Dan Lyons rants against Michael Arrington and MG Siegler over the emerging trend in the convergence of blogging and venture capitalism. Another VC recently told me his firm recently had passed on opportunities to invest in some new tech blogs that were proposing a business model he described as “hush money.” Potential investors were being [...]
Author Archives: rh
Launch Center for iPhone
Here’s an app from App Cubby with so much potential – it provides a number of pre-installed shortcuts to apps and tasks on your iPhone, with the ability to schedule actions and add your own custom launches using iOS URL schemes. I’m not using many of the pre-installed options beyond Flashlight and Tweet – instead [...]
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How iMessage Works
Some technical follow-up to my post about The Trouble With iMessage: When you activate iMessage it registers a “token” with Apple using MSISDN, UDID (device ID) and Apple ID which is how the device knows the recipient is registered for iMessage on iOS5 and can show the “Delivered” status, etc. The device / user ID token [...]
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Elevation Dock: Kickstarter Record
I backed the Elevatation Dock on Kickstarter and, as I write this, with 33 hours to go, it has achieved 10,213 backers with $1,117,233 pledged of its $75,000 goal (1,390% over). This is the first million dollar Kickstarter project. The previous record on Kickstarter was held by the TikTok & LunaTik watch kits which generated $942,578 (admittedly a higher percentage over [...]
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Ron Johnson talks s**t to the AP
Ron Johnson, previously Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail, now CEO of J.C. Penney department stores. Q. Who are the chain’s competitors? A. Our number one competitor is ourselves and our way of thinking, which is informed by decades of experience. It’s not another store; it’s not another format like the Internet. Our competition is [...]
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A Dixons Compendium
Some background on the heritage of Apple’s newly-hired Retail SVP – John Browett, previously CEO of Dixons Retail – from a UK perspective… Firstly, a look at the Dixons share price during Browett’s time as CEO: Source: Dixons Retail PLC on the London Stock Exchange Financial Press BBC News: Currys owner Dixons sees losses increase [...]
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John Browett Joins Apple as Senior Vice President of Retail
Apple today announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Browett comes to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007. “Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one [...]
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The Trouble with iMessage
iMessage is great … maybe 70% of the time. The majority of people I message often are using iPhones so there’s a clear benefit to the reduced cost of texts alongside more IM-like conversations. Two people I converse with most often live abroad – in America and Norway – so iMessage (and apps like Textie [...]
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Clear for iPhone
Upcoming simple task manager from Realmac Software (LittleSnapper, etc.) – a Reminders competitor rather than a GTD solution, but LOOK AT THAT INTERFACE!
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State Of Play (BBC TV)
Excellent six-part political / crime thriller from the BBC back in 2003. Ensemble cast including Bill Nighy, James McAvoy, Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire), John Simm and Phillip Glenister (Life On Mars). The 2009 movie remake with Russell Crowe & Ben Affleck was well-reviewed (RT: 84%) and wasn’t bad.
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