Anton Wahlman

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

At a minimum, it happens by using a program called iskoot.com.

On Aug 10 12:05 PM Indy wrote:

> At #12, you mention skype on Blackberry. Has there been an official
> release from Skype for Blackberry? Not yet.

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

Blackberry also has thousands of free apps. I guess the comparison is that the iPhone has something like 60,000+ applications in total, whereas Blackberry has 2,000+ applications in AppWorld and many thousands (tens of thousands?) available outside AppWorld. Ultimately, however, it's hard to measure quality vs. quantity. That said, Blackberry has got some work to do here, but remember that AppWorld launched April 1, 2009 -- a relatively long time after Apple's AppStore.


On Aug 10 05:42 AM Robert Martorana wrote:

>
> Good summary of Blackberry's overlooked advantages. As you noted,
> availability on every carrier leads to lower voice/data services,
> and to unique offerings such as T-Mobile's free WiFi.
>
> In technology, however, success breeds success: The iPhone's popularity
> has generated thousands of free apps, making the software just as
> important as the hardware.
>
> It pays to be a media darling.

Euthanasia for Clunkers: The So-Called 'Healthcare Bill'

Indeed I think Rush Limbaugh is awesome. May I also suggest that I believe Mark Levin (marklevinshow.com) to be even better.

On Aug 03 09:09 PM The Recusant wrote:

> "the elderly will be the prime target"... "Obama Marxist takeover
> of America"..."Obama’s Marxist philosophy"...say, I recognize this
> stuff. Rush, is that you?

When Will the Music Stop for Government Bonds?

This is a very interesting response to this excellent article. I certainly fear that you are right about the parallels with the Argentinean example. With a Saul Alinsky-trained Marxist in The White House, chomping at the bit to confiscate all private property and sending the bourgeois class to the rice fields, this scenario could certainly translate here faster than most people fear as of yet. Anyway, that said, the original article above was outstanding, and thanks for someone finally re-discovering the greatest Economics thinker of the 20th century: Ludwig von Mises.


On Jul 29 09:44 PM whidbey wrote:

> The logic is Simon pure, the sense of history exquisite, but the
> conclusion that this farce can not be stretched well into the future
> is a miscalculation of the capacity of man to believe whatever he
> chooses to believe.
>
> The limit, of course, is the debt service, when the marginal tax
> dollar is spent on interest payments there is no necessary crisis.
> No, there is still room to invent. For example, Argentina confiscated
> the pensions of its citizen, then taxed farm exports, and wants now
> to own a lien on all private property as surety on state debt.
>
>
> The distortions of evil finance are as unlimited as the mind of man
> to believe that he is secure in his debtors. This soon becomes a
> fantasy game in which the winner is the more gullible player.
>
> This is the game of democracy in which the few have the power to
> take from the many until there is nothing left but the bigger fool,
> and he loses!

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

I think you're misunderstanding the technology here. This new initiative specifies that the handset itself must be able to use the same charger as any other Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson, RIM, HTC, LG, Palm etc. device. So it has to use the same connector. No special adapter, as any such would defeat the purpose of the "One charger for every phone" principle. Why should the EU allow Apple to avoid making the same kind of full transition to MicroUSB that all the other handset makers were forced to make? Remember, I think Apple should be free to do whatever it wants -- I'm just pointing out what the EU could do regardless of my opinion about the sanctity of private property and freedom of contract.


On Jul 01 08:20 PM peter02l wrote:

> "The EU is now mandating that all cell phones be compatible with
> 3rd-party MicroUSB chargers by January 1, 2012."
>
> This will not affect Apple much. Apples current charger has a USB
> connector to which the cable connect. That is the cable is not part
> of the connector. So all they have to do is to replace the USB connector
> on the charger with MicroUSB, and supply the appropriate cable.
>
>
> This has nothing to do with the 30-pin connector. EU's concern is
> that people over the years end up with a multitude of chargers for
> various devices which they don't know what to do with. That is very
> wasteful, so I applaud what EU is trying to do here.

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

And what makes you think that will be compliant? Isn't the whole point about this kind of agreement -- and/or legislation -- to mandate a female MicroUSB connector on the handheld device itself? Nobody else in the industry got away with an adapter between its old connector and MicroUSB, so why should Apple be allowed such an implementation? If the EU makes environmental compliance the main goal here, forcing all users to add an extra adapter is counter-productive. Isn't the EU saying that the same charger must be equally applicable to all cell phones, regardless of manufacturer and that it therefore won't allow some special adapter in Apple's case?


On Jul 01 02:59 AM berlinator wrote:

> Apple could simply use a 30 Pin to USBmicro cable....
> or ad a USB to USBmicro adapter. So no change a the iPhone itself

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

Yes, Europe decided to be essentially 100% GSM back in the pre-1992 days. Has this really been better? In the US, we have had competition between Qualcomm's system, GSM and others such as IS-136 and iDEN. Partially for this reason, US consumers have enjoyed (1) higher data rates and sooner, and (2) lower prices. Compare US voice/data plans with those in Europe, and you will find that US prices are significantly lower than those in Europe. Who has more Blackberry/iPhone/Palm... phones? The US of course.

You say you bought several MicroUSB chargers two years ago. No you did not. The first MicroUSB handhelds hit the market approximately 1 year ago, some 9 months after the standard was finalized in September 2007.

Finally, you say "too much choice is stupid." It's not a matter of "too much" choice. It's a matter of whether choice will be allowed or not. This is important whether we're talking about cell phone chargers or health care providers.

In my case, I very much welcome the advent of MicroUSB and I enjoy the benefits of it. However, Apple should be free to do whatever it wants to do. If it wants to be the only company running its own race, it should be free to do so.


On Jul 01 02:29 AM jsk wrote:

> "First and foremost, this is part of an industrial policy in the
> EU. We are being told day in and day out that industrial policy is
> such a good thing, despite that it’s been proven to be one of the
> greatest disasters of mankind."
>
> Really?!? Too bad the facts you present yourself in your own article
> prove the opposite. Thanks to this disastrous industrial policy in
> Europe, Europe has one, completely compatible standard for all cell
> phones. Europeans can buy any cell phone and use it on any cell system
> throughout Europe and not have to think twice about compatibility
> (and, oh yah, at cheaper rates, better service, and more open service
> agreements than are available in the US). Compare that to your "live
> free of die" "open market" in the US. Multiple, non-interoperable,
> completely incompatible systems; duplicating effort for higher costs
> and lower quality of service (GSM, CDMA, EVDO, 2G, 3G, etc. etc.
> etc. - do you want to get a PhD in acronyms or just make a phone
> call?).
>
> Two years ago my extended family all bought new phones. Guess what,
> they all use MicroUSB for their computer interface and chargers.
> I've lost count of the number of times that convenience has been
> a life saver in a pinch. Not to mention that now we can do things
> like equip each car with only one charging cable (that stays in the
> car and is cheaper, because it's a universal standard that almost
> everyone uses) where we used to have to carry around three or four
> different cables where ever we went (we only had one complete set
> because of the expense - which also meant we were constantly leaving
> them behind).
>
> Sometimes too much choice is stupid.

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

You are correct that it would be great to harmonize the wall plugs as well. It would achieve a similar degree of benefits. However, this MicroUSB move pertains to the other side of the cable. In any given country (or few countries) in Europe, cell phones from all manufactures are sold, and those will now all be able to use the same charger. That solves one big problem. Doing what you suggest would solve another, equally important, problem. I'm all for it. But that step #2 shouldn't negate the equally beneficial step #1 in the form of widespread adoption of MicroUSB.


On Jun 30 02:13 PM numinary wrote:

> from a pure engineering/efficiency standpoint, it seems to make the
> most sense to try to drag all of the EU countries into using a similar
> wall plug outlet and electrical power source would provide the largest
> returns. Does this make too much sense for legislators? Or is it
> just that this is a more inconvenient issue for them to deal with?
>
>
> As someone that goes on company junkets around Europe, I would certainly
> like to see a universal power plug rather than a universal cell phone
> power cable...

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

Looking at the issue logically, Apple pretty much didn't have a choice. Remember that scene from The Godfather -- "Either your brains or your signature will be on this paper"? So yes, Apple has signed onto an agreement, but logically it wasn't what they wanted to do. Remember those AIG employees who gave their 2008 earnings away to charity, when faced with a vote in Congress to tax them at essentially 100%? They wouldn't have given away their money unless there was this kind of legal threat.


On Jun 30 01:21 PM waterman wrote:

> Apple was one of the companies that signed the agreement to use this
> new standard.
>
> See CNet article or go to macsurfer.com for other articles
>
> "Apple, others agree to universal cell phone charger standard in
> Europe"
>
> So I don't think the EU stabbed Apple in the back and I guess Apple
> has an idea on what to do to comply.

The EU Stabs Apple in the Back

I agree that this makes sense for (almost) all market participants, such as RIM, Motorola, SonyEricsson, HTC, Nokia, Samsung and LG, because there is really no downside, and only the upside. Apple, however, will find it a pain to comply because it's got such a heavily invested ecosystem surrounding its 30 pin connector/dock.


On Jun 30 11:04 AM nishiko wrote:

> I think this is a great idea, because it's critical that countries
> take on environmental leadership and responsibility. This universal
> smart charger standard is an incredible idea... the cost/benefit
> ratio is exceedingly high in favor of the benefit. I'm glad the
> EU is taking environmentally responsible steps like this, as most
> other countries in the world seem unwilling to for whatever reason.
> And as you said, best of all, what they do often forces the same
> changes world-wide just on an economies of scale reason for most
> products. This only causes short term pain for some companies, but
> holds a great deal of long term rewards.

Team Obama vs. Team Reagan

The laws of economics apply to every government (Congress/President) regardless of party. High government spending is always bad, regardless of party. Bush/Congress has a bad record on this, and Obama seems to be promising even worse. The US constitution was put in place to limit the size of government to a small judiciary and a military defense, and prevent the government from taxing us to fund other activities. It is now time to slash the size of the US government's budget by over 80%. If people want to live in socialist welfare states, they can move to Western Europe. Why can't we have a capitalist sanctuary here in the US? If government spending was the solution, the Soviet Union would be the richest country in the world. Here is the ALTERNATIVE Obama Inaugration Speech: anton-wahlman.blogspot...

Why Picking the President is Like Picking a Stock

This is very simple. Our government is too fat and needs to get on a diet. The government does all sorts of things that are unconstitutional, such as social security, medicare, medicaid, you name it. The Federal government spends some $3.1 billion per year of which The Pentagon is some $650 billion, or about 1/5th. Add some overhead, and we could cut the size of The Federal government by probably close to 75%. Look at the income and capital gains taxes in Hong Kong, Estonia, Albania and other places where economic growth has been strong in the last few years -- nobody should have to pay more than 10% to the government.

Sarah Palin: Wall Street's Candidate

The author is of course 100% correct. This is just one more battle in the epic struggle between capitalism and socialism, and Mrs. Palin appears to be in the camp of capitalism. It's as simple as that.

Obama's Economic Policy and Reagonomics

You have to be kidding. Pinch me. Obama has zero appreciation for free market economic theory. Obama has never run a company, met a payroll. Has hasn't even run as much as a lemonade stand. He has supposedly never owned a stock or a 401(k) account. These facts combined with his Leninist-professorial background typical of Harvard-Berkeley types make him almost certain to destroy the economy with taxes, spending and regulation. This isn't very difficult, folks -- what always hurt the economy are taxes, regulation and government spending, and Obama is more in favor of those things than any other major Presidential candidate. What part of economics doesn't Obama or his apologists not understand? Apparently all of Economics 101 and more.

Why Wall Street Analysts Shouldn't Own the Stocks They Cover

I like the following: "The "buy" and "sell" recommendations on the front page are ignored by the clients who matter - the institutional investors." -- Now, if only Spitzer and his folks had understood this basic fact, there wouldn't have a witch-hunt for the analysts, which to date has driven some 99% of the sell side analysts who were in business in 2000, into hedge funds by now.