Links for Friday June 10th, 2011
iOS 5: Know when wife is calling – customize vibration patterns | 9 to 5 Mac: The UI for this looks really cool.
The web’s watchful eye fixes on Apple’s cloud gear: A little odd that Apple went with HP servers, rather than buliding their own (or going white label).
Why Microsoft needs to buy Netflix: Interesting potential remedy for what ails Microsoft, but I'm not sure that it would work.
Ask Ars: with Xeon's improvement, why bother with Itanium?: Interesting article by Jon Stokes on the present and future of Itanium.
iTunes 10.5 is 64-Bit in Lion, iPhoto 9.2 isn’t…yet: Hmm, this is a puzzler. I'm pretty sure that iTunes is based on Carbon, which isn't going 64-bit. So if this is true, Apple did some magic here.
I'm not sure what iPhoto's problem is, however.
The checkered past of Groupon's chairman: This Groupon IPO looks worse the more that I read about it. I think the way that this IPO is received by the market will really tell us if we're in a bubble or not.
Cellphone Carriers Face Pressure Over Texting: My guess is that I'm still going to be paying fees for SMS post iOS 5, but I sure don't want to.
Motorola Triumph for Virgin Mobile: If I were running Apple, this the kind of thing that would scare the bejeebus out of me. Pre-paid cell phones are a huge part of the market, because they are way cheaper than traditional, post-paid plans. The main cost of the iPhone isn't the up-front cost of the phone, it's the monthly contract (which I feel is way over priced, considering how little I use AT&T's network). If Apple doesn't get into this market soon, it will be ceding vast swaths of market share to Android.
id Software chats on Android, iPad 2, PSVita, Rage on Mac: Some interesting stuff as to how id views the Android ecosystem.
“It Just Works.”: Astute analysis of iCloud from MG Siegler:
"The primary emphasis [of iCloud] will [be] on the cross-device native apps with iCloud magic. That’s the opposite of Google’s approach — at least their Chrome/Chrome OS approach. That product is only about the web. That’s where everything exists, and syncing also happens automatically thanks to that."
I think iCloud is designed for a single person that moves between Apple devices. Google's products are largely designed around a single document, that moves between people. I think that in general, this is a much stronger design (it's rare that I work on a document that I don't want to share or collaborate on), so it remains to be seen if iCloud is flexible enough to become collaborative. (via Kristin Stecher)