Ben Gepp on Apple not on Iran's hit list - 'It’s reality.'
on Why Apple's MacBook Neo makes Steven Sinofsky sad - 'Microsoft clearly HAD TO DO what Jobs did at Apple, abandon the old codebase and start from scratch. There’s no way Apple could have succeeded by trying to take the old Mac OS 7-8-9 codebase into the 21st century. Obviously Ballmer didn’t see that legacy technical debt as a liability; rather it was a strength because it ran (often poorly!) on so many different hardware platforms. It -still- bothers me how so many people, including those who should know better, accept Windows chronic security and reliability problems as “just the way it is” and say “all software has bugs.” Would you accept “all cars have accidents”?'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Thinking Apple will not make one device with multiple chips. But multiple devices that could simulate one chip. I’ve got an iPhone, a laptop and a Mac mini right in front of me. How many cores is that? A huge amount of computing power. Could Apple find something really cool to do with all that power? (I am already expecting that the upcoming AVP and/or glasses will offload computing power to an iPhone, etc to lower costs.) They can if anyone can.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Horace D. — Interesting that you point this out as I long thought it strange that telephony has not, by now, become standard in laptops. Strange.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Crazy, all the + from Apple and the stock is back to trading like a steel mill going outta business.'
on How to settle into Apple's walled garden for less than $1,900 - 'I’ve been helping a friend, on a budget, who wants to update his old ipad and beat-up keyboard. I’d given him a list of iPad/keyboard options from which to choose, but he’s still undecided as of yesterday. I’d been to a Best Buy yesterday to check out the Neo as a possible solution, but the tech guy was updating it, so I couldn’t do anything except look at the form factor. Despite it being a really nice product, I realized that, if you are invested in the iPad form factor, then you may be disinclined to go with the Neo-touchscreen iPad vs trackpad/keyboard Neo. I mentioned that to my friend, and he quickly agreed that was the case for him. So he’s back to deciding on an iPad Air and Magic Keyboard as final candidates. We’ll see'
on Why Apple's MacBook Neo makes Steven Sinofsky sad - 'He’s talking about lock-in. The biggest locked-in difference between Apple and Microsoft isn’t Microsoft’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” OS attitude; it’s Apple owning both the OS and the hardware. And note that Apple has done that across several OSs (Mac, Watch, iOS, Vision Pro, etcetera). Microsoft’s problem is, they should have committed to it 15 years ago, because building a highest quality hardware side takes a long time and costs a bundle. Trying to match Apple, which is also not resting on its laurels, is probably no longer possible, even with years of effort and tons of treasure. Plus, they have the albatross of having to shell out enormous sums by way of dividends, where Apple can, at any time, turn down the buyback tap with zero shareholder repercussions (because most folks have no clue how good they are fir long term investors). The hope was, of course, that AI would, like a caution flag in F1, allow Microsoft to catch up. The reality is, however, that AI is quickly commoditizing, and needs to partner with a high end, secure compute device to create real ROI. Advantage, Apple….'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Upvoted Horace. The iPhone IS a computer. Putting voice communications into a desktop, laptop or mainframe is a piece of cake. All you need to add is connectivity to the Public Telephone Switched Network (PTSN). That connection was exclusively via a cable supporting a single pair of wires. Motorola introduced cellular (cellphones) capability in the ‘80s and changed voice communications forever. In 2007 Apple forever changed cell phones. They were now handheld computers.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - '“The M series does compute for laptops like nothing else. The A series handles touch and other iOS abilities in a way the M series can’t.” This is not correct. The two processors are identical in their core architecture. The configurations differ in compromises on power consumption, size, memory bandwidth, graphics, neural engines, etc. Putting a phone in a computer is trivial and frankly it should shock everyone that there isn’t such a configuration. Especially since phones are put in not just iPhone but iPad, Watch and even cars. It’s not a technical reason there are not.'
on How to settle into Apple's walled garden for less than $1,900 - 'Not bad, but if you get a Neo then you probably don’t need an iPad, so you can buy AirPods instead of wired EarPods.'
on Greg Bates: Is Apple building an iPhonebook? Or maybe a MacPhone? - 'Neo’s positioning is genius, priced to dramatically expand the Mac base. And despite being a high quality product, it doesn’t cannibalize the higher priced Macs. The feature gap is that large. Over time, A-series chips will get more powerful while eventually memory prices will come down, giving Neo headroom to move up in price and capability, as in Horace’s stairway to heaven.'
on Apple not on Iran's hit list - 'The nukes that were negotiated by the US and Iran for them to stop development on? The same agreement that Trump walked away from simply because Obama negotiated it? There are innocent US civilians being deported and peaceful protestors being murdered by the fascist regime right here in the US as well. Maybe Iran can use that as an excuse to bomb US cities.'
on Premarket: Apple is green - 'Index futures are green this morning. Keeping to a 10-year forward view of the market, I’m shopping for bargains. Apple, in my view, is oversold in the current trading range and ahead of June’s WWDC 2026 announcements.'
