Mostly Dead
Computerworld predicts the obvious, that being Apple is sounding the death knell of hard drives :
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs this week introduced a slimmer version of the MacBook Air, an ultra-portable laptop without a traditional hard disk drive, he said it represents "the future of notebooks." Several industry observers agree.
Beginning with MP3 players, NAND flash technology in the form of solid state drives (SSD) has been devouring the consumer hard drive market from the bottom up as prices go down.
And, while hard disk drives will still populate servers and storage systems in corporate data centers for years to come, there will be fewer of them as solid state drives cannibalize the top tiers of data storage there.
Of course Solid-state drives will be the future. There are really is no down-side to them besides cost. They are more rugged than hard-drives, faster, silent, smaller and have far lower power-consumption than hard drives. What’s not to like?
But Apple has - historically speaking - always led the way in the computer industry. Many things all computer users take for granted are Apple inventions, such as the track pad. And we wouldn’t be using USB today had it not been for Apple.
Truly, it has been said if you want to know what the rest of the industry will be doing next year, look to Apple this year. Still, that doesn’t mean anyone is going to listen. After all, even when Apple held a funeral for Mac OS 9, it took some Mac developers years to get the hint.
We believe it will be inevitable that the industry shift to SSDs. The only question to be answered is : how long will it take?
You're Doing It Wrong
So, by now you have heard Steve Jobs himself jumped in to the fray during Apple’s financial conference call. MacWorld has the transcript. We will condense the report :
... I just couldn’t help dropping by for our first 20-billion-dollar quarter ...
We sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, which represents a 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter
We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, there is no solid data on how many Android phones are shipped each quarter.
In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, “What’s best for the customer – fragmented versus integrated?”
...we are confident that it will triumph over Google’s fragmented approach, no matter how many times Google tries to characterize it as “open.”
Second, I’d like to comment on the “avalanche” of tablets poised to enter the market in the coming months.
First, it appears to be just a handful of credible entrants, not exactly an avalanche.
Second, almost all of them use seven-inch screens, as compared to iPad’s near 10-inch screens. Let’s start there.
The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.
The iPad is clearly gonna affect notebook computers. And I think the iPad proves it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
So the more time that passes, the more I am convinced that we’ve got a tiger by the tail here, and this is a new model of computing which, you know, we’ve already got tens of millions of people already trained on with the iPhone.
The moral of the story is that Apple just owns the portable computing market, and for anyone to catch Apple would require them to become... well, better than Apple and that just isn’t going to happen. Anyone paying attention would have been going to Business 101 to listen to Steve Jobs explain exactly what is going on. But then someone who wasn’t Steve Jobs asked this question :
Q: You are the tablet market right now… This is the second time you’ve come on to talk about competition, and I’m just wondering if much like Apple encroaching on RIM’s monopoly in enterprise, if you think Apple is gonna be able to sustain share growth for tablets amid some of those new competitive headwinds. Some of those players may try different things and strategies, like tethering and Flash, multitasking, less content and app restrictions, and subsidized pricing. Just wondered if you think that may create itself a more fragmented market.
To which Steve Jobs answered :
I have a hard time envisioning what those strategies you mentioned are.
There are only two interpretations for this remark :
1. Who let clueless in on this call?
2. Have you been paying attention to a single thing I said for the past 15 minutes?
But Steve Jobs was pithy with a question on Adobe Flash. The same Flash Jobs called - in essence - a steaming pile of crap that will never see the light of day on an Apple portable device :
Q: Any updates on your stance on Flash?
A : Flash memory? We love flash memory.
And an amazing report about the AppleTV - already over 250,000 of them have been sold. We bought one and put it on display in our entryway, and we have to report it is amazing.
But the most powerful thing that caught our eyes was the simple admonition from Steve Jobs to everyone listening in on the call :
You’re looking at it wrong.
Given the recent success of Apple, one would be foolish to not pay heed to this wisdom.
iPhones in Spaaaaaaace!
... wait, what?
Yep. Going where no other smartphone has gone before, the iPhone has now conquered orbital space, and in high-def :
NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Luke Geissbuhler and his 7-year-old son Max thought it might be fun to send an iPhone into space.
After doing some low-altitude testing, the father-and-some team put the phone and along with an HD camera to record the flight inside a hand warmer and attached it to a weather balloon. The Geissbuhlers released the balloon in Newburgh, New York.
When Luke wanted a tracking device he turned, of course, to the iPhone. Because nothing says high-tech and space exploration like the iPhone.
Unbelievable
Following up on the doom ’n’ gloom for AT&T we have this shocking story :
Canaccord Genuity initiated coverage of Apple (AAPL) Tuesday with a "buy" rating and a price target of $356 per share.
In the long, laudatory accompanying note by T. Michael Walkley, their new Apple specialist, the two paragraphs that jumped out at us were the ones that talked about the company's ability not just to innovate, but to turn those innovations into cash.
For example, he writes, Apple sold 17 million mobile handsets in the first half of 2010, compared with 400 million handsets sold by Nokia (NOK), Samsung and LG. Yet it pulled in 39% of the industry's profit during that period, more than the 32% earned by the world's three largest handset makers combined.
... !
Stunning doesn’t describe the magnitude of this news. What shock to get over first ?
Our knee-jerk first reaction is $356 per share ? Oh, how we wish we had not sold our Apple stock at $20 like the “professionals” told us to.
Next came 39% ?! Someone is clearly sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and that someone is named Apple.
Perhaps last - we are not sure because of the enormity of the first two shocks - is the sheer disparity, the magnitude of the difference between Apple and the also-rans. To make more profit than Nokia, LG, and Samsung combined ?
Someone should send a reminder to Steve Ballmer of what he said waaaaay back in 2007 :
But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.
We are pretty sure Ballmer would sell his soul, the souls of his entire family, and every soul of every Microsoft employee to have the “2 or 3%” Apple has right now.
Who Put the Burr...
under Consumer Report’s saddle?
Apple has quietly discontinued its free-case program for the iPhone 4 effective October 1, but says it will still provide a case to the "small percentage" of buyers who will need one due to the phone's "antenna attenuation issue."
In a statement posted to its website on Friday, the company said "we now know" that the antenna issue is "even smaller than we originally thought." Because of the low incidence, Apple says, it's discontinuing the current program, which allows all those who buy an iPhone 4 until September 30 to order a free case for the device.
Wherein there is nothing new under the sun. Apple had been up-front with all of this. But what comes later really makes you question Consumer Reports :
The iPhone 4's reception problem, we found in earlier tests, can occur when your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side if the phone is being used in an area with a weak signal.
Apple provided no data to detail its claim of lower-than-expected incidence of dropped calls with the iPhone 4. In his July 16 news conference announcing the free cases, Apple chairman CEO Steve Jobs said the iPhone 4 dropped only about one call per hundred more than its predecessor, the iPhone 3G S, which remains available. Jobs also then reiterated the company's earlier claim that all smart phones have similar problems, and that "no one has solved this problem."
Least of all is Consumer Reports, who gets called out by a real EM engineer :
Consumer reports “RF” engineers should know better than to think they can run an engineering grade test for an issue like this in a shielded room. And certainly not one with people in it.
To even reasonably run a scientific test, the iPhone should have been sitting on a non-metallic pedestal inside an anechoic chamber. The base station simulator should have been also sitting outside the chamber and had a calibrated antenna plumbed to it from inside the chamber.
To say that Consumer Reports is doing more of an injustice to the consumer than Apple is being gentle and kind. To report a conclusion backed by the scientific reputation of CR without using, y’know, actual science is perpetrating a fraud on the consumer. It cannot be disputed that CR knew they were testing under scientific conditions. CR’s only ‘out’ here is to claim ignorance, but to do so means they will be throwing away their ‘scientific’ reputation.
But that fraud is compounded in the fact that CR does nothing to dispute Apple’s claim there is a smaller occurrence of the ‘death grip’ than reported initially. Please bear in mind that Apple reported one-half of one percent as the initial figure of problems. CR castigates Apple for not providing the documentation, but CR has done nothing to answer Bob Egan’s claims they screwed the pooch in their own testing. Since July !
Moreover, if the ‘design flaw’ doesn’t affect every user can it truly be called a design flaw at all? The testing fraud foisted on every unsuspecting reader of CR meets our definition of a design flaw. CR has the slogan “Nobody Tests Like We Do”, and now we see why. No self-respecting scientist would use the low standards and pseudoscientific methods CR has employed in their vendetta against Apple.
But on top of all of that, the iPhone 4 remains the highest-rated smartphone, according to no less of an authority than the formerly-reliable Consumer Reports !
Give Me Where to Stand...
... and I will move the earth. So said Archimedes. Well, Apple just gave iOS developers a bedrock foundation upon which to stand :
Apple Inc. said Thursday that it will publish the guidelines its uses to determine which programs can be sold in its App Store.
The move follows more than two years of complaints from software developers about the company's secret and seemingly capricious rules, which block some programs from the store.
Developers have had little guidance from Apple, meaning they often had to complete their programs only to find them blocked by the company.
In this sense, of course, “little guidance” means “Apple expected the developers were adults, and as such had hired competent legal counsel to inform them precisely of the applications the contracts would allow developed”.
Or perhaps we err. Perhaps there was also the sense that “little guidance” meant “Apple rejected our app even though we didn’t read our contracts, and even after Apple gave us specific quotation from those contracts as to exactly why our app was disallowed”.
We don’t want to paint too unbalanced a picture here, for there was fault to be found with subjective judgment calls made by Apple app-reviewers; however, we’re all human - right? To Apple’s credit they did respond when public pressure was brought to bear and it was the right call to make. But we still fail to see how the onus was not on the developers who surely knew they were fording deep and murky waters if they read and heeded their contracts.
If they read their contracts closely, and really just paid attention in general for the past five years, they would know, for example, Apple would not allow apps that would eat Apple’s lunch. Apple was completely unambiguous about this position, and always related them with crystal clarity, especially in the contracts one must sign to become an iOS developer.
So while is it true that Apple does carry some responsibility for not clarifying the rules early on, from our perspective Apple’s greatest crime may be they expected adults to be, well... rational adults.
Apple also said it will lift restrictions imposed earlier this year on using third-party development tools that "translate" code written for another platform. That means developers who work in Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash or Oracle Corp.'s Java language can convert their programs into iPhone apps without rewriting them.
Bully for Apple!
You can say many things negative about Apple, and some may be deserved; however, from a technological perspective one bets the proverbial farm against Apple at one’s peril. Not to put a very fine point on the thought, but perhaps one should refresh one’s memory as to the six reasons Adobe Flash is crap.
You cannot say Apple didn’t warn you, and we specifically direct your attention to reason number six :
We know from painful experience that letting a third party layer of software come between the platform and the developer ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and progress of the platform. If developers grow dependent on third party development libraries and tools, they can only take advantage of platform enhancements if and when the third party chooses to adopt the new features. We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.
The reason we cheer Apple on in this decision is two-fold : first, it is a PR win ranking among Apple’s best of all time. Second, it will allow the developers who choose to go down this road copious amounts of rope with which to hang themselves. To use the vernacular, these foolish developers will do Apple’s dirty work and rid themselves from the iOS gene pool.
We can think of no more fitting punishment of ‘rogue’ developers than for them to create ‘crap apps’ using third-party tools, then have them be wildly successful to the point tech support costs consume the company whole. After all, it wasn’t like they were warned, or anything.
Oh... wait... Yes, it’s exactly like that.
Crazy for Apple
Where does the media dig up so many inept reporters and how can we make money off Reuters being wrong, too?
MySpace has the most to be concerned about, having risen to prominence largely on the strength of musicians using it to communicate with fans. It already has taken a hit on the social networking front from the rise of Facebook. With iTunes attacking its music flank with Ping, MySpace will face even greater challenges.
But it still has some points in its favor. Artists of all stripes still maintain MySpace profiles. And MySpace Music, its joint venture with the major labels and Sony/ATV Music Publishing, offers artists far more promotional and media assets than Ping does.
Say what? Perhaps we are out of our league here, but it strikes us there is no marketing advantage greater than being on the #1 music store in the known universe. Especially so if one manages to either suck up to or be ‘discovered’ by Apple and featured during a keynote, or on the front page of iTunes.
There is no amount of money that can buy that level of exposure on MySpace. In fact, one could buy MySpace and turn it into your own personal promotion engine and not have the impact of a single day’s mention on the front page of iTunes. Call us biased and jaded (guilty! We are!), but that doesn’t change the fact iTunes has more ‘oomph’ than MySpace ever thought of having.
MySpace also has a leg up on concert ticketing. Ping has 17,000 concert listings provided by Live Nation, but MySpace's Ticketing & Events service -- introduced in April -- includes not only Live Nation but also several alternative ticketing vendors to provide a broader depth of concerts by the kinds of emerging acts that have defined MySpace's history.
In this case ‘emerging acts’ merely being a metaphor for ‘bands nobody has ever heard of’. And Apple features those bands, too. They do so in their commercials and on the front page of iTunes. Ask a no-name band which they would rather star in : an iTunes / iPod commercial, or MySpace? We are willing to be none of them would pick MySpace as their first choice. Well, that is they won’t so long as they have an iota of economic literacy.
And then there is this :
"There have been 10 billion songs downloaded from iTunes and 275 million devices sold," a senior executive at a rival social network says. "So that means they've gotten 36 purchased songs from each device. That's not a lot."
Really? Because according to our calculators that is an insane amount of money.
Assuming media reports are true, and Apple makes $0.35 off every song sold, then the math is elementary : $0.35 X 10,000,000,000 = $3.5 billion. Just off the music alone. And let’s assume $149 is the average price for every iPod sold (it isn’t, but let’s be conservative here). That means 275,000,000 X $149 = $40.9 billion in revenue since the iPod debuted. Assuming for the moment (again, conservatively) that Apple makes a 20% margin on every one of the above hypothetical iPods, that means $29.80 profit on each of those 275,000,000 iPods. That equals $8.1 billion in profit since the beginning of the iPod.
So 3.5 billion + 8.1 billion = $11.6 billion dollars (estimated) in profit since the debut of the iPod on 23 OCT 2001.
Now, we wouldn’t assume to know what your definition of ‘not a lot’ is, but $11.6 billion we would put in the ballpark of ‘oodles times gobs, raised to the power of lots’.
Additionally, Ping helps prevent users from ditching iTunes for one of its more socially focused startup rivals as it works on its cloud strategy. But until Apple adds such a service, or another way to stream full songs in iTunes without having to buy them, Ping will likely be limited to the iTunes faithful.
Whereby ‘limited’ Antony Bruno means ‘only 160 million users’, or roughly 159.99 million more people than will read his lunkheaded article.
Wherein We Call PC World Out
(sigh)
It almost ceases to be sport. Apple makes an announcement, and PC World posts a bone-headed, contrarian response befitting a teenager :
Despite all the hardware Apple introduced at its press event Wednesday, the most radical news was Ping, a social network for music that's launching as a feature of iTunes 10. I've taken a brief test drive of Ping to see what it's about, but even before updating iTunes, I knew Apple's new social network was not for me. Here are five reasons I won't be using Ping:
We don’t get it. We don’t burden the world with the top five reasons we won’t be sticking screwdrivers in our eye sockets, because - well, who cares? We believe the public at large couldn’t care less why you choose not to shave your angora cat, so why would anyone care about PC World not liking Ping?
Some people have heralded Ping as MySpace's undoing, but MySpace still does one thing extremely well: it lets you listen to a handful of the artist's best or latest songs, in their entirety. Ping does not. Apple says Ping is all about finding new music, but it's also about selling you more iTunes songs. That's a hard sell when you can only listen to 30 seconds of any track.
We hate to be sticklers for detail here, but between MySpace and Apple who has the bazillion dollar music market at their control? But in essence the argument the PC World advances here is choosing between an all-you-can-eat buffet of water and broccoli and a smorgasbord where one can have sample portions of millions of tasty dishes.
Yeah. Wow. What was Apple thinking with that?
At least on my PC, iTunes is an abomination. I will avoid opening it when possible because of how long it takes to load and how chunky it feels to operate, and that's not going to change because of a social network. Also, people whose work computers don't have iTunes installed won't be able to use Ping for the great American pastime of slacking off at work.
Seriously? Not being able to ‘slack’ off at work is a negative? What, is the author of this article, like, 15 years old? We’re sorry for the confusion, but for a second we mistook PC World as a serious journalistic enterprise, not the tech equivalent of Tiger Beat.
Social networks belong on the Web, simple as that. You click on someone's Twitter account from another Web page, and you're there. You visit an outbound link from someone's status update by popping open a new tab. One step -- pressing a bookmark button or typing a URL -- is all it takes to get to the social network of your choice. All of these actions get a lot sloppier when you add another layer of software, especially the painful iTunes. Also, the lack of Web access shuts out users of Android, BlackBerry and other non-iOS smartphones. That's lame.
Wow. Don’t tell Jared about the iPhone or the native FaceBook client that runs on the iPhone. Because, you know, that would be lame and everyone knows social networking is web based.
Oh, and don’t tell the people of Foursquare, or Twitter, or WhatsApp, Inc, or AOL, or Skype that social media is strictly web based. We don’t think they know, so why spoil the party?
Even among my best friends, there are only a few people whose musical tastes overlap my own. This presents a dilemma for using Ping: Ostensibly, it's a network for music discovery, so do I shut out the friends whose music I don't like, or follow everyone and try to filter out the awful stuff? This, of course, assumes my friends will even use Ping, which they won't.
We seriously doubt Jared has all that many friends that he need be worried about such trifles. But even if he did, had Jared been... oh, we don’t know... paying attention during the keynote he would have learned you can stop other people from seeing what you are up to. Or even pick and choose. It’s completely optional to get all touchy-feely with other music lovers.
Steve Jobs once said that multipurpose devices will always win the day over single-purpose ones, because people don't want to pay for something that only has one function. I think the same is true of social networks. Even though people don't pay money to use Facebook or Twitter, they invest time in cultivating an online presence. Ping is another potential investment, but it's only meant for sharing music. I'd rather stick with social networks that offer much more.
It may have escaped your notice, Jared, but iTunes does much more than one thing. And there is a unique culture on this planet for those who make music, and those who appreciate those who make music. And it just may be that those people will wish to congregate in groups.
Phish Monger
We so dislike media that don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to technology. And a double-heaping-helping of shame is due the BBC for this :
iTunes accounts linked to PayPal have been targted in a scam with a number of users complaining that they have been cleaned out.
Apple and PayPal refused to discuss the details of the incident.
Experts have told the BBC there is no security hole in iTunes or Apple servers and that it is most likely users have fallen for an online scam.
"I just got hacked for $1,000 worth of software, videos and music," tweeted one victim.
(sigh)... Where do we begin? Perhaps we should explain it is impossible to get ‘hacked’ when you participate in giving up private, personal information. That is properly called ‘phishing’. Or if one wanted to use proper English : social engineering. In the parlance of our parents : a con, bunko, flim flam, gaffle, grift, hustle, scam, scheme, swindle or bamboozle.
But it is not a ‘hack’.
Had someone compromised iTunes it certainly would have been extraordinary, and newsworthy. It also would have properly been a ‘hack’. Unfortunately, there are people out there (there always have been) who fall prey to con games. We simply fail to see how someone being gullible and doing things not in their best interest is Apple or PayPal’s fault or responsibility.
However, it is the fault of the BBC for perpetuating the misuse of proper terminology :
PayPal nor Apple would talk about the scale of the problem or how many people or accounts had been hacked.
Ummm, Beeb - that might be due to the fact that no accounts were hacked; the accounts were freely compromised by their owners.
Analyst Mike McGuire of Gartner said that Apple needs to ensure it stays on top of the situation."If they don't aggressively sort this out, it can undo a lot of brand building and trust as they become this transaction hub for 150 million people's credit cards at last count."
Oh, for the love of Mike.
Someone please explain to us precisely why any of this is Apple’s fault, or PayPal for that matter. If we travel the lovely streets of New York City and fall prey to a game of Three-card Monte is it our bank’s responsibility to see to it we never lose our cash in that manner? Or is it our own responsibility to learn and to not let it happen again?
Apple Kills iPhone
At least, some people seem to think they will if you “jailbreak” your iPhone :
Apple has applied for a patent on technology that would allow it to detect unauthorized iPhone users and remotely terminate services to those devices.
The patent, revealed last week, covers a range of uses that Apple considers to be illegitimate, including "hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card," according to the application, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
It sounds more to us like Apple is trying to kill two birds with one stone.
We certainly agree with Apple’s ability to keep the iPhone running without interference from malware, adware, and other malicious software. It’s ability to do so is hampered by some random knucklehead getting in over their head in the murky waters of jailbreaking. Make that a gaggle of random knuckleheads.
On the other hand, we are big proponents of freedom here at Aquariant Technologies. We would love nothing better than to be able to do whatever the smurf we want with our iPhone. But then our inner-adult points out the craptacular mess that is the Android marketplace and the feeling ebbs.
There must be a way for Apple to make money and keep the anarchists happy. We do not presume to have all the answers, but we do have an idea : sell pre-jailbroken iPhones.
Before you think we have lost our microchips, hear us out. Apple sells pre-jailbroken iPhones with about a bazillion more restrictions than a regular iPhone. Namely, one would pay full pop and there is no warranty. None. No AppleCare, no subsidy - no nothing. You want to be a big boy? Well... time to start working without a net, Sparky!
And one other big proviso : if anything you do - anything - impacts even one other iPhone then network access for that phone is shut down permanently. That’s right - do something stupid intentionally or unintentionally and you just earned a $700 iPod Touch that can’t even do Wi-Fi.
Under those conditions, Apple makes a boatload of money off the “jailbreaking” people and everyone is happy.
Hand...Cookie Jar...
TAIPEI—The parent of Kaedar Electronics Co., one of the six companies named in an indictment of an Apple Inc. employee as having paid kickbacks to land Apple orders, acknowledged Monday that Kaedar did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company for its business with Apple between 2005 and 2008. But it said it is not sure if the arrested Apple employee is behind the intermediate trading company.
Paul Shin Devine, a global supply manager at Apple, was arrested Friday on charges that he received some $1 million in kickbacks from six Asian suppliers. In a federal grand-jury indictment in the U.S. outlining offenses that include unlawful monetary transactions, Kaedar, along with five other companies, were said to have paid kickbacks to Mr. Devine for receiving confidential information that would let the companies negotiate favorable contracts with Apple.
Well, we suppose that is one way to fund one’s retirement account albeit an illegal one.
The Pain! It Burns!
Just in case you feel life is just missing... oh, extreme amounts of stress and challenges we present the (sorta) definitive guide on how to network a Win98se machine to a Mac running OS 10.X.
Yeah, we hear you.
WARNING : TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN INVOLVES EDITING THE REGISTRY ON THE WIN98 COMPUTER. THIS STEP IS NOT FOR MERE MORTALS AS YOU CAN REALLY MESS UP YOUR COMPUTER MUCKING ABOUT IN THE REGISTRY IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, AND DON’T COME CRYING TO US IF YOU FALL DOWN AND SKIN YOUR KNEES.
1) Head over to Microsoft and VERY CAREFULLY read this : How to Enable NTLM2 Authentication.
2) Read and USE this KB article : How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.
3) Go here to download the software to make the magic happen : How to install the Active Directory Client Extension.
4) Go here to get a pictorial instruction on how you are going to edit your registry : Enabling NTLMv2 on Windows 95, 98, and ME Computers.
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE EDITING THE REGISTRY, THEN DON’T. CALL A PROFESSIONAL AND LET THEM HANDLE IT. YOU WERE WARNED. TWICE. SO THERE.
5) Go back to the link in step 1, follow the instructions and edit your registry. Cross-match with the pictorial in step 4 if you get stuck.
6) Restart the Win98 machine.
7) Enjoy the sweet, sweet networking goodness.
You’re welcome.
UPDATE : If you should be copying files *from* the Win98 box *to* the Mac box, you may find the going easier if a folder is created on the Mac current user’s desktop. Remember to be giving everyone read-write access for permissions. This folder may be the only one to be ‘seen’ by the Win98 box, and save a lot of frustration.
Now if we could just go back in time, knowing what we know now.
Apps for iPhone/iPod Touch
OpenAppMkt.com
What is it? Oh, just an online marketplace for web applications (apps) to run on your iPhone / iPod Touch, without that mean ol’ Apple as a gatekeeper. Which is precisely what Apple has maintained all along - if you don’t want to go through the Apple approval process, just write a web app and put it out there. No strings, no paperwork - just do it.
A bit weak in the selection department, at least right now. We are sure they will be offering more in the future. But lest you get us wrong, we applaud this effort. Someone is stepping up to try to make the web app market as vibrant as the iOS market.
Well played, sir or madam. Well played, indeed.
Shake that Money-maker
Apple Reports Third Quarter Results
All-Time Record RevenueEarnings Increase 78 Percent
CUPERTINO, California—July 20, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 third quarter ended June 26, 2010. The Company posted record revenue of $15.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.73 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.83 billion, or $2.01 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.1 percent compared to 40.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 52 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple sold 3.47 million Macs during the quarter, representing a new quarterly record and a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.4 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 61 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.41 million iPods during the quarter, representing an eight percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company began selling iPads during the quarter, with total sales of 3.27 million.
“It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around, including the most successful product launch in Apple’s history with iPhone 4,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPad is off to a terrific start, more people are buying Macs than ever before, and we have amazing new products still to come this year.”
Not bad at all. If one had listened to the press one would have assumed Apple was going down in flames.
Nokia and RIM Respond
So Nokia and RIM have responded to Apple’s assertion. RIM is up first :
"Apple's attempt to draw RIM into Apple's self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple's claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple's difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM's customers don't need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple."- Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, co-CEOs, Research in Motion
Now Nokia :
"Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."
We have to agree with the assessment of Eric Zeman of InformationWeek. It sounds to us, too, as if Nokia is supporting Apple’s position. Apple is basing their findings and their argument on the laws of physics, not marketing. It appears to us the RIM non-denial denial is more about deflection than anything Apple said or did.
Besides, if Steve Jobs isn’t correct about this being an industry-wide problem, then how do the rest of the manufacturers explain this ?
Call us crazy, but it looks like Apple knows what its talking about, and to the gall of everyone else - is right.
"Jesus! At Least Half Our Customers Must Have Called In...
Yes, if one is talking about one-half of one percent.
So the press was more upset over this problem - for God-only-
knows what reason - than the 3 million people who purchased
an iPhone 4.
For those not having a calculator immediately at hand, 0.55%
equates to 16,500 people out of 3 million. Not an insignificant
number, but hardly a disaster either.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, the good Mr. Jobs really sunk
the knife in an gave it a few extra twists with the return rates
for the iPhone 4. 1.7% returned for what ever reason, not just
the tempest-in-a-teacup “AntennaGate” manufactured by the
so-called ‘press’.
That works out to be 51,000 returns. Or roughly 5 X more
than Microsoft sold of the Kin, if one uses the wildly
optimistic figure represented in the same ‘press’. Since the
‘press’ has been so wrong on this issue and took a story all out
of reasonable proportions, is it any wonder reporters enjoy a
lower reputation than Congressmen and used car dealers?
Apple did a double-time hurry-up job posting the video of
the press conference on its website, but the ‘press’ still couldn’t
get the story right :
Mr. Jobs said that to put the problems behind it, Apple would give free bumpers — cases that wrap around the rim of the phone — to all iPhone 4 buyers who want them. And he said those who had already bought the cases would get a full refund. The price of the bumpers from Apple is $29.
Customers still unhappy can return the phones for a full refund. The cases will remain free until Sept. 30.
No, that is not what Mr. Jobs said. He said :
“Why don’t you just give everybody a case? Ok. Great. Let’s give everybody a case. We’ve got our bumper case here, and we want to give everybody a free case. EveryiPhone user is going to get a free case. One for every iPhone 4. If you already boughtone we’ll give you a full refund for a bumper. And we’re going to do this for every iPhone 4 purchased through September 30.
We’ll re-examine this in September anddecide whether to keep going or maybe we’ll have a better idea. But at least throughSeptember 30th a free case for every iPhone 4 and if you bought a bumper we’ll give you a full refund.
Now, everything in life is more complicated than it seems on the surface. We’re going to send you a free case. We can’t make enough bumpers. Right. We were planning onselling them and making a certain percentage and you have the tooling done. We’re going to try to give a bumper to everyone.No way we can make enough in a quarter. So what we are going to do is source some other cases and give users a choice of cases.They will be able to pick one.
The emphasis is most emphatically ours. The point is the press
cannot accurately report the words of the CEO of the second
largest company on the planet. And that is a shame. If they
cannot do this yeoman’s duty, then precisely why should we
believe them on anything of import?
We must side with Mr. Jobs by weight of evidence. It would appear
the ‘press’ is not the least bit interested in reporting what is, but
rather they appear interested in reporting a pre-planned narrative.
Surprise!
Lenovo : Apple Missing Huge Opportunity In Chinese Market
Apple to Lenovo : Surprise !
(Photo Courtesy of Xinhua)
Lenovo : Ah, crap !
Big Business : We Heart the iPad
It would seem the Big Business world has a serious man-crush on Apple and their iPad :
Reservations aside, Wells Fargo saw how quickly the iPad might take hold amid businesses the weekend it was released. Finance executives of large companies -- those that generate more than $50 million in sales -- accessed corporate accounts with iPads, says Amy Johnson, a Wells Fargo vice president who works on the company’s online portal and mobile strategy.
Johnson used one of the iPads bought by Wells Fargo to demonstrate financial products during a May 13-14 conference. She says she now carries the iPad with her everywhere.
Hmmm... Wells Fargo. SAP AG. Tellabs. Daimler AG. What do you think they know that you don’t?
Other companies using the iPad at work include Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz. Sales representatives in 40 U.S. dealerships in late May began using iPads on showroom floors to order on-the- spot financing options for customers, says Andreas Hinrichs, vice president of marketing at Mercedes-Benz Financial.
The company now is considering doling out iPads to all of its 350 U.S. dealerships.
This is the power of taking information with you anywhere. This is the dream of the paperless office writ large. This is the future, and it is happening now.
And this is making the most of your customer’s valuable time. Think about it.
Shocked! Shocked We Are!
Color us mildly surprised to find out some of Apple’s most staunch critics are on the take :
What most readers don’t know is that the Berkman Center and many of its leading professors have financial and personal ties to Google and other tech companies—ties that are not disclosed when these academics speak or publish, and that I discovered after auditing a class with Zittrain.
Oh, the tangled inter-webs we weave...
The class, it turned out, was funded by “a special grant from Microsoft,” according to Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer. Students were not made aware of Microsoft’s involvement.After finding out about the Microsoft grant, I became more curious about how academic work about the Internet is funded, and began asking the Berkman Center and Zittrain for more details. According to a statement provided on June 10 by Berkman co-directors John Palfrey and Urs Gasser, Google is the center’s top corporate backer and its fourth-largest donor (Harvard University is fifth), providing roughly $500,000 over the last two years to support an overall annual operating budget of approximately $5 million. Palfrey and Gasser say the Berkman project receiving the most financing from Google, StopBadware, is “now a separate 501(c)(3) entity,” but when I spoke to the project’s director, Maxim Weinstein, in May, Weinstein said he still works in Berkman-leased office space in Cambridge and that actual plans to phase out StopBadware’s relationship with Berkman are “fuzzy.”
The only thing ‘fuzzy’ here are the deplorable ethics being used. Sorry, we stand corrected - there were no ethics being used in a clear-cut case of conflict of interest.
There's the Right Way...
Software developer Jon Lech Johansen, who built an Android app for his music synchronization company DoubleTwist, published a blog post June 27 in which he noted that Google does not provide proper care and feeding for the Android Market.
"Unlike Apple's App Store, the Android Market has few high quality apps," Johansen wrote, citing a study from Larva Labs that Apple has paid out 50 times more money to developers than Google has.
Johansen added: "While the Android Market is available in 46 countries, developers can only offer paid apps in 13 countries. In addition, the price for foreign apps is not displayed in the user's local currency and developers do not have the option of customizing pricing by country.
"To make matters worse, you can't pay for foreign apps using your Amex card or carrier billing. There's also no support for in-app payments and changelogs (to communicate app changes).”
Johansen's biggest complaint is that the channel is loaded with trademark and copyright infringement, noting that there are some 144 spam ringtone apps clearly infringing copyright) that are being monetized through Google ads.
Perhaps Apple had it right when they decided a ‘moderated’ approach was the best way to maintain a high-quality marketplace for applications. After all, the ‘wild west’ died out for a reason...
New Mobile Me !
That is a major improvement over the old site. And we have found that when you use the “Display Message or Play Sound” function, there is almost no delay before the message pops up, and the sound plays. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on your internet connection.
And yes - it is scary accurate.
See that blue dot at the center of the large blue-ish circle? That was precisely where the iPhone was. So long as someone has Mobile Me, stealing an iPhone is a very unwise choice.
Apple on Guard
“According to antivirus vendor Sophos, Apple this week, in an undocumented move, tweaked its OS X malware defenses.In particular, OS X 10.6.4 now provides better protection against a Trojan application called HellRTS, aka Pinhead-B, which has been turning up in fake iPhoto software being circulated by attackers.”
Now we all know that one shouldn’t be downloading software illegally, right? If one is not downloading software illegally then one shouldn’t normally be troubled by “Pinhead-B”; even so, it is great that Apple is being proactive.
But we were puzzled by this :
"But what's curious to me is why Apple didn't announce they were making this update in the release notes or security advisory that came with Mac OS X 10.6.4. It's almost as if they don't want to acknowledge that there could be a malware threat on Mac OS X."
What is curious is that Cluely doesn’t understand Apple at all, and apparently has some axe to grind here. The reality is that Apple doesn’t have to tell its users; truly, most of the Apple user-base has never heard of “Pinhead-B”. And guess what? Apple and its users like things that way. Apple did the heavy lifting to protect its users - even (ahem) less than honest ones - from not only themselves, but a threat borne exclusively of illicit software.
Swift. Silent. Deadly. Threat eliminated with no muss or fuss. And that is why Apple is Apple.
The New Mac Mini
That is what the new Mac Mini from Apple looks like torn apart. It is an amazing feat of engineering that such a powerful computer could be assembled in such a small space. And don’t forget - Apple has added an HDMI port !
If you wish to know more about the Mac Mini, please stop in sometime and we will be happy to tell you more.
