On Android and differentiation

Posted November 24, 2009 By The Macalope and has 3 comments.

InfoWorld’s Galen Gruman on why open source could kill Android’s chances.

This is precisely why I fear for Android’s future. The open source community is much more likely, based on its history, to screw around with umpteen hundred variations that are piled willy-nilly on top of umpteen OS variants, creating a mess that only a few nerds will want to play with.

You think?

Gruman goes on to hail the rumor of Google making its own phone to squash the fracturing of the Android market. But, wait, the Macalope thought “open sauce” — this multitude of hacks and putting all the power in the hands of oh-so-brilliant open-source developers — was what made Android so great.

So confusing! [antler scratch]

Stupidium is an infinite resource

Posted November 21, 2009 By The Macalope and has no comments yet.

This week’s piece at Macworld covers Microsoft’s dancing fools and fools of other stripes.

You can't argue with that

Posted November 16, 2009 By The Macalope and has 27 comments.

It’s delightful watching Joe Wilcox’s meltdown after being called out for ignoring the huge effect of Apple’s accounting methods in his piece claiming Apple was not more profitable that Nokia. His protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, there really is no way to read Wilcox’s initial post and think he knew about Apple’s accounting.

This comment by Joe is particularly amusing:

I’m not sweating the John Gruber attack, although his hit-and-run tactics without comments for defense is disturbing. He has one voice for which there is no rebuttal.

Shorter Joe Wilcox: Gruber must be wrong because he doesn’t allow comments on his blog.

Q.E.D.

Personally, the Macalope finds it highly disturbing that Joe’s blog — which forces you to sign up for an account before you can leave a comment — doesn’t provide permalinks for individual comments. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, JOE?

Business 101

Posted November 14, 2009 By The Macalope and has no comments yet.

This week’s piece at Macworld looks at a Microsoft exec’s comments about copying the Mac, more App Store ridiculousness and some silly pundits who want Apple to focus on market share… just because!

Not surprising

By The Macalope and has 2 comments.

Windows 7 is being adopted at an astounding rate!

By Vista users.

XP users? Not so much.

This, of course, is not surprising considering how hard Microsoft made it for XP users to upgrade. Most of them, of course, will be along eventually, but some may decide to investigate other options.