AT&T will now be larger than Verizon in customers, I’m curious what this means for coverage and performance.
Category: News
By “shipping in volume” Jobs actually meant sold out everywhere
From http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/19/in_depth_review_apples_ipad_2_running_ios_4_3.html
Apple’s new iPad 2 is currently so popular that it’s difficult to buy
Anyone still think Jobs was wrong to say iPad 2 “is the first dual-core tablet to ship in volume”?
Microsoft, in a boat, without paddles
Reading headlines like this really emphasizes just how lost Microsoft is right now
This tells me two things. One, Windows Phone 7 was nothing more than a reaction to iOS. Two, they had no further strategy than that.
Apparently it simply didn’t occur to them that Apple might take their new mobile operating system and bring it to a tablet device, the same type of device Microsoft has been trying to create *for years* and have failed. Unfortunately for Microsoft, and everyone else for that matter, Apple doesn’t just have a great mobile OS, they also already have an entire supporting ecosystem adding tremendous value to their mobile OS.
Clearly Microsoft, who has been trying build a tablet people actually want to use for years, simply doesn’t know what they’re doing. “Redmond, start your copiers” is really real. You have to feel a little bad for Microsoft. They’ve been trying for years and Apples launches one out of the park on their first try. But the difference here is that Apple has their own vision.
Did Steve Jobs bend the truth? Yes and no, but mostly no
Seth Weintraub writing for CNNMoney.com wonders if Steve Jobs distorted the truth during his iPad 2 announcement. He starts by trying to examine Job’s “First dual core tablet to ship in volume” comment.
“First dual core tablet to ship in volume.” That’s funny, I tested a Dell (DELL) Streak 7, which had a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 chip in January. They’ve been shipping ever since on T-Mobile.
In volume.
Of course, the Motorola (MMI) XOOM also has this same dual core processor and is certainly shipping in volume as well. In fact, I’ve been using an Android phone (the Atrix) with a dual core chip for weeks and it wasn’t the first to ship in volume. As for Apple (AAPL), they haven’t shipped one iPad 2 yet — iPad 2’s hit shelves on March 11.
Seth isn’t the only one to latch onto this quote and try to debunk it but what a lot of people are failing to realize is that, while others may be shipping dual-core tablets, it’s very safe for Steve Jobs to say that Apple will ship and sell a higher volume of iPad 2’s than any other dual-core tablet available today simply based on sales of the first iPad. Indeed, if previous iPad sales are any indication at all, iPad 2 is going to be a huge hit. What other tablet device can claim that today?
And to say that Apple hasn’t shipped any iPads is completely naive. Apple has a stock pile of second generation either en-route to stores or in stores already. This is very common for any product.
Seth also tries to pick apart Jobs’ “>90% market share” bullet point.
Apple would have needed to sell 3.2 million more to reach 90% of 2010’s tablet market share against just Samsung alone (in triple the time). That’s not including all of the Android-powered Nooks out there, those cheap $100 Androids you can buy at Walgreens or Amazon and even Windows-powered Tablet PCs (which are mentioned two bullet points above!). If you choose to include the Kindle, Apple may not have even reached 50% of the market.
While he might have a point about the actual market share number his supporting arguments are just ridiculous. First, the sales of “cheap $100 Androids” don’t even register, to the point where nobody is actually tracking them. Second, there is no such thing as a Windows powered Tablet PC when you consider how tablets have come to be defined because of the iPad. Nobody is selling a Windows powered tablet. And last, attempting to bring in Kindle sales simply doesn’t make sense as the Kindle is a reading device, not a general purpose tablet device. Talk about skewing data in your favor. “Pot, meet kettle.”
Seth goes on to point out hardware specs and pricing.
Perhaps Jobs could have also compared the iPad 2 to other Android tablets’ prices? Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Dell’s Streak both now start at $499 and have better cameras, 3G radios and GPS, which seem to compete well with Apple’s $499 Wifi-only offering. Reality distorted.
Know why the Tab and the Streak both now start at $499? Because they’re not selling.
But hey the XOOM has better specs right?
But then consider that the XOOM has a much better, bigger 720P+ screen compared to the iPad’s 1024×768 job (it has less Retina™).
Where Seth wants to pick on Jobs’ use of the word “volume” saying it is subjective, so to is saying the XOOM’s screen is “much better.” The iPad’s screen is an IPS panel giving it a much wider viewing angle where as the XOOM does not. While it is true that the XOOM has a 720p display Seth, like so many other reviewers and Apple nay-sayers, fails to realize is that the iPad’s 4:3 format display makes much more sense than a 16:9 display format. By giving a tablet a 16:9 display format you’ve essentially limited the device to a horizontal layout. The iPads 4:3 format allows developers to create apps that favor either layout and still get good use from it. Remember, the iPad is a general purpose device, not just some common movie player.
The only thing Seth got right in his troll piece is that Jobs misquoted Samsung’s CEO.
Microsoft is lost, even their biggest fans know it
I can’t agree more with Paul Thurrott on this. Microsoft bringing Windows to SoC systems doesn’t make nearly as much sense as scaling Windows Phone 7 to tablet devices. The SoC stuff Microsoft showed everyone at CES was a complete surprise, for all the wrong reasons
Read Thurrott’s piece on the matter here
File this one under the awesome category
Just found out that a friend of mine, Joel, was responsible for reaching out to and making the mold used to create “The Glif”, as seen here on http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/danprovost/glif-iphone-4-tripod-mount-and-stand?ref=search. He took the time to contact the Glif crew and offered to assist as he to work for Premiere Source, a company that just happens to have “extensive injection molding knowledge” and just what the Glif crew needed to get their product launched after successful funding.
Fantastic product, great story, made here in the US. Congrats to Premiere Source! Pick one up at their store – http://www.theglif.com/
Making the Glif from Glif on Vimeo.
Beatles coming iTunes
WSJ and some others are reporting that the Beatles are on their way to iTunes. I agree that this is much more likely than any sort of streaming service but it’s far less interesting, at least to me.
I got onto macrumors, and here’s why
If you’re finding this site because of my twitter profile seen on macrumors.com, this is why.
This diff shows a new URI scheme was added to iTunes 10.1’s Info.plist file to handle “iTunes Live Stream URL”s using itls://. Running strings on the iTunes binary also shows that itls is references within the binary.
Dear OpenSSH, too bad
So a friend pointed something out to me on the OpenSSH website. They’re complaining that a number of large companies have never donated a dime “despite numerous requests.”
The first line of their site reads as (emphasis theirs):
OpenSSH is a FREE version of the SSH connectivity tools that technical users of the Internet rely on.
The very last line on the same page reads as:
In the 10 years since the inception of the OpenSSH project, these companies have contributed not even a dime of thanks in support of the OpenSSH project (despite numerous requests).
Tacky.
Meanwhile, the changelog for this open source program contains a number of entries from a few of the mentioned companies. Isn’t this how open source software is supposed to work?
Is the iOS version of VLC violating the GPL?
TUAW is reporting that VLC may soon be removed from the App Store because it violates the GPL on the grounds that because the copy downloaded to your device is copy protected using a DRM then it violates the GPL.
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think VLC on iOS is in violation of anything so long as the source is available. Just because I can’t copy the compiled program doesn’t mean it violates the GPL. It comes down to the source code itself. In a sense, a version of VLC compiled for older PPC Mac systems also violates the GPL because I can’t copy the binary from an PPC system to an Intel system or even from a Mac to a PC. Further, you’d never copy the program files from one Windows PC to another because it’s far easier to download the installer and install it. So goes with VLC on an iPod or iPhone, it’s easier to just install it from the App Store, it’s free after all.