Conor Mulligan

We've all been profoundly affected by his life's work in one way or another, but I quite literally owe my career to his innovations. Thanks, Steve.

The 4S is a nice, comprehensive update to the iPhone 4, but the real magic, to borrow a phrase, is in the software. I've been using iOS 5 for months now, and despite having to deal with some incredibly annoying bugs and a raft of broken apps, never once considered downgrading to iOS 4.

Great new products all around at Amazon's event in New York, but the Kindle Fire looks stellar:

The Kindle Fire will have a 7-inch display and sell for $199, compared with $499 for Apple’s cheapest iPad, Amazon executives said in interviews with Bloomberg Businessweek.

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The Kindle Fire doesn’t have an embedded camera or a microphone. The device offers Wi-Fi connectivity, though not 3G access, and comes with a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime, the company’s $79-a-year membership service that includes streaming video and free two-day shipping. Amazon has painted over the rough surfaces of Google’s Android operating system with a fresh and easy-to-use interface and tied the device closely to its own large and growing content library of movies, magazines and music.

Amazon's using the strategy Google should have followed, and encouraged their OEMs to follow, all along — don't try to mimic the iPad, create a unique product that plays to your company's strengths.

Joe Hewitt:

I'm beginning to see that some parts of the Web we take for granted are not what actually defines it. The Web is not HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It's not DOM, SVG, WebGL, PNG, or Flash. The Web is really just HTTP over TCP/IP. What gets transported over HTTP does not define the Web.

Read the whole thing.

400 icons, in both regular and retina-display sizes, for $25. If you're an iOS developer who cares about the quality of your app and you don't have this set of icons, shame on you.

Microsoft will restrict general distribution of Metro apps to the Windows Store, but grant exceptions to enterprises and developers, allowing them to side-load applications onto Windows 8 devices. While Windows 8 will be an operating system for both desktops and tablets, Microsoft is creating two sets of rules for traditional desktop apps and Metro-style apps, which are optimized for touch screens but will run on any Windows 8 device.

Fascinating. So, with Windows 8 on a desktop, the only way for most consumers to acquire Metro apps is from the Windows Store.

To be very clear, Jobs, while seriously ill, is very much alive. Extremely well-informed sources at Apple say he intends to remain involved in developing major future products and strategy and intends to be an active chairman of the board, even while new CEO Tim Cook runs the company day to day.

The thing to keep in mind is this: Apple tomorrow, a week from now, and next month is the exact same Apple from yesterday, a week ago, and last month. Tim Cook wasn’t named “CEO” until today, but he’s been the chief executive at the company since Jobs started this — his third — medical leave back in January, and probably even before that. Whatever Steve’s role is going forward, it’s only different in title than what it has been, in effect, for some time.