Fred Wilson said the Apple Watch wouldn’t be as successful as the iPhone. Business Insider then said Wilson proclaimed it would be a “flop”.

Wilson responding on Twitter:

@nichcarlson @jyarow why do you guys feel the need to put words in my mouth?????? i never said “flop” it so fucking annoying

Would you ask a bird why it flies? A fish why it swims? A slug why it glistens with ooze and eats your garden plants? A deer tick why it sucks the blood from other, more productive and better looking animals in the animal kingdom? No, Fred, you would not.

Marketing Land’s Danny Sullivan:

Take a look at your “Following” list on Twitter. You might find some brands or people showing up there, even if you don’t follow them. If so, that seems due to either a new change or a newly noticed change in how Twitter is doing placement for promoted accounts.

William Shatner is rightly throwing a fit over this because it makes it look like he endorses a brand he doesn’t. That’s bad enough for anyone but people like Shatner make money endorsing brands. Way to destroy your goodwill, Twitter.

(Via The Verge.)

That’s the joke.

Also on the list is The Wire, which is not a show from 2014 but Amazon got it in 2014 so it’s one of the best of 2014 because Amazon.

Jan Dawson looks at the relative cross-platform development efforts of Microsoft, Google and Apple:

To return to the point that sparked this post, Microsoft clearly has the broadest approach to cross-platform development of the three, developing significant numbers of apps for its own platforms but also those of Google and Apple.

Apple, not surprisingly, does the least cross-platform development. It’s encouraging to see Microsoft’s broad support, particularly as someone who has an interest in what it does with Minecraft. I don’t think there’s any serious threat that they’d cancel it on other platforms, but they could always give it short shrift.

Ben Bajarin links to this piece on a service providing broadcast TV to tablet owners and says:

More fuel for my tablet-as-TV narrative.

I’ve told this story before, but at Macworld Expo (I’m just calling it that forever) in 2013, someone approached me after a session and asked what I thought about a large iPad for television viewing. I believe my exact words were “Get away from me, crazy person.”

No, my first thought was “Get away from me, crazy person.” but that’s what I think any time anyone approaches me so I reminded myself I was in a public forum and thought about what he was saying. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’m not sure about the need for a larger device, but I can tell you that’s exactly what my most frequent use case is for my iPad. I probably watch, oh, 157 different comic book hero TV shows. You’ve got your Arrow, your The Flash, your Gotham, your Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And that’s before all the Marvel shows coming to Netflix. I tend to watch them on my iPad while I exercise or eat lunch. (I spend my entire week exercising and eating lunch.)

It seems like there are definite demographics where the tablet as TV would be even more appealing: Countries and living spaces like apartments and dormitories where space is at a premium and a large screen television isn’t optimal and more mobile lifestyles. But for everyone it allows you to more easily individualize your entertainment. I’m sure someone will tell us how horrible that is. They’re the same people who said television was horrible.

The use case is here, it just needs to be made better. I’m interested in advancements of set-top boxes, but I’d rather have better television viewing options on my iPad.

The New York Times in a piece about Sony’s about-face on releasing “The Interview”:

According to people briefed on the matter, Sony had in recent days asked the White House for help in lining up a single technology partner — Apple, which operates iTunes — but the tech company was not interested, at least not on a speedy time table. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

The Interview is now available online from other sources so I’m curious what Apple’s thinking was here in declining to participate. Probably hates America. Probably that.

Update 12/29: Apple added “The Interview” yesterday.

Related to the MacKeeper link, Chris Breen details how to remove it if you have it installed. Although, I doubt readers of this site have that problem.

Gosh, and it seems like just last year pundits were saying Apple was going to replace him.

Oh, right, it was just last year.

The Safe Mac:

The bottom line is that MacKeeper should not be used. The company behind it has shown a long history of unethical behavior, and the software isn’t worthwhile. If you have it installed, you should remove it immediately.

It always astounds me that these people are still around. I guess those relentless pop-under ads really work. Via Gus Mueller (via Dan Frakes) who notes that MacKeeper was breaking Acorn’s signature for a while.