NEWS: iPhone hastens death of CDMA2000, SMS looks even more silly

In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Why? Did Dad build these computers from scratch in his basement? You've
> quoted the price of "full" Windows licenses- copies of Windows for PCs
> that never had it installed.

i'm comparing it to the full price of os x.

there is no upgrade os x version unless you bought a machine with os x
within a brief time window between the new version's announcement and
actual ship date, generally a couple of weeks in length.

> PCs that already had a previous copy of Windows would use an upgrade
> license, like this:
> <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116713>

so it's $549.95.

for $50 more you can get an entire mac and $50 on top of that, have a
five user license (actually six users, since you have the first copy on
the mac already).

> for $120,

actually, $110. "You Save: $10.00"

> presuming they'd even upgrade in the first place. Call this a
> "Windows bash" if you like, but I don't know anyone who buys Windows
> upgrades. Generally (although 7 bucks the trend) each new version of
> Windows is so much "bloatier" and more resource intensive than the last,
> that very few PCs more than two years old or so tolerate upgrades well-
> Windows users typically muddle through with the old OS until they buy
> their next PC. Of the five PCs in my house, three are XP, two are Vista,
> each running the OS they came with (actually my son's PC came with XP,
> but had a free Vista upgrade coupon because I bought it during the XP-to-
> Vista transition. I mailed away for the upgrade which sat unused for
> over a year until my son bought some game, "Halo II" IIRC, that required
> Vista.)

that's interesting, because people do upgrade os x. leopard can run on
macs from 2003 or so although 2004-2005 is really where it is actually
viable. snow leopard, however, does cut it off at 2006 with intel only,
but since nearly all macs now are intel, it's a very minor issue.

> > however, most people aren't configuring five computers for their
> > family, so that comparison is deliberately and heavily skewed in favor
> > of the mac. nevertheless, for those who do have multiple machines, it's
> > still valid.
>
> I'm not sure it's very valid, because outside of comparison shopping
> purposes, it's not a typical scenario-

it's not typical, but there *are* people who have multiple computers. i
regularly use three, and that's just me. a two person household could
each have a desktop, maybe a laptop each, and a server for the house.
that's five.

> again, I know very few people
> outside of the real techie geeks, who've ever upgraded a PC OS, much less
> a household full. In my experience, most PC users just couldn't care
> less what OS they run, as long as the apps they use run on it.

there is that

> Also,
> most multi-computer households have a lot of hand-me-down machines- I've
> certainly never outfitted and deployed five PCs at once!
> Hell, _I'm_ a geek, (and, as a Microsoft MVP, I get some great deals on
> MS software,) and I can't even be bothered to upgrade! I have four
> copies of 7- two Ultimate and two Home Premium, and they're all still
> shrinkwrapped. I used the beta in a VM on my main PC (an XP Pro) and
> while I liked it fine, I have absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade.
> I run software, not OSes, so until I need to run an application that
> requires 7, it sits in the box.

ebay them.

> Entry level is the easiest example to illustrate, of course- dozens of
> PCs are available that cost less than a Mac Mini, and are perfectly
> suitable for basic computing tasks. Since Apple has nothing in that
> category, the Mac Mini becomes, by default, the "comparision" computer
> for all entry level PCs.

basic computing tasks like web surfing, email, facebook, online games
is exactly the market the ipad is targeting. most people don't need
everything a computer can do if all they want to do is photos, email
and use facebook.

this guy bought an ipad just to see what it's all about, and it ended
up replacing pretty much everything he and his family did with their
*twelve* computers, 9 pcs and 3 macs, and a server on top of that.

<http://chucksblog.emc.com/chucks_blo...did-to-my-fami
ly.html>

They've all been largely obsoleted (at least at my home) by a sleek
$499 device that doesn't really have any right to be called a
"computer" in the traditional sense.

---

› See More: NEWS: iPhone hastens death of CDMA2000, SMS looks even more silly

In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> But, to be fair, all versions of Mac OS are essentially "upgrade
> versions" (by the Windows definition) since the license only allows them
> to be installed on Macs, and all Macs include Mac OS.

nope. they're full versions. they do not require *anything* on the hard
drive.

apple does have upgrade versions, sold for $10 or something like that,
and those *do* check for a previous install. they're only available if
you buy a mac that was supposed to have the new version and didn't,
because it's brand new. if you have to reinstall from scratch, it's a
royal pain in the ass because you need to install the old, followed by
the new.

> Therefore, unlike
> wth PCs, there's no (legal) scenario where you can install that $29 copy
> of Mac OS on a computer that doesn't already include Mac OS.

it does not look for an earlier version. you can skip versions. os x
also don't phone home for activation, so you could technically buy the
$29 version and install it on as many macs as you want, if breaking the
eula doesn't matter to you. having the single user version at $29 and
the 5 user family pack at $49 makes it *very* easy to stay honest.

In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I had a firewire port on the HP PC I just replaced. I never plugged
> anything into it. At least on the PC side, where the ports are less
> common, fireware peripherals are rare, and less reusable- I can move an
> external USB hard drive between all five PCs in the house, but only the
> HP had firewire (and after its untimely demise, none of my PCs have it now,
> which would have obsoleted any firewire peripherals I might have had.)

so get a firewire drive for maximum performance and keep the usb drives
for sharing.

> USB vs. Firewire, at least on the PC side, is like VHS vs. Beta- Firewire
> might have been "better," but it lost.

it didn't 'lose' it's just not as common. i see firewire drives in best
buy and online. it's not hard to find them.

> > firewire target mode is another very useful feature, where you can boot
> > the mac and it becomes a giant hard drive so you can plug it into
> > another computer. sometimes that's a lifesaver for troubleshooting and
> > restoring a system and it makes cloning a hard drive *very* easy.
> >
> > firewire target mode is also used for system migration - buy a new mac,
> > plug the old one in via firewire and let it churn for a couple of hours
> > and your new mac will have all the software and settings the old mac
> > did. it's *really* nice. that can also be done via ethernet now (wasn't
> > originally).
>
> But Firewire wasn't necessary for that feature, just that it was the port
> that was implemented, and probably the best interface for the job (other
> than ethernet.). They could've used USB, parallel (anyone remember
> "Laplink cables?") ethernet, WiFi, whatever. The cynical part of my
> brain wonders if Firewire wasn't used for justify the port's existence.

no, they can't use usb for target mode. usb is a master/slave system
and you'd need something in the middle to let you connect two type a
plugs into each other, let alone have it actually work.

firewire is peer-peer, and target mode is easy to do. firewire also
supports networking and were faster than 100base-t, but gigabit pretty
much makes it moot.

In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I realize that they're full versions technologically speaking- I'm just
> pointing out that unless one breaks the EULA by installing them on a
> Hackintosh, they're _essentially_ upgrades since any machine you're
> allowed to install them on (an Apple Mac) aleady had a licensed copy of
> some version of Mac OS, rgardless of whether or not that version is still
> physically present on the computer.

that's just because macs come with os x, but if you get one repaired
and they replace the hard drive, it's blank. they usually do a clean
install of os x (or copy the old drive if possible, it's not always
possible though), but that's a courtesy.

> > apple does have upgrade versions, sold for $10 or something like that,
> > and those *do* check for a previous install. they're only available if
> > you buy a mac that was supposed to have the new version and didn't,
> > because it's brand new.
>
> Shouldn't those be free? If I'm buying a NOS (new old stock) computer
> that only has the old OS because it's been sittingin the store backroom
> too long, isn't it the store's responsibility to provide me with the
> current OS?

once it starts shipping, it's usually stuck on the side of the box or
dropped inside. however, there's a period of time between announce and
ship where there isn't anything to add because it isn't shipping yet.

plus, $10 is basically free. i think apple even says free upgrade, just
pay for shipping.

> I haen't done a Windows upgrade in a long time, but typically Windows
> upgrade discs were easy to foll- they typically checked for a single file
> in a single folder. IIRC, Win XP loooked for "windows.exe" in the
> \Windows folder.

the mac upgrade discs are easy to circumvent too, but for $29 for the
real version, why bother?

> OTOH, if Apple really wants to stop the proliferation of Hackintoshes,
> they may have to tighten things up in the future. "Activation" only
> started with Win XP- prior to that, you only needed a valid activation key,
> scores of which were widely posted all over the web.

i don't think they're that worried. it's not a huge number and they're
still selling a copy of os x, at least to some of them anyway. some of
the hackintoshers pirate it, but they probably wouldn't have bought a
mac in the first place anyway.

....

"It looks like Android is going to be either the number one or number
two player," the executive told the crowd.

Schmidt also suggested that his estimate "might be quite low," according
to "the blogosphere." At present, there are 34 different smartphones
running the OS in 49 countries.

MORE: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363806,00.asp>

In article <[email protected]>, John
Navas <[email protected]> wrote:

> MORE: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363806,00.asp>

If you need some more concrete numbers, how about this one: According
to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, more than 65,000 Android handsets are
shipped every day.

of course he doesn't mention how many handsets *other* companies ship.

apple ships well over twice that per day, based on their recent sales
reports. that number will no doubt increase when the next iphone is
released, possibly by quite a bit, depending on whether some rumours
turn out to be true.

On Wed, 12 May 2010 17:06:09 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>On Wed, 12 May 2010 15:48:57 -0400, nospam <[email protected]>
>wrote:

>>not when the specs are matched they don't. a quick look at your
>>spreadsheet indicates you didn't match all of them. for instance, the
>>mac mini versus inspiron 537s - the mac has firewire 800, the inspiron
>>doesn't.
>
>A PCI Firewire 800 4 port card is about $40 retail. Add that to the
>cost of the Dell 537s and it doesn't put a dent in the 2:1 price
>differential. However, you're correct that it should be included.
>Anything else I missed?

It a bogus argument (what a shock) -- the incremental cost of Firewire
is an order of magnitude less than that -- my ThinkPad T61 has the
silicon, for example, but Lenovo apparently didn't think the space and
tiny incremental cost of a connector were justified.

>Actually, I'm jealous and so are quite a few other manufacturers. Any
>company that can convince a large segment of the public to pay double
>for the nameplate is doing something right.

Or wrong, depending on whether you care more about profits or about
delivering value to customers. History teaches that mass market premium
price strategies often work well in the short run only to fail in the
long run. And then there's hubris.

--
Best regards,
John <http:/navasgroup.com>

If the iPhone is really so impressive,
why do iFans keep making excuses for it?

On Wed, 12 May 2010 20:51:58 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>On Wed, 12 May 2010 20:49:20 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>MS Backup is about the same. Crude would be generous. It fails
>>miserably if there are bad sectors, read error, or strange characters
>>in the filenames. I'm a big fan of mirror backups, which is not
>>supplied by either MS or Apple. If you insist, the cost of a typical
>>commercial backup program for the PC is about $35.
>
>Oops. I'm a big fan of -image- backups, not mirror backups. Sorry.

I'm a big fan of incremental backups -- much more efficient for regular
use. Image backups are better suited to deployments IMHO.

--
Best regards,
John <http:/navasgroup.com>

If the iPhone is really so impressive,
why do iFans keep making excuses for it?

On Thu, 13 May 2010 15:09:45 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>On Thu, 13 May 2010 00:11:27 -0400, nospam <[email protected]>
>wrote:

>>well to nit pick, os x includes rsync and dd. they aren't suitable for
>>the typical user but there are free and low cost gui wrappers for them,
>>as well as other software with better copying engines.
>
>Windoze includes Briefcase, which can be used to replicate folders
>across a network. ...

Yuck. Crude and out of date.
Offline Files (aka Sync Center) is *much* better.

>>that's because they've never had it. firewire 400 is faster than usb,
>>firewire 800 even more so. it's also more reliable and can source a lot
>>more power, which is very useful for bus-powered drives. i've even seen
>>3.5" drives bus powered.
>
>Yep. Firewire 400 is about 25% faster than USB 2.0.

Not necessarily. It all depends on what devices you have and what you
are doing. The real advantage of Firewire is in peer-peer operation
(and device power), but average users typically do host-peer transfers.
>Speed was the
>idea behind Firewire 800. However, USB 3.0 is out and becoming
>available on the PC. For reliable and screaming performance, I use
>eSATA.

Yep. Best to use the best tool for the job.

>Meanwhile:
>"iPad 3G AT&T SEVERELY SCALES BACK LIMITS YOUTUBE CELLULAR DATA
>CONNECTION HOBBLED". Skype doesn't work at all on 3G and YouTube is
>throttled:

All the more reason not to use AT&T. Part of why I use T-Mobile.
But not Skype -- I get unlimited free VoIP calls over my unlimited 3G
data package (or Wi-Fi) with Google Voice + sipgate.

--
Best regards,
John <http:/navasgroup.com>

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
-Benjamin Disraeli, as reported by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

In article <[email protected]>, Jeff
Liebermann <[email protected]> wrote:

> >Or wrong, depending on whether you care more about profits or about
> >delivering value to customers. History teaches that mass market premium
> >price strategies often work well in the short run only to fail in the
> >long run. And then there's hubris.
>
> Well, are stock prices any indication of preceived loyalty?
> <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=AAPL&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=att>
> AT&T is fairly flat while APPL has doubled in the last year.

more than tripled since the iphone came out. it was in the 80s back
then and it hit 270 a couple of weeks ago.

On Sat, 15 May 2010 13:48:24 -0400, nospam <[email protected]>
wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>, Jeff
>Liebermann <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >Or wrong, depending on whether you care more about profits or about
>> >delivering value to customers. History teaches that mass market premium
>> >price strategies often work well in the short run only to fail in the
>> >long run. And then there's hubris.
>>
>> Well, are stock prices any indication of preceived loyalty?
>> <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=1y&s=AAPL&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=att>
>> AT&T is fairly flat while APPL has doubled in the last year.
>
>more than tripled since the iphone came out. it was in the 80s back
>then and it hit 270 a couple of weeks ago.

Well, for the last 5 years, it was about 8 times:
<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=5y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=t>
Note that there was a 2:1 split in 2005. Back to 1985:
<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AAPL&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=t>
However, AT&T has been plowing its profits back to its investors by
paying dividends:
<http://www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5675>
while Apple stopped paying dividends in 1995 and is now sitting on $23
billion in cash, with zero debt. I think I can easily guess who got
the better part of the iPhone deal. My guess is that Verizon isn't
going to jump in with both feet, like AT&T did.



--
Jeff Liebermann [email protected]
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

In article <[email protected]>, Jeff
Liebermann <[email protected]> wrote:

> Well, for the last 5 years, it was about 8 times:

yep, it's done quite well.

> while Apple stopped paying dividends in 1995 and is now sitting on $23
> billion in cash, with zero debt.

over $40 billion, currently.

> I think I can easily guess who got
> the better part of the iPhone deal. My guess is that Verizon isn't
> going to jump in with both feet, like AT&T did.

verizon has said they want it.

personally, i expect a non-att iphone this year, next year at the very
latest.

nospam wrote on [Fri, 14 May 2010 18:33:05 -0400]:
> In article <[email protected]>, Dennis
> Ferguson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >> Actually, for price comparison purposes, I think the details of software
>> >> features are a big red herring. If you want to get a software-equivalent
>> >> Mac and PC to compare just factor in the price of buying Windows for
>> >> the Mac and OS X for the PC so that each has both operating systems.
>> >> I don't know what Windows costs, but Apple sells OS X for $29 these days
>> >> (my brother just bought a copy for a Hackintosh he built). I don't
>> >> know of any better way to put a dollar value on software features than
>> >> accepting the manufacturer's pricing as an estimate.
>> >
>> > and if you really want to tilt the scales, a 5 user family pack for mac
>> > os x is $49. how much is 5 windows licenses going to cost? heck, that's
>> > still cheaper than a 1 user license of windows.
>>
>> One person's "tilt the scales" is another's "identically configured",
>
> my point is that if you consider a family who has five macs (mom, dad
> and three kids), your software costs will be $49 for os x or $1424.95
> for windows 7 ultimate, based on newegg's price of $284.99 each:

$49 in 01, 02, 03, 05, 07 and 09? Oh yeah, $49 is the price of snow leopard, which
is basically a service pack. Leopard family pack is how much?

> <http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116718>
>
> but since some people believe that home premium is 'good enough', it's
> only $899.95, based on newegg's price of $179.99 each:
>
> <http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116716>
>
> or maybe mom & dad get ultimate and the kids get home premium, putting
> the actual cost in between.
>
> that's for *just* the operating system, independent of any hardware.

Home premium 3 pack was 124 at costco. Single user upgrade pricing is 79.99
Which is what your 49 dollar snow leopard pricing is, upgrade pricing.


> however, most people aren't configuring five computers for their
> family, so that comparison is deliberately and heavily skewed in favor
> of the mac. nevertheless, for those who do have multiple machines, it's
> still valid.

The OS is included in the price of the machines, and you can get 100 licenses
of each version of Windows 7 for $349 through technet

>> I personally believe Macs currently sell at a premium to PCs
>
> not when configured similarly.

Yes, when configured as identically as possible. Not only that, Windows is included in
the package, which according to you costs more than OSX

In article <[email protected]>, Justin
<[email protected]> wrote:

> $49 in 01, 02, 03, 05, 07 and 09? Oh yeah, $49 is the price of snow leopard,
> which is basically a service pack. Leopard family pack is how much?

it's not a service pack, it's a complete standalone system.

> Home premium 3 pack was 124 at costco. Single user upgrade pricing is 79.99
> Which is what your 49 dollar snow leopard pricing is, upgrade pricing.

it's not upgrade pricing, and you're comparing discounted costco with
full retail. the os x family pack can also be found discounted too, but
you aren't going to get windows for less than $10 per user, no matter
what you do.

nospam wrote on [Sat, 15 May 2010 01:38:40 -0400]:
> In article <[email protected]>, Todd Allcock
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> But, to be fair, all versions of Mac OS are essentially "upgrade
>> versions" (by the Windows definition) since the license only allows them
>> to be installed on Macs, and all Macs include Mac OS.
>
> nope. they're full versions. they do not require *anything* on the hard
> drive.

They just require you install them on a Mac, which ALWAYS comes with a version of
the OS installed.

>> Therefore, unlike
>> wth PCs, there's no (legal) scenario where you can install that $29 copy
>> of Mac OS on a computer that doesn't already include Mac OS.
>
> it does not look for an earlier version. you can skip versions. os x
> also don't phone home for activation, so you could technically buy the
> $29 version and install it on as many macs as you want, if breaking the
> eula doesn't matter to you. having the single user version at $29 and
> the 5 user family pack at $49 makes it *very* easy to stay honest.

You can skip versions in Windows, as well