Same here. I also had an idea about an iBook with a touchscreen where the keyboard and trackpad should be. Today I helped a contractor set his Acer laptop up, it was this exact thing running windows 7 and it was an abortion of a device.
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Steve Jobs Envisioned Using Unlicensed Wi-Fi Spectrum for Apple Mobile Phone Network
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Same here. I also had an idea about an iBook with a touchscreen where the keyboard and trackpad should be. Today I helped a contractor set his Acer laptop up, it was this exact thing running windows 7 and it was an abortion of a device.
It's not an elevated price because you are subsidized. It's a contract to ensure they eventually pay for the phone. You think the $50-100 a month is profit? These guys have more costs than I can imagine. Constantly upgrading networks all the time. They have to at least make up the extra $450 that they shelled out for the phone. So 450/24=18.75. They have to AT LEAST make $18.75 a month to break even on an iPhone customer. Out of the roughly $80-$100 a month people shell out, one can assume that only 10% is profit. So, they're essentially taking a loss on a subsidized customer. Expecially a frugal one. There's got to be easier ways for companies to make money. And don't forget all the early upgrade deals and such they hand out. They're really only making money off the people that have really expensive plans and those that aren't subsidized anymore. They're betting you'll be unsubsidized for a small period of time where they'll make some money.
Yes I've seen it twice. Well done.
Not only did they overhaul the animation processes & end result as you've mentioned. It's also the way they did it that's truly amazing.
Yet as most film (using that word generically) enthusiasts know, the complete film industry as a whole is vast and varied. I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, as long as it's not significantly exaggerated.
Speaking for myself I've always been a huge fan of animation as done in the USA, as well as Anime.
You did a great job proving my point. If you have to work in a niche corner of a multi-billion dollar industry to see how Pixar revolutionized it, then they didn't revolutionize it. Period.
Look I love Pixar's movies. But they're not rocket science. The animation is no better than anyone else', and the stories are excellent. If all the writers at Pixar worked for Dreamworks instead, then those movies would have been excellent, not Pixars. Give me a break.
If they changed some back-end method of creating the movies, that's great, but not a game changer or a revolution. It adds a bit of profit, presumably, but nothing more.
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Linux geeks could pull this off in a uncontrolled way that would be better to use.
I would worry about Apple using their Apple ID to get onto the network, being tracked, and the price.
It could definitely work, but it would need to be simple, and mandatory for every wireless device and access point to allow for guest access or to act as a repeater.
(I had this idea back in college)
I would worry about Apple using their Apple ID to get onto the network, being tracked, and the price.
It could definitely work, but it would need to be simple, and mandatory for every wireless device and access point to allow for guest access or to act as a repeater.
(I had this idea back in college)
I agree. Why can't I pay for 2GB of data and then use it for whatever I want in one month?
I want some motherflipping rollover data too!
In many countries, carriers/resellers are required by law to state up-front (even on their TV commercials) what the total commitment across the contract period is. Needless to say, the tendency towards committing to money-gouging contracts is much less in those countries.
What on earth does this have to do with Linux? And when is "uncontrolled" better? Free-for-all fragmentation, inconsistency and non-standard adoption. Basically, unfettered "forking". That sounds better. Even open-source projects and open standards have controlled consistency.
And yet, they have never succeeded.
I ran a dual-boot Windows/Linux x86 box between 1998-2002. When I abandoned the platform in 2002, I pointed my finger at three Linux main shortcomings: system administration load, pathetic device driver support, and piss-poor end user documentation (no, man pages aren't end-user documentation).
In 2002, when I dumped my x86 box for an Apple iBook running OS X, I instantly reduced my sysadmin load by 90%. Never looked back.
Now, I think Linux is a great OS for embedded devices (like my router which runs a DNS cache poisoning script to block ads) as well as servers, but Linux has been an unmitigated failure on the consumer desktop.
Frankly, I would have been happier to see a strong Linux outing on the desktop, to shake up the Windows domination, but at this point, OS X has to go it alone.
OS X has no wingman in Linux despite all of the opportunities for the latter.
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You're quoting Wikipedia to prove how something was meant? I stand corrected. Whatever. The fact remains, the cell carriers add cell service to cell phones. It's ridiculous to claim they bring nothing to the table. I'm no huge fan of them either, but their vilification here is beyond absurd.
Look, you and I had different interpretations of what "value add" meant. I pointed you to a commonly used definition of "value add." If you don't like it because it doesn't jibe with your personal definition, sorry.
Or I'm not sorry, you should understand that American English is a consensus agreement on how words are used. If you think a phrase means one thing and tens of thousands of others think it means something different, guess what? YOU ARE WRONG. Worse, you are simply setting the bar lower for these cell companies.
I didn't say mobile operators don't bring anything to the table. I just said that they are dumb pipes. Just like I look at power, water, garbage bills. They provide a service, one that is vital. But the basic service that they are contracted for isn't a value ADD.
You go a burger stand. The menu says a burger comes with fries and cole slaw. You get a burger with fries and cole slaw. There is no value add. If you get a slice of chocolate cake, THAT IS VALUE ADD.
Look, just because I think mobile operators are dumb pipes doesn't mean that I don't value their role. I JUST HAVE REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS OF WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROVIDE. I pay the phone company. I am supposed to get a dial tone when I pick up the phone and have my calls connected. That's not value add, that's getting basic services contracted. On the other hand, you seem to think that if your calls make it through, the phone company has gone beyond the call of duty. YOU ARE WRONG.
If there's any vilification, I'd point to the pricing model but I never brought that up in my previous post.
That said, I'm not convinced that AT&T provides a basic service level commensurate with what they charge from their customers. There are alternatives.
You will have to perform your own due diligence.
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Reduce that to 20 months as that is generally when your next update is so it is $22.50 per month to pay off the phone.
The point is you pay that $22.50 per month no matter if you bought new phone or not. After say 20 months that is 100% pure profit for them on top of any other profit they have lined into it.
Point I was trying to make is have 2 contract prices. One that is if you buy a phone on contract and other that would give you a lower rate but they do not give you a reduced phone price. That means you bring in your own phone. Hell they would even have it where you have to sign a contract for 2 years for that lock in with say 20-50 buck one month break that they will offer to you say every 18 months as a agreement to renew again for 2 years.
The only difference is instead of you basically paying the carrier for 18-20 months for your phone. you pay for it up front but get a lower price.
I would see a deal like that being really great.
T-Mobile USA has something like that. On-contract pricing that is higher, yet subsidizes a pricey handset in a long-term contract. They also have an unsubsidized rate that slashes monthly costs, but you have to bring your own handset.
AT&T doesn't do this, officially.
What they seem to be doing is wholesaling access to MVNOs and letting the latter figure out subsidies, etc.
Bid on T-Mobile? Haaha! No thank you!!!!!!!
Look at the big-time acquisitions that have taken place over the year. Off the top of my head, I can name a few:
- In 2005, HP bought Compaq for $25 BILLION. You read that right.
- In August, HP bought Autonomy company for $11 billion.
- This past summer, Google bought Motorola for $12.3 billion. They paid a 33% premium for Motorola.
- In contrast, Apple bought P.A. Semi for $278 million. I'm willing to bet that the A4 came from this and the acquisition of Intrinsity for $121 million.
If you study the company's history after those acquisitions, you will find that the bigger the acquisition, the harder it is to recoup the investment. The best deal size is at most in the hundreds of millions, and that too on the low end. Billion-dollar acquisitions rarely bear fruit.
Apple was smart not to bid on T-Mobile.
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So do other companies. You really think Google gives away Maps for free in order to "make the world a better place" or some crap like that? They're NOT! They're out to try to make you use Google search more so they can push more ads at you.
And that what I wish all the carriers would offer. Exactly that. Right now if you do not get a phone subsidize you are giving the carriers basically 100% pure profit on that margin.
Ever heard of SIGGRAPH? That famous yearly conference about graphic computing? In my country, when I was a kid, there were from time to time documentals in TV about things shown there (standard, state-owned TV, not cable or satellite or whatever). That was during the 80's.
And some of the short films shown there which I still remembered 20 years later... were from Pixar. Heck, go watch the videoclip for "Money for nothing", read about the difficulties when it was done... and then compare it to what Pixar was doing by then.
So, no, maybe it's you who have had little exposure to, or interest in, anything related to graphics and computing. Or lived under a rock, I don't know.
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Maybe I'm callous, but IMO people who get into contracts without checking the numbers first, ... well, you know, "a fool and his money...".
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And, man, did it bear fruit!
You and everyone else. Heck, didn't most have it even before the days of Skype et al? Basically, you're just reiterating the obvious result of digitization. One pipe, any content; transport layer is separated from the content layer.
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No contradiction. Would make no economic sense for Apple to take over that entire market on their own, on the contrary the make money out of the partnerships (both directly and indirectly). They would not, however, license out anything that would lead to real competition (as that would hurt their profit levels).
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At this point, is there anything Jobs envisioned that someone else hadn't already envisioned in print? Marketer, not inventor. No shame in that, in fact, large honor - i would say. Marketing a product is a fine art.
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Value Added implies adding value to "something". If the carriers are the "something" it cannot for logical reasons be the Added (actually it can, but thats different). If carriers are not the "something", what is, and in what way does not carriers bring value to it.
I'm not convinced by that argumentation. There's arguably much more money to make from selling docks than from launching services like iBooks or iCloud.
Apple wouldn't even need to spend a lot in development, all they would need to do is put an Apple logo onto a product designed and manufactured by JBL (or whomever) and pocket a 50% gross margin as usual.
Don't get me wrong, my point here is not that they should do that. I'm just disputing the view you and many others have, that direct financial gain is the determining driver behind every move Apple makes or is trying to make.
I actually can see Apple going for something of great magnitude in terms of wireless networking infrastructure and offering that service at break even, maybe even for free, in the same way as iCloud. What is key here is the choice/availability of the technology. Apple's success is all about timing: before the iPhone it was too early for an idea like this to be workable. But today, there's some room for some major disruption of that kind of services.
That attitude is why Apple sold 300 million iPods, and other companies didn't.
And tens of millions of iPhones and iPads.
Your maths is wrong. Your calculation is based on you paying $200 for a phone and selling it for $300, with AT&T giving you $450. But that isn't the case. The cost of the phone is $650; you pay $200 of it, and AT&T pays $450. Your total cost is $200 + $110 per month - $300 for the use of a new iPhone and AT&T's service.
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The idea of large public WIFI networks has been around for a decade, at least.
It is not easy to cover a university campus. There are muncipal wireless networks now, but all of these are far from really covering an entire city. It seams very unrealistic to cover an entire nation.
Of course it would be possible to use something else but WiFI. Narrower channels would be good as the three available channels (without overlap) on WiFI are not sufficient to cover a large area without interference between adjacent cells. They could also implement handover and mesh networking capabilities.
But even if they do so (loosing compatibility with all existing devices) they still have to cope with limited output power, limited ability to penetrate through buildings and a lot of interference on 2.4 GHz. They could use 5.6 GHz instead, less interference but even weaker penetration through walls.
Christian
Its about diversification of core competences, and risks of so doing (versus the alternative). The strength of the platform arrangement is that it allows for the effective allocation of resources through-out the value network, enabling the platform leader to shed risk and further its focus. This is why Apple did try to license out their OS. They only stopped because they realized that competition was eating into their profits (rather than expanding them*).
* and, perhaps, cause Jobs were a bit of a nut.
p.s.
the financial gain is the direct driver behind every decision a company makes. making money runs at the core of the corporate rationale. that money could be made directly, or indirectly, but the intent is always the same - money-making.
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It baffles me to this day that people don't understand that every cent subsidized on one side of the pricing scheme is essentially recouped on the other (albeit not necessarily perfectly distributed over the consumer-base).
In the example above, AT&T will charge you 200, recoup 450, and on top add a) cost of service b) profit margin on the same (with the same reservation as above). In essence, they don't really subsidize the phone at all, they subsidize their service (in exchange for your contractual lock-in*).
If they did not, they would all be bankrupt (and incapable of re-investments).
* one could argue that lock-ins always come at a cost though, and it is not necessarily so that the subsidy given covers this cost; i.e. you don't necessarily save anything by signing up for a contract, even if it means getting a perceived 450 USD subsidy.