What a difference five years makes

More changes are coming in the online space, but this is a good indication of how where you stand is not where you are going.


Today, a story about the shift the past 5 years toward mobile and iOS (iPhone/iPad, etc) devices. The media site Talking Points Memo has put up the statistics on who looks at their content and from what kind of operating system. Windows has dropped a lot. Mobile devices are booming.


And 3/4 of mobile "views" are on iOS (apple-ish) devices.

Putting it all together:
"So give or take, around 40% of the visits to TPM come from computers or devices that use an operating system built by Apple. Compare that to 20% only 5 years ago."

As I recall, 5 years ago, I had a Palm TREO, which I thought was quite the device. Today, an iPhone 4s, which is a remarkable phone and computer that is also made of beautiful but very slippery glass. I still own a powerful Windows computer which I hardly fire up at all any more.

Anecdote is not data, but things are changing. Thing is, they always have been changing. The next five years will have a new story, to be sure.

Believe in Spring - Thanks, Steve Jobs

On my facebook page (and on twitter) on August 25, 2011, I posted a special NPR story and marvelous video of the 2005 Reed College Commencement address from a very nice Bob Boilen blog about Steve Jobs.  It was the week of the announcement of Steve Jobs' retirement from Apple, and Bob Boilen, who chronicles interesting music for NPR, was taking special note of how Jobs had changed the way that we listen to music.

Steve Jobs was born not too many years before me and his perspectives on life, challenges and living are valuable to me.  His vision and persistence (even if wrong or "right" too early), too.

The Reed College Commencement speech at Stanford is a wise investment of 15 minutes.



When I got the news of Steve Jobs passing tonight (Ocober 5, 2011) I sent a message to my eldest son (who works for Apple), later we chatted.  When the call was over, up fades my audio on my iPhone.  I hear the last bit of a "THIS WEEK IN TECH" podcast....  

up next in queue in my iphone/ipod, Bill Evans/Tony Bennett:

When lonely feelings chill the meadows of your mind,
just think, if winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Beneath the deepest snows, the secret of a rose
is merely that it knows you must believe in Spring!


Just as a tree is sure its leaves will reappear,
it knows its emptiness is just a time a year,
the frozen mountain dreams of April's melting streams,
how crystal clear it seems, you must believe in Spring!


You must believe in love and trust it's on its way,
just as the sleeping rose awaits the kiss of May,
so in a world of snow, of things that come and go,
where what you think you know, you can't be certain of,
you must believe in Spring and Love.

 YOU MUST BELIEVE IN SPRING  1968
     Lyrics by: Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman
     Music by: Michel LeGrand


Steve Jobs had ups and downs in his life, in his career, many springs in the cycle of seasons.   He made a difference, as we all can in our own way.

To change the way we listen, to encourage us to listen - and for so much more -

Thanks, Steve.

Radio? It's in there

Just a quick observation on the September 9, 2009 announcement by Apple that the new iPod Nano will have an FM Radio tuner.

(A radio that can pause, it needs to be noted).

An FM radio has been a feature that iPod users have wanted for years. It is also a feature that is waiting for the iPhone.

Back when the 2009 version of the iPhone was released, the site ifixit did their "what's inside" look.





And the folks at phonewreck did an analysis of the logic board on the iphone.




If you look at the block diagram, the lower left hand part of the image, the chip marked "Wi-FI and Bluetooth Tranceiver" also happens to have an FM tuner built in. In the iPhone, on the logic board.

It's in there.

Now for those of us hoping for HD Radio in an iPhone or iPod the way it is in the new Zune, that may well come another day. But just 76 years after Edwin H. Armstrong invented FM, it's in an iPod. And the chip for it is in "the phone."