Year: 2012

At Least Four Inches

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The WSJ:

The new iPhone that Apple Inc. AAPL -0.37% is expected to unveil this year is likely to have a larger display than its current models have, with the company ordering bigger screens from its Asian suppliers, people familiar with the matter said.

The new screens measure at least 4 inches diagonally, the people said, compared with 3.5 inches on Apple’s latest model, the iPhone 4S. Production is set to begin next month, the people said. Analysts have predicted that the next iPhone will come out in the fall.

Apple declined to comment.

Reuters is reporting the new screen to 4 inches, when measured form corner to corner.

The question is this: Why would Apple want to change the iPhone display?

The cynic in me thinks that it is a necessity if Apple wants to include LTE in the next iPhone. LTE might mean Apple has to increase the size of the display to increase the size of the battery behind it.

Of course, this might be Apple responding to the market. The majority of smartphones are bigger than the iPhone (due to the reason listed above, in most cases), and maybe Apple doesn’t want their product to look wimpy or puny next to the newest Android phones.

(I really don’t buy my own argument completely, though.)

Whatever the reason, reporters who usually get such things right seem hard set on the fact that the next iPhone will be physically larger. As long as its still comfortable to use — and I’m sure it will be — I don’t see a big problem with it.

Not that Apple asked me.

How Yahoo Killed Flickr

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Mat Honan at Gizmodo:

Do you remember Flickr’s tag line? It reads “almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” It was an epic humble brag, a momentously tongue in cheek understatement.

Because until three years ago, of course Flickr was the best photo sharing service in the world. Nothing else could touch it. If you cared about digital photography, or wanted to share photos with friends, you were on Flickr.

Yet today, that tagline simply sounds like delusional posturing. The photo service that was once poised to take on the the world has now become an afterthought.

I left Flickr months ago, and haven’t really missed it. And that’s the problem.

First!

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Dave Caolo:

The race to be the first to post a story online 1 frequently causes problems. For example, this morning I saw a headline on Boy Genius Report (BGR), “New Jersey bans texting while walking”.

BGR linked Huffington Post as the source, so I clicked the link for more of the story. HuffPo’s headline reads, “Texting While Walking Ban: Fort Lee Imposes $85 Fines On Dangerous Texters [CORRECTION].” As soon as I see “correction,” I think, “Uh-oh.” The HuffPo story begins with a link to a story at MSNBC, entitled, “New Jersey town’s police chief: No, we didn’t ban texting while walking.” Oops.

I can forgive HuffPo for this gaffe, as it appears to have been the starting point. Its writers simply got it wrong. But BGR parroted the story without hesitation (as did many others). Plus, as of this writing, BGR hasn’t updated its headline or story.

I’ll say it again – in the race to hit publish, writers don’t check their sources. Sigh.

Perian Discontinued

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Perian, the QuickTime plugin is being discontinued by its developers. Topher Kessler at CNET:

Unfortunately, the developers have decided to move on to other projects, and in a posting on the Perian Web site, said they will be halting support for the software after 90 days from its final release. The source code will then be posted to an open-source community (Google Code or GitHub), where others can try maintaining it if they so choose. There will be no official support for Perian in Apple’s upcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, but unless Apple changes the way the program is allowed to interface with QuickTime then it should continue to function, though there are no guarantees.

This plug-in used to be one of the first things I installed on a new Mac. While I’m sad to see it go, VLC is more than capable of handling things from now on.

Speaking of Sources…

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Philip Elmer-DeWitt, on the story that Foxconn CEO Tery Gou leaked Apple’s upcoming “iTV” product:

What none of these reporters mentioned (or apparently bothered to consider) is that Gou — whose factories assemble 40% of the world’s electronic devices — is one of the industry’s most secretive executives. He is privy to the future product plans of the most valuable electronics brands — not just Apple, but also Sony, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and the rest. He is trusted by his business partners because he never leaks their secrets.

Given how jealously Apple guards its own secrets, and how relentlessly it pursues those who spill them, what are the chances that Gou would say anything — ever — about an unannounced Apple product, real or imagined?

I’d say, nil.

In the race to hit publish, many writers simply took the source at face value, without thinking much about it. That sort of reporting simply isn’t accurate — or responsible. Real reporters should question everything — including the validity of sources.