Category: Uncategorized

The Walled Garden is only as good as its gardener

I’m assuming we’re supposed to compare this approach to the freer alternatives such as community gardens and city parks. Ignoring for a moment the fact that these gardens are also regulated by serious restrictions on what one can and can’t do, it still puzzles me that the “walled garden” is presented as an obviously undesirable structure.

Aren’t the benefits of a closed, carefully managed garden clearly visible? The experience is controlled, so it tells a story – one which may not emerge from a democratic, anything-goes process or do you think this sort of slow and deliberate story would emerge in a busy American city in the year 2010? Charging for admission means that the place can be maintained, improved, and marketed. There are downsides to this, of course — maybe the management makes boneheaded decisions now and then. Maybe you think that vine maple would look better a little to the left — maybe you’re even right.

via The Walled Garden – Neven Mrgans tumbl.

A walled garden is great as long as the gardener is an enlightened genius.  I can tell you that when operators tried to make walled internets for their handsets, the result was an atrocity.

It’s understandable why people recoil at the thought of a walled garden.  But they shouldn’t.  If it’s no good you can go somewhere else.

Katzenberg gets it

Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg sang Jobs praises for several minutes, before declaring: “His greatest accomplishment is going to be this tablet.”

“As Steve said last night, there is something indescribable about the connection,” Katzenberg said. “Our children are going to get educated on it. They are going to play on it. They are going to consume more media on that than any other (device).”

“The laptop is yesterday’s news,” he said.

via At D, all hail the iPad | Beyond Binary – CNET News.

Greatest accomplishment…to date.

Welcome to the new asymco.com

Asymco is now in its third home and fourth design.  After starting in February 2010 with iWeb hosted at me.com, moving a month later to WordPress.com, I’ve finally moved the blog to a proper hosting site (dreamhost) and merged the blog with asymco.com.

One reason I had to leave WordPress.com was that they required payment for the removal of ads from my pages.  Although I understand their business model, I felt that it’s more important that what users see is my content and only my content.

At the time of moving, the blog had 306 posts, 272 comments, 64 tags, 9 categories and nearly 40k hits.

Hopefully the transition will be painless to those who came to the old site.

The reason Robbie Bach was fired

Vague justifications about under-performance of Windows Mobile or cancelled Courier miss the whole point.  The chronic problems with Microsoft’s consumer businesses cited as causes for dismissal have roots in core processes and priorities which management changes will not address.  The failure of Zune was evident long ago. Windows Mobile has not been competitive with RIM for years, and failed to take significant share from Symbian, never mind iPhone. Tablets were the responsibility of the Windows team.  Kin is a rogue project based on a bone-headed acquisition. From a P/L point of view, Entertainment was mostly Xbox, which although deep in the hole over its lifetime, was starting to break even.

No, the reason I believe Bach lost his head is that HP bought Palm.

Continue reading “The reason Robbie Bach was fired”

Legal Tender

About a month ago, we said we’d like you to use a credit card when you buy your iPad, and that was the best way we could think of to make sure that people only brought two per individual,” said Johnson. “And then it came to our attention that Diane [Campbell], through your story, was very interested in buying an iPad with cash, and we made a decision today to change that.”

Johnson said our story triggered a company-wide policy change. As of today, anyone can pay for an iPad with cash.

As a gesture of goodwill toward Diane Campbell, the woman whose experience brought the issue considerable publicity, two employees visited her home today to offer her an iPad free of charge.

“I am just so excited,” said Campbell. “Words can’t explain right now.”

via Apple Axes ‘No Cash’ Policy for iPad Sales – Mac Rumors.

David Hockney on the iPad

“The iPad is far more subtle, in fact it really is like a drawing pad. They will sell by the million. It will change the way we look at everything from reading newspapers to the drawing pad.

“It can be anything you want it to be. This is the nearest we have got to seeing what I would call a universal machine.

via David Hockney swaps a sketch pad for an iPad | News.