AI, Mobile, and Eveything Around the Cloud

“There will be a special guest…” is the only thing that is mentioned on the invitation for Apple’s 2025 special event.  And on the day of the keynote, Tim Cook goes on stage and tells everyone just how Apple just added another $30 billion in cash just in the last quarter.  He makes a joke about how a Starbucks grande latte now costs $15 and money ain’t what it used to be and receive a chuckle from the audience. Then he said that Apple has been working on something really special and it would change just about every industry and market in the world – military, labor, and even education.  Audience is quiet, on the edge of their seat, all waiting in anticipation.  They expect Tim Cook to bring on Phil Schiller to unveil this next Apple product.  But he doesn’t. Tim goes on to talk about the industrial revolution and the automobile and then it’s about the telephone and personal computer.  He spoke fondly about the old iOS devices – iPhones and iPads.  A...

The question to the title of this post is absolutely.  And there is precedent for this as well.  And should Apple go through with giving away Mountain Lion and maybe charge on a biannual basis or whenever they figure the upgrade is big enough to warrant a charge. And Mountain Lion is a bit upgrade from Lion.  However, this is a sense of urgency in this.  Apple is on a roll in both the mobile and PC market - growth beyond anything I expected.  I'm not alone in this.  Giving away Mountain Lion will add fuel to Apple's success in 2012. Furthermore, Apple can really mess things up for Google and Microsoft.  First, Chrome OS, while still trying to find a footing in the PC market, can further be disrupted by Apple's own OS improvements.  It's not the same segment of the PC market that Apple and Google but every bit of goodwill that Apple generates help.  Media attention on Mountain Lion and the fact that it'll be free could generate a halo ef...

Update:  note that in the invitation, the iPad depicted has no home button...interesting... Okay, it's official.  Apple will unveil the next iPad update next week, March 7th, in San Francisco. Really, need not say more.  Anything else will be speculation.  It was rumored a few weeks back that it would be on the 7th and this mornnig, CNBC tweeted as such.  But this invitation to the chosen ones confirmed it. And yesterday, we also speculated that it is possible that Apple could charge a premium for Retina Display.  I still think it's possible Apple can charge more for it but at the same time, it could also be something Apple puts out just to throw everyone off. Personally, as an average mobile warrior, I am hoping that Apple will keep things the way they are.  Meaning, $499 for the low-end iPad and up.  Maybe keep the iPad 2 around just to mess with the low-end of the tablet market and Android competitors. Then the next question...

One of the highlight features for the upcoming iPad, iPad 2S or 3, is the Retina Display that it'll certainly sport.  So, word on the Internet now is that it'll cost more than the current iPad 2 baseline.  Some are guessing that Apple will charge an additional $70.  Others think it'll be $80.  Me?  I think it'll be a nice round figure:  $100. Now, I don't like to traffic in Apple rumors (though I enjoy reading them when they sound plausible, come from reputable sites, and does not come from DigiTimes), in this case, we can speculate about Retina Display pricing.  And I reckon the new high resolution displays are difficult to make, lower yields (meaning more waste), and is not something Apple's competitors are capable of matching at this moment. So, a premium, $70 to $100 more, isn't out of the question.  Make no mistake.  I'm as disappointed as you if our speculation turns out to be true.  This is it leads me to believe that Apple wi...

Apple is a premium brand.  However, it’s not the same thing as saying that Apple products cost more than competing devices or computers.  Rather, it’s about Apple’s unwillingness to compromise.  The “premiumness” is about Apple’s talented teams of designers, programmers, and engineers making the best products they can.  That is what makes Apple such a sought after brand and why people line up year after year to buy its products. So, we learn now that Apple’s iPhone is not doing well in countries where carriers do no offer subsidies.  In fact, Android smartphones had take Apple to school when it comes to market-share.  So what? There are going to be many analysts and tech pundits who will push for Apple to release a cheaper iPhone to address those market.  Screw that.  If Apple could not lower it self to make a PC at the $500 price point that was not a piece of junk, what makes anyone believe that Apple will make a $200 or even a $300 smartpho...

Mobile World Congress has started and leaks are already happening.  And guess what, tablets are huge this year and it should not be a surprise to anyone if tablets get more attention than smartphones.  After all, this is the year when Google gives it another shot at the iPad while Microsoft makes a very risky bet, albeit a necessary one, by making Windows 8 its chief competitor to the iPad. Take the quad-core tablets powered by Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip that will soon flood the market with many Android tablet makers using specs to help them muscle in to take some marketshare.  It's likely many Taiwanese companies will try to outspec competitors on similiarly pricted tablets.  What's interesting is the response from the top tier tablet makers. More at  Greenjava .

It's that time of the year again. Daylight savings is coming and and heat. At least in Calfornia, we have been having quite a warm winter and I don't see that changing much. To top that off, we are having quite a ride at the gas pumps. So, I've tooled up my bike, make sure everything is working as it should, and take it out today. So, I'll be looking to start up my recording of how much money I'll be saving by biking insteading of driving around my SUV. And where does mobile fit into all this? Our smartphones are yesterday's note pad. I used to use a little note book to record my bike rides in school, both high school and in college. It was neat to see just how much money I've saved over time because of all this. And since I've been looking for an app to do do just this, maybe I ought to write an app to do this for myself.