An Apple a Day
Well actually a million a day is Steve Jobs goal. Otis joined the cult of the Kingdom: Plantae Phylum: Magnoliophyta Class: Magnoliopsida Order: Rosales Family: Rosaceae Species: M. domestica. (Yes, I googled that!. Only backwoods rubes know such things. ) Otis turning his mid-life crisis back onto his computer seems a healthy act.
The Apple computer is a nicely designed, overpriced PC with proprietary features and a proprietary operating system. Proprietary has always been Steve Jobs contribution to computing. IBM managed the same to a degree when it fought the BIOS wars at the beginning of time. Computer wars will outdo the Hundred Year Wars – given the time.
I no longer have a dog in this fight. Hardware is homogenized. It tastes the same and even Apple joined the x-86 world. All the proprietary stuff weakened and there were even clones in the market for a while. The shift was to their operating system which is a variant of Unix. Microsoft keeps closer to that. Today, the battle is the same as the one being fought between Chevy and Ford owners.
If you’ve followed the recent problems with iPhone 4, you’ll see Apple’s real strength. They can out PR everyone and do it with even more outlandish claims than BP can manufacture.
Antennas are part basic EE and part voodoo. The antenna on the new phone is an elegant design. That last until someone touches it. How they tested it without touching it would make another interesting tale. The meat owner touches the antenna – which runs around the edge of the unit right where it should be touched. This attenuates the the signal by adding impedance. That’s basic engineering 101.
Apple has ‘solved’ the problem by painting on a red face. Should be a clown face but Steve has his pride. They blame software. It seems their algorithm was faulty so they’ll resolve the issue by using AT&T code. That’s the same AT&T that is waring in the marketplace over reception which end users understand as a collection of bars. These bars all seem to have a limited relationship to the signal to noise ratio that determines successful conversing.
That Apple is failing at a basic engineering level is no real surprise. They recently began moving away from being a hardware company. They’ve adopted HP’s printer model. Instead of printer cartridges they are substituting iTunes and iApps. It is a better model because there it has no materials cost after the amortization. It is like McDonald’s being able to sell the same hamburger to every customer.
Sadly, few of us bother to become informed. Throw in our innate optimism and you get the Madoffs and modern snake oil extravaganzas. It plays out every night on our evening news which proves the value of the University’s version of all this – the liberal arts degree.
Well, gotta run. Headed over to the video store iTunes to pick up … yeah, right.
ADDENDUM:
Well I managed to get a second in another little tournament. I plan to use those winning to pursue my goal of slowly pissing it away at the 8- seat tables. The heads up was disappointing. I started down 3:1 and came back to have him on the ropes. At that point, he either became a card rack or my Alzheimer’s kicked in. Voting in this may end up a tie.
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It's an interesting spot, coming back to dominate the dominator.
Do you find your starting hand range widens with the 'win' anticipation?
My answer is a simple yes. As I assume "the donkey" is on tilt. Then piss away the stack I built against him/her with quality.
I'm still trying to figure out how we can make HP convince people to buy things we market regardless of whether they actually work well or not and have them lining up around the block to get them.
We at least have to work much harder at marketing.