By Lisen Stromberg, some memories of Steve Jobs, her neighbour:

While Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal and CNET continue to drone on about the impact of the Steve Jobs era,  I won’t be pondering the MacBook Air I write on or the iPhone I talk on. I will think of the day I saw him at his son’s high school graduation. There Steve stood, tears streaming down his cheeks, his smile wide and proud, as his son received his diploma and walked on into his own bright future leaving behind a good man and a good father who can be sure of the rightness of this, perhaps his most important legacy of all.

The tech press too often forget there’s a person in there, and they’re already doing the same with Tim Cook, spending far too much time focussing on whether or not he’s gay and demanding he confirm either way because, damn it, he just should, OK (because the revelation will get a fuck-ton of page views and yet still not stop all kinds of unwarranted speculation). Time for the tech press to grow the hell up and show some respect, rather than romping headlong into tabloid territory.

So: rousing applause for Stromberg; slow-hand clap for a good chunk of the rest of the industry.

My editor at .net, Dan Oliver, has just written 10 ways to pitch articles. His points are extremely useful and should be printed out and stapled to the noggins of many newbie writers; hell, from what I hear from editors, even seasoned writers could do with brushing up on their pitching skills.

In short, his arguments come down to:

• Know your target;
• Prove your worth;
• Don’t be a dick;
• Actually pitch.

You’d be amazed how often people ignore one or more of those things. Hell, I’m guilty of the last one on an ongoing basis, leading to editors occasionally wondering if I’ve been kidnapped by killer bees or emigrated to Saturn (my editors, clearly, being a somewhat imaginative and slightly unhinged lot). So, that link again: 10 ways to pitch articles. If you’re a freelance hack, read Dan’s advice and do some pitching. Or, you know, don’t, and then bitch about never getting any work.

Fucking hell. That nicely sums up my reaction to AllThingsD’s article stating that Apple’s canned TV rentals. Being British, a mystical place called ‘overseas’ that whoever does Apple’s media deals isn’t entirely sure actually exists and therefore largely ignores, I had to use a sneaky US account to access TV rentals on the Apple TV. And here’s what happened:

• 48 episodes of Lie to Me rented ($47.52)
• 48 episodes of Castle rented ($47.52)
• A bunch of miscellaneous rentals of Grey’s Anatomy and random other shows (about $100)

Without Apple TV rentals, we (Mrs G and I) would have probably never discovered and watched Lie to Me. Grey’s Anatomy… we were acquiring that by ‘other means’ before the 99-cent rentals rendered that pointless. And Castle? Well, we love Castle, but not enough to spend loads of cash on it. We’d have waited for the inevitable DVD firesale in the UK or US and picked it up for bugger all—and certainly than for less of the price of the iTunes rentals.

Apple’s laughable spin is that “customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows”, but that’s bullshit. While reaction to my complaints about Apple binning TV rentals on Twitter shows this is certainly the case for some people, it isn’t for others; more likely, the studios holding back their content was to blame, leaving the rental selection in a pitiful state, especially towards the end. And at the same time the likes of Warner Bros. were arguing 99-cent rentals devalued their content, they were of course allowing Netflix users to download as much as they liked for eight bucks per month. Classy.

So, where does this leave anyone who loves TV? Well, you now have the following choices:

• Pay for hugely expensive cable or satellite, which gives you tons of crap and a few shows you actually care about.
• Pay over the odds for shows on iTunes: £2.49 ($4) per HD episode, in the UK.
• Grab waste-of-resources Blu-rays or DVDs when they show up or, if you’re savvy, hang on for the sales, and then try to figure out how to fit your ever-growing collection in your home.
• Visit the naughty web and say “screw you” to the studios.

Me, I’ll probably head for the third of those options now, but I’m sorely tempted by the fourth. The thing is, I actually want to pay for good shows and support those who make them, but the studios aren’t making it easy. I’m not paying twice as much for a series of House on iTunes as it costs on DVD, but I’m also not exactly thrilled by the prospect of buying more discs-in-card-boxes that waste resources and take up space. I also don’t really care to download content that I then ‘own’ and that takes up hard drive space when I only watch the vast majority of shows once. (Note to US readers yelling “But what about iCloud?”, Brits will only get app and book sync initially—we’re left out of the media-streaming excitement.)

So, yeah, thanks, Apple and thanks, greedy studios. Maybe one day the studios will wake up and realise that 99p or so would be a sensible price-point for a TV show, but I won’t hold my breath. (Even many games companies don’t seem to understand that popular products sell way more copies when they’re cheap, otherwise Pac-Man would always be 69p, rather than rather more ambitiously priced.) Also, take this surrender by Apple as a possible shot across the bows regarding digital movie rentals. As I said a couple of weeks back, they’re now being removed from iTunes with alarming speed, to drive up purchases that are often costlier than grabbing a DVD. It wouldn’t shock me if Apple quietly decides to trash that aspect of the iTunes Store, while being strong-armed by the studios, under the excuse that people want to ‘own’ their movies.

I’ve written about PCWorld writer Katherine Noyes before, responding to her bleating on about how rubbish tablets are, but today she’s decided, in the wake of Steve Jobs resigning, she knows what’s right for Apple:

Now that Jobs has stepped down, however, Apple has a great opportunity. Rather than maintain its completely closed and locked-down approach to the technologies it makes, the time is right for Apple to open up. Besides creating a more sustainable strategy for Apple, such a move would perform a great service for consumers, businesses and the world.

Fair enough, Katherine. Maybe if Apple takes your advice it might just make great products that loads of people buy, leading to profitability, longevity and—if it’s very lucky—becoming one of the biggest companies in the world.

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What?

Fantastic article by Charles Arthur for The Guardian, lightly tearing down an email from HP’s UK head of the Personal Systems Group. My favourite bit from the email:

Likewise, all webOS products will be supported and HP fully intends to support the future development of the webOS platform, though again how that will be managed is still under discussion.

In case you’re wondering, here’s how the future development looks right now:

• Living OS > dead OS

HP fully intends to support this future development.