Don’t Make Second-Class APIs

When Dion and I joined Palm several years ago during the webOS era, I was very disappointed to learn that we had embraced a second-class public API strategy. While both Palm and third-party apps shared WebKit and a UI library, the Palm-specific hardware stuff was segregated into two APIs: one for trusted Palm developers and […]

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Upcoming Future of Mobile Events

It goes without saying that mobile’s been a fascinating space to play in over the past few years. It’s also an understatement to say that my views have shifted as the ecosystem has developed. I started the journey fiercely advocating to the industry and to developers that web technologies should be the lingua franca of […]

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Google’s Enigmatic Nexus Q

When it was announced at this year’s Google I/O, the Nexus Q team took pride in the fact that people upon first observation generally had no idea what to make of the device. After playing with it myself for a couple of days, I’m not sure what to make of it either. It all started […]

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Kaspersky Security Nonsense

ZDNet recently quoted security expert Eugene Kaspersky commenting on a recent rare piece of OS X malware in the wild: “I think [Apple] are ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security,” Kaspersky told CBR. “For many years I’ve been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference between Mac […]

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Book Review: Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I admire Steve Jobs. I’ve been aware of him for most of my life, having grown up near “The Valley” and played with computers from my youngest years. However, I wasn’t particularly interested in Jobs until about when most of society became interested in him. In recent years, I harbored a secret desire to work […]

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What Do Set Direction and Walmart Have In Common?

About one month ago, Walmart’s Global Electronic Commerce division (i.e., Walmart.com) acquired our entire Set Direction team–the start-up that Dion and I created in late 2010. We’re now anxiously engaged in a multi-year effort to energize Walmart’s efforts in mobile e-commerce. If you had told me six months ago this would be Set Direction’s outcome, […]

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