Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 26, 2008
I like where the Kindle (Amazon is a great technology company), and designing a business model around it is going to be tought. Michael Arrington on his latest Kindle rumor articlesays:
Kindle is currently tracking the iPhone/iTunes model - Amazon sells the Kindle for a profit and then makes more revenue on content purchases from the Kindle site that they run.
So far so good. Then things start to go sideways:
Imagine if Amazon launched a licensing program that gave hardware manufacturers the ability to build Kindle clones, along with an incentive to sell them at near-zero margins. Amazon would give those manufacturers access to the core Kindle hardware specs (there’s no real magic there anyway) and the right to call it a Kindle device so long as they also put the core Kindle software on the device. That software links the device to Amazon’s store, meaning downloads revenue flows through Amazon.
Cause that worked so well for Microsoft, right? If they are following the successful iPod/iTunes model, why would Amazon go down the Play4Sure road? One step at a time Michael. Amazon doesn’t have scaling problems just yet. On the other hand if you look at things from a reseller/scalability perspective it does make sense, just to earn commission on the book sales.
In my opinion Amazon should stick with the iPod/iTunes model for now, and license once the device/serices reaches a critical mass. This way, they’ll be able to offer a solid user experience, and migrate the paper users to digital version without causing too much pain.
*Note on the Title: By Windows success, I refer exclusively to their manufacturer licensing business model which allowed them to grow rapidly in the 90s and in no way due to their Windows product/engineering accomplishments.
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 22, 2008
Steve Jobs announced a magic number that everyone memorized: $199. Carriers are abusive and deceiving all over the world. In Colombia regretfully this is the case. Movistar Colombia(owned by Telefonica of Spain) wants to charge $550 USD for a phone Jobs’ MSRP is $199. WTF?
For more info on the Colombian launch go to MaxSez.
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 14, 2008
Going to the gym never really worked for me since I really need someone to beat, otherwise I will get bored as hell(yes, I also believe in the Invisible Hand of the Markets).
Problem: As I continue my quest through the internetz I continue to grow in “experience” right around my belly.
Ryan Kuder has started a new movement called “Run, Geeks Run!” (reminds me too much of Run, Fat Boy, Run! which was a slightly better than Hot Fuzz; which was really bad but never as good as Shawn of The Dead). It’s basically a group running thing!
Why it’s cool: If all the geeks are out running, there can’t be anything good going on the internetz, so you got nothing to loose! And still get the exercise.
This is good opportunity to use ZeaLog.com which I never used for the 100 pushup thing that I actually never did(but still in my To Do list).
Why can’t I just stick to my patent pending finger aerobics work out(mouse clicking on my RSS reader)?
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 13, 2008
Brent Simmons just announced that NetNewsWire for iPhone 1.0.8 should be appearing soon. The one feature I am really looking forward for is this:
You can turn off the unread badge count on the home screen via a pref in Settings.
Which can causes some stress on the go(don’t mind it on my desktop). More details on the changes here.
(Via Inessential.)
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 13, 2008
Great plugin for TextMate. Some of the features:
-SCM status badges
-Swapping the project drawer for a panel(My favorite feature)
-Finder colour labels
-Project-tree state can be preserved when re-opening the project(just like in Xcode)
Enjoy!
(Via TextMate Blog.)
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 13, 2008
Brief article on how MobileMe(and Joyent Connector) icons so much better than Google style word links:
Pure text-based interfaces must be “read” every time.
The one thing they don’t mention in the article is the fact that the icons should have different shapes to improve user recognition time.
In order to maintain an iPhone-like look, Apple has repeated the controversial decision to change Leopard’s folder icons to have the same shape, regardless of their content. Here is a great article from Indie HIG which talks about what should go into a Mac icon in terms of usability.
(Via Joyeur.)
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 11, 2008
This would save me so much time I wouldn’t know what to do with. I actually almost bought the elgato turbo.264 to reduce compression times.
(Via TUAW, Via Alley Insider.)
Posted by Jonathan Tarud
on August 03, 2008
I know a brilliant campaign when I see one:
If you live in California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, or Washington — all states with laws requiring hands-free use of mobile phones — and receive a ticket for yapping with your iPhone plastered to your ear, Jawbone will deduct $20 off the purchase price of one of their headsets.
(Via TUAW.)
