Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Posts Tagged Apple

I return (again)

Sep 4

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events, Me | 3 Comments

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting much around here. There are several reasons, from being busy, to not having much unique to say, to being tired of most of what passes for polical discourse these days (You’re evil! You’re eviler!! You’re evilest!!! You’re evil infinity!!!!!), and to self-imposed standard that after not posting awhile I have to have post that makes up for the time away. So I’d like to thank Carl, still desceased according to the Stanford Alumni Association, for writing a blog post that makes up for my not posting for months on end.

So let me do an incomplete speed round on while I’ve been gone:

Larry Craig – he did the right thing by resigning, and yes we should actually have police officers maintain order in public bathrooms so they don’t become nothing but tea-rooms. I’m not a fan of the put all our police in one basket theory of law enforcement for two reasons – (1) it’s the typical cry when somebody is caught doing something illegal that the police ought to be concerned with real criminals, and since there is a worse criminal for everyone except for the actual worst criminal, it’s just a cop out, (2) theory and practice have shown that you need to sweat the small stuff when it comes to keeping order which should be the main function of police work.
I don’t imagine the police like such duty, but somebody has to take out the trash.

I happened to be in an Apple store this weekend (or the Temple as I affectionately call it) and noticed two things – it was a lot more crowded than anywhere else in the mall, and the iPhone is a joy. I hate my cell phone, and if I could persuade myself, let alone the funWife, that it was worth all that money I’d own one. The interface is simply amazing and, yes, intuitive. I was able to navigate and have a ball just from having read a review.Based on sales figures, America agrees with me to the tune of making it the best selling smart phone out there. [full disclosure, I own Apple stock.]

Why doesn’t Congress provide benchmarks for all of our Government activities? And isn’t all the testing requried under No Child Left Behind benchmarks?

1998 isn’t the hottest, fourth hottest, or even 1 millionth hottest month on record. Not if the record stretches back more than 150 years, but actually is the record of our best estimate of global temperatures over the eons.

That’s all I have time for today, thanks for your attention, and tune in again next time (whenever that is).

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Can’t Get Enough iPhone

Jan 10

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Technology | 2 Comments

iPhone is so monumental I can’t just leave it with one post.

First, I’ve made some nice paper gains on my Apple stock the last two days. Yes, this is gloating. See item 3.

Why did they have to exclusively partner with Cingular? Everybody I know who’s ever had Cingular has hated them. Not disliked, not been unhappy, HATED them. Couldn’t get off the plan fast enough.

How would you like to be Michael Dell? He gave the daily keynote speech at CES yesterday at the same time Steve Jobs was giving hisMacWorld keynote. Seen any coverage of that? Yeah, me neither. Almost ten years ago, when asked about Apple, he famously said “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Yikes! That has to rank as some of the worst investment advice ever. Still, Mr. Dell is reportedly a lot easier to work for than Mr. Jobs. Oddly enough, so was Atilla the Hun.

Apple Computer is dead. The pundits who predicted it’s demise for so long are not rejoicing however, because Apple Inc. is alive and well. A rose by any other name would be just as sweet, but who am I to argue with Steve Jobs? Or Carl Howe of Blackfriars marketing who claims that Apple just changed consumer electronics nine ways. Maybe next year CES will change their dates so Mr. Jobs can speak there.

Brian Tiemann noticed that Apple dropped more than computer from the company name; Apple may have droped the Mac from Mac OS X now that it is the iPhone operating system as well and wonders if it should be pronounced “Oh Ess Ecks”? After Jobs made such a big deal about putting a phone, an iPod and an internet device into one seamless device, I predict they will rename Mac OS X as NXS and pronounce it “in excess”, that way they can combine a great operating system with a great rock band, INXS. It’s What You Need.

John Gruber says the iPhone screen is amazing: “166 DPI is an amazing resolution – tiny, tiny text is amazingly legible.” I’m guessing John isn’t over forty, because for people of a certain age tiny tiny text is not just illegible, its unnoticable. But after springing $600 dollars for the phone, I suppose I can spend $10 on a pair of reading glasses to go with it.

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The iPhones Are Here, The iPhones Are Here!

Jan 9

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Technology | No Comments

A lot of people make bold claims but few can back them up, but when Steve Jobs talks, people listen:

“Well, today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class,” said Jobs. “The first one is a widescreen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. The third is a breakthrough Internet communications device.””These are not three separate devices,” said Jobs. “This is one device. And we are calling it iPhone. Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”

No not everything turns out like the iPod (just don’t mention “Brain in a Beaker” or Newton to Steve), but Steve and Apple have been on a roll lately. I haven’t even seen the thing, and I want one. Of course, I’ve already drunk the Kool Aid, so what else would you expect?

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Let’s Go Crazy

Jan 2

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events, Family | No Comments

Speaking of Apple, I too noticed a slow down in the iTunes store on Christmas morning when the Fruit of the Murphy Loins were trying to load up their new gifts.

Speaking of layers of editors etc. , I just had to laugh at this line:

That extravagant spending may not last forever: one analyst said that while Apple now has about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music, it could see as much as 5 percent of market share go elsewhere in 2007 because of increased competition.

May not last forever? As the once and current Prince noted, forever is a mighty long time, so one can drop the “may” part. But then the writer would be confronted with putting a real time limit on how long Apple’s dominance will last, which, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, is a known unknowable.

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Month of Apple Bugs

Jan 2

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Technology | No Comments

I’m a big Mac fan, and so in the interest of equal time, fair and balanced, journalistic ethics, etc. etc. etc. here is a link to the The Month Of Apple Bugs blog. Here’s hoping they all get squashed.

UPDATE: Apparently there was a bug with the URL which has now been squashed.

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Guilty Pleasure

Dec 31

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Me, Technology | 1 Comment

I like Macs. I’ve bought five over the years, starting with that little darling, the Mac SE. My latest is the latest 20″ iMac. I even own Apple stock. So I like the current round of ads with the slightly annoying Mac and the more than slightly nerdy PC — see them all here.

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1 Billion Sold

Feb 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Economics | No Comments

While reading this article about Apple hitting the 1 billion song download mark, yes, I said billion, I noticed the claim that essentially Apple breaks even on the downloads but makes money on the iPods. What this means is that it will be hard to dethrone Apple in the music business. And I assume that this is why a lot of the other entrants are chosing a model of charging a flat fee to provide access to everything – that way they can set the monthy fee high enough to actually make a profit of the downloads without requiring people to buy their hardware. But that also means that it will be hard for other companies to make money following the Apple model without their own proprietary hardware to listen to the songs — which will tend to limit the companies that can compete that way, and by that I mean good hardware for the player and a good store experience in iTunes.

(full disclosure, I own Apple Stock and I download songs from iTunes).

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Nitro Stat

Jun 8

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Technology | 2 Comments

I’m still reeling from the Apple’s announcment that they were switching to Intel processors. Whatever Apple may say, I think the only reason is that the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) didn’t work out the way Apple had hoped when they started it to make PowerPC chips (which are popular not just in gaming consoles, but lots of military applications as well). The two companies that actually manufacture the darn things have pretty much lost interest in making PowerPCs for personal computers and have often left Apple with egg on its face.

Apple faces a significant short term hurdle – will people buy PowerPC computers now knowing that software support for them may be problematic in a few years? The only bright spot is that Apple has tackled this problem before, when they switched from 6800 chips to PowerPC, and even when they switched from the old System 9 to the new System X. 

And finally, the most important question:  How will this affect Mac gaming?

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Apple Report

Mar 18

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Technology | No Comments

While Andrew Sullivan worries about alienation via iPod, Robert Cringely and an unnamed correspondent look at convergence (without using the word, which is so last century) and the Mac Mini.

But in the case of Apple, is the iPod a razor or a blade? In other words, is Apple a hardware company or a media company? … To me, it seems that Apple has reversed the relationship of razors and blades, and eliminated the loss leader role entirely. Apple makes very little money from selling songs, but it does make some profit. Apple makes a LOT of profit from selling iPods. So the song is the razor, not the iPod, and that’s because the price sensitivity is currently about the content, not the player. … So Apple isn’t in the content business, they are in the hardware business, and will be for sometime to come. But my friendly reader sees it differently.

You’ll have to hit then link to see the readers view of the future, but I’ll give one more clue – digital content over a net.

And to top it off, the leaders of the future are trending Macintosh — at least those at Harvard (the Stanford of the East Coast) according to the Harvard Crimson (what a blatant rip off of Cardinal) which reports increases in use and sales of Macs on campus.

No wonder my Apple stock is up. Yes, I’m a Mac person. Pity or applaud as you will.

(If I really wanted traffic, I would of course start the food fight with a line like PC sucks, Macs rule! I do, but I won’t.)

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Ave Atque Vale

Feb 28

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | No Comments

Jef Raskin is dead at 61. A sad day for those who love computers with the passing of someone who helped change the world.

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