June 2012
Bijan Sabet: Mobile optimized sites →
bijansabet.com
According to Google Analytics about 18% of the folks that visit my Tumblr at bijansabet.com are using a mobile device (phone or tablet). Google Analytics only sees a small subset of the traffic because most people that check out this site follow me on Tumblr and view the content via the Dashboard.
My site is remarkably close to this as well. In the past 30 days, just over 19% of visits have been on mobile.
Busting the iOS 6 Transit Map Myths →
waxy.org
Good overview by Andy Baio of the iOS 6 Maps transit situation — including how the APIs for this will work (at least right now).
(via Rob Pegoraro)
“Tumblr CEO David Karp has just announced that it will launch a brand new iOS app next week. This announcement was made just now at F.ounders, the highly prestigious event we called the Rolls Royce of technology events. Karp said that there wont be ads on the app immediately, but they are planned and will be implemented soon after launch.”
—
Tumblr will be launching a brand new iOS app next week, says David Karp - The Next Web
Very excited.
(Public Transit) Maps, They Don't Love You Like I Love You →
cocoanetics.com
There’s been quite a bit of hoopla surround Apple’s decision not to include public transit directions in their new iOS Maps application, and instead outsource this to developers (many of whom have already been doing this for a while). On one hand, this sucks. On the other, Cocoanetics brings up a great point: it may actually be a somewhat savvy move.
As they note about a particular situation in Vienna:
A birdie tweeted into my ear that this was a result of a back-room deal aimed at neutering Google’s power by making Google Maps worthless for navigation in Vienna. And thus two apps became the only sources of routing information in Vienna. So even though Google was “working hard” they did never stand a chance against the secret deal between several monopolistic companies.
Even in the U.S., you have cities like San Francisco which have MUNI, Caltrain, and BART, all of which make up public transportation (and not even all of it). Currently, Google Maps picks up all those feed, but what if one of them decides they want to cut their own deal with another app or make their own? And what about taxi information and data from services like Uber?
I suspect Apple didn’t want to get into all of this because it’s a headache. If it’s important enough to users and the third-party solutions aren’t good enough, of course they will — but for now, they’re giving this a shot.
As an aside, I’m in London right now and used Google Maps to plan an Underground ride from the airport to the city. Google’s public transit directions gave me a wrong stop at which transfer. In fact, it gave me the only stop I *couldn’t* transfer from. It’s the little things that kill. And these transit systems are full of little things.
Space Wallpapers for Retina MacBook Pro →
flickr.com
Rob Sheridan has curated a few MacBook Pro Retina-ready NASA images. Perfect desktop backgrounds.
Heat And Fan Noise →
marco.org
Great overview by Marco Arment of the effectiveness of the new fan system inside the Retina MacBook Pro.
“That containment wasn’t something average consumers widely understood, I’d say. To them, Siri was just some cool new tool that let you ask your iPhone for stuff. It was a subtle way to dump Google without consumers ever realizing that Apple dumped Google…. That’s how you fight Google, if you’re Apple. No bombs get dropped; no consumer is even aware that you were fighting a war.”
—
Danny Sullivan, Why Apple Is Going “Containment” Not “Thermonuclear” Against Google In iOS 6
Great quote.
I Wrote A Book — It Only Took 5 Years And Was Edited Down From About Ten Million Words
It’s actually rather genius.
Not necessarily the book, mind you — I’ll let you decide that — but the idea behind it. A startup called Hyperink is behind it and they approached me with the opportunity to repurpose and reinvigorate some of that past content I had made. They’ve previously done this with Foundry Group’s Brad Feld and had great success (he just released version 2 of his blog-to-book).
One of the greatest strengths of blogging is also a weakness: content is very easy to get out there, but because of that, it’s also extremely ephemeral. Every blogger has dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of posts that they poured time into, but after a short shelf life, those posts are lost in the ether of the web — most never to be found again. Some of those are great posts. It doesn’t matter. On the Internet, fresh content is paramount.
Hyperink is trying to change this with Blog to Book series. Specifically, they’re looking over past posts to find the best ones (based on a number of factors — some subjective, some not) and putting them together in an eBook format. More will be coming from other bloggers in the future.
To be clear, all of this is previous published content that is available for free on the web. But the book is edited together together in a way that I actually think is pretty fun and seamless. I’ve also included some updated commentary on some of the topics. It’s 177 pages of pure joy and jackassery.
Perhaps most importantly, the price is fair. If you buy it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, you’ll pay just $4.95. And for a limited time, you can buy it right through Hyperink for just $2.99. With that purchase, you can get the eBook for the Kindle, Nook, iPad, or just a PDF.
The title? You’re Damn Right I’m a Fanboy: MG Siegler on Apple, Google, Startup Culture, and Jackasses on the Internet. Catchy, no?
Enjoy. And thanks for reading.
