You Have Nothing That I Need or Want. You Are a
Computer Salesman I Am Fucking James Bond!

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 09:04:12 PM. © Daring Fireball

Thanks to the confluence of my interests and the fact that it’s funny as hell, I’ve been inundated with email regarding Scoopertino’s fake 1998 letter from Sean Connery to Steve Jobs. Here’s the thing, though — it’s the image of the letter that’s circulating like wildfire, not the link to Scoopertino, so the fact that it’s a spoof is lost on many.

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Read The Full Article:
http://scoopertino.com/exposed-the-imac-disaster-that-almost-was/

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Hard Stop

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 09:04:12 PM. © Daring Fireball

Episode 48 of The Talk Show, America’s favorite podcast:

Amazon Tablets, the next iPhone, the Nokia N9, Stanley Kubrick?sletter to projectionists, the FBI seizure of web servers, and theDropbox security issue.

Brought to you by OmniFocus and Worthwhile.

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Read The Full Article:
http://5by5.tv/talkshow/48

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The Verizon iPhones Effect on U.S. Market Share

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 08:03:50 PM. © Daring Fireball

MG Siegler:

In April, when NPD data had the iPhone market share push a bitforward while Android saw a small decline, it was perhaps a bittoo early to read into it. But a month later, Nielsen datasuggested that Android share was indeed flattening, and mostcredited the 2.2 million iPhones Verizon sold in the two months ofits existence on the carrier as the reason.
A few days ago, a report by Needham using IDC data suggested thatAndroid?s market share peaked in March, and was now on thedecline as Apple?s share was rising again. This was the firstquarterly share decline that Android had ever seen.
Why? It seems obvious, doesn?t it?

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Read The Full Article:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/22/verizon-iphone-android/

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Neven Mrgan on Pixel Art

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 08:03:50 PM. © Daring Fireball

Neven Mrgan:

I can?t comment with any credibility on the legal issuesinvolved in Andy Baio?s problems with the Kind of Bloopalbum cover, but I must address one assumption I?m seeing incomments on the story:
That cover is NOT the original photo, down-sampled. It?s ahand-crafted, precisely drawn interpretation of the source. Anyonewho?s ever seriously put pixels to screen will tell you thatthis is an actual artistic method, one with its own challenges,tricks, and yes, an aesthetic.

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Read The Full Article:
http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/6840184364/hand-pixelated

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Joe Stumps Pitch to Be the Next CEO of Yahoo

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 08:03:50 PM. © Daring Fireball

Not entirely serious, obviously — particularly his suggestion at the end regarding yours truly — but some of his ideas are undeniably on a solid foundation. How did Instagram eat Flickr’s lunch, for example?

The bigger question it raises: What exactly has Carol Bartz even tried do while CEO of Yahoo? It’s not that she’s tried things that have failed — I just can’t think of any major new initiative Yahoo has tried, period, under her leadership. Selling Delicious and slapping an ugly “Yahoo” logo on Flickr do not a turnaround make.

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Read The Full Article:
http://stu.mp/2011/06/dear-yahoo-hire-me-as-your-next-ceo.html

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The WWDC 2011 Videos Are Out

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 07:04:12 PM. © Daring Fireball

Start your downloading.

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Read The Full Article:
http://developer.apple.com/videos/

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Factor Women Launches the First Ever App Designed
To Discover Models

post from prMac on 23 June 2011 07:03:00 PM. © prMac

Factor Women and Chosen Models are proud to announce the launch of their new iPhone and iPad Application, Factor Models 1.0, the first ever such application allowing models to be discovered via iPhone or iPad. The aforementioned application gives aspiring models instant submission capabilities straight from their phone, allows offline featured model portfolio viewing, and access to an events and updates calendar.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-27141.htm

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On the N9 and MeeGo

post from Daring Fireball on 23 June 2011 06:04:20 PM. © Daring Fireball

Lukas Mathis on the Nokia N9 Demo and MeeGo:

It?s hard to understand why Nokia doesn?t bet everything onthis OS. Windows Phone 7 is fantastic, but the market for WP7phones will soon be entirely commoditized. Nokia needs to controlits own operating system if it wants to compete with companieslike Samsung, HTC, and Huawei.

Right. This is what I was thinking about Tuesday, but I got lazy and didn’t really spell out the implications. If MeeGo is as good as Nokia’s demo makes it look, then it strikes me as a tragic — possibly catastrophic — mistake for Nokia to abandon it in favor of Windows Phone. The N9 looks like a credible top-shelf smartphone contender.

But demos, of course, are easy to embellish. It could be that in practice, the N9 and MeeGo are nowhere near as polished or useful as these demos make it seem. (One DF reader emailed, claiming to have seen a pre-production unit earlier this month, and said that much of the animation on the unit was stuttery.) And maybe the problem is with the MeeGo APIs and developer tools — that they’re just not up to snuff with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. I.e., it could be that the N9 will be a good phone out of the box — as compared to, say, an out-of-the-box iPhone or Android phone — but that MeeGo is not a competitive software platform. The whole point of these app phones is that you can add software to them.

I agree with David Heinemeier Hansson that the lack of a large third-party app library does not doom the N9 — or any other future new mobile platforms — out of the gate. I agree that most users only rely on a small number of apps, and maybe just a few third-party ones. But he glosses over the fact that with a large library of a few hundred thousand apps, the odds increase significantly that even you only want 10 apps, that you’ll be able to find satisfying implementations of all 10. Your killer apps are not necessarily my killer apps. What a new mobile platform needs to succeed, to come out of the gate and make a dent in the market, is to be noticeably better in some significant way — or even better, ways, plural — to those platforms already on the market. That’s all.

What I’m saying though, is that maybe Nokia CEO Stephen Elop determined that MeeGo would never have a competitive third-party library of apps. Not just that a new MeeGo-based flagship phone would come out of the gate with a limited selection of third-party apps, but that it would never offer more than a meager selection of third-party apps. Platforms and developer tools are hard.

Either way, though, it just goes to show how deep a hole Nokia is in. If the N9 is as good as it looks in the demo, why is Nokia betting on Windows Phone rather than MeeGo? And if it’s not as good as it looks, what has Nokia been doing for the past four years? And why are they bothering to finish the N9 and ship this? How does this do anything other than confuse — and, arguably, mislead — their customers?

Read The Full Article:
http://daringfireball.net/2011/06/n9_and_meego

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The FBI Confiscated an Instapaper Server in an
Unrelated Raid

Marco Arment apparently had a server confiscated in the same FBI raid that toppled Pinboard:

So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all ofInstapaper?s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and asfar as I know, this is completely out of my control.
Due to the police culture in the United States, especially at thefederal level, I don?t expect to ever get an explanation forthis, have the server or its data returned, or be reimbursed forthe damage they have illegally caused.

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Read The Full Article:
http://blog.instapaper.com/post/6830514157

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Flower Board, a Relaxing Color Balls Puzzle Game
has Arrived

Phoenix Mobile announces the release of Flower Board 1.0 for iOS. There are many puzzle games on the App Store. But in the hex color balls puzzle category, there hasn't been a good game yet. Flower Board is a highly addictive game. Group six or more balls together to dismiss them and to increase your score. New balls are added after each move and you will need to keep the board from filling up. There are also special balls to help you clear the board. The goal is to score as high as possible.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-27237.htm

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