John Gruber hits the nail on the head:
Here is a complete list of what Apple must do to increase developers’ trust in the App Store system:
State the rules.
Follow the rules.That’s it.
Author: Carrie
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How Apple can make iPhone developers love it again
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Three good things and one bad one
Good: The new Christopher Brookmyre, James Lee Burke and Ian Rankin novels.
Bad: The new Girls Aloud single.
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Better e-book readers are coming
Excellent news. We’re not quite at the point where I’d want to dump my daily paper for a digital Daily Me, but we’re getting closer.
The iRex Reader 1000 offers a 10.2-inch diagonal E-Inkscreen, far larger than Kindle’s 6-inch screen or even iRex’s own 8.1-inch diagonal iLiad, its last e-book model. That stretched display is designed to work with any file format, be it an e-book, a full-sized PDF, a Word document or HTML. Like earlier iRex devices, it sports a stylus and touch screen for taking notes and marking documents.
…Business-targeted readers also come with business-sized price tags. Though Plastic Logic won’t yet reveal the price for its device, iRex says its basic reader will start at $650. (By contrast, Kindle sells for $360.) Adding a writable screen to the iRex reader will cost another $100, and equipping it with wi-fi, Bluetooth and a 3G cell connection for downloading documents will raise the price to $850.
But nonbusiness consumers, take heart: Cheaper, book-focused e-readers are also likely to be revamped soon.
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Metallica: too loud, and not in a good way
Here we go again. Metallica appear to be following in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ footsteps, releasing an album that’s so compressed it’s painful to listen to. And that’s painful in a “shit sound” way, not a “woo! Scary metal!” way.
the released CD version is – to coin a technical phrase – smashed to f**k.
According to the mastering engineer, responding to Metallica fans:
I’m certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else.
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Why let an author’s death put an end to a series?
Following on from the news that Eoin Colfer, best known for the Artemis Fowl books, will be writing the next book in the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, I have my own announcement: I’ve been commissioned to write the sequel to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Obviously I can’t say too much about it, but I can promise that it’ll feature more car chases than the original.
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Techno arse
If you read Techmeme, the aggregator of news in the Technosphere, you may not have noticed that the world’s financial markets nearly collapsed yesterday and that the world is again looking at a 1930’s style Great Depression scenario. You would not know that artist Damien Hirst flogged off £70m of “fine art” including the Formaldehyde Shark above – nor will you know that art prices nearly always reach top levels at the same time that commercial property development hits the point where it implodes, which is the guaranteed signal of recession.
You will, of course, be very well aware of the latest Apple, Blackberry, Google etc shiny shiny stuff though.
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Plastic Logic’s e-book reader: I want one
Details and video at TG Daily.
Manufacturer’s blurb:
Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the Plastic Logic reader features a big readable display. Yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience – better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today.
The Plastic Logic reader supports a full range of business document formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe PDFs, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books. It has an easy gesture-based user interface and powerful software tools that will help business users to organize and manage their information. Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly and store thousands of documents on the device. The reader incorporates E Ink technology for great readability and features low power consumption and long battery life. The Plastic Logic reader is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009.
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Fan hits the shit
You might think I’m only linking to the YouTube clip of Noel Gallagher being attacked on stage so I can use that headline.
You’re right.
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It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I’m thinking about iPods
Later today the boffins at CERN will switch on the Large Hadron Collider, which will – depending on who you believe – usher in a brave new era in physics, turn the planet into Swiss cheese, or open a portal for Satan to come and enslave us all. Which may well overshadow the latest iPod.
iPod Nano 4G It’s a really nice upgrade, I reckon, but I do wonder where the iPod can possibly go from here. Pico-projectors that enable you to show video on nearby walls or bald people’s heads? Integrated kazoos?
Tangent: during the keynote Steve Jobs made it clear that he wasn’t too happy with third-party accessory firms leaking supposedly secret products, as happened with the nano. I wonder if pre-release access to Apple’s plans is going to be more restricted now. Why help add-on manufacturers get to market quickly if they’re going to blow your big reveal?
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Got a Sony Vaio? Don’t like fires? You should probably read this, then
Sony’s recalling a whole bunch of Vaio TZ laptops because of an unfortunate “burny burny” feature that’s slipped into some of them. The recall includes these models:
- All model numbers beginning “VGN TZ1” (e.g. VGN-TZ11XN/B)
- All model numbers beginning “VGN TZ2” (e.g. VGN-TZ21WN/B)
- Certain model numbers beginning “VGN TZ3” (e.g. VGN-TZ31VN/R)
Full UK details here. [Via Engadget]