Its powerful components should hopefully make it a very swift device. We’ve not had enough time with the new phone to make any firm conclusions about its camera and software tweaks, but we’ve got high hopes for good performances all round.

Emphasis mine. Yes, It’s easy to see why this one is the “winner”.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Vs Apple iPhone 4S Vs HTC One X | CNET UK.

Get a grip, you know you’re giving us fits.
You don’t care if you’re a fool, we know it’s all for page hits.
You published the trash even though you’re in the dark,
And then cover your ass by using a question mark.

Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,

You, have half a brain,
But I’m guessing it’s the other half you strain.
I know you’ve an empty cup
So you’re telling people things you just made up.
But when you creep about and facts ain’t around,
Why must you resort to rumors?

Knock it off, you look more dumb every day.
Most of this stuff makes no sense, you should just send it away.
There’s no escaping from your publishing crimes,
But that’s what you get for listening to Digitimes.

Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,

All of these words keeping your ear full,
Tell stories of a device impossible.
Just ’cause they said it, don’t mean they’ve got credit.
People say crazy things.
Just ’cause they said it, don’t mean they’ve got credit.
Just ’cause you heard it…

Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,
Rumor has it, rumor,

But rumor has it Apple TV comes out this year.

Finding tablet-oriented apps for Android is a hunt, a chore, and a grind.…

Things get even worse when you realize Google Play shows different apps on its website and on individual tablets; even though the Google Play website claims some apps run on an Asus Transformer Prime, the apps didn’t show up on Google Play on the Prime.

And just because an app claims to run on tablets doesn’t mean it was designed for tablets. Often, after you download an app you’ll discover that it’s ugly or nearly useless because it was designed for a 4-inch screen.

via The iPad Wins Because Android Tablet Apps Suck: An Illustrated Guide.

And on and on. This is why Android supporters claiming it’ll overtake Apple in tablets are nuts, dreamers, or wading chest deep into a river in Egypt.

The Android crowd is waiting for non-iPad competitors like the Amazon Kindle Fire or Barnes & Noble Nook to sell in enough quantities to claim “Android tablets” outsell iPads. Setting aside that the Kindle Fire is not even a real Android tablet, these color e-readers don’t compete against the iPad except maybe in the most superficial way. An iPad sale “lost” to one of these is something Apple wasn’t getting anyway.

Android fans will fool no one but themselves and the usual Apple bashing crowd. It’s there own private echo chamber they’re talking to.

Customers were actually having trouble telling the difference between the two screens.

via Watch as Apple customers try to tell the difference between the new iPad & iPad 2 – The Next Web.

I bought the new iPad primarily for the display. I have WiFi only, so LTE meant nothing to me. I knew from the iPhone how useful the Retina Display is over time, especially for reading. There’s a reason I’d frequently still choose to read on that device than my iPad 2. My 50+ year old eyes need all the sharpness they can get.

I believe anybody would get used to the RD over time (which makes it hard to go back), but I also believe the change is something most wouldn’t notice at first glance. Unless you already know, or can appreciate, the ultimate difference a RD makes, or you need LTE, or the extra RAM is important because, say, you want lots of Safari tabs open, save $100 and get an iPad 2 for now. Better yet, save $150 and get a refurbished iPad 2 with the same warranty as a new model. That’s a phenomenal deal.

The money you save can go straight into the fund for the next iPad.

The reason 16GB should be enough for most users isn’t due to iCloud, it’s because the iPad still falls short of replacing the PC. There’s no need to store all of your data on the iPad, because as good as it is, it can’t replace a PC for many users.

via Two Years with the iPad: Was It Worth It?.

But it can replace a PC for a lot of users. Further, it can be the first PC for a lot of users. With its default suite of apps, the iPad handles what a typical user expects to do with a new PC quite well. Why people can’t see this, or are in denial about it, is beyond me.

Further, iCloud makes it unnecessary to locally store music, TV shows and movies, so storage space is less of an issue. In fact, consumption data works great in the cloud, since it only needs to occupy space while being consumed, and then is easily deleted.

I have a 32GB iPad. Now that I don’t store my iTunes media on it (relying on the cloud instead) I could easily fit my entire iPhoto library. Add the new iPhoto app—or any of a the other excellent image editors—and it could reside there permanently. How big does this guy think the average users’ documents library is anyway?

There’s iMovie for movie editing, and if more power is needed there’s Avid Studio. Tons of word processing and business apps, outlining and GTD apps, financial apps, networking tools, drawing, remote access and the list goes on and on.

And before you claim these aren’t “heavy duty” apps, let’s set aside any such definition and agree that we’re talking a matter of degree. For example, few argued a netbook wasn’t a PC, but what Adobe tools would you want to run on one? For the iPad there’s an entire suite of Adobe touch apps that run nicely. Netbooks and cheap laptops never had it so good.

I believe a person’s PC is pretty much defined by the apps they utilize beyond the ones that come on it. Two years after the iPad’s debut it’s in that same position. A 16GB WiFI iPad with standard apps is as much “PC” as many people need. A “power user” gets more storage, possibly adds cellular and the Camera Connection Kit, and goes beyond the default apps to add software such as Writing Kit, GarageBand, iWork, Dropbox, Photogene, iThoughtsHD, etc. to meet their personal needs and interests.

Just like a PC.

Nokia design chief Marko Ahtisaari is spending a third of his time on creating a tablet for the cellphone maker, which would stand out among hundreds of iPad-challengers

via Nokia working on own tablet: design chief | Reuters.

I guess the other two-thirds of his time is spent on marketing?

I ultimately settled on Posterous for blogging, and loved it. Unfortunately, it’s been sold to Twitter and its future does not look bright. I’m looking to move off of it, so am visiting WordPress again—on my old site—and it’s latest iOS app. This time on the iPad.

I really wish more blog editors wold let me write WYSIWYG, but at least the WP app has buttons for the most common HTML elements.

This makes bold, italic, or adding links like this one a breeze. You can paste in the link or type it in. For the latter, it has the good sense to show the “URL keyboard” to make things easier. The app has a preview function in it to see what it should look like on your site. The preview’s not perfect, but it gets the main elements right.

It’s also easy to do bulleted or numbered lists. In short, here’s what I like about the app so far:

• Easy HTML keys
• Good Performance
• Decent preview

Here’s what I don’t like:

• Would prefer WYSIWYG
• Page-accurate previews

Oh, and here’s an ordered list just to show one:

1. Do this first.
2. Do this after that first thing.

You can keep the article local to the iPad, but it’s better to publish it to WP periodically as a draft. Once happy with the article, you change it from Draft to Published and do a final update. (Of course, once on the site as a Draft you could do it all from there as well.)

Bottom line is this is an easy app to use, and makes quick work of basic HTML formatting. I would still write the bulk of my posts in a text editor, but then I’d dump them in the app for final editing and formatting. This just might work.

This just might work.

Yeah, it does block quotes and emoticons, too.

Committees just don’t work, and it’s not about price, schedule or a bizarre marketing goal to appear different – they are corporate goals with scant regard for people who use the product.

I couldn’t get the essence of this quote into a tweet.

It perfectly explains why Apple’s competitors are struggling to keep up. “Bizarre marketing goals” are why we have Pico projectors, or 41MP cameras, or styluses, or whatever crammed into new devices. It’s something different for the sake of something different, but it’s no way to build something better.

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.

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.

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. 

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?

“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. 

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.