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sales isn't adoption
The growth in the pie may overwhelm questions about the fraction not yet adopting. Think about desktop computer sales, or worldwide sales of internal combustion engines.
I expect that the iPhone-exclusive tech like multitouch won't see really broad adoption until after the patents expire, but that's just my take. Apple will ride the beginning of the curve into very nice profits.
Assuming Apple figures out how to pitch it. I'd sure like to see more applications for multitouch. I would think some applications with hideously complex interfaces (Maya?) might have a lot better learning curve if hands-on multitouch manipulation and gesture were possible. I also think Apple's due for a tablet for industrial use: in lieu of paper patient charts, for example. The solutions I've seen are pretty bad.
Apple needs to buy a good medical record solution, and so on. They need to acquire a database-driven application team and build solutions for law offices, medical offices, real estate offices, sales applications, etc. The root of the app need not be different, in fact: you need to manage contacts, projects, timelines, responsible personnel, limited-access equipment, inventory ... the specific type of office doesn't matter much. Whether it's HIPAA or a different confidentiality framework, the same concerns are invoked.
Sadly, at the moment, Apple can't deliver email!
Take care,
--Tex.
re uptime
If Apple could offer five nines and 20GB, I'd buy it myself.
Apple hasn't shown me it can do delay-free mail-forwarding, though, which kinda kills my capacity to believe they can do anything else. My business depends on getting email (I get my faxes by email through a service), and I can't afford delay and unreliability in my email. If I depend on a firm to provide backup, I expect that to be at least as reliable as I now expect my email to be.
Apple needs to hire an online services czar. The quality is only going to embarrass Apple and keep it out of the enterprise if this keeps up. Apple's bad service press will be RIMM's service advertisement going forward if Apple doesn't shape it up.
Take care,
--Tex.
synch issues
I noticed that if I added a contact on my phone then synched it with my computer, the compute would erase the added contact because it wasn't on one of the lists that gets synched to my phone. In other words, on synch it's copied from the phone to the computer and not synched back but erased from the phone.
Time for 2.0.1.
Take care,
--Tex.
re T
Given that this is an AT&T-only result, and not a worldwide result, I'd agree it's quite good news. Add to that the fact that folks who left orders after stock ran out were still waiting for the sales to be fulfilled when the first ten days ended, and I'd think the 2x number was low.
Take care,
--Tex.
OT creationism
After reading some (laughable) sites to which I was directed for "evidence" by a creationist working in a law firm, I asked him how creationism explained speciation.
His response: "What's speciation?"
I think the notion is supported by poor science education. Folks don't even know what they are talking about, and what evidence their theories are supposed to fit. Misunderstandings of basic features of the evidence and the theories are easy to spot among proponents and among objectors, leading me to the conclusion that most people are taking their positions -- whatever they are -- on faith rather than on the strength of self-evaluated evidence. After that point, all they do is conduct a religious argument.
I heard it attributed to George Bernard Shaw:
“Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.”
http://www.whale.to/v/shaw1.html
Take care,
--Tex.
OT re evolution
One common error I hear is the assumption that morphological changes must show some kind of gradual special-effect-style slow movement from one form to the next during a big evolutionary change. Mutations are genotypical changes, not phenotypical changes, and changes at that level can have zero visible impact, or significant visible impact. When brown-haired parents create a blonde child, they don't start creating lighter and lighter-haired children until they get it right; they create a child and if the recessive light-haired genes in both parents appear in the offspring, you get a child with hair that looks like a radical departure from the parent.
Lots of mutations are simply fatal.
Folks seem to have a funny idea that evolution promotes the smartest, strongest, etc. -- and this is also bogus. The theory is that specimens unfit to reproduce in their environments don't pass on their genes. In other words, the effect isn't a result of promoting the right-handed tail of the curve, but discriminating against the left-handed tail.
In an environment in which every niche is occupied by a competitor, it's easy to imagine that members of a species that acquire an adaptation that make it good at a niche where they have little support from fellow-creatures will be unfit to thrive and reproduce in that niche, and the result presumably will be that the niche remains occupied by its incumbents. On the other hand, in the wake of some event that leaves available numerous ecological niches, it's easy to imagine an explosion of differentiation as members compete with one another to dominate the new niches, and changes that give a competitive edge in the niche quickly swamp "old model" types more similar to ancestors.
Two interesting things about the fossil record: on the one hand, it suggests certain periods in which differentiation occurred at a higher-than-present rate; and on the other hand, because of the rather oddball conditions under which a creature is fossilized (rather than being, e.g., consumed by scavengers) the fossil record doesn't promise to offer a specimen of every creature that existed. It's a weak survey tool, apparently.
One could speculate about why mutation rates might not be consistent over huge spans of time, or the frequency with which there are good niches free for the taking by some enterprising new competitor, but it's not my area.
The most interesting thing about the debate over evolution is the fact that both sides accuse the other of politicizing the debate, and using power rather than evidence to "win" through policy implementation. The primacy of political power over actual data-supported research results isn't confined to evolution, either. We see this also in ecological policy, energy policy, health policy, liability policy -- the problems facing the quest to get good policy (in education, public health, trade, you name it) are beset by folks who care more about being thought right than actually making sure they're right -- people who care more about getting their intended result than getting the right result.
Despite my strong conviction that ID offers no helpful thesis (if you teach kids "it's magic" it doesn't give them tools for understanding how to work with the forces that still govern the world about them), I would rather see legitimate efforts to hone good theories about speciation than merely see destruction by political force of folks whose principal crime is a crackpot theory. We have, on this planet, come to respect some crackpot theories over time and it's hard to know from the great sea of crackpot theories which ones will turn out to be supported by evidence. The ecological debate is like this much more than the ID debate, of course, as the ID debate is a naked theological proposition, but my point is that we have to think about the standards by which we will regard theories (regardless of origin) when designing policy potentially impacted by the theories. At present in my view we have a simple political fight, and that is fine in the case in which the prevailing theory happens to be right, but it's a poor model for consistently developing good policy.
Power always defeats mere knowledge in the short run. Right or wrong.
Take care,
--Tex.
re App Store on tablet
I think the games would sell well. The question is whether the games need graphics updates to run at higher resolution without jaggies.
I think that stuff like ePocrates would do well, too, on a tablet.
Why would you use those apps if you had full OS X?
I would turn the question upside down: why would Apple prevent MacOS X users who have an accelerometer, touch screen, and GPS from using the same apps they bought for their phones? Or selling to people with no phone?
Next, I expect App Store as an option for regular Mac apps.
The existence of OS X from iPod Touch through compute clusters, with everything between, will become a greater and greater asset for Apple the more Apple manages to grow the diversity of the members of the environment and the size of the population in use. Pretending the App Store makes no profit will be like pretending the iPhone yields only 1/24 to 1/8 its revenue on the day Apple gets paid its carrier subsidy. Uh-huh.
If the recession harms folks selling things like medical office management software, Apple could pick up some good deals while employing some of its cash. I hope.
I've been hoping for a tablet for some time. I think waiting for multitouch is good, as it allows Apple to have a way to ignore extraneous touches from other hands, or enable simultaneous use of different on-screen controls. The question is whether Apple offers a stand and keyboard so folks can pretend it's a desktop when they really need to type. Keyless keyboards lack the tactile feedback, and it's hard to imagine touch-typing on it.
Take care,
--Tex.
re bear case
Thanks. The announced story on iPods was y/y growth, and I didn't have my calculator out to spot the sequential contraction. I did notice that the prior quarter showed a sequential increase when folks predicted a sequential contraction. I was thinking any sequential issues were potentially attributable to seasonality and wasn't alarmed, so long as the comparable quarter last year showed Apple as succeeding.
The fact that folks are spending less on iPods is unsurprising. The effect of growth slowing on multiples is certainly worth talking about -- but was anyone really modeling Apple as growing more than 20% or 30%?
What I have a hard time with is Apple's accounting game with the iPhone. Since Apple doesn't make much use of its cash, I can't even see the point of delaying revenue recognition for tax purposes. As it is, all Apple seems to be doing is torpedoing its current quarters by only taking 1/8 or less of current sales as current (I say "or less" because they aren't doing it over 8 quarters but 24 months, and presumably most of a quarter's sales aren't in the first month of the quarter). Sure, Apple gets a revenue-smoothing effect from this ... but surely folks watching the numbers are trying to assess Apple's competitiveness on the basis of unit share, and when they turn to Apple's earnings to see what Apple actually did on the bottom line with those sales, Apple gets clobbered.
The only reasonable thing I can imagine is that telephone pricing and kickback information must be such secretive information and so useful to competitors that Apple is obfuscating the details of its carrier arrangements so they can't be readily sussed out of its financials and exploited by competitors.
One of the bigger long-term irritations I have with Apple (other than its anti-shareholder management and its tendency to dilute) is Apple's lack of exploitation of cash. Apple should do something with it, or let me do something with it. Whenever I read valuations that try to back out the cash in determining Apple's value, I keep thinking that a dollar in Apple's account is worth a lot less than in my own account, and that some discount should be applied.
Decelerating retail growth is certainly of interest, but I've yet to see Apple really attack potentially large markets like Russua, China (one store, whee!), and South America. Apple admits 50% Mac growth in these areas, plus in Germany and France. (And when did they ever agree on anything?) Apple should be exploiting this.
But maybe the Mob in Russia isn't worth fighting
Take care,
--Tex.
Spitsong re bear: rofl. em.
re private matter
Having read a biography of Jobs, I understand the response a bit differently. It's not ominous, except that giving out detailed answers would tend to get the speaker fired. The analysis I've seen is that Jobs probably had a Whipple (a surgical procedure) when he was treated, and it's a not-too-uncommon side-effect of Whipples to experience weight loss.
Jobs is overprotective of his privacy and he regards his health as a private matter, and he thinks it's enough to appear on stage and pronounce himself "cured" to quell future inquiries. Jobs thinks his statement should be taken as the last word on it. The fact people worry and get all twisted up over his weight probably baffles him.
The "Jobs loves Apple" line was to ensure people Jobs won't be leaving. The "Jobs serves at the pleasure of the Board" statement seems calculated to ensure that the Board is keeping score on his performance and will keep him on as long as he's doing the job well. Of course it's easy to make snide comments about the likelihood of Jobs' board doing anything to Jobs while he still has breath in his body ....
In short, I don't see this an a Kremlin denial, but as a Jobsian privacy control measure. I don't read it ominously.
On the drop I was able to get a relative in under 150, which was cool. I think Apple's Mac business will really produce going forward. The stuff I was dreaming about ten years ago looks like it's possibly becoming a near-term thing.
Take care,
--Tex.
OK, the call is over
what'd I miss?
Margin was helped by vendor contract truing, Apple predicts product transitions will impair future margins ...?
I see rosy things, and I'd like to hear the bear case. I just don't see it on the announced news.
Take care,
--Tex.
Gifts
This is one thing the new in-store activation system prevents: gifts.
I made this criticism in a piece of feedback to the Apple Music Store (before it changed its mane to iTunes Music Store in the throes of the Beatles litigation) in connection with the at-purchase DRM restrictions, before gift cards were available. I've since seen lots of iTunes gift cards, and I've given them myself.
I've seen iPhones given as gifts, and I suspect in-store activation will be a barrier to would-be gift-givers, and I am interested to see how this issue is addressed.
The prospect of shelling out $2k for a gift as the only alternative is rather daunting for some gift-givers, I'd think. In the meantime, though, it's certainly one way to ensure the contract is bought and that nobody takes a subsidized-priced phone without paying for the contract.
Maybe there's a way to record the buyer's information in connection with the phone so that on activation it's credited the subsidy ....
How is this being addressed in the US?
Take care,
--Tex.
Sentiment as an indicator?
No panic:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/07/18/financial.planners/index.html
Folks are talking about how they're glad to be past the bottom. If folks aren't really scared, maybe we're nowhere near the bottom ...
Anyone have thoughts on this? Is the panic limited to traders and reporters? Are folks just clueless what's coming?
Take care,
--Tex.
re Amazon
I've actually used Amazon's store for music; they have a 256kb MP3 offering at the same price as Apple's DRMmed versions (at lower bitrate, but one must admit one gets more out of AAC at similar bitrates so the superiority of 256kb MP3 over 128kb AAC may not be great, and I haven't tested the two stores' products side by side, so here I just focus on the freedom from DRM). I've had to replace the motherboard on my computer too many times to think I'm likely to be able to play songs I buy reliably under a DRM-enforced registration system with a cap on registered computers. Recently I had to deregister all my computers and start over, since the last 3 motherboards in my iMac were eating most of the space on the registration list.
If Amazon and Sony can make getting content as easy as Apple has made it, I think their product will do nicely. The video content I saw at Amazon seemed to be on sale as a $3 rental with a short lifespan, but who am I to guess whether there's a market for that? I can think offhand of some circumstances where it'd be nice to access a title temporarily. Who knows?
Will download kill DVD sales? Frankly, I think HD demand will be migrating people off traditional DVD ... but then, folks have posted here about how the average person doesn't even notice SD stretched sideways, so maybe not
My question on TVs as an Apple business in an era of integrated set-top boxes is whether Apple can really compete in a market that's so full of competition and has such well-established and high-quality vendors, including most of the plausible OEMs for the parts one would expect Apple to need. This sounds like the question raised when Apple entered cell phones, except that RIMM isn't an OEM, it's a direct competitor like Dell. If Apple needed to source flat screens from someone, it'd be a someone already in the flatscreen TV business, right? On the other hand, maybe Apple and Intel could cook up a controller solution that would make it a plausible competitor.
Any ideas?
I think an Apple-branded TV would offer some very interesting opportunities, but until the content deals are there, it's unclear how Apple would differentiate itself. The other big question is this: does Apple assume everyone has a hi-fi system and include no speakers, or does Apple gamble at raising the price of its unit by integrating something that doesn't suck? I've seen TVs that do either, and of course I use my own amp and speakers, but I don't know what the broader market demands. Maybe Apple can retread the boom-box speaker system http://www.apple.com/ca/ipodhifi/ it used to sell for folks who don't have their own systems?
When Apple went into retail, it recruited a Gap exec to instruct it how to think about competing in retail, and this clearly worked out. To compete in something like televisions, perhaps Apple should obtain some expertise in the matter someplace. Offhand, I can't think where, but there has to be someone who can help Apple find the sweet spot in this market.
Do we know how Amazon's electronic sales compare to iTunes' after you subtract out the music and books from each? I wonder how competition is really going in the video business. I don't know if Apple's modest-sounding number is as bad as I thought, or if the market is really just that tiny, and I have no idea (I've looked a little, but either in the wrong place or it's not easily available) how large Amazon's sales/rentals are.
Take care,
--Tex.
re iPhone focus
Apple's 2008 Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC) conference's keynote was full of iPhone development talk because iPhone development was the big news for the developers.
Apple's already taking a stab at the TV. Apple's faced resistance from production houses who don't want to lose control of content distribution. They look at the plight of music labels and wonder what they need to do to not be next. Also, video has historically been sold with DRM, so building a customer base on the basis of computer-run jukeboxes supported by company-supplied software are just not going to cut it. The DMCA rears its ugly head, again, this time preventing iTunes from being extended logically to do for video what it did for my music collection.
So long as video support for computer jukeboxes must come from third parties, or requires folks to buy special computer editions of their movies, Apple's video tool will continue to face nasty headwinds.
Meanwhile, iPhone is seemingly doing nicely, with long waits for delivery of a product that seemingly had a big production ramp. Weren't those several-million rumors all about the 3G phone?
Take care,
--Tex.
re delighted
Amen!
I'm looking at the pre-earnings selloff and wondering whether it says expectations are low (and easily satisfied) or whether sentiment is awful. I think the former case is terribly unlikely. Sentiment thus must be abysmal, no?
I'm interested in what Apple says about (a) its computer business, and (b) its margins. Is Apple's big new campus the kind of thing that could be weighing on margins? I'm trying to puzzle it out. It seems unlikely Apple has suddenly become incompetent at supply-chain management or part sourcing, and Apple's volumes have given it a much better position from which to negotiate parts contracts. I'm thinking there's some investment going on that isn't yet in shipping products that's driving up costs to weigh margin, but I don't know what it might be. They weren't talking about it the last time they were pressed on it in an earnings call.
Anyone have thoughts?
Take care,
--Tex.
re 15%
I find myself wondering ... with the election out of the way, and everyone focused in fiscal policy in 2009, exactly how many people will be lined up to sell, sell, sell long-term cap gains to capture current rates, operating under the assumption they'll never see 15% cap gains again as long as they live.
Although Obama has announced interest in raising this rate, the winner of the draw for the presidential mansion won't matter much if Congress is uninterested in extending a cap-gains break. I think the ride is over.
The question is, will anyone have capital gains left by the time the election rolls around?
Heh, heh.
Take care,
--Tex.
re French MLB
The genius of Cocoa is its localization. Try it yourself. Change your primary language preference to German or Spanish and relaunch Mail.app
You just need ONE version of your app in Cocoa!
Of course, if you don't bother to localize for some language it's not like it's all magic -- but localization is something you can actually get folks to add for you if you like after an app is compiled.
Take care,
--Tex.
re optimism
The thesis that companies reporting next week should beat because they beat before is entertaining, but it ignores that even beating profit estimates didn't help Apple particularly when its numbers worried watchers about margins erosion.
I think there's good possibility that just beating profit estimates won't be enough to please everyone. Failing to beat by a shocking big margin might trigger the sell-on-news phenomenon we've seen in Apple before. The question here is whether Apple actually offers insight into this quarter that excites observers. An update on iPhone sales, App Store revenues, and so on would enable Apple to throw a little pizazz into what otherwise could be a really uninspiring call.
And we know how uninspiring Apple's execs can be when Jobs isn't there to sell the story. I honestly wonder if they could give away water to people stranded in the desert, when I hear their answers.
On the other hand, I think Mac growth sets up the basis for a long-term view that Apple's profit will continue growing nicely, and I think the broadening 3G Phone rollout will be good for both press and real revenues. I'm dying to hear how the thing does in markets like Korea, Japan, and China.
Hmm. I wonder whether Apple's geography restrictions on applications will become an issue. Anyone know why applications would arbitrarily be limited by Apple to being offered only in certain locations? I thought the whole point of the App Store was one shop worldwide -- and that this was the lure for developers.
Take care,
--Tex.
re the short play
Obviously margins matters to Apple, and Apple's iPhone sales in the quarter are capped at about 600k, making the quarter's variability mostly about Macs. (The music store isn't a big net generator, and we're not seriously expecting a big surprise in iPods, are we?)
My question is why his thesis about margins means anything other than Apple is gaming its revenue recognition by deferring revenue eight quarters while (I expect) expensing components as they are shipped off in devices. I suppose his point about diluting Apple's margins with a barely-profitable iTunes business has some merit, but honestly exchanging dollars for 98-cent services is not a drain on the bottom line. It might not be much help, but it's not a net negative. What he's proposing seems to be that Apple is suffering a problem in components, or has some other issue impacting the areas of business that create profit at Apple.
I wonder if Apple has entered into a long-term supply contract like it did to corner 1.8" hard drives when the iPod originally launched, and is paying now for a component advantage down the road. What else plausibly explains Apple's margins?
As for the price action of the stock, you have me. This thing is volatile as all get-out, and I don't think there's much commitment to propping it up while financials are in the throes of a panic. Who's got the bucks to stop an elephant like this if it wants to fall down? The chart worshipper who posted last week that Apple was a short saw it heading to the 40s.
My basic position is that Apple has got growing business where its profit is, and prices eventually rationalize. I've probably never timed anything in my life -- at least, not successfully -- and I don't plan to start pretending now. Of course, if you have tips on how to do timing for real I'm all ears
Not that that's the be-all or end-all, but the price action in the stock here looks ominous enough that it would make me a tad nervous if I was sitting on an unhedged long position of any meaningful size.
Riding AAPL is a nervous operation if you're worried about short-term stock moves. I'm not keen on guessing short-term movements.
he does sketch out a more than reasonable potential outcome
Yeah, but without the underlying reasoning behind his margins thesis, the fact his outcome is plausible doesn't help much in deciding why it's more or less likely than other plausible outcomes. I don't think the post really helps understand Apple's business. Talking about losing iPod sales to iPhones as if it were a problem is the kind of thing that tends to convince me I'm listening to someone who hasn't thought it through.
Take care,
--Tex.
re booting The Other OS
Product Activation is a pain, eh? I sure love the ability to boot at will from my machine's various partitions or from other machines that are in target disk mode. This is one area -- though I seldom use it -- where Apple's administration and maintenance environment are such a league ahead of anything I've seen elsewhere that I hope Apple maintains this kind of feature.
Do Macs boot to external USB 2.0 drives yet? Was that part of the magic that EFI was supposed to allow?
Take care,
--Tex.
re music IP contracts
Declaring the contracts void could burn some folks, but I reckon they aren't folks anyone cares about. The power to declare void longstanding contracts, understood to be enforced under local law, would scare me, frankly.
The EU regulators are voiding the contracts, or are begging the parties to all make some agreement on cross-border fee-splitting?
Take care,
--Tex.
re subscription accounting
I can understand wanting to defer taxes and all, but now that Apple isn't being paid over the life of a service contract, what possible support could Apple offer that it should be entitled to apply subscription accounting to its cell phone sales?
One thing we can say for the subscription accounting is that it helps obfuscate Apple's revenues, which may produce some competitive advantage. My question is, given Apple's lack of productive use of its cash, what Apple could possibly expect as a benefit from spreading tax obligations over eight quarters?
It'll be interesting to see what the quarter brings. 8-core notebooks sounds wicked, frankly. I wonder how they sell to the engineering students
Take care,
--Tex.
iPhone devs game name ordering rules
To get higher on ordered lists viewed by customers, some devs are already gaming their apps' names with invisible characters:
http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/08/07/14/10m.iphone.apps.cheating/
1m phones is nice, but with all the free stuff 10m apps isn't necessarily indicative of anything but folks trying out the store, which of course isn't bad either.
Take care,
--Tex.
re unlocking
My question is whether a phone unlocked to use unapproved apps is still able to download, buy, and use App Store applications. Assuming the checksum changes when the files are hacked to evade Apple's DRM, I'd think system phone decline loading DRM content.
Anyone know?
Take care,
--Tex.
O2 activation issues
http://www.intomobile.com/2007/11/13/o2s-iphone-activation-system-buckling-under-pressure.html
If Rogers and )2 are having trouble, maybe we can hope this won't be attributed to an Apple/AT&T problem and hurt the image of the phone too badly for folks who care about reliability.
Too much demand ain't a bad thing.
Take care,
--Tex.
re AT&T
A friend called and said all the Rochester-area AT&T stores were out. That's the good news.
The bad news ... well, I won't type this blog entry's title here lest it violate TOS:
http://jadedconsumer.blogspot.com/2008/07/iphuque.html
I sure hope things go swimmingly from here on out, or RIMM is going to make a marketing miracle out of Apple's tripping over its own launch. Would you trust your business to these wet-behind-the-ears amateurs? They'll ask their important accounts. Oh, boy.
I'm eager to hear what the first few months of experience with MobileMe do for users. If it proves truly novel, reliable, and fast, I'll become happier. At present, I'm long simply because there's so much money headed into Apple's pockets over this thing, and most consumers won't care about MobileMe (which they've never had), they will be interested in the phone, the GPS, the apps (games!), and getting a stereo jack they can ... you know ... actually plug a standard mini-stereo jack into. (Shocker!)
Take care,
--Tex.
ugh. Charlie Foxtrot. em.
network crash?
Although it reflects an inauspicious lack of preparedness, the good news is that apparently folks can at least buy them. Have they been activated?
I have a friend who called, and made two comments: (1) pity his work didn't let him off early as he'd hoped, as he wanted to buy a paid of iPhones for him and his wife; (2) it looks like if they like an application they will have to buy 2 copies, one for each phone. His third point was that Apple Stores apparently weren't able to establish family plans, so he would have to buy from an AT&T Store.
Take care,
--Tex.
re online service issues
Apple doesn't seem to think that for $99 it's got much of a service obligation. It's sad to see.
Good luck.
Take care,
--Tex.
re options
Well, it'll be nice to lay that one to rest as a threat to continuation of the management everyone thinks best for the company.
Now, to find some new grist for FUD.
Take care,
--Tex.
re sucks
The Jobs quote I recall on seeing "IT", the device also supposedly code-named Ginger, was that people would not be ordered, but would spontaneously build entire cities designed around "IT".
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/12/03/scooter.unveiling/
... and that IT would be as significant as the PC
http://www.jimpinto.com/hot-tech/kamentech.html
Of course, consistency hasn't been one of the things Jobs was celebrated for, eh?
Take care,
--Tex.
re AT&T Laying Down the Law
I disagree. There's no sense to what Yager suggests. Why would Apple care if phones unattached to a carrier subsidy are sold locked or unlocked? To the extent an unlocked phone is more valuable to consumers and more in-demand and is capable of being sold to customers who hate AT&T, I'd think Apple would be all over the sale of unlocked phones.
The unlocked phone as a threat to Apple has been obsoleted with the end of Apple's dependence on carrier service payment sharing. The subsidy is actually an enormous risk mediator for Apple.
The unlocked international iPhone isn't a new threat by AT&T against Apple, as links from here demonstrate --
http://jadedconsumer.blogspot.com/2008/07/iphone-issues-at-or-just-issues-with.html
The iPhone's new program, in short, is a massive win for Apple and a great relief to those worried about Apple's ability to lock down phones. Phone lockdown in a post-revenue-sharing era is a who-cares issue to Apple. It only can increase unit sales and Apple-vended applications and online services. A huge win for Apple without any discernible benefit to AT&T.
Take care,
--Tex.
re MobileMe
I'd be very glad to hear your reports -- comparing before/after the dotMac/MobileMe change, comparing features, commenting on the utility of new features. I've been out of dotMac for several years after they didn't fix my repeated problems getting backup.app to do something useful over broadband, and after a few fiascos in which I didn't get mail quickly.
I'd love to hear life is better. It'd probably increase the rate at which Apple keeps new-adopting Mac users who experience the free trial. The more people paying Apple $99/y without the need for Apple to build more hardware, the better, I say
Best regards,
--Tex.
USB dongle
The model I used stuck out like a keychain-style thumb drive. I'm sure the design has changed since that one was built. Go look at a Verizon store. They'll tell you the up-to-date deal.
Good luck.
Take care,
--Tex.
Dell apparently uninterested in commercial music market
Unlike Apple, which has been courting musicians with a whole range of music creation and mixing software, Dell has apparently bought into an RIAA-backed effort to interfere with song copying by crippling PCs' audio coupling.
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/07/08/riaa.limiting.pc.stereo.in/
Commodity boxmakers are either easily intimidated or have found a revenue stream other than cluttering new buyers' desktops with adware.
Take care,
--Tex.
OT Verizon
Yes, when connected it sticks out and can be hit by people and things passing by. If space isn't cramped, this is probably not a problem, but go in with your eyes open
Take care,
--Tex.
re cellular boradband on MacBook Pro
I've seen good results with a Verizon USB dongle. Yes, it's an annoying USB dongle. But it works. Might ask if they have a card, but the dongle is probably your man. Service cost is something like $50/mo, but it's broadband not EDGE. Maybe it's come down since I used it.
Take care,
--Tex.
re The Trade
There's a difference between the sport of trading and the ... well, whatever it is that allows one to spot an organization that will maintain consistent, quality leadership within and continue producing reliable, excellent output for decades and decades so that you can look smart by appearing lazy by not moving your capital out. Trading is more fun. Honestly, I get antsy if I haven't made some activity in a while, and this fact has caused me to enter options positions and create other kinds of leverage that honestly make my returns more of a crapshoot based on near-term trading prices than I really aim for with the long-term picks I'm trying to acquire. In other words, I think I would like to be investing but I am mentally set to want to be trading.
I admire Buffett's ability to say "no" when he's sitting on huge piles of cash. I can't. I find something and buy it. I need to work on this.
On the other hand, I expect the business case for AoHong -- and thus CAAH (providing industrial lubricants to China while it industrializes hasn't got a lot of near-term risk) -- to prove out and be noticed, though I don't expect this to happen overnight.
Take care,
--Tex.
re Forever
If you hold forever, you pay no tax in your lifetime, so you get the best possible after-tax rate of return. If your investment's management is consistent, you can get more money with less work as an investor with a fire-and-forget approach. Buffett's value investing strategy has beaten lots of naysayers, and has done it consistently for decades.
The only reason to bail is that the company is a lower-quality investment than you used to believe. Right? I'd rather be able to hold forever. I expect MA, ACAS, MKL, GS, and other companies I'm interested in to remain competitive and profitable (the culture in the companies encourages quality successor leadership, in my view, thus quality long-term returns). I wouldn't expect to sell. Heck, if the story fired up on CAAH or ETLT I could adopt the same attitude -- but at present my investing thesis is about folks waking up to the news that business is good in China.
Incidentally, Buffett isn't religious about "forever". He revisits valuations and makes decisions on keeping holding -- witness the high-profile PetroChina sale he made. The fact PetroChina was no longer a good value investment was clear in hindsight after PetroChina plummeted. He'd rather have held forever, but the evidence on the investment just didn't bear it out.
I should do so well!
Take care,
--Tex.