Rip Ragged

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Okay, Maybe I’m an Idiot

February 8th, 2010 · General Detritus

Some time back, Master Jobst Fimil conceded defeat in the PC war. He said it out loud and people heard him. He said the PC war is over and Microsoft won.

Some time later, the iPod was introduced. Then the iPhone. Now, the iPad.

Lets look at that, shall we?

The iPod was not the first mp3 player. But soon after it was introduced it was the four-letter answer in the NY Times Crossword for “Portable music player.” The market for mp3 players isn’t just defined by the iPod; it is the iPod.

Later, the iPhone. Three years after it was introduced (2.5 years after it was actually for sale) it’s the #3 smart phone on the planet. If your company sells wireless handsets, you hope like hell those handsets are compared to the iPhone. That’s the best you can hope for, after all. Favorable comparisons aren’t really possible.

Here’s my big question for Nokia, who’s suing Apple for patent infringement:

If you, at any point in your history, had technology Apple needed for the iPhone, why, in the name of Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, aren’t you selling some seriously wicked magical stuff?

So now Apple introduces the iPad – with an Apple A4 chip running the dogdamn thing.

Feminine hygiene jokes aside, in a few months the whole concept of portable computing will be a reflection of the iPad.

The iPad won’t have all the functions and features anyone could ever want, but it will have most of the functions and features that most people need. And those functions and features will work easily most of the time for most people.

Geeks will bitch about the lack of geek things. Nerds are being left behind. The iPad is not a toy for hobbyists. The iPad is a tool and a toy for the average computer illiterate asshole on the street. All the coders who successfully waited out the iPhone are going to do just fine on the new platform.

The day of the computer hobbyist being the leading edge of the computing market are over.

Likewise, the days of the home desktop computer are numbered.

Everything the average Joe on the street needs to do will be addressed by the iPad, once it can send to a printer, that is. Or when printed paper becomes obsolete.

When that happens, the desktop computer will be obsolete, just like land-line phones are nearing obsolescence now. Why bother with a desktop machine eating space in the house when you have the internet at hand on your iPad all the time anyway? Who’s going to buy Compaqs and Acers, when an iPad is the same price and better?

Why would a company maintain work stations when every employee has access to the company LAN or WAN with their iPads? Whither Dell in this scenario?

Likewise, why would the company buy you a Vaio when they can just subsidize your iPad? You don’t use all the power that laptop has to offer, anyway.

The desktop Windoze market runs on volume sales because their profit margins are razor thin. Lots of people have a home computer, a laptop for travel, a desktop at home, and a smartphone. What if you could replace all that with one device? What if that device was an iPad? It won’t take much to push HP, Samsung, and Sony out of the game, and Dell off the edge of the atlas.

At that point the only real need for desktop machines will be for developers, power users, and people who need major computing muscle and processor horsepower.

Guess where Apple already shines? High dollar horsepower and power user machines. If the other companies want to continue to sell computers, they’ll have to find something that makes their machines worth selling.

With laptop and desktop sales in the toilet, companies bailing out of the personal computer market because there’s no money in it – Apple will bestow, with miserly discrimination upon the chosen few reluctantly deemed worthy, the mark of acceptance: an OS X license.

Master Jobst Fimil ceded the PC War. That’s because he knew that not only was that war over, but it was no longer even relevant. Apple isn’t even in the PC War. The Mac is just the hub and the development platform for the next platform. Also, the Mac is a pretty nice little cash cow Apple can milk while they make all the rules for the next game. Apple’s “competitors” haven’t even figured out what the new game is yet.

The last time Apple licensed the OS, it was to try to catch up with Windows.

The next time, it will be the head-shot that finally kills Windows.

I give it two years. Three, maximum.

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Not much in the way of news…

February 6th, 2010 · Apple Tablet, Gadgetry, General Detritus, Leopard, Licensing OS X, Master Jobst Fimil, Microsoft, Netbooks, Punditbots and Fundtards, Tablet, iPhone

Really. It’s pretty grim out there if you’re a tech punditbot or fundtard. Apple went ahead and announced the iPad.

It doesn’t have Flash. That’s the big frigging news. The imbeciles can’t even bitch about cut and paste on this one. Most of them have gone back to posing as 14-year old girls in IRC chat rooms.

Here in a few weeks Apple will start selling the iPad. I don’t know if I’ll be an early adopter. I might wait a week or two; let the lines get a little shorter.

I have a feeling that Apple will keep selling Macs for a while – right up until there’s a tipping point with the other hardware. I’ll bet there’s a time, a couple of years away, when Apple will begin licensing the OS.

The tipping point will come when Apple no longer needs to sell desktop and laptop computers. When Apple can make its money selling handheld devices, they may license OS X to computer companies. Apple will have to approve each model number that bears an “OS X Ready” sticker. The “Intel Inside” sticker will be a cost of business. The Apple sticker will be a reward for good design.

Go read this. Pay close attention. There will be a quiz.

If you go over to Mecca and look at the shiny things, you’ll notice the pictures of the iMessiah. Look carefully at the screens. Look at the dock with it’s reflective floor. Apple has been setting us up for the iPad for ten years with OS X. Then finally, with the iPhone and iTouch, they made everything work in miniature.

Now that we’ve accustomed ourselves to teeny-weeny, they offer the compromise. It’s bigger and easier than a phone. It’s smaller and easier to carry than a laptop.

It will recite fairy tales to the little ones.

It smells like a tulip garden in spring.

It repels electromagnetic pulses from 100 kiloton nuclear air detonations from as close as fifteen miles.

It glows in the dark and makes perfect steamed rice.

It never asks for sensitive information.

It will never tell your mom (or your spouse) about what went on at that party in the 10th grade.

It’s Steve Largent, Barry Sanders, Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary, and Joe Montana in one nice neat package.

It’s Elvis, but without the rhinestones.

I don’t care what he does when he’s offstage. I just buy good music.

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Steve Jobs in New York

February 4th, 2010 · General Detritus

Okay. Big Hairy Deal. Media giants. Captains of television, radio, newspapers, internet. Steve Jobs walks into the room and controls the entire conversation. Just because He is there, the event is defined as a Steve Jobs event.

That is as it should be.

What happens if Steve Ballmer walks into the room you’re in? Well, you can go ahead and fart because he’s going to be blamed.

Eric Schmidt? Meh.

You’re a first adopter of the 27″ iMac. Sorry. Shit happens. Here’s the thing, though. A few iMacs develop a smell, and it’s huge news.

How many Dells have to spontaneously die before anyone writes an article about it? Many times many. When a Dell makes a big brown curlicue on a desk, it’s because the user is an idiot.

When an Apple flickers, it’s because Apple screwed up.

That is the nature of the beast.

We love it.

….

Scott Brown is a red herring. The democrats are going to bail on their agenda and blame the loss of a super-majority for their lack of any substantive action on anything.

I couldn’t be happier.

Well, I could, but not when I’m out of beer.

An inventor has created a female robot that can talk and fake orgasms. If you want one she’ll cost you $7000. Her name is Roxxxy.

I was unable to determine if she clips coupons, shops for shoes, or understands the difference between a quarterback and a pop fly. Not that anyone cares.

This is what great rock and roll is like, except it’s better when you’re there.

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I’m good, for now

February 3rd, 2010 · Adobe, App Store, Apple Tablet, Gadgetry, General Detritus, Netbooks, iPhone

GoDaddy.com, which advertises its business using the most refined possible examples of skin, has taken enough of my money to assure me that my domain names are safe for 1095.75 more days.

Thank the maker.

Adobe’s CTO has taken to the internet in a poorly written blog entry to announce that he’s not lazy, and neither is the company as a whole. As soon as the girl shows up to wipe his butt, and his lunch is served by the nice young man who feeds him and reads to him, he’s going to have somebody mail a nasty letter to Steve Jobs.

Dammit.

Amazon wants to get a touch screen, an app store, a shitload of third party apps, and a review from David Pogue for Kindle, now that it’s toast.

I’ve been reading all over the internet. There are approximately 19,600,000 hits for iPad.

19,599,999 of them are full of shit.

Rip Ragged gets it right. Here’s all you need to know.

You want one.

I want one.

Everybody you know wants one.

The son of a bitch is going to sell like ice-hockey tickets in hell.

Its relative inferiority based on any other criteria is absolutely meaningless.

Once upon a time Steve Jobs said, “The PC war is over. Microsoft won.” The iPhone was the first prototype. The iPad is the second prototype. In two years, the iPhone will seem like a stone ax.

You read it here first (or at least no more than twenty-seventh).

You can go into your User Dictionary and remove the term “netbook.” It is officially a meaningless term, like “Gameboy” and “Rahm.”

….

This track rocks. ROCKS.

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Apple Hates Adobe and Google

February 1st, 2010 · General Detritus

It must be true. I read it on the internet.

What Bullshit.

Master Jobst Fimil may be many things, but the suggestion that he’s stupid enough to hate viable business partners is beyond absurd.

He sent a message to Adobe. He said, “Fix your buggy piece of shit, Flash, while it still exists anywhere besides ScrewTube.com. Until you do, it isn’t going to pollute the iPad.”

He also sent a message to the rest of us that Google is not Mother Teresa. Au contraire, Google is in business to make money.

That’s different from hating them. The Master was merely setting the record straight.

PDF is the default print format on a Macintosh. Desktop Publishing and WYSIWYG would have been non-starters if not for Post Script, Adobe’s page description algorithm. You might have heard of Post Script. It’s called Acrobat, these days. It’s Apple’s display format.

Your screen image on a Mac running OS X is essentially a PDF file.

Apple hates Adobe? Please.

If you’re gonna chill, chill.

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iPhone Killer Alert

January 31st, 2010 · General Detritus

Ladies and Gentlemen, my regular readers, children of all stages of arrested development. I call your attention to the center of the arena.

I found this on the innertubes in my regular quest for something of which to make fun.

I would just like to point out that any product that is being given away for free has not sold well. Any product that has not sold well is not going to be competitive with a product that has sold well. Giving the Pre away for free is a way to clear inventory, not create a competitor.

Also, you want to hope that your hypemaster is fluent in at least one language and that language will be featured in your promo. This one misses. And it’s stupid, too.

Pre, bye.

If you’re on the East Coast as this is posted, the date is 02/01/2010, which is weird to type. Not that that matters.

I was just reading that Democrats have bigger war chests for the midterm elections than Republicans do. That’s nice. I don’t think it’s going to matter much, though. If your last job was captain of the Titanic, it really doesn’t matter much what else is on your resumé. You’re gonna have a hell of a time finding another ship to steer.

The iPad can’t play Flash. That figures. The son of a bitch probably can’t run DOS or CP/M or any other obsolete technologies, either.

Dammit.

The jokes are everywhere about the new iMaxi, or iKotex, or whatever the hell.

It’s stupid.

Or maybe I’m just on the iPad.

The Grammys were tonight. I missed them. Thank the maker.

Zune sucks.

I changed my mind.

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