Curious Rat: First the TouchPad, Now the PlayBook is On Sale

Via Electronista:

Best Buy hinted at possible sluggish sales of the BlackBerry PlayBook by starting a new sale on RIM’s tablet. The deal takes $50 off of the 16GB and 32GB tablets and a much steeper $150 off of the 64GB version, putting it at the exact same price as the 32GB model. The retailer hasn’t said how long the sale will last

I’ve seen how this story ends - the boat sinks.

Horace Dediu talked on his podcast about how HP’s fire sale of the TouchPad might negatively affect consumers’s price expectations for Android tablets and I think this is just the beginning.
Anything that isn’t the iPad competes on price with each other and HP has just made RIM’s life a lot harder. 

“The Loop”, my favourite Mac-centric site on the web has just received a major redesign.

Jim Dalrymple has changed his revenue model from purely ad-supported to a combination of monthly subscription — $3,- which is a steal if you ask me — and a partnership with Fusion Ads, for subtle and relevant advertisements that don’t get in the way of the story.

I urge everybody to check it out for themselves and subscribe if they like it. There are only few places on the internet that offer as insightful analysis concerning everything Apple as The Loop and not one matches its bluntness.

This is an actual quote from Michael Arrington:

It was so tempting that I walked down to the other end of the table to see what was going on down there. Drew Houston had just gotten up to talk to someone, but he left his iPhone sitting on the table behind him. As a blogger that phone is a goldmine. I could grab it and start reading emails and probably gets ten great stories out of it before he could pry it out of my hands.

This is but one of many examples collected by Chad Olson, outlining just how much of an unethical, self righteous prick Arrington is.

Be sure to click through to Mr. Olson’s site for the whole story.

Found on Curious Rat

So, I contacted a company that produces in ear monitors three times over the last two years, with questions regarding their $400,- products, one of which I was considering to buy.

I never received an answer. Once I received an automated response, telling me that my email had reached them and that I would be contacted shortly, but the promised response never showed up and believe me, I checked my SPAM filter.

Yet today I received an email informing me of an amazing offer —to be honest, it is pretty good— even though I never signed up for any newsletters or requested promotional emails.

Really?

parislemon:

It’s just the “God Particle”. The particle that may unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. The particle from which all matter may have come from. The particle that may unveil parallel universes. The particle that may uncover time travel. The particle that may have caused The Big Bang.

No biggie. 

If true, this warrants an “OMFG THAT’S AWESOME!”.

I don’t usually link to Cult of Mac, but this article merits an exception. Mike Elgan, former editor of the Windows Magazine realises that he has —slowly but steadily— become an Apple fanboy.

Even though I resent the term and he clarifies that he means “satisfied Apple customer” by that in the end, it is a nicely written piece, showing just how rationally thinking persons can ‘fall’ for Apple products.

This is the money quote:

Other companies could do extraordinary things in the future. Apple could falter. If all that happens, I’ll be happy to switch again. I have no unreasonable loyalty to Apple. I’m just a satisfied customer.

But my story should be a cautionary tale for the entire industry. At this particular moment, Apple has struck upon a devastating strategy for taking control of the consumer electronics industry and mainstream computing: Build simple, elegant, functional and beautiful devices at all points in the consumer electronics chain. The cheap little devices like iPods and iPhones charm people, and build trust and affinity for Apple, predisposing them to choose Apple for the bigger-ticket items.

Thanks to Kontra and Glenn Fleishman for the link.

In this blog post Craig Hockenberry comments on the latest developments in the software licensing and patent business.

What he writes makes me angry and very sad, because broad software patents like the ones Lodsys possesses will lead only to less diversity and less quality in all software markets. Patent trolls like Lodsys are like bullies; they go after the small developers first and don’t take on the bigger companies because know they’ll lose.