'Conventional' Ramblings

Preamble: Folks, the clipped verbiage of emails is fast replacing the nuances of a 'conventional' letter. Purely as writing exercises, I emailed tech-oriented responses to friends in 'conventional' style. In other words, you may say I rendered 'long-winded' ramblings (re-posted below with actual names of addressees substituted). The downside to 'conventional' writing is that it is 'time-consuming'. The upside is the 'rambling' is probably read, but only if the addressee is convinced that it was 'personally addressed' and that it was indeed a 'time-consuming' effort for the writer.

(1) The iMac 27". John, the 27” 3.06 dual-core is a lovely package for the price but, although the i5 quad-core (a thousand Ringgit more) runs at 2.66GHz, it translates higher than 3.06.

The i5 has 8MB of L3 cache shared among the 4 cores and sits with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card that comes with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. It also features what Intel calls Turbo Boost. TB means if an application is not using every available core, the idle cores shut down while the active cores speed up. The thing is, in TB mode, the i5 runs up to 20% faster translating 2.66 to 3.20GHz native.

The i7 (up another thousand) runs at 2.88 and with TB, it translates up to 3.46GHz. Besides that, it comes with a feature called Hyper-Threading. HT means that in highly treaded 64-bit applications (although not commonly available yet), it allows the 4 cores to mimic 8 virtual cores. HT, which is not a feature in the i5, is the main reason I opted for the i7, which rivals the 8-core Nehalem MacPro.

Another thing John, I read when idle cores shut down, the cache total is diverted to the active ones. The benefit of a large cache is another story.

(Sent November 16th 2009)

(2) The Nokia-Apple suit. Dear Anne, I know as much as you love Apple, you just wanted to provoke a discussion and although it is engaging talking to you, my bias gets in the way. John brought up the topic yesterday and he is just as engaging. Speak to Steve for another angle.

You will note the IT media is relish in painting Apple as a rogue stealing intellectual property and that an injunction is pending on the iPhone, but the fact is Nokia is not asking for an injunction but taking Apple on for its “refusal to agree to appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property”. They simply want exorbitant Patent Royalties.

What patents are at skate, Anne? GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), WLAN (Wireless LAN) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). These protocols are on that little fellow in your handbag. In other verbiage, the Steering Wheel, Gearshift and Accelerator, every car manufacturer has to embrace to produce a car. Things we take for granted when we turn on the ignition or switch on the cellphone. I am happy those car patents expired, otherwise you would have forked a little more for your lovely Honda.

Is Apple disputing ownership? No! They dispute the amount claimed. It must be noted that a favorable outcome for Apple will favor other manufacturers as well; the way it is battling the MPEG (a video/audio protocol) Licensing Authority for lower fees. A favorable outcome on the MPEG issue will favor open source systems such as Linux and Ubuntu that now depend on the OGG codec to play videos.

Analysts say Apple has been negotiating with Nokia for at least a year, so why is Nokia grandstanding? The answer Anne, is not in the regular IT media, therefore, I looked up the Apple media for a balanced view.

I read Nokia sold 108,500,000 phones in the last quarter and earned $3 billion but Apple sold 7,367,000 iPhones over the same period and earned $4.5 billion.

I also read that mainly because of the iPhone, Nokia’s sales slipped behind in every market it did business - down 1.1% in Europe - down 6.6% in China - down 8.8% in the Middle East and Africa - down 11.8% in Latin America and down 31.1% in North America.

How is that possible when Nokia, the largest mobile phone manufacturer, sells dozens of models and Apple only sells the iPhone. The answer, Anne, is Apple’s perpetual innovation or its ability to innovate perpetually.

The thing is, Nokia is demanding up to $12 (USD) per iPhone, an amount that is more than it earns from the average sale per unit of its own devices. This position simply indicates one thing. It sees no future in its own ability to innovate and latches onto Apple like a parasite. The reverse is true when Nokia claims ‘Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation’.

Anne, as regards your iPod, I have 3 albums of Peter Tosh and 11 of Santana transferred into iTunes. I will show you the covers for you to choose.

(Sent October 28th 2009)

(3) The MacBook AIR. Dear Mei, I am happy you looked at the MacBook Air, although we did not have much time at the store. Akin to the G4 Cube of the 90s, the Air is destined to be a classic. Ask Steve, my apple guru, to review it for you. He flies with it. Let me wear the hat of an Apple spokesman and bore you with a commentary.

If a Technological Endeavor is treated as Art, it must never conceive or be decided in a corporate boardroom. Even if designers and engineers are involved in a product, there must be a single artist at the core with the authority to steer the project. Think Steve Jobs. Think Jonathan Ive. This is what separates Apple from the competition.

Mei, Apple may be manufacturing electronic devices but it behaves like an art studio. Jobs acts like he is building rockets and only pretends to listen to his customers for ‘design inputs’. Look at the iPhone. A single model, 3 years in the running with no physical design change. None. Like a bowl of soup with only the soup replaced when the recipe is renewed. The bowl remains. Steve has the 1st model and Philip has the current. I see no change in design. That is the end result of not succumbing to ‘design inputs’ of potential customers, such as a wish for a physical keypad. Think Alfred Hitchcock. Think Henry Ford. The sad thing is that visionary corporate models are time-limited. Once the creative genius is gone, the company becomes a rumor of its former revolutionary self.

In the microcosm of the Office–Apple equation, let me bandy my views and pluck out some numbers from the air. I see 3% as Early Adopters (Steve is here). They see the Opportunity to break-free from the yoke of Windows in enterprise and in particular, to Eliminate Viruses in the home environment. 20% are the Early Majority (John is here). They simply discover Ease of Use, Windows propaganda notwithstanding. 20% are the Late Majority. They notice the enthusiasm and fervor of the Early Adopters and Early Majority and drop in to see what the fuss is all about. The remaining are Laagers. This group will resist change but unwittingly, they serve to keep innovation and innovators in flux and unwittingly too, they serve to clarify the distinction between a Technological Endeavor of an artist and a Machine conceived in a boardroom.

Hope you sort out your drive issue. Please call if you need help.

(Sent September 23rd 2009)

Image: OverallSuccess.net

Cheers, Tommy