Linked List: January 6, 2012

Friday, 6 January 2012

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Now I’ve Heard It All ★

Karl Smith, in an “open letter from Apple” to its shareholders:

Paying a dividend and burning down our war chest would jeopardize all of that.

You see, one day a competitor will come along and cut our core product line out from underneath us. We will need all the cash we can muster to fend them off. When that cash is done, we will mortgage the company. The first several times we may be successful. However, as is always the case, eventually time will get the best of us and we will be unable to meet our creditors demands.

We will go bankrupt. Our creditors will seize the equity and the shareholders will be left with nothing and having made zero return on their investment.

Apple should pay its shareholders a dividend because it’s on a course for inevitable bankruptcy. OK. This is why I drink.

Motorola Mobility Issues Warning on Fourth-Quarter Earnings ★

Starting to look like “Android growth” is really just Samsung growth.

Galaxy Tab USB and SD Connection Kit ★

Looks familiar; can’t place where I’ve seen something like this before.

Sprint Clarifies That It Doesn’t Throttle Unlimited Data Users ★

Ends up “unlimited” really does mean unlimited with Sprint.

2012 Predictions: Macworld’s Annual Forecast of the Year Ahead ★

Speaking of 2012 Apple predictions, Macworld has some from Jacqui Cheng, Adam Engst, John Moltz, Andy Ihnatko, The Macalope, and yours truly. I did pretty well last year.

Vintage 2008 Cringely Claim Chowder ★

Cringely, back in 2008, predicting an Apple acquisition of Adobe:

The major point here is that Adobe is in play, or at least Apple thinks so. The company has plenty of cash and stock to do the deal and plenty of incentive, too. Apple’s goal in acquiring Adobe would be to control first Flash and second Adobe’s emerging Air application platform. Adobe announced this week a broad industry initiative to extend Flash to mobile devices, but Apple wasn’t a participant. Why bother if you intend to shortly own Flash outright?

Funny thing is, Apple has a done a pretty good job controlling Flash, at least in mobile. Anyway, you could make a lot of money betting against Cringely’s predictions.

‘Head-Turningly Less’ ★

Gina Trapani, in her list of “What Google Should Do in 2012”:

Release a killer tablet. Price this tablet head-turningly less than the iPad, make it run Ice Cream Sandwich flawlessly, and offer completely sandwiched-out apps that absolutely scream for the big screen. Forget trying too hard not to offend other Android device manufacturers. Googorola should get this tablet exactly right, down to every last ever-loving detail, with the hardware and the software teams living, breathing, eating, and sleeping together on it.

A fine suggestion. But: is there any evidence whatsoever that it’s even possible to make a tablet that is (a) killer, and (b) lower-priced than the iPad? Let’s define “killer” as “as good as or better than the iPad”. I think Google would do very well simply to produce a genuinely killer tablet that matches the iPad on price.

Tim Cook, in 2009 (regarding the iPhone, but I think it applies to the iPad as well): “One thing we’ll make sure is that we don’t leave a price umbrella for people.”

App Store Downgrade of the Week ★

Apple’s blind spot:

Due to a notification from Apple, this version of Codea removes the project sharing feature.

This sucks, pure and simple.

Close Call ★

Monica Chen and Steve Shen, “reporting” for DigiTimes:

Apple will ship the so-called “iPad 3” with a full HD display in March […]

Wait a minute. What’s going on here? A DigiTimes report about Apple and the iPad that’s completely accurate? No completely made-up nonsense? Is something wrong with me?

and then “iPad 4” — named so by its component suppliers — with killer applications in October, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

OK, phew, what a relief.

Eating a Sandroid ★

Design innovation looks a lot easier in hindsight.