William Goodall's Blog

April 28, 2010

Apple purchase of Intrinsity confirmed

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT — William_T_Goodall @ 10:11

So the rumor is true, and Apple has indeed bought Intrinsity. Apple confirmed to The New York Times today what Linkedin profile updates have already indicated, with Intrinsity’s employees naming Apple as their new employer. As for the price, NYT cites MPR’s Tom Halfhill, who claims that the purchase price was $121 million. Halfhill has been around the processor scene since forever, and he has great sources, so this number is probably in the ballpark.

Read the comments on this post

[From Apple purchase of Intrinsity confirmed]

It’ll be a while before these moves result in products.

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April 27, 2010

Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency

Filed under: Superstition,Trivia — William_T_Goodall @ 01:14

tcd004 writes “At a conference on digital media at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI attacked the idea of transparency in the Internet age, warning that digital transparency exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves. And increases the ‘dangers of… intellectual and moral relativism,’ which can lead to ‘multiple forms of degradation and humiliation’ of the essence of a person, and to the ‘pollution of the spirit.’ All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide-open communication environment being demanded by the Internet age.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[From Pope Rails Against the Internet and Transparency]

And it lets us find out about what the catholic church has been up to that it would rather not have us know about.

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April 26, 2010

Voting

Filed under: Superstition,Trivia — William_T_Goodall @ 13:24

My postal ballot for the parliamentary election arrived this morning. It’s filled in and I’ll post it next time I walk the dogs. Then I can ignore everything until the result 🙂

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April 22, 2010

‘Someone Has It Backwards’

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT,www — William_T_Goodall @ 10:13

Interesting. Apple has responded publicly to Adobe’s Mike Chambers’s claim that Flash is an open platform:

“Someone has it backwards — it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264
(all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard,
while Adobe’s Flash is closed and proprietary,” said spokeswoman
Trudy Miller in a statement.

Spot-on.

★

[From ‘Someone Has It Backwards’]

It’s nice to have a little clarity in these matters.

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April 21, 2010

Claim Chowder: Tomi Ahonen on iPhone Sales

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT,Nokia — William_T_Goodall @ 16:08

Tomi Ahonen, former Nokia executive and self-professed expert on mobile phones, 11 days ago:

You read it right. I am writing the first history of the
once-iconic iPhone, written now in early April 2010, before Apple
has released its first quarter earnings for 2010. This is
literally the peak of the short reign that Apple’s iPhone had as
the most emulated smartphone. […] And mark my words, the numbers
are now very clear, Apple’s market share peak among smartphones,
and among all handsets, on an annual basis, is being witnessed
now. Yes its true, Apple cannot grow market share into 2011. But
its not for reasons you might think.

[ten thousand words of gibberish snipped]

The Apple iPhone sales pattern differs from all other major
smartphone makers because Apple only releases one new model per
year. So the sales take off strongly and then decline as the
rivals keep releasing newer phones. Apple’s best quarter is its
Christmas quarter. This year they were not able to grow market
share. And we already know, that Apple’s January-March quarter was
a heavy fall from the Christmas level of sales (as it always is,
this is the normal pattern).

Apple, today:

The Company sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter, representing
131 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

So the “heavy fall from the Christmas level of sales” we “already know” about was, uh, an increase of 50,000 iPhones. This was the most iPhones Apple has ever sold in a quarter. (And does not count the 63 percent year-over-year growth in sales of the iPod Touch.)

★

[From Claim Chowder: Tomi Ahonen on iPhone Sales]

Making predictions is a tough business 🙂

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April 17, 2010

Non-Apple’s Mistake

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT,Microsoft,Nokia — William_T_Goodall @ 13:36

Brilliant, must-read piece by Stanislav Datskovskiy:

I argue that Apple now has not one but two monopolies:

I) A nearly-total monopoly on computer (and pocket computer)
systems designed with good taste.

II) A total monopoly on the Microsoft-free, hassle-free personal
computer.

Mr. Jobs is indeed starting to behave like that other convicted
monopolist we know and love. Yet unlike the latter, Jobs did not
engage in underhanded business practices to create his
monopolies. They were handed to him on a silver platter by the
rest of the market, which insists on peddling either outright crap
or cheap imitations of Apple’s aesthetic.

(Via Alex Payne.)

★

[From Non-Apple’s Mistake]

This is quite a funny article actually 🙂

Creativity requires a mind, and a herd has none.

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April 14, 2010

Curries

Filed under: Food & Drink,Trivia,Unboxing — William_T_Goodall @ 11:44

Ordered Monday 3PM, arrived Tuesday 11AM (free delivery). Yum!

IMG_5218.JPG copy

Not enough room on the table for all of them, but every variety in my order is there.

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April 12, 2010

Louis Gerbarg on Apple, Adobe, Game Interpreters, and Section 3.3.1

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT — William_T_Goodall @ 19:14

Best piece I’ve read on the whole thing, by a long shot. Must-read.

★

[From Louis Gerbarg on Apple, Adobe, Game Interpreters, and Section 3.3.1

This topic has attracted a lot of interesting commentary.

Comments (0)

My iPad as a tool

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT,Microsoft — William_T_Goodall @ 14:35

Tech geeks love numbers. When discussing computers, they speak of gigabits and gigahertz, of RAM and ports. The more tech adept among them will even swap out the internals or write their own code. They are tinkerers extraordinaire, and are just as happy customizing their rigs as they are in using their machines for their intended purposes, be it work or pleasure.

Then there’s everyone else.

I became a Mac user because I got tired of cracking my machine open to deal with hardware, and I got tired of fighting my software to get any work done. My work needs are simple: a browser, a word processor, and sporadic use of office productivity software (covered by Microsoft Office and Apple iWorks). With Google Docs, I use less and less of my desktop apps. I love cloud-based computing.

I was a PC gamer, but the current generation of dedicated gaming consoles took care of that. My Xbox, despite being made by Microsoft, is stable, fast, and runs my games perfectly. How could a company that gave us Windows build such a great gaming platform?

Because it was a closed system.

[From My iPad as a tool]

Remind me how long this has been the year of Linux on the desktop 🙂

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The best summary of the Apple/Adobe war

Filed under: Apple,iOS,IT — William_T_Goodall @ 14:16

Want a a simple, single-paragraph on what the Apple/Adobe iPhone spat is all about? Jean Louis Gassee supplies it: “Who, in his right mind, expects Steve Jobs to let Adobe and other cross-platform application development tools control his I mean the iPhone OS future? Cross-platform tools dangle the old “write once, run everywhere” promise. But, by being cross-platform, they don’t use, they erase “uncommon” features. To Apple, this is anathema as it wants apps developers to use, to promote its differentiation. It’s that simple. Losing differentiation is death by low margins. It’s that simple. It’s business. Apple is right to keep control of its platform’s future.” I think it really is that simple.

Related posts:Apple’s quest for massive market share
Adobe and Macromedia Thoughts
Adobe versus the world

[From The best summary of the Apple/Adobe war]

Microsoft wants Flash dead too, but they are more constrained in what they can say and do about it than Apple.

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