If true...
Experts applaud Apple CEO Tim Cook's apology over Maps misstep
By Gregg Keizer | Computerworld US | 01 October 12
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Friday apologized to users for the substandard Apple Maps app in iOS 6, and steered them toward alternatives including Microsoft's Bing app and Google's online Maps.
The Hoover Dam bypass bridge south of the dam appears to have melted in this 3D view of the area in Apple's new Maps app.
Analysts and other experts applauded Cook's move, although some clapped louder than others.
"Cook's letter is timely, significant, and well-executed," said Jonathan Rick, a public relations professional who operates a Washington, D.C.-based digital communications consultancy.
In an open letter posted on Apple's website, Cook said the company was "extremely sorry for the frustration" its Maps app has caused customers.
The apology came just nine days after Apple released iOS 6, an upgrade that dispensed with Google Maps -- a cornerstone of the operating system since 2007 -- and replaced it with Apple's own mapping and navigational technology.
Almost immediately on iOS 6's launch, users began complaining that Apple's new Maps app was subpar. They cited the lack of public transit maps, inaccurate maps, off-kilter points-of-interest, missing streets and addresses, and more.
"At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers," said Cook today. "With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better."
Cook also promised that Apple's Maps app will improve over time, but in the interim, suggested that customers try alternatives.
"While we're improving Maps, you can try alternatives by downloading map apps from the App Store like Bing, MapQuest and Waze, or use Google or Nokia maps by going to their websites and creating an icon on your home screen to their web app," he wrote.
As Cook said, Bing, MapQuest and Waze can be downloaded from the App Store. All three are free.
While some observers cited Cook's apology as evidence of a more humble Apple, mea culpas were not unknown during the regime of former CEO Steve Jobs.
In 2007, Jobs tacitly acknowledged Apple had misstepped by cutting prices of the then-new first-generation iPhone after millions had paid higher prices in the months before. In an open letter of his own, Jobs said the company would issue a $100 credit to anyone who bought an iPhone before the price cuts.
"We need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price," Jobs said at the time. "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple."
But Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, saw Cook's apology as different than earlier Apple's admissions.
"I think this is more humble than Jobs' letters," Gottheil said in an email reply to questions. "Jobs tended to introduce mitigating circumstances and assertions of Apple's overall superiority. While often factually correct, they undercut the company's sincerity."
And Rick pointed out that Cook's letter covered all the important bases.
"He acknowledges the problem ('we fell short'); expresses contrition ('we are extremely sorry'); doesn't make excuses; offers workarounds (even mentioning Google -- Wow!); employs statistics to sugarcoat the bad news (100 million devices; half a billion locations); and promises to do better (we'll 'keep working nonstop')," said Rick, also via email. "The letter is also promoted on Apple's homepage, which is exclusive real estate."
Gottheil echoed that.
"I think this is the right thing to do, from the perspective of a business action, and from the perspective of treating your customers with respect," he said. "It's fairly rapid, makes no attempt to minimize the problem, offers immediate solutions, and commits to addressing the problem.
"A true apology, a rare thing these days," Gottheil said. "Although they never really completely fix things, a real apology always helps."
But some were less willing to cut Apple much slack.
"It is a good move for Apple to acknowledge the low quality of Apple Maps, but they should have never released it in the first place," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, who last week blasted Apple, calling the maps issue as bad as the "Antennagate" dustup in 2010. "They should have called it a beta, worked hard to improve, then re-release when it was high quality."
Dany Gaspar, director of digital strategy at Levick, a Washington, D.C. firm that helps companies deal with public relations emergencies, agreed that Cook's letter is a good start, but ultimately unsatisfactory.
"While I applaud Apple for taking this initial step, I feel they still fell a little short," said Gaspar. "Apple needs to convey a message that they are taking the necessary steps to regain their customers' trust. This should include changes they are making internally to their mapping development team and adding the option to download the Google Maps app."
"Apple's stumble is legitimate news," said Gottheil. "Nevertheless, this takes away the 'arrogant Apple' aspect.
Most experts believe that the maps brouhaha will not significantly affect sales of Apple's new iPhone 5, which is powered by iOS 6.
This is how the George Wahsington Bridge over the Hudson River in New York appears in the Maps app in 3D mode.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Could Michael Schumacher come back for a twentieth season? At Sauber?
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F1: Prost and Jordan think Schumacher could move to Sauber
By Auto123.com,
Monday, October 01, 2012
From GMM
Alain Prost has admitted he can imagine former rival Michael Schumacher extending his career into a twentieth season in 2013.
When asked about Schumacher's deliberations now that he has been ousted by Mercedes, Frenchman Prost answered: "I was not particularly positive when he returned (in 2010). I don't quite understand why."
"Maybe he's going to Sauber now?" the quadruple world champion told RMC Sport, after testing a modern Red Bull F1 car at the Renault World Series event at Paul Ricard.
Alain Prost aboard the RB6 Red Bull at Paul Ricard. (Photo: Renault F1 Sport)
"It's a very personal choice," continued Prost, who ended his career with a fourth drivers' championship in 1993. "I can understand that he is passionate and wants to continue driving, and it's very difficult to judge from the outside. Everyone should live their life as they wish. I can understand his position. But at some point, you have to decide it's enough."
Asked what Schumacher's biggest contribution to F1 is these days, Prost answered: "Passion in its purest form. It's pretty amazing to see someone at that level. He drives for pleasure, on the bikes, go-karts ... it's to his credit."
Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG. (Photo: WRi2)
Eddie Jordan, who gave Schumacher his first F1 seat in 1991, thinks Sauber could be a good option for Schumacher.
"I think it could make sense," Jordan told Welt newspaper, "because the situation there is completely different. I imagine he would have the chance to live out his passion with a competitive car but also in a small racing team, with a much more intimate atmosphere than a global group like Mercedes. It could be just right for him."
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F1: Prost and Jordan think Schumacher could move to Sauber
By Auto123.com,
Monday, October 01, 2012
From GMM
Alain Prost has admitted he can imagine former rival Michael Schumacher extending his career into a twentieth season in 2013.
When asked about Schumacher's deliberations now that he has been ousted by Mercedes, Frenchman Prost answered: "I was not particularly positive when he returned (in 2010). I don't quite understand why."
"Maybe he's going to Sauber now?" the quadruple world champion told RMC Sport, after testing a modern Red Bull F1 car at the Renault World Series event at Paul Ricard.
Alain Prost aboard the RB6 Red Bull at Paul Ricard. (Photo: Renault F1 Sport)
"It's a very personal choice," continued Prost, who ended his career with a fourth drivers' championship in 1993. "I can understand that he is passionate and wants to continue driving, and it's very difficult to judge from the outside. Everyone should live their life as they wish. I can understand his position. But at some point, you have to decide it's enough."
Asked what Schumacher's biggest contribution to F1 is these days, Prost answered: "Passion in its purest form. It's pretty amazing to see someone at that level. He drives for pleasure, on the bikes, go-karts ... it's to his credit."
Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG. (Photo: WRi2)
Eddie Jordan, who gave Schumacher his first F1 seat in 1991, thinks Sauber could be a good option for Schumacher.
"I think it could make sense," Jordan told Welt newspaper, "because the situation there is completely different. I imagine he would have the chance to live out his passion with a competitive car but also in a small racing team, with a much more intimate atmosphere than a global group like Mercedes. It could be just right for him."
Will 3D printing save Apple as well?
How Apple's. greatest strength is also its biggest weakness.
APPLE
Apple's exacting standards cause headaches for suppliers
By Aaron Souppouris 1 Hour Ago
Apple's manufacturing partnerships with Foxconn and Samsung are well-known, and equally well documented, but when it comes to the small details, the company relies on a vast network of other suppliers. An article from San Jose Mercury News sheds light on Apple's attention to detail, from capacitive adhesive types to chemical coatings for circuit boards. It also reveals a ruthless streak that Mercury says has led to a love / hate relationship between Apple and its partners — inquiring about a new manufacturing requirement, an Apple employee is cited as saying: "can you do it? If not, I will go to another supplier."
Source San Jose
APPLE
Apple's exacting standards cause headaches for suppliers
By Aaron Souppouris 1 Hour Ago
Apple's manufacturing partnerships with Foxconn and Samsung are well-known, and equally well documented, but when it comes to the small details, the company relies on a vast network of other suppliers. An article from San Jose Mercury News sheds light on Apple's attention to detail, from capacitive adhesive types to chemical coatings for circuit boards. It also reveals a ruthless streak that Mercury says has led to a love / hate relationship between Apple and its partners — inquiring about a new manufacturing requirement, an Apple employee is cited as saying: "can you do it? If not, I will go to another supplier."
Source San Jose
HP. Whatever are we going to do with you?
How 3D Printing Could Save HP
By Dana Blankenhorn - 09/27/12
Tickers in this article: FDX DDD HPQ SSYS A ADSK
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I would love to believe Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) can become great again. It's a great brand that stands for engineering excellence, white shirts and pocket protectors.
But that HP disappeared when Agilent (NYSE:A) was spun out in 1999. What was left was a consumer products giant, a rumbling, bumbling, stumbling company trading on its name, growing in size but losing its reason for being.
CEO Meg Whitman keeps promising to turn things around, but her moves make no sense to me. The move that makes the least sense was the decision taken this summer to end its relationship with 3D printing leader Stratasys (NYSE:SSYS), whose printers it had been selling as the "DesignJet" line since 2010.
This is a business at the very top of its hype cycle, projected to be a $3.1 billion industry in 2016 by Wohlers Associates. (The report is available here.) Not much when your sales are running at $130 billion/year, but growing fast and ready to transform the world.
At his blog, Terry Wohlers says 3D printing, or "additive manufacturing," has reached a tipping point, where it moves from being a niche market to a mass market. That's when HP walks away?
At Shaping the Future, Christopher Barnatt notes there are many types of 3D printers. The Stratasys units HP sold use "fused deposition modeling" or FDM - injection molding plastic goes in as a thread and is deposited into the input design.
Other types of 3D printing include:
Stereolithographers, or SLAs, which use lasers to deposit layers of polymer that is hardened after it's deposited.
Polyjet matrix devices that spray two polymers from a print head to harden quickly under an ultraviolet light.
Selective Laser Sintering, or SLS, devices that fuse layers of powder together and can use a variety of materials from wax and nylon to stainless steel and aluminum.
SLS machines that use metals are sometimes called Direct Metal Laser Sintering, or DMLS machines. You can also make metal objects by using SLS to create a mold you pour metal into, a production method almost as old as civilization.
Selective Laser Melting, or SLM, will fully melt the powder being used in molding, not just fuse it together.
Selective Heat Sintering, or SHS, uses a thermal print head instead of a laser to heat the powder being melted as it is deposited.
Multi-Jet Modeling, or MJM, uses an inkjet print head to bind successive layers of fused powder together into a final form.
Prices for most units run from $10,000-$20,000 but all use Computer Aided Design, or CAD, software as a common language. There is also a small consumer market, with prices as low as $399 for the "junior" version of the Printrbot kit, notes DVICE.
In the business world most 3D printers today are used for prototyping, but they can be used for final production in some highly-customized areas such as dental implants and motorcycle parts. I personally think this is going to expand into multiple industries rapidly, a "mass customization" revolution.
I'm not the only person who thinks so. Bob Lewis of Infoworld calls 3D printing a "litmus test" of IT leadership. The business is rapidly consolidating around two main players, Stratasys and 3D Systems (NYSE:DDD), either of which HP could still acquire, SeekingAlpha notes, although maybe not for much longer. (Another way in might be by buying Autodesk (NYSE:ADSK).)
What's amazing is that if you ask consumers to name a company involved in 3D printing, HP will likely be top of mind, thanks to DesignJet. But by spring the only HP offerings in this area may be a software solution it is working on with a company called SolidWorks, called the DesignJet T2300 platform, and a Web-based service called ePrint & Share for large-format printing of designs.
The opportunity could not be plainer. Buy the biggest 3D printer company you can, build out a retail presence offering consumer units, software services and custom production from larger machines, stock the rest of your line in those stores for a "halo effect," and tie the larger industrial market in with the cloud.
HP could get into this super-fast by buying into FedEx' (FDX) Kinkos' stores, which are getting stale anyway with plain paper copying and printing. Then imagine FedEx handling the deliveries.
The 3D printing market is already coming to retail, as BusinessWeek notes, with stores that look, and feel, like PC stores did in the 1970s.
Consolidating the opportunity, and dominating the market sounds like the biggest no-brainer in the history of Earth, a way for HP to grow again, to be relevant again, to have cachet again.
If HP has a coherent strategy on 3D printing, I would love to hear it. But right now it looks like this future will pass it by.
At the time of publication, the author had no investments in companies mentioned in this article. .
This article is commentary by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.
More post apocalyptic thoughts....
PRIVACY NEWS
Is Skype Spying On You?
Posted on Monday, July 30th, 2012 by Kent Lawson
For many years, Skype took user privacy very seriously.
Skype, which provides free online calls and cheap phone calls to hundreds of millions of people around the world, has always been known for using strong encryption and complex peer-to-peer network connections. As a result, Skype calls are notoriously hard to intercept.
The company was very proud of its strong user security record, and even publicly stated that it could not conduct wiretaps because of its secure encryption techniques.
But this apparently is no longer the case.
And security advocates are worried that Skype may be allowing law enforcement to spy on users. Even worse, Skype is not being candid about their relationship with law enforcement.
Microsoft Changed Everything
Last year, Microsoft bought Skype for nearly $9 billion. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft received a patent that allowed them to silently copy communication transmitted during Skype communication sessions.
Here’s the problem: no one knows for sure whether or not Skype integrated this technology into their architecture. And for whatever reason, Skype isn’t talking.
But Skype’s privacy policy isn’t exactly comforting. Their policy states that Skype “may provide personal data, communications content and/or traffic data to an appropriate judicial, law enforcement or government authority lawfully requesting such information.”
And a Skype spokesman recently released a statement which read as follows: “As was true before the Microsoft acquisition, Skype cooperates with law enforcement agencies as legally required and technically feasible.”
At the very least, Skype has the technology to intercept user calls without their knowledge.
Given the high number of law enforcement requests to phone companies for user information (over 1.3 million in 2011 alone), it is safe to assume that Skype can no longer provide an absolute level of privacy and security for their users.
The problem with Skype is the same problem as many phone companies that provide user information to law enforcement: they simply aren’t being candid with their users.
Some users are already seeking other open-source solutions, like Jitsi, which provides end-to-end encryption and complete user security.
Until Microsoft is completely transparent about what information they are or are not supplying to law enforcement, Skype users should assume the worse and take all necessary steps to protect themselves and their privacy.
This article is brought to you by PRIVATE WiFi, a personal VPN software that encrypts your data in public wireless hotspots. Using our easy software prevents identity thieves from hacking into your emails, online banking, social media accounts, and other personal information. To sign up for a FREE three-day trial, visit privatewifi.com.
We welcome you to post/reprint this article, as written, giving credit to the author and linking back to www.private-i.com.
Kent Lawson
Kent Lawson is President and CEO at Private Communications Corporation. He combined his extensive business and technical experience to develop Private WiFi in 2010. The software protects Internet communication over public WiFi and LAN networks and is available to those working in places like coffee shops, hotels, airports, and beyond.
Is Skype Spying On You?
Posted on Monday, July 30th, 2012 by Kent Lawson
For many years, Skype took user privacy very seriously.
Skype, which provides free online calls and cheap phone calls to hundreds of millions of people around the world, has always been known for using strong encryption and complex peer-to-peer network connections. As a result, Skype calls are notoriously hard to intercept.
The company was very proud of its strong user security record, and even publicly stated that it could not conduct wiretaps because of its secure encryption techniques.
But this apparently is no longer the case.
And security advocates are worried that Skype may be allowing law enforcement to spy on users. Even worse, Skype is not being candid about their relationship with law enforcement.
Microsoft Changed Everything
Last year, Microsoft bought Skype for nearly $9 billion. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft received a patent that allowed them to silently copy communication transmitted during Skype communication sessions.
Here’s the problem: no one knows for sure whether or not Skype integrated this technology into their architecture. And for whatever reason, Skype isn’t talking.
But Skype’s privacy policy isn’t exactly comforting. Their policy states that Skype “may provide personal data, communications content and/or traffic data to an appropriate judicial, law enforcement or government authority lawfully requesting such information.”
And a Skype spokesman recently released a statement which read as follows: “As was true before the Microsoft acquisition, Skype cooperates with law enforcement agencies as legally required and technically feasible.”
At the very least, Skype has the technology to intercept user calls without their knowledge.
Given the high number of law enforcement requests to phone companies for user information (over 1.3 million in 2011 alone), it is safe to assume that Skype can no longer provide an absolute level of privacy and security for their users.
The problem with Skype is the same problem as many phone companies that provide user information to law enforcement: they simply aren’t being candid with their users.
Some users are already seeking other open-source solutions, like Jitsi, which provides end-to-end encryption and complete user security.
Until Microsoft is completely transparent about what information they are or are not supplying to law enforcement, Skype users should assume the worse and take all necessary steps to protect themselves and their privacy.
This article is brought to you by PRIVATE WiFi, a personal VPN software that encrypts your data in public wireless hotspots. Using our easy software prevents identity thieves from hacking into your emails, online banking, social media accounts, and other personal information. To sign up for a FREE three-day trial, visit privatewifi.com.
We welcome you to post/reprint this article, as written, giving credit to the author and linking back to www.private-i.com.
Kent Lawson
Kent Lawson is President and CEO at Private Communications Corporation. He combined his extensive business and technical experience to develop Private WiFi in 2010. The software protects Internet communication over public WiFi and LAN networks and is available to those working in places like coffee shops, hotels, airports, and beyond.
iPhone user switches to Android. Lives to tell the tale.
An iPhone Lover’s Three Months Exile With Android
Published on September 29, 2012
Written by: Buster Heine
You never meant for this to happen. In your rush to dive into the ocean, you forgot to take your iPhone out of your pocket, and didn’t realize it till you came out of the water. It’s a disaster. You leave your drowned iPhone 4S in a bag of rice for three days, praying to God, Allah, Jehovah, Moses, Shiva, and Oprah Winfrey that some magical power will make it work again. It doesn’t. You blow-dry it. Nada. Every conceivable way to resurrect your iPhone is met with failure and a blank screen.
Because you know the iPhone 5 is coming out in three months you decide not to waste your money and upgrade eligibility. Once you get home you rummage through your desk and find the Galaxy Nexus Samsung sent you three months ago. You sit in your chair staring at it almost hesitant to turn it on. You run your hands along the contours of its plastic grey body, pop in your new SIM card, take a deep breath, and then you dive in. This is it – your new digital home and the beginning of a three month exile into Android.
“The first thing that you try to make yourself believe is that this is going to be fun”
Just thinking about not having an iPhone anymore bums you out. You and your iPhones have been together since 2007. While all your friends were still T-9 texting, you were jailbreaking and downloading apps like crazy. So when your exile to Android starts it’s painful and disorienting.
The first thing that you try to make yourself believe is that this is going to be fun. “Android can’t be as bad as all the Apple fanboys say it is,” you think to yourself. You start thinking of this exile period as a three month research project to help you understand how Android lovers live, and it starts off great. You’re infatuated and curious.
Within your first month you decide to move your calendars, email, cloud storage, everything, over to Google’s services so you can feel the full torrential power of Google syncing. It works better than iCloud, which surprises you at first. Then you try Voice Text and are blown away that it actually gets 97% of your words right, unlike Siri. Features like turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps even gets you excited.
You think you’re going to make it. You think that Android isn’t that bad and that there’s some cool stuff here. But then the little things start creeping up on you. On a Friday night you discover that you’ve been left out of your friend’s group iMessage conversations because you’re stuck on Android. You read about an amazing new app that was just released and go to download it on the Google Play Store only to find that they haven’t come to Android yet.
You start missing stuff about iOS that you never knew you loved. Stuff like the ridiculous emjoi icons you’d grafiti your texts with. Or the fact that Rdio never crashed five times a day on your iPhone 4S. Even the annoying alarm sounds of iOS start sounding fantastic after you fail to wake up on time because your Nexus only has lovely futuristic robotic ringtones.
It’s fine. It’s only temporary. Only for three months. But then you know shit is about to get real once you discover that the best Twitter app for Android is The Twitter app. To top it all off you start carrying your nice camera with you so your Instagram pictures don’t look like crap.
You think it’s not all that bad, like seriously, it’s just a phone, right? You decided to embrace it even more. You research how to flash your Nexus and dualboot Linux, or Unix, or whatever it’s called. Humbled by this new foreign operating system, you ask your Android user friends what apps and hacks they enjoy the most, and if they can help you figure out how to turn off the annoying tactile feedback of the keyboard.
You just want this to work out. To be fun. You download five bucks of “live wallpapers” thinking that will change everything. Now your phone will feel cool. But your five dollar live wallpaper investment turns into ten bucks, then twenty bucks, before you realize that silly background animations can’t transform the way you interact with your phone.
“You want to love Android more than you wanted to love your amazingly beautiful ex-girlfriend whose one flaw was a serious case of the bitch-fits.
Once you embark on your exile to Android you start reading a lot more tech news. Each morning you wake up and scan Gizmodo, The Verge, TechCrunch, and all the Android blogs hoping for a glimmer of news or rumor that Samsung or Motorola or HTC is about to launch their newest flagship Android phone in two weeks and that it will be your salvation. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll get some things right this time.
You read every site’s guide to “50 Essential Android Apps” and find like five cool apps that you actually use longer than four weeks. It’s going to be ok, you tell yourself, but then you see your friend’s iPhones and ask them if you can just hold it. You swear you won’t read their texts, you just want to get lost in Apple’s iOS wonderland for a bit.
When friends ask, “Why don’t you have an iPhone? Aren’t you an Apple blogger?” you try to wax intellectual about how it’s a great idea to try new things, and that your Galaxy Nexus does a lot of cool stuff your iPhone didn’t. “Like, it’s got a little LED that lets me know each time I have a text or missed call or new email. It’s sweet!” you explain. You even show off NFC even though you’ve never had the chance to use it yet.
The craziest thing that happens is you actually sit through the entire Google I/O keynote completely enthralled with the announcement that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be released soon. You stay up all night pressing the software update button waiting for Google to fill your Nexus full of delicious Jelly Bean goodness. The update finally comes three days later, and it’s good, and the new Google Now feature can almost read your mind. It makes you excited to use your phone again and discover new things.
You want to love your Android phone. You want to love it more than you wanted to love your amazingly beautiful ex-girlfriend whose one flaw was a serious case of the bitch-fits. You want to love this phone because the thought that Apple might be the only tech company in the world able to make a completely great phone just depresses the living hell out of you.
You want someone else to make a phone that you love because you’re afraid that your love affair with Apple has transformed you into critical asshole that can’t appreciate variety or alternative view points. You worry that you’ve morphed into a monstrous troll when you see your friend’s new Galaxy S3 and ask if they actually bought it or if it was forced on them by their company.
You start thinking about allegiances. You start thinking about how much you just don’t want to care anymore. You start thinking about how when you were a kid you just wanted to play with really cool gadgets and technology like you were James Bond. Back then you didn’t care which famed designer or company created gadgets and phones, or which of your friends had one. You just loved them. You start to worry that your inability to truly love or even enjoy Android and other gadgets means you’ve lost that magical power. You think you’re an idiot.
“Everything is finally good enough and you really don’t care that a new iPhone is coming out in two weeks.”
Three months into your exile you finally realize that all of this nonsense is stupid to worry about, so you stop. You reach that moment of total satisfaction that you can call your niece 800 miles away and have a conversation about her first day of school; that you can organize a hangout with all your friends in like two minutes no matter what brand of phone is in your pocket. Everything is finally good enough and you really don’t care that a new iPhone is coming out in two weeks. For the first time in years you are fine.
You decide not to pre-order. You made it this long, why not see how long you can go on Android? Why not try Windows Phone 8 next? You sleep in on launch day and smile at the pictures of everyone waiting in line for their iPhone 5. Everyone at work is busy chatting about when they think their pre-order will be delivered and you’re happy that you’re not anxious. Happy that you feel like you can finally wait.
During your lunch hour you decide to stop by the Apple Store and see how long the lines are. It’s swarmed. You drive down the road a few miles and walk into an empty AT&T Store. The employee tells you that a guy bought the last iPhone 5 about 10 minutes ago, but then the manager interjects and says they have one last iPhone 5 remaining.
Published on September 29, 2012
Written by: Buster Heine
You never meant for this to happen. In your rush to dive into the ocean, you forgot to take your iPhone out of your pocket, and didn’t realize it till you came out of the water. It’s a disaster. You leave your drowned iPhone 4S in a bag of rice for three days, praying to God, Allah, Jehovah, Moses, Shiva, and Oprah Winfrey that some magical power will make it work again. It doesn’t. You blow-dry it. Nada. Every conceivable way to resurrect your iPhone is met with failure and a blank screen.
Because you know the iPhone 5 is coming out in three months you decide not to waste your money and upgrade eligibility. Once you get home you rummage through your desk and find the Galaxy Nexus Samsung sent you three months ago. You sit in your chair staring at it almost hesitant to turn it on. You run your hands along the contours of its plastic grey body, pop in your new SIM card, take a deep breath, and then you dive in. This is it – your new digital home and the beginning of a three month exile into Android.
“The first thing that you try to make yourself believe is that this is going to be fun”
Just thinking about not having an iPhone anymore bums you out. You and your iPhones have been together since 2007. While all your friends were still T-9 texting, you were jailbreaking and downloading apps like crazy. So when your exile to Android starts it’s painful and disorienting.
The first thing that you try to make yourself believe is that this is going to be fun. “Android can’t be as bad as all the Apple fanboys say it is,” you think to yourself. You start thinking of this exile period as a three month research project to help you understand how Android lovers live, and it starts off great. You’re infatuated and curious.
Within your first month you decide to move your calendars, email, cloud storage, everything, over to Google’s services so you can feel the full torrential power of Google syncing. It works better than iCloud, which surprises you at first. Then you try Voice Text and are blown away that it actually gets 97% of your words right, unlike Siri. Features like turn-by-turn navigation in Google Maps even gets you excited.
You think you’re going to make it. You think that Android isn’t that bad and that there’s some cool stuff here. But then the little things start creeping up on you. On a Friday night you discover that you’ve been left out of your friend’s group iMessage conversations because you’re stuck on Android. You read about an amazing new app that was just released and go to download it on the Google Play Store only to find that they haven’t come to Android yet.
You start missing stuff about iOS that you never knew you loved. Stuff like the ridiculous emjoi icons you’d grafiti your texts with. Or the fact that Rdio never crashed five times a day on your iPhone 4S. Even the annoying alarm sounds of iOS start sounding fantastic after you fail to wake up on time because your Nexus only has lovely futuristic robotic ringtones.
It’s fine. It’s only temporary. Only for three months. But then you know shit is about to get real once you discover that the best Twitter app for Android is The Twitter app. To top it all off you start carrying your nice camera with you so your Instagram pictures don’t look like crap.
You think it’s not all that bad, like seriously, it’s just a phone, right? You decided to embrace it even more. You research how to flash your Nexus and dualboot Linux, or Unix, or whatever it’s called. Humbled by this new foreign operating system, you ask your Android user friends what apps and hacks they enjoy the most, and if they can help you figure out how to turn off the annoying tactile feedback of the keyboard.
You just want this to work out. To be fun. You download five bucks of “live wallpapers” thinking that will change everything. Now your phone will feel cool. But your five dollar live wallpaper investment turns into ten bucks, then twenty bucks, before you realize that silly background animations can’t transform the way you interact with your phone.
“You want to love Android more than you wanted to love your amazingly beautiful ex-girlfriend whose one flaw was a serious case of the bitch-fits.
Once you embark on your exile to Android you start reading a lot more tech news. Each morning you wake up and scan Gizmodo, The Verge, TechCrunch, and all the Android blogs hoping for a glimmer of news or rumor that Samsung or Motorola or HTC is about to launch their newest flagship Android phone in two weeks and that it will be your salvation. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll get some things right this time.
You read every site’s guide to “50 Essential Android Apps” and find like five cool apps that you actually use longer than four weeks. It’s going to be ok, you tell yourself, but then you see your friend’s iPhones and ask them if you can just hold it. You swear you won’t read their texts, you just want to get lost in Apple’s iOS wonderland for a bit.
When friends ask, “Why don’t you have an iPhone? Aren’t you an Apple blogger?” you try to wax intellectual about how it’s a great idea to try new things, and that your Galaxy Nexus does a lot of cool stuff your iPhone didn’t. “Like, it’s got a little LED that lets me know each time I have a text or missed call or new email. It’s sweet!” you explain. You even show off NFC even though you’ve never had the chance to use it yet.
The craziest thing that happens is you actually sit through the entire Google I/O keynote completely enthralled with the announcement that Android 4.1 Jelly Bean will be released soon. You stay up all night pressing the software update button waiting for Google to fill your Nexus full of delicious Jelly Bean goodness. The update finally comes three days later, and it’s good, and the new Google Now feature can almost read your mind. It makes you excited to use your phone again and discover new things.
You want to love your Android phone. You want to love it more than you wanted to love your amazingly beautiful ex-girlfriend whose one flaw was a serious case of the bitch-fits. You want to love this phone because the thought that Apple might be the only tech company in the world able to make a completely great phone just depresses the living hell out of you.
You want someone else to make a phone that you love because you’re afraid that your love affair with Apple has transformed you into critical asshole that can’t appreciate variety or alternative view points. You worry that you’ve morphed into a monstrous troll when you see your friend’s new Galaxy S3 and ask if they actually bought it or if it was forced on them by their company.
You start thinking about allegiances. You start thinking about how much you just don’t want to care anymore. You start thinking about how when you were a kid you just wanted to play with really cool gadgets and technology like you were James Bond. Back then you didn’t care which famed designer or company created gadgets and phones, or which of your friends had one. You just loved them. You start to worry that your inability to truly love or even enjoy Android and other gadgets means you’ve lost that magical power. You think you’re an idiot.
“Everything is finally good enough and you really don’t care that a new iPhone is coming out in two weeks.”
Three months into your exile you finally realize that all of this nonsense is stupid to worry about, so you stop. You reach that moment of total satisfaction that you can call your niece 800 miles away and have a conversation about her first day of school; that you can organize a hangout with all your friends in like two minutes no matter what brand of phone is in your pocket. Everything is finally good enough and you really don’t care that a new iPhone is coming out in two weeks. For the first time in years you are fine.
You decide not to pre-order. You made it this long, why not see how long you can go on Android? Why not try Windows Phone 8 next? You sleep in on launch day and smile at the pictures of everyone waiting in line for their iPhone 5. Everyone at work is busy chatting about when they think their pre-order will be delivered and you’re happy that you’re not anxious. Happy that you feel like you can finally wait.
During your lunch hour you decide to stop by the Apple Store and see how long the lines are. It’s swarmed. You drive down the road a few miles and walk into an empty AT&T Store. The employee tells you that a guy bought the last iPhone 5 about 10 minutes ago, but then the manager interjects and says they have one last iPhone 5 remaining.
A question of responsibility?
Nice perspective. Although I'm wondering why the majority of corporate citizens are the first looking for government hand outs.....
Exposing the folly in boardrooms and capital markets.
BUSINESS | 9/30/2012
Meet The New Subprime: It Will Cost Us Billions
see photosBruce R. Bennett/ZUMA Press/Newscom
Click for full photo gallery: Rich Neighborhoods Riddled With Foreclosures
When will our government come to realize that not everyone in this country can own a home? Not an issue of cruelty or insensitivity or lack of dream for Utopia, but a simple matter of economics. Not everyone has 20% or even 10% to make a bona fide down payment and have the subsequent income to comfortably service the debt. Apparently the continuing pain of the subprime crisis has taught our feckless politicians nothing. While sub-prime has morphed into a naughty word, a near clone has stealthily infiltrated the mortgage markets, choking the breath out of many unfortunates ensnared by its enervating tentacles.
Meet the Federal Housing Administration or FHA. It found life under Roosevelt in 1934 as part of his alphabet soup answer to extricate America from depression. It started as a benign institution, and like today, insured loans and offered some down payment relief to borrowers.
Why Has FHA Become A Monster Now
Last November the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under whose purview FHA falls, issued the September 30 fiscal year 2011 annual report. It was a rather damning indictment. Capital which is statutorily set at 2% of assets had fallen to a measly .24% or from $4.7 billion in 2010 to $2.6 billion in year end 2011. It is only a mere $20 billion shy of requirement. This capital is expressed as the MMI or Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund or the backstop to any defaults on the $1.1 trillion of FHA insured loans outstanding. The auditors estimated $26 billion of losses for loans underwritten through the first quarter of 2009 and another $14.1 billion for “seller funded down payment assistance loans”.
Though since curtailed, the seller used to be able to loan the purchaser most or all of the down payment leaving the buyer with little or no “skin in the game.” Then the auditors sang the praises of the 2010 and 2011 books of business will be profitable, and there are new risk guidelines and credit policies in place and all is well and they expect to be in capital compliance by 2015.
A large part of the problem is that to qualify for a mortgage at FHA you need little more than an active “pulse”. Requirements have been repeatedly watered down. The down payment requirements are 3.5% with a credit score of 580. A score below 640 is considered subprime by the Federal Reserve. When you roll in the insurance fee into the loan balance you have a loan to value ratio that starts at over 98%. The paltry down payment may be funded by relatives or employers. It gets more bizarre. Borrowers can claim income from a roommate (to be found at a later date) to help qualify for the loan. Often no cash reserves are required to demonstrate ability handle repair bills and taxes and still meet mortgage obligations. In addition, when you default you just go and apply to the pernicious Home Affordable Modification Program or HAMP which is designed to give our beleaguered mortgagor several more bites at the apple. His or her loan will be modified (interest rate reduced or principal forgiven) and because of new more lenient HAMP rules, when she or he defaults again, the loan can be rejiggered yet one more time. All the income requirements at HAMP have been reduced more than once. HAMP also has one of those goofy phantom roommate clauses.
Fannie Mae Compared
The contrast between FHA and Fannie Mae tells the story. First Fannie Mae issues what are known as conforming or “conventional” loans which have such requirements as 20% money down and cash reserves for repairs as well as infinitely stricter income requirements than FHA. Second, and insidiously, FHA now has a loan limit that is higher than Fannie Mae. Ex Alaska and Hawaii, FHA has loan limits up to $729,750 while conventional mortgages are stuck at $625,000. So in effect there has been a “disintermediation” away from Fannie and into FHA. If you have little cash the lax requirements of FHA is the siren call. This is borne out as FHA has increased threefold in size since 2005. And combined with HAMP a borrower has multiple opportunities to default with impunity, the system encourages irresponsible behavior.
Realizing that perhaps this Ponzi scheme can’t endure indefinitely, FHA has raised their insurance premiums to borrowers twice this year, most recently with Congress giving, with a 402-7 vote, it’s imprimatur on the FHA Fiscal Solvency Act which raised cost of insurance to up to 2.05% annually. The bill announced more hollow risk guidelines and even hired a new risk officer to make sure all roommates are in compliance. HUD Secretary Donovan emerged from his cave and hailed this would ensure the solvency of FHA.
Meanwhile, economists at the Federal Reserve were crunching some numbers of there own. FHA has for years underestimated their losses from claims on defaulted loans. It turns out that every time FHA has a loan default but it gets modified into a new loan, then this loan is a success and hence not counted as a defaulted loan. In fact, this default is a default and not a success and to the extent it has been modified (lower interest or principal) it cost me and you the taxpayer, money. Additionally, it was discovered that 49% of all reworked loans defaulted a second time within twelve months. The bottom line is FHA uses a faulty econometric model that vastly underestimates defaults to forecast losses. The Fed, which used actual FHA loan data from 2007-2009, predicts there will be a 30% default rate on these loans within five years.
So on the one side of the aisle sits HUD secretary Donavan pontificating all is well in FHA land, while on the debit side of the ledger the Federal Reserve has produced a significantly less sanguine vision for the future. Skeptic that I am, I tend to believe half of what I see first hand. Ergo, I embarked on a little sleuthing mission to compare the credibility of each stance. Locating the latest 10Q’s (second quarter 2012) for JPM, BAC, and WFC, I combed the nether intestines in search of their FHA loan exposures and what is the current delinquency experience. Sobering understates the resulting data. BAC, far and away the largest FHA lender of the three has a $67.3 billion book of which $18.1 billion or 26.9% is 90 days or more past due. It gets worse. Government guaranteed loans at WFC total $28.43 billion and a whopping 69.3% fall into the 90 day overdue basket. JPM brings up the rear with a comparatively small $15.9 billion but with an incredible 74.8% being derelict by three months or more. When you add up these three lenders you arrive just under $112 billion or 10% of the total $1.1 trillion FHA insured market. Take my word, in aggregate the math and division yields that nearly 45% of all of these FHA insured loans are three payments or more behind. That is $49.5 billion of loans more than three moths past due. The FHA has $2.6 billion in capital. Can we extrapolate to the other 90% of the market? Who knows, but these three banks have operations covering areas in excess of 95% of the population of America.
Exposing the folly in boardrooms and capital markets.
BUSINESS | 9/30/2012
Meet The New Subprime: It Will Cost Us Billions
see photosBruce R. Bennett/ZUMA Press/Newscom
Click for full photo gallery: Rich Neighborhoods Riddled With Foreclosures
When will our government come to realize that not everyone in this country can own a home? Not an issue of cruelty or insensitivity or lack of dream for Utopia, but a simple matter of economics. Not everyone has 20% or even 10% to make a bona fide down payment and have the subsequent income to comfortably service the debt. Apparently the continuing pain of the subprime crisis has taught our feckless politicians nothing. While sub-prime has morphed into a naughty word, a near clone has stealthily infiltrated the mortgage markets, choking the breath out of many unfortunates ensnared by its enervating tentacles.
Meet the Federal Housing Administration or FHA. It found life under Roosevelt in 1934 as part of his alphabet soup answer to extricate America from depression. It started as a benign institution, and like today, insured loans and offered some down payment relief to borrowers.
Why Has FHA Become A Monster Now
Last November the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under whose purview FHA falls, issued the September 30 fiscal year 2011 annual report. It was a rather damning indictment. Capital which is statutorily set at 2% of assets had fallen to a measly .24% or from $4.7 billion in 2010 to $2.6 billion in year end 2011. It is only a mere $20 billion shy of requirement. This capital is expressed as the MMI or Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund or the backstop to any defaults on the $1.1 trillion of FHA insured loans outstanding. The auditors estimated $26 billion of losses for loans underwritten through the first quarter of 2009 and another $14.1 billion for “seller funded down payment assistance loans”.
Though since curtailed, the seller used to be able to loan the purchaser most or all of the down payment leaving the buyer with little or no “skin in the game.” Then the auditors sang the praises of the 2010 and 2011 books of business will be profitable, and there are new risk guidelines and credit policies in place and all is well and they expect to be in capital compliance by 2015.
A large part of the problem is that to qualify for a mortgage at FHA you need little more than an active “pulse”. Requirements have been repeatedly watered down. The down payment requirements are 3.5% with a credit score of 580. A score below 640 is considered subprime by the Federal Reserve. When you roll in the insurance fee into the loan balance you have a loan to value ratio that starts at over 98%. The paltry down payment may be funded by relatives or employers. It gets more bizarre. Borrowers can claim income from a roommate (to be found at a later date) to help qualify for the loan. Often no cash reserves are required to demonstrate ability handle repair bills and taxes and still meet mortgage obligations. In addition, when you default you just go and apply to the pernicious Home Affordable Modification Program or HAMP which is designed to give our beleaguered mortgagor several more bites at the apple. His or her loan will be modified (interest rate reduced or principal forgiven) and because of new more lenient HAMP rules, when she or he defaults again, the loan can be rejiggered yet one more time. All the income requirements at HAMP have been reduced more than once. HAMP also has one of those goofy phantom roommate clauses.
Fannie Mae Compared
The contrast between FHA and Fannie Mae tells the story. First Fannie Mae issues what are known as conforming or “conventional” loans which have such requirements as 20% money down and cash reserves for repairs as well as infinitely stricter income requirements than FHA. Second, and insidiously, FHA now has a loan limit that is higher than Fannie Mae. Ex Alaska and Hawaii, FHA has loan limits up to $729,750 while conventional mortgages are stuck at $625,000. So in effect there has been a “disintermediation” away from Fannie and into FHA. If you have little cash the lax requirements of FHA is the siren call. This is borne out as FHA has increased threefold in size since 2005. And combined with HAMP a borrower has multiple opportunities to default with impunity, the system encourages irresponsible behavior.
Realizing that perhaps this Ponzi scheme can’t endure indefinitely, FHA has raised their insurance premiums to borrowers twice this year, most recently with Congress giving, with a 402-7 vote, it’s imprimatur on the FHA Fiscal Solvency Act which raised cost of insurance to up to 2.05% annually. The bill announced more hollow risk guidelines and even hired a new risk officer to make sure all roommates are in compliance. HUD Secretary Donovan emerged from his cave and hailed this would ensure the solvency of FHA.
Meanwhile, economists at the Federal Reserve were crunching some numbers of there own. FHA has for years underestimated their losses from claims on defaulted loans. It turns out that every time FHA has a loan default but it gets modified into a new loan, then this loan is a success and hence not counted as a defaulted loan. In fact, this default is a default and not a success and to the extent it has been modified (lower interest or principal) it cost me and you the taxpayer, money. Additionally, it was discovered that 49% of all reworked loans defaulted a second time within twelve months. The bottom line is FHA uses a faulty econometric model that vastly underestimates defaults to forecast losses. The Fed, which used actual FHA loan data from 2007-2009, predicts there will be a 30% default rate on these loans within five years.
So on the one side of the aisle sits HUD secretary Donavan pontificating all is well in FHA land, while on the debit side of the ledger the Federal Reserve has produced a significantly less sanguine vision for the future. Skeptic that I am, I tend to believe half of what I see first hand. Ergo, I embarked on a little sleuthing mission to compare the credibility of each stance. Locating the latest 10Q’s (second quarter 2012) for JPM, BAC, and WFC, I combed the nether intestines in search of their FHA loan exposures and what is the current delinquency experience. Sobering understates the resulting data. BAC, far and away the largest FHA lender of the three has a $67.3 billion book of which $18.1 billion or 26.9% is 90 days or more past due. It gets worse. Government guaranteed loans at WFC total $28.43 billion and a whopping 69.3% fall into the 90 day overdue basket. JPM brings up the rear with a comparatively small $15.9 billion but with an incredible 74.8% being derelict by three months or more. When you add up these three lenders you arrive just under $112 billion or 10% of the total $1.1 trillion FHA insured market. Take my word, in aggregate the math and division yields that nearly 45% of all of these FHA insured loans are three payments or more behind. That is $49.5 billion of loans more than three moths past due. The FHA has $2.6 billion in capital. Can we extrapolate to the other 90% of the market? Who knows, but these three banks have operations covering areas in excess of 95% of the population of America.
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