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"...but there's little you can do in an office that doesn't demand a PC."

Today. I wrote about this not too long ago, and think people miss the point regarding the "post-PC" world. It's not, you see, that tablets are going to replace existing methods of doing existing work on existing computers.

It's that more and more existing methods and jobs and tools are going to be restructured and modified and rethought so they can be done on tablets and pads and other mobile devices. Instead of sitting at a desk plugging in data, that data will be scanned and entered into tablets the field. Instead of sitting at a desk reading reports, you're going to be sitting in a conference room or in a cab or train or plane reading reports.

And it's a self-reinforcing cycle. More and more sites and apps will be created and modified for tablets, which makes them even more useful, which induces more people to convert sites and build apps, which makes tablets and mobile devices even more useful, and on, and on.

Keep in mind it's early days. I mean the first iPad shipped just over two years ago, in 2010. Where was the desktop personal PC at that age?

http://www.isights.org/2012/04/ipads-in-business-time-to-stop-laughing.html

Of course, here in the US, this kind of thing would never happen.

Because under CISPA, any and all information shared, even the nature of the information shared, is completely and totally exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Unlike the UK, we'd never even hear about the abuses, because we'd never even be able to ask the question...

http://www.isights.org/2012/05/uk-government-staff-caught-snooping-on-citizens-data.html

Sorry to keep linking to my own articles, but this was covered too.

"Have a hacker steal millions of financial records, health records, or credit card numbers, and as long as they were participating in CISPA, they were acting in "good faith" to secure their networks, and as such can not be sued for failing to protect their customer's personal data."

Complete and total excemption from privacy lawsuits? All for sharing a bit of data with the Feds?

That legal "out" more than pays for the "security" systems needed.

http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispas-good-faith-carrot-needs-no-stick.html

"Just because content owners have their own motives doesn't invalidate legitimate cyber threats..."

Content owners? Did I mention content owners? Doesn't the linked article say that CISPA is NOT about content?

Yes, there are legitimate threats. But let's craft legislation that actually helps to protect against those threats AND that's crafted with privacy concerns at its core. With safeguards. That require and demand warrants and due process. And let's not past hasty, thinly veiled attempts at allowing the government and the NSA to legally scan and record everything that we do and say and post and tweet and visit.

President Obama announced sanctions against Iran, Syria and those who help them use technology to perpetrate human rights abuses. The executive order creates sanctions against the government of Syria and Iran "and those who abet them, for using technologies to monitor, target and track its citizens..."

And yet we have CISPA. Who is going to sanction us?

See: http://www.isights.org/2012/04/obama-wants-sanctions-on-governments-who-repress-or-monitor-their-citizens.html

"According to reports, which were confirmed Friday by ICS-CERT, an active Phishing campaign is responsible for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issuing three warnings since the end of March that the natural gas industry has been under ongoing cyber attack."

A phishing campaign. Because companies shouldn't already be protecting against these.

More, "The specter of a cyber attack against critical infrastructure is a reality, but not because the DHS is guarding the Internet, but because the networks running the critical infrastructure are so poorly protected. It’s gotten to the point that simple Phishing attacks, things that proper email protection and awareness training cover, rate three separate warnings and alerts."

So it's obvious we need widespread and over encompassing legislation like CISPA that bypasses any and all existing laws and regulations regarding privacy, and that grants the NSA a legal mandate and access to any and all information collected... to protect against phishing attacks.

More: http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispa-is-not-about-copyright-its-about-your-privacy-on-the-internet.html

Problem is, RIM thinks they're in the mobile phone business. They're not. They think they're in the handset business. They're not.

They're in the communications business.

The value behind the BlackBerry phone system is BlackBerry Messenger, not yet another new handset that in itself offers little over its competition. BBM, and the backend services, are what make the platform valuable. Without it, a BlackBerry is just a so-so phone with a decent keyboard.

To survive, RIM needs to roll out a secure, cross-platform messaging system for use on existing smartphones and tablets. That's iOS. That's Android. And that's Window's Phone.

See http://www.isights.org/2012/04/rim-would-prefer-to-license-blackberry-os-wrong.html

Paul is -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- right.

CISPA provides one monster carrot to those who "voluntarily" participate in CISPA, and that's immunity from ever being sued for failing to safeguard the privacy of their users.

Have a hacker steal millions of financial records, health records, or credit card numbers, and as long as they were participating in CISPA, and sharing "threat" data, they were acting in "good faith" to secure their networks, and as such can not be sued for failing to protect their customer's personal data.

CISPA could literally save a company millions of dollars, and that's why Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and many, many more are supporters .

More at http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispas-good-faith-carrot-needs-no-stick.html

There's a good reason why Facebook and Microsoft and other tech companies are supporting CISPA.

You see, CISPA provides one monster carrot to those who "voluntarily" participate, and that's complete and total immunity from EVER being sued for failing to safeguard the privacy of your users.

http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispas-good-faith-carrot-needs-no-stick.html

Yes, the President has threatened to veto CISPA -- in its current form. However, CISPA's primary sponsors still plan on slapping on some patches (excuse me, amendments) and to proceed towards Friday's vote.

Unfortunately, many of those amendments have their own issues. One even offers -- I kid you not -- a promise to "develop" policies and procedures that will protect individual privacy and civil liberties... after the bill is passed.

It's okay. Trust us.

More at http://www.isights.org/2012/04/president-obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-authors-brush-off-threat.html

Odd, the direction of the commentary seemed to be that since Siri was acquired by Apple (over a year ago), Apple deserved no credit whatsoever for their foresight, integration, or for Siri's continued development.

"The narrative about Google is different, often involving its strength in creating platforms for open-source/community development..."

Yep, smart marketing move there. They're very involved in open sourcing technology and creating platforms for development...

Except when they refuse to do so (search and map technology), or when it suits them (withholding "open" source for the "good" of the platform), or when they allow carriers to lock down their technology for them, or when they create platforms for development that they then shut down (Translate API's), or create features and technology that they then retract and subvert to their own ends (Reader features being removed in order to force people into Google+).

"In any case, the Android that Google bought, 3 major versions ago, is very different than the one that exists now."

As is the company itself.

http://www.isights.org/2011/04/google-do-no-evil.html

You needed to use Spaces. Group any number of applications and windows into the same or adjacent spaces, then use control-arrows or control-numbers to immediately jump into the correct space.

See: Confessions of a Space-o-holic

"... it's pretty lame of Apple to try to patent someone else's ideas."

Sorry, but the Apple patent predates the release of Intelliscreen. In fact, one could, based on the timeline, make the case that Intelliscreen is ripping off Apple....

Sorry, but the Apple patent predates the release of Intelliscreen. In fact, one could, based on the timeline, make the case that Intelliscreen is ripping off Apple....

"It's the same guts, the same audio chips, the same northbridge chips and so on."

I covered this when Apple acquired PA Semiconductor, as I believe its a first step towards adding custom chips to do video processing, encryption acceleration, and so on. All of which would then clearly differentiate Apple's hardware and also serve to ensure that OS X only runs on Macs.

BTW, when discussing components built into Macs you also need to talk about accelerometers, light sensors, multi-touch trackpad controllers, FW-800 controllers, MagSafe connectors, and other things typically not built into your average plastic Dell or HP box.

Though HP does compensate by adding a LOT of blue LEDs and keyboard buttons for every piece of crapware shipped with the machine. You also get a lot of nifty "Intel Inside" and "Nvidia Inside" stickers on the case too.

The flip side tp all of this is the "App Store". By providing developers with an audience willing and able --and required-- to actually pay for their software, Apple is going to encourage the development of an avalanche of applications for the iPhone platform.

No more hoping that more than one user out of a hundred will pay the shareware fee or make a "donation". No more playing whack-a-mole with crack sites and serial numbers. And by promoting that development, and by providing the marketplace, Apple stands a very good chance of becoming a dominant player in the marketplace based on the strength of all of those applications.

See: Apple's Magical Mystical Application Store

"I know some great software which their developers asking $5, $10 donation in a very embarrassed way if you love the software and you are "rich"."

And why is that? Developers ask for donations when they have no way to market their work to a sufficiently large audience. Apple provides that. Developers ask for donations because they have no e-commerce systems. Apple provides that.

Further, now they can, if they so desire, get paid for their work. And they can also do it at a price point that makes sense, because everyone who gets the program pays for the program. There are no cracked serial numbers, so there aren't 100 parasites for every user that bothers to make a donation.

If as few as 29 people pay a nominal fee of $5, a developer breaks even. If 50 people pay $5, he's going to be ahead of the game.

Read: Apple's Magical Mystical Application Store

It's precisely the fact that DVD is "more affordable" that will prompt retailers to kill it off as soon as possible. High-definition is their secret weapon in raising DVD prices, something consumers have resisted for years now. With new Blu-Ray titles selling at a 50-70% premium over SD titles, as a retailer which one would you want to sell?

The box stores also hated the format wars because they had to waste precious floor space space stocking the same title three times: Blu-Ray, HD DVD, and SD. Now that they've gotten rid of HD DVD, guess which one is next?

OS X Leopard's release was originally scheduled for the end of 2006 or early 2007. A year later, this was amended to "Spring 2007". And as of March 23rd, Leopard was still supposedly on track for a spring release. Then on April 12, just 20 days later, Apple announced that Leopard would be delayed. The reason? Apple needed to "borrow some key software engineering and QA resources" and put them to work on the iPhone in order to meet that product's promised June release.

But the revised release date for Leopard was October 26th, 119 days after the day the iPhone would ship and those "borrowed" developers could return to work on 10.5. Four months put back into the timeline, not two. And in actuality the postponement gave Apple over six more months of Leopard development time, counted from the announcement on April 12th to the revised ship date on October 26th.

Apple had only borrowed a few key people, remember? Presumably the rest weren't just sitting around waiting for the others to get back to work.

Even with the extra time, Apple didn't have enough time to fix all of the problems. So as the October release date loomed, Apple rushed one more final candidate past developers, patched and polished a few last-minute issues, determined that it was "good enough", and shipped OS X 10.5 Leopard to the public.

So short was the time frame that few outside of Apple saw the gold master. Even major software development firms like Adobe received their final copies at nearly the same time as everyone else.

Is that the profile of a company that isn't rushing a product to market? Nope, 10.5.2 is what Leopard should have been.

Yeah, and APPLE'S CEO said a 3G iPhone was coming later next year ('08). In September.

As I wrote back just two months ago, just 38 states have some form of 3G support, and in most of those access is limited to just a handful of major metropolitan areas (read one or two city centers at most).

So the real question isn't whether or not a 3G iPhone is coming, but is one coming, and will you be able to use it? If your town or area isn't going to be covered until late '08 or even '09 or '10, then who cares?

Besides, it isn't even public yet, so if they DO announce it in late February we still have to wait another three or four months for FCC certification and testing. Could easily be yet another June "anniversary" launch date.

Touch PADS, however, are a different story. Apple is busy building multi-touch guestures into its product line, including the iPhone, the Touch, and the Air, with rudimentary support in the MacBooks and the MacBook Pro (two fingered scrolling).

It's only a matter of time before it hits the desktop.

While not touch "screens", a lot of the same kind of manipulations are possible, with the added advantage that you have a place to rest your arms while you work, and that you're not continually cleaning fingerprints off your screen. ;)

At 12.8x8.94x0.16~0.76, the Air takes up 52.63 cubic inches of space in a bag or briefcase. Your 12" PowerBook, at 10.9x8.6x1.18, takes up a whopping 110.6 cubic inches of space in the same container, or over twice as much room.

Further, the Air is only a third of an inch deeper (8.94 vs. 8.6), so in terms of depth (and in screen height when opened) they're functionally identical. As such, on a airline tray table they'd behave pretty much the same. (Since tray tables are typically 16.5" wide by 9.5-10.5" deep, the Air's extra width has little impact. Still room for it and a cup of coffee.)

Heck, going by the same calculations, the Air is even smaller than the Eee.

The Air is about 2" wider than the 12" PowerBook, but almost the same depth... and then there's the thickness (thinness?). Do the math, and you'll see that the Air is about 52 cubic inches in volume, while your "smaller" PowerBook comes in at a whopping 110 cubic inches.

Or to put it another way, the Air is 50% smaller than the PowerBook. Important when putting it into a briefcase or backpack. Heck, it's even 20% smaller than the Asus Eee.

Blew the link to the first article. Want A Small Thin Light Notebook? Here's How.

Got to learn to use Preview.

Actually, on the 9th I posted an article predicting that Apple would use 1.8" notebook drives, as SSDs of any reasonable size were still commanding a premium price. To be fair, however, I also predicted that they'd add 16GB or so of on-board flash in order to cache system and application files. Nailed the first, missed the cache.

Then the day before MacWorld I did an article on The Totally Wireless MacBook, describing a machine with no ports whatsoever and that did everything via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

And then we got a wireless machine with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and which dropped almost all of the ports except for one USB port, one micro-DVI port (for presentations), and a headphone jack.

Still no SuperDrive docking station though. Drat.

The price for the players will most certainly drop, but high-definition is the content industries' secret weapon.

Consumers have historically resisted every attempt by the industry to raise prices on DVDs, and competition has in fact lowered them. As such, we pay much less for a DVD today that we did a decade ago, despite that fact that inflation should have boosted the price of a disc along with most everything else.

But high-definition kills two birds with one stone: It provides a rationale for higher prices for a "higher quality" product and no so incidentally lets us pay for our favorite movies yet again in yet another format.

See: The Blu-Ray/HD DVD War: Defections And Betrayals

Defensive? Maybe. But as I pointed out on iSights when discussing the same patent, does anyone really think that Starbucks is busy rolling out an advanced wireless communication system nationwide... just so they can sell a few extra tunes?

An iTunes track sells for a buck, of which the label gets 70-cents. So Apple and Starbucks get to split the rest, with Apple probably taking the lions share as they still have deliver the content. This leaves roughly 5-to-10 cents for a given Starbucks store to drop into their tip jar.

Sell fifty or so tracks a week, and they could afford--maybe--to buy a cup of their own coffee.

With this technology, however, Starbucks can cut the time we spend waiting in line, improve service, lock in a few more customers, and perhaps even reduce staffing levels to boot.

And Apple gets to skim some milk off the top.

I think some industry types are overestimating just how much the public follows the off-hand comments of a CEO at a luncheon.

Besides, the fact that a 3G phone is coming isn't even a secret. If you wanted an iPhone for Christmas, you wanted one, and despite knowing full well that another one was coming next year. Heck, I bought one in June, knowing full well that Apple could easily introduce a newer version in November. I'd even figured out who'd get the old one if it happened.

Net effect on Apple? Zip.

And Cringely was right about one thing. Google announced that they were bidding today. But the press release also made another thing quite clear: their application does not include any partners.

So. No partners means no Apple partnership, which means that there was nothing for AT&T's CEO to find out. Which in turn means that his comments were relatively innocent, and not "a $1 billion message to Apple CEO Steve Jobs." By my watch, it took less than ten hours for Cringely's consipracy theory to be shot down. Could be a new record.

Of course, you could spin it that Jobs, quaking in his boots at all of the iPhone sales he's already lost, called up Schmidt, pulled out of a planned multi-billion dollar deal, and Google obligingly issued the press release to cover his tracks. Yeah, right.

That's exactly how SJ would handle it.

"I *really* don't think you can make an argument that your average person will put out $400 for an e-reader."

I think that's why Apple missed the boat on this one. But they seem locked on the notion that a "portable media device" means something that can play music and movies. They seem to forget that there are other forms of media that are older and yet in many ways more popular than CDs and DVDs and their digitized equivalents.

And, personally, I think the iPhone would be a very nice reader. I know I'd sacrifice some of the advantages of a Kindle NOT to have yet another device to lug around and recharge. See: Amazon Introduces Kindle; Apple Introduces Nothing

Since the NDA expired at 6PM, I can tell you that Leopard can and will have a major impact on how people use their systems. Hell, the usability enhancements to the Finder alone are worth the money.

And in my book the additions to iChat have the potential to be a game-changer.

Don't tell Steve, but I might have even paid Vista Ultimate prices for OS X Leopard...

(Sorry for the dup, forgot to preview.)

Since the NDA expired at 6PM, I can tell you that Leopard can and will have a major impact on how people use their systems. Hell, the usability enhancements to the Finder alone are worth the money.

And in my book the additions to iChat have .

Don't tell Steve, but I might have even paid Vista Ultimate prices for OS X Leopard...