kzeise.com | Kai Mo's Musings on Software, Copyrights, and other stuff

The Apple Keynote

23. October 2013 · Categories: Apple

It was interesting to watch the presentation for the new Apple computers. A few observations:

Tim Cook makes ad hominem attacks against those who doubted the iPad. Why on earth is he wasting time crowning about the past?
Apple still feels confident in iPad pricing. With the huge markup on flash memory they still continue to charge, they must be pretty certain that there won’t be a credible alternative for serious tablet work in the next year. But it provides a pricing umbrella for the serious tablet crowd, to the tune of $250 for a 128GB model.
Mavericks as a free update now pays for itself from Apple’s cut on the App Store.
iWorks everywhere seems to be the Apple play to weaken Microsoft. Interesting that the iPad versions now have full compatibility with the Mac, so that you can take your work anywhere. “Use the device that best fits you right now, and continue seamlessly on your other devices” Unfortunately that solution depends on iCloud; without a data center there, this would make it illegal for European firms to use it for anything containing even a trace of customer data, and there is quite a lot of distrust towards American cloud providers since the NSA revelations started.
A very nice price drop for the MacBook Pro, with the top end model now a cool $500 cheaper than a year ago, with an extra 256GB Flash thrown in. Unfortunately still no 4K @60Hz support, even though Thunderbolt 2 would have the bandwidth.
Still no upgrade for the Thunderbolt Display. Is there something in the pipeline with 4K displays? The reduced glare of the new iMac screens would be a huge improvement for them, so it is odd that they do not get that update yet.

iPad Hopes

21. October 2013 · Categories: Apple

With Apple presenting their new iPads tomorrow, I should document what I hope for as the new line up:

$499 A7X based large iPad, starting at 32GB, with 64/128 options
$399 A7 based iPad mini with retina display, again in 32/64/128 options
$299 for the old iPad mini, only available with 16GB

This would roughly match the iPod Touch strategy; if they want to kill off the old mini, I suspect they will make a $329 Retina model with 16GB and no back camera. Let’s see how far I’m off…

The Modular Camera

21. October 2013 · Categories: Photos, Software

Thom Hogan sees the great future for cameras in a modular system. I am not so sure that this is the way forward, given that sensor technology is getting fast enough to provide for all uses in one module: a 40 MPixel sensor could do 15 fps with the full image size, 60 fps at 4K video, and 240 fps at 2K video. The Nikon D800 shows that we are close, missing less than a factor 4 in performance. The only impediment is for a smart person to figure out how to use the sensor backside to provide parallel pixel binning processing to ensure that the main processor is not overloaded, while still being able to make use of the entire sensor to collect the light for video.

And 40 MPixel is about the best you can get in optical resolution from a full frame sensor, so if you need even more, you will need to either stitch or move to larger formats. We see this when comparing lenses tested with the D600 and D800: the benefit of the D800 is typically less than 20% extra resolution, so we are already strongly at the margin of what the lens is capable of.

The real problem will be for the camera makers to figure out how to integrate their cameras with computer control. The basics are extremely simple: use Bluetooth LE and WiFi Direct to provide seamless integration with a tablet for control, and provide an SDK to allow third parties to use these channels for complete remote control. The extremely low power consumption of Bluetooth LE would allow the interface to remain always on without draining the battery, and we could activate lower latency connections on demand. Of course this requires some coordination with tablet makers, but getting this done is essential; you open your camera app and snap a photo, any extra steps will cause friction and frustration.

The Decline of Windows

09. October 2013 · Categories: Software

With the latest PC shipment data, we see a constant decline since the iPad appeared. Essentially the PC is loosing almost completely the home part of the market, and even in its old business domain, mobile tasks are moving away from it. Given that the iPad is a much better match for these tasks, the decline is not surprising. But it is interesting to see how Microsoft is accelerating the decline:

Windows XP is still widely used. But instead of making it easy to switch to Windows 8, you need to install Vista and 7 as well to upgrade without having to reinstall your programs. Oh, and forget about moving to the 64bit version. Lots of unnecessary hassle will only keep people from upgrading.
Windows 8 is a dog when running on high resolution displays. The future of PC computing is in the one niche tablets cannot fill: providing ample space to work with a lot of information at once. Think 36" Retina displays as the great goal. How do you intend to compete when you still ignore the future?
Windows is priced quite high, and the individual licenses are much more expensive than what manufacturers pay. So you will be upgrading with your new computer, maybe once every 6 years now that they are fast enough. Microsoft gets maybe $72 for the license, that makes $12 per year. Compare that to Apple, which prices each update at $19, but also brings out one every year. The price is suddenly cheap enough that apps can safely demand the latest revision. Who has the happier users? And I would not be surprised if Apple actually makes more money from the OS per user than Microsoft.

Der Wahnsinn der EU Verbrauchsziele

04. October 2013 · Categories: Politics

Deutschland blockiert noch immer eine Einigung im Streit um die Verbrauchsziele für Autos. Dies erinnert mich daran, dass diese Ziele durch Kompromisse inzwischen so verändert worden sind, dass sie dem Klimaschutz nicht mehr unbedingt dienen.

Um eine physiologische Marke von 95g/km zu erreichen, nimmt man sich ein Ziel vor, welches ausgesprochen ambitiös ist. Eine Verbesserung der Effizienz von 37% in 6 Jahren ist vielleicht bei Computern wenig, aber bei Autos, welche inzwischen schon recht nah an die theoretischen Grenzen der Physik gekommen sind, eine Mammutaufgabe.

Diese läßt sich eigentlich nur noch durch zwei Maßnahmen erreichen:

eine massive Gewichtsreduzierung, um weniger Masse beschleunigen zu müssen. Das Gewicht hat aber zugenommen, um gewünschte Funktionen zu realisieren, wie Airbags, bessere Knautschzonen, Klimaanlagen und ähnliches.
die Nutzung energetischer Rekuperation, um den Energieverlust beim Bremsen zu verringern.

Da auch diese Maßnahmen wahrscheinlich nicht ausreichen werden, gibt es dann massive Schummeleien, um formell das Ziel doch noch zu erreichen, indem Strom mit 0g abgerechnet wird, obwohl unser Strom zum großen Teil aus nicht gerade klimafreundlichen Kohlekraftwerken stammt. Damit schafft dann auch [ein Porsche als Plugin-Hybride mit 600PS ](http://auto-motor-und-sport.de/eco/porsche-918-spyder-auf-der-iaa-hybrid-supersportler-mit-887-ps-3555223.html) und wirklichem Verbrauch von gut 175g/km formell die Hürde mit 79g.

Besonders problematisch empfinde ich, dass man sich so auf den Verbrauch fixiert. Viel besser wäre es, die Verbrauchssteuern auf Kraftstoffe auf einem hohen Niveau zu harmonisieren, und auf diese Weise die Emissionen direkt zu verringern. Man hat ja schon bei Energiesparlampen gesehen, dass die höhere Effizienz durch erhöhte Nachfrage nach Beleuchtung wieder aufgefressen wurde. Und auch beim Auto besteht die Chance, dass man plötzlich mehr fährt, wenn die einzelne Fahrt viel günstiger geworden ist.

Und dann kann man auch bitte diese unsäglichen Subventionen für Elektroautos einstellen. Die Klimakosten einer Tonne CO2 liegen bei nicht mehr als 50€. Dies entspricht etwa 350 Litern Diesel, auf welche bereits locker das doppelte an Mineralölsteuer anfallen. Also wird durch den billigeren Strom das Elektroauto schon stärker gefördert, als dieses Nutzen liefern kann. Da sind extra Subventionen reine Geldverschwendung, die Emmissionseinsparung könnte man woanders deutlich billiger realisieren.

iOS Design Issues

21. September 2013 · Categories: Apple, Software

Having played with iOS 7 for awhile now, I like the overall direction very much, there are just a few small issues that irritate me:

Home screen backgrounds

This is probably the most annoying part, and a clear sign of Ive not able to imagine bad taste among customers. Because of the very light text you absolute need a background with low contrast to be able to read it easily. Most backgrounds that worked fine in iOS 6 break on iOS 7. Here Apple really should offer a bold text option for the home screen only.
FaceTime

FaceTime with the dark background looks annoying, it is probably used to differentiate it from the phone app, which actually offers the same functionality, but with a much more friendly face.

Update: FaceTime actually uses your home screen background darkened, it is a bug that causes it to become black.
Notes

Unlike a lot of other people, I actually liked marker felt as the font. It gave notes that casual feeling, showing us that they are not finished, but mostly just thoughts jotted down to be remembered later. Helvetica Neue Light on the other hand has a very finished, elegant feeling to it, more suitable for beautifully crafted words than incomplete notes.
Long animation times

The animations to open the home screen could be a bit faster, it makes me feel I am waiting. The app switcher animations on the other work quite well.

In the end these are minor issues once you have changed your home screen background. I am quite positively surprised how fluent the new design language already is.

The new iPhones

20. September 2013 · Categories: Apple

Already it is quite clear that we see extremely long waits for the 5S of 5-8 weeks outside the US, which we likely will reach in the US as well once everyone is awake. On the other hand the 5C remains quite available, with just a few days for delivery. Is this now because of limited availability of the 5S or much higher demand compared to the 5 launch?

I still suspect that the 5S will carry the majority of the demand, as it provides a far better value than the 5C:

TouchID solves a very real user problem, and makes using your iPhone so much better.

I feel that this is the biggest advance in iPhone usability since the Retina display. You are can now have security without the inconvenience.
A doubling of performance at the same frequency makes the iPhone much more future proof.

I believe that from next year we will start to see much lower annual performance improvements, as the A7 has roughly caught Intel in performance per clock cycle. And they are now only improving at a pace of 10% to 15% per year in performance per cycle. This kind of makes the iPhone 5S the first phone again that you can safely keep for 4 or 5 years before replacing.

The A7 Chip

15. September 2013 · Categories: Apple

Apple is the first company to provide a chip with the ARMv8 architecture. They say it provides double the performance of the A6, this will come from architecture improvements, as well as from the new process. For the process, we were provided with a doubling of the transistor count and only a 10% increase in die size, which gives us 24nm instead of 32nm, close to the 22nm used by Intel for Haswell. The other improvement will come from ARMv8, which has cleaned up the instruction set, and provides twice as many registers. The new architecture has 64 and 32bit versions of most instructions, allowing the processor to save power when working with small data types.

The A7 is a remarkable piece of engineering, but I suspect that from now on we will see the hyper charged speed improvements on mobile to slow down to Intel pace: processes have caught up with the state of the art, so will improve a good deal slower. And architecture wise there is not much left to improve single threaded execution speed.

The chip should have a GeekBench score of around 3200, this compares to 3800 for the 2009 MacBook Pro with the 2.8GHz dual core, and 12000 for the MacBook Retina at 2.7GHz. It is remarkably close to desktop class performance, actually a four core version of the A7 with doubled frequency would match the fastest MacBook. This causes people to believe that we will see a transition away from Intel in the near future. Now the A7 will almost certainly already be running OS X as a safeguard, but would it make sense as a product?

Unlike with the PPC to Intel transition, the A7 would be at a performance disadvantage given Intel’s process advantage.

Who wants an irritating transition where any emulated Intel programs will be irritatingly slower, when there is no speed bump to reward users in the end?
It will effectively mean giving up on Windows compatibility.

Intel will certainly not give Apple a license to implement their instruction set in silicon, leaving only slow emulation. Especially in business the ability to run Windows is still important for many jobs, an ability even Apple advertises. And while Windows will slowly wither, giving up jobs better suited to a tablet or phone, there will remain room for providing a large information canvas, with Apple not interested in becoming the default choice.
There is close to no benefit from extending battery life beyond 12 hours

Intel have just in time realized how important battery life is, and can now provide this. So users are not missing anything important.
Apple would need an equivalent to the Xeon, and generally more cores than on iPhone/iPad.

The numbers for several of these products would be quite small compared to iPhone and iPad, giving Apple a significant scale disadvantage compared to Intel.

I believe it much more likely that Apple will extend the iPad line to allow it to fulfill more roles.

Rasermaut

25. August 2013 · Categories: Politics

Die CSU fordert die Einführung einer PKW-Maut als Bedingung einer Koalition. Lasst uns sie beim Wort nehmen, aber anstelle die Nutzung ganz allgemein zu besteuern, sollten wir das Schnellfahren als Ziel nehmen: Wir brauchen eine Rasermaut! Es ist unbestritten, dass große Geschwindigkeitsunterschiede das Risiko von Unfällen erhöhen und das Autofahren im allgemeinen viel stressiger werden läßt, also lasst uns das Rasen besteuern: wer schneller als 160 km/h fahren will, möge 500€ per Jahr zahlen, mit einer Verdoppelung des Betrages alle 20 km/h extra, also 1000€ ab 180, 2000€ ab 200, usw. Insbesondere dürfte dies uns konkrete Daten liefern, in welchem Maße Schnellfahren das Unfallrisiko erhöht, mal ganz abgesehen davon, dass wir auf diese Weise auch umweltschädigendes Verhalten vermeiden helfen.

Die CSU will eine Pauschalmaut, aber diese ist ja genauso wie die Kfz-Steuer nicht mit dem Umweltschutz zu vereinbaren, da beide keinen Anreiz bieten, umweltschädigendes Verhalten einzuschränken. Da ist die Mineralölsteuer viel besser geeignet, jemanden proportional zu seinem Verbrauch zu besteuern. Um alle Nutzer gerecht zur Kasse zu bitten, würde man idealerweise an der Grenze den Tankinhalt messen, um so die Mineralölsteuer nach Land von Verbrauch zu erheben. Anstelle hier aufwendig diese Daten zu erheben, wäre es viel einfacher, in der EU die Mineralölsteuer zu vereinheitlichen; die Staaten könnten gewünschte Unterschiede dann über die Kfz-Steuer realisieren.

Die Begründung liegt ja in dem Mythos, dass der Autofahrer die Melkkuh der Nation sei, und man deshalb auch Ausländer noch mit zur Kasse bitten sollte. Man vergisst da gerne, dass die km-Pauschale extrem großzügig ist. Man nehme mal eine Kostentabelle, und vergleiche die Kosten für 15000 und 30000 km pro Jahr; die marginalen Kosten für die zweiten 15000 km kommen oft unter 15 Cent pro Kilometer, die hohe Kilometerpauschale in Deutschland ist also de facto eine Subvention des privaten Autoverkehrs, durch die wohl 15 Mrd jährlich an Steuern und Beitragszahlungen "verloren" gehen, basierend auf 20 Mio Fahrern und 200 Tage a 25 km Berufsverkehr, also 100 Mrd km total (destatis bietet keine Zahlen an, wir haben jedoch 100 Mrd Personenkilometer jährlich im Nahverkehr der Busse und Bahnen).

US Carriers Boost iPhone Numbers

29. July 2013 · Categories: Apple

Verizon has reported a rise from 2.7 to 3.8 million iPhones sold y/y. This means that there is still some growth in the US market, but it is special in that all carriers heavily subsidize.

The German market for example is much more price sensitive. While is the US a 2GByte plan with unlimited minutes sets you back a minimum of $60 prepaid or $100 postpaid with $200 for the iPhone 5 16GB, you can get such a plan in Germany for 40€ without subsidy or for 65€ with 29€ for the iPhone. German prices are all including a 19% sales tax, without it prices correspond to $45/m or $72/m + $33.

No sane person would be using a postpaid plan under this circumstances in the US, they do because of share everything. Extra phones come from additional lines, which cost you $40/m + $200 for the phone, which is a pretty good deal, and would account for much of smartphone demand in the US. Since there are no shared plans available without a phone subsidy, it means that for a large segment of the population they have no economic choice but go with device subsidies.

The important difference between the US and rest of the world is that devices cannot move between carriers. This means that carriers have a huge incentive to subsidize the phone to make switching less painful, and this has so far prevented the creation of separate markets for wireless service and phones, and has been the prime cause US carriers compete much less on price, and it also allowed Apple to cream off a lot from the carriers.

Now that we have seen the numbers for Apple, it gives another strong indication that the US is driving a lot of iPhone demand thanks to share everything: Americas revenues are up $1.6bn y/y, while iPhone revenues are up $2.3bn y/y. In addition, they said that US numbers increased by more than 50%. Assuming the rest remained flat, then US sales a year ago had to account for 40% of all iPhones sold to explain this, and this matches the current Americas share of revenue. Or looking at iPhone numbers, they grew 5.2m. If Verizon has 35% of the US, then its numbers indicate 3.2m added in the US alone.

The carriers are not making much money on extra phones on share everything: probably just $20/m after subsidies, and they have to provide unlimited minutes from them. This makes one wonder for how long they will want to continue to provide them.