Wireless: Spectrum Crunch - No Easy Way To Alleviate It, Cost To Go Up

There is a spectrum crunch that is creating problems for users and the wireless companies.  What’s causing the spectrum crunch in the US?  According to CNN, the following are the main causes:

• Leading off is iPhone, iPad, & other mobile devices like Androids that are using more data than expected. Also the adoption rate of these mobile devices have increased.
• Inept government regulation – what used to work doesn’t anymore and the FCC has not moved fast enough
• Industry protectionism like the TV broadcast industry trying to wall off their spectrum.
• Hoarding – there are spectrums out there that are not being used.  Dish Network, we’re looking at you.

How much of this can be fixed quickly isn’t known.  We can use more Wi-Fi but all of this is giving carriers reasons to ration and cap wireless use – thus driving up costs for end users like us mobile warriors.

The problem isn’t really the users but a combination of carriers, industry players, and the government not working together to solve this.  As the article mentioned, there is not one quick solution.  What will get us through this is going to be a patchwork of new technology, policy reforms, and new innovative thinking.

And it’ll take a while.  A long, long while because there is just too much fear and too much entrenched interests.  And new comers are in no hurry to make things happen.

Translation:  costs could go up for the average mobile user.  Our only long-term hope is that the winners of any spectrum war or realignment will not have too much power to dictate how we use our wireless devices or have the ability to charge us whatever they want.

Source:  CNN Money.

Should Apple Make Available A Special iPad For School For Far Less? It Would Make A Lot of Sense and Doable (and Money For Apple)

First, let me say that what I’m predicting here is way in no way based on anything I’ve read or have been told.  This is just my own musing on how Apple can get iPads into the hands of million of students across the US or any other country that might be interested in giving their students the best opportunities that mobile computing can give today.  At the end of this post, I’ll reveal what I believe Apple can charge for it.

Each iTexbook for Apple is going to cost about $15 a textbook.  And from K-12, we are talking anywhere from 4 to 6 textbooks per pupil.  That’s comes out to about $60 to $90 per student per year.  And let’s suppose that each student will be assigned an iPad that is good for three to four years.  Maybe even five.

Now, let’s do the math.  At three years, that means the textbook revenue per student comes out to $180 to $270 per student.  Apple’s 30% is about $54 to $86.40 per student.  If you extend the iPad lease to 4 and 5 years, Apple’s cut becomes $72 to $115.20 and $90 to $144 respectively depending on the number of textbooks per student.

Apple can easily subsidized a price cut from the low-end $500 and really drive the price down a 9.7” iPad.  And with manufacturing cost going down year after year, there is more room for Apple it wants to go even lower.

At the end of it all, Apple can lease iPads on a 3-5 year basis and cut prices down to about $300 per iPad and make quite a bit of money still with revenue from textbooks helping to subsidize the cost.  Imagine a recurring upgrade of tens of millions (or hundreds of millions) of iPad every year for as long as iPads are needed to educate students.

Apple can will be able to count on its iPad to bankroll the company for decades to come.  Suppose Apple does adopt a plan similar to one that I am proposing, we already believe that Apple will keep the iPad 2 around even after it introduces the next iPad upgrade with a $100.  For schools, Apple can further achieve added cut from the textbook revenue and move the price even lower.

All the way down to $300.

Of course, it would have to be a packaged deal.  The school would have to be willing to lease the iPad and buy textbooks from the iBookstore in for Apple to drive the price this low.  Should the School choose only to go with the iPad, they can obviously settle for any educational discount or package that Apple offers.  And if the school or the student choose to, they can buy the iPad from the school or Apple for a low cost of say $100-$150 per iPad.  Everyone wins.

Making money from these student iPads aside, Apple will have achieve something that Steve Jobs dreamt of; revolutionize education.  And on top of that, legions of students, generation after generation of them, will grow up using Apple’s products.  iPads, Apple TV, and Apple’s mobile vision.

There simply is no company out there that could make this happen on such a scale in the tablet market except Apple.  And I believe Apple will make a $300 iPad available for schools and still manage to maintain a healthy profit margin.  After all, didn’t Apple jus tell Wall Street their margin was the best ever in the company’s history?

Siri on the Mac? Hope So But Apple Might Not Offer It

I’ve just begun to play with Mountain Lion, OS 10.8, Apple’s next update to the Mac operating system that includes many iOS specific features like Messages and quite frankly, changes to key features with iCloud integration.  One feature that appears to be missing from all this is Siri.  Granted, Siri is still missing from the iPad 2, an oversight that I hope Apple will rectify with the next iPad release.  But would it be stupendous if Apple also makes Siri available to the Macs as well?

I am thinking not just from a fan standpoint but also from a competitive standpoint in the mobile marketplace.  Windows 8 will be out by the third quarter of 2012 and tons of tablets and laptops that run Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS will be flooding the market.

Right now, I think most analysts and bloggers are just concentrating on the meaning of Apple’s surprising and cryptic preview of Mountain Lion and pour over what’s there, and not what isn’t there like Siri.  See, typically, Apple likes to schedule big media events for things like these previews.  They’ve done it numerous times with OS X and just about every single time with iOS.  This time, it was different.

Sandwiched between an educational media event in January for the iBooks and digital textbook publishing and a likely iPad event in March, I can understand why Apple doesn’t want a huge OS X update to overshadow what they are going to do next.

However, some believe that Apple saw a lot of what they like in Windows 8.  Let me correct myself.  As users, they might have seen a lot of improvements in Windows 8 that can have a major impact on iOS and OS X – meaning sales of iPads and Macs.  So, some have speculated that Apple is simply trying to upstage Microsoft’s own launch.

Others, who are less kind, believed Tim Cook and company blinked and panicked.

Whatever the reasons are, it is good to see that Apple is demonstrating to the market its more concerted effort to update the OS for the Mac.  In fact, Apple has indicated that like the iOS, the OS X will now be getting annual updates.

Back to Siri.  We all saw what Siri, still in beta, did for the iPhone 4S sales.  Now consider what it will do for the iPad sales if Apple enables Siri with the next update.  So far, Google has nothing that can even come close.  And Microsoft was caught flatfooted when Siri was announced and its speech in Windows Phone or Windows, while they exist just like they do for Android, is nowhere near what Siri can do along with the accompanying personality.

Now, consider what Siri can do to the Mac sales just against Windows.

Not just for padding Apple’s cash reserve but Apple stands a good chance of bring a whole new computing dynamics to the Mac as well.  Along with Apple’s growing and evolving multi-touch interface and voice command, mobile warriors can really take computing into a whole new direction with the more powerful Macbooks.

What I want and what Apple will do are two vastly different things.  Quite under the reality distortion field of Steve Jobs for years if not decades to come, Apple will do things that only makes sense, not because it’s there and they’ll put it in.  While it might be a no-brainer for us to want Siri on the Mac, Apple might have its own reason that are completely different from ours to include it or leave it out completely.

It’s likely that Apple sees the Mac computers, while growing compared to the rest of the PC market for years now, obviously does not hold the huge potential that exists in the smartphone and tablet market.  By not including Siri in OS X, Apple will have a better success of stirring people towards iOS products.

That makes sense.  Nevertheless, the PC market is not going to go away any time soon and there is still a lot of battles to be fought on the mobile PC front.

So, while I love to have Siri on my 11” Macbook Air come this summer, it’s Steve Jobs’ vision that will make that final determination.

Apple Fans Needs Google To Release The Nexus Tablet

We've seen the Android 4 and what it is doing with the Galaxy Nexus - and anyone without the Nexus  simply will have to wait, either for the hardware makers to make Android 4 available as an update or to wait for new hardware like the Samsung Galaxy III to be on the market.  And while Android has done great in the smartphone market, Android tablets have not.  In fact, it has been the Kindle Fire, which really isn't an Android tablet given what Amazon has done to the OS, that has helped stem the iPad tide.

This is why we need the Nexus tablet more than ever.  And there are many reasons why a Nexus tablet is so important.  Again, Apple continues to push ahead with the iPad and the next version, the iPad 3, is likely just weeks away.  And as much as I like the Galaxy Tab 8.9, Samsung for whatever reason is pricing them right up there with the iPad and has limited success as far as market-share goes.

Furthermore, Windows 8 is coming and if it does well, we are talking about Microsoft's OS becoming the default alternative to the iPad.  Keep in mind that after Honeycomb's release along with Xoom, we were all thinking it would only be a matter of time before Android overtakes the iPad.  Nowhere was Windows in the discussion.

And now, Android is in danger of fight for a second place, possibly a distant third.

Second, as a mobile fan, regardless which mobile platform you're using or a fan of, we need competition in the marketplace.  The harder Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even RIM or HP compete, innovate, and fight for our hard earned money, the better off we are as mobile warriors.  We'll get better tech and innovation faster than if it was just a one-horse race as it is now with the iPad.

Third, look at what the Nexus One did to the Android smartphone image.  Before that, it was my G1 from T-Mobile, the very first Android device, the original Google phone.  But it was really the Nexus One that served as a template on which others like the Droid and Galaxy S was built upon.

Essentially, Google said to its partners as well as the marketplace, "Make it as good as this or try to do better".  And Android devices have improved each year as competition with rivals as well as with the Nexus line.  After all, if the Galaxy line sucked, people, would would be turning to the Nexus devices.

Competition, innovation, and benefits to mobile users are all great reasons why we need Google to step up and make their tablet plans known as soon as possible.  Perhaps, we'll see it at the Mobile World Congress in Spain in a couple of weeks.  And if that happens, it could not happen fast enough.

Personally, I love to see a Nexus tablet with a quad-core chip, Android 4, 32 GB, Retina Display screen like those that we are expecting on the iPad 3, and 12-15 hours of battery life all weighing in at around one pound, which is just .2 lbs less than what the Galaxy Tab 10.1 weighs in or weighing 25% less than the iPad 2.

So, Google, show us your Nexus tablet already, ya?

Note:  I left out how much I think Google's Nexus tablet should weigh in at.  I honestly don't think anyone can keep up with Apple on pricing in the near term, like the next three to five years, because of the huge investment Apple is able to make on components and the supply chain.  Only Amazon is capable of competing with Apple in this regard and only because they're selling the Kindle Fire at a loss.

Google Exploited Holes And Act Like The Bad Guys But Apple Also At Fault

Let's be clear about the settings for Google using a vulnerability in Safari that allows itself and other online advertisers to set cookies even when the user has explicitly disallow third-party cookies to be uploaded.  Google acted like a hacker in this.  Forget about the technical details of how this happened.  They did it, got caught, and came up with the only explanation they have:  the opportunity was there and we took it.  And Apple is at fault for allow this to happen because this vulnerability is only inherent with Safari, not even with Chrome or Android's browser which shares the same Webkit framework as Apple's own browser, Firefox, or Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Now, Congress is looking into this matter.  The thing is that Apple could have made this all go away had they come up with the patch to plug this old from the start.  I can't understand how Apple could have possibly not know about this.

So far, Apple has stay customarily silent on this matter.  And even with a more vocal Tim Cook at the helm, I think for the moment, they would be happy to allow the various reports on the Internet to crucify Google and allow Google's own explanations to hang itself.

That doesn't mean that Apple should not say more publicly about this.  After all, Congress is looking into this and, probably, the FTC, FCC, and the DOG are going to want to chime in.

So, Apple is at fault in some of this.

Now, about Google.  It acted like a hacker.  It broke the faith that users have with Google and went against even the spirit of the Internet as far as trust and privacy is concerned.  Google was very much evil in this situation.  We did not want to be tracked and Google used a form trick to allow them to install cookies on other sites we visit.

Again, we said "no" to tracking and Google insisted.  I hope they get burn big time, regardless of the fact that they claim no personal information was taken.  Who really knows if that is even true?  We trusted Google on this "no tracking" thing so we can't well take Google's word at this either.

Back to Apple.  They really need to make sure that our mobile privacy is protected.  Apple has to institute an opt-in policy, which will make it stand out among its competitors like Facebook and Google that has a much more privacy-busting opt-out policy at best and "we're sorry" policy at worst when they are caught trying to circumvent fundamental understandings of privacy.

And Apple should not only allow universal privacy settings like some others have.  I like Apple's notification and location services options in settings in its iOS devices.  I like to see Apple bring those kinds of control to not just contacts but also other Internet services.

So, hopefully, with future iOS settings, Safari updates, and the upcoming Mountain Lion update for the Mac, Apple will give us the tools to fend off these predatory practices coming from Facebook, Google, and other ad companies.

Why We’ll see a 8-9” iPad – Because Kids Don’t Need To File Their Finger Down (Plus, They’ve Got Better/Newer Eyes)

First of all, we’re been pecking on our 3.5” iPhone screen for years now and we’re doing just fine.  On top of that, Steve Jobs, who’s known for misdirection on what Apple will or will not ship, said that we would have to file down our fingers just to use the icons on them useless 7” screens.

Well, as limiting as those 7 incher screens are as far as screen real estate goes, I can life with a 8 or 9 in because I’ve tried it with the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and it works great.

So, we’ve got years of great multi-touch experience on 3.5” iPhones, not just one finger touch and proof from Samsung that their 8.9” tablet works great, what is keeping Apple from releasing an 8” tablet?

Oh, them fingers that need to be filed down?  Don’t worry.  8” iPads would be great for kids.  First, they’ll probably be cheaper to make and sell.  On top of that, those grade-school kids have little hands and fingers.  I’ve been them on my two, five, and eight years old nephews and seven year old niece.  Their fingers will work great on an 8” iPad.

So, I’m wagering we will definitely see a sub-10” iPad, maybe not in 2012 but beyond.  Keep in mind that when Steve Jobs was blasting away at the Android tablets, he specifically referred to the 7” models.  He never said anything about bigger sized screens like an 8 or 9”.

Apple Like to Buy Twitter Before End of the Year

This is just my prediction:  Apple will eventually take over Twitter and integrate it more into its ecosystem for its Mac and mobile users.  So, folks who want dividends, sorry, I hope you don’t get it.  I rather have Apple spend its money in this manner.

How did I come to this conclusion?  Well, of all the social media properties out there, only Twitter seems to be more open and less about selling user information than the likes of Facebook, My Space (yes, they’re still around), or Google+.  The reason is because Twitter users, more than anyone else, are more open with their tweets knowing that what they broadcast is for general consumption.

On Facebook, your updates may be for your friends or a group of friends on a list but Facebook still sell that information to the highest bidder.  The same could be said of Twitter but the vast major of Twitter users don’t go turning on the feature only their followers or a subset of their followers to get their update.

And this works better for Apple than others.  And should Apple eventually buy Twitter, Apple is likely to integrate its own ad system, iAd, which is on life support at this time after failing to “revolutionize” the mobile ad space.  And Twitter’s social network would probably be similar to what Apple would create had it done so from scratch.

And today, we learn that Apple’s upcoming OS X update, Mountain Lion, will gain the same Twitter integration as iOS 5 devices have.  And with a Twitter buyout, Apple would instantly gain hundreds of millions of users that it could potentially convert and add to its ecosystem.  Apple is likely to sweeten things up by offering iCloud integration, making Twitter the social component of Apple’s cloud strategy.

Right now, the lack of a cohesive social network for Apple’s other social efforts like iTunes (forget about Ping), Game Center, iMessage, and iBooks could be solved with a Twitter buyout.  I mention iBooks because a virtual book club is just something that Apple can go next with its ebook effort.

You’re arguing right now that Apple can achieve all this now without buying Twitter.  Absolutely. Just without the control that Apple traditionally have.  Keep in mind that the disagreement between iTunes data with Facebook has kept Ping from being something that Steve Jobs hope.  And Twitter could well become someone else’s takeover target in the future.

After the Twitter buyout, Apple should and will continue to keep Twitter as we know it now the way it is.  The only different will be seen by those who use Twitter along with iOS devices or Macs.

I believe the deal between Apple and Twitter in iOS 5 was just a test run for Tim Cook and company.  It’s worked out great for both and in the coming year (I’ll allow myself to stretch that into 2013), Apple will make Twitter officially a part of the family.