netgarden’s posterous

…the other name for the Triangle offense is the “Triple Post” offense. I’m speculating here, but aren’t we in fact seeing a Triple Post with Kobe, Pau, and Drew? I mean, last night we had Kobe on the weakside block, Pau at the high post (FT line area), and Drew on the opposite low block. Yes, at times the spacing could have been better, but this is a deadly offensive alignment. From this position (especially when Kobe has the ball), the team can either 1). Have Kobe shoot a turnaround jumper or create for himself with a spin move to the baseline 2). Kobe sees the help off Pau and he hits him for a FT line jumper or on a cut down the middle of the lane 3). Kobe can hit Bynum on a lob or Bynum can sneak under his man for a pass that puts him right under the basket. And last night, we saw all of these options play themselves out (Kobe did end the night with 9 assists). I mean, this is essentially the same alignment that we killed Denver with in the playoffs after Game 4. Kobe went to the block (or mid post) on the weakside and then he picked them apart by passing to Pau on the weakside block (where Drew is now) or passing to LO who was either flashing to the FT line or executing a dive cut from that area. As I mentioned before, the spacing could be a bit better, but we have the horses to play this way (no other team can, so it’s not like we see this alignment a lot from other teams) and it creates match up nightmares for our opponents.

I’ve mostly stopped writing about the dismal App Store approval process and the issues it causes because I’ve felt hopeless. Nothing has changed. Nothing has improved. Despite some token status-reporting “improvement” attempts, nearly everything about the App Store is the same, or worse, than it was a year ago.

The average review time has nearly doubled. There are more undocumented rules being enforced less consistently than ever before. Apple is as just as opaque, unhelpful, and hostile as they’ve been. Unscrupulous publishers are gaming and abusing rankings, search results, and descriptions like crazy. Invalid or off-topic reviews are still rarely removed, and the rate-on-delete dialog still unfairly destroys every app’s average star rating. It’s a mess.

But I like it here.

A lot of things are wrong with my country, too. And my state. But it’s still the only place I want to be, and I’d rather fight to improve it than abandon it.

I don’t want to go to any other mobile platform. The iPhone is still an amazing device with a great hardware and software ecosystem and hundreds of high-quality apps. But app review is a massive problem that’s slowly degrading the platform.

It reminds me of the analog about US style democracy. It's the worst system in the world, until you look at all others.

That said, I agree with Arment's perspective that mainstream media coverage is where 'brand equity' damage occurs, and will likely be the forcing function that drives Apple to re-work the approval process materially - a change that I am guessing is well underway.

Nonetheless, a recurring kick in the hindquarters doesn't hurt expedite matters a bit.

Paul Graham on Apple and the App Store

The hard part about criticizing the App Store is that it doesn’t fit into a black-and-white narrative. It’s not bad or good. It’s both. In fact, it’s more extreme than that — it’s both amazingly good and horribly bad. And, frustratingly, many of us see how the bad parts could be made better without sacrificing the good parts.

This piece by Paul Graham addresses this dichotomy, and tries to make sense of Apple’s seeming blindness to the App Store’s severe problems:

Actually I suppose Apple has a third misconception: that all the complaints about App Store approvals are not a serious problem. They must hear developers complaining. But partners and suppliers are always complaining. It would be a bad sign if they weren’t; it would mean you were being too easy on them. Meanwhile the iPhone is selling better than ever. So why do they need to fix anything?

Later, Graham captures exactly what gives me The Fear:

An organization that wins through dirty tricks starts to lose the ability to win by doing better work.

I wish I’d written that sentence.

The toughest part of writing is capturing the 'IT,' the core narrative that tells the story and why it matters. Gruber is one of the best in capturing this.

I would underscore Gruber's point on Apple and App Store not falling into black/white narrative, something that folks on both sides of the discussion (i.e., Apple lovers and Apple haters) REALLY struggle with.

Sidenote: Gruber is cited as a draft reviewer on Graham's piece.

The standard way to develop applications now is to launch fast and iterate. Which means it's a disaster to have long, random delays each time you release a new version.

Apparently Apple's attitude is that developers should be more careful when they submit a new version to the App Store. They would say that. But powerful as they are, they're not powerful enough to turn back the evolution of technology. Programmers don't use launch-fast-and-iterate out of laziness. They use it because it yields the best results. By obstructing that process, Apple is making them do bad work, and programmers hate that as much as Apple would.

How would Apple like it if when they discovered a serious bug in OS X, instead of releasing a software update immediately, they had to submit their code to an intermediary who sat on it for a month and then rejected it because it contained an icon they didn't like?

By breaking software development, Apple gets the opposite of what they intended: the version of an app currently available in the App Store tends to be an old and buggy one.

It's the breaking of the inherently iterative nature of software development that is my biggest gripe with Apple's App Store process.  Logical path would be to bifurcate between apps already in app store (lower path to release bug fixes and minor updates, as it's a known app/developer), and new apps, new developers.  With the former, higher bar to access; with the latter lower bar, but ability to retroactively "downgrade" version if app not in compliance.

The most common bit of critical feedback I got in response to “Herd Mentality” is an argument that goes like this: You don’t want a world with several additional desktop OSes. It would make for a compatibility and interoperability nightmare. We were there before, in the early days of the personal computer, and it was a mess.

I say two things to that. First, it may have been a mess, but it was a beautiful mess. It was glorious. It was fun. The Apple II, the IBM PC and DOS, Commodore, Atari, Acorn. The TI-99/4A.

Second, this ain’t then. The world is a very different place today.

Amen, brother! Those were glorious and wonderful days (my first computer was a TRS-80), but I hearken back to a favorite saying (not my own) that "In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man is King."

Alas, it is a sad testament on the state of our industry that once you get beyond Apple, Google and Amazon, there are a few one-eyed men, and the rest are (seemingly) blind.

When you talk about not setting up correctly, is it a matter of certain guys still being unsure, or simply a matter of not paying attention to the details?

    To me, it's more of not paying attention to the details. Ron (Artest) is the only that still has a lot of questions about how to respond or what happens if we call this or do this, and that's to be understood. But what would make his life a lot easier is if the other four guys would do the thing right, because there's only one place for him to be, if the other four guys are in the right spots. We're slowing down his learning curve by not paying attention to the details, and that's not fair to him and it's not fair to the team. Regardless of the win and loss record, we could just be playing much better.  Sometimes you play good and you still may lose because the other team plays good, but we could be playing much better if we really were paying attention to more details.  

(AK's Note: The point about everyone else needing to be on point for Artest to get up to speed is fantastic. He's learning through a player-provided blueprint, so if the blueprint sucks, the ceiling for his successful immersion automatically lowers)

I love the construct of player-provided blueprint, as it underscores the ripple effect of the veterans not executing the core details. Rumor has it that Gasol will play on Thursday (against the Bulls) so maybe the 'healing' begins soon (knock on wood).

Way more interesting are the rumors we’ve been hearing for months about a pure Google-branded phone. Most of our sources have unconfirmed information, which we describe below. But there are a few things we have absolutely confirmed: Google is building their own branded phone that they’ll sell directly and through retailers. They were long planning to have the phone be available by the holidays, but it has now slipped to early 2010. The phone will be produced by a major phone manufacturer but will only have Google branding (Microsoft did the same thing with their first Zunes, which were built by Toshiba).

There won’t be any negotiation or compromise over the phone’s design of features – Google is dictating every last piece of it. No splintering of the Android OS that makes some applications unusable. Like the iPhone for Apple, this phone will be Google’s pure vision of what a phone should be.

If this is true, puts Google in a really good position to showcase the WHY and SO WHAT of Android beyond the 'Anyone but Apple' crowd. At the same time, will complicate the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' positioning. As a chess move against Apple, 'interesting.'  

Read: The Chess Masters: Apple versus Google

Could REALLY fragment Android, or force an agreed upon reference design standard down to hardware form-functions, core user interaction and most fully rendered/supported API sets.  

That said, if you were selling your Android handset against the Google phone, and you knew that Google would always likely be a rev ahead of you in terms of the latest/greatest reference design support, would you see Google as a bit contaminated? It's the classic LCD v. HCD debate.

Read: Android vs. iPhone: Why Openness May Not Be Best

Before the Lakers played the Pistons Tuesday night, Jackson said Gasol went through practice Monday and shootaround Tuesday morning and Jackson hoped Gasol would be able to play in the game. Alas, he remained on the inactive list. When Jackson was asked if he was concerned Gasol was being gun-shy, he jumped in and said, “That he’s a hypochondriac and might be a baby and won’t come out and play? Is that what you’re trying to say with that question?”

That drew laughs. Then Jackson turned TV critic, referring to Gasol’s guest appearance on “CSI: Miami.”

“I think he got injured on CSI and he’s not telling us the truth,” Jackson said. “I watched that program last night just to see if that was what [happened]. And then he dragged that kid out of the car; I’m sure that’s where he got that injury.

The first time PJ quipped about Pau returning around Christmas, it was a joke. The second time is a dig.

The problem might better be explained via an analogy posited by Instapaper developer (and creator of Tumblr) Marco Arment. Though Apple prides itself on providing customers a single, straightforward outlet for iPhone apps, there are functionally two App Stores: one for folks who will install any app for 99¢ and try it at least once, and one for folks who want great software and don't mind paying for it. Targeting the first app store is a lottery, as Kafasis described it. Targeting the second one is more like the model used by most Mac developers—build well-designed software, build relationships with your users, and slowly build success over time. However, the way the App Store is run by Apple, it's incredibly difficult for developers to thrive on these types of apps alone—especially when there is potentially 25 times more income on the Mac side.

xkcd #662 riffs on App Store rejections.

Randall Munroe

I think that this argument that there are really two App Stores is a Pretty Crisp one; namely one, for the 'try anything' for 99 cents buyer; and another for folks that just want great software, but are willing to pay for it.

In fact, I blogged on this topic a few months back in:

Is the iPhone Platform Destined to Disrupt the Packaged Software Industry?
http://bit.ly/U2iNP

Jackson wanted to bail on this perennially chaotic franchise. He just didn't make a smooth exit. He lost favor with Warriors fans by asking out way too soon after agreeing to a three-year bribe to stay here.

For the post-Jackson Warriors to take shape and move on to their next playoff generation, more change is needed. A change of ownership? There's a chance, so keep praying. But more likely is the eventual departures of two other Chris Cohan employees.

Specifically, when do coach Don Nelson and point guard/shooting guard/selfish guard Monta Ellis leave, too? When do they tell the far-too-generous Warriors brass to take their jobs and shove it?

Can't be long now. Can't. Just can't.

Nellie can't coexist with this youth-laden roster, no matter if Jackson and Acie Law are gone and replaced by ex-Bobcats Raja Bell and Vladimir Radmanovic.

Nellie figures to outlast Ellis because, well, Nellie's magic number is only 21 — the victories needed to surpass Lenny Wilkens' NBA all-time wins record. If he can't get that mark with the Warriors, then where? Not with the Maui High Sabers. The Warriors are his last stop, or at least it ought to be for the 69-year-old coach who looks worn out and uninspired.

I especially love this quote from another article on the state of W's, which frames the sense of ennui on the team: "The players are really questioning whether they can trust the organization," a person with knowledge of the situation said. "They're tired of Nellie's mind games. They think all he cares about is winning 21 more games, even if it means going 21-61. The environment there is terrible."