GSlusher

Amazon: A Kindle Under Every Tree?

Three reasons, I would suppose (though I agree with your conclusion):

1. Larger, higher-resolution display, so it shows more of a page.
2. Cell-phone connection to get books, though getting them through Amazon's web site wouldn't be too inconvenient, as long as one has Wifi available.
3. Longer battery life, as the display itself doesn't require power unless you're changing a page.

A quibble: there is no such thing as an "iTouch," despite what some lazy columnists write. Apple sells the "iPod touch." It's like calling a car a Toyrolla.

Edit: as I recall, the Kindle also plays audiobooks.


On Nov 21 08:59 AM mollytjm wrote:

> why would anyone buy the Kindle for that price when they can get
> an iTouch that does the same thing and about a zillion other things?
> And the reading experience is terrific on it. audiobooks are wonderful
> too.
> i think this article must be an ad or something.

A Worm in the Apple?

Is there any hard evidence that "Bollinger Band" analysis works, other than through self-fulfilling prophesy? (I.e., many traders use the same tool and act accordingly, which then skews the market.)

Apple to Open 50 More Stores - Let's Be Careful, Steve

@Roger Knights:
" Manhattan is probably the only location with more than one store in the US ..."

No. Check the list. There are two in Tigard, OR, a southern suburb of Portland, plus one in downtown Portland. According to Google Maps, they are 4.9 miles/7 minutes apart by car. That is not as close as the Manhattan stores in space (the time may be similar, considering traffic, etc), but it's still very close, and Portland is a lot smaller than Manhattan. Both are in very large, upscale shopping centers.

Several large urban areas have more than one Apple Store--Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas. Palo Alto has two. Arlington, VA, has two 3.5 mi apart.

An interesting tidbit: there is no Apple Store in Cupertino. The closest are probably in San Jose and Palo Alto.

Apple to Open 50 More Stores - Let's Be Careful, Steve

Apple takes a long-range view of the stores. Each represents a significant investment and I expect that they don't make a move precipitously. The process doesn't take a couple of months but several years--planning, developing, permitting, construction all take time. (Especially if a store is not in a mall.)

They can--and do--train personnel, well in advance of opening a store. Many said that Apple couldn't staff 20 stores, much less 200. Find the article that said that the "selection rate" for the latest NYC store was lower than Harvard's admission rate--under 10%. Sounds like they won't have much trouble staffing.

They may decrease revenue/sq ft, but, if the total revenue and profit goes up, where's the problem?

While Rivals Jockey for Market Share, Apple Bathes in Profits

Since when? The iPod and iPhone were not "First to Market." What product(s) are you referring to?


On Nov 12 08:15 AM SusanGrisanti wrote:

> Apple has had 'First To Market' Advantage for decades. When a good
> product is consistent & first to market it usually has to do
> less to stay on top.

Expect Apple's December Earnings to Grow 37%

Advill, you've been told before that Apple has ALREADY sold millions of iPhones in China--indirectly, but a sale is a sale. Sounds like you're closing your eyes, covering your ears, and yelling "NaNaNaNa" to shut out the facts when they threaten your conclusions.


On Nov 10 11:39 AM Advill wrote:

> A review of your numbers based in the DISASTER that Apple is facing
> in China nowdays is important.
>
> Is incredible how they losed ground before the chinese realities,
> the China team of Apple is not getting any result.

Maybe the Droid Launch Wasn't So Bad After All

1. You can get the iPhone battery replaced by Apple. Besides, most people will upgrade or change phones before the battery becomes an issue.

apple.com/batterie...

The iPhone will hold up to 80% charge through at least 400 charge cycles. If you get AppleCare with the iPhone, Apple will replace the battery free during the 3-year period of AppleCare if the battery capacity goes below 50%. If the iPhone is out of warranty, the battery can be replaced for $79 + $6.95 shipping.

2. It doesn't matter what the Droid can do. Verizon's CDMA network can't handle simultaneous voice and data. One probably can do simultaneous data and voice if one is also connected via WiFi. Some CDMA phones will stop Internet data traffic when a call comes in. Some may be able to put a call on "hold" (in effect), use the web, then go back to the call. That's not the same as simultaneous voice and data. You can't talk on the phone WHILE you are using the browser.

3. Your comment about TDMA being "analog technology" is way off the mark. It's purely digital. See:

searchmobilecomputing....

4. Re: Navigation: It's free NOW. Any solid guarantee that it will remain so? Verizon likes to charge extra for everything. Also, I'm not sure that I'd want to use my phone for in-car navigation.

How much do you want to bet that Google will make an iPhone app that does everything that the Droid does? It would be in Google's interest, as they want the ad revenue.

On top of that, Apple bought a mapping company. They may well add their own built-in navigation application shortly.

5. The iPhone doesn't "convert" music to another format. I don't know where you got that idea. iTunes (and the iPods and iPhones) can play AAC, MP3, and other formats, as is. Today, all of the iTunes Store music is in AAC (a superior format to MP3, but one that can be played on nearly any "MP3" player, including the Zune, for example), but it is not "protected." You can easily add MP3s from, say, Amazon, to the iTunes library and it does NOT change their format. I've done that many times.

It's easy to use music from your iTunes library on a non-Apple device--you just can't do it with the iTunes application. There are other applications that will load music from your iTunes library (an .xml file, that's all) to a phone or other MP3 player.

For further "proof," remember that, at one time, the Palm Pre could be synced with iTunes, until Apple updated iTunes to prevent that.

Also, iTunes IS free.

On Nov 09 06:20 AM Droidum wrote:

> GSlusher... I understand your comment, but you may have gotten a
> few things wrong. The battery issue for instance, is not necessarily
> for a change in the battery today, but for when the inevitable happens
> and the battery can no longer hold a decent charge. With the iPhone,
> you basically have to buy a new phone. Not a major issue for most,
> but something to think about... Now for the technology issue.. the
> Droid does data and voice simultaneously. CDMA is a superior technology
> to GSM, but GSM was first, much like the iPhone is first and took
> off around the world because of it. CDMA is digital, therefore you
> have a crisper quality call, where GSM uses TDMA technology, basically
> analog technology and can be choppy and produce static on the line.
> In addition, EVDO is how the data link is run. Two separate technologies
> integrated into one system.
>
> Enough about the technology though... lets talk about why the Motorola/Google/Verizon
> phone is better. Navigation to start... with the iPhone, you have
> to pay for the service and many people do. It's free with the Droid
> as you know. The Droid has a bigger screen with better resolution...
> the Droid is customizable with widgets... I could go on, but you
> get the point.
>
> The iPhone has the music player, but if you give it a few months,
> once Google comes out with their open source music player, the competition
> will really open up. Why then would anyone stay latched to the iPhone
> where all of your music gets converted to their format and you have
> to pull your teeth out to get it to play on anything else… maybe
> Apple can get ahead of the curve and change that now before Google
> stomps all over them with the free one.

What's Wrong with the Gaming Industry?

Are you trying to be funny or are you just ignorant? If the former, you failed, miserably. If the latter, get a dictionary.

On Nov 09 05:04 AM Michael Clark wrote:

> marshal law ---> martial law ---> marital law

Congratulations to Apple's Steve Jobs, Fortune's CEO of the Decade

Several people have explained the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx." For one thing, people tend to remember the few athletes who started downhill after they were on the cover more than the majority who don't.

Stephen Jay Gould, among others, pointed out that, in the universe, there's something called "regression to the mean." In the long run, short term fluctuations tend to average out. The athletes on the SI cover have usually been having an unusually good record recently, far above their average performance. Thus, it's likely that their performance will decline sometime in the (near) future. (It's not just that there's nowhere to go but down.)

There's also no definition of the timing of the SI cover jinx--how long it takes to come to fruition. It's been said to be a week, a month, 6 months, even an entire season. If you wait long enough, any team or athlete (or any stock!) will have a downturn.


On Nov 06 10:22 AM logicalthought wrote:

> Steve Jobs is a brilliant guy and Apple makes fabulously creative
> products (and this is not a short-term call because I don't follow
> the company at all), but based on the "Sports Illustrated cover jinx
> principle", it's probably time to sell the stock. For those who've
> never heard of this, the rationale is simple: It's an extremely competitive
> world out there, and once you're universally recognized as being
> on top of it, there's nowhere to go but down.

Maybe the Droid Launch Wasn't So Bad After All

First, I'm a long-time (17 years) Mac user and an Apple user for even longer (25 years). I own a few shares of AAPL--my only "individual" stock--other holdings are all mutual funds. I hope to get an iPhone, maybe next year. (It was set back by losing almost $7K of photo gear to theft. I won't replace all of that, but do need enough to push back buying the iPhone--not the cost of the phone, but the service.)

However, I hope that the Droid sells well. Competition helps keep Apple pumping out improvements, though not the way many people think. If Apple based its current or next-year improvements on the Droid, they'd be in the same position as those desperately trying to catch up with the iPhone. Apple has to ANTICIPATE what its competitors WILL do, not REACT to what they HAVE done. (The Wayne Gretzky cliche comes to mind.) Apple has to assume that some companies will come out with very good phones, in some case beating the iPhone in some ways, though not the ways so many simplistic "analysts" harp on, like physical keyboards and user-replaceable batteries. (Side note: when the iPhone first came out, the non-replaceable battery was a "big deal" in the press. I asked people I knew who had an advanced phone two questions: 1) Can you replace your phone's battery? and 2) Do you have a spare battery? If so, do you carry it around with you? The surprise was that more than half didn't even know if they could replace the battery. Many assumed that they could, but didn't know how to do it. Only 3 of the 50+ I asked had an extra battery and only one carried it with her. She showed me by changing the battery, but the extra battery wasn't charged.)

Apparently, Apple was right that a user-replaceable battery wouldn't be a big issue for most people. (If it's important to YOU, then get a phone with one. 30+ million buyers apparently didn't care.) A company can lose its direction AND spend a lot of money chasing the needs/desires of that last segment of potential buyers, with negligible returns. (That's also why Apple hasn't--and probably won't--get into the "netbook" business--they don't need it.)

Instead, Apple has concentrated on the user experience, not the phone specs. Little things like the sensor that turns off the screen when you put the phone to your ear, the intelligent auto-correction that adapts to the user, the consistent interface (a big problem with Palm OS software for my TX), even the form factor (thin, rounded for comfort) are examples. Thus, to me, it will be any enhancements to the user experience in the Droid that will have an effect on Apple's plans, not the hardware.

I have a feeling that Apple was not all that serious about partnering with Verizon because of CDMA. They would have had to make two iPhones--CDMA for the US and GSM for nearly every other country. That increases R&D, manufacturing and support costs. Add to that the inherent limitations of CDMA (e.g.,no simultaneous voice & data, so you can't access the Internet while on a phone call) and Apple wouldn't be likely to go that route--not then and not now. When Verizon implements a LTE network over a significant area, then Apple may come out with an LTE iPhone.

It will be interesting to see how many Droids are sold to people who were not already Verizon subscribers. (A high percentage of iPhone sales are to "switchers.")

Does Steve Jobs Deserve Fortune's "CEO of the Decade" Award?

Of course, they knew that when they asked him.

On Nov 06 08:48 PM None-Too-Great Hits wrote:

> I too have often wondered how the Stanford officials on the podium
> felt when Steve mentioned that he had never graduated from college
> himself.

Whose Notebook PC Business Is Most Valuable?

Care to bet your life on that? I.e., if any computer using your chip experiences any problem from malware over, say, 7 years, would you commit ritual suicide in public? If your answer is "No," don't use words like "absolute certainty."

On Nov 08 09:43 AM dmeharc wrote:

> our chip works with absolute certainty.

How Apple and iPhone Blew It in China

How? You don't provide any reasons, examples, data, or anything other than a bald assertion.

On Nov 08 05:40 PM Advill wrote:

> Americentric is not working, your analysis is wrong.

Motorola's Droid Comes in Peace - For Now

That's only part of the problem. CDMA does not allow simultaneous voice & data; GSM does. Thus, a Verizon Droid user cannot check something on the Internet while on a call--she will have to terminate the call, first. While that may sound trivial, it isn't. I've known people who carry two phones, one for calls, the other for data, for this reason. If a client calls, they need to be able to access their company's private web site & database. Telling a client (or boss or spouse/significant other/partner), "I have to hang up so that I can check that on my brand-new Droid. I'll call you back," is not good.


On Nov 07 05:31 AM kbear2 wrote:

> Regarding the CDMA/GSM issue, there are phones that can work on either
> system. The HTC TouchPro2 has capabilities built in for both but
> the GSM has been disabled by firmware in order to avoid FCC testing.
> It would be very easy for Apple to include dual use capability.

Quest for the Droid Crowds: Not So Epic

Congrats on your new Droid! Try a little experiment: make a call, then check something on the web, or send or receive email, while you're on the call.

Once you have the results of the experiment, imagine that the person on the other end was 1) your spouse/significant other/partner; 2) your boss; 3) your most important client; 4) your mother. Suppose 1) your spousigothpartner wanted the address of a restaurant where you will meet at lunch--a restaurant you've never been to; 2) your boss wanted some data from a report that you have on the company's network, but not on the Droid; 3) your client wanted information on a product or service, information that's on the company's private web site, but not on the Droid; 4) your mother said that she had just emailed you a photo of your new nephew and wanted to know if you think he's as adorable as she does--she's waiting in her usual impatient way and wants an answer right now.