Tablet purchasing timeline

It's clear that tablets are here to stay, and will be my primary consumer computing technology for some time to come.  Therefore, it's never too early to start a tablet purchasing timeline.

4/2010 - iPad (16g)
4/2012 - iPad 3 (16g) and refurbished iPad2 (for the family)
11/2012 - iPad Mini (16g with cellular)
??? - iPad Mini retina (128g with cellular)

Will the iPhone 5 be my last smartphone purchase?

My last computer purchase was in 2007, and back in 2010, I confidently predicted that I would not buy another computer for a long time, if ever.  In fact, I knew computers as a consumer device were out in 2008, after the purchase of my first iPhone (3g).  How did I know this?  Well, the details are summarized here*.

Well, today in 2012, I am confidently predicting the iPhone 5 will be my last smartphone purchase ever.  Just as the smartphone made the consumer PC obsolete circa 2008-2009, tablets will make smartphones obsolete very soon.  This process has just begun, but the carnage to the existing incumbents will be just as dramatic as it was to the PC companies over the last 2-3 years.

So what's so great about a tablet?  Well, I just recently purchased an iPad mini with a 1GB data plan from Verizon ($20/month), and I find this tablet to be actually "mobile."  By mobile, I mean the device leaves the house on shopping trips, walks, when running errands, etc., unlike the iPad 3 which was relegated to a home device only.  The mini is providing direct competition to my iPhone 5 in terms of usage, and with the larger screen, computing tasks are just easier on that device.  However, even more impressive is that the cost of the data plan is so much less than a smartphone contract($20 vs $85), that I canceled cell service for my iPhone 5 and paid the early termination fee.  I'll recoup the ETF in 6 months ($65 * 6 = $390) through the monthly savings.  Yet, iMessage, FaceTime, Skype, and Google Voice (through Talkatone), will allow the same functionality that Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon was provides.  So in summary, the 7 inch tablet factor with a data plan provides a better mobile user experience at a lower cost compared to a smartphone.

Except the 7 inch tablet isn't quite there yet.  Despite the revolutionary new form factor, the screen resolution is too low, and processing power is not as powerful as an iPhone 5, and the camera is worse.  Most won't accept those tradeoffs yet, but Moore's law will insure that this difference will become negligible over time.

* I actually think a home computer purchase is inevitable, but it could be a long time from now.

Cell phone timeline updated

Below is my updated cell phone purchasing timeline, after my recent iPhone 5 purchase. However, I can confidently say, this will be my last cell phone purchase.  Why do I say that?  That is a topic for another blog post.

• Samsung SCH-1000 - 1997
• Neopoint 1000 - 1999
• Sanyo SCP-5000 - 2000
• Treo 300 - 2002
• Treo 600 - 2003
• Treo 650 - 2006
• iPhone 3g - 2008
• iPhone 4 - 2010
• iPhone 5 - 2012

Current computing inventory

Below is my current computing inventory at home, including smartphones and tablets.

• MacBook Pro 15 inch (circa early 2007)
• MacBook Pro 15 inch (middle 2009) 
• MacBook Pro 15 inch (late 2011) 
• MacBook Pro 13 inch (early 2011) 
• Lenovo T610 (2009?) 
• Dell Latitude D400 (2007?) 
• iPhone3g 
• iPhone4 (16 gig) 
• iPhone4 (32 gig)
• iPad2 
• The new iPad (2012)

I have excluded the Apple TV, Tivo, and the Wii as computing devices.

For a 4 person household (2 adults/2 kids) - this is excessive. However, not all of the computers belong to me. Some are old computers give to me from previous employers, while others computers that have been given by my or my wife's current employer. Still, this inventory needs to be consolidated as the above list is excessive.

Cutting the wireless cord

During the fall of 1997, I signed up for cell phone service with Sprint PCS. I continued service with Sprint until the iPhone 3g was released, in the summer of 2008, at which point I promptly switched over to the dark side (AT&T). I have stayed a subscriber to AT&T largely due to Apple's exclusivity, but 6 weeks ago (June 30, 2012), I canceled my cell phone service with AT&T, and ended my run as a consumer of cellular service at 15 years. The experience so far has been surprising, as the lack of cell phone service has not hindered my life as much as I though it would. To be clear, I have kept my iPhone4 with me as a wifi connected device, which is always connected at home, at work, and at various free wifi hot spots that exist in a surprising number of locations. Additionally, the talkatone app along with google voice and google talk allow me to make and receive calls when in wifi range, though generally using iMessage and FaceTime is preferable if the other user has iOS. So while, I've cut the (wireless) cord, most of the services that were provided by AT&T (voice minutes, SMS, data) are still being provided. So far, life without AT&T has been great. When do I miss it? There are 2 scenarios, where AT&T's services have been missed. Scenario 1: You need to pick someone up. Once you arrive, how do you tell that person that you've arrived? This happened to me only once in the last 6 weeks. Luckily I found a free wifi hotspot at the workplace of the person I was picking up, so I fired off an iMessage, and life was normal. Scenario 2: Killing time when you are participating in an activity that is boring. This can happen often during such activities as shopping, riding in a train, etc. Again free wifi spots can often come to the rescue, but when those aren't available, I simply borrow my wife's iPhone. Other than those scenarios, I do not miss cell service at all. This might change if the Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T decide to innovate, or price their plans more cheaply, but until then, I'll be without cell service.

Cell phone timeline updated

It's about time I update my cell phone timeline, after my purchasing my iPhone 4. Thus 2 new phones have been added to the list since the last cell phone timeline post.

• Samsung SCH-1000
  
• Neopoint 1000
• Sanyo SCP-5000
  
• Treo 300
• Treo 600
• Treo 650
• iPhone 3g
• iPhone 4

Google Chrome

Every now and then, there comes a time when one must switch from a product you know and love to something that is new and better. These moments dont happen too often, for once product loyalty is established, switching to a new product requires a lot of work. The last time I did a major product switch was when the iPhone 3g was released. Back then, I had an old dusty Palm Treo 650, but since Palm hadn't made any progress on their software and hardware in 5 years (the Treo 600 had the same software/form factor), that switch was more about Palm dumping me, instead of me dumping Palm. Well today, I've made another switch that I know will last a long time - I've fully switched over to Google Chrome from Firefox.

Actually, this switch has been in the works over the last few months. It all started when I read about bookmark sync and extensions in the PC version of Google Chrome - those were 2 features I absolutely loved about Firefox. At the time, I had just been given a new work laptop, so the time was ripe to give Google Chrome a full trial by only installing Chrome and not relying on any other browsers. With the extensions and bookmark sync all the necessary functionality that had been missing in prior versions was available to me. However, there was a subtle difference that made Chrome totally superior to Firefox, and that was the performance. The performance difference doesn't seem to be that important after a short browsing session or even after a full day of us. But after a few weeks of usage, the performance difference is large and I wondered how I could have used the slow and pesky Firefox for so many year. The little gains in speed and the time saved each day accumulates and the difference between the two browsers eventually becomes large. There are other subtle differences and niceties that make Chrome a better browser, but the performance is the key. In fact, I consider Chrome to be "luxury browser" akin to a Lexus, while Firefox is the more generic browser with all the features, but none of the polish (like a Civic).

So why is today the point of no return for my switch to Chrome? Well, I have a Mac at home, and today Google released a Mac version of Chrome with bookmark sync and support for extensions. So when I got home from work, I updated my version of Chrome, installed some extensions, and realized that I will probably never feel compelled to use Firefox again on any computer that is mine. Of course, on a PC, I'll use IE for sites that fail to render properly in Chrome, and on the Mac, I'll have an occasional use for Safari for the same said sites, but that leaves no place for Firefox, a product that I've used for several years.

Now, some of the naysayers may think that I'll switch back when Firefox releases their next version, but I doubt it. Switching products is often expensive in terms of time and/or cost so in order for me to switch back Firefox will have to become much better than Google Chrome, which is unlikely, given Google's vast resources. In fact, I can only think of one product where I switched back to a product I had dumped, and that was my return to an Apple Mac back in 2007, after a ten year hiatus with a PC.

The end of an era

So its 2010, and based on my computer buying trends, I'm due to buy a computer this year (or maybe next year at the latest). However, a lot has changed since 2007, which was when I bought my last computer, a 15 inch macbook pro. The current state of that macbook pro is actually respectable, especially for a laptop. The biggest problem with the laptop is that the battery is kaput, even though it has been replaced once during warranty. I thought Apple would produce better batteries than the PC makers, but I guess that was unrealistic. However, the rest of the laptop is holding up fine. The hard drive has plenty of space (I use a network drive to store most files), the ram seems adequate, and the computer is fast enough for most tasks.

However, despite the MacBook pro faring well against obsolescence relative to newer computers, it has been the least used computer I have ever bought. You see, when I got the iPhone 3G in the middle of 2008, the laptop became obsolete. The iPhone basically allowed me to do all my key computer tasks, such as email, web browsing, news reading, social networking. In fact, my iPhone allowed me to do those tasks with a higher level of performance, because the time to walk to my desk and sit down was cut out for all those operations. Not only that, the smaller screen forced most app developers to do only a few tasks and do them well, which has led to superior performance on the iPhone even when excluding the time to walk to my desk. For example, using facebook on an iPhone is a lot easier than on the web. Checking the weather with "The Weather Channel" app is easier as well, since the iPhone preserves the current location with GPS. Google maps is a helluva lot easier on the iPhone than the web, again mainly due to the iPhone being location aware due to the GPS chip. In fact, the only activities that are better on a computer vs the iPhone are work related activities, such as software development, running VMs, photo editing, and writing. My wife handles the photo editing, and I try to do all my software development and VM management at work, so that leaves me with little use for a home computer.

So, I'm not sure I need a new computer this year or maybe ever. The newer computers dont really seem to offer much of performance gain to my nearly 3 year old MacBook pro, and my iPhone seems to pretty much outdo any personal computer for about 90% of the "computing and internet related" tasks. All in all, I have to say the personal computer is just about obsolete, and that the PC era is pretty much over.

The Price of Oil

The price of gasoline has now passed $4 a gallon or $135/barrel. Increased demand is a major reason for the price increases, but speculative investing in commodities has also played an even bigger role. Recent articles have suggested that nearly a billion dollars a day of "big money" has been invested in oil futures. A billion dollars a day of futures money is probably equivalent to 5-10 million barrels a day, since each barrel costs $100-$200. Or more precisely, 1 billion divided by $135 per barrel equals 7.41 million barrels/day. Current US consumption of oil for the month of march/2008 was 19.7 million barrels/day. So, basically, all the hedge funds, pension funds, and rich people have entered the oil futures market with speculative money equivalent to 1/3 of total US demand. To put this in perspective, this amount is greater than the total consumption of China, which is 6.5 millions barrels/day.

On the other hand, real demand for oil within the US is not increasing. From the data that spans oil consumption data from 1973, the greatest amount of oil consumption occurred in August of 2005, with 21.7 million barrels per day consumed. However, in February of 1979, 21.3 million barrels a day were consumed, which corresponds to a measly 1.7% increase, even though the US population has increased by 33% during that time frame (from 225 million to over 300 million). More strikingly, the demand for oil consumption has pretty much been flat over the last 3-4 years, even though price of oil has shot up 4 fold over this time. Finally, the current demand for oil over the 1st 3 months of 2008 has dropped precipitously to 2002 levels. Clearly, the data show that real demand for oil in the US has been contained for the last few years.

Of course, the slack in US demand could very well be made up global demand, but I'll leave that analysis for another post. However, keep in mind, that the US is responsible for nearly 25% of the world's oil consumption, so its hard to imagine that global demand is going counteract flat or decreasing US demand.

So what is the end result for the US consumer? Predicting the top of a speculative bubble is impossible to do. The bubble could go on for some time and if it does, prices could easily hit $200/barrel and $6/gallon. Or the bubble could end tomorrow. The real problem with a bubble is that an increase in price leads to an increase in demand (since every investor will flock to oil commodities), which can counteract or even overwhelm the decrease in demand from real oil consumption due to conservation. However, when the bubble does finally pop, expect a very harsh correction. A correction will be harsher and quicker than Nasdaq bubble or real estate bubble, since stock trades require a larger margin, and real estate is not as liquid. Once the commodities bubble pops, long term prices will remain constant for a long time as the speculative money will migrate to "infect" some other asset class.