acslater017

Respectfully, you must not be familiar with recent Apple history. Apple’s used all manner of celebrity – Black Eyed Peas, Moby, Coldplay, U2, Jeff Golblum, Will Ferrell, Tony Hawk, Yo-Yo Ma…

I also agree that ads matter, but a few forgettable ads (which the Samuel L. Jackson ones definitely are) are not the end of the world. As recently as the 2000s (under Jobs), Apple did relatively cheesy things like have the Black Eyed Peas explain why the iPod was cool.

There will always be the “here’s the product on a stark monochrome background” ads. The new iPad runs those type and are great. For some reason, the Siri/4S ads have a different vibe to them – maybe because they’re highlighting a single feature (Siri) and giving it its own line of ads? The “general” iPhone 4S ads (e.g. demoing the camera) are the same ol same ol.

Feature-for-feature, Google+ is as strong an offering as Facebook. The thing is, nobody care about social network features! It’s all about friends, and how many friends you’ve got on each network.

I am not going to maintain two social networking sites. If 95% of my friends are on Facebook, I’m only using Facebook. If 80% of my friends are on Facebook, I’m only using Facebook (unless my friends specifically want a Hangout or something). My time on each platform is not proportional – if Google+ doesn’t reach enough people, I’m not going to spend any more time on it.

Ditto Spinfusor. MySpace was the most popular, but not dominant like Facebook with its billion users. “MySpace me” was never a phrase. My mom never registered a MySpace account.

I was excited about Google+when it first came out, but Google failed to strike while the iron was hot. I could spend 10 minutes on Facebook and reach 250 friends. Or, spend another 10 minutes and reach an additional 10 friends on Google+. And Hangout. Whoopee. If Google had treated Google+ as an actual product launch and not their traditional “early adopters = beta testers” philosophy, it might have been different. People were/are eager to switch from Facebook, but it needs to reach critical mass quickly. Maintaining two social networks is just not worth it.

Facebook isn’t doomed, but it’s pretty overvalued. Tons of people use Facebook (a billion customers) and they provide a good service. But it’s hard to get a handle on what actual product they produce, how they can produce enough wealth to justify such a sky-high valuation. Comparisons to Pets.com are huge exaggerations. I’d be willing to invest a little, but I’m hoping it’ll get down to $20 or so before I bite.

The 3GS did not have an aluminum shell. In any case aluminum has its own drawbacks (dentability, electromagnetic interference). Glass is shatterable on hard impact, but scratch resistant, smooth to touch, aesthetically pleasing, easy to clean, etc.

Hmm…I guess an amorphous metal alloy would be the best of both worlds!

To a lesser extent, this is one thing I enjoyed about OS X when I first switched from Windows as my main machine in 2004. There were probably fewer apps than on Windows, but it seemed like developers put a lot of TLC into them.

…AKA solution for a solution in search of a problem.

Because sometimes the simplest solution to a problem…is nail polish and rings.

Children of Men. Awesome movie! Some drugged up kid was playing on his 2027 Gameboy…

This is exactly what “common people” need. While they might not know exactly how many webpages or emails they use daily, it’s at least a ballpark tool. Most people have ZERO idea what a gigabyte means to them. While number of webpages and emails per day might seem obscure, it’s so much more relevant than bytes.

I was super juiced about Google+ when I first got invited last summer, but count me in with those whose usage has tapered off dramatically since then. It’s got neat features (Circles, Hangouts, etc.) but I kind of got tired of being Google’s beta tester. I think that if Google struck while the iron was hot, they could have made a greater impact. But instead they did their usual Google thing, which means a lot of hype and a soft launch.

That might work for some products, but not a new social network fighting against and entrenched social network. I could spend 10 minutes reaching 250 friends on Facebook, or spend another 10 minutes and reach 250 + 15 friends on Google+. Why would I waste my time maintaining two networks? Or should I try to be a standout, enjoying my neat features with no friends?

Didn’t the article state that it’s POLICY at Samsung for it to be destroyed? And that they’ve failed to preserve requested evidence several times in the past?

Yea, I’m pretty sure hundreds of millions of people would disagree…

I think Paul’s experiment is completely relevant and serious. In fact, for an organization dedicated to all things high-tech, it’s great that they’re exploring the effects of the Internet (or lack thereof) on our minds, lifestyles, and culture. Should a Food Network star never go on a diet? Can a writer in, say, a Christian magazine never visit a Hindu temple or Synagogue?

If anything, it deepens Paul’s (and our) understanding of technology and the implications in our world.

Surely any company has an interest in putting a positive spin on events. But I don’t think it’s complete BS either. When asked on the spot, the CEO said that it would reduce turnover, make Foxconn a desirable place to work (and attract the best workers), and other benefits associated with paying your employees more.

It’s a competitive strength if the customer (Apple) and supplier (Foxconn) have an agreement about it being a good thing. If Apple did not value this, Foxconn would raise their prices and Apple would drop them for someone else. So it’s moved on from a situation where low cost was the supreme goal.

I don’t think that’s realistic. Unless Apple goes through the trouble of designing two versions of the 2012 iPhone (one with Apple SIM, one with Nokia SIM), we’ll need to wait til 2013 to see this implemented. It would require a reshuffling of the entire internal layout, since they maximize for every cubic millimeter.

Maybe March 2013 iPad.

Several leaps you’ve got going on there.

Probably not expensive at all if it makes their operation more efficient. For example, preparing the ramp might save the staff and passengers 20 seconds, several times a day. Or prevent duplication of effort with quicker damage reports. Or prevent freeloaders from gaming the ticket system (AKA patented hole punch technology).

A $199/$649 device is nothing.

My guess is that Amtrak would want their agents to have access to this information even if they didn’t have Wi-Fi. Ditto GPS, for geotagging locations of issues. That, and the camera on the iPhone is much better. Sounds trivial, but if they’re using it to submit mechanical issue problems, the higher resolution/image quality might be well worth it.

My work does a similar thing for reporting damaged equipment, cosmetic damage, missing signage, etc. It’s really handy to snap a photo and have everyone instantly have access to your report.

PS – Josh, your interviewing skills are getting better. If I could make a constructive criticism of past interviews, sometimes in the past you’e spoken too much or tried to insert too many jokes. Nothing’s worse than an interviewer who speaks more than the subject, or spends 10 minutes trying to phrase a question properly. But this one was great! Some easy questions, some hard questions, some humor, some seriousness, and tons of discovery about this guy I knew nothing about. Keep up the great work.

Wow, awesome interview. The last few minutes had me a little misty, to be honest.

However, I wonder what Josh’s skepticism is about electric vehicles. If we could clean up our large-scale production (something we should be doing anyway) and improve battery efficiency and charging times a few times over, wouldn’t we be pretty much "there’? Sure, those are not insignificant hurdles – but electric seems SO much closer than hydrogen, biofuel, etc., doesn’t it?

I wouldn’t say that Apple invents everything but Samsung most definitely does copy them. Voice control? Sure, who wouldn’t want to do that. Does a dark gray background have to come up, with speech bubbles representing the conversation, with the results showing up on an “imprint” on said dark gray patterned background? No, there are many other implementations possible, but Samsung chose the most Apple-esque one possible. Ditto the list of voice actions, yellow sunflower to represent photos, the boxing/accessory design, and a slew of other things…Completely unnecessary to design them that way, but they chose to anyway

It’s not that BlackBerry 10 is bad. It’s just 2 years late. Much like Windows 7, a potentially solid product that didn’t strike while the iron was hot (2007-2009). A lot has changed over the past 5 years, and only now is RIM doing anything about it…

Honestly, I don’t think Google/Android has a chance. iPad’s eaten up the market for mobile OS-based tablets. Other companies need to zig where Apple’s zagged, and some are doing a decent job. Windows will soon bring a full-fledged OS to tablets, and Amazon is doing filling in the lower-end reading-centric tablets.

I honestly don’t see a significant market for Google/Android. (And there’s no carrier subsidies this time around…)

Is anyone else put off by the phrases"Paul Miller’s final hours" and “pulled the plug”?