Why Apple is Doing So Well

When Apple says it made $1.67B last quarter on almost $10B in sales I don’t have to look any further than my desktop to see why.  I’m working on a two month old MacBook Pro, I upgraded to an iPhone 3GS in July and I’m viewing my early 2009 model iMac using “Back to My Mac”.  Yes, it’s people like me that help Apple amass these huge numbers.  You know, fanboys.

OK, so Tex just outed himself.  Big deal.  Three years ago I would have never imagined myself admitting to such frivolous behavior, but since I switched, I find my appetite for new and shiny Apple toys grows more ravenous by the month.  It's almost like I'm afraid someone will have a faster Mac with a bigger screen.  Sort of a geek penis envy kind of thing, I guess.  With numbers like the ones Apple just reported, I’m obviously not alone.  I only account for 2 Macs and an iPhone.  That leaves 2,999,998 Macs bought by others and 7,399,999 other iPhone suckers.  What the hell is wrong with us?

Yes, my Macs and iPhone are beautiful.  Yes, they run extremely well and are very easy to use, but now I’m lusting for a new quad-core iMac and I don’t even need one.  WTF?

Someone please stop me!

I’ve always considered myself a sensible person but this irrational need for anything new from Cupertino is a character defect that has me puzzled.  Am I suffering from the same malady as the little old lady around the corner with 22 cats?  I don’t remember getting excited when Dell or HP “speed-bumped” one of their models, but when Apple does it I immediately start rationalizing reasons to postpone my daughters tuition payment and task the FedEx man with one more trip to China.

I know Apple is winning over people left and right.  Repeat zealots alone can’t possibly explain  these numbers, but any company would love to trade their fans for Apple’s.  Has anyone ever waited in line outside a Gateway store for anything?  (OK, once, but we were trying to get into the club next door.)  The point is, Apple generates endless press for something as silly as redesigning a $19 remote.  These media guys wouldn’t write about it if they didn’t think us lemmings were going to lap it up.  I’m beginning to wonder if its even possible these days for Apple to release a product that flops.  Sure, there was the LISA and Newton, but those were introduced a number of years ago.  Recently even the lame AppleTV seems to be a viable business.  While not a big seller in Apple terms, I’ll bet Roku would welcome so many units sold.

The good news (and for purposes of full disclosure):  Being an ardent capitalist pig, I bought AAPL at $73 a couple of years ago so I’ve more than made up for what I’ve spent at Apple stores.  That takes a little of the guilt away.  Ain’t capitalism great?

Wow!  I'm feeling better.  Funny how a big fat profitburger heals wounds.

PS: Suggestion to all fanboys: Take some time to make light of your behavior.  That way you’ll be laughing with everyone else.

The MacTexan Podcast is Almost Ready

The MacTexan Man CaveI've been producing a podcast for my church for the past three years and decided it might be fun to do one for myself.  Why the hell not?  Every other blowhard in the world seems to be doing it.  Why not me?

As you can see, all the hard/software is in place, just working on an intro and a few web loose ends.

More to come...

Simplest iPhone/iPod Touch Jailbreak Ever: blackra1n

I love my iPhone and iPod Touch.  They’re terrific right out of the box, but spending $20-30 on a few productivity and travel apps have made them a nearly indispensable part of my daily workflow.  I’m one to never be satisfied though.  The geek in me recognized early on just how powerful the underlying technology is and the Texan in me got really pissed when Apple wouldn’t let me use it to its fullest potential.  Jailbreaking my devices has been the norm since two weeks after I purchased my first-gen iPod Touch.  The thought of some California vegan telling me how I can and can’t use my computer is enough to make me want to hack my devices even if jailbreaking had no other benefit whatsoever.  Shove the warranty if necessary, I just want to do things my way.  But I’m not here to discuss philosophies.

I’ve been playing the cat and mouse game with Cupertino since version 1.0 of the iPhone OS and never have I jailbroken any iPhone as easily and quickly as I did with blackra1n.  I was going to post instructions, but that is really a waste of time.  If you can click one button while your iPhone or iPod Touch is attached to either a Mac or Windows machine, you can jailbreak your device in about two seconds.  No big downloads, no time-consuming restores, just reboot your device and the blackra1n app is installed.  Tapping it gives you the opportunity to install Cydia, Icy, Rock and other app repositories of your choosing.  From there, its the wild west; freedom from Apple repression.  Sick it to the man!

I know, it’s a little melodramatic, but fun nevertheless.

So far I’ve used blackra1n to jailbreak my iPhone 3Gs, my iPod Touch 2G, iPod Touch 1G and my daughter’s iPhone 3G.  None were jailbroken at the time and all were running the 3.1.2 OS.  Now, all my idevices belong to me again.  By the way, I donated $25 for the great tool.  If you like it, you should too.