MG Siegler:
I’m going to try to only respond to email at a set time during each day. I’m going to put an hour (or perhaps two) in my calendar for this at the end of the day. And in that hour (or two), I’m not going to do anything besides email.
It’ll be interesting to see how this experiment goes.
Jake is a great player.
Fascinating case studies from Amazon, Google, Bing, and others.
Mathew Ingram:
Lapham’s Quarterly came up with some relatively ancient examples in a recent post entitled “Going Viral in the 19th Century.” At that time, it was commonplace for newspapers and magazines to include silly or amusing anecdotes, trivia, jokes and bad poetry as a way of lightening up the news. Newspaper editor Frederick Hudson was apparently driven to despair by these light-hearted items, which ran under headings like “Witticisms” or “Oddities.”
I thought this particular review was very interesting because it comes from a company that follows the publishing industry.
Wow, the rest of the companies are pretty pathetic. eBay (6%), Amazon (15%), Twitter (21%), Google (48%) and Facebook (49%).
Because nobody in their right mind would use that piece of shit unless they were getting paid.
Just incredible that they’re in this position.
All the beauty of Fantastical, but now for the iPad. I use it for the Mac and iOS—I beta tested the iPad version and love it.
The Fire TV device will stream Amazon Prime Instant Video titles as well as content from other providers such as Netflix and Hulu. Amazon also bundled games into the device with support for an external $39 Fire game controller. Well-known gaming studios such as Disney, Gameloft, EA, Sega, Ubisoft and Double Fine have partnered with Amazon to bring their titles to the Fire TV device.
Some competition for Apple TV.
So far, there aren’t clear signs of quite what it is that smartwatches and fitness trackers are replacing…
That’s key.
New gestures include left and right swipe to navigate through screens and a three finger tap to share snippets or notes. Improved organization options include reordering of snippet groups via drag and drop and moving snippets between groups. The new snippet group info view includes a setting to turn off expansion of the group’s snippets.
Lots of changes and additions, including being built for iOS 7.
More disruption for the TV industry.
The apocalypse, a behind-the-curtains look at classical music, a no-nonsense Los Angeles police detective standing trial, a family full of secrets, a girl with magic wishes and a boy named Gortimer—these are the intriguing plotlines of the six brand-new original series coming exclusively to Prime Instant Video. Amazon Studios today announced that The After, Bosch, Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent and Wishenpoof! will become the next Amazon Original Series following rave customer reviews of the pilot episodes.
There’s a lot of good (potentially) stuff here. Wish I had the time to actually watch all this stuff. Sadly, I still haven’t even dug into season 2 of House of Cards.
This is very interesting. It’s kind of like a cross between Kickstarter, but with a writing platform like Medium. It would be very nice if something like this worked.
From the Mac App Store update page:
The Safari 7.0.3 update is recommended for all OS X Mavericks users and contains improvements to compatibility, stability, and security. This update:
• Fixes an issue that could cause the search and address field to load a webpage or send a search term before the return key is pressed
• Improves credit card autofill compatibility with websites
• Fixes an issue that could block receipt of push notifications from websites
• Adds a preference to turn off push notification prompts from websites
• Adds support for web pages with generic top-level domains
• Strengthens Safari sandboxing
• Fixes security issues, including several identified in recent security competitions
Here’s a link to the details of the security contents of the upgrade.
When the Mac Pro was first introduced, there was a lot of discussion about the potential for user upgradeability. Back in January, Other World Computing (OWC) confirmed that they were able to upgrade a Mac Pro in-house. Now they are making processor and memory upgrades available to the rest of us.
From the OWC press release:
Other World Computing today officially introduced Intel Xeon processor and OWC memory turnkey upgrades for the latest AppleMac Pro 2013. Options include 8-Core, 10-Core, and 12-Core models. The processors are fully compliant with Apple technical specifications and power requirements and are fully tested, qualified, and guaranteed to meet or exceed the processors available from Apple.
Note that the install is done by them, not via a kit:
The OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program includes professional installation and testing by OWC’s Apple Certified technicians, shipping both ways, and options to upgrade memory, add Thunderbolt technology external storage solutions to your order and extend the included OWC one-year limited warranty to three years.
Interestingly, if you order a Mac Pro from the Apple Store, the expected ship time is 5-6 weeks. That’s for the US store, not sure what the delay is outside the US. This is not much different than the ship time we reported back in February.
It’s been suggested that the delay is due to the high percentage of customized orders. That may be, but it doesn’t click for me. I think the long lead time is a combination of high demand and (my speculation) delays in the manufacture of a critical component. It is what it is. The Mac Pro has been well received and, I suspect, demand has been even higher than anticipated.
Still on the stand, Schiller is getting into slightly new ground as he is asked to think back to his first reaction to the first Samsung Galaxy.
“It looked so much like an attempt to copy the iPhone,” Schiller said.
Competition is not the problem here. Blatantly stealing and copying Apple is the problem.
Good story from Hayley Tsukayama looking at the HTC M8.
“The total damages are high,” said Harold McElhinny, a lawyer for Apple. “But I hope you understand the reason the damages are high is because the scope of Samsung’s infringement is massive.”
Samsung should be made to pay every penny.
Big day for iWork. The updates can all be downloaded from their respective App Stores.
iWork on the Mac
– Delete, duplicate, and reorder sections using the page navigator in Pages v5.2
– Set margins and create headers and footers in print setup in Numbers v3.2
– Enhanced presenter display options and new transitions including Droplet and Grid in Keynote v6.2
iWork for iOS
– Improved support for bi-directional text in Pages v2.2
– Progress indicator for calculations in Numbers v2.2
– New remote feature lets you control slideshows on other devices in Keynote v2.2
iWork for iCloud beta
– New “view only” setting lets you share documents you want others to view but not edit
– Updated design in document editor
– Open documents directly from iCloud Mail
Did you know that when a hockey player winds up for a slap shot they’re not trying to hit the puck?
Duh. I’m Canadian.
Such a great song. I’ve been listening to it over and over.
The first single from Zakk’s upcoming album, “Catacombs of the Black Vatican,” which will be released on April 8.
Lots of great Mac games here from Aspyr.
Jim Dalrymple and Dan Benjamin talk about the evolution of a small business, making things you like instead of what the audience wants, wearable tech, guitar modeling vs. the real thing, and more.
From Microsoft’s MSDN blog:
Consistent with our previously announced commitment to match Amazon on prices for commodity services, we are cutting prices on compute by up to 35% and storage by up to 65%. We recognize that economics are a primary driver for some customers adopting cloud, and stand by our commitment to match prices and be best-in-class on price performance.
First Google announced their price cuts, then Amazon followed suit. Took a while, but that third domino finally fell.
Welcome to the cloud commodities market.
Has it been another year again?! Because, really, reading the work of these pundits, it seems like it’s been a lot longer. But catalog the atrocities we must! For history must know … that … uh …
Ladies and gentlemen, the Macalope.
If you know the difference between the Apple A6 and the A7, and if the term ARMv8-A means anything to you, then this read will likely bring you great joy. Anand Lal Shimpi is one smart guy.