onfocus

Leonard has a great summary of the Apple security problem: "Either Apple’s security was so incompetent or negligent that they have not been aware of what was going on, or they knew, but actively ignored the issue and decided that it was not worth fixing."

"I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant." heh, Umberto Eco weighed in on the Mac vs. PC war in 1994 by comparing the organization of operating systems with the organization of religions.

Compare iTunes interface versions.

Me too! I spent my money on hardware up-front, dammit. Don't nickel and dime me to death with software. (Yes, I know it's irrational.)

Fun new application by Simon Willison for finding conferences your Twitter contacts are attending. Nice design and use of Twitter oAuth.

Turn YouTube videos into MP3s, with options to add title, track, and artist info before you download. [via waxy]

Nice image-based feed reader for the iPad. [via uncrate]

The ad folks at W+K are thinking hard about games. [via migurski]

Impossible! I had no idea Airplane! was based on an earlier movie. This video shows where the dialog overlaps between the two.

"Yet despite all the innovations in the iPhone 4, without basic telephony service it’s just a piece of shit." Matt Honan succinctly sums up Apple's AT&T problem. The frustrating part is that it's potentially solvable by opening things up to other carriers.

"Building a great display for typography without building great typographic tools is a dereliction of duty." I've been noticing this too especially on the iPad's potentially gorgeous display. The app-makers, including Apple, just don't seem to care. [via jessamyn]

Anil collects more thoughts on the coming storm of apps vs. open web. "This, for me, is a social issue, a cultural issue, and a political issue, not just a technological issue. Perhaps we need to speak of it that way more often, to make the stakes clear."

"...it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late." Tim O'Reilly on the coming platform storm. [via anil]

Search for icons or browse icon sets they've indexed.

Cell phone nostalgia! I had the Ericsson S710a right before the iPhone, and it's true that the camera was better and Internet tethering just worked. I'm tempted by a Google phone now too just to show my unhappiness with the iPhone App Store. It'll be interesting to see how this goes.

J.D. gets close to the TV media machine and finds everything a bit too scripted. It's a good reminder of one of the reasons many folks started writing weblogs.

I honestly hope Merlin turns his blog into a treatise on creativity through Steely Dan anecdotes.

Anil offers a high-level view of Apple's current developer-relation woes. He blames their culture of secrecy.

Steven Frank is letting go of his iPhone until the Apple fixes serious problems with the app store.

This is great. I'd love to see more people aggregating tweets and offering them outside of the Twittersphere.

This is a sharp bike. It's 8-speed, has a carbon drive belt instead of an oily chain, and includes fenders for Oregon weather. Officially on my wish list. [via mathowie]

"What are some books that people are particularly likely to be assholes about?" Another fun thread gathering books that people are, umm, passionate about.

"You know the one. I can't think of its name. It's the one they always use." Hilarious thread that catalogs overused songs in movies and TV.

"...you can use LineIn to play sound coming in through a microphone or any other device plugged in to your Sound In port..." Used this today to pipe my iPhone through the computer speakers.