Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 14th Jan 2010 23:08 UTC
A few days ago, technology blog Valleywag's launched its Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt, a sort-of contest in which people with evidence of the existence of Apple's much-rumoured tablet could win large sums of money. Apple apparently wasn't amused, as the company resorted to its usual tactic whenever it doesn't like something in the press: litigation, litigation, litigation.
Thread beginning with comment 404137
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: Brilliant viral marketing
by Laurence on Fri 15th Jan 2010 00:08
in reply to "Brilliant viral marketing"
Member since:2007-03-26
Glad to see you are supporting Apple's latest step in their almost flawless and brilliant viral marketing of the tablet.
Sending a letter from their lawyers costs nothing and pushes so many buttons in sites like this that it generates yet more countless clicks and eyeballs.
Let's hope that the actual tablet/slate is as good as their marketing - I personally think it will be way better and way more of a big deal than most people are expecting but hopefully we will find out for sure very soon
Sending a letter from their lawyers costs nothing and pushes so many buttons in sites like this that it generates yet more countless clicks and eyeballs.
Let's hope that the actual tablet/slate is as good as their marketing - I personally think it will be way better and way more of a big deal than most people are expecting but hopefully we will find out for sure very soon
Seems an odd marketing strategy if it is one as you're essentially creating a negative public image just for the sake of gaining a couple more sites to chat about your product than there already was.
Personally I think it's more likely that Apple want all the speculation to die down as it's harder to have an epic rock-and-roll style launch if everyone is already familiar with the product.
RE[2]: Brilliant viral marketing
by poundsmack on Fri 15th Jan 2010 00:22
in reply to "RE: Brilliant viral marketing"
Member since:2005-07-13
I wouldnt be suprised if apple teamed up with them to have the letter put out just to go in this big loop. letter, controversy, reaction from apple, etc...
If you want to see the most ingenious marketing ever though, talk to MS. Brilliant at marketing (not including the recent thing with china; wait till google and yahoo say they wont put up with it and then say "oh, well we will stay 
")
if you want the perfect example of this kind of marketing follow this link and read my post here: http://www.techspot.com/news/31153-windows-xp-still-outselling-vist...
RE[2]: Brilliant viral marketing
by darknexus on Fri 15th Jan 2010 00:25
in reply to "RE: Brilliant viral marketing"
Member since:2008-07-15
Not sure if this is a viral marketing strategy or not, but I got to thinking about Apple and their so-called negative PR. The thing is, Apple only really have negative PR in the tech community which, imho, is well-deserved. However, most people outside of the tech community never hear about these stunts, or the problems with the app store for example. And further, they don't really seem to care. When it comes down to the larger market outside of the tech world, Apple actually have a very good image. I think sometimes we forget that those of us who read this site are geeks, and pay more attention to what's going on from a tech point of view. As such, sometimes our idea of who has good or bad PR is a bit skewed.
RE: Brilliant viral marketing
by Luminair on Fri 15th Jan 2010 02:21
in reply to "Brilliant viral marketing"
Member since:2007-03-30
RE: Painfully obvious reverse psychology
by BallmerKnowsBest on Fri 15th Jan 2010 22:22
in reply to "Brilliant viral marketing"
Member since:2008-06-02
Sending a letter from their lawyers costs nothing and pushes so many buttons in sites like this that it generates yet more countless clicks and eyeballs.
Translation: "How can I make those big internet meanies stop making fun of poor little Apple? I know! I can make a smarmy post telling them that's what Apple WANTS them to do, that'll show them! By God, I'm the greatest reverse psychologist EVER!"
The funny thing is that it's much, MUCH more likely that ValleyWag are the ones who have pulled off a brilliant bit of reverse psychology. How many people heard of them before this week, do you think? And do you think that number has increased at all, now that every tech news site in existence has mentioned them?
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2009-08-22
Glad to see you are supporting Apple's latest step in their almost flawless and brilliant viral marketing of the tablet.
Sending a letter from their lawyers costs nothing and pushes so many buttons in sites like this that it generates yet more countless clicks and eyeballs.
Let's hope that the actual tablet/slate is as good as their marketing - I personally think it will be way better and way more of a big deal than most people are expecting but hopefully we will find out for sure very soon