Newton Poetry

Good news: Apple has dropped refurbished iPod Classic prices on the 80 GB model to $179, down from $199 only a week ago.

I’m always scanning the Apple Store’s refurb list for deals, and this one’s a doozy. It makes me wonder: does the price drop signal something? A clearing-out of inventory, perhaps, in anticipation of something on the horizon?

iPod Nano refurbs are cheaper these days, too, while iPod Shuffles are stuck at $10 under retail. When Apple dropped the Shuffle prices, the refurbs took a few days to catch up with the new pricing scheme.

So what do you think? Is something new coming? Or is this just a fabulous deal?

The iPhone has been keeping Blake Paterson busy. His thumbs are busy, too, trying out all those new iPhone games for his blog project in collaboration with Macrumors’ Arnold Kim – Touch Arcade.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBu3N8_U4WE]

I have a feeling I’ll have this song in my head all day tomorrow.

It’ll be so worth it. I’m taking the iBook, just in case I can get a connection, and will post updates if there’s a super-big line. If you’ll be in line, let me know – we can iChat with News from the Front Lines.

The madness continues, but us AAPL investors have to be feeling better than we were just a few months ago.

Conventional wisdom says buy on the rumor, and sure enough – after the iPhone 3G announcement, AAPL stock took a bit of a dive. It’s been bouncing back and forth (with the markets, apparently, in red and orange above), now resting at $173 as of today’s closing.

Apple is in good condition, and with the iPhone price drop, I can only imagine things will get better. And others agree (including a blogger I read regularly over at The Simple Dollar). The final pricing point doesn’t matter. What’ll be interesting is to see how the stock performs come July 11, when lines outside Apple stores will surely beat last year’s. I hope to be at our own Ann Arbor store that morning. If it’s anything like the store’s opening, it should be a fun day, indeed.

For all the speculation and gambling and non-news that gets thrown around in regards to Apple, what matters most is the ability of the company to churn out high-quality computers and phones and music players that people want. And they are doing that.

If, as king-hell capitalists believe, a company’s stock price is the true measure of its worth, than Apple is in good condition. Says one analyst (thanks to Reuters):

Analyst David Bailey also raised his target on the stock to $220 from $185, and said Apple should be able to increase its available iPhone subscriber base by more than 80 percent this year due to aggressive expansion into international markets.

Will all that optimism change should that Jobs guy leave the company?

Who can tell? The experiment marches on, anyway.

Lots going on at the WWDC 2008 keynote, which I finally streamed and watched with much joy. Watch it yourself to see all the action, clapping, and skinnier Steve Jobs.

In the meantime, a few thoughts:

• iPod is now a great name. Some folks made fun of the name “iPod” when it was first released. What’s so “pod” about music, after all? But now it fits perfectly. With the iPod Touch, the “pod” become the mobile computing platform – a place to get your e-mail, web, games, and – yes – music. The iPod is now a “pod” for your mobile computing platform.
• “We’ve learned so much.” Here, Jobs displays some real humbleness. .Mac kind of sucked. MobileMe is an improvement of sorts. And Apple admits they had things to learn. That’s great.
• $199? That’s all me. But because I’m such a big fan of the white Apple products (iPod, iBook, everything), I may splurge and grab the 16 GB version. No 32 GB iPhone? That does stink.
• Wait for the Snow Leopard. I wished for a refurbished iMac with Leopard, but now I may just wait until Snow Leopard is released. Why not? “Improved” is always a good word when OSes are concerned. And waiting has seemed to pay off for me so far.
• Chinese character recognizer hack? I can see it happening. Use the handwriting recognition app for Chinese characters and hack it so it will recognize English characters. Boom – a Newton-like HWR emulator. And Jobs was right in the keynote: the lack of plastic keys or a physical stylus actually plays in the multi-language-supported iPhone’s and iPod Touch’s favor.

Now I have to wait until July 11 (or maybe a day or two after, depending on lines and in-store activation), but oh well. This is what I’ve been waiting for. A true successor to the Newton has been born.

Behold: iPhone 3G

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard it (Ars Technica has it too), but it seems the beta of the new iPhone firmware offers some sort of handwriting recognition, at least for Chinese characters.

iPodHacks says many “consider Rosetta / Inkwell to be the most advanced handwriting recognition technology yet developed.” And I’ve heard that elsewhere too, since it’s – in part – derived from Newton’s own HWR engine.

I just bought a spare copy of OS X 10.2 Jaguar, and it reminded me that OS X ships with Inkwell. Could my suggestion of a Newton emulator on the iPhone be any easier now? Maybe it’s already done. But how would writing with your pinkie turn out?

What did I tell you?

Apple investors and those they associate with are bat-shit insane. That includes me.

All this after reading the news from CNNMoney.com today. More specifically, it’s that Shaw Wu of American Technology Research that’s driving the crazy bus to Looneyville. Turns out, AAPL stock may be worth purchasing after all. To wit:

In a research note, Wu said he may have jumped the gun in cutting his rating on Apple’s (AAPL) stock just one day before it delivered its second-quarter earnings results…Wu added that Apple’s stock is likely to remain “extremely volatile despite being universally loved,” by investors.

Universally loved by those that actually buy from and use Apple’s product line; extremely volatile by one-man bullhorns like Wu.

“May have” jumped the gun? These people have way too much power. When has this stuff been remotely predictable? Okay, maybe sometimes. But still.

While I’m glad to see AAPL sitting at $180+ after this winter’s skydive, all the stress that comes with these peaks and valleys is enough to make one consider a drinking habit. There’s no sense or order to this business news racket. Jesus, even Fox has a business network now. What does that tell yoU?

This experiment has its consequences. I’ve got to come to grips with that fact. Even Einstein said, “Uh, maybe The Bomb wasn’t such a good idea.”

Too late. Poobah Wu says a product “vacuum” in Apple’s lineup could still suck us all under its collective madness. He even adopts his prognosticator garb to mention “a radical redesign” of Macbooks and Macbook Pros since, you know, we’re due any day now.

Maybe this is a lesson in the fallacy of objectivity; for me, it’s been like riding piggy-back on a manic-depressive yet excitable hunchback. I’m holding on, but I’m wondering about the wisdom of the prospect. My goal is to make it to WWDC in June.

After that, all bets are off.

At times, Steven Levy’s tone in The Perfect Thing: How the iPod shuffles commerce, culture, and coolness winks and nods at the reader as many Apple-inspired blogs do: he’s one of us, and he’s intimate with the subject.

Levy’s voice makes The Perfect Thing a breeze to read, and not just because of the book’s modest lenght. In revealing the software, hardware, and philosophical origins of the most popular MP3 player on the planet, he easily makes the case for the iPod’s overwhelming popularity.

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More good news (after Friday’s good news) on the price of AAPL.

Today was a great day, with the Apple’s stock price jumping a few dollars before they release their quarterly statement later this week.

MarketWatch.com says Apple’s statement will be one of the most “greatly-anticipated”:

Since Apple gave its update, the stock has mounted a comeback, rising more than 16% to almost $162 as feelings have grown more positive about the odds that the company will soon release a third-generation, or 3G version of the iPhone, and that sales of Macintosh computers will continue to rise.

Reports of the “imminent” 3G iPhone have been coming at us non-stop for the past few weeks – just in time to satisfy my iPhone fast (as in food, not speed).

And just think: Apple’s stock price at the close of the day they killed the Newton? A bit over $23. My, how far we’ve come.

According to Appleturns.com, the crash we saw in January is something that happens almost every time Apple announces a super quarter. Weird, huh?

Forbes.com quotes an analyst that brags the 10 million iPhone number will be no problem – which is good, because iPod interest may be slacking off. Except for the iTouch. That still has “steady demand.”

Even Dell is doing better than expected, after the doom-and-gloom story of its stock price for the past year.

So a good day for technology, and a better day for a guy who was scared his pre-Macworld experiment would crash and burn. It’s nice that investors, even with the economy tanking, feel that just about anything Apple touches is still lust-worthy. Macs are taking off like we’ve always hoped. iPhones are just as popular as we dreamed.

And the stock price? Well, it may just hit $190 after all. I have no experience or expertise in investing or stock prices, but I know hope when I see it.

Here’s an idea.

Since Europeans are worried about the overstocked pre-3G iPhones they won’t be able to sell after the 2.0 iPhone is released, how about we sell the old models at a fraction – say, 1/3 – of the price. Cheaper than refurbs, even.

And the refurbs? How about $99 each.

It’s hard to understand second-gen iPods still going for almost their original price now that the video versions are out. Same with several-years-old Apple notebooks.

My feeling is, Apple should sell the outdated versions at rock-bottom prices for no other reason than to get Apple products in the hands of non-Apple customers. I love Mac refurbs. I love the idea behind them. But those white iMacs just aren’t going to sell like they used to. Get them out of stock, onto the desks of poor Windows users, and spread the Apple virus.

Same with iPhones. When the 3G model comes out, practically give away the EDGE iPhones just to (a) get rid of them and (b) get them into the hands of eager teens or soccer moms or whoever else hasn’t ponied up $399 for a brand new model.

// Found via Slashdot