Comments:

1. JJ on April 21st, 2010 at 23:21:

   Hey John, I heard something on the radio and thought of you. Looking at the lean of this site, you probably didnt catch this on the radio, and I havent seen the clip anywhere else, so you’ll have to endure some KFI.

   http://www.kfiam640.com/pages/podcasting/

   Go to the Tim Conway Jr show and click on the “Church Molestation 7PM 4/20″ link. The relevant section starts around 11 min in. Basically a victim tells a group of reporters, graphically and bluntly, exactly what this molestation scandal is about. I thought you’d be interested, judging by your constant crusade against the church.

Comments:

1. Spaceman Spiff on April 21st, 2010 at 16:29:

   Having just got and am starting to use a new Google NexusOne Android phone, I have to say that it is a very nice device. However, it still falls short of the iPhone (which my wife has) in a number of ways, most significantly in the touchscreen device handling. From its behavior, I have to think the problem is in the software, so it will probably be sorted out, eventually. FWIW, the phone was a “gift” from Google that they gave all the attendees of last week’s Linux Collaboration Summit in San Francisco. I was just about to get a new phone, so this is a great opportunity for me to evaluate the device, and report on what I find. So far, it does a lot of things very, very well, and a few things, such as handling multi-touch or losing touch registration (fixed with a soft reboot of the phone), not so well. Anyway, thanks Google for the phone. I am already making good use of it.

2. Roland Hesz on April 24th, 2010 at 11:02:

   “OK, so what about Adobe? Closed or open?
   Again, both. Flash is an openly documented format. The free availability and widespread availability of Flash Player provides an open foundation that can liberate programmers from the difficulties of browser incompatibility. At the same time, Adobe controls Flash technology and the proprietary Flash Player almost invariably used to handle it. Flash Player is proprietary in part because of support for H.264 that isn’t Adobe’s technology to give away. ”

   By the way according to Apple:
   “Someone has it backwards–it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard”

   Apple calls H.264 “open,” and in a sense, it is: any organization is free to license its patent portfolio from MPEG LA, in contrast to any number of proprietary technologies that have been used in the computing industry. But Mozilla’s Chris Blizzard, who is steeped in the world of open-source software, doesn’t see H.264 as open–”not even a little. [It's] locked up behind a glass wall.” Even if Mozilla paid the requisite $5 million H.264 license fee, it wouldn’t be permitted to include support in the open-source Firefox software because it can’t extend its license rights to those who build projects from the source code.

   I think this article is pretty good: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20003196-264.html?tag=nl.e703

Comments:

1. Tomi T Ahonen on April 22nd, 2010 at 3:14:

   Hi Daily Irrelevant

   I am ‘that’ Tomi Ahonen who made that blog posting. I am here to mention a few relevant points. First – that you have my quote in context, that is what I wrote and I stood by it until we had Apple’s results. There was a pattern we saw in January of 2008 and in January of 2009, that after Christmas, Apple iPhone sales fall dramatically. That same pattern also repeated from the iPod. It was not only me thinking so, in fact EVERY ONE of the major published analysts of iPhone forecasts for January quarter of 2010 suggested this same phenomenon – over 40 of them.

   My forecast was for 7.4 Million iPhone unit sales in Q1 of 2010. That was clearly off as Apple’s quarter reported 8.75 Million unit sales. But please note, that the ‘street average’ estimate was for 7.1 Million iPhones with most estimates between 6.8 million and 7.5 million. I was at the top end of all forecasts for this quarter. Where we were all wrong, I was at least among those who were ‘least bit wrong’. I think that should count for something. No forecaster can get it right but we forecasters feel those who have least error are the most accurate.

   I am very honest about my numbers. I Tweeted within a minute of the announced numbers that my forecast had been too low. I wrote on my blog to that very blog story from two weeks ago – an IMMEDIATE update, that as new Apple numbers have come out, with the surprising nummbers – that this is a surprise to all analysts, and it differs from my stated hypothesis – and I point out – the new numbers ‘do not support my hypothesis’. I think this shows honesty and respect of my readers. I don’t see most of the other analysts coming back on the same day to show how wrong their forecast had been and warn readers that after the numbers came in, some assumptions of the analysis are now subject to new interpretation. I think this should get me some ‘slack’ on my forecast. I also wrote a longer blog explaining what numbers had been reported and why these were relevant (and that the new numbers break the previous pattern)

   But most of all, I am passionate about my numbers. I knew the whole analyst industry was stumped this Q1 of 2010 nobody got it right. So where were the numbers. I went on an immediate search and re-analysis and digging through the data, and I found the ‘missing million’ new iPhone buyers that had suddenly appeared in January of 2010. I posted that update as a separate blog entry explaining that it was the gift-giving period of the Lunar New Year in China which this year was in early February (Chinese Year of the Tiger started on Feb 14). My analysis has since been quoted rather widely and found to be consistent with the facts by many of my peers. I could say, I ‘broke’ the story of where are the ‘missing millions’. I think this is also a sign of a responsible forecaster, to admit when they were wrong, and then try to find out why.

   I hope your readers can take these as points to consider when comparing me to perhaps another forecaster they may have read who also predicted something like 7.1 million iPhone sales this past quarter.

   Thank you

   Tomi Ahonen
   Author of 9 books on mobile
   Quoted in 350 articles globally in over 40 langauges
   Quoted in 80 books by other authors
   Lecturing at Oxford University on mobile
   Twittering as @tomiahonen
   wwww tomiahonen com

2. John Sinteur on April 22nd, 2010 at 5:39:

   Tomi, in your defense, ALL analysts were off. That says more about the whole business of analysts than you personally, but it’s still a peculiar thing to notice, and worthy writing about. Thank you for taking the time to copy/paste your reply to everybody who linked to Daring Fireball, it indeed makes the store more interesting.