Doesn't China Have Some Part In This?
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.
The quoted article (and headline) is in response to Henry Blodget's piece at Business Insider.
Apple vs. PC Shipments: "PC" Decline Worse Than Reported
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%.
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.
Fast Decisions: Steve Jobs vs. Meg Whitman
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.
Then why does the rest of the article even matter?
Apple’s superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience.
Good developers? Check
Better catalog? Check
Better customer experience? Check.
Um, what is Android happy about again?
Steve Jobs answers Android UX designer's question
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.
That's Where He Will Be. (For Steve Jobs)
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.
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.
Translating Samsung's attempt to discredit iPhone 4S
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.
Before the Macintosh.
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.
