The Week In Review is a weekly digest of what I found interesting in tech over the last week. It consists of the story of the week, a summary of stratechery articles and links, a huge collection of links that I found noteworthy (plus commentary), and my favorite tweets of the week. I post this […]
May 2013
Asha to Asha
Nokia released two phones last week: one critically important called the Asha 501, and one simply iterative called the Lumia 925. Techmeme, at least, got the relative importance exactly backwards: Not to blame Techmeme; few if any of their readers were the target market for the Asha 501, while the Lumia 925 is squarely aimed […]
Paul Otellini’s Intel
From an extended feature in The Atlantic: Even Otellini betrayed a profound sense of disappointment over a decision he made about a then-unreleased product that became the iPhone. Shortly after winning Apple’s Mac business, he decided against doing what it took to be the chip in Apple’s paradigm-shifting product. “We ended up not winning it […]
The Tragic Beauty of Google+
Harry McCracken has a pretty good articulation of the conventional wisdom about Google+: Google+ is exuberant. It’s fun to use. And yet I’m pretty positive I won’t spend remotely as much time in it as I will in Facebook. You might have already guessed why: My friends, family and acquaintances are all on Facebook, where […]
The Android Detour
Google is at its best when its product focus follows its business model; for too long Android was a detour.
As of today, every major mobile competitor… also makes apps for iOS
Rene Ritchie: A few minutes ago BlackBerry announced BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for iOS. With that announcement, every single one of Apple’s major mobile competitors now makes apps for iOS. Follow the money: Apple makes it on hardware, so there is precisely zero benefit to supporting other platforms. Google and Microsoft, on the other hand, make […]
Facebook phones and the future of mobile communication
Frank Meehan, who built integrated communications platforms at INQ Mobile/Three in the mid-2000s: We had a lot of early success…because in 2008/2009 most people just used a handful of key internet communication centric services. Facebook, MSN Messenger, Skype etc dominated. So integrating just those services was such a useful step that people loved what we […]
The Facebook Flop
I’ll admit it: I’m rather enjoying the Facebook Home/First flop. First off, it’s always fun to say “I told you so.” Specifically, pre-launch I questioned Mark Zuckerberg’s assertion that people, not apps were the center of our smartphone experience in Apps, People, and Jobs to be Done: Apps aren’t the center of the world. But […]
The Week in Review – May 5-11, 2013
The Week In Review is a weekly digest of what I found interesting in tech over the last week. It consists of the story of the week, a summary of stratechery articles and links, a huge collection of links that I found noteworthy (plus commentary), and my favorite tweets of the week. I post this […]
Facebook in Talks to Buy Waze
Reuters: Facebook Inc is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli mobile satellite navigation start-up Waze for $800 million to $1 billion, business daily Calcalist reported on Thursday. Due diligence is underway after a term sheet was signed, Calcalist said, adding that talks began six months ago. Waze uses satellite signals from members’ smartphones to generate […]