Posts by A n o n y m o u s

Yes, HP will still sue you if you make cartridges for its inkjet printers

Ever thought that perhaps the printers are subsidised by the cost of the consumables?

Apple CEO on China Mobile: 'World's best' mobe with world's, uh, 'largest network'

Over 1m pre-orders is not to be sniffed at when a lot of the people who want an iPhone on China Mobile already have one - they just did not buy it from China Mobile (elsewhere in the article it says that Apple shipped 18.5m in China in the first 9 months of 2013 - so that is probably nearer 25m+ for 2013).

The 18.5m was also 28% up on the previous year - so in reality there are probably more like 35-50m+ iPhones on China Mobile before they even signed an official deal.

Stewardess first to book $250k Virgin Galactic 'space trip' with BITCOINS

"Despite the obvious publicity, I'm sure Branson has done some research."

And that's probably why he immediately converted it to cold hard cash...?

Here comes the SAN: HP gives away virtual one

This link seems to have more details:

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/data-storage/free-vsa.html

iPad Air peels off in racy pics for wide-eyed geeks, reveals 'worst battery ever

Re: Is there anybody who approves of this?

Worst battery every - really. So let's see you can engineer a device to use a smaller battery more efficiently and get branded 'worst battery ever' or you can take the alternate route of fitting more and more cores in a desperate bid for performance and having to stick a much larger battery in the device.

Suspect the reason a lot of (non Apple) devices are getting larger screens is more about being able to hide a larger battery behind them while not actually improving their efficiency.

Bottom line is Apple have fitted a 64-bit, potentially much faster CPU, slimmed the device down and made it much lighter while keeping the same battery life (which was already great) - sounds pretty good to me.

Surface 2 and iPad Air: Prepare to meet YOUR DOOM under a 'Landfill Android' AVALANCHE

A lot of people have been waiting for iPad Mini Retina and a new iPad so expect demand to be strong. The 64 bit A7 processor is going to be a significant feature as more people use these for higher-end gaming etc.

Apple shares dive after quarterly report disappoints Wall Street

Re: The Downside Of Being Fashionable ....

Long term it does not really matter which iPhone they bought - sure they make more profit today on a '5' but those 3GS, 4, 4S users are very likely (think I read it about 80%) to buy an iPhone 'next' time and they become an iTunes customer today. Also selling all those iPods is underestimated since if you have an iPod (especially a Touch) the logical / easy step is to an iPhone / iPad.

Re: The Downside Of Being Fashionable ....

Or when you look at the figures a bit more closely:

iPhone sales up from 37m to 47.8m (up over 29%) despite problems manufacturing the new design and negative issues / publicity related to Apple Maps launch.

iPad sales up from 15.4m to 22.9m (up 49%) and they could not make the iPad Minis fast enough to keep up with demand.

Mac sales were down but the whole market is down and they could not build the new iMacs quickly enough for demand so only ended up selling them in 1 month in the quarter.

Total revenues up 17.7% - gross margins were lower at 38.6% - both higher than their OWN estimates - lower margins probably due to the lower average cost of iPads with the iPad Mini and many people buying older iPhones (at lower cost / free on contract).

All of this was despite it being a 13 week reporting period whereas the same quarter 12 months ago was a 14 week quarter (7.7% longer) - so if you looked at average sales per week they would have been higher still).

Sitting on an even larger cash mountain up almost $16bn to over $137bn.

They could not build enough iMacs, iPhones or iPad Minis to meet demand which is unfortunate but hardly poor demand. So sales and profits would have been higher! Expect many of these to shift into the following quarter.

AAPL beat their estimates and in a 13 week quarter compared to 14 weeks in the previous year. This just shows analysts can get it wrong. As for iPhone 5 being a failure - how when they sold 47m compared to 37m a year ago and had problems with supply so would have sold more if they could have made more.

Samsung set for compensation talks over staff death claims

Re: Unlike Apple subcontractor Foxconn ...

Foxconn do not just make products for Apple.

Google's Larry Page: MY SECRET TO VAST WEALTH, SUCCESS

Would love to know if he owned AAPL shares in his portfolio or just GOOG?

US taxman joins UK politicoes on hunt for Amazon cash

Perhaps it would just be better to charge a higher rate of VAT - companies cannot (so easily) avoid it and it's based on what people actually spend - not so much on what they earn or any profits they make. For instance would you be happy to pay a higher rate of VAT on everything you bought if income tax were reduced.

The problem is countries want to attract companies to set up there - why would a company set up in the UK and pay 20-odd percent corporation tax when it could setup in Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland etc. and pay much less - with the friendly EU it's made all this possible.

White House raises the signature threshold for petitions to 100,000

Re: No Whammy's....STOP!

Why not raise the limit to a few million then we could call it a REFERENDUM - if governments raise it too high it could almost become one.

Former CEO John Sculley: Apple must adapt or die

"Owing to his poor performance at Apple, Condé Nast Portfolio and Business Insider have both included Sculley on their lists of the worst American CEOs of all time."

Perhaps anything he says should be taken with a pinch of salt or even a heavy dollop of jealousy?

Amazon-bashed HMV calls in administrators, seeks buyer

The irony would be if Apple were to take over the leases on some of the stores and turn them into iTemples - sorry Apple Stores ;-)

Re: I wonder who the last person was who

"The expert now has a good job working for the London Camera Exchange."

... but in reality would you buy from LCE if they were 10-20% more expensive?

The basic fact is physical media is not dead but dying - games, films and music are all available online now - it's easier and in some ways better (iTunes Match for example gives you all your music on all your devices). There will always be purists who say the CD version is higher quality - well I imagine CDs will still be available and they could even sell lossless digital tracks.

HMV did not move with the times - consumers are moving digital, smartphones and tablets have just accelerated this trend.

Business rates are killing businesses - they would be better to get it back on VAT, corporation tax and the income tax of the people doing the spending. Taxing the high street to oblivion is accelerating the move to people shopping online.

Re: Sad, but...

As long as there are multiple online retailers there will still be competition. Jessops were not competing with Amazon when Amazon were half the price.

You know flash is king when disk giant Seagate grows its SSD line

Re: Question to all and sundry

No warning - really - try using SMART - it reports the amount used / remaining so if anything they are far more reliable and their life is typically far more predictable.

We typically use them mirrored but that's more to do with the fact we are paranoid about downtime - we even mix part worn SSDs with new(er) ones so they should not fail at the same time. Would recommend Intel SSD drives and ideally ones with super capacitors - especially in database applications.

Time has already run out for smart watches

Re: Actually...

Think he's been reading (or worse) the Rolex catalogue a few too many times - 27 jewel movement, waterproof to 300m (despite the fact it's never likely to go more than 3m) and an expression of your individuality... ahhh that's better.

BT in ad slapdown after 'misleading' punters on fibre deployment dates

It's typical - they tempt you with Infinity in just a few months - then put the date back - stops you going to another provider in the meantime.

Re: Misleading

Yes having your exchange updated is only half the story. Our exchange was updated but BT said we are too close to the exchange - nice. Only slight 'silver lining' is it should mean we are a better / earlier candidate for FTTP instead.

Apple may debut low-cost iPhone for emerging markets in 2013

The benefit Apple has is it's revenue stream is ongoing. Someone like HTC or Samsung sell an Android phone today and make very little (if anything) ongoing as you are then a Google customer. Apple sell you the phone and then all the apps / media for years to come so they are a bit more like Amazon in that they could suffer lower margins on the initial sale knowing they have future revenue coming in.

The fact is most people who do NOT buy an iPhone do it due to cost. Sure there are some die-hard Apple haters but if there were two phones with about the same spec and price - one was an Apple running iOS and the other was [someone else] running Android most people would pick the Apple one.

So a lower cost iPhone may help widen the user base but does risk eroding profits at the high end as based on the number of 3GS iPhones I still see a lot of people are still happy with a slightly less capable phone.

Intel bets the farm on touch-enabled 'convertible and detachable' Ultrabooks

Anyone else considered the 'physical' keyboard has only a certain amount of life left - with soft keyboards, laser projected keyboards, voice recognition etc. - i'm not saying it will happen in the next 2-3 years but do you not think in 5-10-15 years from now?

Of course that's not so much a problem for a device you are buying today but think the future is more likely to be just tablets (screens) with soft keyboards / voice recognition and (for a time) optional keyboards at your desk or think ones like the Surface or Asus Transformer.

For now think people are likely to want to pick either a tablet OR a laptop / ultra notebook as these convertible designs are going to add bulk / weight / cost to either.

Bendy screens are the future, screams maker of bendy screens

They were too busy seeing if they could - they did not stop to think if they should?

Victory on mobile belongs to Google in 2013

I have concerns about using any company that makes money by effectively mining my data to sell ads and if I were a GOOG investor I would be concerned that about 99% of their revenue comes from search.

Do people ever stop to consider how easy it would be to switch to an alternative if it were as good / better / you got too concerned about Google's privacy? 10 seconds.

Maybe Apple should buy Google?

Samsung confirms Tizen-based mobes to debut this year

Re: Nobody?

Android is here to stay just maybe not on Samsung. Apple have iOS and it's unique to them - Samsung are just like any other manufacturer. Long term I can see Motorola being dominant with Android as Google are going to want to push that brand unless they are happy to just own the patents.

Re: Nobody?

iOS based phones are only about 15% of all phones shipped - so I'd say that is having an alternative?

Aw grandad, I asked for an iPad and you got me an iPod

Re: Maybe...

A more interesting statistic would be to compare how many people received an 'other' tablet and wanted an iPad and how many received an iPad and really wanted 'another' tablet. Pretty sure more would have wanted the iPad.

Most of the 'returns' to the Apple Store will be to exchange for a different model - don't imagine many people spending £270-400+ on a device would get completely the wrong MAKE but can think they bought a black one and changed their mind for a white one etc.

The only relevant statistic would be the number returned for REFUND as a percentage of those sold - if Apple have 2x as many returned (in raw numbers) but sold 10x as many that suddenly tells a different story.

Re: ipod

You are like the dad whose son wanted some 'branded' trainers (like all the other kids) but instead bought him £5 ones from [insert cheap shop] and wondered why he got teased and his feet hurt.

Re: Thank goodness I don't have kids

But will you still be saying that when you are a lonely old man ;)

You make a choice to have kids (well some are happy accidents for some people) and £400 iPads should be the least of your worries.

Re: ipod

Not sure that purposely buying something they did not ask for at Christmas is really teaching them a valuable lesson - what - sometimes you don't get what you want - get used to it. If someone had asked for 10 things I would rather get them 7 they wanted than 10 they didn't.

A different tablet may suit your needs but they may have already had an extensive iTunes collection - what you are suggesting is more of 'I know better' - is that a good lesson to teach?

Re: You pays yer money, you takes yer choice

Hmm. Great eBook reader that you can also get on an Android or iOS device. Can't really imagine any compelling reason to save a few quid and get a device (Amazon Fire) that is more heavily locked down when there are so many Android or iPad devices available. Seems they can do everything the 'Fire' can do - and more.

If you are strapped for cash the Nexus 7 is probably the better bet or if you like Apple products the iPad is bit more expensive but may be supported for longer etc. - so over it's lifetime it's not a massive extra.

Re: ipod

So pea-pod and you got her an iPod anyway but pee-pod and you got her a Galaxy when she wanted an iPad - bet she was thrilled.

"Am I the worst father out there?"

Probably not the worst.

Re: I have to say..

I would agree with that. If money is not the issue most people would choose Apple. Most people choose Android because the phones / tablets are cheaper and most people do not root their devices either.

Traffic app Waze 'turned down Apple's $400m, wants $750m' - report

$400m sounds generous for a company that made just $1m revenues - of course Apple could just buy someone else or do the same in-house. Think if I were Waze I would have sold.

Apple to upgrade to '5G WiFi' this year?

Nope - the 5G is 5th Generation - see: http://5gwifi.org (scroll down to 'Evolution').