AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

There are many smart folks out there.  Like myself.  Depending on your expertise, you might be smarter and more capable than I am in some areas and others where I can really school you.  This is the same for many office, sales, or the tens, if not, hundreds of millions of workers worldwide whose productivities are augmented by technology.  Here, we’re talking about PCs and smartphones.  And a growing number of workers, or drones as I like to call it, are using tablets. I’m going to replace the word “worker” with “drone”.  It’s important because not many of us have jobs that allow or require us to go out of the bounds of our job requirement.  We do what we have to and our bosses want us to be able to do it faster and better.  Drones.  And with tablets, particularly the iPads, it’s allowing drones to do just that. And this is where Apple’s enterprise growth will be helped by the iPad.  See, the iPad is a very capable device now.  ...

Source:   Soff  via  The Loop Insight . I think these are two separate photos for the Catholic selection of popes.  In 2005 and now in 2013. Yes, it is different.  However, the source link, Soff, has put a negative spin on it.  The author went on to say he had disabled notifications on his phone only recently. I've been doing it for more years.  Cuts down on those weird awkward moments and definitely saves battery power too.  I know which apps get notifications and which are important that I need to check on a regular basis like my e-mails.  Then for the rest, I check on them, like Twitter/Path, when I get bored. As for the photos, I think it's fine.  It's the times and you are your own guide as to how far you want to take your mobile behavior.  But I do think that it's good to put away your devices during dinner with friends and family.

Source:   Techpinions . Here are two distinct charts regarding tablet market size that could be of interest to not only mobile fans for trashing talking and consumers who want to know where the market is headed but developers who want to best put their limited sources to work. The first is an IDC chart that has the breakdown clearly between Android, iOS, Windows, and others. The second one here is one that shows Android deployment with and without Google Play as its default store.  What's interesting is that the official Android deployment ends up with a smaller piece of the tablet market share.  However, given the similarity between Google Play and Amazon's own app store, the two could be put together.  The only thing is that Google does not benefit from sales in Amazon's Kindle app store and the same is true for Amazon not benefiting from Google Play. On a whole, iOS does remain the largest tablet deployment because of how Apple operates, developing...

Source of videos:  Engadget . For those who want to watch Samsung's Galaxy S 4 unveiling live tonight, you can follow it on Samsung's  Youtube page .  Honestly, I do hope more folks do their media events this way.  Live blogging is fun but only for the snarky comments from readers. Here are some supposedly leaked videos of the next Samsung flagship Android device, the Galaxy S 4, in action.  It’s enough to wet our appetites until the official unveiling tonight.  There’s a lot of festivities going on prior to tonight’s main event. Obviously, we have the leak videos as well as some interesting Samsung videos to promote the S4.  I won’t put them up.  It was unfortunate that I had to sit through it already.  I won’t make you do the same. Oh, and there are obviously a lot of bloggers across the wide spectrum of fanboyism chiming in on this.  Let’s not forget the pundits, both paid and click-baiting ones. And of course, let’s...

Source:   CNET . The iPhone is still one of the best selling device on the market with the Galaxy S III coming in probably pretty close.  And on the whole, Samsung does out-ship Apple in terms of units while Apple has more than 2X the industry revenue (or was it profit too?).  It's a tug of war.  But in terms of ad dollars spent, Samsung has Apple out-gunned by almost $70 million. But that's not the issue here.  The issue is the $410 million that Samsung spent and the $333 million that Apple spent to promote their gears. Seriously, I just don't see this kind of arsenal from Nokia, Blackberry, or HTC.  It's no wonder the mobile race has come down to iPhone versus Android. Oops...I mean iPhone versus Galaxy.  With the Galaxy S 4 coming, looking for Samsung to promote the heck out of it and Apple to continue to show users what they can do with iPhones.

iWatch again.  I’m really tried of it.  First, Apple needed to release an iWatch or else it’ll be doomed as analysts suggest.  Now, it’s iWatch ain’t gonna do a thing to save Apple. Seriously, on what freaking planet are these analysts from?  Forget tech pundits.  Pundits and bloggers all have something in the mobile horse race – either as supporters or with axes to grind.  But what about Wall Street analysts? I’m not going to link to particular post because it’s just insane these days.  More recently, you’ve got an analyst who talked up the iWatch and only to downgrade it because he doesn’t think it’ll do Apple much good.  All of that on a non-existent product! Oh, then there’s another analyst who year after year said that Apple will release its own HDTV.  And through it all, he upgraded or downgraded the stock based on stuff going on in his nut-job mind, again, based on a product that Apple may never bring to the market. Here’s the...

Source:   Investors . I genuinely was rooting for Surface RT to take root.  I really thought there was something there.  Maybe there still is.  But right now, I'm not so sure.  The IBD article pointed out something important that Apple and Google seemed to have avoided so far:  With Surface RT and Pro, Microsoft is bungling the message to consumers. Apple has iOS for the iPhone and iPad.  OS X for Macs.  Message there is clear.  Google has Android for mobile devices while Chrome OS for netbooks.  I'm even fine with Google merging Android and Chrome OS (it'll happen too, mark my word). However, none of the above mentioned products really compete with one another.  In some cases, they complement each other.  That's not the case with RT and Pro. Rather, it's RT versus Pro.

Source:   Appleinsider . Here's a leaked video of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S 4.  It's typical Samsung design but for some reason, I think it's better than the S3, which is a very good thing. It's approaching the size of the Galaxy Note 2, so you'll have to decide if you putting this thing next to your head is something you want to do.  I've already decided any calls I make will be via a headset for devices that are 4.5" and up. As you can see, it's definitely comfortable to use with one hand for some functions.  I personally never bought into Apple's stance on the iPhone having to be used with one hand.  I get what they're trying to say but you can design a phone and apps for one-handed use especially if you do a lot of scrolling. Samsung has recognize that phones aren't just phones anymore.  They're mobile devices for a fast evolving society that wants to do more on the go.  They figure bigger screens could be key.  ...

Source:   Which  via  Macdailynews . Which is a new site to me but their results on the Macbook Pro with Retina Display's battery life should be no surprise to anyone.  Apple's legendary battery life in Macbooks is well known but it's good to see this fact affirmed once more. Their result gave the 13" model 388 minutes or 6.5 hours, 30 minutes short of Apple's own numbers.  However, you don't want to read too much into that because testing methods likely vary.  For the most part, my own experience shows that Apple's numbers are conservative but right on target.

Source:   Tamba Bay Times (NYT) . Apple's iPhone's reliability rating is almost 3X that of its closest competitor.  1.5X, okay.  2X would get a wow from me.  However, the iPhone being three times better than Samsung? Well, it'll be interesting to see how FixYa's rating methodology came to this conclusion.  Regardless, it's pretty safe to conclude the iPhone is very reliable and Apple's legendary quality persists under Tim Cook's reign. However, I don't think it's something that Apple should brag about.  Nor will they.  First, word of mouth is probably good enough.  Second, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Battery life.  Yup, that's our main concern.  Come on, Apple.  With iPhone 5S or 6, try for 4X better than anyone.