Category: Computing

Apple’s insane profits from the iPhone are not an anomaly, it’s a business model

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A friend asked me, this morning, if it was true what he had heard about Apple having less than 20% of sector shipments, but over 90% of smartphone profits. I replied with a simple: “can confirm.”

Wall Street Journal reported those numbers yesterday, and other sites have been discussing ever since. It’s been pretty widely discussed believed, but this is the first time such numbers were confirmed – and they were even higher than many people suspected. Continue reading “Apple’s insane profits from the iPhone are not an anomaly, it’s a business model”

Will the government notify you that they read your emails? Eventually… maybe.

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Recently, my sister, a Bar-certified lawyer in the state of California, asked me a great question with regards to all of the recent talk about email privacy. She noted that the article says that, if these amendments take hold, that the government is supposed to notify you within 3-business days that they had snooped in your email. But she wondered, what constituted notification? This brought several other questions to my mind, so I did some digging. Continue reading “Will the government notify you that they read your emails? Eventually… maybe.”

The Microsoft Subscription finally arrives

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This is almost what I have been looking for since March. Microsoft today announced the Work and Play subscription bundle. For $199 a year, here’s what you get:

  • Office 365 – That means full access to Office online, at least 1TB of OneDrive storage (should be “unlimited” now, due to recent changes in Office 365), and 5 installs of the latest version of Microsoft office on 5 of your family PC’s / Mac’s. A $70 value.
  • Xbox Live Gold – Although we discussed benefits of Gold in the past, it’s not as valuable as it once was, but with promotions like Games With Gold, it’s still an absolutely worthwhile investment.A $60 value.
  • Xbox Music Pass – Unlimited streaming and some “synchronized” management of your music library across multiple devices. A $99 value.
  • Skype Unlimited World + WiFi – Microsoft describes this as: “Unlimited minutes to call friends and family around the globe from your laptop, tablet, phone, or TV.” Also, “WiFi access at over 2 million hotspots worldwide – connect to the internet from virtually any device.” Paul Thurrott does the math to estimate the value at about $165 a year.


    • The only thing I wish it included was an Office 365-like subscription to Windows. Give me 2 licenses for 8.1, and allow me to upgrade to Windows 10 when it releases. That would be nice. But outside of that, this is almost exactly what I had been asking for!