It would seem congratulations are due to a certain Mr. Shawn Blanc. Shawn is about to do something, many could only dream of; he has decided to write shawnblanc.net, full-time.

After four years and hundreds of articles, it all feels like the beginning. As if the hundreds of thousands of words that I’ve written here so far are simply the prologue. And I cannot wait for what is next — shawnblanc.net is what I love to do.

Shawn’s new venture will prove successful—I have no doubt about it. Shawn is a great writer, and though he may not know it, his writing represents one of the reasons I started Let’s Talk Apple. Good luck sir, though I know you will not need it.

I decided it was time to read Readability’s letter to Apple–which is surprisingly nothing more than a blog entry. From previous reports, Readability’s rejection seemed unnecessarily evil. However, it would seem Gruber has it right, again. Let’s take the time to twist some words:

From Readability’s, “An Open Letter to Apple”:

If we implemented In App purchasing, your 30% cut drastically undermines a key premise of how Readability works.

To which Apple would have responded:

If we accepted Readability, your 30% cut drastically undermines a key premise of how the App Store works.

Which brings us back to the brilliant statement by none other than Ben Brooks:

If you want to jump on Tommy’s trampoline then you are going to have to be friends with Tommy and that means going to his stupid birthday parties and playing by his rules — but its a freaking trampoline so its worth it.

It looks like there are going to be more than a few web apps arriving in 2011.

No matter how many rivals there are to the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, they will never “win”. Unlike their competitors, Apple does not sell a product; they sell an experience.

My wife Merri just called me from her 4th-generation iPod touch, and I got to see and talk to her and our two kids, right from the palm of my hand.

This reminds me of a quote making its way around the internet, by Sebastian de With:

On the internet, if the price is “free”, the product that’s being sold is you.

John Gruber:

Maybe I’m missing something, but these guys claiming to be surprised and disappointed by Apple’s insistence on a 30 percent cut of subscriptions when their own business model is to take a 30 percent cut of subscriptions strikes me as rich. And how can they claim that Readability isn’t “serving up content”? That’s exactly what Readability does. What they’re pissed about is that Apple has the stronger hand. Readability needs Apple to publish an app in the App Store. Apple doesn’t need Readability.

Ben Brooks on App Store subscriptions and Readability’s rejection:

If you want to jump on Tommy’s trampoline then you are going to have to be friends with Tommy and that means going to his stupid birthday parties and playing by his rules — but its a freaking trampoline so its worth it.

Wise words.

Still an utterly disappointing mess.

The kick to Steve Job’s face only cheapens the otherwise well-done (though admittedly lengthy) advertisement for the LG Optimus Pad.

Today The Daily disappointed me. I discovered realized the biggest problem with Murdoch’s digital publication — I was unable to read the news. Let me make this clear, despite numerous reports on the application design flaws and the multitude of performance issues, I like and enjoy reading The Daily. Some call it a glorified magazine, and I tend to agree. That is after all, The Daily’s promise. A re-imagination of the newspaper as we know it today, without sacrificing strict editorial control. This takes time, and 24-hours seems to be the sweet spot.

Supporting The Daily’s promise, we have a famous quote from Steve Jobs:

One of my beliefs, very strongly, is that any democracy depends on a free, healthy press. Some of these newspapers, the news-gathering and editorial organizations are really important, I don’t want to see us descend into a nation of bloggers, myself. I think we need editorial more than ever right now.

I tend to agree. Editorials are necessary. Editorial control is necessary. Despite my adoration for the project, I find it disappointing to be stuck with news both broken and widely discussed yesterday. 24-hours is a long time to wait in order to read news that broke less than one hour ago.

What should happen?
I should be able to read the news. When President Mubarak stepped-down, my iPad should have notified me –  iOS’s blue modal windows work just fine. Upon following the on-screen notification, The Daily would launch (like any other app using push notifications) and an article outlining President Mubarak’s resignation would be presented to me.

The Update
As for the update, 1.0.2 is much more stable and responsive. I only hope v1.1 brings some sort of “breaking news” notification feature for the breaking news stories.

Update: I stand, for the most part, very much corrected. The Daily does feature a breaking news feature, and according to the blog, the cover was updated three times in one day. However, all of these efforts can’t be justified if I am unaware of the changes.

Macrumors has put together a promising roundup of the latest Verizon-iPhone reviews. I do believe the title says it all. There are definitely pros to having the iPhone join Verizon’s network, however there are also some pretty inconspicuous and noteworthy cons. “Like what?” I’m so glad you asked. This is perhaps my single, largest gripe with Verizon’s network (via Macworld):

If you’re using the Internet and your phone rings, your Internet connection immediately drops.

I’m sure I am making a bigger deal of this than is necessary, but my mind can’t seem to get around it (I guess I have been with AT&T too long). Another one of my favorite quotes:

AT&T’s network averaged 46% faster at download speeds and 24% faster at upload speeds.

Huh? No kidding.