John Gruber on Dan Lyons’ latest article. The simple truth is, Lyons is not relevant so he posted stupid articles to get pageviews. Higher traffic doesn’t make you relevant, you still sound stupid.

Wow, that’s impressive.

Jeremy C. Owens for Mercurynews.com:

Hewlett-Packard is working on a new smartphone as its core personal computers and printer businesses faces growing challenges, CEO Meg Whitman said in an interview Friday morning.

Of course, it wasn’t too long before Whitman stepped into the CEO role at HP that the company killed off its Palm division, which was making a smartphone.

Whitman stopped short of offering details; Owens opines that the “new Windows Mobile” is a possibility, or maybe Android. What, no webOS?

iLounge:

But we’d strongly suggest that you take this one step further. The right thing for Apple to do is to give every iPhone 5 customer a Lightning to 30-pin Adapter. Ditto for new iPod nano and touch customers.

Give me a fucking break.

Rainer Brockerhoff’s Solipsism Gradient blog:

People keep asking why Apple didn’t opt for the micro-USB connector. The answer is simple: that connector isn’t smart enough. It has only 5 pins: +5V, Ground, 2 digital data pins, and a sense pin, so most of the dock connector functions wouldn’t work – only charging and syncing would. Also, the pins are so small that no current plug/connector manufacturer allows the 2A needed for iPad charging.

Many people have also pointed out another advantage of Lightning – it’s reversible. Micro USB is tiny and easily damaged if you try to force it in the wrong way (I know from personal experience).

Brockerhoff also posits a plausible reason for why the Lightning to 30-pin dock connector is so expensive. Read on for details.

(Thanks to Nick Farina on Twitter for linking me to this.)

Brian X Chen for New York Times:

An Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Kerris, said: “iPhone 5 supports simultaneous voice and data on GSM-based 3G and LTE networks. It is not yet possible to do simultaneous voice and data on networks that use CDMA for voice and LTE for data in a single radio design.”

Much has been made today about reports that the iPhone 5 won’t support simultaneous voice and data transmissions over Verizon and Sprint LTE networks.

It is a competitive shortcoming of the phone compared to contenders like Samsung’s Galaxy S III, and it’s because the iPhone 5 doesn’t sport a separate antenna (and radio) to handle voice transmissions like the Samsung phone does. According to Chen’s report, carriers should fix the problem at some point in the future.

Technical sophisticates like bloggers and smartphone enthusiasts are making a big deal of the problem, but it remains to be seen if it’ll have any impact on actual iPhone 5 sales. Muggles are not always interested in the same things that tech weenies care about.

Alibaba said that Acer “was notified by Google that if the product runs Aliyun OS, Google will terminate its Android- related cooperation and other technology licensing with our partner….We regret Google’s action.”

Stay classy Google.

The Verge:

The Verge has confirmed with Verizon Wireless that the iPhone 5 won’t support the feature when it’s on the carrier’s cellular network, even if it is connected to LTE. Since Apple says that Sprint and Verizon will be offering the same version of the iPhone 5, it’s safe to say that simultaneous voice and data will not be available on Sprint’s network either.

Well, that sucks and might be a dealbreaker for some folks looking to switch from AT&T.

TIME:

On Wednesday, 18 workers were arrested for stealing the miniatures from LSG Sky Chefs, the company that provides food and beverages for American Airlines, CNN reports. The majority of those accused were LSG employees, but three were airport security guards. The arrests culminate a nine-month investigation known as “Operation Last Call” carried out by the Port Authority’s Office of Inspector General.Here’s how the whole scheme went down. At the end of every American Airlines flight, workers are supposed to return any unused bottles to a storage facility. Instead, workers began stashing the bottles to sell them to local liquor stores and bodegas.

I love those little tiny bottles of booze.

TechCrunch:

Apple took something ordinary, a phone, did some extraordinary things to it, and then made it re-appear in grandiose fashion. It’s a great trick. It’s so good, in fact, that I think it’s fair to call it true magic.The problem, if you want to call it that, is that Apple has now been doing this trick since 2007. Granted, they have other solid tricks too (they are far from the one-trick pony claims that several of their competitors face). But the iPhone is the best trick in their bag. And in the last few years, some people have gotten sick of seeing it.But it’s important to remember that just because you’ve seen a show before, it doesn’t make actually make it any less magical. It’s a perception issue.

Interesting way of looking at the discussion surrounding yesterday’s iPhone 5 launch.

Rob Fahey for Gamesindustry.biz:

Dear People On The Internet – you’re utterly irrelevant, out of touch, and seemingly possessed of absolutely terrible memories to complement your weakened powers of deduction. Remember when you passed precisely the same judgment on the iPhone 4S? Remember when it then went on to become the fastest-selling and most profitable phone handset of all time? Remember that? Tell me, oh wise Internet People, what is it about your logic that’s different this time around?

Fahey’s responding to early criticism from some tech pundits and bloggers that the iPhone 5 failed to live up to their unrealistic expectations.

There’s been so much douchebaggery posted about the iPhone 5 since yesterday, I barely know where to start. The old canard about opinions being like assholes is true: Everyone has them and they all stink.

Fahey makes a great point that depsite Android’s inroads and its massive success at moving large quantities of handsets from different manufacturers, iOS still rules for content, and content is king.

Regardless, though, we – meaning both consumers and content creators – live in an iOS dominated world. The oft-touted Android activation figures and handset sales are almost irrelevant, since they cover such a wide variety of devices – many of which are bargain basement handsets that are unlikely ever to be used to make purchases from any app store. All the Android devices in the world don’t matter to a game creator if few people are using them to buy stuff – whereas Apple’s effective cornering of most of the high end of the market, along with its deeply integrated App Store infrastructure, means its consumers tend to be big spenders.

Ina Fried for All Things D:

In an interview, Apple Senior VP Phil Schiller said that Passbook alone does what most customers want and works without existing merchant payment systems. It’s not clear that NFC is the solution to any current problem, Schiller said. “Passbook does the kinds of things customers need today.”

Near Field Communication, or NFC, has been promoted as The Next Big Thing in smartphones – technology that will make it easier to buy products and exchange data using smartphones and other devices.

Some pundits and tech bloggers had thought the iPhone 5 would have NFC built-in, but it doesn’t. Passbook, a new feature of iOS 6, enables users to keep track of boarding passes, movie tickets, loyalty reward programs and other services.

And by virtue of it being built into the operating system, not the device, Passbook will have a much larger potential installed base right off the bat, when iOS 6 is released next Wednesday.

Matthew Panzarino for The Next Web:

We reached out to a few active iOS developers to get their thoughts on whether the larger screen would mean delays or a more difficult development process. The general consensus was that it shouldn’t pose too many huge problems, but that it would be a lot easier to test their apps if they had a device in their hands.

Glad to hear it is a surmountable issue, but there’s no question that it’s going to take a while for iOS developers to get up to speed with the new hardware.

LA Times:

With Apple poised to announce the long-awaited iPhone 5 on Wednesday and reap heavy sales from it, analysts and software developers are looking beyond the product launch to whether Cook can set his own course at the company after the death of its co-founder.“I think we are definitely still riding Steve Jobs’ stewardship,” said Matt Brezina, chief executive of mobile start-up Sincerely Inc. “Tim needs to define what kind of leader he is externally. As a developer on their platform, I’m not quite sure what kind of leader he is yet.”

I can guarantee you that Tim Cook doesn’t give a rat’s ass if people can’t figure out what kind of leader he is.

I know it’s a blue shirt and a lanyard, but does everything have to look like Apple did it?

Andrey Doronichev on the official YouTube blog:

For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can download the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.

The new app features access to more videos, a new channel guide, predictive search suggestions, sharing on Google+, Facebook and text message and more. It’s a free download.

This is a replacement for the “built-in” app included with iOS 5, which will go away with the next major iOS release.

512 Pixels:

In preparing for tomorrow’s podcast, I decided to type up a list of Amazon’s pricing for the Kindles. Here’s the complete list.

I won’t steal the pertinent information from the site (others will though) but before you click through, take a guess at how many price points Amazon has for the Kindle and then guess how many Apple has for the iPad. It’s hard not to imagine that Amazon is creating their own “Paralysis of Choice“. Thanks to Matthew Panzarino for the link.

BlueToad:

A little more than a week ago, BlueToad was the victim of a criminal cyber attack, which resulted in the theft of Apple UDIDs from our systems. Shortly thereafter, an unknown group posted these UDIDs on the Internet.We sincerely apologize to our partners, clients, publishers, employees and users of our apps. We take information security very seriously and have great respect and appreciation for the public’s concern surrounding app and information privacy.BlueToad believes the risk that the stolen data can be used to harm app users is very low.

Well….that’s embarrassing.

TUAW:

…last week…Amazon introduced its new, larger HD (Kindle Fire). With low-cost, built-in LTE, and a $50/year data plan that gives users 250 MB of data per month, it provides a budget alternative to the iPad.No matter how you look at it, the Fire is a bargain.

Agreed but the line “I’ve used the Kindle Fire for a year now. It’s fine. The Android-based OS isn’t particularly horrible” is certainly damning with faint praise.

Mike Isaac for All Things D:

Web hosting company GoDaddy experienced a period of company-wide outages on Monday morning, taking down a slew of Web sites that rely on the company for hosting services.

A person who claims an association with the hacker collective known as “Anonymous” is claiming credit for the kill.

New York Times:

(Here) comes an actor, comedian and writer, seeking to make his way across the country in the next two weeks with only a dream and, oh, yes, instead of a dollar, a trailer filled with 3,000 pounds of a new bacon.The actor, Josh Sankey, will embark this week on a promotion for the Oscar Mayer division of Kraft Foods that is being called the Great American Bacon Barter.

This is just yet another lame attempt by Corporate America to leverage social media (and use the mainstream media as a promotional tool) and turn something viral. It rarely works and often blows up in their faces.

On the other hand – Bacon. So there’s that.