On TwelveSouth

⌘ Permalink

Darren Murph at Engadget wrote a great feature on TwelveSouth, the maker of many popular accessories for the Mac, iPad and iPhone.

The thing that struck me the most about this article is how careful the guys at TwelveSouth are about becoming too big:

The next question must have felt obvious: “Well, what if you had the opportunity to branch out… to make accessories for companies other than Apple?”

“We’re not interested in that,” [TwelveSouth co-founder Andrew Green] said. In fact, he has been approached by the non-Apple world; designers looking for a design house, companies with earnings in the billions and even one particular CEO of one particularly important consumer electronics company. Green remains humble, but I’m aghast.

The philosophy isn’t that different from Apple’s view that doing too many things usually comes with a drop in quality.

As someone who uses several TwelveSouth products daily, I can say that quality is something the hardware company strives at. Everything I’ve purchased from them is well made, well packaged and looks great.

In a world full of software startups and free services, supporting a small company building actual things is refreshing.

Dr. Drang, on Siri Ads

⌘ Permalink

I laughed several times, but this is my favorite part:

“Wait,” you say, “Samuel L. Jackson isn’t lonely. He’s making a romantic dinner for date night.” Really? I’m not buying it. My guess is that he gives Siri the night off so she never learns that he spent the night sitting in his kitchen, silently crying into his risotto.

The Eight Percent

⌘ Permalink

The Pew Research Center:

The number of Americans using Twitter has grown to 15 percent of Internet users, according to a new survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. That’s up only slightly from 13 percent a year earlier, but Pew notes the percentage of daily users has doubled from last year to 8 percent.

SpaceX Capsule Splashes Down

⌘ Permalink

CNN:

The unmanned SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California on Thursday, completing the first commercial flight to the International Space Station, NASA and company controllers reported.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule landed at 8:42 a.m. (11:42 a.m. ET), controllers said. SpaceX founder Elon Musk was on hand at the company’s mission control center near Los Angeles as operators monitored the descent.

It’s a new day in space. While I’m not sure how I feel about private companies flying capsules (and eventually, manned flights), I have to give the SpaceX guys a hand for a successful mission.

Apple Releases iOS Security Whitepaper

⌘ Permalink

The 20-page PDF closes with this:

Each component of the iOS security platform, from hardware to encryption to device access, provides organizations with the resources they need to build enterprise-grade security solutions. The sum of these parts gives iOS its industry-leading security features, without making the device difficult or cumbersome to use.

Apple to Say ‘Cheese?’

⌘ Permalink

iLounge editor Jeremy Horwitz seems convinced that Apple is working on a stand-alone digital camera.

On Twitter, he wrote:

So, as briefly noted on Backstage, Apple appears to be working on a standalone camera – the third of three industries Jobs wanted to change.

These days, it seems like fewer and fewer people carry a dedicated, small standalone camera. While there is still plenty of space of DSLRs in the market, point-n-shoots have been replaced by smartphones for many.

Know what company is responsible for that?

Apple.

The iPhone — since the 3GS, in my opinion — has had a camera decent enough to rival low-end point and shoots. With the 4S, it even rivals more expensive models.

The iPhone is a good camera, but it’s even better because it’s the one already in your pocket. I’m not sure that a stand-alone product — even from Apple — will be able to recapture the market.

Of course, Apple used to have such a product, but that was a very different era in consumer electronics.

via Mac Rumors

The Pinboard Cloud

⌘ Permalink

Maciej Ceglowski:

At the start of the year I decided move Pinboard from the rented servers it was running onto my own hardware. I’ve written before about the tradeoffs of various hosting strategies and my reasons for avoiding virtual servers, so I won’t repeat my rationale here. But I’d like to stress that nothing about these posts is prescriptive. In fact, I have no idea what I’m doing. I do it, I write it up, and then wisdom pours down from the Internet.

So please don’t do what I’ve done, unless it’s the right thing for you.

I love Pinboard, and I love hardware, so this post is my favorite for the day.