A world of change

According to Jonathan Schwartz—then Sun’s CEO—that’s what Steve Jobs told him over the phone after Sun presented Looking Glass, a desktop concept similar to Mac OS X’s. After that, Schwartz verbally cockpunched His Steveness and shut him up:

“Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent.

And probably foaming at the mouth, and wanting to send Luca Brasi to get Jonathan brand new cement shoes.

Even while Apple uses BSD as the basis for Mac OS X, I bet Jobs realized the stupidity of his call, realizing that Sun had a very strong IP portfolio, and plenty of ammo to fight Apple back. Something that HTC—or Google, for that matter—, when it comes to phones, don’t have. [Johnathan Schwartz via Silicon Alley Insider]

The premise of Tweet Defense is simple: The more you tweet and the more Twitter followers you gain, the stronger your tower defenses will be. Clever, though hopefully RT bonuses will come in the future. $1. [iTunes via Kotaku]

The premise of Tweet Defense is simple: The more you tweet and the more Twitter followers you gain, the stronger your tower defenses will be. Clever, though hopefully RT bonuses will come in the future. $1. [iTunes via Kotaku]

If the terrorists could vote, they’d vote for Candidate X—this argument is America’s greatest rhetorical treasure. So let’s apply it to smartphones, right now! I’ve got a picture of a high-level terrorist with an iPhone and everything! Updated

The man pictured here is the recently captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, who is world famous for precisely the kind of stuff that you don’t want to be famous for. Infamous, even!

Update: Apparently the magazine misindentifies the man in the photo. That’s actually Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, a former Taliban official’s who’s been spotted with his iPhone before. (Thanks, Ray!)

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, next time you find yourself in an endless online flamewar about smartphones representing the side of Android or WebOS or Windows Mobile or BlackBerry, it is totally fine to call your opponent a terrorist. [Jeune Afrique—Thanks, Benjamin!]

If the terrorists could vote, they’d vote for Candidate X—this argument is America’s greatest rhetorical treasure. So let’s apply it to smartphones, right now! I’ve got a picture of a high-level terrorist with an iPhone and everything! Updated

The man pictured here is the recently captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, who is world famous for precisely the kind of stuff that you don’t want to be famous for. Infamous, even!

Update: Apparently the magazine misindentifies the man in the photo. That’s actually Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, a former Taliban official’s who’s been spotted with his iPhone before. (Thanks, Ray!)

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, next time you find yourself in an endless online flamewar about smartphones representing the side of Android or WebOS or Windows Mobile or BlackBerry, it is totally fine to call your opponent a terrorist. [Jeune Afrique—Thanks, Benjamin!]

Nobody cares about iTunes LP, reports Paul Bonanos. Six months into the format—one that Apple believed enough in to have a separate event—and nobody is buying. But what if it were free?

We’ve been discussing it in our top-secret internet chat place. Mark is certain that the LP format can be redeemed—or at least given a proper chance—on the iPad. And indeed, some had speculated that iTunes LP would be the format by which Apple would distribute books and magazines. (Turns out it was ePub wrapped in FairPlay DRM, at least for books.)

It’s hard to say confidently that the format has had a proper chance.There are only 29 LPs on the iTunes store right now, certainly not enough to make any sort of platform judgement. But they also cost more than simply buying an album.

So what if they were free?

The “LP” format is a sort of hybrid of the old album art and DVD-extras. (For everyone that reads this site, “albums” were giant vinyl CDs that were packaged in cardboard sleeves a bit smaller than a pizza box—lots of space for art.) But it didn’t cost anything extra to get that big art on an album, and most DVDs have at least a baseline special feature. That extra content is a value-add, an incentive to buy.

Apple has released the format for iTunes LP for months, although LPs still have to be approved just like Apps. But for a smart band or label, one strong LP version ready for the iPad launch—for free—could make a band’s release really stand out.

Or maybe the LP format, asked for not by fans and customers but by the labels and the RIAA, wasn’t really necessary in the first place.

MacHeist, an annual Mac software promotion, is nearing the end of its NanoBundle sale. At the last minute, the bundle just added our favorite Twitter app Tweetie.
Other apps in the MacHeist NanoBundle include Flow, an FTP app, Tales of Monkey Island, a five-episode adventure game, and RipIt, a DVD ripping utility, among others. With the [...]