skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm inclined to disagree with you. This may slow or impede the growth of the App Store, but Apple still has plenty of partners producing amazing apps (have you seen the Marvel and ABC apps? Stunning, functional, and downright great to use, which probably has something to do with both of them being owned by Disney where Jobs has major influence). They may lose a lot of individual devs, but they'll still have big players, who are increasingly learning how to make good software.

Speaking as a user, I've never liked Android. It feels bad using it; it's not as quick or fluid, the ui animations aren't as crisp, the tapping seems less accurate, and I have serious trouble with their keyboards (on-screen and physical). I've met people who feel the same, and I've met people who make similar comments about the iPhone. In the end, people will buy what they like, and Apple makes a product of a level of quality that is easy for lots of folks to like, and they know exactly what level of quality to expect. Android is a hodgepodge of devices that range from cool to embarrassingly rough. My opinion is that until they do some serious cleaning up of their ecosystem and their OS, they've got a long hard battle for actual mindshare in the general public.

As a developer, I find myself inspired by form factor. That's my own limitation on creativity, I suppose. I don't think of an idea, and then imagine a device that would work for it. I look at a device, and imagine ways to use it. I am inspired by the iPad, and my position is that I will do whatever is necessary to make the app that I want to use. If that means learning to be proficient in Objective-C, so be it. I'm not saying what Apple did is fair, but I don't see how it would stop me.

But then again, my livelihood doesn't depend on, and I would never try to put myself in the situation where it did.
Official Twitter Client For BlackBerry Released
> it's worse than anything MS ever did.

Perhaps for some values of "ever".

Now, seriously, this is a boneheaded, monopoly-exploiting, move.

If Apple wanted to one-up Microsoft, they would demand that every cell-phone operator that sells iPhones to drop all Android phones. On a second step, they would demand telcos to stop selling phones from manufacturers that offered Android-based phones.

That would be a truly Microsoftian move.
It's proportional to market share. I think we both agree that such a move would be immoral for a monopolist (making developers stupid... stifling progress... blah blah). Assume it causes X amount of moral harm. Then someone with 50% market share would cause X/2 moral harm by the exact same mechanisms. 1% market share, X/100 moral harm. Think of it as voting for Hitler: less evil than being Hitler, but still evil.
$ ghc --make helloworld.hs
$ strings helloworld|grep ghc|wc -l
19
$ csc helloworld.scm
$ strings helloworld|grep chicken|wc -l
1

There are more telltales that might be harder to mask. Other tools have similar giveaways. It wouldn't be hard to set up an automated test for the most common ones.
A better analogy, since even non-musicians can hear the difference, would be Apple banning from iTunes any General Midi 1.0 song covers recorded using Sound Blaster cards with FM/OPL-3 chips, but still allowing music from Kraftwerk to Imogen Heap.

Apps--or music--made with limited construction kits tend towards sameness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablum

(In that sense, both Ableton and GarageBand could be considered construction kits, so perhaps a better analogy would be if iTunes banned sequenced music, only allowing music musicians personally play?)
Yaaaay!
I was using Gmail as a Posterous blog post editor (because attaching images and mp3's and then sending them to Posterous resulted in beautiful posts, something confusingly less possible with the web editor.).
Anyway, I had no doubt they were cooking up something for the web editor... not because i had inside information, but just because they seem extremely thoughtful and in touch with how people actually work. (They prioritized email/mobile editing... fair enough. And probably smart, though less applicable to me.)
Keep up the great work, Posterous folks!
And apple is doing a lot in that field: Clang, LLVM, Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL.
Amazing how many fail to see the forest behind the tree. Apple releases iPad and that's the end of computers, Apple bans Flash, and suddenly it's shutting down CS.
Thanks Max, been great to see you on Posterous.

For images, any uploads do get resized to a 500px version automatically. Also if you paste a raw URL to an image (must end with .jpg, .gif or .png), we download and resize to 500px if you just drop the URL to the image on its own line in the post. I use it all the time.

For drafts, private posts actually work quite well. Flip it live and hit autopost to push.

Thanks a ton for the feedback, much appreciated.
If you've already got a MonoTouch app as SamAtt claims, then the risk is already taken.
Hewlett Packard outlines computer memory of the future
Datalogging baseball pitchers to prevent injuries
> Nobody complains about Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo restrictions as far as console games.

People complained about Sony just last week killing Linux on the PS3, and have complained about breaking firmware cracks on the PSP forever. There was a minor amount of outrage when Nintendo broke some homebrew stuff with the new DS.

But it's funny you should mention Microsoft. They let anyone publish things in the Indie Games store for the Xbox, and distribute free dev tools. The approval process is run entirely by the community, and solely exists to rate apps (for violence, sexual content, etc), nothing gets rejected (within reason).

And while I may not have spent more money on indie games than disc-based ones (since I bought Dragon Age new) I bought my 360 originally in order to play them. Lowering the barrier has worked out very well for Microsoft.
> Microsoft, as all companies would, is going to use their successful product(s) to push other products that they create

Please, keep in mind that if the successful product is effectively a monopoly, then this conduct is not only immoral. It's also illegal.
The question is who the next AAA title makers are going to be. What kind of culture will they emerge from? What will be the platform of choice for the first game of that as yet unknown small company that is going to be the next the AAA title maker?
The idea is to use the Push Notification Service for that. Whether that's a good solution to the problem or not is up for debate. (It works fine for me for IM; I don't know of a service that uses it to notify about Twitter events but there might be one.)
And Windows Phone 7 is not a dominant player in any segment.
I think most people are missing the point. Of course this restriction is stupid. But in itself it's just that. Stupid.

But what is really incredible is the fact that apple enforces that at a moment where a whole lot of people's businesses depends on the features they just forbid. Every app developped with some sort of language layer is concerned, and there is a lot of them.

This is basically saying to every people doing business WITH them, we don't care about you, you're expendable. We don't care about your business and if something bothers us in the slightest fashion and you're in the way, we will drop you out.

I never developped for the iPhone. Thought about it sometimes. Unless things change, i never will.
I certainly agree it's Apple's prerogative to optimize for the user experience, for the stockholder's value, or both :-) I find the thought of Flash on the iPhone revolting, and it isn't just a case of not using Flash applications: I don't want the platform watered down and the financial race to the bottom becoming a UI race to the bottom as well.

That being said, I am writing my own iPhone Go UI as a web application rather than a native application :-)
I absolutely did not know that thing with putting an image url in its own line. Now I do and you're right, it's great. Just saved me a ton of time.
"You will not port your app to iPhone".
A boss can fire you even if you are bringing in a profit. All it takes is 1 bad day, or a mistaken belief that someone from India can do the same job for half the price.

If you are the owner, it doesn't matter if one or two customers are hard to deal with. All you do is stop selling to them, and you will most likely still be in business.
Great story about sticking to your ideals, and how to manage growth. I think it's amazing how easy it is to enter the food business compared to selling software.

If you make food, someone will be hungry and buy it. If you make software, there is no guarantee that anyone will ever use it.

edit: I guess what I hadn't considered was that they were making good food and still serving it to people, despite competition from faster, cheaper companies. People tend to flock to good software, so maybe they aren't that different?
Lies! or so I strongly suspect.
I suspect that the number of tech-savvy people who encourage their family to get Apple products is nontrivial. 10x easier to maintain (in the average case).
Actually, I coudl see the originally language possibly getting hit with a RoT lawsuit. It would prevent things originally written for the flash platform ever being ported to the platform by some readings, even by a full hand rewrite to objective C.
X86 Disassembly book
Tell HN: Accepted to DreamIt and looking for iPhone developer co-founder…
Our early-stage startup was accepted into DreamIt recently and we’re looking for one or two iPhone developers to join the founding team.

The product is a social game for teaching languages and other subjects, so it’s a major plus if you’ve worked on games before or even apps with animation.

We prefer someone who can come on board as a co-founder but are open to contract roles as long as you’re on-site in Philly with us. Housing will be provided.

I know it’s tough to find an iPhone developer given the contracting work out there, but I think this is an awesome opportunity nonetheless.

You’ll shape the vision of the product that was a finalist for three top accelerator programs including Y Combinator.

You’ll be working with a team with lots of experience in UX / UI design, marketing and education.

You’ll be a part of DreamIt, which offers a lot of serious benefits (mentorship, capital, networking, office space, etc.)

You’ll get paid, housing will be provided and true co-founder level equity will be provided

You’ll be working with two stand-up guys who just want to build a great product

Email me at jessepickard@gmail.com if you are interested
You know, I have to say, that given what we know now, even without clarification, it is clearly risky in the short term and dangerous in the long term to [...] base a business on the iPad, iPod, iPhone platform.

Elided for clarity, like a MAD Magazine fold-in. :)
India begins auction of 3G wireless spectrum (expected to fetch $ 8 Billion)
"This should be unremarkable to college-educated adults who notice what most people read FOR FUN."

I think the apropos fact would be: "The average American buys one book a year... and then doesn't read it."
IPad LapDock
Alternative tetris hell:
http://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html
Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but many people buy/play games for gamerscore. It's crazy, I know, but people actually legitimately care about a little number next to their name, a 64x64 icon of an achievement, or the top 10 spots on that leaderboard. It sells more games, it keeps engagement higher, and it is all around a powerful platform piece for Xbox, as it will be for iPhone, as it will be for Windows Phone.
I saw it and thought "wow, what a sad way to pull up window groups". In fact, I am still mad at apple for not allowing me to move windows around with my keyboard, not allowing me to group windows, and not allowing me to define where new windows go. Seriously, I am capable of understanding the implications of terminal windows being tiled (those implications being terminal is freaking uasable).

Edit: also, seriously, i like to group workspaces by task. This is very anoying when I launch say, mvim, and it opens a window in some workspace already containing mvim. Same with terms and browser windows.
I'd be careful using this.

I believe (I could be wrong) that Facebook's estimates are based on what people put in their profile. This means the USER wrote what they were interested in.

We've seen time and again that customers are not good at telling businesses what they want. "People don't know what they want until you show it to them."

If this were based on actual browsing habits, that would be different. Just take warning.
Apple Slaps Developers In The Face
> Barnes and Noble decides they only want to sell non-fiction books

No, a better analogy is if Barnes and Noble decides they only want to sell creationism books.
Hatetris: Tetris That Hates You
This is a step above just saying, "It's our ball, you can't play!" This is waiting until someone goes and buys a bat and only then telling them they can't play.
I will never forget the experience of leaving a company and being asked to come up with a job req for my position. I came up with a reasonable one, that got handed to a manager who immediately added a bunch of standard boilerplate. I took that version to his boss and explained why this seemingly innocuous boilerplate would result in telling capable people that they didn't want to work there.

That manager agreed, the req was changed, and I was left wondering how much of the problems they had had with hiring decent people over the years was due to their inability to write a decent job req.
Adobe says iPhone/iPad adoption could harm its business
HN "Reach" according to Alexa over last two years
What, you mean like the piece of VBScript crap we have on the company intranet? :)

I can imagine it just fine, thankyouverymuch.
Avoiding speaking for Dan too far, as the co-founder of Mobile Orchard (though I gave it over to him when I got bored of iPhone development), I can at least say that he's been a bit cautious/worried about Apple's platform for a while now so this isn't a massive surprise to me.

(And as to why I started Mobile Orchard with Dan, it's because I already have other similar sites - Ruby Inside, for example - and wanted to just expand my miniature "media empire." Turns out you need passion for the topic, however, to do it right ;-) Dan had that more than I did. The funny part is now I'm the one more optimistic about the iPhone/iPad platform :-))
Chipping Away at Realtors Six Percent
My impression was that Apple lost the PC war mainly on price. Who were the "right developers" that they pissed off?
I think that emphasizes the unfairness. :)
OSNews floated the idea based on

"adding valuable intellectual property to RIM's portfolio"

That this is also about arming themselves with some nice patents that the 30 year old QNX is sure to have now that Nokia and Apple are coming to blows.
It's far too early to make sweeping pronouncements on this. We still don't know about (just to name a few):

* pricing models (CPM? CPC? CPA?)

* rates ($30 CPM? $10? $2? auction-based?)

* minimums ($50K spend? $10K? no minimum self-serve?)

* brand safety (can brands control where they run?)

* ad targeting (geo? demo? contextual?)

* ad availability (does everyone who wants ads get them?)

* accessibility (can any advertiser submit and run an ad?)

While I could and would be happy to be proven wrong, assuming that every developer of every application that wants to run ads is going to automatically receive high-quality, well-designed, engaging ads from major brands is a great way to get yourself disappointed.
I've worked with Jesse and Jeff and they're great guys. The product they're building is a great chance to make something that's both fun and very helpful for a lot of people. I'd step up to join them in a heartbeat if I wasn't already occupied.

Jesse can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think their product also involves a backend component for profiles, sharing, analytics, etc. The big picture will use an interesting blend of tech. It's a good opportunity to lead, learn and grow.
I think it's amazing how easy it is to enter the food business comparing to selling software.

I've done both and AFAIC, you couldn't be further from the truth.

I've never had trouble finding customers with problems to solve with information and always earning what most others would consider a very nice living.

In foodservice, you will work your ass off at all hours (especially nights and weekends), you'll sweat, be filthy, have very slim margins, and often face brutal competition.

And if you think computer users are fickle, just try feeding people. You have no idea.
How is it that this link points to a "parked" domain site after just seven days?
Please think before upvoting.

10 out of the top 22 stories are about this one story. We get it. Some developers are throwing a hissy fit.
How iPhone OS destroys Windows Phone 7 without even shipping
Uhh... http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2010/03/23_3/
The web is not a walled garden you have to ask for permission to offer your products in.
"...Personally I will not be giving Apple another cent of my money until there is a leadership change over there."

Uhhh

What?

The Apple Board?

Fire Steve Jobs?

Yeah, good luck with that buddy.
The thing is Adobe is a corporate with standard management that would never be able to "think" of something like this.

They have no "soul" (corporate culture) nor anybody with sufficient power and vision to at least try something like this.

What would be smart of them would be to increase the prices on Mac products as to make them much less desirable compared to the PC variant. This would slowly drive users towards PCs. I know a lot of designers that bought Macs precisely to run Adobe software. So if they make it even more expensive perhaps designers will start using Windows variants some more.

Then again, once you get used to the Apple way of pricing things, Adobe's move might seem natural and business will go on as usual.
Willis and Takeuchi's agent, Kelly Engel, used to be a traditional agent. "I had done quite a few deals where I spent maybe five hours total working on the deal. I never saw the house. My client found it online and, you know, I would make $12,000 for four hours of work. And I thought this cannot keep going on like this. Someone, I felt like I was going to get caught! You know, someone's going to see that this is happening and I think a lot of them hold that truth inside of them right now. They've got the clients that are finding houses on their own. They make $20,000 and did 10 hours of work," she says.
Yes, this is true, but should we bother with BB? ActiveSync makes it unnecessary to use BlackBerry Enterprise Server. So, there's no compelling reason to stick with BB. They have to have something else to make us want it, other than a physical keyboard.
I disagree on many counts.

If you asked my wife and me on our wedding day what our chances of success were, we would have probably said something like "Well, about half of all marriages end in divorce, but we're a little older and hopefully more mature than the average couple of newly-weds, and we talk pretty openly about difficult things. There are no guarantees, but we think we have a decent chance and we're going to do our best".

I have a similar approach to business - as Richard Branson is fond of saying, "Take big risks, but always think about the potential downside".
Sucks to be allergic to peanuts (if you've been you'll understand). 5 Guys is great.
> does the world need you to develop it?

Possibly not, but you can't distinguish a moderately superior offering in an environment that saturated.
More a direction of leadership, not people in leadership. Although a few heads rolling might be therapeutic :-)
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo didn't pull the plug 2 years after their consoles were released and screw over thousands of developers and numerous companies. The timing of Apple's decision plays a major part here.

And it has nothing to do with quality, but the ability to create a code base of high value. ie, a code base that can easily be used to serve more than just the iPhone. And for people complaining that cross platform oriented code bases just "water down" everything, not at all true when it comes to games, a major segment of mobile apps.
I must find a way to use this statement somewhere!
I think Dan has an interesting point of view. Many startups are born through exploiting interesting new technologies or opportunities within an ecosystem. However, it does seem that Apple is making that increasingly hard to do. They want to ensure that you're locked into their platform completely.

To me, the iPhone as a platform is becomingly potentially more dangerous to make a living on. The application approval process has become increasingly arbitrary and it would really suck to lose your means of living because Apple decided they didn't like something you did.
Driven to Distraction - Jason Fried
At the end of the day though, the general public doesn't care one bit how Apple "treat" developers, so it's all fairly moot.

I keep hearing similar logic from lots of people - but surely you would agree that the general public cares about what cool apps they can run on their iPhone vs. their neighbor's Android? Up until now most devs have grit their teeth and tolerated the App store policies since they were outweighed by Apple's superior market size, UX, and even dev tools (Xcode, instruments, the simulator, and the SDK itself are all probably more well-thought out than their Android counterparts). But if you push them hard enough, they will move, and not just the ones with free software moral outrage.

Lots of other people have compared Apple's policies favorably with the policies of the video game console manufacturers. I invite those people to look at the history of what happened in the mid '90s in the transition from the Genesis/SNES era to the PlayStation/N64 era.
If you were 24 and had $200k in spare cash, how would you invest it?
Microsoft's Manual Deskterity project reveals pen and touch input
It will be interesting to see how the iPad will do in the non-techie segment when the market becomes saturated with all the other pad-type products.

In my little world I have noticed that most all of my non-techie family and friends consider the iPod to be the default choice for an mp3 player regardless of any price differences. However, most of these same people would scoff at the idea of buying an Apple laptop or desktop as a waste of money when compared to a Windows machine that could be purchased for a few hundred cheaper.

There is a big difference in the price points of an iPod and a Macbook, and the iPad is right in between the two. It will be interesting to see if a $100 or $200 premium for the iPad compared to a Windows or Android pad will be palatable to the masses or push non-techie people to a non Apple alternative.
Using site speed in web search ranking
pretty strange that the article doesnt mention google, since this revolution has already happened, are people scared to click google ads? their revenue suggests not.

apple are just putting an ad network on a different medium
Failure rate at 5 years is about 50%. How many jobs are there where it's worth coming in to work after 5 years? A lot of people get pigeonholed or stagnate, if not laid off, before then.

On the divorce rate, that's across all marriages, and it's closer to 40%. If you marry after 20, both are college-educated, and have known each other for 18 months before getting engaged, your odds are a lot better.
So, if it compiles to C in the end, how is Apple going to be able to tell how it was compiled?
To organise my music and video collections and save information from surfing the web and the 77 RSS feeds and 160 podcasts I subscribe to, I use a partition which is structured as follows:

multimedia
downloads
torrents
ebooks
to read
to keep
music
to select
to keep
speech
to hear
to keep
text
video
to see
to keep

The "to keep" directories have subdirectories named after authors, bands, genres, movies and podcasts. The "text" directory is for saved web pages as well as normal text files.