-
Daring Fireball: Microsoft’s Long, Slow Decline
Gruber has an insightful piece on Microsoft’s position in the market. There’s no debating it anymore: Microsoft is irrelevant (at least in the PC world — it still has plenty of relevance in video games, for example). Sure, they’re still selling a bazillion copies of Windows every year, but they’re lost any semblance of the mindshare they once had. No one believe Windows PCs are better than Macs, anymore. Some still buy them, because they’re cheaper, but no one argues that they’re better. And when everyone in the world believes Apple makes a better product, the difference in price is much, much easier for people to swallow. And even though Microsoft still sells plenty of Windows every year, they’ve just reported quarterly results which revenue fell $1 billion short of projections and declined 17 percent year-over-year. So even the argument that they’re still relevant because they being in so much cash is falling apart. No ones cares anymore. No one.
Visit -
Daring Fireball: The iPhone 3G Upgrade Question
Gruber walks through the “should I upgrade to the new iPhone,” dilemma, one I’m currently having, myself. He correctly points out that the only real noteworthy advantages are faster networking and GPS. He doesn’t mention the flush headphone jack, which isn’t a big deal to me personally (I’ve already gone and bought V-Moda iPhone earbuds), but may be to some audiophiles who’ve been avoiding the iPhone because they can’t use their favorite headphones with them.
For me, I think it’s going to boil down to this: Will the location-based SDK apps work with the triangulation functionality of the original iPhone, or will they require GPS? And if they do work: how well? I’m excited about the location based services more than the 3G networking, myself. If these work reasonably well on the original iPhone, then I may not have much incentive to upgrade this time around.
Visit -
Daring Fireball: The Unsatisfying State of Twitter Web Clients for the iPhone
Gruber compares web clients for Twitter on the iPhone. Personally, I think Thincloud is pretty good (and my favorite of the bunch), but it still hasn’t been enough to make me give up Twitter over SMS. Gruber says Twitter over SMS is too annoying — I disagree. I find it to be perfect. It has all the feature John wants, works well, and has the most “iPhoney” interface of all.
All that having been said, I hope (and suspect) someone will create a killer native iPhone app for release after iPhone 2.0 is out.
Visit -
Daring Fireball: ExpanDrive
As much trouble as I’ve had with sshfs being slow as balls, I think I’m going to splure for this $29 app, which Gruber gives a glorius review.
Visit -
I have a sound icon!
-
Daring Fireball: Non-Top-Posting Reply Scripts for Apple Mail
If you’re one of those people (like Gruber) who hates top-posting but wants (or has) to use Apple Mail for some reason, John has written and released a couple of clever AppleScripts to invoke bottom-posting, instead.
Personally, I’ve never much minded top-posting. I usually top-post, unless I specifically want to respond point-by-point, in which case I reply inline. According to Wikipedia, people who have been online since the heyday of Usenet are supposed to be crotchety old farts who hate top-posting — but it really doesn’t bother me (and yes, I was a Usenet fiend back in the early 90s — still am, to some degree).
Visit -
Daring Fireball: Rip This Joint
I mostly agree with what Gruber has to say in a response to criticism over his defense of Apple’s Hello TV spot. And, it’s well-written, as you’d expect from John.
Tangentially, I think one of the points of confusion over all this rip-off-or-not business is that there’s a world of difference between the law and the morals of individual creative people.
Creative people, and especially web designers, have gotten up in arms a lot lately over things the law would laugh at. What you call a rip-off often would not be seen as any kind of wrongdoing in copyright or trademark court. Copyright doesn’t protect ideas at all, and trademark is pretty lenient about logos and other marks that “look pretty similar.” So just because you’re upset that someone has a logo that looks like yours doesn’t give you any legal ground for focing them to cease and desist (you have the right to ask, of course, but they have the right to ignore you, too).
So next time you’re upset because someone has appropriated your idea or design, maybe think twice before saying, “you’ve stolen my intellectual property.” Because, more often than not, you don’t know the law well enough to know if that’s really true (I certainly don’t!). Instead, say what you do know: “I think you got this idea from my original work and I feel cheated that you used it without my permission.”
In the case of Apple’s Hello ad specifically: there’s absolutely no way it is copyright infringement in the legal sense. But is it a rip-off? Definitely. Is ripping something off without breaking the law morally wrong?
Well, that’s for you to decide. Everyone’s morals are different.
Visit -
Lopp, Inman, Gruber, and Bradbury
-
Lopp, Inman, Gruber, and Bradbury
-
Would Apple Mix DRM and Non-DRM Music at the iTunes Store?
Gruber has a nice article on how Apple might deal with the UI complexity of selling both DRM’d and non-DRM’d music on iTunes. He suggests a similar solution I’ve been touting — just don’t mention it by default. Some songs will be DRM protected and some won’t. People who really care about DRM (which isn’t most people) could turn on a preference to show the license or click something to get details — but most people don’t care, so don’t confuse everyone with it.
Visit -
Using Dynamic Scripting Languages for Desktop Application Development
Gruber’s collected a few good links about using dynamic languages — notably Python and Ruby — for programming Mac apps.
Visit -
Rands at SXSW: The Design Aesthetic of the Indie Developer
This sounds like a good one. Lopp made a great moderator last year, and his panel this year includes FeedDemon creator Nick Bradburry, Mint man Shaun Inman, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, and one yet-unnamed Mac developer. These are all guys who are acting primarily as developers, but definitely have a strong sense of design apparent in their work — should be interesting.
Visit -
Reading Between the Lines of Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’
Gruber provides his usual insightful commentary on Job’s DRM essay. The most interesting bit, to me, is that Nettwerk, an indie label that has some big-name artists like Avril and The Barenaked Ladies, is already selling DRM-free music on eMusic and has ben told by Apple they can’t do the same on iTunes. I hadn’t heard this, but if it’s true, it seems really contradictory on Apple’s part. If Jobs wants this essay to have some impact with the big boys, Apple should make a DRM-free deal with Nettwerk and other indie labels in order to prove they’re not bluffing.
Visit -
Daring Fireball Live at Macworld Expo
Gruber and Cabel Sasser get together after the keynote for an hour-long chat about the iPhone and other Apple goodness. By the way, if you’ve never heard Cabel speak live, you’ve got to see this guy. He’s incredibly exuberant and always laughing about something. I find him incredibly entertaining. And Gruber’s not bad, either. :)
Visit -
Daring Fireball: At ARM’s Length
Gruber speculates on what processor might be tucked away inside that iPhone. He suggests ARM is the likeliest candidate, and that makes a lot of sense. However, my first thought was that it was probably PowerPC.
Visit -
Caterina Fake interview in .net magazine
Gruber’s right: Caterina should totally be the CEO of Yahoo.
Visit -
7 Questions: Daring Fireball’s John Gruber
Brian Ford (who, for the sake of disclosure, is my cousin), tosses seven questions in the general direction of DF’s John Gruber and get back seven solid (if short and to-the-point) answers. Good quick read.
Visit -
Daring Fireball: Good Journalism
YAjgC.
Visit -
Gruber leaves Joyent for…wait for it…Daring Fireball
Jon Gruber officialy becomes the first “full-time blogger” that I consider worthy of the title. Gruber’s stuff is original, funny, informative, provocative, and consistently written with a professional quality lacking on most blogs. Good luck, Jon.
Visit -
Gruber: Together we can rule the galaxy
John Gruber’s analysis of the Apple/Intel alliance is, as per his usual, brilliant. There’s a lot to read here, but the part that stuck me as most interesting was this: “what Darwin is to Mac OS X, Intel will supply for Mac hardware.” A perfect analogy.
Visit -
Magic 8-Ball Answers Your Questions Regarding the ‘Napster To Go’ Subscription Service
Another Gruber classic. Personally, I think Napster is insulting my intelligence in thinking I’m stupid enough to believe folks are really spending $10,000 to fill their iPods.
Visit -
Gruber: Flash iPod Unlikey
“Perhaps you’d like to see a $15,000 BMW 3-series model, but you’re not going to get one.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Visit -
Gruber on MSN Music and Consumer Choice
Visit -
Gruber on iPod/iTMS Licensing/Real Harmony, etc.
Visit
Jeff Croft
I’m a digital product designer and developer in Seattle, WA. I currently work with Simply Measured, and recently co-founded Lendle, a Kindle book sharing service.
Some of my past clients include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Copious, The New York Review of Books, Django, The Lawrence Journal-World, and the University of Washington.
I’ve authored two books on web and interactive design and spoken at dozens of conferences around the world.
Filter content
Items tagged johngruber
By content type
Other tags in these items
- sxsw 1430 (100%)
- apple 444 (31%)
- humor 405 (28%)
- sxsw2007 402 (28%)
- southbysouthwest 389 (27%)
- music 364 (25%)
- python 321 (22%)
- mac 300 (21%)
- technology 278 (19%)
- business 225 (16%)
- journalism 203 (14%)
- osx 196 (14%)
- software 185 (13%)
- iphone 180 (13%)
- mobile 143 (10%)
- cellphone 121 (8%)
- ipod 112 (8%)
- microsoft 89 (6%)
- itunes 75 (5%)
- news 73 (5%)
- blogging 69 (5%)
- userinterface 69 (5%)
- shauninman 61 (4%)
- brianford 61 (4%)
- interview 59 (4%)