TUAW How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device
Fancy. A Dropbox driven solution for using AirPrint to create PDFs on the fly and have them accessible on your iPad. This hack just further cements the glaring hole Apple has in their cloud services right now. How great would Dropbox fit in the Apple stable, I ask you?
There’s a great Billy Crystal bit where his daughter asks him, “Dad, is it true that Paul McCartney was in another group before Wings?” To which Crystal responds, “Come here and let me tell you about the God Damned Beatles.”
Sooo… anyone hear what that great big iTunes announcement was this morning?
Turns out, it’s MUCH less of an iTunes story than it is an EMI, Apple Corps, Yoko story. I certainly don’t claim to know any more than the rest of the armchair punditry, but I think the story arc of my general emotional thread sums up the overall sentiment.
Me (01/08/2001): God. iTunes is revolutionary. If only there were the great box sets like the Stones. The Beatles. The Cure. I would totally buy those.
Me (2006): God. iTunes is great. Totally changes the way I listen to music. Now I find I don’t have to listen to all the crappy tracks when all I want is the single. Color me liberated. I’d probably still buy the whole White Album… if it were available.
Me (2008): Huh. The music industry sure is tied in knots over this crap. Seven years and they still haven’t figured out a damned thing. Maybe one day we’ll have the Beatles.
Me (11/16/2010): Oh look. The Beatles. Meh. Wonder when Glee’s going to do a Beatles knock-off episode?
No idea what this is about. Seems like the punditry-at-large thinks it’s related to a whole new round of TV deals (@ihnatko had the best quote in this regard: “(I can picture the new head of NBC Universal listlessly prodding at the plateful of kitten hearts Apple presented to him as requested. “They’e tasty,” he said, “but unless I get to eat them while children are watching me in tear-stained horror, it’s not really a full meal, is it? Can we try this again in a few weeks?”)”, or some sort of expanded global streaming gig taking advantage of the new datacenter down south. I clearly know nothing. I post here for posterity only. Move along.
LinkedIn Brings Products, Recommendations And More To Company Pages
Anything that makes actually promoting on LinkedIn more useful is welcome. Company pages launched short on vision, slow on iteration to utility. Worth giving company pages a third look about now.
On company pages, administrators can add products and services tab. So an accounting business can showcase various financial services the company offers. LinkedIn is taking it one step further to allow companies to tailor lists of products and services, based on member profiles. So a business owner can showcase one set of products (or services) to accountants in the aviation industry and another to engineers in the shipping industry.
Why the Creator of Google Maps is Headed for Facebook
More in the on-going saga of high profile Google employees heading to Facebook. Cerebral upside: more Google thinking at Facebook changes [my] perception of Facebook.
Rasmussen describes Google as “unwieldy.” And while the energy at Google is “just amazing,” that the size of the company makes it difficult to get things done.
In part, Rasmussen describes his decision to leave Google in terms of the opportunities elsewhere. The offer – one that came in the form of a personal pitch from Mark Zuckerberg himself – was “too good to refuse.”
…
“It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company,” says Rasmussen. It may be, that a decade ago, that is how we would have described his former employer.
Android market share gain coming at the expense of BlackBerry
According to NPD’s Mobile Phone Track, Android was installed on 44 percent of all smartphones sold during the third quarter, up from 33 percent in the second quarter, while iOS saw a slight bump from 22 to 23 percent and RIM dropped into third place at 22 percent.
Makes total sense to me. Here’s what I’m hearing, based on my own “rigorous” empirical research: my Blackberry using friends don’t like the devices and would love an iPhone, but they hate AT&T more than their phones, so they go for Android as the default other choice that’s not an iPhone. I have to wonder what an iPhone-carrying-Verizon will do to that process?
Paid for by the International Brotherhood of Bottlemakers Assistance Fund. Fascinating and passionate ad the Democrats have yet to achieve.
Windows XP falls under 60%, IE8 loses share for the first time
At Ars, our readers have embraced Microsoft’s latest operating system much faster. 24.73 percent of Ars readers use Windows XP, 7.89 percent are on Vista, and 28.18 percent have Windows 7.
I know. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. Not that Windows XP is still such a stronghold for Microsoft, but that Vista was such an abomination. Regarding browser use, I just had a support call from a client in which it was discovered that the were still running Netscape Navigator.
That is all.
Twitter, Facebook, and social activism : The New Yorker
In other words, Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.
This is a terrific piece. First, apart from the gut reaction you may have from reading Gladwell’s headline, he’s not all together bearish on social media. Instead, as his pieces are prone to do, he provides effective research and anecdotal evidence that offers a bit of perspective to a discussion that is too easily washed in hype. Of particular note, the connection between strong and weak social ties, their impact on activism (not communication), and the parallels that do and do not exist online.
UPDATE: Today at 3:00 P.M. E.T Gladwell will be answering reader questions live on the blog. I’m not crazy about interactive blogging, but it should be an interesting opportunity to pick the author’s brain.
Jason Schwartzman Introduces The New Yorker iPad App : The New Yorker
Here’s a great example of something I think is going to happen more and more in my daily reads. I stopped taking a subscription to The New Yorker years ago. I couldn’t keep up with the paperness of it all. The New Yorker app on my iPad will have me reading it again.
Full stop.
This is priceless.
While they were fueled in part by a comment in The Wall Street Journal that was attributed to me, they are not an accurate depiction of what we’re currently seeing. In fact, we see some shifts in consumption patterns, with tablet sales being an incremental opportunity. And as we said during our recent earnings call, we believe that computers will remain a very popular gift this holiday because of the very distinct and desirable benefits they offer consumers. That’s why we intend to carry a broad selection of computing products and accessories, to address the demand we anticipate this season.
So, this is, of course, based on Dunn’s comments that the iPad was cannibalizing netbook sales by as much as 50%. First, whatever. Lest we forget that a computer is a computer and a netbook is a crappy computer. You get what you pay for.
The CEO doesn’t come out with a retraction like this without being hounded by stakeholders. Somewhere, down some dark hallway in the darkened executive corridors of Best Buy corporate, a VP of PR ran with hair ablaze to remind the CEO whom he actually serves: the manufacturers who shell their products. You think HP was happy for the press that Best Buy just gave netbooks? Acer? Asus? Not likely.
As a side not, based on my rigorous empirical research, I’m sitting in the audience a WordCamp Portland with about 150 developers. Based on the rough count in the room, seems like it’s broken up one third pen and paper, one third MacBooks and PCs, one third iPads. That feels notable to me.
Apple – iPad – iPad in Business
Apple has posted four new profiles of businesses that have adopted iPad in operations. Obviously these are expertly produced videos once again highlighting the importance of telling the story of how the tech can affect the operation.
Well done, Apple. Not only does Ping not add anything of use to the social space other than providing you a great new way to sell new music, but the first of your featured artists’ profiles on which I happen to click — Yo-Yo Ma — gives me this perfect example of broken social.
Sure, if you show all the comments on each post, some of them are thoughtful. Some of them are discussion. But that the very first on each of three posts from Mr. Ma is spam indicates to me that you are not the company to bring social to music.
I’ve been a long-time fan of GelaSkins as the perfect sort of protection for my iProducts. They give you the perfect stickiness so the damned things don’t fly out of your hands when you use them. Today I received the first batch of shots using my own photos, and they turned out great and delivered faster than I imagined they could. Here’s a quick look at what you get in the envelope.
A Review of Verizon and Google’s Net Neutrality Proposal | Electronic Frontier Foundation
It’s tough not to get myself worked up when I read things like the recent Google-Verizon proposal for a framework around network neutrality. Invariably, it feels like power is amassing to limit freedom, and that tends to cause people to run around like their hair is on fire. Mine included.
The initial emotional response appears to be that Google has been on a long path of selling-out to corporate partners, even though experience may be saying something else. This is a reflection of cognitive dissonance as in general, Google has done good, smart things for this industry. If there’s anyone I’d like to see at the table discussing net neutrality, it’s probably them.
Time will tell. A wise man once said, “I’m not cheap, but I can be bought.”
The EFF has posted their response, and their hair is not yet on fire at this point. That’s a good thing, because it makes the issue far easier to parse. If you haven’t read the full statement, you should. And then you should read Cindy Cohn’s well-though response.
On Monday, Google and Verizon proposed a new legislative framework for net neutrality. Reaction to the proposal has been swift and, for the most part, highly critical. While we agree with many aspects of that criticism, we are interested in the framework’s attempt to grapple with the Trojan Horse problem. The proposed solution: a narrow grant of power to the FCC to enforce neutrality within carefully specified parameters. While this solution is not without its own substantial dangers, we think it deserves to be considered further if Congress decides to legislate.
