512 Pixels

John Martellaro at the Mac Observer has the glorious Terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown -bool TRUE

Be sure to close iTunes first.

Axiis has posted a brilliant chart showing browser market share, by year, since 2002.

Sadly, it’s done in Flash and doesn’t list MobileSafari as a separate browser.

[ via John Lloyd]

While I know I probably sound like a Gruber fanboy, his recent talk at Web 2.0 Expo 2010 really was great. Check it out.

Joshua Topolsky, in his review of the new device:

The video and audio quality of the Apple TV is to be lauded, the company is making a lot of high quality titles available right off the bat, sharing from your current computers is a snap, and if you’re a Netflix user, the inclusion here is perfectly seamless. The question is ultimately about ease versus options – right now it’s hard to whole-heartedly recommend the Apple TV even at its $99 price point given the thin list of partners Apple has courted. If you just want a dead simple movie rental box and you’re not that picky about content, the Apple TV is a no-brainer. If, like us, you’re looking for options good enough to make you can the cable, Apple’s new box still feels a lot like a hobby.

Adam Pash:

Gmail updated today with a new option that allows users to turn off its trademark threaded conversation view for a more traditional email inbox.

I like threaded messages, but hate how Gmail splices in sent messages.

Editor’s Note: These are in no particular order.

Phone & Tablet Data Sharing

Thus far, the tablet and the smartphone have lived separate, isolated lives, unaware of the other. RIM seems to be changing that, allowing the tablet to double as a large, external display for the phone. Which is cool. It reminds me of the Palm Foleo, although the PlayBook looks like it actually makes sense, since it’s an actual stand-alone product.

It is also nice the PlayBook can hop onto the phone’s 3G connection.

The Interface & Apps

Honestly, it looks like they are ripping off WebOS. Which isn’t a bad thing to steal. The whole thing looks very fluid, no doubt due to the fact the PlayBook is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor.

The photo and music apps look sharp. The gaming capabilities of the PlayBook look real sharp, but don’t seem to fit in with the “professional” image RIM tries to portray.

Allowing HTML/CSS apps to “hook into” the system for info makes PlayBook apps pretty similar to WebOS apps, at least structurally. The alternative of Adobe Air apps in theory makes sense (as developers can run a similar app across multiple platforms), but the reality is that cross-platform applications suck on all platforms. For RIM’s sake, I hope they can get this right.

Release Date & Pricing

“Early 2011” means this thing will be competing more with the second generation iPad than the current model. RIM is starting from behind on this.

RIM did not announce a price yesterday. While I understand why companies don’t announce pricing very far in advance, it is frustrating. Apple does it, why can’t others?

The Enterprise

Without a doubt, RIM is pitching this tablet as the device for professionals that can be used in the enterprise. Looking at the smartphone market, it’s obvious that Apple is making in-roads here. Can RIM beat the iPad? Starting a year behind makes that difficult, but many corporate IT departments aren’t hip to Apple products, and may see the PlayBook as a compromise for the executives and business people who want a tablet. While I don’t think it will do well outside of the enterprise, it may indeed do quite well within it, at least where the iPad hasn’t been yet.

That’s some great design advice from Chris Clark, designer at of iOS apps at Black Pixel, in an interview with Lukas Mathis.

[ via Shawn Blanc]

Ben Brooks has started what he is calling the “iPad Life” series, which looks at how people are using their tablets day-to-day. I just love stuff like this. I am excited (and flattered) that my interview was chosen kick off the series. I assure you, there were far better choices than me to start such a series.

Thanks, Ben!

The Xmarks blog:

By Spring 2010, with money running tight and options fading, we started searching for potential buyers of the company. Over the past three months, we have been remarkably close to striking a deal, only to have the potential buyer get cold feet. We also considered refocusing Xmarks as a freemium sync business, but the prospects there are grim too: with the emergence of competent sync features built in to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, it’s hard to see users paying for a service that they can now get for free. For four years we have offered the synchronization service for no charge, predicated on the hypothesis that a business model would emerge to support the free service. With that investment thesis thwarted, there is no way to pay expenses, primarily salary and hosting costs. Without the resources to keep the service going, we must shut it down. Our plan is to keep the service running for another 90+ days, after which the plug will be pulled.

As a Safari user with two Macs, the service made my life just a little bit easier. I will miss it.

Update: The ever-wonderful Dropbox can sync Safari data. See how to set this up here.

Ben Popken for The Consumerist:

Another aspect that kicked in on Sep 23 was that health care companies can’t deny insurance to children with preexisting conditions. Major players in the health care industry responded to this one by instead of denying insurance, it would opt to stop selling child-only health insurance policies entirely. It remains to be seen what other inventive ideas the health care industry will come up with as it adjusts to the new regulations.

Life-time coverage limits are starting to get phased out. These were limits that said after you exceeded a certain level, the insurance company wouldn’t pay anymore - financially devastating for seriously ill patients with chronic conditions.

This is great news for families like mine with chronically ill children, offset by this terrible strategy from the insurance companies.

Joshua Topolsky:

Today at Research In Motion’s developer event, Mike Lazaridis introduced the company’s new tablet – the PlayBook. The device will sport a Cortex A9, 1GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 7-inch display, webOS-like app switching, an e-reader component, full document editing, and pairing with BlackBerry phones. The device will be capable of 1080p HDMI video and will have HDMI and USB ports, a front and rear HD camera configuration, and will be 9.7mm thick. The PlayBook is based on a platform designed by QNX, just as we’d heard previously.

The PlayBook will have full OpenGL and POSIX support, and RIM seems to have its eye set firmly on capturing a gamer market. Lazaridis called it “the first professional tablet,” and “an amplified view of what’s already on your BlackBerry.” The device will connect via Bluetooth to BlackBerry devices, though the content is cached only temporarily on the PlayBook.

This is a fascinating interview of the Google CEO by Charlie Rose.