Michael Kan for Computerworld:

Apple dropped out of the top five list in China’s smartphone market for the third quarter, as local handset vendors saw their shipments surge from the sales of low-priced smartphone models, according to research firm Canalys.

Samsung and Lenovo are ranked first and second, respectively, while Chinese handset maker Yulong, makers of Coolpad smartphones, slid into third place. ZTE and Huawei, both Chinese firms, rounded out the top five. The research firm responsible for the study says the five manufacturers produce low-cost smartphones that are more appealing to Chinese consumers.

The news isn’t all bad for Apple, though – the company’s Chinese shipments grew year over year, and the iPhone 5 hasn’t yet been released there.

Mel Martin did a great interview with the photographer.

A big update was released for Pixelmator today that adds Soft Proofing, a feature that allows users to preview and work in CMYK colors.

John Moltz on Office for iOS.

Spot The Station:

Did you know you can see the International Space Station from your house? As the third brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon, the space station is easy to see if you know where and when to look for it.NASA’s Spot the Station service sends you an email or text message a few hours before the space station passes over your house.

This is kind of a neat idea, especially if the emails give you enough time to get outside and to a good, non-lit location.

You can’t treat your customers like this Google. Don’t be evil.

“We believe BB10 is likely to be DOA,” James Faucette, a Pacific Crest analyst in Portland, Oregon, said in a report. He has the equivalent of a sell rating on the shares. “We expect the new OS to be met with a lukewarm response at best and ultimately likely to fail.”

Well, RIM has its patents.

Great post by Michael Mulvey.

Jim and Dan talk about iPad sales and how the press has handled it, the Microsoft Surface, the Nexus 4 and LTE, Google’s iOS Map app approval, Google Search vs. Siri, the “real” iPad, cabinets and the Multistomp Xoom pedal, and more.

Sponsored by Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), Squarespace (use code DANSENTME11 for 10% off), MailChimp, and Symbolicons (use code DANLOVESICONS for 15% off).

Marco Arment:

If you truly dislike bullshit writing and don’t want to support it, hit the publishers where it hurts: don’t read it, and don’t link to it.

Marco brings up a good point, but there is another side to this. The mainstream media often writes complete shit articles that are factually wrong. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. The average consumer often believes the crap these people write, so taking them down a peg or two may help.

I honestly don’t know if it helps or not, but I feel a responsibility to point out articles that are incorrect. Perhaps shaming them and the sites they work for will help.

Of course, there is a group of people that just write bullshit for pageviews — I don’t always link to those.

“I am pleased and proud to become a member of the board,” Cue said in a statement. “I have personally dreamed of owning a Ferrari since I was 8 years old and have been lucky to be an owner for the past 5 years. I continue to be awed by the world-class design and engineering that only Ferrari can do.”

I wonder if Eddy needs an assistant.

I’m seriously disappointed in Google not standing behind a defective Nexus 7, just because I didn’t purchase it from them. Apple and Amazon stand behind their products no matter where you purchased them.

Stay classy Google.

Apple’s true advantage is when applications are available across all three platforms, offering a device-optimized and consistent experience no matter what I am using.They offer a frictionless experience.

This is what Microsoft was telling people at a Windows Conference in the UK yesterday. It’s almost like they believe this shit or something.

More coolness in CSS.

Space.com:

Call it the ultimate absentee ballot.NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the option of voting in the presidential election from orbit.Astronauts residing on the orbiting lab receive a digital version of their ballot, which is beamed up by Mission Control at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Filled-out ballots find their way back down to Earth along the same path.

Apple made the arguments today to U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal in federal court in San Jose. Apple’s bid to expand the lawsuit follows Samsung’s Oct. 1 move to add patent- infringement claims against the iPhone 5 in the same case.

Here we go.

Farhad Manjoo:

But it didn’t take me a week and a half to decide whether the Surface is better than the iPad. At most it took a couple days, and that’s being generous. You’d likely arrive at the same conclusion after playing with the Surface for just a few minutes in a Microsoft Store. That’s because the new tablet’s flaws are glaring.

Farhad is definitely not a fan.

The Nokia Lumia 820 starts at $49.99 with a two-year wireless contract from AT&T while the flagship Lumia 920 phones start at $99.99 with the same contract terms.

That’s much more aggressive than what I would have thought. Seems they are going straight for the low-end market.

Prime typically costs $79 a year in the United States for free two-day shipping, free video streaming and access to Amazon’s Kindle e-book lending library. The company is now offering the service for $7.99 a month on its website, which works out to $95.88 a year, but at that rate it can be purchased strictly on a month-to-month basis.

This can only be good for consumers.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Absolutely one of my favorite and most used apps on iOS and Mac.