

God speed, Shay Pierce (who has gone back to being self employed).

UPDATE: Porter has deleted the two tweets I put above, and tweeted:

I’m sorry for what I said on Twitter last night. No excuses.

Amazing scenes.

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 10:29:46 +0000

Amazing scenes.

The dilution of "4G"

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 14:49:40 +0000

So, iOS 5.1 changes iPhone 4 and 4S handsets on AT&T to show “4G” instead of “3G”.

4G was originally defined in 2009 by standard body ITU-R as “peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication (such as from trains and cars) and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users)” (quote from wikipedia). Then the carriers got hold of it and started redefining any old thing they had as “4G” because it sold better that way. The latest trick is that even absoultely-just-3G-with-bells-on standards like HSDPA are “4G” too. The graph below shows just how low we’ve come.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Apple stands firm against the worse excesses of the carriers. This is pure capitulation to AT&T’s marketing department.

Update: According to various folk on Twitter, some recent Android handsets indulge in this too. Windows Phone 7, on the other hand, shows a far-more-honest “H” to denote go-faster 3G modes like HSDPA. The Windows Phone 6 handset I was using in 2006 did this too.

I am also grateful to several Twitterers who introduced me to the perfect phrase to describe this shady re-branding: “faux G”.

(HT to Brian Klug for checking my numbers for me.)

Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:25:34 +0000

Retina display Macs, iPads, and HiDPI: Doing the Math:

By me, for TUAW. A deep dive on exactly what a “Retina display” should be defined as, and what this means for the rumours of Retina display Macs.

Does Gatekeeper point the way to an App Store-only OS X?

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:40:58 +0000

Does Gatekeeper point the way to an App Store-only OS X?:

By me for TUAW. Spoiler warning: “not bloody likely”.

What resolution would a "Retina display" 27-inch screen be?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Earlier, via @viticci, I saw a tweet from @marcedwards that said:

Retina 27” Thunderbolt display: 5120×2880 = 14,745,600 px

4K film: 4096×2160 = 8,847,360 px

Retina iPad 3: 2048×1536 = 3,145,728 px

This is based on the widely-held but fallacious belief that a “Retina display” is twice the resolution of a current-day display. There’s another widely-held but equally incorrect belief that to qualify as “retina” a screen must have more than 300 pixels-per-inch. I have previously debunked both of these for TUAW. In fact, Apple defines the term like so: “[a] Retina display’s pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels”. This means the truth about what is and isn’t a Retina Display is more subtle, and demands consideration of viewing distance as well as screen size.

Let’s use the methodology I outlined in my TUAW post to consider the 27” Thunderbolt Display.

A Thunderbolt Display has 2560x1440 pixels over a 27” screen — that works out to 109 pixels-per-inch. If I had 20/20 (i.e. average) vision, I’d have to be further than 32” back from the screen to longer be able to resolve individual pixels.

I’m typing this on my 27” iMac right now and I’ve just measured the distance from the screen to my eyes as about 28”. This is probably a typical sitting position, At this distance, the finest detail I am able to discern is a mere 123 pixels-per-inch. In other words, my 27” iMac only has to go up to 2896x1629 (or some slightly higher and more palatable numbers) resolution to be a “retina” display at my current sitting distance. This is far lower than the resolution of a 4K film.

Footnote: I’ve glossed over some interesting details with regards to different types of visual acuity for different types of image, which you might like to read about.

The no-nonsense guide for travellers to using an unlocked iPhone with AT&T USA

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:47:00 +0000

Scenario: you (like me, a month ago) are going to the United States for a trip. You have an unlocked iPhone you can use with any carrier world-wide — but you are confused by the lack of a “sell me an iPhone SIM card” option on AT&T’s Byzantine website. You want to make your phone work with a minimum of hassle. You’ve looked at various sites and guides but you’re still confused. You want the ability to make a few short calls and have a decent amount of mobile data for Google Maps and TripAdvisor and Yelp and other touristy things. Here’s what you do.

Before you travel

Buy a SIM — you want an “AT&T GoPhone SIM card”, which is almost certainly available from eBay, wherever you may be in the world. I paid about £6 each for two (one for me and one for my wife).

Activate your new SIM — once you have the SIM card in your possession, go to AT&T’s website to activate it. You’ll need two numbers: the one on your SIM card, and an IMEI number. This is a special unique code that all GSM mobile phones have. Now, this bit is a little tricky. If you use an iPhone IMEI, AT&T is going to fail the activation with a mysterious message, because for some unfathomable reason it doesn’t want iPhones on GoPhone. You need to get hold of an IMEI that isn’t from an iPhone — perhaps from an old phone you own, or from a friend’s. It doesn’t matter what number you use, it’s not going to lock the phone or make the SIM only work in that phone or anything like that.

IMEI numbers are usually on a sticker under the battery and will be displayed on the screen if you dial *#06#. Once you have these numbers, complete the registration form on AT&T’s website. Once you’re done, you’ll be told your new phone number — make a note of this.

Choose your plan — there are two obvious choices for a short trip to the US. If you expect to be using the phone for fairly extensive voice and/or SMS messaging, the “$2 Daily Unlimited Plan” gives you unlimited minutes and texts for $2/day. Just like it sounds. On the other hand, if you don’t think you need the phone much, the “10¢/minute” plan charges (surprise!) 10¢ per minute for calls and 20¢ each for texts. The latter plan is probably a better deal for tourists. I’ll discuss data billing in a second.

Cut it down — if you’re using an iPhone 4 or 4S, you need a microSIM, but you (almost certainly) have a mini SIM instead. You’ll need to cut it down to fit. I used a SIM cutter like these ones, but you can do it with a sharp knife if you’re careful.

Buy calltime credit — I used CallingMart without any problems, but there’s lots of alternatives. You’ll need the new AT&T phone number you were allocated at activation and a Paypal account or credit card. Note that sometimes with CallingMart, the first order on a new account goes through a manual verification process, so you’ll need to allow enough time before you travel to do this. You want a “AT&T GoPhone Prepaid Wireless Airtime Minutes Refill” and you probably want $35 of credit (so, $25+$10). You can use AT&T’s official site but it’s fiddly to register for, demanding a lot of details like your address and whatnot.

Just before you leave

Get an APN profile — again, you’re Not Supposed to use GoPhone with iPhones so when you turn it on your iPhone isn’t going to know how to talk to the network for data. We can fix this, though. Go to unlockit.co.nz on your phone, not your computer. Select “Custom APN”, “USA”, and select the “AT&T” profile. There’s lots of variant options there, like “AT&T (isp.cingular)”; the one that worked for me was plain “AT&T”. Tell the site to email this profile to you and file that email away on your iPhone for later.

On the plane

Change SIMs — pull out your usual SIM card and swap the AT&T one in. Obviously your iPhone should be in Airplane Mode during this process!

After arriving

Power up — turn your phone back on or turn Airplane Mode off, depending on how you had it deactivated. You should soon see your iPhone register on the network, and an “AT&T” logo appear at the top left. At this point you have voice and SMS service, but no data (yet).

Buy a data package — dial 1 (800) 901-9878 and navigate through the voice menus to “buy feature package”, “buy data package”. AT&T offer three fixed data packages: $5 for 10 MB, $15 for 100 MB, or $25 for 500 MB. If you’re planning on using your iPhone normally, you probably want the third option; if you’re on a budget or a very short trip you might be able to get by with the middle one. Once you buy the package, the data will last for thirty days.

Install profile — go in to your email and find the one you sent yourself from unlockit.co.nz. Tap the file attachment and confirm that yes, you’d like to install this file.

Test your data — if it doesn’t work, you probably need a different profile from unlockit.co.nz. These things seem to change sometimes so my advice will probably not work forever. You’ll have to find some Wifi first though, to get the phone online and download the profile. If you want to hedge your bets against this, you could email yourself all the different AT&T profiles ahead of time.

During your trip

Check your balance — dial 611 at any time to check your cash balance. Say “check my feature packages” to check how much of your data package is left.

Top up — if you need to, you can buy GoPhone credit at most major grocery stores.

After you come back

Swap the SIM — on the plane on the way back, swap back over to your normal SIM card.

Delete the profile — on your iPhone, go to Settings | General | Profile, click the AT&T profile, and click “Remove”. This puts your phone settings back to how we found them.

Keep the AT&T SIM — you can probably reuse it on your next trip. Depending on how much credit you put on it might even still be valid — the maximum $100 top up lasts for an entire year.

(Hat-tip to Nik Fletcher, who wrote a guide that served as the basis to mine. I’ve added a few small extra things over his notes, like emailing yourself the profile and the AT&T automated customer service numbers.)

What if I already have a GoPhone handset?

If (for whatever reason) you already have a spare GoPhone handset, and you want to prise the SIM card out and repurpose it in an iPhone, you’ll have to jump through some extra hoops because the SIM will be locked to the handset it was sold in. However, you can get AT&T to unlock it for you. My pal Guillermo has written a short guide on how to get this done.

The WSJ: "Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google Millions "

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:52:14 +0000

The WSJ: "Con Artist Starred in Sting That Cost Google Millions ":

Absolutely extraordinary story. A convicted felon con artist, David Whitaker, co-operated with the government to pose as an unlicensed online dealer in illegal pharmaceuticals (including steroids, human growth hormone, oxycodon, and the abortion drug RU-486). He then bought huge numbers of Google ads for the illegal sites, in blatant breach of Google’s written rules about what sorts of sites can buy advertising. Google turned a blind eye to the nature of the sties, ran the ads, and banked the money.

How guilty was Google? The article claims that “top Google executives, including co-founder Larry Page, were told about legal problems with the drug ads”. The government seized and collected “four million pages of internal emails and documents, as well as witness testimony”, but these documents will never see the light of day. Google settled out of court by agreeing to a $500 million forfeiture.

“Don’t be evil”, indeed. Astonishing.

Windows 8 "Secure Boot mode" locks Linux out of ARM tablets

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:44:37 +0000

Some time ago, it emerged that Windows 8 would support a new “Secure Boot” mode. In this mode, only operating systems with a cryptographic key signed and stored in the machine’s firmware would be bootable. Linux users and kernel hackers like my old pal Matthew Garrett feared this would lead to a wave of machines that Linux was not bootable on, as it’s unlikely to ever have a blessed boot key.

Ed Bott had stern words for these folk:

Microsoft has specified that this feature must be enabled by default for new systems that are sold with Windows 8 to qualify for logo support. OEM sales historically represent more than 90% of all Windows sales, making this a crucial requirement. If this feature has to be enabled manually by users, or if OEMs have the option to install Windows 8 with this feature turned off, the security feature is meaningless.

So the real question becomes this: Will PC makers make it possible for end users to toggle this option in the UEFI settings? And the answer is painfully obvious: Of course they will. They would be insane not to.

A non-trivial percentage of PC buyers will want to replace the installed operating system with either an older Windows version or an alternate operating system (like Linux). If they are unable to do so, they will call the manufacturer’s support line asking why this seemingly simple task cannot be accomplished

And Ed was right — Microsoft confirmed that it wasn’t going to force the issue, and it seems most or all OEMs will implement a disable switch for Secure Boot that the user can use at their discretion. Ed was also perfectly correct when he described the improved security that Secure Boot allows (read his post for a summary of these arguments).

However, it’s now emerged that Microsoft’s certification requirements for Windows 8 (via Aaron Williamson) says:

On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enable. … Disabling Secure [Boot] MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems.

So companies designing systems with an ARM CPU — used in small, lightweight systems like tablets and smartphones — will not be able to be “Windows 8 certified” unless they require Secure Boot. Not being Windows certified is tantamount to commercial suicide, so it looks like Microsoft did indeed just lock some number of new machines down to boot Windows only. If you accept the argument that the iPad and its progeny is going to change the face of personal computing, the affected new machines are also the most interesting ones to run alternative OSs on. If you buy a tablet that runs Windows 8 but decide you’d prefer to run Android, you will be out of luck.

This is not good. Cory Doctorow (as is often the case) verges on the hysterical, but I think he’s on to something with his post the coming war on general purpose computing. Computers are becoming more and more locked down. Consider two recent neologisms: “jailbreaking”, to mean “unlocking a device to run any application we want to install”, and “sideloading”, to mean “installing an app that didn’t come from the device vendor’s approved list”.

These were features that were taken so much for granted, were ingrained so deeply into our ideas of what a computer was, that we didn’t need words for them during the first 35 years of the personal computer revolution. Now we must invent words for them. As someone with a doctorate in computer science, and as a nerd with going on for three decades of enjoying computers and computing, I’m worried about this trend.

On cell phones, "silent" mode, and alarms

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:44:25 +0000

A story about the iPhone’s mute switch not turning off the alarm sound has somehow become big news, with both John Gruber and Andy Ihnatko weighing in on a debate about exactly what the mute switch should (or shouldn’t) do.

The furore has baffled me, because as far as I can remember, this isn’t even vaguely new.

For example, consider the manual for my beloved Sony-Ericsson T68i:

Even if you have set your phone to silent, the alarm and timer signals ring.

This was common to most or all Ericsson and Sony-Ericsson phones of that era.

It’s also true of Nokia. In fact, as a few people reminded me on Twitter, almost all (or all?) old Nokia phones would even sound the alarm if the phone was switched entirely off. From the Nokia 3120 Classic manual, for example:

To use any features in this device, other than the alarm clock, the device must be switched on.

So why are we now surprised that the iPhone works the same way? Consider this scenario: the iPhone mute switch does, as Ihnatko wants, silence everything. I want to use it as an alarm clock with the phone on charge on my bedside table (a not-uncommon desire, I believe). I’ve done this with every cell phone I’ve had, back to 2000 or so.

So: if Ihnatko has his way, I cannot mute the phone or my alarm will not sound. I am forced to leave the phone’s sound on and be woken up multiple times a night by beeps and gurgles as I receive Twitter messages or spam emails and what have you. That’s clearly not what I want, and as it’s not how any cell phone I’ve ever used has behaved, it’s also not what I expect.

I’d say Apple has it just right in the current implementation.

MG Siegler: "Why I Hate Android"

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:45:42 +0000

MG Siegler: "Why I Hate Android":

MG Siegler hates Android because, he claims, Google kowtowed to the carriers. He writes that the original plan for the Nexus One back in 2010 was to sell it as an unlocked Android handset for $99, but the US carriers outright refused to support it. Google’s hand were tied so in the end it went on sale for $529 and no-one bought it. Later, Google started to support things like Verizon’s attack on net neutrality.

I see two problems with this theory.

Firstly, the Nexus One cost about $175 to make at the time, plus the significant R&D costs necessary to have designed the thing in the first place. Teardown estimates like this are far from infallible, but I think that’s enough evidence to indicate that Google would be losing a lot if it had sold Nexus Ones for $99. Even if development costs could be amortized down to $25 per sale, Google would be left trying to recoup $100 back per user just to break even. That’s a tall order for mobile ad display.

Secondly, Google’s strategy was only flawed in the US. Here in the UK, we enjoy a wide variety of decent pay-as-you-go options from our four cell networks and half-dozen or so MVNOs. This is the perfect environment for Google’s plan, as Siegler outlines it, but the Nexus One launched £330 ($510) here. Similarly attractive no-contract mobile plans are available all over Europe and in many other countries worldwide but Google didn’t even make the phone directly available anywhere else.

So if Siegler is right, and Google had grandiose plans to do an end-run around the carriers, why didn’t it simply go abroad? It could have sold the Nexus One cheap in any number of countries, then pointed to those deals to put pressure on the US carriers to open up a bit via some simple consumer activism. The fact it didn’t makes me suspect Siegler’s reasoning is incorrect.

Windows Phone 7 "spiffs"

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:11:00 +0000

Apparently, Microsoft is now offering resellers a $10-15 bonus, or “spiff”, for each Windows Phone 7 device sold. John Gruber doubts this strategy, saying “Obviously this isn’t sustainable in the long run, given that $10-$15 per phone is probably the most Microsoft could be making in licensing fees.”

He’s probably right that, with any non-trivial spiff, each WP7 device sold will lose Microsoft money — unless the Nokia deal includes some sort of kickback above and beyond the OEM fees, anyway. But if you doubt Microsoft’s willingness to buy its way into a competitive position, consider the Xbox programme. The first Xbox lost four billion dollars and manufacturing faults with the Xbox 360 cost another billion. Yet in 2011, the Xbox business turned $1.32 billion in profit, with more to come.

The risky strategy worked; Microsoft bought its way in. Against all the prevailing market wisdom at the time, Microsoft turned Sony’s entrenched PlayStation brand upside down to assume a comfortable second-place position in the global games console market. If Nintendo hadn’t implemented a brilliant strategy shift to mainstream markets with the Wii, the Xbox 360 would probably be number one.

Clearly, Microsoft has the stomach for long and expensive fights when it thinks there’ll be an eventual payoff. With a $233bn market cap and $56bn cash on hand, it has the deep pockets too. WP7 was late to the market, but it’s winning admirers nevertheless. I think, and I hope, that we’ll continue to see it grow.

iTunes Match quality upgrades isn't just for low bitrates

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 22:30:19 +0000

I’ve seen a lot of tutorials like this one by Quentin Stafford-Fraser or this one by Jason Snell stepping people through the process to upgrade their old low-quality music to high-quality fresh version via Apple’s new iTunes Match service. All the posts I’ve read suggest the same thing: make a smart playlist showing all your matched songs with a bitrate below 256 kbit/sec (which is the quality setting for all iTunes music downloads), delete those files, and tell iTunes to get fresh copies from iCloud.

In other words, a playlist like this one:

This method, however, is missing a footnote. Quality isn’t just about bitrate; it’s also about the actual codec in use. MP3 is a very old format with problems and limitations that were addressed in the design of later solutions like AAC or WMA. Because of this, 128 kbit/sec AAC files sound quite a bit better than 128 kbit/sec MP3 files, for example.

With this in mind, I’d suggest you employ an extra smart playlist to pick up MP3 files of greater than 256 kbit/sec bitrate. These files, which won’t show up in the first playlist, will also sound better if you replace them with the iTunes Match version from iCloud — and as a bonus, the new files will even be smaller than the old ones.

Try a smart playlist like this one:

It turns out I had a few hundred of these, because back in the day I routinely ripped CDs using the --extreme LAME preset. This uses a variable bit rate codec which, for complex songs, could often average out at somewhere around 280-300 kbit/sec. I also had some rips I’d done at a fixed 320 kbit/sec. Listening to a few of those has confirmed that the AAC downloads from iTunes sound better, so I’ve deleted all those now.

So if you are looking to upgrade those old rips to pristine new downloads via iTunes Match, don’t overlook this extra trick to squeeze out a little more sound quality and save a modest amount of disk space.

A delivery of fresh hell for me this morning, courtesy of Apple....

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:57:56 +0000

A delivery of fresh hell for me this morning, courtesy of Apple. I plugged my iPad into iTunes only to be confronted with the news that apparently I’d never synced it before and my last backup was from months ago. Meanwhile, the iPad’s Settings app claims to have been merrily backing up to iCloud since then, with a last backup date of the night before last. Meanwhile, my iPhone sync is fine, so it can’t be anything global that’s changed in iTunes.

Even worse, I know I synced it after that backup date. On the 29th October, a different broken sync wiped 60 or so apps off my iPad. This cost me the save game state in a number of games I was enjoying, which is infuriating.

I’ve now told iTunes to restore that ancient backup, because at the moment I can’t sync new photos. A brief survey of the things I’ve done on the iPad over the last two months suggests I haven’t used anything other than cloud-enabled apps. Indeed, to my surprise, I noticed my entire homescreen only has apps that are cloud powered; Reeder, Flipboard, Writing Kit, Twitterrific, Mail, iThoughts HD, and so forth. So I’m not expecting to lose anything in reverting to this old backup — indeed, I might get back some of the save games I lost.

I look forward to seeing what iCloud is going to make of my iPad, post-restore.

It just works, right?