Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Buh-Bye From AllThingsD! More Staff Highlights: Fried, Goode and “Everyone Likes Mike” Isaac.

Like that proverbial pumpkin, at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, All Things Digital goes poof.

As I noted earlier, while the archives of what we have written since April of 2007 — close to 38,000 posts — will remain in the digital ether for your perusal, and the whole staff of AllThingsD is headed for new pastures, that’s not yet!

Before we part, I asked the staff to send me their favorite posts. Yesterday, I put up those of Peter Kafka, Arik Hesseldahl and Liz Gannes, and now it’s time for three more (and more after that!).

Without further ado:

INA FRIED

1. Interview: Apple CEO Steve Jobs on How the iPhone Does and Doesn’t Use Location Information

Key line: “‘As new technology comes into the society there is a period of adjustment and education,” Jobs said. ‘We haven’t — as an industry — done a very good job educating people, I think, as to some of the more subtle things going on here. As such, (people) jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions in the last week.'”

2. The Three Irreplaceable Qualities of Steve Jobs

Key line: “Computers came in one color before the iMac. There were digital music players before the iPod, but none that the masses wanted. One need only look at the face of the smartphone industry before the iPhone and after to see his vision and impact there.”

3. The Facebook Phone: Forking Android Offers Both Promise and Pitfalls

Key line: “Could Google’s Android be Facebook’s new best friend? It just might be, although it’s unlikely the feeling is mutual.”

4. The Definitive Insider’s Guide to Apple vs. Samsung

Key lines: “There have been plenty of dramatic moments in the case of Apple versus Samsung, which some have dubbed the patent trial of the century. But let’s be clear. There has also been a lot of downtime.”

5. How the Angry Birds Almost Died Before the First Level

“Mikael Hed almost pulled the plug on Rovio while the Angry Birds were still in development. After several years in business, his mobile game company had yet to produce a hit. Rovio’s chief backer, Hed’s father, Kaj, was struggling to figure out how to keep the company going.”

LAUREN GOODE

1. If You Want to Stay out of Jail, Don’t Instagram Your Ballot

Key line: “As tough as it is to peel yourself away from your smartphone for 10 minutes and not blast your ballot pics to your social streams, in some states, it’s wise to use caution when it comes to your vote.”

2. Inside the CES Lost & Found

Key lines: “When I asked what the strangest item is she’s seen so far at CES, she shrugged. ‘Nothing too off-the-wall. Some tripod case today. But other times, we get everything. We’ve gotten hearing aids, we’ve gotten teeth. Entire sets of teeth. Sometimes we even see drugs.'”

3. Comparing Wearables: Fitbit Flex vs. Jawbone Up and More

Key lines: “Wearable ‘activity trackers’ — not long ago a niche product — are getting more popular, and people are wondering how they work and whether they’re worth it. I decided to wear a bunch of trackers simultaneously for a period of 10 days to really get a sense of their features and, more importantly, their accuracy.”

4. Inside the LG G2 Smartphone Event, Which Is Very Much Like Other Smartphone Events

Key lines: “Will this new LG smartphone be a game-changer? I ask because everybody asks if the next smartphone is a game-changer. Later on, we might all make charts comparing the game-changing specs.”

5. iPhone 5c: Candy Colors With a Nice Price

Key lines: “While the 5c looks and feels very familiar, it’s still a good phone and an improvement over the 5. But its improvements are evolutionary, not revolutionary.”

MIKE ISAAC

1. The Future of Twitter’s Platform Is All in the Cards

Key lines: “Therein lies Twitter’s goal: A rich, consistent Twitter experience for every user. When the hammer drops and Twitter changes its guidelines, those apps that can’t deliver this consistency will no longer be able to integrate with Twitter.”

2. Facebook Wants to Be a Newspaper. Facebook Users Have Their Own Ideas.

Key line: “The gap between these two Facebooks — the one its managers want to see, and the one its users like using today — is starting to become visible.”

3. In the Race to Win Social Video, Is One App Gaming the System Too Much?

Key lines: “There’s a popular maxim in Silicon Valley: Find your user base and the revenues will come later. For a while, it seemed to be the easiest way for a founder to explain his or her way out of a proper business model. But with Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of the entirely revenue-free Instagram, that adage now carries more weight than ever.”

4. Back on the Global Stage, Mark Zuckerberg Keeps His Cool

Key lines: “The heat was on, but Mark Zuckerberg refused to sweat. The 28-year-old took the stage at the TechCrunch: Disrupt technology conference, after nearly a year of radio silence from the CEO and company, a botched IPO, a plummeting share price and growing investor ire. All of the tech world and Wall Street wanted to know how Zuckerberg would explain the folly of the past year.”

5. Can Twitter Fix Its Product Problem?

Key lines: “Many employees see the event — the Friday that ends Hack Week — as Twitter at its best, a testament to the company’s capacity for innovation. But some view these days as among the most depressing of the year: A parade of Twitter features that will never see the light of day.”

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”