CNET yesterday reported that Verizon has announced a “hard requirement” that all future smartphones released on the carrier support 4G LTE technology for faster data speeds. That requirement has naturally led to speculation that the carrier has all but confirmed that the iPhone 5 will support LTE, which had already been widely assumed and rumored.

Fortunately, I haven’t seem much of that alleged rumors. I guess there is a lot of idiotic writing to be done about how this is reality or modern technology biting Apple in the ass, Apple being on the losing side, blablabla.

Let’s just have a quick look at that quote (emphasis mine):

From now on, nearly every smartphone, wireless hot spot, tablet, and Netbook that Verizon offers will come with LTE guns a-blazing. Yes, Virginia, that includes Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices, too. There will be the occasional exception, however. For instance, phones on Verizon’s push-to-talk network are 3G-only for now, and will remain that way until further notice.

Nearly every. Explicit mention of Windows Phone and Blackberry, but notably not iOS. Exceptions acknowledged – and excuse me stating the obvious, but if there is one company that gets exceptions from carriers, we all know it’s Apple. And that for instance means that exceptions are not limited to PTT-devices.

Stupid rumors are one thing, but everything being used for speculations despite coming with obvious tells that it is not warranted is something even worse.

All of the Republican contenders insist they are optimists, but they don’t seem to realize that there is no better way to convey optimism than with a smile. Humor suggests that no matter how dark things are, you have the sensibility to laugh, to see a bit of sun around the corner.

What seems like the end of the road may just be a cul de sac. It feels like rejection. It feels like failure. But maybe it isn’t.

What a great piece. So great.

Everyone has their bullshit. You can simply decide whose you’re willing to tolerate.

I think one of the reasons why I’ll rather put up with Apple than with, say, Google’s bullshit is that it seems to be directed more at people that analyze and/or invest in companies, not customers.

I used to attempt to defend myself against accusations of being a fanboy, but I just don’t care anymore. It’s impossible to express a useful opinion to any significantly sized audience without inadvertently angering someone enough to hurl irrational insults at you.

It used to be that I simply loved him for bringing me Instapaper, but ever since he started publishing on his blog more frequently, I also enjoy his writing a lot.

It’s that time of year, dear readers, when every blogger, in order to have something to write about during the slow week after Christmas, looks back and reflects on the year just ending. Most people are talking about what a crummy year it was, and it was, if you were, you know, unemployed, or illegally detained, or swapped out for spare parts. But for Dick-heads, the year was pretty OK.

I’m really not fanatical about living in Austria, but even I have to admit that is has some perks. Relatively early access – especially given it’s size – to technology, at least in some cases (iPhone, no less) is right up there (with cheap, fast Internet and phone plans).

Sometimes the next thing does less, and is better for it — not in every way, but overall. If we never let go of old technology, we’d be buried in complexity and crushed by outdated crap.

The first sentence is what technology pundits that try to talk down Apple’s success and (or because they) don’t understand it don’t get. The second sentence is pure gold – it’s everything I’ve ever wanted to say in regards to Flash (and others) in the most compact way of saying it. As clear and concise as Apple products.

Since web browsing is booming on mobile devices, web developers must build in non-Flash equivalents to any Flash functionality. iOS’ popularity has made this effectively true for years, but now the most die-hard holdouts have no hope to cling to: widespread Flash support on mobile devices will definitely never happen now, so it’s irresponsible and against nearly every site owner’s best interests to make any Flash-only functionality today.

It may sound ridiculous, but when I read about the end of Flash on Mobile this morning (in Instapaper, of course) I felt incredibly relieved, as if a weight that has been on my (or rather, our collective) shoulders for years had finally been lifted. I applaud Adobe for taking this step; it was clear that Flash was the past and better be left there for many, but not all. Now that it’s officially being ended, even those that supported it just for the sake of supporting something that might hinder Apple will eventually realize that the future looks different. And that includes Adobe itself, which just regained a lot of the respect and sympathy they’ve lost over the past few years by trying to fight against windmills even after they’ve been told that it’s not in their best interest.

Miller had, admittedly, created a proof-of-concept application to demonstrate his security exploit, and even gotten Apple to approve it for distribution in Apple’s App Store by hiding it inside a fake stock ticker program, a trick that Apple wrote violated the developer agreement that forbid him to “hide, misrepresent or obscure” any part of his app. But the researcher for the security consultancy Accuvant argues that he was only trying to demonstrate a serious security issue with a harmless demo, and that revoking his developer rights is “heavy-handed” and counterproductive. “I’m mad,” he says. “I report bugs to them all the time. Being part of the developer program helps me do that. They’re hurting themselves, and making my life harder.”

The problem, I think, is not that he demonstrated the issue; I think it’s not even that he demonstrated that one could slip it by the App Store review team. In my opinion Miller’s mistake was not taking the App down himself after he had demonstrated the exploit and caught it on video (at least the news reports didn’t indicate that to me). It would have still been against the rules, but there would have been no harm to Apple other than possibly bad publicity, and more importantly to no one other than Apple; Miller might have still been kicked from the developer program, but I would have understood his anger and disappointment in that case. But he simply left the App for everyone to download – again, from what I understood from the news reports – and therefore put customers in potential harm (especially since the App was free). And at that point it doesn’t matter that he’s a security researcher and maybe more trustworthy than “no-name-developers” – if Apple made some members of the ecosystem more equal than others, everything would start to crumble. While I don’t think anyone, including Apple, thinks of Miller as someone abusing that situation to harm users, that doesn’t mean he should be treated special. Not only would the line that has to be drawn begin to become fuzzy, not only would it become only a matter of time that Apple misjudges and gave someone special treatment that didn’t deserve it; it would also – and probably more importantly – require the users to think about the Apps they download and who creates them, and that’s the one thing Apple doesn’t want and need. And it’s not only about potentially putting customers in harms way. In Miller’s demonstration video he deploys a payload that changes the App’s behavior: On start, the App immediately quits again and instead sends the user to a website or YouTube-video. That in itself is enough to erode an inexperienced user’s trust and faith in the ecosystem; they become confused and wary of again installing an App – any App – because they don’t understand what’s going on and feel like they’re out of control.

So in all, it’s acceptable that Apple kicked Miller. They shouldn’t do it because he discovered and showed off a vulnerability, and had he done only that, I’d criticize Apple. However, by leaving it on the App Store, Miller didn’t act responsibly, and bringing forward the defense of “Apple should be thankful! I’m doing heir work for them”, he honestly seems a bit childish to me. Like a fed up child that can’t see why its parents won’t let them eat candy for breakfast. And while I’m certainly not a security researcher, I also don’t think it’s common practice in that field either. There’s simply no reason why the App should be available on the App Store; no one can benefit from that course of action, but a lot of people and systems are being compromised. Remember: there is no insight to be gained by downloading the App; for one, there is no way to really understand the inner workings (only releasing the source code, not just an already compiled version thereof would provide one), and since this whole proof of concept is based in part on code that runs on Millers server not even other researchers (the only group of people that might have a reason other than pure curiosity to download the App) could gain any insight.

Also:

Miller chalks up the difference to Apple’s new management. “I miss Steve Jobs,” he says. “He never kicked me out of anything.”

I guess we’re starting to see the first cases of “It’s because Steve’s gone” being used as an explanation for everything “wrong” that happens at Apple, no matter how ridiculous it may sound.

There certainly are more touching, more impressive or simply better Steve Jobs remembrances out there, but most of them are written; Colbert’s are the best that on TV, and in fact the best that I could imagine in the medium of television. They are honest while avoiding stereotypical eulogy-material, instead staying true to Colbert’s (fictional) character.

I approached this experiment with a lot of questions, the primary of which was quite simple: why do people use Android? I had my own preconceived answers — they dislike Apple or couldn’t get an iPhone for one reason or another — but I dove in with an open mind regardless. After over four months of Android 2.3 on a Nexus S, I’m left mostly answerless. [...] To be frank, I still don’t know who Android is for.

He also offers a great analogy about the UX of the two OS’s:

iOS feels like a manual transmission being operated by a seasoned driver. Android is a dumb teenager constantly dropping the clutch, and seemingly getting more and more frustrated as time goes on.

I keep saying that I’m fine with people using Android, as long as they don’t try to convince other people to use it – if one doesn’t already know about it, the differences between Andriod and iOS and the advantages of the former, than one’s not in the group of people that actually benefits from those advantages. That is to say, only people that enjoy tinkering with and reading about their gadgets benefit from Android more than from iOS. Or as Ryan puts it:

I know there are people who simply choose to use it, and I accept that. I don’t really care. But I just can’t wrap my head around any of the arguments that come up in support of it.

So can’t any customer that isn’t tech-savvy and interested in the technology behind those devices enough to read up on them before going into a shop to actually buy one of them.

This wrap-up is an excellent read, and while a lot of Android-fans might not agree with everything in it, it’s about as objective as one can get. I envy Ryan for his experience, and while I’m not going to go Android-only for any amount of time, I’m still hoping that some day, some manufacturer will step up and offer an an Android-equivalent of the iPod touch that is actually somewhat easy to get and not crap spec-wise, plus has the Market Place so that I can further back my thoughts of Android with actual experiences.

Apple® today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. [...] “iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days,” said Philip Schiller.

 Paul Thurrot on October 10:

Apple’s iPhone 4S, which was launched last week to mostly negative reviews, is an opening for Windows Phone 7.5, Lees says, pointing to data from IDC and Gartner suggesting that Microsoft’s mobile OS will surpass the iPhone by 2015.

Ina Fried, AllThingsD, on October 7:

 Initial reaction to the iPhone 4S was somewhat muted, given its similarity to the iPhone 4.

Reuters, on October 5:

Rival smartphone makers could exploit a rare letdown by Apple in the launch of its new iPhone 4S model, which failed to wow fans, and grab a bigger share of the most lucrative part of the phone market. [...] The lukewarm reception given for the new phone also hit shares in Apple’s suppliers.

Assuming an average sales price of more than $500 — a safe assumption — Apple pulled in $2 billion in iPhone revenue because of this. That doesn’t include accessories, app sales, iCloud upgrades, etc. Assuming a $650 ASP and some app sales, Apple could have pushed $3 billion.

That’s 6% of Google’s, 3% of Microsoft’s, and 2% of Apple’s yearly revenues in three days.

While there are way to many people out there that would use this as an example of how the world is going down, technology is bad, Apple is evil – in short, how it is a bad thing that there are kids that miss out on growing up with physical copies of books or magazines – this is a wonderful, concise example of how Steve Jobs changed our world.

There are people that know it right now, and there are people that don’t think of him as an important historical figure yet; but in 20 years, I don’t think anyone of the latter will be left. It’s then that the first generation that grew up with the results of Jobs’ work from the second they were born – whose first birthday was captured on an iPhone, who had their bedtime stories red to them from an iPad, who watched movies on that long car trip on an iOS device, who take a 500g-tablet instead of a 5kg-backpack to school – is standing on their on feet. And just like today’s 60-year-olds wonder about the proficiency my generation has with computers because we got to learn how to use them in our early childhood, we will wonder about how the world has changed in ways we could neither foresee nor keep up with.

This coming generation will be the first unencumbered by legacy computing idioms, open to whatever we hand them, ready to take it places we can’t think of because we’re stuck with our workflows. It is then that Apple’s groundbreaking changes in direction will truly flourish: Those kids won’t scuff at a device that doesn’t offer them an USB port to plug their flash drives into – rather they’ll laugh about the old ways that seem so impractical to them.

It is then that everyone will acknowledge Steve Jobs’ legacy. There will be grim people that wish for an alternate history, one in which someone else laid out the tracks, one in which Apple did not get turned around and made into what it is today; there will be people that disagree with Jobs’ vision and Apple’s work, and there will not be a consensus on whether the company is good or evil, right or wrong, totalitarian or libertarian, empowering or limiting people in their choices. But no matter whether one likes it or not, with that generation having gone through their teens there will not be any doubt about how profoundly Jobs’s work has changed society.

There are only three fonts: normal (Droid Sans), serif (Droid Serif), and monospace (Droid Sans Mono). While there may be additional fonts buried in WebKit somewhere, they appear to be inaccessible to developers outside of WebKit. :-(

“Choice”. “Open”.

(Also gotta love that comment beneath: “Gotta appreciate the simplicity of options.” Every day, mate.)

Google is known for search engines, I say: search engines should be replaced by answer engines.

Wozniak explained that sending flowers or onetime celebrations are the kinds of traditions he and Jobs agreed were unnecessary.

Yet another reason why I look up to Steve Jobs.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. [...] No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

There will be a lot that Steve Jobs will be remembered for, but this speech better than anything else I’ve seen shows you the person the world just lost. Today – more than ever -, with the news not having settled in yet, watching this is the best way I can imagine to deal with this.

The additional device

Which is to say: Like an e-ink-Kindle, I’d likely use the Amazon Kindle Tablet only for reading. (Strictly talking about me here.) That also means I’d likely end up carrying the iPad and Kindle Tablet with me (in case I want to, you know, create something, which the Kindle Tablet most likely is even less suited for than the iPad), and I’m not sure that sounds enticing. And when I leave the house without any sort of bag, I’d have to chose between the two and might end up regretting my choice.

Disconnected

This initial version of the device will be WiFi-only. Amazon is supposedly working with carriers to possibly product 3G-enabled versions (as they have with their other Kindles), but that won’t be the case at launch. Right now I use the WiFi-only iPad and I have to admit, I miss 3G. Yes, I can tether it to my iPhone – which is why I opted for that iPad model in the first place – but that is becoming too much of a hassle if all I need is 30 seconds of connection to sync an app. With reading being not only the main, but most likely the single use case for me for the Kindle Tablet, syncing and being connected is not as important as it is on the iPad, but as a lot of what I read are not books, it might still be an issue.

Make or Break: Instapaper

What it really comes down to for me is one app: Instapaper.

The reason I “need” 3G connection to do my reading on the iPad – and why I would need it on the Kindle Tablet – is not the Kindle App, but Instapaper. To read books I exclusively use the Kindle app, and while it has sync functionality, I hardly need it (as I basically read on one device only), and it also doesn’t matter when and how often that syncing happens; for basically everything else reading-related I use Instapaper, and syncing is crucial here: I use it on multiple devices, saving articles on my MacBook, reading them on the iPad, and as the syncing is not (only) about Metadata like in the Kindle app, but contains the actual content, it is absolutely crucial.

I’d guess about 90 to 95% of my reading these days is via Instapaper. I just don’t like to stop reading in the middle of a chapter, just like I don’t like to stop watching a movie midway and continuing at a later time. Hence, to read a book, I have to sit down, take some time and just concentrate on reading; most of my Instapaper-articles are a matter of minutes, which is why they are perfect for commuting where i can’t really control how much time I can spend reading.

For me, reading is synonymous with Instapaper these days.

For the Kindle Tablet to make sense to me it would have to have an Instapaper app; if I can’t use that service, I’d be better served with an e-ink Kindle. There is some support for Kindles right now in the form of downloading your archive as a .mobi-file that can be synced to the device, but that’s obviously too much of a hassle to do regularly, maybe even more than once daily. Another way to access Instapaper on the Kindle Tablet would of course be using the website itself, but that would require a 3G connection and might simply be a lot less convenient than I’m used to from the iOS-app.

So, make or break: Will there be an Instapaper-App for the Amazon Kindle Tablet?

In favor of it: What MG Siegler reported on is pretty much the same device as Marco Arment presented in his “semi-educated guess on the Amazon tablet“. Hence, this might be one of the most interesting devices to release Instapaper on for him.

Against it: It’s a huge risk. Instapaper is mainly a service, not a standalone-app; there are ongoing costs which right now are covered only by sales of the iOS-App (and a voluntary subscription that I highly recommend, but I don’t think that it contributes a large part, yet alone that it could finance the service in it’s current form). Making money by selling an hypothetical app on the Kindle Tablet would be an absolute necessity in order to keep Instapaper running, especially if it’s not only existing, but also a lot of new customers that require more infrastructure, hence increasing costs further. Marco doesn’t seem too interested to be in the Android Marketplace for that reason (amongst others, maybe):

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.

Not only seem Android-users less likely to pay for apps than iOS-users, but it is a lot easier to still use the app thanks to piracy being easier; and while Instapaper sure will be fine without all those Android-users that might not want be willing to pay for it – it has done fine so far, after all – piracy might kill it: It increases the user count, therefore the infrastructure requirements and costs, without adding any income.

But what’s even more dangerous than piracy is the fact that the Kindle Tablet will (of course) use the Amazon App Store; and if Marco isn’t particularly interested in being in the Google Marketplace, i guess he will flat out refuse to enter the Amazon App Store:

I can’t imagine giving up that much control. Whoever’s running Amazon’s Appstore either doesn’t understand developers or has no respect for them.

Piracy may slowly, but steadily add strain to your costs, but you should have time to react, deal with it and eventually adjust to it (of course it’s easier to just try and prevent it in the first place). Being featured on the Amazon App Store – and there’s no doubt in my mind that Instapaper would be as soon as it entered it, none whatsoever – may result in 100k new users within 24 hours, without being paid anything (or at least not what you calculated to be your break-even-or-better-price). And while not all of those users might use the service in a way that’s puts a strain on your hardware, you will notice the effect, and it will cost you a lot of money – money that’s not covered by app sales or anything else.

For that reason alone I don’t see any chance for Instapaper to be on the Amazon Kindle Tablet, unless either Amazon changes it’s rules or Instapaper changes it’s business model.

A Kindle Tablet for you, sir?

I might put up with carrying an extra device; I might put up with my reading device not being connected all the time, relying on syncing at home or via tethering on-the-go; but I can’t image putting up with my reading device not having Instapaper. Right now, it looks like the only way the Kindle Tablet can offer me that is by using a 3G-model (built-in, not tethering) and the Instapaper website, which I imagine is less convenient than the iOS-app. Therefore, the Kindle Tablet like it’s currently known is not an attractive reading device for me; the only real advantage would be the size and the fact that I might not worry as much about it being stolen; I don’t think those outweigh the disadvantages. It’s also not an attractive Android device, even though I still wish for one in the 200-300$ (or less) range, because I’d like to have “stock Android” including the Google Apps (or, more to the point, the Marketplace) which Amazon won’t offer (which I think is a good idea, nonetheless).

The Kindle Tablet will no doubt be interesting to a lot of people, it will certainly be successful and I’m pretty sure it will dominate over any other Android tablet for a long time coming.

Still, I don’t see it being of any use to me. Unless something big changes, I’m afraid I’ll have to sit out.

Given the credible estimate that we’ve spent $1 trillion on anti-terrorism security (this does not include our many foreign wars), that’s $62.5 billion per life saved. Is there any other risk that we are even remotely as crazy about?   Note that everyone who died was shot with a gun. No Islamic extremist has been able to successfully detonate a bomb in the U.S. in the past ten years, not even a Molotov cocktail.

An abstract as well as the 501-page book can be found at the Ohio State University webspace of John Mueller, leading researcher.

I want to tell them that the iPad is not the future of education, it’s the present of education. If we consign the iPad to the realms of the future, then we are implicitly saying that it’s not for right here, right now, today. We’re saying that we can postpone the task of seriously engaging with the educational and social impact of ubiquity of Internet-connected computing.   I ask you to consider other industries that put off dealing with such challenges. How is that approach working out for record companies? For newspapers? For booksellers?

We are talking to Valve about this, but I definitely understand their reasons for wanting to control their platform. There’s a certain inherent incompatibility between what we want to do and what they want to do. So there’s no big argument, we just don’t want to limit what we can do with Minecraft. Also, Steam is awesome. Much more awesome than certain other digital distribution platforms that we would NOT want to release Minecraft on.

Even though he might be talking about the App Store in that last sentence, he is wonderfully objective: While the limitations that Steam presents are problematic for Minecraft, he can still see and accept why Valve put them in place. (Of course, Persson is in a comfortable position with his game selling incredibly well with only their own e-commerce-solution on the homepage and no big publishing platform such as Steam; this is definitely harder to pull of on iOS without being in the App Store)