On Google & Android Focus

A post by Ben Monkbent about Google’s focus and Android has been getting reposted or linked to quite a bit today. The key paragraph seems to be its conclusion: For Google, Android was a detour from their focus on owning and dominating web services; it ensured that those services would be freely accessible in this [...]

Google IO Thoughts

I’ve been reading a lot of the summaries of Google IO on Ars and a few other places. I find Google’s evolution quite intriguing. While I think there’s always a danger to judge Google (or Apple) in terms of rumors, I think it fair to try and infer their product strategy from their actions and [...]

MS to Buy Nook

Microsoft is looking at buying Nook for an additional $1 Billion. That valuation seems odd to me. But MS can afford it. Is a book store as necessary for mobile as maps is? I don’t know. I understand why Apple did it so they wouldn’t be beholden to Amazon. Not as clear what’s going on [...]

MacPro Speculation

As many have noted recently, Tim Cook promised us “something really  great” for “later [this] year.” What on earth could this be? John Siracusa in a popular post a few months ago gave a general wish list for an attitude towards the pro market by Apple. John didn’t really get into what he thought a [...]

WWDC Predictions

I’m not usually good with predictions but I hate the people who wait until a week before with predictions after the leaks have already begun. So I’m making these more than a month early. Still I’m pretty confident of some of them.

Apple’s Release Cycle Problems

Those of you who have been following the Apple Maps cycle probably have noticed something. After the disaster that was its first month there was a flurry of activity. Maps improved a lot. Then (at least in the US) after November there’s been nothing. I’ve sent in corrections and have yet to see a single [...]

Using iCloud?

Lots of people have been commenting on Brent Simmons’ suggestion that developers not use iCloud. This follows up a somewhat problematic Verge story. It’s true that to say iCloud hasn’t lived up to expectations is laughingly understated. That said though it still seems like most people are judging iCloud primarily in terms of DropBox. I [...]

Apple Maps beast Google Maps

John Dvorak1 did a shootout between Google Maps, Waze and Apple Maps and declared Google Maps the winner. Google’s added some new features to Google Maps such as finally letting you access Google Contact information. Still no support for iOS’ contacts although it’s not hard to sync Google Contacts and Apple Contacts. To me contacts have [...]

Office 365: Where It Makes Sense

I was reading Pogue’s new MS Office review and it struck me that there is a case where it makes financial sense. Right now some Mac users want Office to use under OSX but there are always those few documents that don’t really look quite right. (I’ve found PowerPoint when using video is usually where I [...]

Old Influential Software

Dave Winer has a discussion of what early software was influential? Geeze. I’m a child of the 80′s and there was so much. I worked in a computer store in High School in Halifax, NS when the Mac 128k first came out. What still strikes me as most influential was when some folks from Apple [...]

Samsung’s Future?

I don’t normally write about Samsung and company however Chris Dixon had an interesting analysis. (HT: MG Siegler) He compared Samsung to Dell during the heyday of the Wintel period of computing. The mobile device industry is still in its infancy. Samsung’s fate depends largely on how the industry evolves. If the computer-in-your-pocket (smartphone/tablet) business [...]

Simplicity

I love this quote from John Siracusa over at a great interview with MacStories (one of my favorite blogs). No, I think it’s a result of Apple’s admirable drive towards simplicity going a bit awry. Simplicity is great, as iOS has shown. But there’s a difference between conceptual simplicity and visual simplicity. Just hiding controls [...]

Don’t Change

Gruber: They’re already the most profitable technology company in the world, and their three major platforms — iPhone, iPad, and Mac — are all growing. They don’t need to change a damn thing. Here’s the thing. Not that long ago you could have said the same thing about Microsoft. However ten years ago I think [...]

iPhone Rumors

I don’t usually talk rumors because most of the time they never amount to anything. Also some rumors are just repeating stuff it’s obvious Apple is working on.1 For any device Apple releases there are probably more than a dozen different prototypes at different sizes or attributes. Of course Apple is looking at bigger screens [...]

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