Zobby

Back to School on the Cheap: Another Round of Mac vs. PC

Sometimes Apple stuff is much cheaper than Microsoft.

Snow Leopard upgrade is 29, Win 7 Home upgrade is 119.

that's FOUR times more for Win Home.
(and people talk about Apple tax? Where's Lauren?)

and that's just win Home we're not even talking about Win Pro prices! And there's just one upgrade price for Snow Leopard same price even for pro users.

Win 7 so much more expensive in spite of the fact Msft. has big cost advantages of scale and mass production. Apple has to make back it's R&D and other overhead costs with 2-3% worldwide market-share. Amazing no hue and cry from PC up-graders.

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

@Aryamehr:

First you claim that 95% of iPhone apps are junk and then said Fortune backed you up. I checked the article and replied the Fortune article merely quoted Kleiner Perkins mentioning that 95% are from small companies or hobbyists. (And K.P has a 100 m fund for iPhone developers so believes in the platform). Taking 'small company and hobbyists" comment to equal junk is stretching the truth!! - did you think people would just take your word and won't check the article? I already showed you that some hobbyists like the bird watching app developer has made excellent apps. Apps which are reviewed positively, in high demand and featured in commercials. Other developers like Trism developer (more or less a one man show) has made hundreds of thousands of dollars. But even free gaps can be great. After I have shown you misquoted Fortune and the 95% you now claim from thin air that 98% is junk "in actuality 98% + of those applications are useless ". Again where is the impartial reviews or statistics to back up your 98% claim , making it up in your head doesn't prove anything. LOL!!

You say "you can rest assured the Pre will have practically every applicaiton worth having in a shortwhile." That's a personal opinion, but where's your factual backing of this? On the other hand factually I can point out there are only tiny handful of apps now and already reviewers who own Pres are saying they are bored with the Pre as there are no apps, for example : Ars Technica "Why the iPhone which beats the Pre for Air Travel", I quote: "What I found is that the Pre is a pretty boring travel companion who tires way too easily." (tiring too easily part is the 'famous' multi tasking phone's battery).

Again factually Palm says SDK won't be out until late summer and then after that developers will have to want to write for a tiny platform like the Pre vs the iPhone OS (iPhone and ipod Touch) and even if they do it'll take more time. By then there'll be more iPhone apps and people will be awaiting iPhone 4.0. As for AT&T, there's just as many complaints about Sprint (Sprint is the one losing millions of customers the last few years you know) and AT&T is only in the U.S, iPhone sold in dozens of countries. Also AT&T contract expires next year and Apple free to do whatever it wants. (Right now AT&T also gives Apple very high profit percentages back as they want the exclusivity to drive customers to AT&T.)

As the above article shows Pres are no longer hot selling items while latest news is that Apple (with the AMR number one rated supply and manufacturing chain in the U.S) is not meeting demand of iPhones, white ones are still selling out.

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

@Aryamehr

read my post carefully before commenting.

You mention repeatedly that I said the 3GS was 'light years ahead', I never did (although it might be accurate), I said the Pre had to be light years ahead of the iPhone to beat it (as the iPhone is the market leader).

Saying that 95% of iPhone apps is junk is just wishful thinking of iPhone haters. Any statistical or impartial review to back up your claims? You mention Fortune magazine "a recent article in Fortune magazine will corroborate" but you're misleading, the article I believe is "iPhone apps: For fun and profit?" and it doesn't say 95% is junk, it says investment firm Kleiner Perkins thinks 95% are from small companies or hobbyists. Small companies and hobbyist can't make good apps? They're all junk? Small companies have made BIG bucks on the iPhone, a 99 cent app to several million buyers is a lot of money. A recent featured app on iPhone commercials was a bird watching app which is big seller made by a hobbyist. Kleiner Perkins has a 100 million fund (100 million!) for iPhone developers and is very bullish on iPhone application and previously has said that the iPhone was the birth of New Platform like the birth of the PC revolution. Talking about the 95% is probably K.P putting down it's iPhone competitors as now hundreds of new developers are jumping in some with millions of dollars in funding. Do you think K.P one of the top tech investment firms in the U.S is going to put 100 m into iPhone app development if it thinks iPhone is bad? really!

Talking about Fortune, Apple is No.1 on Fortune's 2008 most admired companies list!

Also What makes you think all Pre or Google apps are wonderful? This is so indictive of iPhone criticisms: 'we'll make something up from our minds i.e 95% are junk'. It's silly reasoning with no impartial factual studies to back it up. But even if it was true which it isn't that means there are still plenty apps which are good there! (5% of 50,000 is 2500. There are only 30 or so Pre apps). Also is it logical that developers only write good apps for the other Phones while junk for the iPhone, does that make sense? Of course not.

As the for the Touch Diamond, did it sell 1 million in a 3 days? The HTC Touch Diamond runs Win Mo which is a from many sources a sucky OS, even Sony and Samsung (big Msft. customers) have ditched Win Mo for their flagship phones this year and gone to Symbian. Having features but as some said "you don't have a good OS and can't use them easily what the point?" Again any Touch phones sell over a million in 3 days?

And you miss the main point of my post . You say "This time next year there will be millions of Pre users and thousands of applications to choose from"
Exactly, one year! iPhone has 50,000 now. By next year like I said iPhone will be one year ahead again, with iPhone 4.0, so how will Pre ever catch up?

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

One of the dumbest articles on Apple ever.

"No room to grow in wireless market" ? The smartphone market is one the fastest expanding markets around. Apple sold more iPhone 3GS in a shorter time, 1 million in a weekend although launched in fewer countries in a recession than the 3G. People are upgrading from normal cell to smart phones. People changing from Samsung, Nokia etc to iPhone. The mobile computing market, small powerful computers like the iPhone, iPod Touch and the rumored iTablet are the next big thing in computing. While others are saying it's equivalent to the birth of the PC and internet revolutions you've got "no room to grow". Forbes: "Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar estimates Apple shipped 6.8 million phones in the June quarter alone" , remember when the iPhone first came out Apple hoped to sell 10 million a year.

You say "Apple's slice of the U.S. computer market fell to 8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 9.5% in the third quarter of 2008, according to Forbes (source)." Did you actually read the data that's been coming out the last week or so? Morgan Stanley : " "Apple began to outperform the broader commercial PC segment -- with commercial Mac shipments up 25% month-over-month in May versus market growth of just 1%," That doesn't even fully take into account the spectacular sales of the new Macbooks, the new 13" Macbook Pro is selling out. Apple Insider: "Apple's newly-coined 13-inch MacBook Pros appear to be off to a hot start, with the company reportedly having difficulty keeping some of the new models in stock as it enters the heart of the back-to-school buying season. In a note to clients Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out that the Apple online store is currently reflecting lead times of 7 to 10 business days for the faster of the two 13-inch MacBook Pros. He notes this is the most extensive delay affecting the company's 13-inch notebook models ever.

The analyst, which regularly tracks and records lead times for products on the Mac maker's online store, said he had to look back more than two years into his records to find similar delays, and even then they spanned just 5 to 7 business days. "

As for iPod Saturation. Many people are shifting to the higher priced iPod Touch due to the thousands of apps available. Yesterday numerous articles e.g. at least 3 articles on Zdnet (a PC oriented site) alone! said that the Touch if it gets the rumored camera (Tech blogger Michael Arrington reported Monday that Apple has placed orders for a "massive number" of camera modules for the iPod.) it will be a 'disruptive', a category killer. Read Forbes "Why Apple Could Kill Your Camera". In short a camera equipped Touch will sell like hotcakes.

Won't bother to comment on the rest but the above is enough to show how poorly researched this article is.

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

Pre apologists don't get certain things.

They say that the Pre is doing well, iPhone outselling it is not a big deal as the Pre is being sold only in one country. But that's just it, by the time Pre moves to other countries and other carriers and by the time it gets its SDK out and then apps it'll be months. By that time iPhone will be out in more countries like China and people will be anticipating NEXT iPhone (4.0.)

Already the iPhone has more 'consumer attractive' features like video, tap touch autofocus, google maps that orient with magnetometer etc. (lots of general consumers don't understand Palm advantages like 'synergy') and by the time Palm gets SDK carriers together iPhone will be 4.0 and further ahead. Apple is right when they say they're way (years?) ahead of the others.

People ask what iPhone can do that Pre can't, some people answer video etc. but the real answer is 50,000 things. That's apps in the app store that Pre doesn't have. And by the time they do have significant numbers (and many developers are not very keen as the installed base is so tiny vs iPhone. 1 subscriber for about 300-400 iPhone OS) iPhone would have moved the benchmark further ahead.

If video comes to the iPod Touch later this year as rumored the iPhone OS base will explode even larger. Outselling Pre 10-20 to one means that Apple will also always have more cash for R&D and marketing.

Also currently although the Pre and iPhone 3GS are having teething problems the Pre seems to be significantly more: build quality resulting in cracks etc. Note since the iPhone is outselling Pre 10-20 to one if iPhone problems are equal are more than Pre the number of complaints should be 10-20 times more in the forums but that's not the case, in fact complaints from Pre owners seem to be outpacing iPhone 3GS owners. Palm needed a light years ahead phone (but is missing things like video camera) with competitive number of apps, superior build quality and cheaper to compete with the iPhone, it doesn't have it.

A Nice New Zune, But Microsoft Has Lost This Market

Wall Street Jan 09: "at its much faster rate of decline, the Zune player looks like it's headed from low to no market share" (heading to Zero!)

Only a deep pocketed MS can hire the witch doctors to try to resurrect the failure and make it the ZHD (Zombie HD?). (Is that why a few years ago MS had 56 billion in cash reserves and is now down to 25 billion?)

The Zune is a sales disaster even after MS pumped 100 million into the launch and more millions after that. In the Jan Quarter it lost another 54% of its miniscule sales while iPod gained.

In the April Quarter the entire E&D division of MS which holds Zune, Xbox, Media Downloads, Games , Peripherals AND Win Mobile LOST 31 million!

MS E&D is roughly equal to Apple App Store, iTunes, Apple TV, Apple Peripherals, iPod and iPhone. IMAGINE if Apple's group LOST MONEY!!

E&D is a sorry mess.

A few years ago MS was going to kill the iPod and after waiting for two years for iPod to die laughing, they are trying again.

This time (dear God) they going to use WINDOWS CE!

to fight iPhone OS 3.0. Even Rim couldn't out OS Apple with the touch Storm and MS is trying with touch Win CE.

Early this year Samsung and Sony two of MS biggest mobile customers gave up Win Mobile (CE's offspring) in disgust and put Symbian on their flagship phones.

If Sony and Samsung long experienced device makers gave up on Win Mobile will MS with a sucky record of consumer tech ( the original Zune was just a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat player and even the 'successful' Xbox is a money loser with a Billion Dollars in warranty claims from burnt out Xboxes) succeed with CE? Think not.

Many MS apologists went into ecstatic spasms when the original Zune appeared saying the bigger horizontal Zune screen will kill the iPod (classic) and now the same are saying the 'Oled' screen will kill the Touch. Deja Vu.

(by the way Oled screens are just generic. Apple can get them if they wanted to. The original iPhone didn't have 3G and they got it when they thought the time was right).

They don't understand it's not just isolated features but the whole user experience with the device, the User Interface, hardware and software working together and Apple wins with this hands down.

Now MS is going to resurrect the Zune and go head to head to iPod Touch with it's great OS and 30,000 plus apps with Zune running CE. It's going to be a repeat of Zune one fiasco.

No wonder a decade ago MS market cap was 600 billion and Apple 15 billion and now MS is 179 billion and Apple 119 billion. See who's shrinking and who's growing?

The Palm Pre: Can One Device Save Two Companies?

When Roger McNamee a Palm investor
made extreme claims for the palm in public, Palm legal
was completely terrified and hurriedly filed 'corrections',
(SIX PAGES of it!) to the SEC!

Here's what Palm Legal said to the SEC (vs. all the
marketing hype)

About claims of Palm's much greater speed than the
iPhone.

Palm Legal:
"the Palm Pre is still under development and it is
premature to state the speed at which the device accesses
the web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to
the smartphone products of competitors."

About the Superiority of the Palm vs other smartphones

Palm Legal:

"the Palm Pre is designed to be the first phone based on
the Palm webOS platform and as a result will have different
operating characteristics and features than other phones,
however; the Palm Pre is still under development and it is
premature to compare its full functionality with that of
other phones"

About the better reception to iPhone's AT&T 3G network

Palm Legal:

"regarding the relative development and stability of
Sprint's, Verizon's and AT&T's 3G networks are
generalizations regarding wireless cellular network
performance that may or may not be true depending on a
variety of factors specific to geographic regions"

About McNamee's claim that iPhone users will flock to the
Pre.

Palm Legal:
"an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern
and is withdrawn"


About the superiority of Palm Web Os vs iPhone i.e that it's
more 'advanced' and 'newer' than OsX.

Palm Legal:
"estimating one specific age for the many technology
components underlying any mobile phone is inherently
imprecise and these statements are withdrawn"

------

Seems like the only thing Palm Legal didn't dismiss were
McNamees statements that the Pre wasn't a real competitor
to the iPhone but something else, the Pre as sitting
between ordinary cell phones and high end smart phones.

McNamee said "I hope people will be excited about the Pre"
although "it won't be fantastic for playing games like the
iPhone." !!!!

i.e the Palm can' run CPU intensive stuff like high end
games!

That bit that the Pre won't be good at games like the
iPhone Palm Legal didn't change! :)

People should chew on all this awhile before wafting in the
Pre hype.

The App Store: A Billion Downloads, But Not Much Revenue

Better than Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division LOSING 31 million last quarter!

last quarter (reported in April 09) Microsoft's Entertainment
and Devices Division which includes

download services like Xbox Live

PLUS Zune, all MS devices like keyboards mice joysticks etc, all the Games studios, Windows Mobile and all Xbox hardware...


LOST 31 million!!!

Paraphrasing this blog (and much more appropriate) with Win Mobile (all the phone, PDA etc licenses), Xbox etc. "You’d think the company would be raking in big bucks."

so Apple's less than one year old App Store not doing so
bad in comparison huh?

Msft E&D is roughly equal to the App Store, iTunes, iPod and iPhone, Apple TV and all Apple keyboards etc

looks like fresh new little App Store outperforming the whole dam MS division!

Expect Major Changes in the Mobile Landscape Imminently

Zune and the statement "I bet that has got you excited"

As the joke goes "all the people who have the current Zunes, all 12 of them are excited".

Really the Zune is barely breathing and on life support. In the January quarter sales down by 54%. Zune has lost millions for Microsoft.

---
The division that Zune belongs to Msfts Entertainment and Devices
Division made a paltry of 426 million for the entire 2008 fiscal year.

Gamesindustry:

"Microsoft released its Q4 and FY 2008 earnings reports today, with the Entertainment and Devices Division reporting a USD 426 million profit over the year."

Note that E&D contains Zune, Xbox, all the Msft. devices like keyboards and mice, All Windows Mobile licenses, and many other
things. And this division one of only five divisions in Msft. made a miserly 400+ million in one whole year!

PC Advisor in January says that the Zune is heading towards 'Zero Market-share" echoed by the Wall Street Journal: "at its much faster rate of decline, the Zune player looks like it's headed from low to no market share".

Apple execs must really like the Zune, a comparison of the Zune to an iPod Touch must be best PR Apple can have for the superiority of Apple technology.

Amazon Gaining Share on iTunes

Some reports say that the music companies sell music to Amazon at much lower prices than they do for Apple to try to dilute Apple's hold. Even now many of the songs sold at 1.29 on Apple is only 99 on Amazon. Computerworld says that Amazon gets prices so low they can sell it for less than what the music labels offer Apple. Computerworld adds tongue-cheek that Apple might as well buy its music from Amazon! But amazing enough even with the scales weighted against it Apple is so good at giving a good user experience that it still holds such a lead over Amazon. We'll have to wait and see if the music labels become fairer towards Apple now that music labels got their variable pricing model.

Companies' Cash Holdings: The Winners and Losers

I notice that you have Apple net cash at 23 billion.

Apple CFO Oppenheimer said during Q1 financial report on Jan 2009 said that Apple had over 28 billion in cash and no debt. The quarter before that Apple had over 25 billion.

venturebeat.com/2009/0.../

Am I reading the reading the financials wrong? Perhaps i am but I just wanted to point it out.

Apple: Fraying at the Edges?

Arstechnica Aug 19, 2008

"The most recent results of the American Customer Satisfaction Index puts Apple ahead of all other computer manufacturers with a rating of 85 percent, a new high for the industry. The Cupertino company saw an improvement of 8 percent since the last measurement, putting it 10 full percentage points ahead of its nearest competitor in an industry where the general satisfaction rating has gone down for the second straight time. "

Apple: Fraying at the Edges?

In my 20 years of using Macs, my experience is Macs run great. I still have an old G4 going full out. I still see colored imacs being heavily used as library terminals in the local university. From what I see and experience Macs are tough, much tougher than PCs.

As this is an 'investment' blog, from what I've read the Mac Book Air has also been a runaway success for Apple. Apple notebook sales are up 60+ % and the Macbook Air is playing a part in this and according to reports not cannibalizing macbook and Macbook Pro sales.

Computerworld:

""And Apple got a nice bump from the MacBook Air," he (NPD analyst Stephen Baker) added. The MacBook Air, the ultrathin laptop that was unveiled in mid-January by Apple CEO Steve Jobs but which didn't start shipping until early February, accounted for about 20% of Apple's notebook sales last month. Better still for Apple, Baker said, it appears that the new model didn't cannibalize sales of existing Apple products.

"It looks like the Air is giving Apple an incremental volume opportunity," Baker said."

Research In Motion's Dream Run Comes to an End

Many of the advantages of Blackberry which people commented on last year has been addressed by iPhone 2.0 for example exchange support etc.

Things which blackberry supporters are now harping on as Blackberry advantages are things like:

- server control for things like push applications in enterprises
- Greater encryption
- a Keyboard

All the above and other Blackberry advantages Apple can get and implement - IF they wanted to, it'll just take a bit of time like getting 3G and GPS.

BUT blackberry will never be able to get an OS like OsX (a modified version which runs the iPhone). It took Steve and Gang something like 20 years to create (starting from Next OS) which makes the iPhone a much more powerful computer than the other smart phones. Microsoft can't match OsX so PHONE makers don't have a chance and when developers jump on board with the iPhone SDK the Os will be unassailable like Windows had been for many years (even IBM couldn't do it with Os2 after spending billions).

Apple Will Flourish With or Without Steve Jobs

Some good points in the article and posts here.

I'll just ad one more thing on the OS thing. Microsoft's grip on the OS is a double edged sword for a Microsoft and an opportunity for Apple. It's a positive for Microsoft as it's tremendous market share (a near monopoly in same areas) gives it tremendous revenue but because it needs to support so many legacy applications, hardware configurations that it finds itself in bind in innovation. Many are still sticking with XP which is what 7 years old? This gives an opportunity for Apple which can innovate much quicker and increase it's OS lead. OsX because it is Unix based is a more modern (and stable and secure) OS than Windows and Apple innovates faster with it, from XP to Vista, Apple has put out Cheetah (Puma), Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and Leopard. Next year it has promised Snow Leopard.