jkincaid

Facebook knows it could lead to some major backlash too, so they're being very conservative with the initial rollout. If you go to Yelp, it's actually hard to tell at first glance that any data sharing has occurred. Go to Pandora and it will know what bands you like, but who is going to get upset about that? And Docs.com doesn't appear to be open to the public yet.

As the program expands, though, there could be a pretty serious shitstorm. I don't think people understand what the 'Everyone' option means, and this could be the first time they realize what they signed up for during Facebook's privacy overhaul last December, when Everyone became the default.

This is only a small part of what XAuth can do. From my understanding, 'extenders' can include anything they want in their XAuth token, including session IDs. If you want to, you can allow 'receivers' to automatically gain access to your users' data, without prompting the user to connect their account to the receiver site.

It sounds to me a lot like Facebook's auto-connect stuff that is in the pipeline.

It also helps make the company seem more accessible ("hey, Jobs will answer an average Joe's email, he loves us!") when in reality Apple PR is notorious for ignoring the press unless it serves them.

I think the point is that if you want to, you can probably conjure a logical-sounding, professional explanation for just about any 'evil' action by a company. From their standpoint, when isn't it logical to do something that hurts the competition?

I'm not saying the explanation John Gruber came up with (and was later reaffirmed by Steve Jobs) is false. I just don't think it makes Apple's actions much easier to stomach.

Granted, I know plenty of people who still play Foursquare religiously, but I suspect they'll burn out on the gameplay too eventually. It's very hard to keep a game engaging over multiple years. I have nothing against Foursquare, I just hope they have some plans to mix things up.

I don't get how one would feel less strongly about this point than the others. To me, the notion that smart kids would stop tinkering with things never seemed like a real threat. It's more fun to tinker with things when it's against the rules, anyway. My concern has always been the long term implications of embracing this closed app distribution platform.

I've read plenty of arguments for and against it. Inevitably, I am left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Yes, I understand that this gatekeeper system could help keep users from hurting themselves. But Apple has also shown that it is not just looking out for its users — it's also being anti-competitive, namely with its decision to block new Google apps.

I've seen people try to argue that Apple is in fact very open because it includes Safari, which is HTML5 compliant. But I've yet to experience many HTML5 apps that are as snappy or easy to use as their native counterparts, and it seems like 'native' will continue to evolve faster than 'web' for quite a while.

I bought an iPad. I really like it, and was thrilled by how quickly my parents learned to use it. But I can't shake this feeling that the App Store's entirely closed ecosystem is a bad thing.

My hunch is that these first attempts by magazines will look cool but feel really gimmicky, to the point that they're a bit of a joke. Think cheesy quizzes and games and video content that's been available on the web for weeks (remember, these digital magazines will take time to produce). I wrote about this topic a bit more back in January if you're interested: http://techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/apple-tablet-book-revolutio...

Line2 was first submitted to the App Store in August 2009, which was really bad timing because it was in the middle of the Apple/Google Voice storm. A month later it was approved (after the founder pestered Apple a lot). And I'm pretty sure the version Pogue is reviewing was actually released last month (http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/18/line2-google-voice/).

In other words, none of this is news to Apple, though it's clearly hypocritical on their part. Also, no way Apple would pull this after a Pogue review — he'd probably write about it, and he's proven before with his 'Take Back The Beep' campaign that he can incite quite an uproar.

That will not continue to be true for long. The future of media consumption (well, at least music consumption) is from streaming services, which don't make you deal with syncing. iTunes may be user friendly, but the whole sync process is still time consuming and frustrating. Also, all music that's been sold on iTunes for over a year is DRM-free, and you can 'upgrade' your older songs for a relatively modest fee if you want to.

There's an argument that video content (which is still laden with DRM) will provide adequate lock-in, but that will probably start streaming too in the next year or two. And I think it's less of a big deal to most people if they can watch a TV show on their phone, anyway.

"Mozilla is now aware of a post by MetaLabs that shows a Mozilla developer copying prior design work. The mockups they cite were an early proof of concept created by cut-and-paste, never final designs. Mozilla respects the hard work of all designers and at no time meant to plagiarize original content. The in-progress designs for the Jetpack SDK’s IDE are available here (http://flightdeck.zalewa.info/) and following initial sign-off on the proof of concept, the IDE was developed entirely independent of MetaLabs’ work."

I tried checking out the video card in my 27 inch iMac (by far the most expensive desktop I've ever purchased) and was a bit underwhelmed to find out the card was released in 2008...

It's one thing for Apple to set guidelines on what it's going to allow in the store. It's another thing entirely for it to not set guidelines, but instead force developers to figure out for themselves what is allowed based on which apps have already been accepted. Now Apple is changing the rules on the fly, so even apps that historically have been acceptable may not be allowed in.

If Apple wanted to keep these promotional spammy apps out, it should have started blocking them from the start, before people started building businesses around them.

Now I'm wondering how long it will be before Apple starts removing the many thousands of book applications on the App Store, now that it has its own official Books app.

Google has been slightly more subtle with its shots back. It released Navigation for Android, which I strongly doubt will be making it to the iPhone any time soon. It acquired AdMob before Apple could. And then it launched its own phone (less subtle, that one).

I'm curious how early Jobs found out about Google's plans for the Nexus One. I'm sure such devices take a long time to make, and if he heard last spring/summer that Google was making its own phone, that might have sparked all of this. That's just speculation though.

See http://www.ejog.org/article/S0301-2115(04)00474-9/abstract if you are on a university campus (otherwise it won't let you access the full text).

What I found, though, is that most of them weren't really interested in learning how to use their computers — at least, not to the point that they'd feel comfortable navigating to interesting new websites.

Instead, they'd usually tell me exactly what they wanted to do, be it access their webmail account or play Bejeweled, and asked me to write out a checklist detailing how to do it (click the Start button, click the blue IE button, etc.). This actually worked pretty well most of the time. But if something didn't go according to plan they were too scared of messing things up to trust their intuition (especially when I wasn't around).

I really wish the iPad was around in those days, it would have been perfect for them.

Really? Because I think plenty of people (primarily teens) would disagree. Imagine you're 16 and there's a cute girl that you're too nervous to talk to but maybe if you just poked... Oh wait. You did it. Can't take it back now. Will she respond..?

I'd love to see how many relationships were kindled this way. I know this isn't really crucial to her argument, but she spent a whole paragraph ripping on pokes.

Edit: Corrected author's gender.

They'll save the 'superior device' angle for other features where the size of the user base is less important (GPS Navigation).