Links for Wednesday February 23^th, 2011

• About This Whole Subscription Hubbub: Great stuff, from Matt Drance, who concludes:

  "Whenever a policy change like this occurs, I ask, How does this strengthen the platform? How does this sell more iPhones? I can’t answer either of those questions, and that, to me, is the most interesting part of this whole debate."

  The whole thing is definitely worth a read.

• AT-AT Deconstructed View: Great look inside the Imperial Walker. (via 4 Color Rebellion)

• Everything that can go wrong with Windows Phone 7 update does: This is what Nokia has bet the farm on:

  "This is a monumental cock-up. Failing to install properly is bad. Corrupting firmware and needing recovery is terrible. Bricking handsets altogether is inexecusable. Who on earth wants to schlep into a store to get a new handset just because Microsoft and Samsung screwed something up? In spite of the handsets being available for four months now, in spite of having a month or more to test the update, it doesn't actually work... As someone who uses and likes Windows Phone 7, I can only hope that this is mere teething trouble, and that future updates will be perfect. But I'm fearful that it's actually a sign of things to come. Even with the minimal variation between makes and models that Windows Phone 7 has at the moment, it looks like it's already too much for the update process to cope with. I can't help but be disappointed."

  Doesn't bode well.