Month: February 2013

Introducing Your Instagram Feed on the Web ⇥ blog.instagram.com

Kevin Systrom:

Your Instagram Feed on the web functions much like it does on your mobile phone. You can browse through the latest photos of people whom you follow with updates as people post new photos. Like photos by double clicking on them or pressing the like button. Or, engage in a conversation around a photo with inline commenting. Browse through pages of the most recent images to keep up on what’s happening with the people you follow in realtime. And shrink your browser down to a single column for your feed to look more like your mobile feed. Simply put, we’ve brought a simple, powerful, and beautiful Instagram browsing experience to the web.

Shorter Systrom: “for when you’re too lazy to unlock your phone.”

New Undocumented APIs in iOS 6.1 ⇥ oleb.net

Ole Begemann digs apart at the secret sauce buried in iOS 6.1. Not a lot of changes, but there are a few interesting things in here — namely _UIWebViewController — which set Apple up nicely for iOS 7.

Dell to Go Private in $24.4 Billion Deal ⇥ reuters.com

Poornima Gupta, Reuters:

The deal is being financed by cash and equity from Michael Dell, cash from Silver Lake, cash from Michael Dell’s MSD Capital investment firm, a $2 billion loan from Microsoft Corp and debt financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets.

It’s far too easy to reference Michael Dell’s infamous 1997 quote about what he’d do if he were in charge of Apple. But that was a different Apple; on the other hand, Dell has barely changed since then.

Microsoft’s $2 billion contribution is particularly interesting. Mary Jo Foley is suspicious of its chances of a successful return:

Microsoft does not own part of Dell as part of this transaction. However, the situation reminds me of another major Microsoft “investment”: The billions it paid to Nokia almost exactly two years ago to help rescue a company teetering on the edge of a “burning platform.”

At the time of the February 2011 Nokia deal, Microsoft wanted and needed at least one of its partners to be “all in” with the Windows Phone platform, to the exclusion of competing operating systems like Android.

Steven Davidoff of the Times’ Dealbook doesn’t like the management-led buyout at all:

The first issue is price. In such a buyout, a company’s executives have an incentive to pay the lowest price possible, yet they are also supposed to represent the interests of shareholders. That’s a fundamental conflict.

Scaling the iPhone’s Interface to Five Inches ⇥ imore.com

Rene Ritchie of iMore has some mockups you should see. They look comically large on my iPhone, but I suspect those with poorer eyesight might find their size more comfortable.

Ritchie also touches on the market size of a giant iPhone:

Almost 9 out of 10 AT&T customers bought 4-inch or smaller iPhones last quarter rather than all big screen Android and Windows Phones combined, and roughly 6 out of 10 Verizon customers did the same. So aside from geeks who keep posting about how they really want it, and shoppers for whom bigger as a feature is always better, Apple might not feel any pressing, mainstream need to add another screen size to the iPhone product line. Yet.

This is absolutely true. But there’s clearly a market for these giant-ass phones overseas. Samsung has apparently sold a million Galaxy Note II phones in South Korea alone, and I’ve even seen a few in use around Calgary. Colour me surprised — I still think a phone that big is utterly stupid.

But the Note II has a display that would be half an inch larger diagonally than a five-inch iPhone — not a small difference at these sizes. This hypothetical iPhone would still be a hair larger than both the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Nexus, both of which are far too large for my tastes.

Setting aside the state of the market for phones of this size, it’s worth asking what criteria iPhone buyers are primarily basing their purchasing decisions on. If it’s a reflection of a preference for iOS, then some sales that are currently going to 3.5- to 4-inch iPhones are possibly a compromise for some users who would prefer a larger display. On the other hand, there are some buyers who would prefer an Android phone, but can’t find a smaller one that’s any good.

I’m an English Professor in a Movie. ⇥ mcsweeneys.net

Teddy Wayne, for McSweeny’s:

To whom does that ringing cellular phone belong? I use “whom” accurately and don’t end sentences on prepositions because I’m an English professor. I’ll just walk toward the sound and eventually locate its source. I can’t imagine it’s that Midwestern freshman, who is currently squirming in her seat with perspiration dotting her brow. I’ll approach her anyway, and if the phone continues chiming, I’ll know she’s the culprit… it’s still jingling that benighted popular-music ringtone… I’m just a few feet away now, inching along as if I’m in some decelerated temporality…

Harrumph. It stopped ringing, just as I reached her. Now that there’s silence I can no longer punish the guilty party, whoever it is.

Perfection.

What I Do for a Living ⇥ ticci.org

Federico Viticci:

First conversations with doctors are awkward, particularly when you’re 23 and you’ve been diagnosed with cancer. Inevitably, you’ll talk with many doctors in many hospitals in many rooms with the same uncomfortable chairs and outdated Windows XP computers connected to printers that make terrible rattles. And your parents will be there every time as well.

You’re going to have to answer questions about your name, address, habits, and, yes, what you do for a living, while your parents whisper the answers with you. But since I was diagnosed with cancer 12 months ago, every time a doctor arrived at “What do you do for a living?” my parents remained silent, turning to look at me. He’s got to answer this one.

I loved this article when I first read it in The Magazine a month or so ago. It was a joy to read it again.

If Mr. Viticci, by some stroke of luck, sees this post, I offer my best of wishes to you.

MBV ⇥ deadgirlfriends.tumblr.com

One of my favourite bands, My Bloody Valentine, finally released a followup to their genre-defining “Loveless” on Saturday night, simply titled “MBV”. The catch? That album was released in 1991. The gap between the two albums means that I’ve waited almost my entire living years to hear this album. But it was worth the wait — it’s one hell of an album.

James Brooks reflects on some of the unique aspects of the second half of the record (sic):

if that’s what the problem was i guess it makes sense that what we ended up getting were some sonic experiments that engage with the tempo and repetitive structure of jungle or dnb without containing any breakbeats or synthesizers or any other actual deliberate sonic nods to those genres and a couple of slower songs over midtempo beats that sound kinda like st etienne

Via Scott Whittaker.

Social Networking During That Big Game of Which the Name Is Forbidden to Be Spoken Lest Someone Think I’m Affiliated With a Giant Saucer ⇥ marketingland.com

Matt McGee of Marketing Land:

According to my count, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 national TV commercials — that’s 50 percent of the spots that aired during CBS’ game coverage. Facebook was mentioned in only four of those commercials — about eight percent. Google+, which is reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world, wasn’t mentioned at all.

Given that Facebook is bigger than Twitter, you’d think it would have more mentions. But I think the marketing geniuses at these brands recognize that Twitter is more personable, and therefore more valuable to market towards.

Also, I didn’t post about it when that survey was released, but I’m calling bullshit that Google+ is the second-biggest social network. Of the dozen-or-so people who I have on both Facebook and Google+, not a single one of them has posted since mid-November. Anecdotal, sure, but that’s what’s important: if your friend group (your “network”, as it were) doesn’t use it to socialize, it isn’t a successful social network, is it?

Update: Bobby Grasberger notes a flaw in McGee’s methodology:

All 26 of his “Twitter mentions” included hashtags. But many of the hashtags were platform agnostic: not accompanied by a Twitter logo.

Intriguing that the hashtag is no longer a Twitter-ism, but broadly supported across Instagram and Google+ as well.

Mercedes Formula 1 Launches 2013 Silver Arrow ⇥ mercedes-amg-f1.com

Bear with me; there is some tech news relevance here.

I’m a big fan of Lewis Hamilton’s driving, so I’ve been waiting patiently for this reveal all winter. It’s not the most beautiful car this season — that’d be Sauber’s — but I’m sure it’ll be quick.

Tech news? Check out that giant BlackBerry sponsorship on the side. But just because there’s a glowing press release and copious product placement, that doesn’t mean the drivers will be using the phones. And, indeed, Hamilton and Rosberg much prefer their iPhones.

TechCrunch Didn’t Do the Research (Again) ⇥ techcrunch.com

Sarah Perez of TechCrunch:

Look! Apple just released a new product during the Super Bowl. Actually, it’s a new product for App Store developers – short “AppStore.com” vanity URLs. […]

These new vanity URLs could quickly turn into a land grab in the crowded App Store, which now has some 800,000 mobile applications available in the iOS App Store alone.

A “land grab”, eh? That phrase was in the headline, too, but was removed, though you can still see it in the post slug.

But if Perez (or any editor at TechCrunch) had bothered to read Apple’s developer documentation for the feature before hitting the “Publish” button, they would have known that these are generated by Apple for each app and company, so there will be no “land grab”.

Oh, but this is TechCrunch, so they can’t admit to their mistake like anyone else:

UPDATE: After checking with a couple of App Store developers and sources inside Apple, it sounds like the new vanity URLs will not be able to be configured to whatever the developer wants them to read, but will rather be provided by Apple on the developers’ behalf.

Checking with “sources inside Apple” wasn’t necessary. You could have simply done the required reading in full.

Actually Getting Things Done ⇥ curiousrat.com

A fine post from Harry Marks on the narrow divide between passion and obsession, but perhaps a level of persnicketiness can define someone’s ability to actually get things done. Consider:

And how can I forget my first love and eternal mistress, coffee? I’m not going to worry about how long the beans were roasted or how fast I’m performing the Japanese upside-down inverted pour-over technique. Maybe all I need is a cup of McDonalds’ java because it’s fast and caffeinated and good enough.

Firstly, I’d be impressed if you could do an inverted pour-over technique, Marks. Kudos.

Second, while Marks is comfortable with a cup of McDonalds’ coffee in a pinch, I would argue that a level of obsession in my coffee is necessary for me to get things done. A while back, I was sitting in an editing suite, and someone else working in the suite brought me a cup of coffee on a whim. I’d never told this person what I do (or don’t) like in my cup, so you can imagine my surprise when it was a dark roast filled with sugar. It was so awful that it was undrinkable. I appreciated the gesture, but I simply could not stomach it.

The terribleness of the coffee was too distracting for me to accomplish the work I was trying to do.

My daily coffee takes ten minutes from the cold kettle being put on the burner to having a filled cup. That’s not short, but it’s not bad — you’d wait longer in most cafés, anyway. But I don’t weigh my beans or water. I don’t check to ensure the grind is absolutely consistent day-to-day. I’m a snob, but a lazy one.

So perhaps the challenge is finding the level of passion for things that matter, in a way that doesn’t impede your life. I know I’ve found my perfect pen: it’s any ballpoint with ink in it.

Apple’s 2013 To-Do List ⇥ hypercritical.co

John Siracusa on what Apple should do this year. Most of these are obvious, but critical nevertheless.

Small Aside: It strikes me as odd that the 13” Retina MacBook Pro performs as poorly as it does. My MacBook Air’s integrated graphics power a display of nearly identical resolution to the MacBook Pro’s in a significantly smoother way. My display has a vertical height of 1,440 pixels, whereas the laptop’s display is 1,600 pixels vertically. It’s surprising that there’s such a significant performance difference in that 2,560 × 160 pixel area.

It’s Not a Good Day to Be Twitter, Either ⇥ blog.twitter.com

Bob Lord, Lord Director of Security at Twitter:

This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.

The good news is that at least 35% of those were spam accounts. (This statistic hasn’t been verified by anyone — I just made it up.)

Update: See what I mean?

It’s Not a Good Day to Be Path ⇥ eeqj.com

Having just settled last year’s contact data controversy for $800,000, Jeffrey Paul1 has found another privacy shortcoming in the app:

Path’s iOS app […] will use the embedded EXIF tag location information from photos in the iOS Camera Roll to geotag your posts, even when you’ve explicitly disabled Location Services for the Path application.

Path seems to take privacy as seriously as I take their app’s chances of continued success.

  1. Yet another for the two first names club. ↥︎