The Bowen Knot

Kings among men. Thank you.

Oliver Haslam writes at Redmond Pie:

“I actually feel sorry for RIM. Only a little bit though. Suffering the fall from grace that RIM clearly has over the last two years cannot be easy for a company which once owned the business market, as well as the lucrative younger market across Europe. But look at the company now. Less than five years since the iPhone was introduced and RIM finds itself struggling to stay relevant in a world which is full of iPhones, Android phone and the newcomer, Windows Phone, err, phones.”

This is exactly the problem. The reason they’re struggling so much is because they have hardly changed while others were adapting to the new market landscape. Even Nokia, who sat complacently on their throne of dumbphones, have had to invoke radical changes in their business strategy. Nokia’s part in Meego is gone and the Nokia-WP7 era is being been ushered in. RIM seriously needs to reassess what they are doing.

Blackberry 10/X in 2013? Are you serious?! It’s a step in the right direction alright but at this point it’s not likely to save them. If RIM had launched BBX in 2010 then they may have had some hope.

Too little too late.

I’ve just listened to last week’s This American Life. While the Foxconn suicides of 2010 made headlines I haven’t really thought about the it or any of the other factories where Apple has its devices assembled. This episode of the radio show is really interesting, while half of the entertainment is the way Mike Daisey tells the story (which is brilliant in my opinion) they offer an analysis and fact check in act two. A brilliant listen if you ask me, especially now that Apple has released a full list of production partners for the first time.

Let us not forget that it’s not just Apple that do business with these companies.

Nice one guys.

(Source: blog.mocality.co.ke)

Finally! maybe I won’t be sucked in by all those really convincing phishing scams any more.

</sacrasm>.

On a serious note, these websites are really annoying and I’m really glad that they’re going to Google now.

(Source: fusible.com)

iDownloadBlog:

“To get the free iPhone 4S, customers must sign up for a monthly plan starting at 286 yuan, or $45.”

I don’t know about the US, but in the UK the 16GB 4S is available for free at £41 ($63) per month on a 24 month contract. That’s with 900 minutes, unlimited texts and 750mb data. Sure, the data’s pretty poor but I guess the upfront cost (or lack thereof) is pretty important to some people. It is more expensive but still technically free upfront.

After checking out the AT&T website I’m now a little confused. In my experience, the more you pay per month and the longer your contract is the less you pay upfront. Is this true in the US?

(Source: appleinsider.com)

I would take benchmark results with a pinch of salt. I know for a fact that on my 2008 unibody MacBook (running Lion) Chrome is far superior in real world use. I should note that I’ve got FlashBlock enabled all the time when using Chrome which probably speeds it up (and definitely ensures it doesn’t crash often). Don’t even talk to me about the horrendous start up time of firefox.

This looks promising. Like the article mentions, pod2g is really good at keeping the public up to date on progress.

I used to be completely dependent on a jailbreak. When I had my 4 and 3GS before that, the phone being jailbroken was an absolute requirement. I even jailbroken all the betas of iOS 5. Since I’ve had the 4S, however, I’ve not felt the need to. I know that there hasn’t been a jailbreak available but even so, I haven’t felt the want for one. Until about two weeks ago that is. As more tweets emerge from the account of pod2g I feel the glowing embers of my excitement spark that particular fire back to life.

I am now seriously pumped for an A5 jailbreak.