Seconded.

You have to be a follower of the Apple community to appreciate this story from Paul Kafasis, but you’ll get a kick out of it if you are.

OK! OK! You twisted it out of me! I’ll tell you which iPad I’m getting!

God, you’re so nosey.

I’m not going to tell you which iPad you should get, of course. I’m not sure how anyone could really do that. Particularly with you. You’re so flighty. Like that time in college when you went paleo, pescetarian, vegan and then back up the spectrum until you were working at a slaughterhouse all within a week. Anyway, you have issues is what I’m saying.

As for me, I’m getting a 32 GB WiFi iPad Air. My iPad has been a third generation since they came out and for the last year I’ve been coveting my wife’s iPad mini. (I’m lucky it’s my wife’s and not my neighbor’s wife’s otherwise I’d be breaking twice as many Commandments.) The mini’s still a good size for gaming and it’s the perfect size for reading and, of course, you can use a keyboard with it and do some writing.

The only only problem for me with the mini is comic books. Yes, I love me some comic books and reading them on anything short of a 10-inch screen is tiresome. So, that is my deciding factor. Everything else I can do roughly the same on a mini — reading, writing with a Bluetooth keyboard, playing games — but reading comic books is a totally different experience as you’re forced to use the frame-by-frame navigation instead of reading the full page. Comic books weren’t meant to be read that way, my friends. You can’t do it. It’s against their nature. An unholy act. You’ll go to hell for even trying it. Straight. To. Hell.

Before the Air was announced, my plan had been to get a mini and keep my 3rd-generation iPad for reading comic books, which was not a great plan because then I’d have to stack devices on my nightstand. But given that Apple’s managed to shave almost a half a pound off the iPad with the Air, I’m all in on the Air.

I’ll also pick up either the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard cover or the Thin Type Keyboard for Belkin.

The 32 GB is just because I can’t fit on a 16 GB iPad anymore and WiFi because I don’t travel much so I’m content to tether to my phone, particularly now that I’m on Verizon. I’m sure they exist, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place that gets AT&T and not Verizon. That I know of. Heh-heh.

(?)

Anyway, there you go.

Seriously, I have no idea why you care about this.

I was a late addition to the most recent episode of Unprofessional, where Dave, Lex and I discussed food and some other crap, I guess. What, I’m supposed to remember everything?

Pretty good quarter. iPhone sales are up and even iPad sales were up a little, despite not having a new product launch and last year’s quarter being the one after a product launch. Mac sales are down but not as fast as the rest of the market, increasing Apple’s share.

On the conference call right now, Peter Oppenheimer noted that Apple would be deferring more revenue in the future on iOS and Mac devices to reflect the change to not charging for operating systems and iWork (a $900 million impact for the 4th calendar quarter). Hence, their guidance is flat for that quarter.

I’m a little surprised at the relative lack of concern over the fact that Microsoft is effectively leaderless right now. Part of this is because so many thought it was time for Ballmer to go. But think of the amount of virtual ink that has been spilled pondering the oh-so-concerning “news” that Tim Cook (are you sitting down?) is not, in fact, Steve Jobs.

Meanwhile, Microsoft doesn’t even have a CEO.

Yes, Ballmer is still ostensibly in charge, but he can’t make any decisions right now. Anything he does hangs under the threat that a new CEO will think differently. Yet, I continue to see pieces claiming that Microsoft has some secret winning strategy or inherent strength that will take it back to the top again. “Microsoft is huge in the enterprise” isn’t a strategy. It’s a moat. If Steve Jobs were alive and taking over Microsoft soon, their enterprise strength would be the thing he’d milk to gain time to figure out what the next great thing is going to be.

On a recent episode of The Talk Show, John Gruber and Marco Arment talked about Microsoft and how it’s not “cool” like Apple is. It’s a douchey topic to cover (which is upsetting because John usually has me on to cover the douchey topics), but it’s true with one exception I can think of: the Xbox. The Xbox is perceived as cool and it’s a failing of Microsoft’s culture that it continues to try to lead with Windows in the consumer markets. Very few people ever bought Windows because they thought it was cool. They bought it because it was compatible with what they had at work and because it’s what ran on the cheaper systems.

It is very hard for an outside CEO to take over an organization like Microsoft. Even if you’re good, internal forces are constantly trying to sabotage you. So I’m torn between thinking Microsoft should find an internal candidate or one from outside. An outside candidate might shake them of this “everything is about Windows” mindset, but an internal candidate might work from a great position of support. By all accounts they seem set on an outsider.

I think it’s interesting no one is suggesting the flip side to what everyone incorrectly said Apple must do in the 1990s. That is, what if Microsoft bought one of the floundering PC OEMs — Dell or HP — and ended licensing of Windows? I don’t think that’s necessarily good advice — I doubt it’s even possible because of contracts. I just note that I’m surprised I haven’t heard it because tech pundits love to talk about “bold moves”. The opposite wasn’t good advice to Apple and we heard it as late as 2006.

Increasing component costs and pressure to cut its prices mean Apple’s best bet for long-term success is to quit the hardware business and license the Mac to Dell, analyst firm Gartner claimed on Tuesday.

That was incredibly dumb advice at the time and it gets dumber as the years go on, threatening to form a singularity of dumbness that will travel backwards and forwards in time, consuming all in its path. How come Microsoft doesn’t get the same level of dumb attention?

I don’t think Microsoft is going anywhere. I mean that in two ways: 1) I mean they’re not going away and 2) right now they’re not going where the puck is going. They’re sailing somewhat aimlessly through increasingly margin-less waters. And the degree to which Microsoft’s investors, boosters and followers are OK with that is rather baffling.

Tim Kreider writing for the New York Times on being asked to write for free:

My parents blew tens of thousands of 1980s dollars on tuition at a prestigious institution to train me for this job. They also put my sister the pulmonologist through medical school, and as far as I know nobody ever asks her to perform a quick lobectomy — doesn’t have to be anything fancy, maybe just in her spare time, whatever she can do would be great — because it’ll help get her name out there.

I wrote a piece for TidBITS years ago for free because it was fun and quick to write, outside their normal serious technical coverage and, holy crap, I was writing for the guy who wrote the book that I used to get on the Internet the first time. I don’t regret that at all. But now I write for money and I’ve turned down writing pieces that I thought didn’t pay enough based on the amount of work it would have been and fact that the site was a well-known, for-profit venture.

A lot of this is a judgement call. Value your work. I’d write for free again for a friend, for fun or for a good cause, but this is my job now. If you’re making money off of it and expect me not to, fuck you, pay me.

Ben Bajarin:

The challenge with data is that the truth lies in the interpretation. Without context genuine data can lead to disingenuous conclusions.

Lots of interesting context in Bajarin’s piece, most notably that the greatest part of tablets taking share from the iPad are cheap devices made by a myriad of no-name manufacturers. And then there’s this:

Our research, and many others, suggests that over half of first-time purchasers of low-cost tablets had buyers remorse and intend to spend up on their next one.

Tell me again how Apple’s pricing is unsustainable. Apple’s not going to go over 50 percent again, but there’s no reason it needs to worry about that.

Kif Leswing, writing for Wired:

If there’s one major point of emphasis for Apple’s new desktop operating system, it’s battery life.

It’s kind of amazing how just adding the percentage of power being used as a column in Activity Monitor reminds you that that thing you’re using? Yeah, it uses power.

Apple’s had a long-running beef with Adobe’s Flash, but the reason isn’t corporate politics. It’s because Flash kills batteries dead.

Remember that fuss about Flash? Glad that’s over.

Terrific animations in this update to my go-to Twitter client. Shawn Blanc has a quick look at it.

And if you complain about a $2.99 price tag then you don’t deserve nice things.