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By John Gruber
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Recipe for Baked #160;WordPress #9733;
Justin Williams:
Making your WordPress site Fireball-proof is not hard and anyone
who can’t find the minimal amount of time to do it probably
shouldn’t be self-hosting in the first place.
The Talk Show, Episode #160;37 #9733;
Another episode of America #8217;s favorite podcast. Topics include Fred Wilson #8217;s #8220;develop for Android first #8221; advice, Amazon #8217;s potential role in the Android landscape, and grown men in bathtubs.
Brought to you by two fine sponsors: FreshBooks and MailChimp.
Khoi Vinh on The #160;Daily #9733;
Khoi Vinh:
To me, The Daily is a near perfect realization of exactly the idea
that occurs to print editors every single time they get their
hands on digital media for the first time, regardless of what the
underlying technology might be: “Let’s make it just like what
we know so well in print.” As a result I found it sadly lifeless
and lacking in urgency.
Skyhook Wireless on Android’s #160;Openness #9733;
Keep Skyhook Wireless #8217;s lawsuit against Google in mind when considering Andy Rubin #8217;s protestations regarding Android #8217;s openness:
In complete disregard of its common-law and statutory obligations,
and in direct opposition to its public messaging encouraging open
innovation, Google wielded its control over the Android operating
system, as well as other Google mobile applications such as Google
Maps, to force device manufacturers to use its technology rather
than that of Skyhook, to terminate contractual obligations with
Skyhook, and to otherwise force device manufacturers to sacrifice
superior end user experience with Skyhook by threatening directly
or indirectly to deny timely and equal access to evolving versions
of the Android operating system and other Google mobile
applications.
Put another way, there is something called #8220;Android #8221; that truly is open source, in the #8220;take this and do what you want with it under this standard open source license #8221; way. But that #8220;Android #8221; doesn #8217;t include all sorts of things that we, as users, think of as being part of Android #8212; things like Google Maps, Gmail, Android Market, etc. (and you can #8217;t even call something based on this #8220;Android #8221; unless Google permits you to). None of those things are open in any sense of the word, but all of them are essential aspects of any consumer phone or tablet running Android.
Andy Rubin on Android’s #160;Openness #9733;
Andy Rubin:
Recently, there’s been a lot of misinformation in the press
about Android and Google’s role in supporting the ecosystem.
Where by #8220;a lot #8221;, I think he #8217;s mostly responding to this piece for Businessweek by Ashlee Vance and Peter Burrows.
Our approach remains unchanged: there are no lock-downs or
restrictions against customizing UIs.
But that #8217;s not quite a rebuttal of what the Businessweek story reported. From Businessweek, emphasis added:
There will be no more willy-nilly tweaks to the software. No more
partnerships formed outside of Google #8217;s purview. From now on,
companies hoping to receive early access to Google #8217;s most
up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they
will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google #8217;s
Android group.
As Jason Kincaid writes at AOL/TechCrunch:
The key words here are “early access”. Yes, as Rubin says,
manufacturers can still access the Android code once it’s
released and the same old rules apply, but there’s no doubt that
Google is giving preferential treatment to certain carriers and
hardware manufacturers in return for their cooperation.
And, as the Businessweek article points out, there’s a strong
incentive to get first dibs on a new version of Android. You’re
first to market, you get loads of press coverage, and so on.
Google can dangle this carrot, and then ask for restrictions that
go well beyond what it typically requires.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Atari’s Greatest Hits #9733;
Not sure how many of these will translate well to touchscreen control, but of course I #8217;m buying them all.
Lukas Mathis’s Skype 5 #160;Ideas #9733;
Lukas Mathis:
After complaining bitterly about Skype 5, I should probably
offer some suggestions on how to improve it. Redesigning somebody
else’s product is always a tricky business. You don’t know why
they made the decisions they made. You don’t have the data they
have. You don’t know what constraints they had. So this is not
meant as a «here’s how Skype should look like» article.
Instead, these are five ideas that might make Skype better.
Very thoughtful ideas, and some great links at the end to discussion by others.
OS Footprint Is Not a Proxy for Application #160;Footprint #9733;
Greg Cox:
This analysis by Henry Blodget on Business Insider makes the
classic (repeated ad-nauseam) mistake of putting Apple in a race
they’re not in. Apple does not make a third party OS platform
for phones. It makes phones and it makes an application platform
for developers. What he is implicitly doing is using OS footprint
as a proxy for app platform footprint, and at this point in the
mobile market’s evolution, that is just wrong headed.
An older piece by Cox that #8217;s also worth a read: #8220;The Only App Phone #8221; #8212; a really good multivariate argument about why iOS has such a strong software market. Includes this observation:
Turn on the iPhone and the first, and only, thing you see is apps.
When the iPhone came out it was striking that everything,
everything, was an app. Even the voice call functionality was
encapsulated in an app. This was a massive departure from phones
at the time, which all had send and end buttons. The mobile phone
had been a physical thing and the iPhone made it a software app.
‘The Libations of James Bond, Drinker, Sailor, Connoisseur, #160;Spy’ #9733;
This is why they invented the Internet:
From Casino Royale (1953) to Quantum of Solace (2008), find
every alcoholic beverage consumed by the world’s most famous
secret agent.
Detailed catalog of every drink from the Bond movies and novels, dutifully researched. The original site is, alas, no longer online, but the Internet Archive has it.
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Farming vs. Mining #9733;
Wil Shipley on farming vs. mining as a metaphor for running a software company:
In the mining model of software companies, the charismatic,
flighty founders and their investors stand to make a lot of
money. Their workers, their customers, and their secondary
investors all get boned, because these companies and their
products tend to suck.
Epic’s Tim Sweeney on Mobile #160;Gaming #9733;
Matt Buchanan interviews Epic #8217;s Tim Sweeney:
Speaking of Android, you #8217;re probably wondering why there #8217;s no
showstopper like Infinity Blade for the platform. Well, wonder no
more. Says Sweeney, #8220;When a consumer gets the phone and they wanna
play a game that uses our technology, it #8217;s got to be a consistent
experience, and we can #8217;t guarantee that [on Android]. That #8217;s what
held us off of Android. #8221; The problem with Android is consistency.
#8220;If you took the underlying NGP hardware and shipped Android on
it, you #8217;d find far far less performance on Android. Let #8217;s say you
took an NGP phone and made four versions of it. Each one would
give you a different amount of memory and performance based on the
crap [the carriers] put on their phone. #8221; Bottom line, for Epic to
do the kinds of things they do on iOS, #8220;Google needs to be a
little more evil. They need to be far more controlling. #8221; Even so,
the main reason Epic has focused on iOS? #8220;It #8217;s really the best
place to make money. #8221;
Sweeney just needs to talk to Fred Wilson.
So Much for Toyota’s Jailbroken iPhone Ad #160;Campaign #9733;
Kyle Matthews, owner of ModMyi:
I received a call from our contact at Velti this evening as well
as an email asking me to please take the theme out of Cydia. On
the phone, he explained Apple had contacted Toyota and requested
they remove the theme and stop the advertising campaign. They
(Velti) in turn contacted me relaying the message. The reason
Velti listed for the removal request of the theme emailed through
our dev portal was #8220;Toyota’s making us take it down… #8221; Toyota
had agreed to do so to #8220;maintain their good relationship with
Apple, #8221; our Velti contact told me on the phone.
Who at Toyota thought this was a good idea?
iPhone 5 Will Not Launch in #160;June #9733;
Jim Dalrymple:
My sources said today that rumors of an iPhone 5 release at the
end of June were completely false.
What kind of sense would it make for Apple to release or announce a new iPhone in June and not do it at WWDC? Do people even think before they publish stuff like this?
David Friedman Proposes a New ‘Save’ #160;Icon #9733;
I love baseball and I #8217;ve been complaining about the use of floppy disk icons for #8220;Save #8221; buttons for years, but even I don #8217;t think a home plate icon works #8212; too U.S.-centric. It #8217;s a tricky design problem.
As Marco Arment notes, iOS has solved this not by coming up with a new icon, but by eliminating the need for users to explicitly save anything or to deal with the file system directly. So maybe it #8217;s somehow right that the universal icon for #8220;Save #8221; is a relic from a bygone era of computing.
Xoom Uptake #9733;
Two observations from Google #8217;s Android OS usage numbers:
Over 65 percent of Android devices are on 2.2 or better. That #8217;s not bad at all.
Only 0.2 percent are on 3.0. I don #8217;t think the Motorola Xoom is selling very well.
World of Goo’s iPad Launch #160;Numbers #9733;
2D Boy:
In the first month of sales on the iPad App Store, World of Goo
sold 125K copies (thanks to being prominently featured by Apple).
In comparison, World of Goo’s best 31 day period on WiiWare was
68K copies (thanks to a mass mailing by Nintendo), and on Steam it
was 97K copies (thanks to two promotions at discounted prices). So
far, the iPad version is by far the fastest selling version of the
game, both in terms of number of units sold and in revenue
generated.
What makes this even more amazing is that this is a two year old
game released on a platform that is less than a year old. The iPad
doesn’t have the benefit of an install base built up over
several years.
This is what makes iOS different than Android.
The Problem With 4G in a #160;Nut #9733;
Jonathan Geller, reviewing the HTC Thunderbolt for BGR:
How does the Verizon Wireless’ first 4G LTE smartphone do in the
real world? Well, not that great to be honest #8212; especially with a
1400 mAh battery. Over 3G, the ThunderBolt can easily power
through a normal workday. On 4G, however, I couldn’t get more
than around 4.5 hours of usage at best… a figure that is not at
all acceptable to me.
What makes matters worse is the fact that 4G can’t be switched
on and off by the user. There is no widget to disable LTE and
there’s not even a menu setting you can check on and off to
enable or disable 4G.
4.5 hours of battery life.
Stanley Kubrick’s Chicago, #160;1949 #9733;
Speaking of Kubrick, this one #8217;s worth a re-link:
Before he started making movies, Stanley Kubrick was a star photojournalist. In the summer of 1949, Look magazine sent him to Chicago to shoot pictures for a story called “Chicago City of Contrasts #8221;.
Monday, 4 April 2011
‘Barry Lyndon’ Coming to Blu-Ray May #160;31 #9733;
One of my favorites, finally available on Blu-ray. Just $14 at Amazon.
Update: If you #8217;re just starting your Kubrick Blu-ray collection, get the boxed set for just $105.
Google Bids to Buy Nortel Patent Portfolio for $900 #160;Million #9733;
Not a bad first day on the job for Google CEO Larry Page.
On the Argument That Android Is Taking #160;Over #9733;
Nice piece by Jon-Erik Storm on Henry Blodget #8217;s and Fred Wilson #8217;s arguments that Android is the new Windows:
Really? I can come up with three counterexamples. One, gaming
consoles. There are three: XBox, Playstation, and Wii. There has
almost always been more than one important gaming console. Two,
there are several web browsers that people use. If IE were still
the only one, standards like HTML5 and CSS wouldn’t matter.
Three, is Facebook really the only social platform? What is
Twitter then? Maybe iTunes would have been a better example, eh?
And as for PCs, Apple seems content with it being the #1 laptop
and #2 PC maker with its approximately 8% marketshare, but yet
reaping more profits. But the point is these examples are
unscientific and don’t explain why technology platforms
stabilize that way (if they do) and why that will apply to
smartphones.
That #8217;s the question of the decade. Is mobile going to work out like the console market, with a handful of competing and roughly equal major platforms? Or is it going to work out like the PC, where a lower-cost inferior licensed OS grows to an overwhelmingly dominant monopoly position? (And, as Storm points out, Apple #8217;s penalty for #8220;losing #8221; the PC war is that it is now the world #8217;s most profitable PC maker.)
(Also worth noting about the console market: the lead has changed hands several times: Atari, Nintendo, Sony, Nintendo. And second-place has changed numerous times as well. It #8217;s long been a healthy competitive market.)
Update: Another WordPress blog fireballed. Google has it cached.
Reuters: ‘FT Won’t Give Up Subscriber Relationship to #160;Apple’ #9733;
Georgina Prodhan, reporting for Reuters:
The Financial Times wants to keep selling subscriptions for its
digital news directly to readers rather than surrender control of
new customers who sign up via Apple #8217;s iPad, the managing director
of FT.com said.
Not a word of complaint about the 70/30 revenue split. Their complaint is solely about access to customer information, which they profit by selling. And remember: it #8217;s not Apple that controls that information with App Store subscriptions: it #8217;s us, the users. What the FT is arguing here is that they don #8217;t want their subscribers to have any control over their customer privacy.
Toyota Advertising on Jailbroken #160;iPhones #9733;
Curious:
Car manufacturer Toyota is reportedly running adverts in the Cydia
store to promote their iPhone user interface theme, also
distributed through the store. The adverts and the theme are part
of Toyota’s advertising campaign for the 2011 Scion tC vehicle.
Jailbreaking goes mainstream?
Technology Is Not #160;Enough #9733;
#8220;This is what we believe: technology alone is not enough. #8221;
Perfect new iPad 2 spot from Apple. Here it is on YouTube.
ShopSavvy Android vs. iPhone #160;Numbers #9733;
Alexander Muse, ShopSavvy:
For every ShopSavvy user with an iPhone there are four who have an
Android phone. Our downloads per platform are maintaining this
disparity. We assumed we were just popular on Android, but there
is something much bigger going on. Consumers are flocking to
Android in droves!
Interesting numbers, but even ComScore is only reporting a 33-25 percent U.S. market share lead for Android vs. the iPhone. 4-to-1 is off the charts. Maybe it #8217;s that there are so many more competing apps for iOS? Maybe it #8217;s that Android users are more interesting in bargain-hunting?
Update: The user-contributed reviews for ShopSavvy in the App Store are pretty mixed; many of them describe its bar-code scanning as slow and inaccurate, and suggest using Red Laser instead. So maybe it #8217;s just an inferior app.
Peter Kafka Interviews MLB.com CEO Bob #160;Bowman #9733;
Peter Kafka:
MLB.com boasts one of the most successful subscription
businesses in digital media; last year, the company reported
1.5 million subscribers, and expects that number to hit 2 million
this year. So it’s worth listening to Bowman’s take on Apple
vs. Android, his company’s recent Facebook experiment, and why
mobile advertising is taking off. [ #8230;]
Kafka: Why do you think an Android owner behaves differently than an
iPhone owner?
Bowman: The iPhone and iPad user is interested in buying
content #8212; that’s one of the reasons they bought the device. The
Android buyer is different.
I.e., Android users are cheap.
Kafka: So you’re selling via Apple’s new in-app subscription
rules. But you’ve decided you can live with them?
Bowman: We’ve been living by them since March 1st. We don’t
view them as a dramatic change from where they’ve been in the
past. We’re hopeful that over time, the margin will fall from 30
percent, but we don’t know if it will.
But make no mistake about it, Apple’s been a great partner. Last
I checked, they created the iPhone and the iPad.
Comparison Between iOS, Android and Windows Phone #160;Sales #9733;
Lee Armstrong:
For a few months now we have had our “Plane Finder” app
available for the major 3 platforms largely due to demand from the
user base.  I have put together a graph of sales from the 3
platforms without actual numbers so you can compare side by side
how they fare!
His iOS numbers exclude the iPad, just to keep it fair.
The Engadget Staff Jumps Ship to SB #160;Nation #9733;
Joshua Topolsky and the rest of the Engadget staff that #8217;s quit AOL in recent weeks are starting a new tech site for SB Nation.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Henry Blodget on ComScore Smartphone Market Share Data: ‘iPhone Dead in #160;Water’ #9733;
The iPod Touch and iPad don #8217;t count, apparently.
Marco Arment on Fred Wilson’s Android-First #160;Advice #9733;
Marco Arment:
We’re talking about Android… which has terrible development economics hindered by severe fragmentation and poor payment integration, and is not generally used by most of the influential people needed to spread the word on new services.
Android First? #9733;
Fred Wilson:
Roughly six months ago, I put up a blog post suggesting Android
was going to be the dominant mobile phone operating system and
that developers interested in the largest user bases ought to
start developing for it in preference to iOS.
Who took his advice six months ago and had any success with that strategy?
ComScore #8217;s February mobile numbers are out and here #8217;s where things
stand in terms of OS market share in the US.
No, ComScore #8217;s numbers are for smartphone market share, not OS market share. ComScore #8217;s numbers do not include the iPod Touch or the iPad.
But as I #8217;ve been saying for several years now, I believe the
mobile OS market will play out very similarly to Windows and
Macintosh, with Android in the role of Windows. And so if you want
to be in front of the largest number of users, you need to be on
Android.
Something makes me think Wilson will be giving the same advice again six months from now, and yet the list of companies that have succeeded with an Android-first or Android-only development schedule will remain negligible.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Howard Stringer Says Sony Image Sensors Delayed for Apple’s #160;iPhone #9733;
Seth Weintraub, quoting Sony CEO Howard Stringer during an on-stage interview with Walt Mossberg:
#8220;Our best sensor technology is built in one of the (tsunami) affected factories. Those go to Apple for their iPhones…or iPads. Isn’t that something? They buy our best sensors from us? #8221;
Given that Sony #8217;s plant that makes these sensors was damaged by the tsunami, perhaps this is a reason why there won #8217;t be an iPhone 5 at WWDC.
Friday, 1 April 2011
The Talk Show, Episode #160;36 #9733;
Dan Benjamin:
Netflix has announced that the Bond films will soon be available streaming so John Gruber and Dan Benjamin aren’t doing #5byBond this week. Instead they talk over boats and ducks about the future of Amazon platforms, music licensing at Amazon and Apple, WWDCs past and future, and what to expect out of iPhone 5, iOS 5, and Lion.
Brought to you by two fine sponsors: Sound Studio 4 and Campaign Monitor.
Departing CEO Eric Schmidt Tried to Get Search Team to Hide His Political Donation From Search #160;Results #9733;
Why not just change his name?
The Macalope: Fools of the #160;Year #9733;
Good list of jackasses.
Chasing Profits Instead of Market #160;Share #9733;
Bloomberg:
Gianfranco Lanci tried to make Acer Inc. the world’s largest laptop maker by outselling Hewlett- Packard Co. The board says he should have set his sights on Apple Inc. and HTC Corp. instead.
The rift led to Lanci quitting yesterday as chief executive officer of the Taiwanese computer maker, Chief Financial Officer Tu Che-min said in an interview today. The company plans to name a new president this month who has experience in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, he said.
Committed to Android #9733;
Thomas Claburn, reporting last week for InformationWeek:
Motorola Mobility has hired a number of experienced mobile and Web engineers from Apple and Adobe and is developing a Web-based mobile operating system as a possible alternative to Google #8217;s Android software, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Why would they do such a thing when Android is open and Google is such a great partner?
Regarding Those Multitouch Multitasking Gestures on iOS #160;4.3 #9733;
Speaking of Guy English, he #8217;s got a good piece on the multitouch gestures for iPad app-switching in iOS 4.3:
This all sounds wonderful but I still think they’re a bad idea and shouldn’t ship enabled by default. The problem isn’t that they’re not handy (zing), rather that they break what I feel is one of the key wonders of iPad — it becomes the application that is running.
I #8217;m with Guy here. There is a need for a faster way to switch between running apps, but this isn #8217;t the right solution. If those become a system default, then apps are limited to three touches.
(And please, stop with the predictions that these gestures suggest future home-button-less iPads or iPhones. Try explaining to a normal person that they need to use five fingers to get back to the home screen. People love the home button.)
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Post Open Android Asset #160;Check #9733;
Guy English on what today #8217;s Android news means for the industry:
RIM. Despite being laughed at constantly today, RIM laughs too. They own their own hardware stack and they own their own software stack and as I pointed out previously — they are maintaining control over their own destiny. Which they’re doing like a drunken sailor on three day shore-leave but, still, that “2 CEOs amp; 4 Eva” tattoo is their choice.
Vic Gundotra’s Paean to Android’s Openness at Google I/O #160;2010 #9733;
Vic Gundotra in his keynote at I/O last year:
If Google didn’t act, it faced a draconian future where one man,
one phone, one carrier were our choice. That’s a future we
don’t want. […]
So if you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you
believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android.
Businessweek today:
From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google #8217;s
most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And
they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google #8217;s
Android group.
Can #8217;t wait for this year #8217;s I/O keynote.
A Rule of Thumb: Pricing Should Be #160;Simple
Monday, 21 March 2011
One thing many companies #8212; in any industry #8212; can learn from Apple is the importance of simple pricing. If you make it easy for people to understand how much they #8217;re paying, and what they #8217;re paying for, it is more likely that they #8217;ll buy it. Or perhaps this is driven more by the converse: if people are confused about how much they have to pay, they #8217;re more likely not to. The decision to purchase and the act of paying are part of the experience for any product or service, and should be designed accordingly.
Not paying is always simple.
Those companies that succeed with complex pricing schemes tend to be those with no competition (e.g. cable companies and land-line phone services) or those with a limited number of competitors, all of whom offer similarly complex pricing schemes. E.g. new car dealers and cell phone carriers. Car dealers get away with loose, uncertain #8220;try negotiating down from a #8216;sticker #8217; price almost no one actually pays #8221; pricing because that #8217;s how all other car dealers work, too #8212; and because (at least here in the U.S.) a car is something most people need (or at least think they need). Cell phone carriers get away with confusing bills, chock-a-block with nickel-and-dime fees and charges, because there are only a handful of carriers (and as time goes on, we need fewer and fewer fingers to count them all #8212; again, at least here in the U.S.) and, again, because cell phones are something most people consider a necessity.
For non-necessities, simplicity of pricing is key. Apple thrives at this. Their consumer products tend to follow a simple good/better/best pricing hierarchy, where the only difference is storage capacity. iPods, iPads, and iPhones all follow this model. When they deviate from this, the reasons are relatively easy to understand. For example, a regular Wi-Fi iPad costs $499/599/699 for 16/32/64 GB of storage. If you want an iPad with built-in 3G, it costs $130 extra for the iPad itself, and offers a simple no-contract two-tier pricing plan: $15/month for 250 MB data, $25 for 2 GB. Easy to sign up for, easy to cancel, no hidden fees, and several warnings before you hit your data limits.
Another great example: Netflix. You pay $8/month for Netflix streaming:
For only $7.99 a month, you can instantly watch TV episodes amp;
movies streaming over the Internet to your TV via an Xbox 360,
PS3, Wii or any other device that streams from Netflix. Watch as
often as you want, anytime you want.
Are there really no late fees and no due dates?
Yes, it #8217;s true #8212; there really are no late fees, no due dates, and
no hidden costs.
Once you sign up for a Netflix account, it works for all Netflix content from any device that supports Netflix. You don #8217;t pay extra to use it on your iPad in addition to your iPhone. You don #8217;t pay more to use it from both a PS3 and an Xbox 360. You pay $8/month (after a free 30-day trial, that is), and you get Netflix streaming. Easy to understand, and sounds like a great value.
This brings me to The New York Times #8217;s new digital subscriptions. They #8217;re neither easy-to-understand nor sound like a great value. Unlimited access to the NYT costs four times more than Netflix #8212; $35 every four weeks. You can pay $15 or $20 every four weeks instead, but then you #8217;ve got to choose between using a Times app on your smartphone or iPad (respectively). And how many normal people realize that if you, say, opt for the $15 plan, that you #8217;ll be able to access the Times website from your iPad?
Netflix: one price, access from any device.
New York Times: three tiers, arbitrary division between devices based on screen size.
Both companies also have legacy businesses. Netflix #8217;s legacy business is home delivery of DVD and Blu-ray discs. Pricing for this service starts at $2/month in addition to the basic $8/month plan. It makes sense: every Netflix customer gets a digital subscription; those that want a physical product too pay a little more. The pricing steers people toward a digital-only future.
The New York Times #8217;s legacy business is the printed newspaper. They charge less for a print subscription than an all-inclusive digital subscription, despite the fact that all print subscriptions include an all-inclusive digital subscription. This makes no sense. You pay less but get something that intuitively bears a significant real cost: hundreds of pounds of printed newspaper delivered to your home throughout the year. The pricing steers people toward the legacy business.
I want The New York Times to thrive. It #8217;s long been my favorite source for national and world news. But printed newspapers have a limited #8212; perhaps very limited #8212; future, and the digital subscription plan they #8217;ve unveiled doesn #8217;t look like a winner to me. I #8217;m pretty sure it #8217;s too expensive #8212; that is to say, that I think The Times would make more money by charging significantly less, making up for the difference per-subscriber in the number of people who #8217;d be willing to sign up. But even worse, it #8217;s too complex. Further, by offering relatively generous access to the nytimes.com website for free to everyone, the Times is providing an enticement to read the Times less.
A digital NYT subscription is something few people will feel they need. Many people might want one, to one degree or another, but for few will it be a necessity. That means it ought to be priced simply. (Even necessities ought to be priced simply on general principle, I say, but they don #8217;t need to be in order to succeed.)
I #8217;m almost entirely in agreement with Khoi Vinh on the matter. Vinh writes:
The effects of this decision probably won’t be seen in the
immediate future, but the long-term damage to the brand may be
significant. The amount of notoriety that this new endeavor will
receive is sure to be tremendous, but all the subtleties — and
complex mathematics — of this new pay model are likely to
be lost on most news consumers. Its many rules and semantics are
simply too complex to be communicated effectively, and what’s
more the marketing tends to use blatantly tricky language (e.g.,
“$15 every four weeks” — just tell me what I have to pay,
already). I’m willing to bet that what most people will
understand about this new development is that now you have to pay
to read The New York Times. Period. With that misunderstanding, it
wouldn’t surprise me if users start staying away in droves.
Jean-Louis Gassée attempts to elucidate the entirety of The Times #8217;s new rules for accessing its digital content #8212; what do you get for free, and what do you get for how much when you pay. It takes him eight paragraphs and 350 words. He concludes that it #8217;s simply too complicated:
Customers don’t make decisions with their neocortex, an organ
that is too easy to bullshit. They decide within deeper,
comforting recesses, and they rationalize when the culture demands
a seemingly logical, socially acceptable
“post-plantation”.
What price do NYT’s execs put on simplicity, on ease, on reader
enjoyment vs. catering to their own internal discourse? If they
don’t like talking to Steve Jobs (and vice versa) they
could turn to Jeff Bezos for tips on simplicity.
iTunes has taught us that customers are willing to pay for
content if the process is simple if it’s easy on the mind and
the wallet. One could argue that consumers aren’t paying for the
content, they’re paying for the delivery service. Regard Netflix
on Demand, to use another example. Restricted content, instant
delivery, success.
I don #8217;t know that a simpler, lower-priced digital subscription plan would work for The Times, but I feel strongly that it would be more likely to work than what they #8217;ve announced. I have a bad feeling about this. #9733;
The Evolution of SXSW #160;Interactive
Friday, 18 March 2011
Andy Budd, on last week #8217;s SXSW Interactive:
In reality in think SXSW jumped the shark in 2008/09 and is now an
entirely different conference. It’s just taken me a couple of
years to reconcile the difference and develop a new set of coping
strategies.
This year I finally gave up on the conference itself, going to a
handful of sessions. I met many more who hadn’t seen a single
session and several who didn’t even bother buying a ticket.
Instead people spent time seeing friends and maintaining the weak
ties in their social graph. I say that somewhat wryly, but SXSW
really has become about networking in the most real and genuine
sense of the word.
I had a great time, once again, but only in the sense that Austin is a fine city and you can #8217;t help but have fun hanging out with good friends from across the country (and globe) whom you see in person only rarely. The conference itself, though, is a mess.
As Budd says, you can #8217;t go from a conference of 2,500 attendees to one of 25,000 attendees without turning the event into something entirely different. I first attended SXSW Interactive in 2005 and haven #8217;t missed one since. Each year has been bigger than the previous, and so the conference has always been changing. Once it outgrew the Austin Convention Center, though, it grew into something I no longer enjoyed. I don #8217;t see how anyone could claim that the conference now is anything but broken.
A prime example: Despite the fact that there were almost 25,000 attendees, almost no one saw Matt Haughey #8217;s excellent talk in person, because the conference schedulers put Haughey in an obscure location across the river, a mile away from the Austin Convention Center. There were about 30 or 40 people in the room for his talk. Good sessions are scheduled at bad times in obscure locations and banal, unprepared panels are held in cavernous but empty rooms in the ACC. It could well be that SXSW Interactive 2011 was as well-produced as it could have been given 25,000 attendees and the space available in downtown Austin. I just don #8217;t think it #8217;s possible to program a cohesive, interesting, accessible session schedule given those constraints.
Used to be that SXSW was an interesting conference and a great weekend experience. Now it #8217;s a terrible conference and a good-but-crowded weekend experience. Maybe 25,000 attendees can #8217;t be wrong, and I #8217;m just a curmudgeon yearning for the days of old. There #8217;s no denying that the ACC was packed with people every day. But everyone I know either (a) attended only a handful of sessions; (b) went to sessions but complained bitterly about the quality and regretted the waste of their time; or (c) didn #8217;t even bother getting a conference pass this year. There #8217;s something sad about a conference where it #8217;s now considered the smart move not to even attend. There #8217;s got to be a better way. #9733;
Why the Nitro JavaScript Engine Isn’t Available to Apps Outside Mobile Safari in iOS #160;4.3
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Along a similar line to today #8217;s story about the performance differences between Mobile Safari and the system-wide UIWebView control in iOS 4.3, was Tuesday #8217;s mini-brouhaha about web app performance outside Mobile Safari. The Register, as usual, sensationalized it best, in a story headlined #8220;Apple Handcuffs #8216;Open #8217; Web Apps on iPhone Home Screen #8221;:
Apple #8217;s iOS mobile operating system runs web applications at
significantly slower speeds when they #8217;re launched from the iPhone
or iPad home screen in #8220;full-screen mode #8221; as opposed to in the
Apple Safari browser, and at the same time, the operating system
hampers the performance of these apps in other ways, according to
tests from multiple developers and The Register.
It #8217;s unclear whether these are accidental bugs or issues
consciously introduced by Apple. But the end result is that, at
least in some ways, the iOS platform makes it harder for web apps
to replace native applications distributed through the Apple App
Store, where the company takes a 30 per cent cut of all
applications sold. Whereas native apps can only run on Apple #8217;s
operating system, web apps #8212; built with standard web
technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript #8212; can potentially
run on any device.
#8220;Apple is basically using subtle defects to make web apps appear
to be low quality #8212; even when they claim HTML5 is a fully
supported platform, #8221; says one mobile web app developer, who asked
that his name not be used.
The clear insinuation is that web apps running outside Mobile Safari have been made to run slower, but that #8217;s not true. What happened with iOS 4.3 is that web apps (and JavaScript in general) running inside Mobile Safari have been made significantly faster.
The Nitro JavaScript engine is only available within Mobile Safari. Outside Mobile Safari #8212; whether in App Store apps using the UIWebView control, or in true web apps that have been saved to the home screen #8212; apps get iOS #8217;s older JavaScript engine.
Put another way: nothing is slower regarding web apps or web page rendering in iOS 4.3 compared to 4.2 or earlier. If anything, everything is at least a little bit faster. But: the most significant performance improvements in iOS 4.3, particularly for JavaScript, are exclusive to Mobile Safari.
The obvious question: Why? The cynical answer is that Apple seeks to discourage the use of home screen web apps. But if that were the case, why don #8217;t apps from the App Store get Nitro either? Many, many App Store apps use embedded UIWebView controls for displaying web content.
The real answer is about security. Perhaps the biggest reason for Nitro #8217;s performance improvements over WebKit #8217;s previous JavaScript engine is the use of a JIT #8212; #8220;Just-In-Time #8221; compilation. Here #8217;s Wikipedia #8217;s page on JIT. A JIT requires the ability to mark memory pages in RAM as executable, but, iOS, as a security measure, does not allow pages in memory to be marked as executable. This is a significant and serious security policy. Most modern operating systems do allow pages in memory to be marked as executable #8212; including Mac OS X, Windows, and (I believe) Android1. iOS 4.3 makes an exception to this policy, but the exception is specifically limited to Mobile Safari.
It #8217;s a trade-off. Most OSes allow marking memory pages as executable for performance reasons. iOS disallows it for security reasons. If you allow for pages of memory to be escalated from writable to executable (even if you require the page be made permanently read-only first), then you are enabling the execution of unsigned native code. It breaks the chain of trust. Allowing remote code to execute locally turns every locally exploitable security flaw into a remotely exploitable one.
Apple, as of iOS 4.3, trusts Mobile Safari enough to allow this. The upside is that Mobile Safari is now significantly faster. The downside is that any security exploits against Mobile Safari now potentially allow worse things to happen than before.
Web apps that are saved to the home screen do not run within Mobile Safari. They #8217;re effectively saved as discrete apps #8212; thin wrappers around the UIWebView control. (That #8217;s why they show up individually in the task bar, just like apps from the App Store.) Home screen apps may well eventually get access to the Nitro JavaScript engine #8212; Apple simply hasn #8217;t yet done (or perhaps finished?) the security work to allow it. It is not an oversight or a bug, or the result of a single person at Apple wishing to hinder the performance of web apps.
One way Apple could make Nitro available system-wide in iOS would be to do something similar to what they #8217;ve done with web content plugins (like Flash Player) on Mac OS X: execute JavaScript in a separate (trusted) process that maps back to the host app. On Snow Leopard, Flash Player no longer executes within Safari; instead it gets its own process. Similarly, Apple could introduce a dedicated Nitro JavaScript process that executes JavaScript for any app, rather than executing within any app. I have no idea whether this is something Apple is considering or working on, I #8217;m just saying it #8217;s one way they could offer JavaScript JIT compilation to apps system-wide without allowing most processes to mark writable pages in memory as executable.
[Update: And in fact, this is exactly how the still-in-progress WebKit2 framework is designed.]
In short, iOS was designed from the ground up to be more secure than Mac OS X. The price for this trade-off is performance.
Note too, that Nitro isn #8217;t new. The WebKit team first announced it (then known as #8220;SquirrelFish Extreme #8221;) back in September 2008. That it took until now to show up at all on iOS is an indication of how complicated these security implications are. That Nitro #8217;s availability on iOS is limited to Mobile Safari today does not imply that it will always be limited to Mobile Safari. #9733;
I #8217;m actually not 100 percent sure that this is true for Android, but my understanding is that every app on Android is running in a JIT. That #8217;s how the Dalvik virtual machine works #8212; and the use of a JIT is the reason why recent versions of Android have performed significantly better than previous ones. I don #8217;t see how they could be using a system-wide JIT if the Android OS disallowed processes from marking pages in memory as executable. But if I #8217;m wrong about this, let me know. #8617;
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