Tim Cook refers to integration and a great team as unique Apple advantages (but also note the references to magic and belief.) It’s a better explanation but it is still hard to understand why nobody copies this approach. Integration is something that can take a long time, but it is possible with a Herculean effort. A few companies are starting to make moves in that direction (e.g. Microsoft.) But efforts are half-hearted. There is no “move the Earth” panic to become an integrated company from Samsung, Google or Microsoft.

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The problem with Microsoft's online service offerings isn't that their TV campaigns are lame. It's not even that the products are bad. But they're not wildly better than Google's search and email and so forth. Most people are just incredibly lazy. It's easy to forget, but it took Google Search and Gmail a remarkably long time to rise to dominance during a period when they wiped the floor with the competition on the merits. Now Google has that change-aversion and laziness working in its favor. To beat them, you have to crush them on quality. And Microsoft's not doing that. No ad campaign can overcome the basic reality of human inertia.

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In a world where companies communicate with corporate PR speak, I applaud Elon Musk's tone in his response to John Broder's review of the Tesla Model S. It reminds me of Steve Jobs when he was pissed off. But while on the surface Musk's arguments seem compelling, digging a bit deeper shows cracks and the same sort of biased analysis and prejudice that resulted in Broder's original conclusions.

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Roh, who was a lawmaker for the opposition Progressive Justice Party, has been a vocal critic of Samsung, South Korea's most powerful conglomerate, which dominates the country's economy. In testimony to the National Assembly in 2005, he used the wiretapped conversations to call for an investigation into Samsung's relationships with prosecutors. The probe led to the resignation of a vice justice minister but prosecutors only indicated Roh and a journalist for releasing the wiretaps. Usually South Korean lawmakers are protected by an immunity that allows them to speak freely in the National Assembly without being sued for libel or prosecuted for other charges. At issue was whether such immunity applied to the lawmaker's actions in cyberspace. South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that it did not.

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Some great ideas, like the rubbish bag packaged inside a rubbish bag.

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The biggest mistake Microsoft could make is back down from the progress they're making with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.

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It was like this for Mac users until around 2008.

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Nick Quaranto at 37 Signals describes writing the Basecamp app with RubyMotion so he could avoid using Xcode and learning Objective-C.

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People complain about iTunes and Calendar apps, but the App Store app is by far the worst app Apple makes.

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Without asking permission, Google sends developers the personal details of everyone who buys their app from Google Play. According to Australian developer Dan Nolan, Google sends him the name, suburb and email address of consumers that his app — enough to "track down and harass users who left negative reviews".

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Nutrition is probably one of the least well understood sciences, this piece looks at the biggest misconceptions we're told by governments, doctors, and food companies.

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Jim Dalrymple cuts out the bullshit PR.

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