Twitter kills my favorite Twitter app for Android
Twitter kills my favorite Twitter app for Android
In August, Twitter turned its back on the sort of independent developers who built their community for them. Now, my favorite Twitter app for Android, Falcon Pro, has hit Twitter’s artificial user limit.
They have other apps, (like an incredible widget that is also a fully-functional Twitter client), but they can’t accept any more Falcon Pro users.
Falcon Pro’s left- and right-drawer layout, with an elegant, clutter-free but feature-packed design, won me over instantly. It came out just as I had given up on Carbon for Twitter, a beautiful app nearly dismissed as vaporware as it faced numerous release setbacks.
Carbon finally came out, and it is very pretty, but Falcon Pro fits my personal Twitter use case best, so Carbon is a close second. You know what isn’t even in the top five? Twitter’s official Android client.
Over 3,000 people have signed a petition to raise Falcon Pro’s limit as of Saturday night, but that’s at Twitter’s absolute discretion, and it would set a bad precedent, so I’m not holding my breath.
But if you tried out Falcon Pro and didn’t like it, you can revoke the app’s access to your Twitter account, thereby freeing up a token for a new user. Redditor classic_schmosby explains in this comment.
Twitter: You can’t build and maintain a thriving ecosystem with token limits and patronizing blog posts about “building user value.” You will never offer a sufficient variety of apps to please all use cases. Your developer community fosters a massive user base that may not otherwise come to or stay with Twitter, pumping data into your system for you to monetize. Developers get and keep users for you by offering designs, features, and improvements that you cannot provide. Don’t stifle that, celebrate it.
Facebook is buying your loyalty card history
Facebook is buying your loyalty card history
Cotton Delo of Ad Age:
The targeting would hypothetically enable Coca-Cola to target to teenagers who’ve bought soda in the last month, or Pampers to show ads to North Carolina residents who’ve recently bought baby products, since Facebook’s own array of demographic and interest-based targeting options can be added to further refine audience segments. But adoption will be contingent on acceptance by corporate legal departments wary of becoming embroiled in a consumer privacy scare.
It’s not something I would rush into if I was one of those “corporate legal departments.” It’s not that I have some conspiracy theory about Facebook, or those data banks. I don’t. We give data to those data banks willingly when we use those discount cards. Shame on us for not reading the fine print.
And Facebook? They’re the same: the fact that nothing private is guaranteed to stay that way on the internet is common knowledge these days, and those who don’t know should know.
What would worry me as in-house counsel is what hackers will find when they inevitably get their hands on some of this data. In other words, Facebook and data banks are the devils we know. I would keep clients out of this plan because of the devils we don’t know.
Evernote CEO hints at future task management integration
Evernote CEO hints at future task management integration
Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, talking to Lifehacker:
What’s your favorite to-do list manager?
You know, I don’t actually have one. I use Evernote, which isn’t particularly great for to-dos yet. Yet.
Despite having tried every task management app I can find, and settling on Wunderlist1Any.do for now, I’m very excited about an integrated Evernote task management solution.
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I can’t decide. It’s Any.do for now, as of February 25, 2013. Wunderlist has great native apps on most platforms, both mobile and PC, but Any.do is the best mobile solution I’ve found, and that’s where I really need a task manager. ↩
Zombie Law Schools
Gerard Magliocca of Concurring Opinions introduces a fresh take on the legal education topic.
CBS "Streisanding" itself among courts with CNET debacle
CBS “Streisanding” itself among courts with CNET debacle
CBS’s strong-arming of CNET on this front has the exact opposite of the intended effect: now that it is clear how much control CBS has and is willing to exert over CNET content, any reasonable court must consider the possibility that the corporation is as deliberate about what CNET is allowed to do as they are being about what CNET is not allowed to do. Stock manipulation is the one I’m really thinking about here, but perhaps there are others.
It’s poor management, poor lawyering, and broken logic.
Streaming music: good for fans, bad for musicians
Streaming music: good for fans, bad for musicians
The numbers are pretty stark, and while it doesn’t hurt to be available on streaming services, if for nothing else than the opportunity to be found by new listeners, unknown artists are better off leveraging social media and sites like Bandcamp to manage their own digital distribution.
Apple store trade dress
I wonder if there are any retail stores out there that have looked like Apple stores since before Apple stores, and before this trademark was granted earlier this month. I don’t mean knock-off stores, though. I’m thinking make-up shops, art galleries, and other entities that often embrace a minimalist store design aesthetic.
Here’s a direct link to the very-user-hostile USPTO page for the filing.
128 GB iPad perfect for pros?
I still personally have no interest in a 128 GB iPad, but as John Gruber points out, some professionals prefer the tablet form factor generally, and the iPad specifically, but run out of space for the multimedia they use every day.
Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner
Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner
Novelist Justin Cronin presents a very well-written and reasonable take on why knee-jerk reactions on either side of the gun debate are misinformed and unrealistic:
[…] in the weeks since Newtown, I’ve watched my Facebook feed, which is dominated by my coastal friends, fill up with anti-gun dispatches that seemed divorced from reality. I agree it would be nice if the world had exactly zero guns in it. But I don’t see that happening, and calling gun owners “a bunch of inbred rednecks” doesn’t do much to advance rational discussion.
At Google, Constitution trumps statute
At Google, Constitution trumps statute
David Kravets quotes a Googler:
“Google requires an ECPA search warrant for contents of Gmail and other services based on the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which prevents unreasonable search and seizure,” Chris Gaither, a Google spokesman, said.
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act isn’t always as demanding as Google, and their assertion that the policy is based on Constitutional requirements implies that the ECPA does not comport with the same requirements. That’s a bold legal position to take, but as Mr. Kravets explains at Wired, Google isn’t necessarily alone.
Veganism as religious belief
I must admit that I never thought about it in that light, but I’d love to read the plaintiff’s essay.
The 128 GB iPad is official...
…but I’m not interested.
Peter Cohen of The Loop shared this earlier today, but I wonder why he didn’t offer any of his own thoughts on it. Here’s why I’m not interested:
Part of the iPad’s appeal to me is that it isn’t another crufty “filing cabinet.” I rather like that it is exactly what it appears to be: a big, beautiful window into the cloud. Everything I need is in Dropbox or Rdio or Google or Evernote, and when I make something, whether or not I’m connected to the internet, there’s always a way to save it for later synchronization. I also find that limited space makes me more discerning when it comes to installing apps, or choosing what music will sync to the device.
I understand some people lust after the one-terabyte tablet. I will never be one of those people.
'Escape from Tomorrow', filmed in Disney World without permission, debuts at Sundance
‘Escape from Tomorrow’, filmed in Disney World without permission, debuts at Sundance
Steven Zeitchik of the LA Times:
To make the movie, [Randy] Moore wouldn’t print out script pages or shot sequences for the 25 days he was filming on Disney turf, instead keeping all the info on iPhones. This way, when actors and crew were looking down between takes, passersby just thought they were glancing at their messages.
The films plot, such as it is, sounds as intriguing as its method of creation.
If it does get a distribution deal, Disney will most likely brings its formidable legal resources to bear upon it, and they’ll most likely succeed.
But I predict that the company will trigger a Streisand effect, perhaps as much to the filmmaker’s detriment as anyone else’s (to the extent that he hopes to recoup his investment), that will drive people to seek out and, in the era of digital file sharing, inevitably find the film.
Non-interfering citizens should be able to videotape on-duty police
Non-interfering citizens should be able to videotape on-duty police
If someone is videotaping a police incident, but not interfering therewith, there is no lawful justification for police interference. I’m not always in agreement with the ACLU, but this harassment must end. A nation where state surveillance is only increasing must be open to the right of citizens to turn the lens in the other direction.
Panetta Ties Delay of Aid in Mali to Legal Questions
Panetta Ties Delay of Aid in Mali to Legal Questions
As I learned in that international law class I took last semester (for which, in case you were wondering, I earned a very respectable grade), there are Administration lawyers working feverishly behind every such move to ensure that we’re complying with international law, or that we have defensible reasons why we are not so compliant.
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternatives
Shawn Blanc explores Simplenote alternatives
The Simplenote/nvALT sync issues recently scared me away from Simplenote sync. I use Byword on the Mac and iPad, and Epistle on Android to sync notes with my Dropbox account. PlainText is also very good for this. I haven’t had any problems since going Dropbox-only.
If you’re a plaintext geek, read Mr. Blanc’s post to get a good overview of options from someone who knows the subject very well.
Designer Eats Engineer
It’s getting easier for designers to become engineers. That’s a good thing, but it should be even easier. Design should be the hard part.
This is a great post, and something I think about often. I can read and write a lot of HTML and CSS, and can read some JavaScript. I don’t know anything about design, but I’m confident in my ability to avoid ugly mistakes by putting as much consideration into what I don’t include as I do into what I do include.
As an aside, Medium is a beautiful site with consistently solid content by thoughtful and articulate people.