The Small Wave.

Doesn't China Have Some Part In This?

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:13:00 -0800

But Foxconn doesn’t exist solely to produce electronics for Apple. All of the largest Android OEM’s also contract Foxconn to produce their devices in factories in China, Brazil, Mexico, Poland and the Czech Republic.

HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, ASUS, Acer, Lenovo and others contract Foxconn to manufacture products for them in the same complex where iPhones are made. Their devices are made by the same over worked, under paid, under age workers, yet none are mentioned in the Business Insider article. None. Not one. Not even Samsung, the sometimes largest smartphone vendor in the world. Just Apple.

via androidheadlines.com

The quoted article (and headline) is in response to Henry Blodget's piece at Business Insider.

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Apple vs. PC Shipments: "PC" Decline Worse Than Reported

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:09:00 -0800

Based on data from Gartner and IDC, AllThingsD reported that it was a very bad year for PC shipments, except at Apple.

I have a problem with that.

It isn't that it's not true, but rather that PC growth vs. Apple is even worse than reported. To see why, let's look at the chart from Gartner for US "PC" shipments, where the conclusion is that Apple growth increased 20.7% while PC growth declined 5.9%.

It makes sense until you realize Apple's (i.e., Mac) data is included in the same total to which it's being compared. In other words, Apple's stellar year is propping up the "PC" (i.e., non-Mac) numbers, making "PC" shipments look better than they really were.

If you truly want to know how Apple did in the US on its own against "PCs", you must subtract it from the latter's numbers. Here's what you get:

Total 4Q11: 15,854,964
Total 4Q10: 17,342,605
4Q11-4Q10 Growth: -8.5

The originally reported dismal "PC" growth of -5.9% becomes an even more dismal -8.5% without Apple's numbers propping it up. That -2.6% delta is not insignificant, it's over 40% worse than what was reported.

IDC's numbers are also available. As usual, they do not agree completely with Gartner, yet the trend is the same.

Any way you look at it, Apple is exceeding the "PC" growth rate, and if you pull their numbers from "PC" shipments to get a true Mac vs. PC comparson, the latter's state is revealed to be even worse than it appears at first glance.

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Fast Decisions: Steve Jobs vs. Meg Whitman

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:16:00 -0800

In writing about the recent news that HP is taking their time to decide webOS' fate, John Gruber wrote:

So the longer HP waits, the less valuable WebOS becomes, because more and more of the smart and talented people behind it will have left…

When you’re faced with a “we need to stop the bleeding” problem, you need a fast decision.

This sounds much like the situation at Apple when Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO and Steve Jobs was acting as an active advisor. Apple was in such disarray top employees were leaving. Jobs first order of business was to stop the talent drain by repricing their stock options. What happened next, according to Walter Isaacson in Steve Jobs:

Jobs called for a telephonic board meeting and outlined the problem. The directors balked. They asked for time to do a legal and financial study of what the change would mean. "It has to be done fast," Jobs told them. "We're losing good people."

When the board proposed a study that could take two months, Jobs exploded: "Are you nuts?!?"

Ultimately, Jobs threatened to leave Apple if the board wouldn't support this kind of decision, which they did.

Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that. I don't know if feet are being dragged by Whitman or the board, but if the latter Whitman might want to crack a head or two.

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Then why does the rest of the article even matter?

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:02:00 -0700

Apple’s superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience.

via businessinsider.com

Good developers? Check
Better catalog? Check
Better customer experience? Check.

Um, what is Android happy about again?

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Steve Jobs answers Android UX designer's question

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:45:00 -0700

In this interview with Matias Duarte, the head of user experience for Android, I was struck by something the author observed:

"What is the soul of the new machine?" The words are emblazoned across Matias’ laptop display.

It struck me because it sounded familiar, as if that question had already been asked and answered. And it was. By Steve Jobs:

In his WWDC keynote a few weeks ago, Steve Jobs said the following. “You know, if the hardware is the brain and the sinew of our products, the software in them is their soul.”

When Duarte is asked if that's the first time anyone at Google ever asked that question, he replies:

“I don’t think anybody ever asked about the soul,” he answers in a very matter-of-fact way, “This was my question, it was the question I challenged the team with.”

Right. Maybe the team didn't see Jobs' WWDC keynote.

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That's Where He Will Be. (For Steve Jobs)

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:43:00 -0700

There's lots of things that I don't know, the afterlife is one.
I tend to think we live our lives, and after that it's done.
But if there is a place revealing great technology,
That's where he will be.

Technology was for the few when his work did begin.
An era for "the rest of us" is what he ushered in.
And if there is a place with a "mere mortals" citizenry,
That's where he will be.

I know there's hardship in the world, and tragedy unmeasured,
But cannot use that to deny that there are also treasures.
And if there is a place where the consumer holds the key,
That's where he will be.

So I'll always be grateful that he bucked the status quo.
Not satisfied with where we were; knew somewhere else to go.
And if there is a place for those who see what we can't see,
That's where he will be.

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Translating Samsung's attempt to discredit iPhone 4S

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:38:00 -0700

Following is a translation of Samsung's distributed talking points about the iPhone 4S compared to their Galaxy series of phones.

the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy S II has 42% more screen area and Sprint / T-Mobile versions of Galaxy S II have 58% more screen area than the iPhone 4S.

Ignore that screen sizes are all over the place, and rest assured the Galaxy is huge. Hope you have big pockets. And hands.

The Galaxy S II HSPA+ network speeds are at least 50% faster with AT&T 21 MBPS and three times faster with T-Mobile’s 42 MBPS than the iPhone 4S’s 14 MBPS HSPA network.

Our theoretical you-will-never-see-them speeds are faster than their theoretical you-will-never-see-them speeds.

Galaxy S II continues to have the thinnest smartphone design

We're huge, but a millimeter thinner.

Open Ecosystem – Consumers can use the Galaxy S II to buy music from Amazon, Rhapsody, or a variety of other music services, as well as multiple cloud music services supported such as Amazon, Google Music and multiple video chat clients available for use including Google Chat and Skype. The Samsung Galaxy S II is not limited to a single manufacturer’s storefront or app store.

The iPhone uses the #1 music store in the world, Galaxy doesn't.

In short, until we add a cheap Siri knockoff and a few other features for which we'll kipe Apple's icon designs, just ignore the iPhone 4S.

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Before the Macintosh.

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:12:00 -0700

via Digibarn

And even before the Lisa, in 1981 there was the Xerox Star. The link above has a number of high-quality scans of the system.

The Lisa, introduced in 1983 and featuring a young Kevin Costner in one of the ads, would sell for $10,000, yet that was peanuts compared to the Star:

The Xerox Star was not originally meant to be a stand-alone computer, but to be part of an integrated Xerox "personal office system" that also connected to other workstations and network services via Ethernet. Although a single unit sold for $16,000, a typical office would have to purchase at least 2 or 3 machines along with a file server and a name server/print server.

Interesting that in the above shot the printer didn't get the bullet points you see on the screen.

Seeing these two predecessors just three years before the Mac's launch makes you appreciate the littlest Apple all that much more. At $2,500 it was truly remarkable.

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Yes, this is the man I'll listen to about the future of the PC

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:10:00 -0700

Michael Dell in an interview Sunday took a stance that there was no such thing as a post-PC era. In spite of struggling PC sales, he argued to the FT that the PC industry was still growing… Smartphones and tablets weren't "necessarily" replacing PCs, and long-term forecasts suggested that would stay the case for years to come, he said.

via Electronista

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Blowin' in the Fan (with apologies to Bob Dylan)

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:02:00 -0700

How many tablet PCs must be built
Before people get that they're wrong?
How many demos must Microsoft give
Propped up by their own dance and song?
And after a decade of failure in this
Do they know that we won't tag along?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the fan
The answer is blowin' in the fan.

How many years can an OS exist
Before its best days have gone by?
How many new paradigms can be shown
That much better methods apply?
And how many times to the well will they go
Before seeing it's finally run dry?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the fan
The answer is blowin' in the fan.

How many vendors were pulled on a chain
Building tablets unfriendly to hands?
How many failures and misguided tries
Were continued according to plans?
And when will they get the futility of
Shoehorning PCs into cans?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the fan
The answer is blowin' in the fan.

(Inspired by this tidbit about a prototype Windows 8 tablet.)

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HTC Acting President Wishes iPhones Were Less Cool

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 12:36:00 -0700

I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was.

via geekwire.com

Did I say "wishes"? My mistake. Here we have a scientific study of a large population by an unbiased source that proves it.

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The best thing about Apple's win over Samsung in Germany

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 08:23:00 -0700

"The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible… For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks [like the iPad]."

via allthingsd.com

The above is from presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofman in her verdict.

Forget whether you think the tech world is lawsuit-happy. Forget whether you think this is a bad decision. Forget whether you think this is just Germany, and no other country will rule this way. Forget your Apple hate or Samsung/Android love. Forget all that.

Instead, remember the above quote.

It gets old seeing companies copy Apple so fully, and then claim they had no choice because there's no other way to make whatever it is they're making. Of course there is. We're not talking a single function like a volume switch or camera button, but rather an entire product. If Apple used that lazy cop-out, the iPad would have been built like previous Windows tablet designs and failed miserably.

What Apple did was rethink what a tablet could be, and so could anyone else if they choose. It may then be a success or failure, but it wouldn't be a copy.

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Five Stars, When Nobody Else Could Garner Four

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:40:00 -0700

via jdpower.com

While the competition peaks at "about average", Apple passes "better than most" to be "among the best".

Not sure the word "among" is even necessary.

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Google's sends a sign to non-favored Android OEMs

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:41:00 -0700

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Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, has died.

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:24:00 -0700

The younger generations have no doubt about e-Books.

It's only the dinosaurs that have no idea what's going on. We are still getting email stating that not one person is ever going to read books from computers!

Who will be the more well-read - those who can carry at most a dozen books with them, or those who have a PDA in their pocket with a hundred or more e-Books in it?

Who will look up more quotations in context? Who will use the dictionary more often? Who will look up geographical information more often?

via samvak.tripod.com

He was sometimes referred to as the founder of ePublishing and eBooks. The above quote is from an interview in 2002.

It's at least comforting that he saw eBooks take off in his lifetime. Perhaps not exactly as he had envisioned it, but it showed he was right about the use and practicality of digital books all along.

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Ouch! Google document proposes giving Motorola time-to-market advantage for Android devices

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:53:00 -0700

via fosspatents.blogspot.com

Here's the text of the highlighted passage:

Do not develop in the open. Instead, make source code available after innovation is complete

Lead device concept: Give early access to the software to partners who build and distribute devices to our specification (ie, Motorola and Verizon). They get a non-contractual time to market advantage and in return they align to our standard.

Court papers confirm what most people already knew, but what some OEMs (HTC, LG, etc.) were hoping wasn't true. Google intends to give lead time advantage to some hardware makers over others. Yes, the Motorola purchase wasn't just about patents.

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Microsoft’s Zune chief is leaving the company

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:27:00 -0700

via winrumors.com

What a coincidence, so is the Zune.

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TVs Are Not Like Smartphones

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:15:00 -0700

Yes, there are a lot of problems that need to be solved, but the Macalope doesn’t really see where they’re that much bigger than the ones that supposedly were going to prevent the iPhone’s birth. Maybe it comes out for Comcast at first, like the iPhone with AT&T.

via macworld.com

The AT&T iPhone was nationwide in the US, and used a global mobile standard (GSM) so Apple could roll it out in other countries. A Comcast "iTV" would only be regional in the US, and there is no global TV standard so that's as far as it would get.

The carrier problem was one of control (i.e., dictating hardware, features and services), not getting to market. Apple got around the control with an AT&T exclusivity deal (and AT&T making a bold decision), and the rest is history.

The cable company problem is not about control of the hardware, but rather getting it to market. One GSM iPhone covers many markets across the globe, but for an iTV you'd need nearly as many models as there are markets.

I'm not saying the cable company issue is insurmountable, only that it won't be solved the way the carrier problem was. They're not the same problem.

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Sony Tablet S Review

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:40:00 -0700

Even so, the Tablet S feels more competent than outstanding. For every nice extra feature, there's seemingly another that doesn't quite work the way it's promised, sometimes within the same app. The performance, the screen, the build quality are all good, but not great. The camera is just a mess, too

via electronista.com

Yet another vendor releases a tablet before it's ready, and uses weaker components to make the "iPad price" of $499.

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Lenovo Releases Samsung Sales Figures

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:40:00 -0700

An executive at Android tablet maker Lenovo claims that Samsung sold only 20,000 of the 1m tablets that it shipped last year

via guardian.co.uk

Well, there you go.

Next up, Chevy issues Ford vehicle recalls.

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