while we're naming 5by5 shows that are awesome—back to work with merlin mann http://5by5.tv/b2w start with episode 1 or just dive right in. productivity porn has never been this good, or this hilarious.
in just 8 hours, they built the app…having already spent more than a year on natural language processing and machine learning. in 8 eight hours they have a working but unpolished simple app that plugs into a lot of research. does anyone else find the sensationalism absurd? "just 8 hours"
and a question for HN—what is this fascination with techcrunch? if there is a story out on the interwebs and techcrunch has covered it, it's usually at the top. is it because they do venture capital pieces? is it because green is (was) the color of money? is it because michael arrington held some sort of strange fascination by tech culture at large that has remained now that he's been ousted?
one thing that the press doesn't understand (but apple does, especially with its CEO being one of the best operations guys) is that ramping up production takes time. using the same design helps meet the demand for the iphone 4S—they've been doing the CDMA iphone 4 for almost a year now.
as for the rumors, i think that they are real devices—i actually expected a 3G ipod touch with a bigger screen—but maybe it is a possible design for the iphone 5. because we don't see the lead times from apple like we see from other electronics companies doesn't mean they aren't there. the retina display ipad 2, the iphone 5, these things surely exist in some capacity as they figure out not just how to make them, but how to make enough of them to meet demand. i think apple is finding it much more difficult to keep new devices secret and because of the short time between announcement and delivery with increased production ramp-ups and internal lead times, apple seems to be experiencing and anti-osbourne effect—the rumors of the device after the next device surfacing and disappointing all of those who have come to expect so much from apple.
«Even for ISPs running their own network, such as BT, Davies claims the figures of €0.01-0.03 per GB are "rubbish". "It's an order of magnitude greater than that," he claimed.»
awesome, so it only costs about a quarter for a gigabyte. so i use about 20 GB a month. can i just pay 5 bucks a month? yeah, i didn't think so. i'm pure gravy for them, and what does comcast charge me for 4 to 10 Mbps? $70
and don't get me started about the fixed cost versus the variable cost—the variable cost is certainly not more than a few cents per GB but the fixed costs can be enormous.
the SDK was planned from the beginning, not the result of developer outcry—though it certainly didn't hurt. apple had to make sure that the APIs were solid before releasing them to everyone. that takes time.
have you ever seen flash run well on ARM? are you really comparing casual flash games that you have to pay for to casual obj-C sold through the appstore, a store that basically pays for itself and doesn't make much money?
and i love how you can just quash anything that demonstrates how HTML5, a nascent technology, is moving toward par with flash while not sending fans into overdrive and draining my battery. all to keep an ailing steve jobs happy.
you are conflating many different people into one. so here's me: i like apple products. i like HTC's variations on a theme. i was disappointed by the 4S because i like new things, even if only on the outside. (though the 4S has an S on it, like superman, heh)
apple has its reasons for not changing the design and they are sound as ever—evolutionary, not revolutionary. and it makes so much sense for the 2-year upgrade cycle. considering too that apple is trying to make as many devices as possible, the same old design really helps them to that end. i am disappointed. but the product is by no means a disappointment.
(i really wanted an ipod touch 3g with upgraded internals that could go month by month like the ipad and do facetime/skype over wifi/3g)
i have had many apple products over the years and only bought one of them new.
apple products are in my experience built to work until they break and the cost of fixing them is more than a replacement. this happens much sooner in tech than in other spaces because it changes so quickly. the CPI has stayed relatively flat† because advances in technology have allowed more purchasing power (though for lower cost goods). the iphone is a technological marvel that was priceless ten years ago because it couldn't exist.
† year by year table of CPI since 1913 ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt
my hope is that he has retired to an ashram and hasn't been abducted by cyber-terrorists bent on killing f/oss and torturing him by deleting his accounts.
or maybe he has evolved to the point that our invisible alien overlords saw fit to promote him.
any "3D" where the images are on one plane and the brain thinks that it is seeing depth—that is, several planes—will ultimately fail. so my prediction is that the iphone will never get 3D until it becomes, the eyePhone.
i have a feeling that we've seen a variety of the iterations apple has been working on behind the scenes. apple doesn't like to comment on rumors as it might show their hand. i do think that there is an ipad with double linear resolution and an iphone with a body design/home button/larger screen similar to the rumored iphone 5. i think the disappointment comes from the fact that apples lead times are much, much longer than the year long release cycles. apple's secretiveness helps manage expectations by not promising things that don't ship, but does little to manage the raging speculation that makes a 4S seem downright boring.
a fascinating thing about amazon is that they move inventory so quickly that they collect money from customers before they have to pay their suppliers—they have a cash float† they can actually sell products for a loss and still make money—especially if there is growth. it's like a ponzi scheme that actually works.
that said, maybe it will be amazon's bing, but bing buys microsoft insurance that may be much less costly to them than the risk of a google owned future.
my take with the fire is that amazon wants people to move from physical goods to electronic goods—they know that not everyone who owns a fire will consume their goods, but they also know that the more accessible the means to consume those goods, the more business for their core business—the one that makes them money, even if just for 20 days.