From the Atlantic’s In Focus photo blog:
An idea dreamed up at the height of the depression, the theme of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York was “The World of Tomorrow.” Planners were given permission to develop 1,200 acres in Queens, on the site of a former ash dump.
Glamorous.
Darby Lines:
The iPad Air is now on sale and making its way into the hands of the blogoratti and the Retina iPad mini will be arriving later this month. Unfortunately this fact heralds the oncoming blitz of self-indulgent tech bloggers smugly proclaiming either the iPad Air or the Retina mini to be the “real” iPad.
This is fucking stupid.
Entirely agreed. If you’re buying a new iPad — hell, if you’re buying a new anything — you should buy what’s best for your needs. There are no “real” products, there are simply different products for different needs.
So the not-yet-released phone from Google’s own phone manufacturer will debut with an outdated version of Google’s operating system. I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still seems stupid to me.
The final episode of my all-time favourite podcast, You Look Nice Today, was released this evening:
SCAT: Gom zibby, glom zibby, bop zibby domp!
ENGLISH: Please, do not raise your voice; I have a terrific heroin headache.
Not safe for work language, obviously. Very funny, obviously.
Bradley Chambers offers three reasons, only one of which I think is key. In reverse order:
Voice minutes are pretty much unlimited now. My AT&T plan has unlimited nights and weekends and unlimited mobile to mobile (any carrier). I am using an average of 150 minutes a month at this point.
Most Canadian carriers (and carriers in many other countries) offer very few minutes in standard plans because almost nobody uses them. I have 200 minutes on my plan, but very few of those get used in a month.
Most carriers also offer unlimited SMS/MMS, but that didn’t prevent iMessage from gaining substantial market share.
Data plans aren’t unlimited and long FaceTime Audio calls will use a decent amount of data. While it’s nothing like transmitting video, it still averages out to be about 5 MB every for about every 10 minutes of usage. Over time, that can add up to be a decent chunk of your data usage. Even if you have a 5 GB plan, what about the person you are calling (my wife is on a 300 MB plan)?
While it’s true that data plans aren’t unlimited, I’d wager that most people place fairly short phone calls (see the above bullet point regarding how little most people seem to use their voice minutes).
Chambers cited a 150 minute per month average, which works out to about 75 MB of data used per month using his 5 MB per ten minutes figure (I saw a similar amount of data usage) — not insignificant, but not massive. That figure is also assuming you’re placing all of your calls while on a cell connection; how often are you in your home or office where you can offload that data onto WiFi? I’d bet regularly.
Where iMessage is the default, FaceTime Audio is simply an option when making calls. iMessage is very successful (in terms of user adoption) because it requires no extra step. My wife doesn’t think about iMessage. Using FaceTime Audio will force her to make a choice on how to call me.
This is the clincher. If Apple makes FaceTime Audio a default — even if it’s a preference — I think it will be very successful. I’d use it as my default. But, as it is, I think it will be a niche option for those who find it.
Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch clears up the confusion:
So I reached out to JD Power and spoke to Kirk Parsons, senior director of telecommunications services. What he told us wasn’t too surprising, but it may help clear up some of the confusion. First off, the “power circle” chart that’s being widely circulated is simply a visual tool, and not representative of the actual scores given to the brands evaluated in its survey.
So when they call them “scores”, don’t think of them as actual scores, but rather arbitrary dots on a page.
Parsons confirmed the [weighting percentage], but said that the differential between the prices of the iPad and the prices of the Samsung tablets that were included in the survey was large enough to “more than offset” the score in the other four categories. Parsons says that the price category contributed to a full two-point difference between Apple and Samsung.
I reiterate:
I also don’t know who at J.D. Power thinks a difference of two points on a thousand-point scale in a sample size of 3,375 is statistically significant (it isn’t).
J.D. Power made waves yesterday when they announced that Samsung trounced Apple for the first time in their tablet satisfactory rankings. Obviously, I base my entire buying strategy on what J.D. Power says I should buy and neglect my own feelings towards product quality, interface design, and software ecosystem. So, naturally, I had to take a look at what their rankings showed.
J.D. Power has six ranking categories, graded between two and five “power circles” (I don’t understand why it starts at two): performance, ease of use, physical design, tablet features, cost, and overall satisfaction. The iPad scored five circles for every category except cost, where it scored two. Samsung scored a mix of three and four circles in every category except overall satisfaction, where it scored five.
At first glance, this would suggest that Apple should have won. Five shiny gold power circles in nearly every category, as opposed to Samsung’s middling mix of scores.
J.D. Power doesn’t use an overall average, because that would be kind of stupid (cost probably shouldn’t weigh as much as ease of use, for instance). So they give each category a weighted score.
| Category | Apple | Samsung | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance | 5 | 3 | 26% |
| Ease of Use | 5 | 3 | 22% |
| Physical Design | 5 | 4 | 19% |
| Features | 5 | 4 | 17% |
| Cost | 2 | 4 | 16% | Weighted Total Average | 4.52 of 5 possible | 3.52 of 5 possible | – |
That’s funny — the Apple score is miles ahead of the Samsung score. Maybe I should check the fine print?
Please note that jdpower.com Ratings may not include all information used to determine J.D. Power & Associates awards.
Information like “does it have a Samsung badge on it”?
The press release is kind of funny, too:
The 2013 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study–Volume 2 is based on experiences evaluated by 3,375 tablet owners who have owned their current device for less than one year. The study was fielded between March and August 2013. […]
Overall customer satisfaction with tablet devices is 821 (on a 1,000-point scale). […]
Samsung ranks highest with a score of 835 and is the only manufacturer to improve across all five factors since the previous reporting period in April 2013. Samsung showed particularly strong improvement in the cost factor (25-point increase). Apple ranks second scoring 833 and performs particularly well in performance and ease of operation.
I don’t know where that 1,000-point scale comes from. I also don’t know who at J.D. Power thinks a difference of two points on a thousand-point scale in a sample size of 3,375 is statistically significant (it isn’t).
That was quite a lot of words to say that this poll is entirely meaningless.
Looks like Mavericks uses the ambient light sensor to prevent the computer from sleeping when it detects ongoing activity. Clever.