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Author: cgerrish

Unemployed philosopher

You’re the Top,
You’re the Mona Lisa

Published October 2, 2007 by cgerrish

The Top

We like top 100 lists. The best films of all time, the most influential books, the best baseball players and the best cars. We like the best, the best is good. The problem is figuring out what the best means. Mahalo wants to create portals to the top 20,000 Web pages. “Top” in terms of most requests. Calacanis bemoans the it next list. Techmeme has begun to rank its “contributors.” Scoble thinks that it’s the end of blogging. Frankly, not appearing on a list is not the same as death.

Cole Porter had an interesting list of the “top.” It included Mahatma Gandhi, cellophane, turkey dinners and Garbo’s salary.

You’re the top!
You’re the Louvre Museum.
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare’s sonnet,
You’re Mickey Mouse.
You’re the Nile,
You’re the Tower of Pisa,
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I’m the bottom you’re the top!

Top stuff lists are meant to drive traffic. The popular is by definition popular. But the popular is, as Leonard Cohen says, just what everybody knows.

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Hackers Demand Stable iPhone Hacking Environment

Published September 30, 2007 by cgerrish

Huh? Hackers are upset that Apple takes active counter measures? Seems to me that’s part of the game. You do something, and then they do something. Now you’re supposed to do something else. The enviornment isn’t going to be stable because Apple needs to live up to their contracts and commitments. Oh, and by the way, they’d like to make some money on the product.

I’m confident we’ll see third-party apps on the iPhone, it may just take a while. I’m also certain we’ll see some new apps from Apple and some amazing Web-based apps. The hacking of the iPhone is good in that it forces Apple to move more quickly. It tells them there’s some demand there.

I wonder if iPhones can be hacked in such a way that they can be restored to a pre-hacked state? Seems like that’s going to have to be standard operating procedure if folks want to keep hacking away. It’s called risk mitigation.

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iPhone Updated Without Issues

Published September 28, 2007 by cgerrish

iPhone

No iBrick here. Of course, I didn’t unlock it and I didn’t put any outside apps on it. I am a fan of the Web-based apps that are formatted for iPhone. It seems like Dave Winer is spreading some FUD on the 1.1.1 update. Scoble’s son’s phone iBricked and so he assume all others will as well. He uses his megaphone to spread some FUD.

After it’s all said and done. There will be a bunch of folks who hacked their phones who are going to need to hack their way out of a brick. I imagine they’ll eventually be able to do that. A very small number of non-hacked phones will break and will be fixed at an Apple store— and life will go on.

After all, it’s just another software update.

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Amazon’s MP3 Store Rocks

Published September 26, 2007 by cgerrish

I’m an iPod and iTunes user. While I know how to drag files to a player and manually manage them. I find it easier to let iTunes do the work. The great part about Amazon’s MP3 store is that it integrates seamlessly with iTunes. It does require the download and installation of an application, and for some people that will be a bridge too far. But for those able to overcome that hurdle, if you’re already an Amazon customer, that’s about it.

Find a song or album and download it. It shows up in iTunes. Make a playlist and sync it with your iPhone or just sync it to your iPod. Nice. It’s the beginning of competition in the digital download market. It’s the first serious competition because it works well with Apples products. Some think this is a big problem for Apple, personally I think it’s exactly what Apple needs. They’ve had no competition. Competition will be good for both Amazon and Apple. Perhaps they can show the rest of the industry what the user experience needs to look like.

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