- Currently Listening to:
- Creedence Clearwater Revival — Lookin’ Out My Back Door
Like I imagine the majority of those users who migrated from a Windows PC to a Mac, Firefox has been my primary browser for the last five years (since Firefox 0.8 came out in February 2004). It’s so long ago now in web years that it’s hard to remember, but on Windows, back in those dark days, there really weren’t any options beyond the standard Internet Explorer 6 install.
Microsoft had lost interest in maintaining their browser, having secured 90% of the browser market. For web designers, this was a disaster. When Firefox emerged it was almost instantly better than IE in every regard, so it was an obvious choice. Nowadays, the three most advanced browsers — Firefox, Chrome and Safari — each have many strengths on which to recommend them.
When Safari 4 was released as a public beta in February, I decided to give it a try for a week. You all thought I was mad, many of you requested to be transferred to another peanut factory, but I’m still using it here two months later.
Safari’s main strengths are speed and stability. If you’re a tinkerer, a Firefox install has a Windows XP-style half-life, after which its performance continuously degrades and it becomes significantly more prone to crashing. I tried opening the Safari feature page in my new copy of Safari and my many years-old Firefox, and the difference in performance ellicited an honest-to-God laugh-out-loud. That almost never happens! (I should say that I’m open to the idea that I am wholly responsible for Firefox’s poor performance by loading my profile with too many extensions and customisations. One badly-written extension or Greasemonkey script and the browser can begin to drag.)
Safari is ahead of the game in other ways too though. Full-text search of your history with rendered thumbnails of each page is a killer feature. These are indexed by Spotlight as well and can be searched from apps like Launchbar. The Chrome-style new tab screen is excellent for keeping track of pages that change over the course of the day. The lack of a progress bar when loading a page is a very interesting departure which I find myself liking more as time goes on. The new tab bar does take some getting used to, and has been discussed at quite marvelous length elsewhere. I would favour one of the proposed mockups which give more space to the window controls.
There were two things about my Firefox setup that I did really miss when switching: keyword search from the location bar, and delicious integration. In Firefox you can just type directly into the location bar and it will do a Google search. Even better than that is using keywords to search specific sites — “wp Bell pepper” to open a Wikipedia page for example.
Safari can’t do any of that out of the box, but there is a SIMBL plugin that manages this very nicely, called Keywurl. Delicious support is provided by the Delicious Safari extension, which does the job admirably. Boom.
- Apple: Waiting for Price to Catch Fundamentals -- Seeking Alpha
The hedge fund “Greenlight Capital” bought a position in Apple in the second quarter (2Q ’10) at an average share price of $248. If I wasn’t confident in my analysis of Apple before last week I was certainly confident after I read Greenlight’s second quarter letter to investors regarding their new position in Apple:
From 2004 to 2010 revenues have grown about 700% or almost 40% per year. Earnings have grown even faster from $.38 to an estimated $14.00 per share. AAPL has a fortress balance sheet with more than $40 per share in cash and investments. During the recent downturn, the partnerships established a position at an average price of $248.09 per share, representing 15x this year’s estimated earnings net of cash. While growth over the next few years will certainly be slower than it has been the last few years, AAPL does not appear to have fully penetrated market opportunities.
- Apple: A small fish in 3 very large ponds - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech
Wolf has a model of Apple that assigns a value to each of the company's businesses — the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Mac, software and music -- and in which growth in Macintosh sales depends solely on the halo effects from the iPod and iPhone. What that model tells him is that Apple's shares should be trading at $375, not his previous target of $280 or Friday's closing price of $260.09.
But Wolf is pretty conservative when it comes to predicting Apple's sales. He's the only analyst we know whose revenue estimate for the company's fiscal fourth quarter, $17.87 billion, is below Apple's own guidance ($18 billion).
- the state of apple's professional line - Mac Forums
Oh, and as for Apple not changing the Mac Pro in over a year... while I suppose they could have done a hard drive bump or a video card bump, they - like the rest of the industry - are at the mercy of Intel. What Intel Xeon processor could they have upgraded the machine to? Nothing. Not saying it's right, but this company has been in business for over 30 years. We should already know what to expect.
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Considering that Apple has a monopoly on OSX, I think they are pretty responsive to users. Not having Blu-Ray is getting a little suspect, but the other standards identified as missing cannot even be fully utilized yet. What is the author missing by not having USB 3.0?
Not embracing parallel processing in their pro apps is BS, but it is not my understanding that much of the PC software is running circles around Apple's stuff. If it really was a night and day difference, then people would be changing platforms. If not, they are not using their time and money wisely.
- How low can AAPL go? | The Mac Observer Forums
I’d like to start a discussion on what the downside could be for AAPL. Not that there are any obvious reasons for a dramatic pull back, but as we know from the Financial Crisis, AAPL (the stock) is not immune to global market/economic conditions (though Apple the company sure seems to be).
Net/Net, turns out that when AAPL hit the low point, the PE was approximately 10.5! Hard to believe, isn’t it? But what it tells me, is that while we might be disppointed that the stock is now trading below a PE of 20, if all hell breaks lose, there is a lot of potential downside.
AHHA, we’ll use your 10.5 p/e multiple as the basement. Apple’s current trailing 12-month earnings is now $13.3. At a p/e of 10.5 the share price would be $139.65. Following the September quarter results we’d be looking at $157.50. By this time next year a 10.5 p/e multiple would put the share price perhaps somewhere around where it is today based on the current rates of earnings growth. Not a bad basement scenario.
- New iPhone and iPad Models Set to Begin Field Testing? - Mac Rumors
Software evidence of Apple's future devices tends to appear rather early in the development process, as evidenced by iPhone3,1 appearing in iPhone OS configuration files in March 2009. That device turned out to be the iPhone 4, released 15 months later. Evidence of field testing of the iPhone 4 appeared by late November 2009, more than six months before its public launch.
- Adobe Has 'Moved On' in Dispute With Apple Over Flash on iOS Devices - Mac Rumors
In the interview, Narayan appears to note that Adobe has given up on its efforts to convince Apple to adopt Flash.
They've chosen to keep their system closed and we'd rather work with partners who are interested in working with us.
We believe in open systems. We believe in the power of the internet and in customers making choices and I think a lot of the controversy was about their decision at that point. They've made their choice. We've made ours and we've moved on.
- Apple Hires Near Field Communications Expert - Mac Rumors
- Valuing Apple at $400 per share - Fortune Tech
So setting aside the issue of Apple's enormous cash position, Wall Street analysts are generally modeling for Apple to earn $14.43 in EPS for fiscal 2010 and approximately $17.47 for fiscal 2011 – that's annual earnings growth of about 21%. As far as what is expected out of the company over the next five years, analysts are modeling for about 18% earnings growth. Thus, based on these conservative variables, Apple should be currently trading at about 18 times next year's earnings of $17.47 in EPS, or about $314.46 a share. That's $54.46 above Friday's close.
- Apple's Ron Johnson on the Retail Store Experience - Mac Rumors
That meant the creation of a "gold standard" for Apple stores. While many retailers view stores by measures such as square footage and sales, Apple takes a different approach. "Our primary objective is to create a place that people will love," says Johnson. Covent Garden is the most significant iteration yet of that attitude. "We've not only created a store, we've created a place for people to be," he says.
- Daring Fireball: N92
The key bit: “At the critical juncture […], when they should have gone for market share, they went for profits.” I think this encapsulates Jobs’s philosophy since taking over Apple in 1997. Take the high end of the market first, establish a brand and presence, then steadily start to expand.
If they’re at that juncture with the iPhone now, expansion means CDMA. And in the U.S., it means Verizon.
- FutureTap » PatentGate — Apple responded, resolved amicably
- Former Exec Tim Bucher Sues Apple for Wrongful Termination (UPDATE) || The Mac Observer
"You're not a failure," Mr. Jobs reportedly told Mr. Bucher in early November. "Even God couldn't have done both of the jobs I pushed you to do."
Two days later, according to the lawsuit, Mr. Jobs told him "People sometimes think you are manic-depressive...I'm not sure what I am going to do, but I think I am going to have to ask you to leave the company."
In a November 14th meeting after he was sent home four days earlier, Mr. Cook reportedly told Mr. Bucher that "this is not a situation where you failed," but that Apple would nevertheless terminate his employment unless he took an option to resign.
- Posts At Eventide: Apple and The Law of Large Numbers
There's been much talk about the perceived limits to Apple's continuing growth due to what's called the Law of Large Numbers. This axiom or financial rule suggests as Apple's revenue grows the chance of sustaining current rates of growth diminishes as more growth is required to maintain the same percentage of growth.
In my view applying the Law of Large Numbers to Apple at this time is a fallacious argument. It might appear valid to casual observers of the company or to those fixed on applying commonly accepted axioms in their investment strategies without regard to the unique circumstances of a particular enterprise, but for now this axiom or financial rule does not apply to Apple.
- Is Apple Working on Liquid Metal Terminators or What?
Why did Apple purchase exclusive rights to this seemingly wondrous metal technology? Reading about its properties and uses, it's clear that Jobs and company think they have found a Philosopher's stone. According to LiquidMetal technologies, their alloys join the strength and anti-corrosive nature of metals like titanium and stainless steel, with the benefits of plastics and composites, such as extreme flexibility and easy casting:
• 2.5 times the strength of commonly used titanium alloy with less weight
• 1.5 times the hardness of stainless steel with less weight
• 2-3 times more resistant to permanent deformation than conventional metals
• Non-corrosive
• Stain and rust proof
• Allows thinner walls in casings, with greater strength
• Allows for large surfaces maintaining thin skins without deformation
• Scratch resistant
• High thermal and electrical conductivity
- iPad`s Future: 10 Reasons Why Apple`s Tablet Won`t Be A Long-Term Success - Spotlight news from Channel Insider
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