July 10, 2012
That’s what you get for bringing a leprechaun to work ∞
Not the best recommendation letter I’ve read, but what can you expect.
New Dropbox Pro plans ∞
Dropbox Blog:
As people add more stuff to Dropbox, we want to make sure they don’t have to worry about space.Today we’re happy to announce that our upgrades are getting a huge upgrade! Dropbox Pro now comes in flavors of 100 and 200 GB, but at the price of the original 50 and 100 GB plans. For those of you who need even more space, a brand new 500 GB plan is also joining the posse! If you’re already a Dropbox Pro subscriber, just take a seat and enjoy the fireworks — your Dropbox will supersize itself automatically tonight.
Welcome news for those heavy Dropbox users.
Penny Arcade offers Kickstarter project to go ad-free for a year ∞
So, we’re turning to you. Would scouring ads from Penny Arcade, with everything that entails, be something you’d be willing to reach into your pocket for? The more we considered it, the more we agreed it might just be. Not only would you no longer have to look at advertising when browsing Penny Arcade, but not having ads would create a chain reaction that would lead to a bunch of other interesting stuff.
Interesting idea. The Penny Arcade folks are proposing that people fund the site through Kickstarter for a year. In return, they’ll pull advertising and do “other interesting stuff” with the space. Time will tell if they can successfully do this, but they’re already off to a ripping start.
RIM selling its corporate jet ∞
Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), which has lost 95 percent of its market value since 2008, is selling one of its two business jets under a plan to save $1 billion in operating costs, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Wait a minute. You’re telling me that while thousands of employees lost their jobs, market share tanked and the stock price plummeted, executives kept a corporate jet? Yep, everything is just fine at RIM.
Ballmer is off his meds again ∞
“But we are not going to let any piece of this [go uncontested to Apple],” shouted Ballmer. “Not the consumer cloud. Not hardware software innovation. We are not leaving any of that to Apple by itself. Not going to happen. Not on our watch.”
But that already happened on your watch.
Stupid San Francisco ∞
Erica Ogg:
Just days after news hit that Apple no longer wants its computers and monitors evaluated for EPEAT certification, the first public agency has said it will no longer be allowed to buy Macs as a result.
Instead of looking at a certificate, why not visit Apple’s environmental Web site and see what the company is actually doing with its products to help the environment.
This is why iCloud isn’t in more apps ∞
Kyle Baxter:
…naturally I’ve also been thinking through how syncing should work. This seems like an easy question to answer: iCloud. If only. I wish it were that easy, but it’s not.
As a user, I want iCloud implemented in everything I use. However, for developers, there are reasons why iCloud doesn’t make sense yet.
Thinking about the iPad mini ∞
There are just too many little nuggets of Gruber-goodness in this article to pick out one or two.
Netflix business model for magazines
First off, full disclosure – I hate digital magazines. I love print magazines. Digital has huge file sizes, annoying download issues, widely varying user interfaces and price structures. Print is print, for better or worse.
Now that we’ve got my bias out of the way, I was still very impressed with the concept of digital magazines from a company called Next Issue Media.
NIM is a joint venture of five U.S.-based publishers (the service is only available in the U.S. for the time being) – Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc. They have just announced the availability of their iPad app in the US – the Android version has been available for a few months.
The CEO of NIM is Morgan Guenther, a former president of TiVo, told VentureBeat, “We’re focused on premium content,” he said, “content that’s not available for free on the web.”
To that end, at iPad launch, NIM has 39 titles to start, “with many more expected later in the year”, NIM’s Chief Technology Officer, Keith Barraclough, told me in an interview. The list of titles include popular magazines such as TIME, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Bon Appétit, Golf Digest and many more.
But even more interesting than the titles is what TIME called “a wrinkle that might be a game-changer, and is intriguing at the very least: flat-rate pricing.”
There are lots of digital magazines already available in a variety of ways, some of which are included in NIM’s stable. From standalone apps like Wired’s to “mobile reading application” Zinio to Apple’s own Newsstand. But the “all you can eat” model NIM is offering is intriguing.
NIM offers two pricing plans – “Unlimited Basic” which includes those titles that are published monthly and bi-weekly, like Car and Driver, Fortune, Vanity Fair and others. It also includes all the back issues of those same magazines – but only back to the beginning of 2012. Unlimited Basic is $9.99 per month.
“Unlimited Premium” includes all titles in the NIM catalog, including weeklies such as Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker and TIME and all their back issues to the beginning of 2012, for $14.99 per month. Plans are paid monthly via an automatic charge to a credit card and there are no annual or other prepayment plans.
NIM also offers individual magazine subscriptions from $1.99 to $9.99 per month and single magazine issues are available from $2.49 to $5.99 per issue. If you already subscribe to the paper edition of an included magazine, Barraclough told me all you have to do is enter your account information into the app and you will be credited with the digital version. Best of all, NIM is offering a 30-day free trials for all their subscription plans.
The Big Question is, will it encourage more people to go digital for their magazines?
According to AllThingsD, “Two years after the iPad launched, consumers have only shown a mild interest in tablet magazines — digital represents just 1 percent of the industry’s circulation.”
I’m certainly a prime example. I love paper magazines, subscribing to ten monthly and weekly editions and often buying individual issues of others like Esquire or Vanity Fair that have an interesting article or two. But I’ve never found digital offerings compelling enough.
I haven’t yet tried the NIM app but I was assured by Barraclough the issues of user interface have been solved through the app. While the titles will retain their unique look and feel, they have been given a consistent UI through the app, eliminating one of the confusing aspects of the differing magazines.
More good news/bad news – the Next Issue Media iPad app supports all generations of the iPad. That means it will look fine on my original iPad but those of you lucky enough to have the Retina Display of the latest iPad will have to wait until “later in the year”, according to CTO Barraclough, before the app is optimized for higher resolutions.
Another issue is the lack of issues. While 39 titles at launch is quite a few, they are primarily “mainstream” magazines. If your interests lie outside that range, you’re out of luck. For example, my favorite hobbies – motorcycling, skiing and photography – aren’t represented by a single title, even though there are dozens of magazines covering those markets. But Barraclough said this is just “version one” of the app and they are working hard to bring on many more publishers and titles – even ones not printed by the five partners in the venture.
Bottom line – is it worth it? At $120 – $180 per year, unless you’re a magazine junkie, probably not. But if you are, and the titles hold even a little interest, it would be. The ability to have all your magazines on hand and to even read magazines you don’t subscribe to just for an article or two, might be compelling. If you’re a household of two or more magazine readers, it becomes much more of a no-brainer.
If you would like, you can to listen to the entire audio interview I did with NIM’s Chief Technology Officer, Keith Barraclough.
Those who don’t learn from the past… ∞
…are doomed to repeat it.
“The past is of no great interest to me,” Mr. Boulben said on Monday, chatting over a salad at the Bauer Kitchen in Waterloo. “Give me a bit of time.”
Boulben is RIM’s new Chief Marketing Officer.
Unofficial Spotify app on Kickstarter ∞
As you might or might not know, Spotify terms and conditions don’t allow developers to make money from app sales or advertising. That means I need your support to make this a reality.
A brief history of the iPad ∞
Dave Caolo has begun posting a series on his 52 Tiger blog entitled “A Brief History of the iPad,” tracing the history of tablet computing from the 19th century (yeah, the 1800s) to today. Make sure to check it out.
July 9, 2012
Nexus 7 is not a game changer ∞
Jerry Hildenbrand, Android Central:
The Nexus 7 doesn’t bring a compelling reason to “go Google” when considering a tablet purchase like we were hoping.
More ways the iPad can’t create cool things
Wes Ball goes through his workflow during the production of his short film, RUIN.
Incredible video, but if you go to about 1:30 he talks about using the iPad to create the trees for the project (Yes, I said create).
iPad helps scientists ∞
Joel Mathis, Macworld:
It wasn’t so long ago that Chris Grant would regularly take a whole laboratory’s worth of equipment with him into the wilderness. These days, he just takes an iPad.
This must be wrong. The iPad is only for consumption.
RIM’s positive outlook could get it sued ∞
“They’re going to get sued and they should get sued because I think a closer look at the record is likely to unearth knowing and willful misrepresentation,” said Jean-Louis Gassée, the former president of Apple’s products division and the founder of the software maker Be, who is now a venture capitalist and blogger in Palo Alto, Calif. “When the C.E.O. says there’s nothing wrong with the company as it is, it’s not cautious, it doesn’t make sense.”
North Carolina’s mega data center cluster ∞
GigaOm went on a road trip to investigate North Carolina’s big data centers.
Apple kills sites selling iOS betas ∞
Federico Viticci:
While most of our emails bounced, we heard back from one of the site owners (who asked to remain anonymous), who confirmed his hosting provider took down the site after a complaint for copyright infringement by Apple.
This is a good thing. You’re not allowed to sell access to the beta, so they should be shutdown. Here’s the thing — these OS updates are betas and most people don’t realize the damage they can do to their phones if something goes wrong. As a developer, I have full access to the beta, but I still don’t have it on my phone.
Judge: Samsung ‘not as cool’ as Apple ∞
Samsung Electronics defeated Apple in the latest spat in the rivals’ patent wars when a British judge ruled Samsung’s Galaxy tablets did not infringe the U.S. company’s designs for the iPad because they were “not as cool”.
I laughed. Hard.
One announcement away from destroying the Nexus ∞
Abdel Ibrahim:
But unfortunately for Amazon and Google, as good as their impending tablets are shaping up to be, Apple’s got something up its sleeve, too.
I agree with Abdel on Google, but not as much with Amazon. When Apple releases its smaller iPad, all tablet manufacturers are going to feel the heat — there is no doubt in my mind about that. However, I believe people purchase the Amazon products for a different reason. They buy into the Kindle brand as opposed to just purchasing a tablet. While some people may choose to buy the smaller iPad, many will continue to buy the Kindle because it does the one thing they really want from it — read books.
Canadian weather ∞
I mentioned Canadian weather on Amplified the other day, which lead Dan Ruswick to make this funny page.
July 6, 2012
Christianity isn’t the only religion? ∞
It’s an honest mistake, assuming that the Constitution only protects your own personal megachurch faith. But one Louisiana Republican is learning the hard way that religious school vouchers can be used to fund education at all sorts of religious schools, even Muslim ones. And while she’s totally in favor of taxpayer money being used to pay for kids to go to Christian schools, she’s willing to put a stop to the entire program if Muslim schools are going to be involved.
Hate ∞
Erin Gloria Ryan:
Obscene images, hate sites and a game where people are invited to beat you up have been inflicted on Anita Sarkeesian.
Just terrible.
The bullshit story of the week ∞
There’s a a lot of shit stories out there, but a site called “Trusted Reviews” outdid everyone. They actually did a comparison between the Microsoft Surface and the iPad to see which one was better.
How in the sweet hell do you compare a product that isn’t on the market, nobody has touched and we don’t know the full specs or even price.
Bullshit.
Toshiba’s sleazy tablet ads ∞
BuzzFeed:
I honestly can’t believe this was approved by such a major company as Toshiba (212,000 employees worldwide). This is 2012, right? Anyway, creatively, the videos are basically lame. The double entendres are lame. The ending jokes are really lame. If you’re going to be sexist morons, at least push the idea a bit. `
` Agreed. If you’re going to be sexist morons, at least put some effort into it. Thanks to Michael Gartenberg.
Who wrote this shit?
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg talking about his speech at Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
The Beatles’ Abbey Road photo shoot outtakes ∞
One of the most classic album covers of all time.