• The Power of Flipboard In Your Pocket (Official Flipboard blog)
• Inside Flipboard’s Project to Rethink Its iPad App for the iPhone (Xconomy)

Some people are losing patience with Siri.

• Siri is Apple’s Broken Promise (Mat Honan / Gizmodo)
• The Siri backlash threaten’s Apple’s future magic (Dwight Silverman / Houston Chronicle)
• “… the whole thing still isn’t up to Apple’s usual level of fit and finish, not by a long shot” (John Gruber / Daring Fireball)

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook is targeting an IPO between April – June 2012 (VentureBeat)

Spotify launches a music platform (Evolver.fm)

Complaints pop up for Jawbone’s UP wearable health/fitness device (All Things D)

RIP Napster. Napster officially merged with Rhapsody. (Mashable)

It was a bad week for Mozilla. Chrome overtakes Firefox (ZDNet) and their deal with Google is ending (ZDNet)

Acquisitions:

• SAP acquires SuccessFactors for $3.4 billion (NY Times DealBook)
• Facebook acquires the Gowalla team but not the app (Gowalla blog)

Path launches the 2.0 version of their app and got mostly positive reviews. Some concerns were raised about the feature that automatically tracks your location.

• One Year Later, Path ‘Personal Network’ App Still Brings the Love (Wired Gadget Lab)
• New Path 2.0 automatically chronicles, shares your life (Rafe Needleman, CNET)
• New Path kicks ass… (Robert Scoble)

Robert Scoble interviews Path founders Dave Morin and Dustin Mierau:

Google Music

• Google Music is open for business (The Official Google Blog)
• How To Properly Set Up Google Music (Lifehacker)
• Don’t be too disappointed by Google Music’s lackluster debut (TechCrunch)
• Google Music Q&A on Quora

 iTunes Match

• iTunes Match: Thousands of songs with a couple of hitches (NPR – All Songs Considered Blog)
• iTunes Match: What you need to know (Macworld)
• Secrets & Features of iTunes Match (iLounge)
• Check your music’s iCloud status (Macworld)
• How to use iTunes Match with very large libraries (> 25,000 songs) (MacRumors)
• iTunes Match Q&A on Quora

Kindle Fire

Amazon shipped the Kindle Fire earlier this week. Kevin Tofel from GigaOm has a good write-up on the mixed reviews for this product.

Positive reviews:

• Kindle Fire review: Yes, it’s that good (MSNBC)
• Kindle Fire is no iPad killer but it’s a killer device (Any Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times)
• Amazon Kindle Fire Review (Engadget)

• Google’s Lab of Wildest Dreams (a.k.a. Google X) (New York Times)
• Google+ Pages can now be managed with 3rd party apps (Mashable)
• Netflix to resurrect Arrested Development in 2013 (The Next Web)
• Skype desktop app now makes Facebook video calls (CNET)
• Facebook employees go nuts as Zuckerberg tells them the IPO is coming (Business Insider)
• No one’s noticing Twitter’s ad experiment, which is a good thing (Atlantic Wire)
• Amazon KindlePhone for 2012? (All Things D)
• How Facebook is ruining sharing (Molly Wood/CNET) and Robert Scoble’s rebuttal: The Facebook Freaky Line

This is the introductory video from Google:

Many people were excited about this announcement, but there were some critics. Some common complaints were:

• It’s too easy to claim a brand that isn’t yours (ITWorld)
• It’s not designed for large companies who have multiple people managing the account (Robert Scoble)
• No vanity URL’s

If you’re looking for companies & brands to circle on Google+, just type in “+” followed by the brand name in the Google+ search box. Here are some brands that I’ve circled:
Google+, This Week In Tech (TWiT), TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, NPR, NPR Fresh Air, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, WIRED, San Francisco Giants. If you’re a business looking to get started with Google Pages, Google has set up a page called Google+ Your Business with tips for setting up a Google+ Page.

After months of private beta, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz launched Asana, a collaboration tool.

Milk (Kevin Rose’s new company) launched their new iPhone app called OINK. This app allows you to rate anything: a hamburger in a local restaurant, a TV show, your favorite tea, a salad, etc.

Massive Health, a mobile health startup that had been in stealth mode for several months, launched an app called The Eatery. Someone on Twitter described it as “Hot or Not for your Mac ‘N Cheese“. You post photos of your food and people rate the food on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the healthiest. The Eatery keeps track of your food scores and gives you a rating of how you’ve been eating this week.

Ex-Engadet editor Joshua Topolsky launched a new gadget site from called The Verge.

Yahoo launched a couple of iPad apps: Livestand (Flipboard competitor) and IntoNow (video discovery).

Apple released GarageBand for the iPhone. ($4.99 on iTunes)

Jawbone started selling the Up  - a $99 wristband that tracks your fitness and your sleeping habits. Up includes an iPhone app that tracks your eating habits by encouraging you to take photos of your food and asking you how you felt a couple of hours after eating.

Sphero, a robotic ball that you can control using a smartphone – is available for pre-order ($129).

The Ball. Evolved. from GoSphero on Vimeo.

And finally, Google made a couple of Gmail announcements. First, they rolled out a new, cleaned up version of Gmail. Overall, the new design was pretty well received, although some people complained that the spacing of messages was too wide. If you prefer the spacing from the old design, you can change it using the Display Density setting.

The other Gmail announcement was a mess. On November 2nd, Google announced their rumored Gmail app for iPhone. Within minutes of the announcement, people were complaining about an error message that shows up when you log in. There were also complaints that the app itself was underwhelming. Google ended up pulling the app from the App Store and almost a week later, the app still isn’t available, causing some people to wonder:

How long does it take to fix a Push Notification bug? /cc @gmail

November 7, 2011 6:41 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@parislemon

MG Siegler

Other news this week:

• GroupOn IPO’d and finished their opening day up 31% 
• Internet Explorer’s market share dropped to below 50%
• Apple started rolling out iTunes Match to Apple TV owners

• One last thing: R.I.P., Steve Jobs (Fake Steve Jobs)
• Technology’s Great Reinventor: Steve Jobs (1955-2011) (Harry McCracken/TIME)
• The Steve Jobs I Knew (Walt Mossberg/WSJ)
• Why Steve Jobs Matters (Andrew Sullivan/The Daily Beast)
• Steve Jobs: The Magician (The Economist)
• Steve Jobs and the idea of letting go (Washington Post)
• Steve Jobs, 1955-2011 (Steven Levy/Wired)
• Here’s To The Crazy One (MG Siegler/TechCrunch)
• Apple Store Memorials – a Tumblr blog with photos of Steve Jobs memorials at Apple Stores
• Video:
• Wozniak Tearfully Remembers His Friend Steve (AP)
• Google’s Eric Schmidt on Steve Jobs’s Death, Career (Bloomberg TV)
• John Colbert and Stephen Colbert Say Goodbye to Steve Jobs
• Guy Kawasaki on what we learned from Steve Jobs (Reporters’ Roundtable/CNET)
• The Gillmor Gang says goodbye to Steve Jobs
• ABC Nightline Steve Jobs tribute (below)

• Official video of the announcements (Apple)
• Transcript of the announcements with photos & commentary (Ryan Block/gdgt)
• Official iPhone 4S video (Apple)
• Official Siri video (Apple)
• Official iOS 5 video (Apple)
• Official iPhone 4S camera page with sample photos (Apple)
• iPhone 4S, Siri and today’s Apple event – EVERYTHING you need to know in a handy list (NextWeb)
• Some people are disappointed that there was no iPhone 5 announcement but Dan Frommer says: If you’re disappointed by the iPhone 4S, you’re nuts
• iPhone 4S hands on impressions (Joshua Topolsky/This Is My Next)
• iPhone 4S camera: 8 MP, f/2.4, face detection, & more (TiPb)
• Demo of Siri on an iPhone 4S (CNET)
• Bummer - Siri Personal Assistant only works on the iPhone 4S (Gizmodo)
• Apple’s “Find My Friends” Location Feature Is More Like Glympse Than Foursquare (All Things D)
• Photo of the Micky Mouse watchface for the Nano (The Verge)
• Wall Street response to iPhone 4S muted, but optimistic (AppleInsider)

More coverage on TechMeme.

Hopefully I’ll make this weekly roundup a regular thing.

TECH

• Apple confirms that the iPhone 5 event will be held on October 4th
  
• Amazon launches the Kindle Fire

Watch Jeff Bezos introduce the Kindle Fire in New York City on Sep 28th.

• Lots of concern about “frictionless sharing” on Facebook
  • Dave Winer: Facebook is scaring me
  • Nik Cubrilovic: Logging out of Facebook is not enough
  • Nik Cubrilovic: Facebook Fixes and Explains Logout Issue
    
• Google announces Shared Circles for Google+ and Google+ grows like crazy after opening to the public

Thanks Robert Scoble for including me in your Geeks Circle.

• Podcasts:
• This Week in Tech #321
• This Week in Google #114
• This Is My Next (10/2/11)

APPS

• Disney’s Appmates turn the iPad into an interactive playmate (TechCrunch)
  The toys will cost $20 for a set of two. The app is free and will be available Oct. 1, 2011. According to this AppAdvice post, the toys are available at Apple Store, Apple Store online, Disney Store, DisneyStore.com, and national retaliers, such as Target. It looks like the app only works on iPad 2′s for now, but according to the product description on iTunes, they’ll support all iPad devices sometime in the future.
  

• CrashPlan iPhone and Android Apps Let You Browse and Download Your Backed Up Files on the Go (Lifehacker)
  CrashPlan is a really great backup service that I started using a couple of months ago. Earlier this week, they announced iPhone & Android apps that allow you to acess all of your backed up data from your mobile device.

HEALTHCARE

• The Health 2.0 Conference was held earlier this week in San Francisco. I wasn’t able to attend, but here are a few summaries that I came across:
  • Health 2.0 Fall 2011 (HealthBlawg)
  • Trickle Down Health 2.0 Impressions (Chilmark Research)
  • Mobile represents realistic side of Health 2.0 conference (MobiHealthNews)
• I wrote a blog post about the HealthCamp SFBay conference that I attended last week
• Basis reveals an awesome new affordable heart and health tracker you can wear on your wrist (TechCrunch)
  Cost will be $199 and you can reserve one on the Basis website.

SPORTS

• My Giants were eliminated from the playoffs after winning the World Series last year. Watch the Giants’ year-end video here.
  • Watch the press conference with Giants GM Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy where they talk about their plans for the offseason and preparations for 2012.
• The last day of the 2011 Major League Baseball regular season may have been the most exciting day of non-playoff baseball in history. Two teams – the Red Sox and the Braves – that had insurmountable leads for the wildcard spots in early September were eliminated in dramatic fashion. The New York Times had an interesting post about how improbable this ending was for the Red Sox. Here is a video from MLB with highlights from all 4 games.

• The 49ers scored 21 unanswered points to defeat the Eagles 24-23 in Philadelphia. This was their biggest win in years. Video Highlights