> **The first three Shrek films are to be converted into 3D, Dreamworks studio has announced.** > > Ahead of the release of the fourth film in the series, Shrek Forever After, the studio said it was converting the first three for a 3D Blu-ray release. As if it weren’t bad enough that Hollywood is pilfering my childhood with hundreds of film versions of bad old 80s TV shows (A-Team, Dukes of Hazzard) and remakes of movies that weren’t good the first time around (Clash of the Titans), now they’re going to re-release movies from the last decade in 3D.

Count me amongst the non-believers in the whole 3D thing. Paying more for blurry movies that I can’t watch without putting on germ-ridden plastic glasses is not my idea of a good Friday night out.

But Hollywood has seen the dollar signs, and they will stop at nothing for an excuse to charge us $15 to see Titanic again. How long will it take idiot America to figure out the ruse?

Re-releasing Shrek 1, 2, and 3 in 3D might help speed it up a bit.

Talk about killing the golden goose.

> The newspaper [reported](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12slate.html?pagewanted=1) Sunday that Google has been “exploring the idea of building its own slate, an e-reader that would function like a computer.” So we have Android phones, Chrome OS netbooks, Chrome OS tablets, and now this Android e-reader that also “functions like a computer”, whatever that means.

If you were a consumer (and I’m guessing you are) how would you know which one to buy? Can’t anyone other than Apple come up with a simple set of products with clear purposes anymore?

I think the problem with many of these companies (Google and Microsoft included) is lack of vision. They can’t seem to make the hard choices about what NOT to include in their products, and they seem to lack the conviction to follow through on their decisions once they do create a product. So their products tend to contradict one another, rather than support one another.

Why should consumers, or developers, want to commit to such companies?

When people complained about no hardware keyboard on the iPhone, Apple didn’t cave in and put a keyboard on the next iPhone. It stuck to its guns and made a tablet with no keyboard. When people complained that the App Store was a walled garden, Apple took steps to make it MORE of a walled garden.

Google: stick to one OS strategy. Make phones, tablets, and netbooks, all running the same OS. Enforce some restrictions on features, so that developers aren’t contending with constant moving spec targets. Find good ways to differentiate yourself from Apple’s products, but start copying the general strategy, because copying Microsoft isn’t helping you any.

And P.S.: If you were developing a product in “stealth mode” I wouldn’t be reading about it.

> During a [media event in San Francisco today](http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/04/iveblog-mobile-pink-event.ars), Microsoft revealed the spiritual successor to the Danger Sidekick messaging phone. Called “[KIN](http://kin.com/),” the new platform is designed with a heavy focus on social networking and is targeted mainly towards younger users that Microsoft has dubbed the “social generation.” So yet another platform from Microsoft. For those keeping score, we now have the Zune HD, Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Phone 7, and now Kin. None of which is compatible with the other. Most of which haven’t shipped yet.

And let’s not forget Courier, which hasn’t even been officially announced yet. That will be an entirely different platform, too.

Seems like Microsoft is less of a single company, and more like several different smaller companies that don’t talk to each other at all. Considering how many different phone strategies they have, you’d think they’d take the time to call each other once in a while to find out what the others are up to. Maybe even schedule a meeting or two.

This KIN thing is clearly the result of Roz Ho’s failed Pink project. But rather than admit a clear failure and dump the strategy for the better (albeit still insufficient) Windows Phone 7, someone at Microsoft said “hey, why not just release them both, and see which one sticks.”

Great way to inspire developers to write software for your platform(s), guys.

Apple’s unifying the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad platforms is starting to look more and more like the right strategy. Though I still believe that iPad will have to branch out a bit into its own as the two products evolve over time, starting the iPad with 150,000+ iPhone apps out of the gate (and having a pool of developers who could use the same tools they already have been using) was clearly a good idea.

Microsoft needs to get out of the consumer space before it embarrasses itself any further.

> **Steve Jobs has seen enough in his 34 years in the computer business** to know, deeply, that he doesn’t want to be at the mercy of cross-platform tools that could erase Apple’s competitive advantage. He doesn’t want to wait and beg and bitch and moan until Adobe supports the registers on Apple’s player organ. (Diplomatically or not, [Jobs recently called Adobe “lazy”](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/googles-dont-be-evil-mantra-is-bullshit-adobe-is-lazy-apples-steve-jobs/)… But that was *intra muros*, in an internal all-hands company meeting.) > Does anyone mind that Jobs won’t sacrifice the truly strategic differentiation of the iPhone platform on the altar of cross-platform compatibility? Customers and critics don’t. They love the end-result. [Nor do developers](http://www.businessinsider.com/adobe-is-freaked-out-by-apples-move-developers-arent-too-worried-yet-2010-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+typepad%252Falleyinsider%252Fsilicon_alley_insider+%2528Silicon+Alley+Insider%2529&utm_content=Google+Reader). There are 185,000 apps in Apple’s App Store, 3,500 already for the iPad. Philanthropists at [Kleiner Perkins](http://www.kpcb.com/index.html), the noted Valley VC firm, are doubling (to $200M) the size of their [iFund](http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/), a fund dedicated to iPhone and now iPad investments. > > **Let’s perform a thought experiment. By the end of 2010, there will be more than 100 million iPhone OS devices** (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad). You’re the webmeister at an important content site. The boss comes in and asks you why you’re not supporting the iPhone OS devices. ‘Our stuff is all Flash-based, chief, those guys don’t run Flash’. You’re about to become the ex-webmeister. The boss, a really patient sort, asks you to “think different” about all these “non-compliant” customers, each of whom has an iTunes account backed by a credit card, and has developed the habit (encouraged by Apple) of paying for content. So, one more time, with feeling: What’s your answer? Well put.

> Slepak told Jobs he believed the reaction to the change across the entire internet was negative, including from *Daring Fireball’s* John Gruber, who Slepak called Jobs’ “biggest fan.” Jobs reportedly responded by sending a link to Gruber’s commentary on why Apple changed [section 3.1.1](http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/why_apple_changed_section_331) of its developer agreement. “We think John Gruber’s post is very insightful and not negative,” the Apple CEO allegedly said. Sorry, but I call bull$hit on this one. Steve Jobs has been emailing responses a lot lately, but calling John Gruber “insightful” sounds way too complimentary and generally not the right tone to be coming from Jobs.

And it’s not like Gruber needs his ego to grow any bigger than it already is. I generally like what the guy has to say, but let’s get real here.

This sounds like a made-up story from a fan of Daring Fireball to me. But who knows?