Included in the plan are sales incentives for retail workers, aimed at getting them to finally start recommending Windows Phone as an alternative to Android and iPhone. The amount of payments are $10 to $15 per handset sold, depending on the number sold, for some handset models.
Screams of absolute desperation to me.
VentureBeat’s Devindra Hardawar reports not only that HP was trying to sell webOS for $1.2 billion (the same price HP paid to get all of Palm just last year), but that Facebook was one suitor they met with.
While Hardawar cites a source saying that this deal “was practically laughed out of the room”, I wouldn’t totally put the idea of webOS and Facebook to bed.
Back in August, when HP was in crazy mode, myself and others laid out reasons why a Facebook/webOS deal would make sense. It still does — but maybe even more so now that HP ultimately decided to open source the OS.
Most of the reports about the Facebook Phone have them forking a version of Android in a similar way to what Amazon did for the Kindle Fire. But imagine if Facebook forked webOS instead?
Given Facebook’s HTML5 ambitions, and webOS’ HTML base, this seems to make more sense than forking a Java development platform.
I also wouldn’t sleep on one or more OEM pushing for this. Sooner or later, one of Android’s big OEM partners is going to break away, likely when Google tries to exert more control on things like OS updates. Google can say what it wants about the Motorola deal, the second that happened, all the other OEMs started looking around at other options. Open source webOS is an attractive one. Open source webOS re-written to be FacebookOS is an extremely attractive one.
(via Instapaper)
Here’s an interesting look at why companies like Spotify will fail at becoming profitable. Personally I don’t like Spotify. Don’t get me wrong from a technical standpoint it’s amazing. The lack of buffering even when you skip around in a song is something I still marvel at. However I just hate the idea of music becoming a subscription service. Bad for artists, and bad for users in the long run.
Proof that for Google being “open” is only a crutch they use to try and enter markets where they don’t dominate. After all there is nothing open about their search algorithms.
MG Siegler on Path’s HTML5 based website.
Speaking of Path, hopefully you’ve visited their new website by now. If not, click the link above. It’s amazing.
It’s the kind of thing you used to need Flash for. And it was one of the few decent arguments for why it perhaps should stick around. With it, you could make a website that felt alive — more like art and less utilitarian. Path’s Danny Trinh replicated that using only HTML5.
It’s a tad bit blurry and it doesn’t work on the iPad, but we’ll those slide.
Watching the reaction to Path 2 that past few hours has been fascinating. It’s a testament to the idea that design matters. And I don’t just mean how the app looks. To quote Steve Jobs, “It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
The Path team has nailed so many little things with their app that the first impression users are coming away with is sheer delight. That alone won’t get them to their full potential, but it’s a hell of a start.
Little things matter. Not compromising matters. Attention to detail matters.
I bet there are at least a half dozen things in this app that become standard design practice in most iOS apps. And they’re things Facebook and Google won’t be able to copy anytime soon with their UIWebView wrappers.
I promise not to keep incessantly hawking CrunchFund investments — I hate it when VCs do that shit too. I just thought these achievements were worthy of their own post.
Let me start out by saying that I have never liked Flash. I begun playing around with web development when it was in it infancy. Playing with HTML and making simple and crude web pages. I remember when Flash first arrived on the scene, back when it wasn’t bundled with your computer when you purchase it. I can remember the first websites that were built using Flash and users being asked to download and install this plugin in order to view the website. I didn’t like it from the start, it felt contrary to what I believed the web should be. A plugin made by one company needed to view a website. I hated the fact that it broke common browser functions, like the back button and history feature. As web search grew, I disliked the fact that search engines couldn’t crawl Flash based websites.
So after all these years I am very happy to see that Flash, at least as a plugin, is going to die. It’s the way it should be. Websites should be displayed by the web browser. They should be able to downgrade gracefully on older systems that don’t support newer features (one of the best aspects of HTML & CSS based design). It should not be an all or nothing solution dependent on development of one company.
Because of Apple’s success with the iPhone a lot of fuss has been made about their refusing to bundle Flash on the iPhone and on the iPad. A lot of this is exaggerated by the media which loves to focus on the top dog. However the demise of Flash lies strictly in the hands of Adobe. While people try to put the blame all on Apple, they forget that Flash for mobile devices wasn’t even fully ready until several generations of iPhones had been released. It wasn’t until the iPhone 4 was on the market that competing phones started getting Flash and even then it was described as buggy at best. All of this giving weight to Steve Jobs famous memo on flash, which was nothing but brutally honest.
I have a belief that when you build software, either programs or websites, you sometimes need to look at what you have built and then tear it down completely and rebuild it from scratch. Code becomes bloated, and after years of updates you find yourself with unnecessary bit of information. This is certainly true for Flash, it was designed for an age when computers operated differently and is stuck supporting legacy systems.
Adobe’s announcement is great news. Flash will live on doing what it does best, being used for games and applications. While the plugin version will slowly start to fade away. Web developers should embrace this news, and embrace HTML5 because it’s not only the future, but also a better way of delivering a lot of the content delivered through Flash.
Good read on how Dropbox turned down big money from Apple in order to build their business which now boast over 50 million users.
Interesting article about how Apple gave Siri a personality. I have yet to get my hands on an iPhone 4S and test Siri out, but I’ve come to believe that the fact that Siri has a bit of an attitude that it’s programmed full of jokes and anecdotes is a huge part of it’s amazing popularity and reception with the general public.
I’ve been looking forward to the release of iOS5 because I want to see how iMessage affects my cell phone bill. Most everyone I know has an iPhone and I suspect in a month or two my cell phone bill will gradually reduce as a result of this.
With iOS5 out in the wild I started receiving the first messages from friends and colleagues that are now using iMessage. I noticed a pretty big problem with how the system is designed. There is no connection between your phone number that is associated with an iPhone and your email address that is associated with another iOS device such as an iPad.
Now here in lies the problem, I’m at home and I send a message from my iPad to my friends iPhone. We converse for a while, and then I leave the house taking my iPhone with me. Now because I started the conversation on my iPad all responses are going only to that iPad. However my friend is not aware of where my messages are coming from, I’m in his address book and he sees the message as coming from me. For all he knows the messages are coming from my iPhone.
This likely unintentional separation of accounts solves an annoyance of this era of devices. I personally can’t stand when I get a DM on Twitter and it appears as new on 3 devices (Phone, Tablet, & Computer). So here you don’t get that problem, however you have a situation where people think they might be reaching you but actually are not.
Great piece from Business Week on Scott Forstall, the architect of iOS and a huge part of the iPhone’s runaway success. Scott has been for years now a guy to keep your eyes on and going forward in an Apple without Steve Jobs he’s going to become even more important.
