Links for Sunday January 31^st, 2010

• Steve Jobs at Apple Town Hall Meeting: MacRumors provides the best coverage of Apple's internal Town Hall meeting to date. But you should also check out Daring Fireball's coverage, which adds a few new morsels. I would loved to have been a fly on the wall for this meeting.

• Steve Jobs and the Economics of Elitism: I rarely link to the NYTimes (I despise mandatory registration), but there is too much good stuff in this article to ignore, including:

  “A defining quality of Apple has been design restraint,” says Paul Saffo...

  Even more than restraint, I'd say that what's been amazing about Apple over the last 10+ years has been their focus. As a company, they haven't gotten distracted with the latest fads and trends. Instead, they have focused on what really matters:

  "Mr. Jobs is undeniably a gifted marketer and showman, but he is also a skilled listener to the technology. He calls this 'tracking vectors in technology over time,' to judge when an intriguing innovation is ready for the marketplace. Technical progress, affordable pricing and consumer demand all must jell to produce a blockbuster product."

  The right technology, in the right package, at the right time. Time will tell if the iPad continues this trend.

• Ryan Cooley on the iPad's lack of flash: A counterpoint that I can get behind. (via Daring Fireball)

• Mark Pilgrim on The Setup: We all know I have a nerd crush on Mark Pilgrim, but what isn't so widely known is that I love reading about people's workflows — what technology they purchase and use, so that they can get stuff done. So it was with double-interest that I read about Mark Pilgrim on "The Setup". Lots of great stuff, including this bit about writing:

  "Writing will make you a better writer. Writing, and editing, and publishing, and listening -- really listening -- to what people say about your writing. This is the golden age for aspiring writers. We have a worldwide communications and distribution network where you can publish anything you want and -- if you can manage to get anybody's attention -- get near-instant feedback. Writers just 20 years ago would have killed for that kind of feedback loop. Killed!"

  And on Twitter, Mark linked to this bonus picture of the setup itself.

• View Source for Safari on iPhone: With all of the hubbub over the "tinkerer-hostile" iPad, I was wondering if it might be possible to come up with a series of small hacks, to make iPhone-OS devices more tinkerer-friendly. One of the key features of the web, IMO, is that all browsers have had the "view source" functionality — letting all consumers peek under the covers, and see the acutal code that renders the page.

  All major browser, except for Mobile Safari on the iPhone/iPad. And lo, here is a clever hack that enables view source, using JavaScript.

  I wouldn't count the tinkerers out just yet. ;)