The End Is Nigh

18 Replies to “The End Is Nigh”

1. All hail Android!

2. I switched from Blackberry to the iPhone last year, and honestly I am happy for doing so. I am not going to say that the Blackberry couldn’t have performed similarly, but the design and use of the iPhone created an environment that motivated myself to use the phone more like a laptop. I do way more business on my iPhone than I did on my Blackberry.

3. I hate to be a contributor to conspiracy theories; actually I love them; I love to tear them apart. But when things seem to happen with such remarkable coincidence; well what to think.
   Blackberry has a major blackout and just then Apple announces? My, how beautiful coincidence is!

4. If it’s an inevitability, I like to imagine RIM going down in the best Grand Guignol tradition – releasing The Zero administration’s Blackberry messages in a theatre of gore on everything from Solyndra to Fast & Furious.

5. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss six hundred bucks goodbye!
   Opinions are like noses, everybody’s got one! (That’s the for-mixed-company, polite version. The old military version I learned in the USAF references a different part of the anatomy 🙂 Anyway, here’s my opinion on PCs and smartphones.
   I have a very nice, nearly new Dell PC at home, 64 bit Windows; with a 19″ diagonal flatscreen; powerful, multi-core processor; more RAM than the PC knows what to do with and a 3/4 terabyte hard-drive; CD/DVD drive; very nice sound card and a 3 way speaker system that sounds better than most stereos I’ve owned. AND … I’m only paying $25/mo for cable broadband. AND … I paid more or less the same price for this Dell as Apple charges for an iPhone 4s.
   I have a wide variety of excellent freeware software. IE9, Firefox, OpenOffice, GoogleEarth, Paint.Net, etc., etc. I don’t have to keep shelling out $$$ to Apple for apps.
   By contrast, I’ve talked to a lot of smartphone owners and besides the exorbitant purchase price, they’re all paying AT LEAST $50/month for service. Some $75-$100 a month, or more! They have a miniaturized portable computer on which they can make phone calls; text; take, send and receive photos, etc. This miniature commuter has a 3″-4″ diagonal screen, tiny speakers (OK, they do sound very good with optional earbuds). They can do much, but certainly nowhere near all, of what a real computer does, but on a comparatively tiny screen and, IMO, nowhere near as well.
   I can only conclude I get a helluva lot more bang for the buck from my Dell PC than I possibly could from a $$$ smartphone. I have a $30 Motorola flip phone which I carry when I’m out and about and on which I make about a dozen calls a month, which costs me about $10/mo average on a pay as you go basis. I could surf the Net on it’s 2″ diagonal screen, if I were a glutton for punishment. It can also text, which I very rarely do. It’s very reliable for making clear phone calls, almost everywhere I’ve wanted to make them. That’s all I wanted and I got it, at minimal expenditure.
   Seems to me that most consumers with these $$$ high end iPhones, other super-expensive smartphones are -compared to a PC, even a wireless protocol enabled laptop- paying much too much for much too little.
   (Of course, if I’d bought, say, 1,000 shares of Apple at it’s trough of around $28 a share around 2000, I’d be happier than a pig in sh*t today! 🙂

6. I like the twitter about how nice it was for Blackberry to recognize Steve Job’s passing away with 3 days of silence.

7. Dave, I’d like you to say the same lugging your PC around, oh and power cords. 😉
   The iPhone is a phone, texter, camera, gps, emailer, wireless computer, and a gaming toy.
   Your PC is only 3 of the above.

8. Dave,
   I own an HTC Thunderbolt through Verizon. It has 4G LTE capability (probably faster than your home internet), it can be a mobile hotspot (up to 8 connections at a time), has a 8 MP rear and 1.3 MP front facing camera, plays flash and PDF files just as good or even better than a home computer, has GPS, and many little things a computer cannot do.
   However to compare raw computing power, of course your home computer will blow the socks off of any phone. That’s not the point, phones will never replace computers.
   I’m a truck driver and ever since buying this phone my laptop has been collecting dust. The phone simply does everything I need faster. I can check fuel prices within about 5 seconds of taking the phone off standby. The laptop would take 5 minutes.
   And to think, my phone is already outdated.

9. The iPhone is an outrageously expensive hipster fashion accessory. That’s all it is. The 4S offers almost nothing new.

10. If you arei n the market IN CANADA to buy the new iphone S …the new feature witch is the comand prompt ..(ie you speak into the phone and ask it where the closest indian restaurant is and it will tell you ) That is NOT set up in canada so if your buying the phone for ALL of the new features here in canada you are just basically rebuying the iphone all over again .
    I don’t know a thing about the iphone or blackberry i have a 2005 samsung flip phone with texting …but i herd that on the radio today . Just to lett all of you i phone worshipers here in canada know!!!

11. > (Of course, if I’d bought, say, 1,000 shares of Apple at it’s trough of around $28 a share around 2000, I’d be happier than a pig in sh*t today! 🙂
    Hi Dave,
    In 1997, Jobs returned to AAPL, and at MacWorld in August announced the iMac. That’s when I tossed $2200 into the air, to buy 120 shares.
    Since then, it’s split by 2, twice. That is 480 shares.
    Homework for you:
    1) What is the % rate of return on my 1997 investemt, if I was to cash out today?
    2) Looking ahead: If you were me, when would you cash out?

12. RIM’s detractors fail to take the Blackberry Babe Effect into account.

13. Dear Happy Pig,
    I fired up my Windows Calculator and played with those numbers a bit. Your $2,200 investment for 120 shares at about $18/share in 1997 is now 14 years later worth approx. $202,500, at the NASDAQ 8PM price quote of $422/share. REALLY Nice!
    Your original investment has doubled approx. 6 times, plus a half. The equivalent appreciation if calculating the value of the split stocks into the original 120 shares at $18/share gives a current value of $1,687.50/share. Estimating the average annual ROI, not including your total dividend income, using the Rule of 72s, I get an average annual ROI, compounding annually for the entire 14 years of roughly 35%. And that’s not even including your 14 yrs. of dividend income! Any way you slice it, you’ve done awesomely on that investment. High Fives!
    Whether or when you cash out is something to discuss with a tax code expert accountant and an investment counselor with a PROVEN excellent record with tech stocks.

14. Dave in Pa:
    You’ve made my day. I too bought a decent computer through Costco, including a 23 in. monitor, for not much more than an iPhone and have loaded it with much the same freeware. My $50 cell phone is just that – a telephone that costs me on average $15-$17 per month including call display and voice mail (Virgin Mobile).
    BTW – I have an iPod Touch that connects to the internet via WiFi. What a joke trying to read Small Dead Animals on a mini screen and it’s pathetic compared to my old Palm Pilot for contact management. Good music player though.

15. What did the iPhone say to the Blackberry?
    iWork.

16. I have a bold touch and I must say its the best phone I have ever owned. I also have an ipod touch and despise how half the internet is locked out because of job’s hate of adobe.

17. From ZDNet comes the news that 4,000,000 iPhone 4s were sold THE FIRST WEEKEND! Prices ranged from $199 for an ATT-locked model to $649 for an unlocked model. Splitting the difference, that comes to roughly $1,700,000,000 in sales THE FIRST WEEKEND! (Happy Pig, I think I’d hold onto that Apple stock if I were you. 🙂

18. What did the drummer say to the broken Blackberry?
    “RIM’s shot!”