• Enough Is Enough – “The whole [Lodsys] thing is nuts. I can’t understand why our goverment allows this shit to go on. "
• Android App Removals Cast Doubt on Google’s ‘Openness’ – “It’s certainly more open than Apple’s platform. But really, that’s like being a taller midget.”

The cartoon¹ for today’s Dilbert Day to Day Desk Calendar seemed appropriate for some things that are happening in the mobile software industry at the moment.

If you’ve not been following events — shame on you — then you can read all about it here. In summary, a number of small developers have been sued by a “patent troll,” that is a company that does not develop or make anything but demands royalties for the use of “intellectual property” it bought.

• iCloud’s real purpose is to kill Windows – “What this requires from Apple is a bold move that Microsoft would never make: Jobs is going to sacrifice the Macintosh in order to kill Windows. He isn’t beating Windows, he’s making Windows inconsequential.”
• Microsoft joins pre-emptive patent protection program – Software patents are not really popular, even with companies that (in theory) should benefit from them…

• ‘Useless’ Is A Loaded Word – “In almost any life situation where you need to get something out of another person, being a dick is never the right method to go about it. Using loaded words like ‘useless’ or ‘worthless’ is being a dick. We will listen to your feedback and thank you for it, but unless it is some urgent issue that will affect every user, it’s most likely getting shoved to the bottom of the pile in favor of doing things to make the friendly customers happy.”
• Don’t blame inflation for all the price rises – Summary: food and gadgets are cheaper, entertainment is considerably more expensive.
• We should stop running away from radiation – “A sea-change is needed in our attitude to radiation, starting with education and public information.”

Most developers of iOS applications have a love-hate relationship with the main interface with Apple.

No, let me re-phrase that.

Most developers of iOS applications hate iTunes Connect, the main impediment to a good relationship with Apple.

To be fair it has improved since it opened in mid-2008. One of those improvements has been the inclusion of crash reports. A crash report, in case you’re not a developer, is something that iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads write out when an application crashes. It includes all kinds of useful information, including some, but not all, of the internal state of the application in question. It’s very, very useful for diagnosing problems.

• Twitter tells third-party devs to stop making Twitter client apps – “More significantly, it demonstrates the vulnerability of building a business on top of a Web platform that is controlled by a single vendor.” This is exactly the lesson I found with my Delicious.com client.
• Illinois scrubs death penalty – Another step in the right direction.
• NYT and “torture”: Searching for a justification – Apparently the definition of torture depends very much on who is doing it.

This week I’ve released updates to all three of my iPhone and iPad apps.

Yummy and Yummy Browser, my Delicious.com client, see the release of a big update: version 2.6.0. It includes a completely new bookmark viewing and editing screen, a new bookmark list view, updates to help syncing reliability and lots of smaller tweaks and updates. It’s the biggest gap between any two major releases but I think is a good one.

Seth Godin has had a couple of posts recently about how to treat your best customers. One of the thing that he observes is that the way you define “best” is not necessarily the most obvious. Is a customer that pays full price always better than one that recommends your service to five of their friends?

In defining the best customers, my mind wandered to the opposite extreme, the worst customers. This reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. It’s only fair to note that I heard this “through the grape-vine.” It could be completely true or mostly made up, but where-ever it falls I think it’s an interesting anecdote.

Then I heard about GetLocalization (whose name needs localising!), a site which allows you to “crowd-source” translations. I honestly don’t know if it will work but I thought it was a good idea and something worth trying and supporting.

• ‘should be cheaper than free’ – “I’m angry at the customers who send me nasty emails or reviews, threatening me with ‘telling Apple to remove it’ or rating it 1 star with a ’should be cheaper than free’ remark because after paying the ridiculously exorbitant 99c, they found it didn’t live up to expectations. "
• Hurdie Ho! – Maybe you had to be there and read the copy of Your Sinclair that this was originally published in, but this still makes me laugh.
• Museum looks at 2000-year history of the computer – The Computer History Museum was excellent even before this new exhibit. Recommended.