Mobile Web and Glass Houses

Nilay Patel is wrong on the “The mobile web sucks” article he posted on the Verge.

Let’s take a look at the article itself.

In portrait mode, the site logo is on the top of the screen followed by a large ad. The title of the article is in the bottom half of the screen.

The Verge Mobile Web Sucks (Portrait)

In Landscape mode without the navigation bar, only part of the article title showed up on the screen.

The Verge Mobile Web Sucks (Landscape)

Let’s see how it looks with mobile Safari navigation bar. The title of the article doesn’t even show up on the screen.

The Verge Mobile Web Sucks (Landscape with navigation bar)

The fact is that The Verge is one bloated site, littered with ads and analytics. I generally avoid The Verge like a plague because of that.

Patel adds:

Now, I happen to work at a media company, and I happen to run a website that can be bloated and slow. Some of this is our fault: The Verge is ultra-complicated, we have huge images, and we serve ads from our own direct sales and a variety of programmatic networks. Our video player is annoying. (I swear a better one is coming, for real this time.) We could do a lot of things to make our site load faster, and we’re doing them.

Patel knows what the actual source of the problem, but he is trying to shift the blame to the web-browsers. If the square peg doesn’t fit the round hole, you should stop giving the peg paint jobs.

I unapologetically use ad-blocker and host-file to make my web-browsing experience better.

iPhone, Eight Years to The Day

iPhone Activation on June 29 2007

The original iPhone went on sale on June 29, 2007. I was one of the “few” people who waited in line to get one at the Apple Store. The line was reasonably long, but the buying process was really quick. I spent roughly 5 minutes to finalize the transaction. I walked out with two iPhones, one for my colleague and one for me.

Today marks the eight anniversary of the release of the original iPhone.

‘Twas The Night Before Apple WWDC 2015

wwdc15-hero_2x

Apple will kick off this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference at 10:00 a.m. San Francisco time.

As usual in addition to Apple live stream1 of the Keynote, some sites will provide live coverage.

WWDC 2015 Live Stream

Apple’s own live blog
Warning, Autoplay!

Links will be added when they are made available (or if the author of this post is not slacking – ed).

There are a lot of expectations with regard to what apple would announce at WWDC. Remember, this is a developer event; so don’t expect introductions of new iPhone or iPad on Monday. In 2010 Apple introduced iPhone 4 at WWDC. Since then Apple introduced new iPhone on its own event in the September-October time.

To dispel (or fueled) some rumors on Apple products, firstnameatappledotcom, who claimed to be definitely not Phil Schiller, told me a few things on and off the record.

firstnameatappledotcom: “Seriously, you won’t tell anyone all the stuff I said OFF THE RECORD, will you?”

Certainly, because I want firstnameatappledotcom to keep his/her job at Apple.

firstnameatappledotcom: “Some of us really want to stick it to the Apple Rumor sites and call it iOS 8.5 instead of iOS 9.”

That’d be hilarious since both Tech Press and Community assume that the next iOS will be called iOS 9.

firstnameatappledotcom: “Rotate the 8 90° and we get iOS ∞. Forget iOS 9”

Just like the seemingly perpetual OS X (read: OS Ten)?
By the way, iOS 8.4 beta 3 was last released on May 11, 2015; iOS 8.4 Golden Master is likely to be released during WWDC week.

me: “What else do you feel like blabbing about?”

firstnameatappledotcom: “It is reckless to assume that Force Touch will be in the next iPhone and iPad.”

firstnameatappledotcom: “Just because Force Touch is in the Apple Watch and MacBooks, doesn’t mean it works well on the iPhone.”

I have thought about that. There are a lot of elements to deal with bringing feature such as Force Touch to a larger touch screen device. For sure the Tech Press, analysts and pundits ignore the challenges.

firstnameatappledotcom: “Some expect Apple Watch to have plethora of sensors, GPS module, cellular connectivity, etc. At the same time they want Apple Watch to be thin and have ultra long battery life. Seriously, you can’t have all those features with the current state of our technology.”

Apple Research & Development department are certainly looking into those features.

me: “I can think of one Apple Watch feature that is relatively easy to incorporate to iOS. I’d like to see iOS gaining “doodle” or “sketch” feature. From Apple Watch to iPhone, iPad, iPod touch; vice versa.”

firstnameatappledotcom: “I can’t tell you on the record about unannounced features or products. One of the hardest parts is to figure out which features would be suitable for any products. Apple R&D comes out with tons of ideas for products, a lot of them didn’t even make it past prototype stage.”

I guess we’ll have to wait for WWDC 2015 Keynote to see what’s coming from Apple for the next 6 months.

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  1. Live streaming video requires Safari 6.0.5 or later on OS X v10.8.5 or later; Safari on iOS 6.0 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second- or third-generation Apple TV with software 6.2 or later. ↩︎

AOL in 1998 and 2015

AOL Acquires Netscape 4.2 Billions 19981124

May 12, 2015
Verizon Press Release:

Verizon to acquire AOL

NEW YORK – Taking another significant step in building digital and video platforms to drive future growth, Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) today announced the signing of an agreement to purchase AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) for $50 per share — an estimated total value of approximately $4.4 billion.

This was the Tech news of the day.

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November 24, 1998

AOL acquired Netscape Communications in a $4.2 billion deal.

Sources: CNNWikipedia

After inflation adjustment, the $4.2 billion AOL spent to acquire Netscape equals roughly $6.05 billion in 2015. (per Bureau of Labor Statistic CPI Inflation Calculator)

Inflation Calculator 1998-2015

Where have all AOL’s value gone?

Related:
By the numbers: AOL then and now (Quartz)

John Gruber’s Daring Fireball:

Consider how far AOL has fallen, and how much the media world has changed: in 2000 AOL acquired Time Warner for $182 billion, creating a post-merger company then valued at over $350 billion.

HBO: Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and Veep

HBONow 20150412

New seasons of Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and Veep is now live on HBO. Those are the three shows that I have on my watch list.

I do not have HBO, let alone cable TV. Usually I would go to my friends’ house to watch any HBO shows. This time I can watch them in the comfort of my own through HBONow. I have not watch the new episodes yet, but for sure I’ll be watching them on the Apple TV.