Great and obvious post by Jesus Diaz (that everyone is doing) on how all the big dogs misjudged the iPhone.
My favorite quote is still from Ed Colligan, Ex-Palm CEO (I liked this one way back in 2006):

We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.

Mr. Diaz’s response is delicious:

Apparently, Ed, they walked right in, stole your lunch, your dinner, your wife, your car, your horse, and all your pudding. And then they ate it. And pooped it out.

Last week I got into an argument with my mother. She asked me why I take forever to return her calls and also why I hang up on her. She begged me to get another phone. And because she loves me and knows I love Apple, she even offered to buy stock in AAPL.
First, I acknowledge my flakiness in regard to returning phone calls. This is something I have the power to fix.
As for the hang-ups, I had to explain to my mother that I never deliberately hang up on anyone, especially my own mother. I went into detail about the situation with my iPhone and its service in New York City. In short, it’s horrible. Ask anyone with an iPhone what they hate the most about it and they’ll most likely tell you their AT&T service (no, it’s not the lack of a removable battery). The majority of my friends and coworkers in New York City have iPhones and they all hate AT&T.
But momma’s question got me thinking, why do I put up with AT&T’s shit?
The answer is simple – because I don’t use the phone part of my iPhone very much, relative to all the other applications on it.
Below is a grab of my Home screen. Back in July I wrote a post on how I organize my icons based on orbits from my left hand thumb (Unless I’m typing, I usually operate it with one hand).

While you can see the phone icon is fairly close to the bottom left of the home screen, I’ve moved it out of the persistent tray it’s in by default. Compared to e-mail, web browsing, tweeting and reading cached articles on Instapaper, I don’t make phone calls that much.
Please AT&T, move some of that $65 million over to the east coast, I don’t want a upset mother anymore.

This is what’s wrong with our culture. There’s always an easy way out.
This ‘Maybe’ option is inherent in the structure of Microsoft Outlook, not my iPhone calendar (I’m synced with my company’s Exchange server). I’d like Microsoft remove it as an option.
Imagine you send out a meeting invite to 500 people, and 400 people reply ‘Maybe’. Are you just supposed to hope those 400 people are going to make it? Suppose a client’s going to be there, or you’re ordering food?
Have some balls in life and make concrete decisions, and if you see those three options, either Accept or Decline.

Despite Microsoft’ recent attempting to improve fix their products and their product design through mimicking Apple’s retail stores as well as superficial interpretations of Apple’s operating system style, there’s just something soulless about everything Microsoft does.
Somehow they manage to make whitespace feel like dead space. It’s the same feeling I get when I walk into a Walmart:




All 3 of these screenshots just blend together. There’s nothing unique about any of them. No heirarchy, no details. Nothing.
This clip of Steve Jobs must be at least 20 years old, but it’s just as relevant:

The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste …I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way …In the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product. And you say, ‘Why is that important?’ …Proportionally spaced type comes from typesetting and beautiful books, that’s where one gets the idea. If it weren’t for the Mac they would never have that in their products.

John Gruber points out that Apple could buy Dell (operative word here is could, not would) and Om Malik notes that they’re more valuable than Google.

I was going to comment on this sad attempt at shit-talking, but a comment from the Gizmodo post sums it up:

This is like that time I made fun of Leonardo DiCaprio for dating some really skanky supermodels.

influencer:

Amazon Kindle 2.0, Feb 9, 2009
influenced:

Barnes & Noble Nook, October 2009

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most
intelligent, but the most responsive to change

-Charles Darwin

Apple didn’t get the news that there’s a recession.

I’m looking forward to the grand opening of the first Microsoft Store opening in Scottsdale, Arizona.
If their launch party videos are any indication, we’re in for a real treat.

Here we go again.
Verizon has started an anti ‘iDevice’ campaign.
There’s a lot of different critiques to be made from this initiative, but I’m keeping this post short – keep your eyes on the road and study the track.
While it’s important to know where your competitors are relative to you in a car race, you’ll rarely see drivers spending the majority of their time looking at the cars to their left and right. They keep their eyes on the track so they don’t crash into the fucking wall.
Novel idea, right?
This is was has happened to the mobile industry since the introduction of the iPhone. Many, but not all, cell phone manufacturers has been busy running around trying to make touchscreen devices and app stores to compete with Apple.
That’s like Ferrari looking over at Lamborghini in order to figure our how to make a better Ferrari. The reason people buy a Ferrari isn’t because it has a lot of Lamborghini-like qualities, it’s because it has something very unique to it, the way it corners, the way the engine sounds, how the seats feel, how it smells, the sound the door makes when it closes and opens.
The reason the Palm Pre is such a great device is because of all the ways it’s unique and not like iPhone. It’s not trying to be something it’s not. It aggregates your social data differently, multi-tasks differently and manages windows and apps differently.
What companies who want to compete with the iPhone need to first figure out is what holes exist in the marketplace. They need to figure out how to make something people with love, not something that will beat Apple.
It’s like that Zen paradox saying, if you really want something, don’t focus on it and you will get it.
Keep your eyes on the road, Verizon …and study the track, or I guarantee you will crash and burn.

This is interesting.
While Apple continues its upward trajectory with iPhone sales and profits, it seems AT&T needs 17 months to break even on the iPhone. Once the iPhone (and Palm Pre, and Android phones) break free from its carrier exclusively, the powershift from carrier to phone manufacturer will be even more apparent.
We’re seeing a similar change happening in the music world. PBS MediaShift is reporting Record Labels Are Losing Power to Fans, Artists.
I say these are shifts for the better.

So Google Chrome Beta is out now, and despite it being very, very new, I decided to give it a test drive. It loads HTML sites really fast, but Flash is chuggy.
And occasionally it tosses up errors screens like the one above. Made me smile.