Smile please: the evolution of the digital camera

My latest piece on the evolution of the digital camera is live at ABC Science.

Why Did Microsoft License ActiveSync to Apple

This is something I've been wondering since a) Apple included Exchange support in iPhone 2.0 and b) Apple included Exchange support in Snow Leopard.

It seems to me by doing this Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot. I know a number of Windows Mobile users who have moved to the iPhone because of Exchange support. These users will likely never go back to Windows Mobile.

On the other hand I know a number of MDs who are now considering upgrading from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 because Snow Leopard supports Exchange 2007 natively, and it means they can move away from Entourage.

Lock-in has always been a big deal for Microsoft, just look at how they pushed IE into the dominant position it is in today. By licensing ActiveSync they completely remove the requirement to use Windows Mobile, and ultimately will lose to Apple and Google in the mobile space.

I wonder whether it's just big company syndrome? The guys in Exchange are trying to increase sales and usage (maybe to curtail the openness that Google provide with Google Apps) but by licensing ActiveSync they're killing Windows Mobile.

How The Mouse Points Us To The Future

From my first piece for the The Age:

The mouse has changed quite dramatically and, paired with advances in operating systems and software, has become more than just a simple pointing device.

Turn Your Handwriting into a Font

If you've ever wanted to turn your shitty handwriting into a font, now you can.

Just fill out a template and upload it to Font Capture and download your font.

Here's a sample of my handwriting, in case your cared:

God I love the Internet.

iPhone Goes On Sale in China

The iPhone, already one of the most popular phones in China thanks to the wonders of Jailbreaking has just gone legit.

Added as a paragraph today's China Unicom earnings statement:

On 28 August, the Company and Apple reached a three-year agreement for the Company to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with brand new communication and information experience.

TechCrunch confirmed this is for both the 3G and 3GS phones.

China Unicom is the second largest telco in China with 140 million subscribers, double the size of AT&T.

And guess what, because the iPhone has a soft-keyboard it's ready to go, no retooling, no new keyboard layouts, no new models.
I'm not sure if the financial analysts have worked this out, but it's the end game in the smartphone market, and if Apple can capture China, it's going to be a long, tough slog for other vendors.

Coverage of Snow Leopard

Lots of coverage on Snow Leopard today, most of it positive.

The upshot is this; for $39 you can't go wrong:

David Pogue - Apple's Sleek Upgrade

Walt Mossberg - Apple Changes Leopard’s Spots

Joshua Topolsky - Snow Leopard review

Michael Gartenberg - Will Snow Leopard's Exchange support earn Apple a new entourage?

Exchange Integration in Snow Leopard

In his weekly column for Engadget, Michael Gartenberg reflects on the his experience using Snow Leopard to access his corporate Exchange box:

I've been using Snow Leopard for a few weeks now with our corporate Exchange server and I'm pleased to report: it just works. Simply (far easier to configure Snow Leopard to work with our Exchange server than to set up a new copy of Outlook). Within moments of entering my email address and password, all my calendar items, contacts, email, and to-do lists were integrated into the appropriate Snow Leopard apps. I haven't had a single problem with the configuration.

For me -- as user who's used both platforms for years -- I've been constrained to using Windows mostly because Exchange worked so much better than Entourage did. With the introduction of the latest version of iLife and Snow Leopard, I find I'm not just doing my creative stuff on the Mac, but am able to fully migrate my business use as well

I've also been running Snow Leopard and using it with Exchange and agree with his sentiments. The integration is as good as it is on the iPhone; it just works and in some cases works faster and better than my other MobileMe account.

Before Apple introduced the iPhone…

Some welcome perspective on the state of the iPhone from Kontra.

But “Apple’s evil” promoters still insist that Apple sever its integrated model; license its OS; tear down the App Store; let anyone load any app on the iPhone; turn a blind eye to competitors leveraging its iTunes platform without compensation; give up the subsidies from AT&T and jump into bed with CDMA that will be sunset in a year or two; and allow any number of slow, ugly and battery-consuming competing runtimes proliferate on the iPhone. Because not doing so would be…evil.

Number of Employees

Check out some of these numbers I got from Google Finance:



Apple made over four times the net income of Dell on a third less revenue, and three quarters of HP's net income on only a third of its revenue.

But net income per employee is where it gets more interesting, and the differences get magnified.

For the most recent quarter, Apple generated over $38,000 of net income per employee versus $5,115 for HP and $3,791 for Dell.

Dell has 76,500 while HP has 321,000, compared to Apple who have 32,000.

I want to know what all these extra employees do at Dell and HP? As far as I can tell, neither Dell or HP run retail stores, make smart phones or media players, make their own OS, and they're clearly not web developers.

So I want to know, what are all these employees doing?