Quotulatiousness

September 19, 2012

Just who does join the early queue for a new iPhone?

Filed under: Britain, Business, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:09

The Register‘s Anna Leach asks the folks in line at the Apple store in London:

The iPhone 5 doesn’t go on sale until 8am on Friday, 21 September – yet lines of fanbois, socio-averse hipsters, campaigners and self-promoting twits awaiting the new mobe are already clogging the pavements outside Apple Stores.

Yesterday on the steps of London’s flagship Regent Street pomaceous-product outlet, punters queueing to seize the slightly updated phone include an unemployed bloke, a very keen Apple enthusiast and his carer and some very recalcitrant bods who insisted that El Reg bring them coffees. No such luck, Popeye.

The fact that four of the first seven queuers were making films about why people queue for iPhones speaks volumes about pre-launch iPhone hype. Given the media circus surrounding those who shun more practical methods of shopping and instead queue in the British September air, it’s not surprising that all of the first six were representing interest groups on the lookout for publicity.

September 13, 2012

iPhone fans are going through this progression right now

Filed under: Humour, Media, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:06

From Pedro Dias on Google+:

July 30, 2012

QotD: Playing “The Last Post” over the notion of Apple’s innovation

Filed under: Business, Quotations, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

This isn’t speculation — an Apple employee copied Sony’s design, circulated it to his bosses, and testified to these facts in court.

From now on, when anyone heaps phrase on Apple’s design excellence and superlative innovation, just point and laugh. Some of us have been saying for years that what Apple is really good at is ripping off other peoples’ ideas and stealing the credit for them with slick marketing. This, right here, is the proof.

Eric S. Raymond, “The Smartphone Wars: The iPhone Design Was Inspired by Sony”, Armed and Dangerous, 2012-07-29

June 27, 2012

The “JesusPhone” turns five

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:32

At The Register, Tony Smith looks back on five years of Apple’s iPhone phenomenon:

The iPhone first went on sale five years ago this week and it has already clocked up more than $150 billion in revenues — more than the annual GDP of Hungary — for Apple.

More than 250 million iPhones have been sold since 29 June 2007, the day over-the-counter sales began in the US, almost six months after its January 2007 launch.

That’s just the hardware, of course. Apple takes a 30 per cent cut of the purchase price of ever app downloaded through the iTunes App Store, and with well over 30 billion apps downloaded since the app shop went online on 10 July 2008.

[. . .]

The original iPhone, lest we forget, was a 2G device with GSM/Edge data connectivity. Its 16 bundled apps — it couldn’t run third-party native software, only JavaScript-coded “web apps” in its browser — ran on a 400MHz Samsung ARM11-based S3C6400 CPU and were presented on a 3.5in, 320 x 480 display.

There was no external storage — there still isn’t — and the battery was tightly integrated into the casing — it still is. It has a 2Mp camera and 4-16GB of on-board Flash storage.

But the iPhone introduced the world to smooth touchscreen operation, its capacitive panel outclassing the less sensitive resistive screens commonplace at the time. Likewise, it introduced roll, pitch and yaw detecting accelerometers, now found on every smartphone. Likewise Wi-Fi.

June 6, 2012

Scattering that “social” pixie dust on mobile apps

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

In the Guardian Technology section, Frédéric Filloux attempts to disabuse mobile developers about one of the “rules” for mobile apps:

Today’s hype leaves no other option but making an application as “social” as possible. This being the certitude du jour, allow me to think differently.

True, some apps are inherently social: when it comes to rating a product or a service, the “crowd factor” is critical. Beyond that, it should be a matter of personal choice — an antinomic notion to today’s the “Social” diktat. When you sign up to Spotify, the default setting is to share your musical taste with your Facebook friends and to suffer theirs. I can’t stand such obligation: I quickly dumped the application and cancelled my account.

The social idea’s biggest mistake is the belief in a universal and monolithic concept everyone is supposed to be willing to embrace with a similar degree of scope and enthusiasm. That’s a geeky, super-cartesian, Zuckerberg-esque view of society. Among my friends, some like opera (the singing, not the browser), others prefer heavy metal and I’m more into jazz tunes; some are tech-minded like me, others are more inclined towards literature. When it comes to sharing news, I tend to be naturally selective about the people I send a link to: I don’t want to swamp everyone with stuff they don’t care about. I might be wrong, but this is the way I see the social cyberspace: segmented and respectful of each other.

So, mobile app developers, if you find yourself trying to force-fit social features into a Solitaire app, think again.

March 14, 2012

Michael Geist rounds up the changes to Bill C-11

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:58

It’s not wonderful, but as he points out, it could have been much worse:

In the days leading up to the clause-by-clause review, many focused on three key issues: no SOPA-style amendments such as website blocking or warrantless disclosure of information, maintaining the fair dealing balance found in the bill, and amending the digital lock provisions. By that standard, the changes could have been a lot worse. The government expanded the enabler provision, though not as broadly as CIMA requested. Virtually all other copyright lobby demands – website blocking, notice-and-takedown, iPod tax, copyright term extension, disclosure of subscriber information – were rejected. Moreover, the provisions supported by consumer and education groups including user generated content protection, time shifting, format shifting, backup copies, Internet provider liability, and statutory damages reform were left untouched. This represents a major victory for the many Canadians and groups such as Open Media that spoke out on these issues.

The fair dealing provision was similarly left unchanged despite a full court press from publishers and copyright collectives who sought elimination of the education category within fair dealing (didn’t happen), inclusion of the Berne three step test in the law (didn’t happen) or a new fair dealing test that overrules the Supreme Court of Canada CCH test (didn’t happen). The expanded fair dealing provision will not cause the horrors claimed by those groups and it is heartening that the government dismissed the misinformation campaign.

The only loss was the least surprising — digital locks. Despite widespread support for compromise legislation and sensible amendments from both the NDP and Liberals, the government rejected any changes. Given the government’s consistent support for digital locks, the ongoing pressure from the U.S., and Prime Minister Harper’s direct intervention on the issue in 2010, amending the digital lock rules presented a major challenge. Government MPs yesterday emphasized the possibility of future new exceptions via regulation but that will be cold comfort in the short term to those with perceptual disabilities, researchers, documentary film makers, consumers, and the many others adversely affected by the restrictive approach. In fact, one NDP MP raised the possibility of constitutional challenges to the bill.

March 8, 2012

Sweatshops and Apple

Filed under: China, Economics, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:15

Sam Bowman points out the economic factors which many western critics miss when they slag Apple for working conditions in the factories where iPhones and iPads are assembled:

Like sweatshop workers in China and elsewhere, Foxconn employees endure long hours, low pay and dangerous working environments, but do so because there is no better alternative. In fact, jobs in sweatshops (and Foxconn factories) tend to be massively in demand, because the alternative is worse. It’s not uncommon for a new employee’s first action being to sign up their relatives to the waiting list for new job openings.

It’s easy to recoil from seen evils, while ignoring unseen alternatives that are even worse. No one in the West will ever have to put up with such bad conditions.

If wages and conditions in Apple’s hometown of Cupertino, CA, were as bad, nobody would work there. That people do so in China is because they have no better alternative. China’s economy is growing quickly, but much of it is still grindingly poor, and difficult to do business in. It’s poverty that makes China’s factories such unpleasant places to work in.

[. . .]

It’s no surprise that China is still very poor compared to neighbouring countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Forty years of brutal socialism under Mao’s Communist state halted China’s development, and decimated institutions crucial for wealth creation, like strong civil society and the rule of law.

The exception, of course, is Hong Kong, where conditions and wages are much better than on mainland China — not because of a bigger government, but because of greater wealth caused by freer markets.

December 1, 2011

iPhone may not be quite as badly exposed by rootkit as Android devices

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Get your tinfoil hats out, boys, your smartphone may be logging your every move:

Blogger and iPhone hacker Chpwn believes that the controversial Carrier IQ software isn’t confined to Android devices.

In this blog post, he says a look at the /usr/bin folder reveals Carrier IQ’s agent software, identified as IQAgent in iOS 3, and either awd_ice2 or awd_ice3 on iOS 4 or iOS 5 devices.

At this point, Chpwn believes the daemon does not have access to the UI layer, which means it may not be able to capture the kind of data exposed in Android devices.

While Chpwn states that he is not certain the software is launched except when the phone is in diagnostic mode, the discovery is certain to add further momentum to the fury mounting at Carrier IQ’s surreptitious installation on consumer devices.

Update: Lifehacker offers the instructions on turning off the Carrier IQ component on your iPhone:

Hacker Chpwn discovered Carrier IQ after this week’s uproar, and while we still aren’t positive what it can track and send, he’s fairly certain it doesn’t include a keylogger like the Android version. So far it can log your phone number, your carrier, your active phone calls, and your location, though it’s unclear as to what it’s actually sending back to Apple. Luckily, there’s an easy way to turn it off. Just head to Settings > General > About > Diagnostics and Usage, and tap “Don’t Send”. That’s it! We’ve also updated our original post on Carrier IQ to include this new information.

Update, the second: Daniel Bader posts that two of the major Canadian mobile operators stated that Carrier IQ is not on the devices they sell:

Rogers has done an investigation and has confirmed that Carrier IQ is not present on any of its devices. On Twitter they stated that “Hi all. I’m happy to confirm that we have investigated and Carrier IQ is NOT on any of our devices”. TELUS also confirmed that they have not installed Carrier IQ on any of their devices. We are waiting to hear back from Bell.

October 18, 2011

The “Long Tail” gets chopped off for App Store customers

Filed under: Economics, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:14

Matt Asay considers the “Long Tail” argument and finds it doesn’t apply for app developers:

Two years ago The Register‘s Andrew Orlowski, writing for the New Statesman, poked crater-sized holes in the notion that “long tail” economics were good for musicians. In 2011, it’s equally clear that the long tail* is bad business for app developers, brands, and, well, everyone. The internet has not diffused the ability to make money; it has concentrated it.

The reason is clear: the more abundant the content or apps, the greater the value of separating wheat from chaff. We simply don’t have the time or patience to scavenge the long tail of production.

This isn’t a new idea. For me, Orlowski’s review of the music industry was dispositive on the issue, along with Nick Carr’s analysis of web traffic. But it bears repeating because of the continued euphoria around app stores and their supposed ability to share the wealth in a growing mobile economy.

If only.

Some of the blame for this diminished opportunity for small app developers has to go to the app store’s organization (or lack thereof). In the Apple App Store, I found it very hard to find what differentiated many apps from all the (sometimes dozens) of similar apps other than the odd spelling of the name and the even odder choices for the app icons. Early gaming of the review and ranking made it even less useful. I’ve had an iPhone for over three years, but it must be at least a year since I downloaded a new app — partly because my aging iPhone 3G is no longer able to run the current iOS — but mostly because it’s such a pain to find things in the App Store.

October 17, 2011

What’s in a name?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:22

Jean-Louis Gassée contrasts what was expected and what was delivered:

On 4 October, after months of speculation, Apple finally launched the iPhone 5. The commentariat were ecstatic and approvingly listed the new smartphone’s strongest points: twice the processor speed; seven times the graphics oomph; a new camera with an Apple-designed lens, 8MP and improved image processing; the power of the new iOS 5; iCloud integration and synchronisation with iDevices; a new smart antenna; Siri, the innovative intelligent assistant. And, courageously resisting the temptation of capricious cosmetic changes, the iPhone 5 stayed with Jonathan Ive’s elegant, timeless design.

The preternaturally modest Apple execs cringe at the gushing praise, but what can they do? It’s their cross to bear.

That’s what we expected. Now let’s consider the reality: Same phone, same features, same design, but it’s now called 4S instead of 5. This changes everything. The pundits are indignant: The iPhone 4S is a lame, evolutionary product; the bosses’ presentation (video here) is flat, uninspiring. This dog won’t sell. Apple has lost its mojo.

(Regarding the “flat” presentation, Apple executives knew Steve Jobs was just a few breaths away from his last, but they got on stage and delivered anyway. When news of Jobs’s demise came out the following day, many critics, such as blogger Robert Scobble, had the good grace to apologise to Cook & Co for railing about their subdued performance.)

October 13, 2011

This will probably be a common source of humour for a while

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:01

Posting your conversations with Siri, the new voice assistant feature of the iPhone 4S:

I’ve spent a week with an iPhone 4S loaned to me from Apple, and I got hooked on Siri quickly. Creating Reminders with Siri was the most useful. I found it silly, however, that items you create with Reminders do not show up in the Calendar app. That means if I create reminders and calendar events, I have to open two different apps to see everything I have to do. I’m hoping Apple integrates Reminders into Siri in a future update.

The only other problem with the iPhone 4S is that once you start using the robot assistant, you’ll wish it did a lot more. It is limited, but really good at what it can do so far.

Here are some of my favorite examples from experimenting with Siri:

Me: “I’m drunk.”

Siri: “I found a number of cabs fairly close to you.” (Perfect; it didn’t dial my ex-girlfriend.)

Me: “I have a flat tire.”

Siri: “I found 14 towing services. 12 of them are fairly close to you.”

Me: “Remind me to steal a ream of paper when I arrive at the office.”

Siri: “Here’s your reminder for when you get to work: Steal a ream of paper. Shall I create it?”

Me: “I’m going to kill myself.”

Siri: “I found four mental health agencies. Three of them are fairly close to you.” (This was just a test — don’t be alarmed.)

Just remember, if you’re going to do something silly with Siri, that everything you do can be (will be?) recorded on Apple’s servers. Siri doesn’t work without an internet connection, as most of the processing is done remotely and the response is generated on your iPhone. In case you thought it’d be wickedly funny to pretend to plot something illegal with Siri’s help.

October 11, 2011

iPhone 4S shows big drop in standby time claims

Filed under: Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:08

The Guardian wonders why, if all the other claims for iPhone 4S performance show improvement over the iPhone 4, the standby time has dropped so precipitously:

Here’s a puzzle: where, or how, did the iPhone 4S drop 100 hours’ standby time?

According to official figures on Apple’s site for the phone, it has a standby time of 200 hours (that’s 8 days and 8 hours). That’s a long time. But it’s much less than the 250 hours quoted for Apple’s first effort at its own phone, the iPhone in 2007 — and it’s far less than the 300 hours given for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. (See the iPhone comparison page on Apple’s site.)

Other battery life figures quoted by Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller during his presentation at Cupertino included lots of data about the new phone (on which the new Siri voice assistant is impressive), and its battery life: 8 hours of 3G talk time, 14 hours of 2G talk time, 6 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 9 hours of Wi-Fi browsing.

Other battery life statistics for the iPhone 4S’s battery life — 3G talk time, 2G talk time, 3G internet browsing, video playback — are the same or better, apart from the Wi-Fi browsing, which is given at nine hours for the 4S, and 10 for the iPhone 4.

I would note that I never found the iPhone 3G real world performance to be anything close to the claimed 300 hours: 72-96 hours would take my iPhone from full charge to redline. As a rule, I shut down my phone overnight, because it didn’t make sense to leave it on standby using up a significant proportion of the battery while I was sleeping.

And just because I still love Joey deVilla‘s explanation of the prospective iPhone 4S customer dilemma, here it is again:

October 7, 2011

When Apple stopped being the status indicator of choice for the “opinion leaders”

Filed under: China, Media, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:56

In his defence of the late Steve Jobs, Brendan O’Neill pinpoints the exact moment that Apple stopped being the ne plus ultra of status signalling devices for the Guardianista set:

It is absolutely no coincidence that it became cool to hate Apple just as Apple started to make products for (whisper it) ‘the masses’. Back when Apple was largely known as the provider of smooth computers to graphic designers and Guardian columnists, there was nothing cooler than being an Applehead. But then it made the iPod and the iPhone, which you can now see everyone from paint-covered builders to Romanian au pairs tapping away on, and that meant it was just another engine of ‘mass consumerism’, the thing the chattering classes hate most. So where in the Nineties, people who used Apple products were presumed to be erudite and tasteful, now people who use Apple products are ‘iZombies’ or ‘hostages’, as one columnist calls them. In the eyes of the opinion-forming classes, Jobs’ great crime was to include the little people in his techno-revolution, to give glossy gadgets to the masses as well as the intellectuals, since that robbed these gadgets of the special symbolism that allowed their users to declare: ‘I am above the crowd.’

As to the idea that Jobs was the killer of Chinese people, this, too, is fuelled by the perverse fantasies of the uncomfortable-with-capitalism cultural elite. Following some suicides at the factories in China in which Apple stuff is put together, it became fashionable here in the West to indulge in orgies of iGuilt, to whip both yourself and everyone else for wanting gadgets so badly that we’re willing to turn a blind eye to ‘enslavement’ in China. The deaths in China were referred to as ‘The iPad suicides’, with journalists saying: ‘Should you blame yourself for all those deaths at the Chinese electronics factory? Yes.’

Yet as I argued on spiked last year, anyone who looked at the number of suicides in these vast factories, which can employ up to 400,000 people, would have realised that the suicide rate was lower in these places than it was in China as a whole. The self-flagellation of iPad-using hacks in the West merely revealed how shallow and moralistic so-called anti-capitalism is these days, where the aim is not to analyse social relations, all the better to overhaul them, but rather to partake in a borderline Catholic guilt trip about the impact of our greed on their lives. In one fell swoop, Jobs-bashers manage to criminalise the material aspirations of Western consumers, the iZombies whose desires are apparently dangerous, and to infantilise Chinese workers, who are depicted as hapless victims, in need of rescue by that super-super-cool tribe of East Coast and Shoreditch hipsters who now actually boycott Apple products. Rad, man.

October 5, 2011

Apple’s new iPhone

Filed under: Europe, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:14

I’ve been following the lead-up to yesterday’s Apple iPhone announcement, as I’m just out of contract on my original iPhone 3G (yes, Canadian carriers only offered 3-year contracts, unlike US carriers who offered 2-year deals). My iPhone 3G still works well: I’m still happy with it overall, but I’m starting to suffer from “aging hardware syndrome”. More and more of the apps I’ve been using are being updated to use the newer capabilities of more recent iPhones and no longer run on my phone. So far, it’s just been trivial stuff (games and non-critical apps) that I miss but didn’t depend on. It’s only a matter of time before one of the applications I depend on (like my time-tracking and billing software or my personal finance app) is no longer supported on the 3G. At that point, I’ll have to either jump to a newer iPhone or find equivalent apps that work on Android phones.

Yesterday’s announcement seems to have caused a lot of wailing in certain iPhone communities — as far as I can tell, mainly because Apple chose to call the new phone the “iPhone 4S” instead of “iPhone 5”. Yes, some people are upset because of nomenclature, even if the updated features are otherwise a nice upgrade over the existing iPhone 4. I’m sure there’s a term in psychology to describe that phenomenon.

Here’s an overview of the new iPhone and its headline software feature, Siri:

Siri really works, and it’s quite clever
I got some time to test it hands-on, in a booth in a fairly busy room of journalists. “What’s the weather like outside?” I asked. It came back with the weather in London (where I was). “What’s my father’s email address?” It came back with two email addresses for the person designated in the address book as “father”. Not what you’d call a comprehensive test, but it shows that it’s location-aware, context-aware, and works without training. (By contrast, I just tried “Siri app” on voice search on my Google Nexus S running Gingerbread: it took me to the web page for Syria.)

Siri is integrated through the whole phone
You press the home button and the interface comes up. Then ask it anything. It’s very neat. It uses Siri’s servers, so you’ll need a working connection.

I don’t know that I’d get much use of the Siri features, but I’m sure it will move a lot of phones for the “coolness” factor.

The iPhone 4S really does look and feel exactly like the iPhone 4
There’s no difference at all, externally. Apparently the iPhone 4S is very slightly heavier — 139g (4.9oz) v 136g (4.8oz) — but you’d need a very sensitive hand to detect it.

This is probably a good move on Apple’s part (aside from the well-publicized complaints about the iPhone 4’s antenna issues), as it keeps all the companies that produced accessories for the iPhone 4 happy — they don’t need to create a whole new line of things for the iPhone 4S. The push for mobile phones to standardize on mini-USB connectors is why Apple will be selling dongles to convert from the current 30-pin connector on the iPhone to mini-USB. Again, it meets the expectations of both regulators and third-party manufacturers. I suspect Apple will be pushed to provide the dongles as standard equipment for European markets.

The camera in the iPhone 4S is now an 8MP (up from 5MP in the last model), and is claimed to be much faster:

Taking pictures on the 4S is much quicker, and taking extra pictures is too
I tried the camera on taking pictures, and the setup is really fast. It takes more pictures quickly too — almost like firing the motordrive on an SLR camera. Apple says it takes 1.1 second to get to the “click” part — faster than any in a list it provided — and that it’s then just 0.5 second to take another one. It’s impressive: camera setup delay is one of the niggles of modern life (especially smartphone life) that has crept up on us without anyone doing very much.

Overall, the 4S looks to be a nice, incremental upgrade over the iPhone 4, but Siri is the most interesting new development.

In other news, however, Apple’s recent resort to “lawfare” against Samsung in Europe may rebound badly:

Apple’s new iPhone 4S faces the prospect of court injunctions in France and Italy from the Korean electronics firm Samsung, which says the phones breach patents it owns on wireless communications.

It is an escalation of the struggle between Samsung and Apple, who are fighting a number of increasingly bitter court battles in various territories around the world. Samsung, which is challenging Apple for the title of the world’s biggest maker of smartphones, says it plans to file preliminary injunctions in Paris and Milan on the basis that the iPhone 4S, announced in California on Tuesday night and expected in a number of countries including the UK from 14 October, infringes its patents on WCDMA technology.

Update: Speaking of Android phones, here’s Alun Taylor with a list of ten smartphone alternatives to the iPhone 4S:

Yes folks, it’s that time again when across the land otherwise rational and even sensible adults feel the need to whip themselves into a frenzy over the pending arrival of the latest iPhone.

To be honest, I find the whole charade rather entertaining and have taken to sauntering over to the Trafford Centre come launch day, grabbing a cup of coffee and a sticky bun, pulling up a chair and making fun of the twerps lined up outside the Apple Store opposite.

Yes, I know it’s wrong, but just like laughing at Daily Mail readers or at anyone who voted Liberal Democrat in the last general election, I simply can’t help it.

With Android devices now outselling iOS phones by two-to-one there are many, many alternatives if you want a good smartphone with access to a shed-load of apps but don’t want to take the Apple shilling.

So here are ten of the best Android-powered alternatives. In case you’re wondering why I’ve avoided any of the recent 3D phones like HTC’s Evo 3D or LG’s Optimus 3D, that would be because it’s a stupid technology bereft of point or purpose.

Remember, if none of these handsets put their hands up your dress, the next few months we will see the arrival of Samsung’s phenomenal 5.3in Galaxy Note; Sony Ericsson’s 1.4GHz powerhouse the Xperia S; Google’s Android 4.0-packing Nexus Prime; and LG’s LU6200 with its 4.5in, 1280 x 720 IPS screen. Choice — by gum, it’s a wonderful thing.

Update, the second: Joey deVilla explains the prospective iPhone 4S customer dilemma:

August 25, 2011

ESR: what now for Apple in the wake of Jobs’ resignation?

Filed under: Media, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:58

Eric S. Raymond looks at the hard road ahead for Apple without Steve Jobs:

I’ve said before that I think Apple looks just like sustaining incumbents often do just before they undergo catastrophic disruption from below and their market share falls off a cliff. Google’s entire game plan has been aimed squarely at producing disruption from below, and with market share at 40% or above and Android’s brand looking extremely strong it is undeniable that they have executed on that plan extremely well. The near-term threat of an Apple market-share collapse to the 10% range or even lower is, in my judgment, quite significant — and comScore’s latest figures whisper that we may have reached a tipping point this month.

For Apple, the history of technology disruptions from below tells us that there is only one recovery path from this situation. Before the Android army cannibalizes Apple’s business, Apple must cannibalize its own business with a low-cost iPhone that can get down in the muck and compete with cheap Android phones on price. Likewise in tablets, though Apple might have six months’ more grace there.

Of course, this choice would mean that Apple has to take a massive hit to its margins. Which is the perennial problem in heading off a disruption from below before it happens; it is brutally difficult to convince your investors and your own executives that the record quarterlies won’t just keep coming, especially when your own marketing has been so persuasive about the specialness of the company and its leading position in the industry. This is a failure mode that, as Clayton Christensen has documented, routinely crashes large and well-run companies at the apparent peak of their success.

Does Tim Cook have the vision and the will to make this difficult transition happen? Nobody knows. But the odds are against it.

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