Links for Friday September 2^nd, 2011

• Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It.: MG Siegler is the real deal, so I'm taking this report at face-value. It looks like things could be pretty interesting this holiday season.

• My Neighbor, Steve Jobs: Lisen Stromberg with some great observations of Steve Jobs outside of Apple.

• AT&T’s $39 Billion Merger With T-Mobile Target of U.S. Antitrust Complaint: This is great news.

• Apple’s Designers Work Towards Storefront Symmetry: I think I need to make a trip to Berkeley.

• Ideas, Not Hierarchy: On Steve Jobs Supposedly Making All Apple Decisions: I love this piece by Tom Reestman. (via Daring Fireball)

• H-P's One-Year Plan: This pretty-much sums up the state of Hewlett-Packard right now. Spoiler alert: it's not pretty.

• Dying HP TouchPad now even with Android tablets in ad hits: Why am I not surprised by this?

• The Mystery of Steve Jobs’s Public Giving: It's all about focus:
  

  ...he [Steve] could do more good focusing his energy on continuing to expand Apple than on philanthropy, especially since his illness. "He has been focused on two things — building the team at Apple and his family," another friend said. "That's his legacy. Everything else is a distraction."

  
  That totally jives with my impression of Steve Jobs.

• Steve: Who’s Going to Protect Us From Cheap and Mediocre Now?: John-Louis Gassée knocks it out of the park again, this time writing about Steve Jobs:

  When I first met Steve, in February 1981, he was sitting cross-legged on a credenza in the Apple board room, picking his toes. Since then I've watched with glee as he went against received wisdom, causing pundits to have fits at every turn. I picture them as a gaggle of eunuchs standing around the caliph's bed, braying in high-pitched voice: 'Steve, you’re doing it wrong!'

  So good. I strongly recommend you read the whole thing.

• Tim Cook: my first-person impression of Apple's new CEO: Michael Grothaus on Tim Cook:

  Tim Cook is one of those rare people who stop and think before speaking. Standing in the same room with him I realized that he's comfortable with silence as long as that silence is productive and appropriate. He's not like other tech execs who ramble almost immediately and incoherently at any question lobbed at them, as if doing so will convince others they know everything about everything.

  If you're not convinced, listen to some of Apple's recent earnings calls. Tim Cook is always there, and always gives great, thoughtful answers to questions.