Gripe: Apple Update Sizes

[Edit: and at WWDC, Apple announced support for delta updates, which should mean I don’t have to download the entire OS image to upgrade my iDevices]

So far this year I’ve downloaded at least 18.8GB of Apple updates over my home internet connection. Consider I have three Mac OSX devices and four iOS devices. Here is how it breaks down…

OSX 10.6.6 update: 143MB

OSX 10.6.7 update: 475MB

iPhone/iPad 4.3.0: 670MB

iPhone/iPad 4.3.1: 666MB

iPhone/iPad 4.3.2: 662MB

iPhone/iPad 4.3.3: 600MB

Times all the devices I have, is 12.2GB worth of software updates in five months, or about 2.4GB per month. This doesn’t include the OSX software updates or iOS app updates. iPhoto 9 (which has been through at least one revision since I bought it in February through the app store) weighs in at about 900MB, so two downloads to three OSX boxes is another 5.4GB. iTunes is comparatively smaller, 75MB or so times four computers (3 Macs and a PC) times four updates so far this year is 1.2GB. Plus many other smaller updates – from app updates to printer driver updates, etc. So lets round it up to 20GB total in five months. Thats 4GB per month. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but its more than the monthly cap I have on my AT&T iPhone, and likely to squeeze out any chance I have using some alternate wireless ISP, leaving me with only DSL and Cable to choose from.

Cloud music and double dipping

The appointed time has come, so why isn’t everyone stomping their feet and screaming out at the top of their lungs about the evils of the recording industry and how we’re handing them the end game without batting an eyelash?

Ever since the first MP3s were distributed the Internet in the late 90s on IRC and eventually into the mainstream with Napster, the main cry against DRM and the music industry’s continual lobbying for more power over the Internet was, “the RIAA won’t be happy until we have to pay every time we listen to a song!” Now, we’re practically there. While we aren’t paying per listen, and I doubt we ever will as long as there is such a thing as personal property (and we can still buy CDs through Amazon and Best Buy), “enhanced cloud services” are probably the closest thing we’ll get to paying the recording industry each time we hear music. We’re paying the music industry a recurring fee to listen to our already purchased music through the cloud.

It would be one thing if we were just paying Apple for the service of storing and streaming (as the regular cloud-based music lockers with Google and Amazon), but Apple has made a deal with the labels that pays them money to allow the service to exist. Apple has negotiated concessions like exchanging lower quality files with higher, and likely will substitute various quality AAC to facilitate streaming to 3G devices – playing a 256kbps or a 128kbps AAC makes a big difference if you’re AT&T’s network.

Why the industry isn’t trying to jump on board faster, I don’t know. Its a huge no-risk, all-reward opportunity. People who already have pirated music are still listening to those tracks now, at home and on their iDevices, while people who legitimately pay for music are going to pay again to store that same music in the cloud. As far as cloud music services go, fighting piracy is really an orthogonal issue – cloud services wont make pirated material any more or less attractive.

But for the rest of us, it amounts to paying a tithe to the record industry for the privilege to listen to music we already own. At least its not forced on us.. yet. Another 10 years and ubiquitous high speed Internet could leave us with no downloads of any kind – everything always in the cloud.

Way OT: Scott Pilgrim Movie Timeline

This is really really really off topic. But I was really bored tonight and without a car.
So I determined the movie version of Scott Pilgrim takes place over at least three weeks (from late March until the third week of April). There are two distinct Fridays mentioned in the movie – Julie’s party and the concert where Sex Bob-omb opens for The Clash at Demonhead. Then after that, the next firm day of the week found in the movie is Thursday (from the AMP v AMP poster against the Katayanagi twins), so thats at least 20 days. Plus the days before Julie’s party. The shortest time span is March 30-April 21, with slightly longer timespans possible.

***

Earlier in the week:
Hanging out at Stephen Still’s house, band practice

Next day:
Hang out with Knives after her school day is over – arcade, thrift shop, music store, Scott’s house (outside)
Ramona dream

Next day: (this might be Friday, just earlier in the day)
Library
See Ramona
Band practice

Friday April 1, 2005 *
Julie’s party
Scott talks to Ramona

Saturday:
Email from Patel
Scott orders amazon movies
Hanging out with Knives again

Saturday or Sunday afternoon:
Band practice

Tuesday:
Amazon delivery
Date with Ramona

Wednesday morning:
Wake up with Ramona, invite her to Rockit “tonight”

Wednesday:
Rockit concert
Fight with Patel
Spent night with Ramona (“first and a half base”)

Thursday April 7 *
Break up with Knives
Band practice
Dinner with Ramona
Fight with Lucas Lee

(nearly a week goes by)

Wednesday
Envy calls
Knives shows up
Encounter with Roxy
Coffee shop – encounter with Envy, Ramona

Thursday April 14th *
Wake up with Walace, Other Scott, Jimmy
Band practice

Friday
Open for Clash At Demonhead
Fight with Todd Ingram

Late Friday night
Pizza pizza
After party
Fight with Roxy
Fight with Ramona

Tuesday [note: not shown in movie, mentioned by Stephen on Thursday, April 14]
2nd round of the TIBB, presumably Sex Bob-omb wins

Sometime between Saturday and Thursday
Band practice

Thursday April 21st **
Concert/battle Katayanagi twins

Later that night (????)
Gideon battle

* Dates extrapolated from the only hard date in the movie, see **

** This is the only hard date in the movie – on the AMP v AMP poster, the date says Thursday, April 21st, 10:00PM Sharp – FWIW, the two closest years with a Thursday April 21st are 2005 and 2011. Every other date is calculated from this poster

***

I have too much fucking time on my hands.

[Update 1: added 2nd round of TIBB]

Chevy Volt PHEV20? It’s more likely than you think…

There has been talk in the last several weeks about GM’s goal to reduce the cost of the Volt by $10,000, from the current $41,000 MSRP. The means by which they reduce the cost are kind of fuzzy. General terms have been mentioned – redoing the interior, making standard features into optional items, mass production, and possibly even cutting the battery to a 20-mile range instead of 40. The goal would be to deliver a car, that after incentives, would be approximately $27,000 MSRP*.

The first seem entirtely plausable, but probably don’t contribue significantly to the bottom line. Redoing the interior can be done in such a way that it does cut costs – replacing the capacitive touch interior with buttons like every normal car out there, shrink the center stack display (keep the width but switch it to 16:10 widescreen instead of 4:3), looking for off-the-shelf parts and adapting designs to them instead of having to order any semi-custom or custom parts (re-using parts from other cars). But I would estimate they probably couldn’t save more than a thousand dollars this way. Moving some of the more expensive features to options (like the Bose audio system) helps too, but its rearranging the deck chairs, its not fundamentally making the technology any cheaper. Moving to mass production helps – when you factor in overhead and capital costs (the machines, training, supervisors, QA, etc), mass production does help spread those costs out over more vehicles, reducing per-unit costs.

That last option – cutting the battery in half – might seem like killing the main purpose behind the vehicle, but it seems a lot more plausible when you consider the use of plug-in stations at people’s offices. Even in the summer, energy usage in the morning hours (before 10A) are still considered off-peak, so you could recharge the entire, smaller, battery before on-peak charges started. Going to a smaller battery would mean that GM would need to alter the characteristics of the battery – more power and less energy storage per kg of battery material. There are two main issues with shrinking the battery pack in this way – the power output of the battery pack and the cycle life. Power output is governed by the rating of the individual cells as well as the number of cells in the pack. The cycle life would have to compensate for the batteries being recharged twice or even three times per day instead of once at night.

Reducing the battery pack would also reduce the federal rebate – from $7,500 to $4,600 ($2500 + $417 for each kWh above 4kWh). If you’re cutting the price by total vehicle price by $10,000 but losing $2,900 of the rebate, your effective cost reduction is only $7,100. However, this would still push the after-rebate price down from $33,500 to $26,400, or the price of a nicely equipped Toyota Prius. The 2012 plug-in Prius is expected to have a price in that rage, but it is unknown if that included the $3,000 rebate or not (its likely it did – I’d estimate the full price of a Prius plug-in at around $30,000).

The sticking point appears to be the battery. GM would need a batter that is more capable that what is available today, but only by a little. By the end of 2012 or sometime in 2013, such batteries will be available and probably have markedly decreased cost over batteries of today (mostly due to the large quantities in which they will be produced – Toyota will likely be using a similar type of battery, but with less stringent requirements since batteries only provide partial power in the plug-in Prius – up to 62mph and normal acceleration).

The success of a 20-mile range model is highly dependent on building a charging infrastructure outside of people’s garages. Offices and shopping centers will need to build the necessary infrastructure to handle vehicle charging, as well as utilities monitoring and managing the charging using the smart grid. But if the infrastructure materializes, why not use it to it’s fullest while accelerating the use of electric vehicles and reducing oil consumption until batteries are cheap and plentiful.

And it’s definitely better than filling up once a week at $4/gal!

* MSRP is only a suggestion – some dealers have tacked on $5,000 or more onto Volt sticker prices because of their limited quantity and uniqueness

iOS 5.0 Wishlist

Since we’re likely to see new iPads announced this week, and probably iOS 5.0 at least talked about, I’m going over my wishlist for the updated OS.

  1. Notifications are awful. Redo the system so they aren’t modal and I don’t have to dismiss them before I continue. Also rework some OS level quirks, like if you’re recording video or audio and a phone call comes in, don’t have it cancel what you were doing, let the app keep working and if you hit reject its like the call never came in.
  2. Sync basic information (e.g. calendar, contacts, sms/mms, but not movies, music, pictures) over wifi to your PC/Mac. Alternately sync that same basic information up to the cloud via mobile me. I lost a weeks worth of SMSes a few weeks ago when I had to reinstall the OS on the phone after it wouldn’t power back on for some reason.
  3. A nice, professional sounding text message notifier sound. One that I can have go off in my office and not be embarrassed that isn’t tri-tone. All the guys I know use tri-tone and the girls I know use the ringing bells. And that’s it. Or just let people set it themselves.
  4. I want to be able to read/reply to text messages that land on my iPhone from my iPad or Mac when they’re in close proximity (or at least in my house). Right now, my iPhone is downstairs and I’m upstairs with my iPad and Mac. I’m always near one of my devices but that notification isn’t passed around. This may necessitate a multi-user approach for the iPad, since I wouldn’t want to let my friend use my iPad and have my text messages sent to it if he is using it (both annoying and an invasion of privacy).

Thats it! We’ll hopefully find out what Apple is up to on March 2nd.

Did Intel announce the iPhone 5 (GSM) radio chip?

Most of the “conventional wisdom” currently going around is that Apple has lock, stock and barrel moved to the Qualcomm baseband (RF – the cellular part) processor for all future iPhones. If that does turn out to be the case, then you can just ignore the rest of this post.

However I’m inclined to believe Apple may not yet unify the GSM and CDMA iPhones, especially given the size footprint of the Qualcomm CDMA/EVDO/HSPA+ chipset inside the iPhone 4 (CDMA). Without a significant redesign Apple just cant put all those chips necessary for a dual-mode phone, plus the Micro-SIM slot, plus the Qualcomm chip inside on that tiny PCB. Given recent rumors, the next iPhone isn’t expected to be a big overhaul.Anandtech was smart to point out the space limitation…

Though the baseband supports dual mode operation, upon looking at more of the CDMA iPhone disassembled, it’s quickly apparent why that isn’t put into use. There simply isn’t space for the required power amps as the mainboard is organized right now. Though there’s definitely space picked up from losing the SIM slot (which, as an aside, explains why Apple seemed keen on losing SIMs entirely – it’s starting to become a huge chunk of real-estate), but the MDM6600 is simply larger than the Infineon X-Gold 618. Unless you can get in there and add both the signaling for the SIM and necessary RF components, there’s no way the CDMA iPhone is becoming dual-mode anytime soon.

To make a dual-mode phone that would work on both AT&T and Verizon, you’d need 3 more RF amps, a 10-way switch, and numerous other parts (along with paying for both CDMA and GSM/HSPA licensing fees to the respective patent owners for every phone, an extra cost of up to $20/unit). While keeping the phones separate means paying less money to patent holders for technology the user may never use (how often would an AT&T customer use the CDMA parts of the phone – I cant think of any exclusively CDMA countries, even South Korea has a 3G GSM network).

So in comes Intel’s (neé Infineon), the provider of the RF baseband chips in the iPhone, 3G, 3GS and 4-GSM models with a new 3G/HSPA+ RF baseband chip. The specifications are impressive – 21Mb/s down and 11.5Mb/s up, which translates roughly to 5-6Mb/s down and 2.5Mb/s up in the real world on a good network. But more importantly there are two features Intel is really pushing about the chip that make this seem to be custom tailored for Apple.

First is the power efficiency. The previous chip (in the 4-GSM model phones) was built at 65nm, and the new chip is 40nm. To those that understand semiconductor fabrication technology know those numbers mean a huge leap in terms of power consumption – for the same workload the new chip may consume as much as 65% less powerthan the previous generation chip, since the fabrication technology has gone down 1.5 “nodes”. This is something Apple, in their never ending quest for battery life and usability, could benefit tremendously from. I’d estimate it buys an extra 30% on 3G talk time, and 15% on 3G web, bringing Apple’s stated totals to 9 hrs 3G talk and 7 hrs 3G web.

Second is the package size. Intel is pushing hard that the chip’s footprint is very small, which is appropriate for Apple’s notoriously small circuit boards. The goal to make the chip small allows Apple to make the circuit board smaller, and make the battery larger (or just the same volume, just thinner). Making the package smaller could also accommodate larger/alternate amps and radios, to possibly accommodate other GSM bands (perhaps even T-Mobile’s AWS band?).

Anyways, just some wishful speculation. To me its always made sense that Apple not unify their product line at the iPhone 5 from a cost perspective. We’ll see the first unified phones when we move to LTE in 2012, and if Apple can get their way, no more SIM card either.

Why bother with a 3G iPad?

Recently, it was announced that an updated iPhone OS will have support for Wifi tethering. Verizon is offering unlimited data packages, while AT&T announced today that they’ll offer an extra 2GB of monthly data transfer on the new iPhone Wifi tethering plans.

So if you happen to have an iPhone, why bother with a 3G iPad, when the Wifi version will be enough? Paying $25 twice for 2GB each of iPhone data and iPad data is $50, while for $5 less, plus the $130 you’ll save on the initial purchase, you can get 4GB of data to share between the two (and between any laptops you might have).

There are certainly some downsides – you’ll have to turn on and turn off the Wifi hotspot on the iPhone to conserve battery, and you risk running your iPhone’s battery down quicker. Gruber stated that in his testing on a Verizon iPhone, the hotspot feature used 5% every 20 mintues of hotspot use, or 15% per hour. The iPad’s battery is larger and is better suited to running for longer (and using the cellular data connection more frequently), however since you cant pool your data connections together (yet) and the 3G option is rather expensive ($130 for generation 1 iPads) you’re stuck using the iPhone as the hotspot. The only thing missing is a hardware hack to allow the iPad to recharge the iPhone so that the iPhone can last longer with tethering enabled.

Brief thought…

In light of me turning 30 this week…

And while conventional wisdom may offer the dubious claim that your teenage years and early 20s are the “best of your life,” woe be onto to them who confuse one chapter of their life for the whole of it, for they will be doomed to repeat it in a series of cycles whose returns are ever-diminishing, and thus hold themselves back from telling any other story.

In the end, adulthood isn’t a single decision you make, but a long series of decisions you make every day for the rest of your life. And the best reason to grow up isn’t because it is expected or required, but because it means moving forwards. Because while it may also involve incredibly tedious things like mortgages and car payments, growing up is a natural function of seeking a life that is more dynamic than static, of choosing ambition and hope over avoidance and fear, of wanting to know who you’re going to be and not just who you were, even if that takes you away from the things you used to love.

Past Predictions (from 5 years ago)…

With the news that Plastic is shutting down next month, I went through my list of comments and found this gem. Not bad.

2006 Technology Predictions:

1. Mac computers will see a surge in sales as models switch to Intel processors. This is in part due to the ability to run Windows applications easily from Mac OS with only a little performance hit. Customers who ordered their new Macs will be disappointed by the wait times for their new hardware to arrive, but The Steve’s RDF will make it all better. Apple’s shares split as they hit 100 towards the end of the year. [This just about happened! AAPL was between $85-90, though the shares still haven’t split]

2. Web 2.0 hype will fade towards the end of the year, however the underlying technology will still hang around and provide neat new innovations. [Web 2.0 hype ended as soon as Apple introduced the iPhone in January 2007, but AJAX and all the useful Javascript frameworks we take for granted today came out 2006]

3. TiVo will have a comeback as they fight for fair-use (not having to buy the same content in DVD, UMD and iPod video just to have it in all those places) and unveil a new Hi-Def TiVo with new integrated features like Podcasting, IPTV (certain codecs — perhaps MPEG 4 AVC/H264), chat and games (better integration than we see in HME now). [TiVo never fought much for fair-use, but we did get an HD TiVo in September 2006 – and features like Podcasting did come to the HD and SD units)

4. HDTV penetration continues — Cheap CRT RPTVs dominate the low end of the market, while DLPs take over the mainstream and plasmas and LCDs fight over the high end 50″+ thin-and-flat segment. 1080P becomes standard for TVs> 50″ and 720P below 50″, even through there is no source material at 1080P. [This sort of happened, DLPs had their time in 2005-2007 before flat screens really came to dominate the market]

5. MS Vista debuts at the end of the year to mixed reviews. We waited 5 years for this? With all the main “innovative” features ripped out, all we end up with is XP Release 2 (from the users perspective). However the architecture underneath is more solid and stable, and the successor to Vista is announced and might actually contian most, if not all the missing features. [HAH! I was soooo right about Vista being a disappointment, and Windows 7 actually being the refined, complete Vista]

6. Google continues its dominance. Products like GMail start to exit beta and feature more ads. Some products like Orkut are put out to pasture. [Orkut might still be alive but no one in the US uses it, it got taken over by rowdy Brazilians]

7. PS3 Delayed to summer, however Nintendo’s Revolution is the hit of the fall, at only $250 and the ability to play the entire back catalog of first-party Nintendo games (Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc) for the NES, SNES, N64 and GC available on-demand via a download for all but GC (GC discs will play in the Revolution). For $25/mo you can play unlimited games. I’m not sure about this part: first-party Sega games along with some third party games for the Master System, Genesis and 32X are available as well. (woooo Phantasy Star!) [The PS3 was delayed until the fall, longer than I had expected, and the Nintendo Wii has sold the most units out of it, the 360, and PS3; also I have played Phantasy Star on the Wii and lost a lot of time to it]

Future Visions Pt.1

As CES goes on in town this weekend, seeing all the new products and technologies introduced gives me a few ideas on what might be possible in 10 or 15 years. I’ll cover a few of those ideas here over the next few days.

Idea 1: The idea of a personal car is outmoded

One of the bigger announcements at CES is Ford’s all-electric Focus. While this is good for now, the future of transportation isn’t limited to just personal vehicles.

Imagine Sunday night in the year 2030. You’ve got plans laid out for work this week. You get up each day at to be at work by 7, and you leave work at 5 at night. You share your weeks calendar with the AUTOMAT car scheduling system allowing them to know what time you have to be at work, any errands you have to run, and even suggesting you stop by the flower shop for your wife since your anniversary is Thursday.

The massive computers that run the system tell you what time a car will be by your house to pick you up in the morning each day. Yes, the car will pick you up. Using an advanced version of Google’s self-driving car technology, the cars will be able to autonomously drive you around the city, including from their nightly storage and recharge areas (possibly mall or supermarket parking lots) to your home. Think of it like car sharing on steriods. You can even get a discount for carpooling with friends and co-workers.

So what could cars look like if they’re going to be almost crash-proof and typically carrying only one occupant? Far lighter and cheaper than they can be made today. This, compounded with advanced battery technologies, will allow cars to drive hundreds of miles all day at higher speeds without having to pause for a recharge.

You could even sign your children up at age 8. No more needing to take your kids to soccer practice, since they can take themselves in one of these vehicles. They’ll have their own smartphone to control when they need to be picked up if practice ends early.

As cars become more connected, monitoring the cars performance and their occupants will become trivial. Computer systems could easily pinpoint malfunctioning cars before they break down and direct them to service or have replacement cars to your location quickly. The system could even notify you if you accidentally leave your gym bag or cell phone in the car. The vehicle would also have a self-defense system – it could determine if a human driven car was at fault in an accident, or capture the license plate of someone who may have hit the car in the parking lot.

Out of town trips? No big deal. Larger vehicles with cargo space for luggage are also available. Higher speeds would also be available on the highway to get you to your destination faster. Long day trips or multiple day trips might require users to swap cars (or stop to swap batteries) if they want to drive uninterrupted to their destination without stopping overnight at a hotel to sleep.

Larger societal implications

  • Reductions in number of auto fatalities. There still might be many caused by outside circumstances – pedestrians and cyclists jumping out in front of cars without looking, human driven cars, etc.
  • Taxi drivers and chauffeurs are put out of work – no one needs a human to drive a car anymore
  • Auto body and car repair shops see massive reductions in the amount of work they have due to fewer moving parts and more proactive maintenance schedules
  • Increased mobility for kids – ages 8 to 16 can now get around without relying on their parents (though safeguards in the system will be set to require parent permission to reserve a car)
  • Reduced number of cars produced every year because of vehicle sharing – how does this impact manufacturing?
  • Less differentiation between car manufacturers – people still might want to spend the money to reserve a Lexus or BMW but most of the safety concerns of larger and more expensive vehicles will have gone by the wayside
  • Increased patronage of bars – if you don’t worry about driving drunk, you can drink more ;)

So thats really just the first idea I’ve had taking up room in my head as I’ve read all the news pouring out of CES. Hopefully I can put together a few more articles the next few days.