The New York Times (via The Verge):

Major crime in New York City inched up this year, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Friday fingered the culprit: too many iPhones and iPads were being swiped.

…

“If you just took away the jump in Apple, we’d be down for the year,” said Marc La Vorgna, the mayor’s press secretary.

What if you took out cars? Or convenience stores?

Or people? I bet it’d go down a lot if you took out people.

Jamie Kelly (via Richard Dunlop-Walters):

There is a difference between being first and being the first one who is right, and when traffic is the name of the game being first trumps all, but it shouldn’t.

I am of the school that believes there is some value in mocking bad journalism of any kind. In fact, I donated a new wing to the library at the School Of Mocking Bad Journalism Of Any Kind (and Vocational Technology). So, I can’t adhere strictly to his “Don’t look” prescription, but we agree what the problem is and that the solution is paying more attention to and making sites that do better work.

We’re going to friends’ house tomorrow so I’m cooking this right now. And drinking.

Even if you’re not cooking, it’s a good read.

(Via Jeff Carlson.)

My thanks to Shiny Things for sponsoring the Very Nice Web Site RSS feed this week.

Shiny Things and Little App Factory are holding a sale on their iOS education and Mac media apps with deals of up to 50% off. Titles include the fun new Jungle Picnic, Quick Math, the award winning RipIt and Tagalicious.

I just bought several to put on an iPod touch someone’s getting for Christmas.

Available for a limited time only, don’t miss out!

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

A few walks down memory lane to share with you as we slip into the holiday week like something else slips into some other thing ew not that now you made it gross.

At Macworld, Benj Edwards looks back at the eMate 300 (Apple had a touch-screen enabled device with a keyboard first, you see) while Stephen Hackett has recently discussed the PowerBook G3 and the original iMac.

Somehow I never owned any of these machines in their day, despite having been a Newton user. I did, however, pick up a lime iMac over the summer at a yard sale, because I’m an idiot.

Ellis Hamburger (don’t) for the Verge:

Facebook today announced refinements to its Messaging filters, as well as a test for a very small portion of American users to determine if they’ll pay to contact people they aren’t Facebook friends with.

While I have an account, I do not so much use the Facebook because it gives me hives. If Facebook hates its customers users (Corey Quinn points out I used the wrong word here, I regret the error) so much why doesn’t it just go into the airline business?

Writing for TidBITS, Rich Mogull reviews the state of Apple’s security efforts:

Apple’s security is, across the board, stronger now than at any time in the nearly eight years I’ve been researching and writing about the company’s products and services. Which is important, since Apple also faces more security challenges than at any time in its past.

Kind of ridiculous Rich went on for so long, really, since we all know that Apple products are flawless diamonds of impregnability.

Seriously, more can and should be done but Apple’s made a lot of progress this year.

Time’s Doug Aamoth lists some services people have quit of late, including Instagram and, of course, Apple.

You people are so righteous. It’s kinda turning me on.

There are some words I never thought I’d write. And I can still only do it by putting a ridiculous question mark after them. Look at that stupid title! Ugh.

Anyway, in a survey that showed concerns that iPad mini cannibalization of regular iPad sales are “overblown”, Morgan Stanley also found this:

…Samsung’s tablets showed a 7 percent rise in purchase intentions over December 2011.

I would have expected the Google Nexus and Amazon Kindle Fire to be the only real players among “Android” tablets but Morgan Stanley found enthusiasm for the Fire was actually down a bit from last year. If I were in the market for an “Android”-based tablet, the Nexus and the Kindle Fire would be at the top of the list. Admittedly, Samsung has rather overtly said it’s not interested in my business as its advertising basically calls Apple’s customers mindless hipster dolts.

It’s not a huge increase for Samsung and it’s only a survey, but I wonder if the popularity of Samsung’s phones is benefitting them in tablets much as the iPod helped Apple.

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