Archive for January 4th, 2010

What’s an iPhone without AT&T? … a hot-selling iPod Touch.

January 4, 2010

Punch line: While Apple’s iPhone grabs headlines, the cheaper iPod touch keeps gaining devoted fans … thanks to strong functionality and, well, no dependency on AT&T.

Trend to watch: As my students know, I’m very critical of cell phone service — dead spots, crackling reception, dropped calls, slow upload / download speeds.  Wonder if iPod Touch (and Apple’s tablet to follow) will give a super-boost to WiFi coverage and obsolete cell phone technology.  Hmmm.

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Business Week: iPod Touch’s Holiday Sales Spike Likely Beat the iPhone’s, December 30, 2009

Ever since Apple introduced the iPhone in the summer of 2007, it has been hailed as one of the most revolutionary products in tech history. By comparison, the iPod touch, which has all the iPhone’s features without the cell phone, has been downright publicity-starved.

But this holiday season, it seems the thinner, cheaper iPod touch may be Apple’s breakout hit …  iPod touch sales soared more than 100%, to 7.2 million, in the final quarter of 2009, while iPhone sales rose 53%, to 11.3 million.

Post-Christmas, the number of apps downloaded onto … iPod touches surpassed the iPhone. “It wasn’t just that the iPod touch barely squeaked by … It blew the doors off the iPhone—and overnight.”

The iPod touch can do pretty much anything an iPhone can do, and for a lot less money. It features the same slick multi-touch interface and can run almost all the 100,000-plus programs in Apple’s App store. The device has taken the portable gaming market by storm

The main difference is that the iPod touch does not work over cellular networks, so owners must be within striking distance of a Wi-Fi hotspot to go online or download apps. But Wi-Fi is available in most homes, offices, airports, and coffee joints, either for free or for a few bucks—but it costs nowhere near the monthly $100 of an AT&T contract.

This year, iPod touch sales may be getting an extra boost from the travails of AT&T, the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the U.S.

Because of Ma Bell’s network problems, including frequent dropped calls and spotty Net access in cities such as New York and San Francisco, many consumers are opting to carry a new iPod touch along with their old cell phone rather than rely on an iPhone. Many users carry a BlackBerry  for email and making calls, and an  iPod touch for running apps and going online.

Some folks may soon be tempted by Apple’s much-rumored tablet device. Sources expect the tablet device to be roughly three times the size of an iPhone, making it well-suited for playing games, running apps, and reading e-books or online newspapers. The device may also rely on Wi-Fi, allowing Apple to further distance itself from AT&T’s service woes.

Full article:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162022078079.htm

Posted in Mktg - Product & Innovation, Mobile Marketing, Telecom | Leave a Comment »

"The Lowering of Higher Education in America"

January 4, 2010

TakeAway: Colleges are filled with unserious students learning too little.

Excerpted from WSJ: On Campus, Unprepared, Dec. 22, 2009

It is widely recognized  that the gap between the earnings of high-school graduates and college graduates has become a chasm in recent decades.

So, governments around the world — from China and India to the Middle East — are trying to boost college attendance for their knowledge-hungry populations.

But in the U.S., many students are poorly prepared for college and end up taking remedial courses. And huge numbers fail to graduate.

A few skeptics think that aiming to increase the number of American college graduates is actually a fool’s errand. Most prominent among them is Charles Murray, who in “Real Education” (2008) argued that most young people are just not smart enough to go to college and should be encouraged to take other paths instead, especially vocational training.

Now comes Jackson Toby with “The Lowering of Higher Education in America,” a provocative variation on Mr. Murray’s theme.

Mr. Toby draws on social-science data as well as personal experience — he taught sociology at Rutgers University for 50 years before retiring a few years ago — to decry the intellectual conditions that prevail on the American campus:

  • The easy availability of financial aid to undergraduates who are unqualified for college-level coursework leads to low academic standards.
  • Few students are prepared to meet even the minimal demands of a real college education.
  • Lax college-admission standards give high schools little incentive to push their students harder.
  • Too many undergrads can’t write with minimal competence or understand basic cultural references.
  • Students often take silly, politicized courses, and feel entitled to inflated grades.
  • Most undergrads enjoy a steady diet of extracurricular hedonism while skating through their coursework.

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703523504574604443236619168.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Posted in Education - Academics | 1 Comment »

Tempting the tax cheats … Stimulus bill says "come on down".

January 4, 2010

Another fine example of our government in action …

A report from the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration counts 56 tax provisions in the Stimulus bill with a projected cost of $325 billion. Of those 56, 20 are tax breaks for individuals and 36 are for businesses.

The problem, the Inspector General says, is the IRS can’t verify taxpayer eligibility “for the majority of Recovery Act tax benefits and credits.”

For individual taxpayers, 13 of the 20 benefits and credits can’t be verified; for businesses, it’s 26 of 36.

In other words, Treasury finds that the biggest chunk of the $325 billion in stimulus package tax breaks can’t be adequately tracked to protect against fraud.

IBD, How Corruption Stalks The Stimulus, 12/23/2009
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=516173

Posted in Stimulus Bill, Taxes | Leave a Comment »