Daniel Lyons's Blog, page 21

New award: Asshat of the Decade

Jerry Yang could have sold Yahoo to Microsoft for $47.5 billion. He turned it down. Today the company is worth $17 billion and is begging anyone to buy it. Think about that for a moment. Jerry Yang cost his shareholders $30 billion. The Wall Street Journal says it's time for Jerry to "do himself, and all Yahoo shareholders, a favor and quit the company's board." Ouch. But, yeah.

Being a blogger isn't awful enough — now I'm doing a podcast too

So what happened is this. A guy named Dave Thackeray, aka "The Podcast Guy," who lives in Liverpool, heard me talk at a conference in Newcastle a few months ago and tweeted a tweet saying he thought I should be doing a podcast. I got in touch, and we talked, and it turns out he's a really great guy with the world's most awesome accent, and we have a lot in common, including our appreciation of Coleen Rooney. One drawback is that Dave is a hardcore Windows fanatic — I didn't realize there was such a thing — who refuses to touch Apple products.

We've decided to start taping our weekly arguments and putting the resulting conversation online as a podcast. You can download the chats on Dave's site, The Podcast Guy, or on iTunes, where the material is blessed with that fantastic red EXPLICIT label.

I personally do not listen to podcasts. I have an assistant who listens to them for me, and then tells me what they said. But if you're the type who likes podcasts, you'll probably like this one. If not, what the hell. It's only ten minutes long, and it's free. So quit complaining.

Le Chiffre sharing chips with his evil allies

Meaning: Google provided HTC with nine patents that HTC now is using to sue Apple, according to Bloomberg. Florian Mueller says it's getting more likely that Apple will sue Google directly.

Merge AOL and Yahoo, then kill the combined entity?

Just a thought.

New iPhone takes photos that are more amazing than anything you can do with any camera, anywhere, for any price

Or something like that. This shot supposedly came from a prototype iPhone 5. That anyway is what this smartphone blog claims. Who knew that a portable phone could take such amazing photos of sushi? Look at the detail. Look at all the shades of white. One word: Wow.

No, Apple did NOT break into some dude's house — the SFPD was involved too

Contrary to its earlier report, SF Weekly now reports that SFPD officers were involved in the search of a guy's house hoping to find a lost iPhone 5 prototype.

According to a police spokesman:

After conferring with Apple and the captain of the Ingleside police station, he has learned that plainclothes SFPD officers went with private Apple detectives to the home of Sergio Calderón, a 22-year-old resident of Bernal Heights. According to Dangerfield, the officers "did not go inside the house," but stood outside while the Apple employees scoured Calderón's home, car, and computer files for any trace of the lost iPhone 5. The phone was not found, and Calderón denies that he ever possessed it.

There appears to be some confusion about whether the officers involved filed reports on this, which may be why SFPD at first claimed not to have been involved.

At the least, the incident is sure to raise questions about the propriety of multiple SFPD officers helping private detectives conduct a search — which was never properly recorded, per standard police operating procedure — of somebody's home. "Apple came to us saying that they were looking for a lost item, and some plainclothes officers responded out to the house with them," Dangerfield said. "My understanding is that they stood outside." He added, "They just assisted Apple to the address."

Still seems weird.

Did Apple goons pretend to be SFPD and break into a guy's house?

UPDATE: Apparently the SFPD were involved in the search, accompanying Apple security people. SF Weekly has updated its story to include that information. Thanks to commenters who pointed this out.

It looks that way from this story in SF Weekly. A guy in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco says six people showed up at his door flashing badges and claiming to be SFPD and wanting to search the premises for an iPhone 5 prototype that was lost in a bar. (Allow me to digress: WTF, Apple? Can you idiots not learn to hang on to your super-valuable prototypes?) The guy let them search his place. They found nothing. One goon left a phone number. When SF Weekly called the number they reached an Apple security officer. Soon after, that guy's LinkedIn page mysteriously vanished.

So, yeah. Stay classy, Apple.

Best part of all this for me were the comments from Apple fanboys who are, of course, skeptical.

One says that there's no proof that this happened except for the word of one guy in Bernal Heights who might be making the whole thing up.

Another suggests that the goons might not have been from Apple but rather from one of Apple's competitors.

Another thinks it's all a hoax.

Ain't it grand how love can be so blind?

Michelle Bachman wishes Elvis Presley a happy birthday.

On the anniversary of his death. You can't make this stuff up.

Google's new feud with Facebook

Google complains that  for some weird reason, when people post links on Facebook to let their friends try out Google+, the links aren't getting through. Facebook says it has no idea what Google is talking about. Just posted on the Daily Beast.

Good Dan Gillmor piece on Google-Motorola

From the Guardian. Short version: Google needs patents and may just sell off the hardware business; but maybe not. Maybe Google wants to try to be Apple, doing integrated hardware and software. GooMoto could make some cool devices. Might not be as nice as Apple (which is still the best, by far) but some people might sacrifice ease-of-use if they can get greater control over their device. (Gillmor is one of them.) Downside: It's bad news for HTC, Samsung and other Android licensees, which now may migrate more to Windows Phone 7. Upside: MOTO makes set-top boxes, and Google wants to be in TV. Bottom line: Patents suck, and it's a shame that companies now must spend billions just to arm themselves against each other.