Linked List: October 30, 2013

Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Felix Salmon: ‘Apple Should Be Like Bloomberg’ 

Felix Salmon:

But here’s the thing: Tim Cook is a caretaker of a company which is designed to be around in perpetuity. Icahn, on the other hand, for all that he claims that “there is nothing short term” about his intentions, still has an exit strategy: he wants to buy low, drive the share price up through shareholder activism, and sell high. Apple should go along with Icahn’s plans only if they increase the long-term value of the company — and it’s pretty obvious that they don’t: Icahn is, at heart, advising Apple to have both large borrowings and a large cash pile at the same time. Which is bonkers.

Easily the best piece I’ve read regarding Carl Icahn’s desire to see Apple mortgage itself, and, really, a spot-on big-picture summary of what Apple is and should be:

Debt makes sense when you need money to invest today, and can repay that money with a substantial future income stream. Apple is in the exact opposite situation: it needs no money to invest today, while its long-term future income stream is quite uncertain. So it makes sense to save up in flush years, like it has been doing. It will continue to create amazing new products; what’s less clear is whether any of those new products will have the ability to become a world-conquering profit monster like the iPhone. The job of the markets is simply to price the shares accordingly; it’s not the job of management to change the deep structure of the company just to make the markets happy.

Ashton Kutcher Joins Lenovo as ‘Product Engineer’ 

Jon Swartz, reporting for USA Today:

Engineers are at a premium, yet Lenovo landed a new product engineer and celebrity pitchman when it inked a partnership with Ashton Kutcher on Tuesday night.

“It’s somewhat of a dual role,” Kutcher told USA Today in a phone interview hours before a live-streaming broadcast to announce his appointment and the introduction of the PC maker’s Yoga Tablet. Shortly after the event, Kutcher was scheduled to fly to China to meet with Lenovo engineers and executives.

Like my pal Mike Monteiro quipped last night, “What’s particularly sad about this is Lenovo thinks they hired Steve Jobs.”

Ben Bajarin on the iPad Air: ‘A Truly Mass Market Personal Computer’ 

Ben Bajarin:

Every year, I field many questions from friends and family on whether I can recommend that they buy an iPad rather than a new notebook. Of course, this question has to be followed with another question related to how they primarily use their notebook. If you sit at a desk all day, use a keyboard and mouse to input, and run software that requires a hard-core Intel or AMD processor then you probably need a notebook or desktop. However, for most consumers when they are at home or even if they don’t have a desk job, the iPad is the ideal personal computer.

The way I see the iPad taking over the mass market from laptop PCs is subtly. I think it’s more about people hanging on to old laptops for legacy tasks, spending their money now on new iPads, and then using their old laptops less and less over time. I can tell from my email and Twitter feedback that there is much skepticism among some of you about the iPad as a full-on PC replacement, but if you’re thinking about this trend as switching cold turkey, dropping all Windows/Mac usage in lieu of iOS in one fell swoop, you’re thinking about it wrong. It’s a subtle weaning. And as I wrote in my review yesterday, this year’s A7-powered iPads are going to accelerate the trend.

Fantastical 2 for iPhone 

Great iOS 7 update to my favorite iPhone calendar app. Looks great, works great, and now integrates iOS reminders. $4.99 regularly, but available for just $2.99 for a limited time.

AnandTech: The iPad Air Review 

Great review by Anand Lal Shimpi. Most telling line:

I’m still vetting other SoCs, but so far I haven’t come across anyone in the ARM camp that can compete with what Apple has built here. Only Intel is competitive.

Remember too, that Apple has only been in the custom ARM silicon game since the A4 in 2010.

Oh, and guess who just announced they’re going to start making ARM chips?