GoDaddy is Retiring the Media Temple Brand

I missed this news last month:

For the past 24 years, Media Temple dedicated itself to serving the needs of the digital creative community. Thus, our mantra—for creatives, by creatives.  This mantra led to our decision that now is the time to retire the Media Temple brand and fully integrate into GoDaddy.

GoDaddy acquired Media Temple back in 2013, so props to them for keeping the brand alive all these years. Media Temple was not only one of the best places to host your websites before the acquisition, but also one of the coolest brands to be a part of. Just having the (mt) branding on your website was like a stamp that you were serious about your website.

It’s a shame that they had to go with GoDaddy — I still think GoDaddy is one of the scummiest companies around.

January 18, 2023 ✚ Permalink

IFFI 2022 jury head calls The Kashmir Files ‘propaganda, vulgar movie’

All of us were disturbed and shocked by the 15th film, The Kashmir Files. That felt like a propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section of such a prestigious film festival.

Yikes!

November 29, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Apple reports "all-time revenue record" from India

Apple reported their quarterly results for Q4’22 yesterday and the folks at Six Colors have published their transcript of the call that Tim Cook and Luca Maestri have with analysts.

During the call, Apple mentioned that the company saw double-digit grown in India and iPhone growth was “impressive”.

iPhone Revenue grew 10% year over year to a September quarter record of 42.6 billion despite significant foreign exchange headwinds. We set September quarter records in the vast majority of markets we track, and our performance was particularly impressive in several large emerging markets with India setting a new all-time revenue record and Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Mexico more than doubling year over year. Thanks to our strong iPhone lineup, we set a quarterly record for upgraders and grew switchers double digits. This level of sales performance, along with unmatched customer loyalty, drove the active installed base of iPhones to a new all time high across all geographic segments.

(Emphasis mine.)

No surprises here. The iPhone continues to get more expensive in India, yet more people continue to buy it every year.

October 28, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Pocket Casts Mobile Apps Go Open Source

Yael Rubinstein, writing on the Pocket Casts blog:

We’ve been eager to take this step since we joined Automattic last year — after all, the company’s creed includes the phrase “I know that open source is the most powerful idea of our generation.” We believe that podcasting can not and should not be controlled by Apple and Spotify, and instead support a diverse ecosystem of third-party clients.

It was just a matter of time when this would happen, as anyone who knows Automattic knows their love for open source. The only surprising thing to me is that Pocket Casts is only making their mobile apps open source, the Desktop and Web versions are not included in this anouncement and the company says it has no plans to do so either.

This announcement has generally been received positively by users and developers of other podcasts apps.

The iOS repository as well as the Android repository are up on GitHub with a Mozilla Public License 2.0.

October 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Uber is testing EV cabs in Delhi NCR

Jagmeet Singh, writing for TechCrunch:

Uber has started offering electric vehicles to customers in certain parts of the Delhi-NCR region and says it will be expanding its efforts over the coming months. The electric cabs are currently only available for pre-scheduled trips.

The company did not share how many EV cabs were operational on its platform in India, but insisted that it is working with multiple fleet partners, OEMs and charging infra providers “to gradually build the EV business in a sustainable manner.”

With fuel prices soaring in the country, Uber’s contractual drivers have already been raising their displeasure at making less than what the company had promised them. I just hope that the company doesn’t shaft them like they did with the ICE vehicles.

October 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Freepik Acquires Iconfinder

The Freepik Company, known for its projects like Freepik, Wepik, Flaticon and Slidesgo, has announced the acquisition of Iconfinder.

Speaking about the acquisition, Martin LeBlanc — Founder & CEO of Iconfinder, writes:

For now, Iconfinder will stay Iconfinder, and Flaticon will stay Flaticon. My role will transition into the Head of icons, and we’ll start setting up a direction, merging the Iconfinder and Flaticon teams, and making gradual changes. Our goal is to learn from each other what we are best at and apply the practices and approaches to build the world’s best icon site, helping people around the world make beautiful designs faster.

Freepik has been a tremendous resource for designers of any kind, and similarly, Iconfinder’s vast collection of icons has been a personal favorite of mine for many years. I hope to see them collectively improve both the projects down the line.

October 4, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20 billion

Adobe press release:

Today, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. The combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity.

Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers. The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders and the industry.

Dylan Field, writing on the Figma blog, says:

Today, we’re announcing that Figma has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe. This has been in the works over the past few months and I’m so excited to finally share this news with the world.

Ten years ago, Evan and I set out on a journey to make design accessible to all. Looking back, I’m proud to say we’ve made progress through introducing Figma to designers of all ages, geographies and levels of experience.

He goes on to say,

There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack.

And clarifies that,

Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously and I will continue to serve as CEO, reporting to David Wadhwani.

Figma has gone on to become an immensely popular design tool in the last few years, and designers are noticeably disappointed about this news.

There’s no doubt that this is a big win for Adobe, and I’m very curious how much Figma changes going forward. My bet is that it gets worse.

September 15, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Tinder's Parent Match Sues Apple in India

Aditya Kalra, reporting for Reuters:

Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing it of “monopolistic conduct” that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases, a legal filing seen by Reuters shows.

Apple is fending off a raft of antitrust challenges around the globe and Match’s July filing adds to two other cases in India though Match is the first foreign company to mount such a challenge against the iPhone maker in the country.

Match notes in its filing that Indians prefer using a “state-backed online transfer system,” seemingly referring to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system promoted by the Indian Govt. that has swept the country in recent times.

The govt. has repeatedly shown how much it loves UPI, and if that’s any indication, Apple just might be in some trouble here.

August 27, 2022 ✚ Permalink