Volitility

That's a term that is used for the stock market during turbulent times. Yesterday the market bombed. I fortunately have some Apple stock and it did well. Actually, it was just making a come back from the day before when Apple stock tumbled. There were reports out that Apple didn't sell as many iPhones as projected in the first weekend. That cause the stock to drop. But then the very next day Apple reported record revenues for the quarter. The stock went up more than a whopping $6.00 a share.

I'm certainly no market analysis professional. I read a book by Peter Lynch, the Fidelity mutual fund guru. He said buy what you like. In other words, if it is a product you like and you buy the product and think others will, too, there is a good chance it will be successful. You don't need a professional investment firm to tell you that. I like Apple computers. I realize this is a bit simplistic. You do have to look at the numbers, too. Apple has a large cash position. They have no debt and even though the stock is ramped up right now, perhaps over priced, I think they are positioned to continue to grow and bring in revenue. Some caution is always a good thing when your money is at stake.

Mac OS X

I love Mac OS X. I think it is more than a niche operating system. When it first came out, I thought it was niche. I thought it would appeal to web developers, graphic designers and programmers. It does have a full set of unix tools. But the more I use it and the better it gets, I really think it should be more pervasive. Perhaps it still will become so. I have the opportunity to use windows where I work. When I get on a windows box, it just really makes me want to get back to my familiar os x box. I suppose that goes both ways. You like what you are familiar with. When you consider what you are missing on OS X it isn't a whole lot. Microsoft has given us .net and C# and from what I can see that is pretty sweet. the mono project has given mac users some access to that. Mac users don't have Internet Explorer, which could actually be a blessing. It would be nice to have it for programming and testing without having to run windows in some configuration. Mac users are second class when it comes to accessing the Exchange server platform. So we don't fit into a windows centric network as smoothly as I would like.

As a developer using a mac, we have Ruby, PHP, Perl, Python, Unix shell, java, cocoa, C++, and a variety of other languages. Programmers bring a lot to the platform. The amount of freeware and shareware applications for mac os x has grown to innumerable proportions. Running Mac os x is very smooth, too. I haven't crashed since 2005 estimated!

iPhone, iTunes and iPod

When the iPod and iTunes became so popular, I was worried that Apple may sort of lose interest in the Macintosh. And now the iPhone. Wow, what success they have had with these additional products.

I have no interest to own an iPhone. At least not at the cost level it is at. I just don't use a phone enough. I know it is much more than a phone. I remember Get Smart and Don Adams with the various phones. Belt phone, shoe phone, watch phone and handkerchief phone to name a few. I think it would be very cool to have all my contacts stored on it and the ability to skype somebody or IM somebody from it. Get a stock quote or a baseball score while out at a picnic. Pull up a Google map when you are lost and need to find some museum you are driving to in some vacation spot. I can see it as being the information device of the future. And even though I'm not interested in owning one right now, I know there are lots of people out there who would like one. There is a market for this device.

It is the right product for Apple to be building. Perhaps it will have a residual effect for the Macintosh. I'm sure it works better with a mac. People will want to put a mac on their network once they have it. It has been said that it will actually canibalize the ipod, since it is it's own music device. I'm sure Apple will be able to adjust their product supplies to make room for this high end device.

The market

I wish the market wasn't so volatile. I'm not ready to put my retirement money into a virtual shoebox.