Aaron Moodie is a Melbourne based graphic designer. Temporize is a collection of musings, comments and ideas on design.
“We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99,” Murdoch said. “They pay us the wholesale price of $14 or whatever we charge,” he said. “But I think it really devalues books, and it hurts all the retailers of the hardcover books.”
It seems that I'm not the only one with some serious concerns about where Apple is heading. From Alex Payne:
Honestly, as simple a step as Apple making iPhone/iPad SDK access free – along with its ability to install apps on the Apple devices you paid for – would be an acceptable first step towards openness. Let’s do some clumsy math on this point. According to Wikipedia, there are currently around 140,000 apps in the App Store. Let’s round up and say that each app is made by a different developer. So, at $99 per year per developer, that’s $13,860,000 per year that Apple is making selling SDK access. For a company that just posted a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, I think it’s safe to call the SDK money a drop in the bucket.
Further, the argument that Apple has invested in the “Open Web” as an alternative free platform for their devices simply doesn’t ring true to me. Talk to any non-geek iPhone user and you’ll quickly realize that they have no idea that web apps can, for example, be saved to the home screen like regular apps. The general attitude, once they get used to the phone, is that if there isn’t an app for it, it’s not worth doing on the device. And why wouldn’t they have this impression? Apple’s ad campaign isn’t “there’s an app for that, and also the entire open web”. For now, the web is an afterthought on these devices.
Mark Pilgrim also has a great follow up to this piece.
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Yes, we've all got something to say on the issue. There are a number of things I could bring up about the release of the iPad this week, but for now, the one that has been bugging me is how Steve Jobs has classified Apple's newest device, or more importantly, how he classifies netbooks. Jobs' pitch is that the iPad fits in as a third device between the iPhone and the MacBook, and that a netbook does not. It's been long know that Job's has a dislike for netbooks and sees them as just 'cheap laptops', but that he would see them as an additional device for someone already owning a laptop is something I find a bit odd, and throws up the question as to whether Jobs actually understands why netbooks are so popular in the first place.
I currently own a MacBook Pro, which I use for my primary work machine and home machine. This has been great in terms of choosing to work at home some days, or at a friends studio on others. But constantly having to pack up and lug around a laptop plus accessories has started to get a little tedious after two years. When I went back to uni last year, I started toying with the idea of separating these machines. An iMac for work and a netbook (hacked to run OSX) for all else. Netbooks are a lot less intrusive for use in a lecture, on public transport or just to carry around in a shoulder bag, all things where a 15, or even a 13 inch MacBook is little too bulky.
Jobs is right in one sense. A netbook doesn't do anything better than a laptop, but it does do everything a laptop does at a super portable size. Something the iPad does not, and cannot do. I think Casey Reas said it best in a tweet the day of launch:
The iPad is for consuming media, not producing media -- I don't like that direction
Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe by locking the iPad to the iTunes app store, Jobs has isolated the students and professionals who are looking for a machine to produce on, and who don't have a spare $500 to drop on an additional device just for browsing the web, watching movies or listening to music.
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Speaking in Washington, the US secretary of state will announce a policy to increase access to an uncensored internet for people in other countries, her innovation adviser said.
Oh, but thats right, the internet in Australia isn't being censored, just 'filtered' for our own protection ... [link]
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In a follow up to yesterdays post, I've just been going over the new Palm Developer Centre and was surprised, and happy, to see that developers can choose between distributing their apps through the Palm App Catalogue, or if they choose, via their own site or blog.
Palm offers multiple ways to distribute the apps you create, so you can choose whichever ones work best for your business.
The App Catalog built in to every webOS phone gives customers one simple and direct place to shop for paid and free apps, all of which are downloaded over the air.
If you're looking to get your app to customers outside of the App Catalog, you can use our web distribution option. Doing so gives you a unique URL that lets customers install your app either from their phone or desktop browser. You can distribute that URL through online directories and communities—or any other way. With Palm, your reach isn't limited to a single store; it's as broad as the web itself.
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Although the web has been abuzz with rumours, musings and predictions on the Apple Tablet, I haven't really given it much thought. As Mr Jobs has said, if it's only going to be useful for surfing the Web in the bathroom, why make it.
of course the App Store will be the only avenue for native third-party tablet apps. (“Native” as opposed to web apps, which by definition are wide open.) Whatever the problems and complaints developers have about the iPhone App Store, Apple clearly sees it as a huge win. They love the experience it provides, they love the control, and I’m sure they enjoy the 30 percent cut of the revenue.
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After thinking about the moral issues behind the Australian governments plan the filter the internet, I started thinking about what technical implications this is going to have on our nation. Now, and over the next few years.
Have your say. Join the campaign at GetUp and sign the Twitter Petition.
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The Federal Government is going ahead with plans to force all Australian servers to filter internet traffic and block any material the Government deems ‘inappropriate’. Under the plan, the Government can add any ‘unwanted’ site to a secret blacklist.
Testing has been released on systems that will slow our internet by up to 87%, make it more expensive, miss the vast majority of inappropriate content and accidentally block up to 1 in 12 legitimate sites. Our children deserve better protection - and that won't be achieved by wasting millions on this deeply flawed system.
Refused Classification (or RC) is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material -- for example, educational content on safer drug use -- as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia. This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues.
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