[MyAppleMenu] Mar 6, 2010

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
====================================

**** iPad Application Design <http://mattgemmell.com/2010/03/05/ipad-application-design>
Matt Legend Gemmell

The iPad may be a larger version of the iPhone in terms of the hardware and operating system, but treating it as the same device would be foolish. It turns out that increasing the display size of touch-screen hardware can transform it into an entirely new class of device. The iPad is a productivity platform in a way that the iPhone rightly never tried to be.

**** Public Radio Remakes Itself By Entering The iPhone Age <http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/apple/~3/oGLJy4CrP4o/public-radio-remakes-itself-by-entering-the-iphone-age.ars>
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica

When Public Radio Exchange (PRX) developed the free Public Radio Player for the iPhone, the nonprofit hoped for 500,000 downloads. It now has 2.5 million. "I'm very happy with that number," says PRX executive director Jake Shapiro.

**** iPad Developers Struggle With Hands-off Approach <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=51e31b789a8596603423527a95c8e73b>
Dan Moren, Macworld

The trouble is that even with the ability to run iPhone apps in a virtual simulator on their Mac, developers cannot fully replicate the experience of using an iPad—because nobody has one.

And yet developers are being asked to design applications to show off just how cool the device can be and enhance its appeal for millions of potential customers. It’s a little bit like being asked to decorate and furnish a room with your only reference being a photograph.

**** Final Cut Used On 9 Out Of 10 Oscar Docs <http://rss.macworld.com/click.phdo?i=e7fc734d7944d871e41ccb1b4f981179>
Lex Friedman, Macworld

All but one of the films nominated for Academy Awards in the documentary categories were edited using Apple's Final Cut Pro.

**** Steve Jobs: The iPad Will Not Tether To The iPhone <http://appadvice.com/appnn/2010/03/steve-jobs-the-ipad-will-not-tether-to-the-iphone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AppAdvice+%28AppAdvice%29>
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice

While we’ve all been wondering , without much hope, about whether the iPad will be able to use the iPhone’s data connection, it seems like none of us thought of the most obvious way to answer that, ask Steve Jobs.

**** Why Apple And The iPhone Are Giving The Wireless Industry A Nervous Breakdown <http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10005860/apple-htc-suit-is-only-a-symptom-of-the-wireless-industry-meltdown/>
Erik Sherman, BNET

The Apple patent infringement suit against HTC, the Taiwanese handset maker, has puzzled lots of people. It shouldn’t: The lawsuit is a sign that the mobile industry is melting down and that companies are starting to panic, even if they won’t admit it. Fear permeates the air because fundamental business practices are shaking apart and no one knows how things will come back together again.

**** What The iPad Release Means For Apple <http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/03/05/what-the-ipad-release-means-for-apple/>
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Wall Street Journal

**** Why iPad Is The 'Children's Toy Of The Year' <http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9166878/Mike_Elgan_Why_iPad_is_the_Children_s_Toy_of_the_Year_?source=rss_opsys>
Mike Elgan, Computerworld

iPhones in the lives of children is, in my opinion, an underappreciated cultural phenomenon.

While nobody was looking, the iPhone became a universally understood part of children's culture. And hundreds of companies have responded by creating child-specific apps, which makes the device even more compelling to children.

**** Apple Closes In On $200 Billion <http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/06/apple-approaches-200-billion/?section=magazines_fortune>
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune

With its stock trading at $218.95 a share when the markets closed Friday, Apple broke into the top five largest U.S. companies by market capitalization, right below Wal-Mart and above Berkshire Hathaway.

**** Duckshead Revisited: Apple Approves DuckPhone App After Minor Changes <http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/06/duckshead-revisited-apple-approves-duckphone-after-minor-changes/>
John Biggs, CrunchGear



The Tomorrow Weblog
====================================

**** Former Book Designer Says Good Riddance To Print <http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9b7e6e1aaf70386995f75da0fb157edb>
Nick Bilton, New York Times

A man who long made his living from physical books says the arguments against e-book devices miss a key point: for most printed matter, the value is in the content, not the physical form.



MyAppleMenu Reader
====================================

**** How To Greet The Dalai Lama <http://blogs.nybooks.com/post/428727270/how-to-greet-the-dalai-lama>
Robert Barnett, The New York Review of Books

Since President Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama on February 18, the details of the closely-watched encounter have been carefully parsed, from the history of the room in which the two men met (the White House Map Room, an apparent indicator that a meeting is private, yet not personal) to the absence of the First Lady (making the meeting more official), and the serving of tea (making it less formal). Even the garbage bags that the Dalai Lama passed on his exit (seen as either incompetence by White House staff or a veiled message to Beijing) and the Dalai Lama’s flip-flops (seen as a metaphor for his policies or a rebuttal to Rupert Murdoch’s claim that the Tibetan leader wears Gucci shoes) were debated.

**** The New Commandments <http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/04/hitchens-201004>
Christohper Hitchens, Vanity Fair

What do we say when we want to revisit a long-standing policy or scheme that no longer seems to be serving us or has ceased to produce useful results? We begin by saying tentatively, “Well, it’s not exactly written in stone.” (Sometimes this comes out as “not set in stone.”)

By that, people mean that it’s not one of the immutable Tablets of the Law. Thus, more recent fetishes such as the gold standard, or the supposedly holy laws of the free market, can be discarded as not being incised on granite or marble. But what if it is the original stone version that badly needs a re-write? Who will take up the revisionist chisel?

**** Library Science <http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=86d2938ecd1b756793457ac5cba67127>
Pagan Kennedy, New York Times

An exploration of the world of libraries and librarians, via a tour of eccentric characters and unlikely locations.



SingaporeSurf
====================================

**** Foreign Funding A Necessary Antidote In Authoritarian States <http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2010/yax-1097.htm>
Yawning Bread

In the case of a political party in a state with an uneven playing field, you will always be at a financial disadvantage, never able to build a proper, wide-reaching organisation, never able to offer Singaporeans real choice.

It serves the interests of the powerful to sustain an attitude that sees foreign funding as a fifth column. But does it serve ours?

**** PRs Just Moved To A Lower Indifference Curve <http://bernardaw.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/691/>
Bernard Aw

What the government is essentially doing is to lower the utility of being a Permanent Resident (PR). This policy does not enhance the Singapore citizen, nor does it “reinforce the principle that Singaporeans are our priority. It is a “negative” policy that removes welfare from the “PR” group and Singaporeans are still on the same level of utility.

**** Productivity: Senior Minister, Is It That Simple? <http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=3885>
Wong Wee Nam, Sgpolitics.net

If working faster is basically what productivity means, then we are doomed for another period of the same economic malaise that has struck us.

**** It's 'Your S'pore' Now <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_498735.html>
Jessica Lim, Straits Times

To sell the Republic to tourists, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has adopted a new catchphrase: Your Singapore.

**** The SAF Is Productive Because There Are No Foreigners In The SAF <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/OnPU/~3/v3iPikDL8wA/saf-is-productive-because-there-are-no.html>
PanzerGrenadier, Military Life: Memoirs of a Conscript in the Lion City

Of the three branches, the Army is the least productive because it still relies on the cannon fodder provided by compulsory conscription to bolster its ranks. It should learn from Taiwan who is cutting down conscription to less than 2 years and is considering replacing it with a fully-volunteer system like the US. If the Army moves in that direction, then I can see it is trying to be productive, i.e. maintaining its operational readiness by doing more with less conscripts.

**** Cycling On Footpaths: Fine To Be Raised? <http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100306-0000113/Cycling-on-footpaths--Fine-to-be-raised?>
Ong Dai Lin, Today

To deter cyclists from going onto roadside footpaths, the government is considering raising the composition fine of $20.

**** Too Early To Consider Listing Race As 'Singaporean' On ICs <http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC100306-0000091/Too-early-to-consider-listing-race-as-Singaporean-on-ICs>
Ong Dai Lin, Today

Responding to Member of Parliament Irene Ng's comment that some Singaporeans may find it "artificial" to chose a dominant race on their identity cards, Second minister for home affairs K Shanmugam said it is premature to assume so.

"It is too soon to say that it (inter-marriages) is creating a new racial category and, therefore, people would want to call themselves Singaporeans under the rubric of race. "It seems to me a leap which is at present not justified by facts," Mr Shanmugam said.

**** Najib And Hsien Loong Set To Meet In May <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/3/6/nation/5809216&sec=nation>
The Star

Prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong will meet at a retreat in May to discuss how both countries can further strengthen bilateral cooperation.

**** Hong Kong Ranked Asia's Most Innovative Economy: Survey <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gCI_hyTFlN-_hE-VSiPUcEx-R9RQ>
AFP

Hong Kong has Asia's most innovative economy, thanks to its high level of creativity and well developed financial markets, a study said. The Chinese territory beat regional rival Singapore, which was in second place in the Asian rankings, said the joint study by international business school INSEAD and the Confederation of Indian Industry released late Thursday.

**** 军人回营携电脑联系公司 下月起在三处军营试验 <http://www.zaobao.com/sp/sp100306_025.shtml>
联合早报

**** More Grads Join Jobless Queue <http://thestar.com.my/columnists/story.asp?file=/2010/3/6/columnists/insightdownsouth/5797430&sec=insightdownsouth>
Seah Chiang Nee, The Star

White-collar professionals are going through a rough patch certainly. The wider story is that the changing world economy – aggravated by the mass influx of “cheap foreigners” – is rendering local graduates “over-priced” and “over qualified”.

**** Mr Mah, You Are More Than 4 Years Late! <http://singapore-lighthouse.blogspot.com/2010/03/mr-mah-you-are-more-than-4-years-late.html>
Phare Anderson, Singapore Social and Political Thoughts

As what Mr Lim Swee Say had said, the PAP are liked frogs, deaf to people talking or shouting at them. It took 4 long years for Mr Mah to have his ears unblocked!