History of iPhone 4S

 

 

Nothing about 2011 was normal for Apple. Tim Cook had introduced the Verizon iPhone 4 at the beginning of the year and Apple had finally shipped the white iPhone 4 by spring. But unlike previous years, WWDC 2011

came and went with nary a mention nor a glimpse of a new iPhone. Steve Jobs went on medical leave again, and in August resigned as CEO. On October 4, 2011, Apple's new CEO, Tim Cook,

senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, and other executives took the stage at a special media called "Let's Talk iPhone". There, they introduced the most amazing iPhone yet. The iPhone 4S.
The next day, October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs died.
That the people involved in the presentation had been able to get through it at all is a testament to their professionalism and resolve. Yet they had a company to run and their biggest product launch of the year to complete.

iPhone 4S plus iOS 5 plus iCloud is a breakthrough combination that makes the iPhone 4S the best iPhone ever. While our competitors try to imitate iPhone with a checklist of features, only iPhone can deliver these breakthrough innovations that work seamlessly together.

Previously there had only been about a year between different iPhone models. They launched every June or July from 2007 to 2010. In 2011, however, all that changed.The holidays had traditionally been Apple's best sales quarter and for many years it had been anchored by the iPod.

Every September Apple would announce updates and every holiday season customers would buy them in droves. But the iPod had begun to be replaced by the iPhone — which Apple called the best iPod — and the iPad.

In addition to providing the time needed to ready iCloud and Siri, moving the iPhone to September once again put Apple's biggest product in the anchor position.
The iPhone 4S, codename N94 and model number
The iPhone 4S, codename N94 and model number iPhone4,1, like the iPhone 3GS before it, kept the same basic design as previous year's model. It was the beginning of a tick-tock pattern that lasts to this day. For the iPhone 4S, it meant the same 960x480 326ppi Retina display and IPS LED panel.
The iPhone 4S also kept the same composition as the iPhone 4, with two layers of chemically hardened glass sandwiched on either side of a stainless steel antenna band. The antenna band itself, however, was improved. It had the same configuration as the Verizon iPhone 4, but Apple split it into two components and enabled it to intelligent switch between transmit and receive to avoid attenuation and detuning both. Even while on a call. While CDMA EVDO Rev A data speeds had already been maxed out, Apple boosted the UMTS/HSPA speed to 14.4mbps. (Unlike AT&T, however, they initially refused to mislabel it as 4G.) The new Qualcomm RTR8605 chipset was dual-mode, however, so even the Verizon (and later Sprint) CDMA models could work on GSM internationally, making the iPhone 4S Apple's first "world phone".
Wi-Fi stayed the same at 802.11 b/g/n on 2.4Mhz, but aGPS was augmented by Russian GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System). While near field communications (NFC) was prototyped internally, it didn't make it into a shipping product. Instead Apple was making a big bet on the future of Bluetooth, quickly moving to Bluetooth 4.0 with support for both high-speed (HS) and low-engery (LE) modes.
The iPhone 4S processor got a significant boost as well — a version of the Apple A5 system-on-a-chip (SoC) that debuted with the iPad 2

earlier in the year. The A5 featured a dual-core Cortex A9 central processing unit with Imagination's dual-core PowerVR SGX 543MP2 graphics processing unit. Apple claimed a 2x general speed improvement and a 7x graphics improvement.
The new power enabled features like AirPlay mirroring, which let the iPhone project its interface to the Apple TV,

 

and Siri, which replaced the previous Voice Control feature with a full-on virtual digital assistant feature powered by natural language, and a Pixar-like personality.
Unfortunately, network issues plagued Siri at launch. Originally an app on the App Store, Apple had acquired the company and team behind it in April of 2010. Since then they'd been working on integrating it into iOS. The debate as to whether or not to release Siri with the iPhone 4S was rumored to have lasted up until just before event day. It was a complicated piece of technology. Key parts of the voice system were licensed from Nuance, which put them out of Apple's direct control, and Apple historically had less expertise in services than they did in hardware and software. It all resulted in multiple points of pain for Apple and for customers, and would take almost a year to rectify.
An infrared sensor was added to enable Siri's raise to speak feature, but otherwise the sensors remained the same. Apple stuck with the same 512MB of RAM for the iPhone 4S, but did introduce a new 64GB storage option. The battery got a slight improvement as well, up to 1430mAh. It resulted in 8 hours of usable battery life for 3G talk, but a reduction in standby time.
The front FaceTime camera retained the same, paltry VGA sensor. The rear iSight camera, however, got a lot of attention. It was increased to 8 megapixels and 1080p. The backlit sensor was improved, the aperture brought to f2.4, and made wide angle to capture more of a scene. Apple also added a 5th piece of glass to the assembly to increase sharpness, and an infrared filter to improve colors. The bigger news was the ISP (image signal processor) in the Apple A5 processor. It took the images captured by the camera and provided facial recognition for more specific automatic focus, and post-processing for much better white-balanced, stabilized, photos and video. It did, however, seem to find macro focus more of a challenge.
Pricing again stayed the same, starting at $199 and $299, with the new, larger capacity model sliding in right on top at $399.

The cross-roads of technology

 

The iPhone 4S launched on October 14, 2011 in the U.S., Australia, Canada, the U.K, France, Germany, and Japan. It reached 70 countries and 100 carriers by the end of the year. On launch weekend, it sold 4 million units. Phil Schiller, via Apple:

Phone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days. iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.

As usual, it was meant as the first iPhone for new customers, or an upgrade for iPhone 3GS customers coming off contract (albeit a few months late). Although there were some who felt the upgrade wasn't big enough or visible enough, in general reviews were excellent.
Andy Ihnatko for the Chicago Sun Times:

The iPhone isn't hands-down the greatest phone in the world. A handset is too idiosyncratic a device for any sort of "one model fits all" statement. The camera has been improved in a way that makes for better photos, not for better appearances on a feature comparison chart. Siri's goal isn't to give the iPhone mere parity with the voice control features of other phones; it's to create a new paradigm for mobile phone interfaces.

John Gruber on Daring Fireball:

This is the easiest product review I've ever written. The iPhone 4S is exactly what Apple says it is: just like the iPhone 4, but noticeably faster, with a significantly improved camera, and an impressive new voice-driven feature called Siri.

Yours truly on iMore:

Again, I can't help but come back to Steve Jobs, the man whose vision and singular will drove Apple to create the future of consumer electronics, device by device, app by app, culminating in the iPhone 4S announced just a day before his passing.
Like Jobs did, it stands at the juncture of technology and liberal arts, powerful and yet accessible, capable and yet beautiful, incremental new hardware brought to life by ambitious new software.
It's certainly not the device for everybody, but increasingly the iPhone is the device for most people.

The iPhone 4 was great, but had paid the "Retina tax" when it came to performance — that processor trying to push that many pixels. The iPhone 4S once again brought performance back up, and rounded it out with valuable new features.

Samsunged

 

 

By 2011, HP was destroying webOS from within, Windows Phone was still struggling to find its place in the market, and BlackBerry was wasting their time with the ill-fated PlayBook project. Android, however, was exploding. For differentiation, some went to faster 4G LTE before Apple, though it shredded battery life, even when larger bodies (and the screens to go with them) were used to mitigate against the power-hungry chipsets. That would eventually lead to screen size itself as a differentiator.
Though the iPhone finally made it to Verizon in February of that year, all those years of exclusivity on AT&T had created tremendous opportunity for something that could be sold as "close enough to an iPhone" for people who really wanted an iPhone but just couldn't or wouldn't leave Verizon. That something was Samsung's Galaxy S line, which copied the iPhone look-and-feel down to icon design and colors, and out to USB cables.
In April of 2011, Apple sued for patent and trade-dress infringement.

Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products.

Apple claimed Samsung deliberately copied the iPhone (and iPad) to benefit from the marketing and consumer confidence Apple had worked hard for years to attain. While Apple didn't sue Google directly over Android, sentiment at Apple was basically that they'd been partners with Samsung in manufacturing and Google in services, had taught both how to make modern, iPhone-class smartphones, and then watched in horror as both betrayed them and turned from partners into competitors.
Where Microsoft was content to settle for licensing fees from almost all Android manufacturers, Apple was not. By virtue of their patents, Microsoft wanted to make Android more expensive, Apple wanted to make it less attractive. Apple had spent years and a fortune creating what they considered to be an intuitive new way to interface with computers and while the result was obvious the work taken to achieve it was arduous. People on the project had given up their lives and time with their families to realize it. Creating the iPhone had cost them dearly and seeing it copied so casually infuriated them greatly.
Business was business, but Apple and Steve Jobs took it personally. They'd been there before, after all, with Microsoft, the Mac, and Windows. They'd lost the PC market, they felt, because of it.

I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this. [...] I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want.

Google claimed Apple would rather litigate than innovate. Unfortunately for Google, Apple was intent on doing both. Hypocritically for Google, their Motorola acquisition would come with plenty of lawsuits all its own, lawsuits Google didn't abandon, and lawsuits over standards-essential patents — those pledged under fair, reasonable, and non-descriminatory terms and necessary to access data networks for example — whose litigation resulted in anti-trust investigations due to their abusive nature. Samsung likewise retaliated with standards-essential patents, with Apple arguing both companies wanted access to Apple's proprietary patents in exchange.
That Samsung slavishly copied Apple while ramping up their own product line is indisputable. Product after product bore unabashed, unmistakable similarity to Apple's. The question was whether or not the copying was illegal. If it was, Samsung would be on the line for billions of dollars in damages. If it wasn't, Samsung would have brilliantly jumpstarted their way to smartphone dominance on Apple's dime.
Tim Cook, who took over as Apple CEO following Steve Jobs' passing in October of 2011, initially held the line on the lawsuits.

Tim Cook said he doesn't like litigation, but he also doesn't like other companies using what he feels are Apple innovations to sell competing products. Cook also took it a step further, saying Apple cannot become the developer for the world.

At the same time, Samsung began to launch a massive marketing campaign, targeting Apple exactly where it hurt — in brand perception and general "coolness" factor. Their market share grew and grew.
Samsung eventually lost a $1 billion verdict to Apple in the U.S. but other lawsuits and counter-suits around the world have been abandoned. Apple and Samsung remain manufacturing partners and Apple and Google remain services partners but their relationships remain strained.

Five years later

Steve Jobs was gone, but his greatest product, Apple, remained. The iPhone 4S entered a market facing greater, more relentless, and savvier competition than ever before. Still, it established the iPhone as Apple's new holiday product, and it once again sold more than any iPhone before. It was a painful, combative, heartbreaking year for Apple, but they endured. And more than that, they had a plan...

History of iPhone 3G: Twice as fast, half the price

At WWDC 2008 on June 9,

after finalizing the details of the upcoming App Store, and summing up the original iPhone's achievements, the late Steve Jobs dove into the next challenges Apple had to face, the next mountain they had to climb. On the surface, they were obvious even before Jobs bulleted them on stage — 3G, Enterprise, third-party apps, more countries, and more affordable. The software changes came as part of iPhone OS 2.0. The hardware, iPhone 3G.
 

Just one year after launching the iPhone, we're launching the new iPhone 3G that is twice as fast at half the price. iPhone 3G supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync right out of the box, runs the incredible third party apps created with the iPhone SDK, and will be available in more than 70 countries around the world this year.
The iPhone 3G, codenamed N82

and model number iPhone1,2, had the same 3.5-inch screen at 320x480 and 163ppi as the original. The cellular radio, however, received a significant update to support 3G UMTS/HSPA networks. That allowed for a much faster — theoretical — 3.6 mbps data transfer. Jobs claimed it was faster — 36% faster — than other leading 3G phones of the time, including the Nokia N95

and Palm Treo 750

, even while rendering a better version of the web.
The Dock connector remained, but Apple changed some of the pins so it no longer supported charging over FireWire, which rendered some accessories incompatible. It had the same Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi as well, but added an aGPS (assisted global positioning system) chip for more precise location services.
As the model number suggested, however, Apple didn't consider the iPhone 3G as full, next generation update. It was the first model, take two. That was probably due to the chipset remaining the same, an ARM-based Samsung 1176JZ(F)-S

processor and PowerVR MBX Lite 3D graphics, with 128MB of RAM that was already showing its age and limitations. So were storage options, at 8 and 16GB for NAND Flash

. Sensors and camera likewise stayed the same. Curiously, the battery dropped to 1150 mAh, though not at the expense of battery life.

History of iPhone 4 

Steve Jobs returned to the WWDC keynote stage on June 7, 2010. He'd introduced the iPad earlier in the year, and kicked things off with an update on how it, and the App Store had been doing (spoiler: Well!). Then he turned his attention to iPhone, and after recapping everything Apple had done to date, he began on what would come next. It had over 100 new features. It has an all-new design, an all-new camera, and an all new screen resolution. It was hot. It was the iPhone 4

iPhone 4 is the biggest leap since the original iPhone. FaceTime video calling sets a new standard for mobile communication, and our new Retina display is the highest resolution display ever in a phone, with text looking like it does on a fine printed page. We have been dreaming about both of these breakthroughs for decades.
The iPhone 4, codenamed N90

N92

and model iPhone3,1, for the first time, offered significant improvements to the display. Apple went with optical lamination and an in-plane switching (ISP) panel with light-emitting diode (LED) backlighting. It made images look as if they were painted just beneath the glass, and greatly improved the viewing angle. Moreover, instead of matching competing display sizes of the time, they leap-frogged over them. To boost pixel count yet maintain compatibility with existing apps, Apple doubled them both horizontally and vertically, but kept the physical size constant at 3.5-inches. That took them from a resolution of 480x320 to 960x640, and the density from 163ppi to 326ppi. Apple made the argument that, at that point, the pixels disappeared. They called it a Retina display.

It was part of a completely new design, although one that had not been kept a complete surprise (see below). Steve Jobs called it beautiful and it was, something akin to Braun and Leica. Those were aesthetics Apple's senior vice president of design, Jony Ive

, held in the highest of esteem. It was flat, chemically-hardened glass (aluminosilicate) front and back, with a stainless steel band running around the sides, and it was 24% thinner than the iPhone 3GS. It would come in black and white, though the former far sooner than the latter (see below).

The impact of job loss on family mental health

 

One of the worst things that can happen to people is getting fired from a job with no notice whatsoever. It can be devastating to lose your source of income unexpectedly, especially in a contracting economy. Losing a job can color our perspective on the world and our future. Going forward, we have a difficult time allowing ourselves to ever feel secure again. We believe that things can change in an instant and that we might be suddenly out of a job again. This fear of sudden job loss is something that many people who have been terminated from jobs carry with them throughout their careers. The goal for all of us is to be in positions where we are secure, and to keep that security. Recently, I saw the movie American Beauty again. When I first saw the movie I was younger; I didn’t really understand the importance of what was going on, and how it applies to everyone in the working world. In the movie, the protagonist is fired from his job. In response to this, he decides he wants to simplify his life and he takes a position in a fast food restaurant–which is far beneath the sort of job he had been fired from. He takes this job, the viewer is led to believe, because he wants to go back to a simpler, happier time in his life, and have again that feeling of empowerment and security from his youth. His goal is to find that stability in a world that had grown dark and uncertain around him.

Stability and certainty are so important to many of us that we often settle for far less than we could have simply because we want that security. We settle for worse jobs than we could get, we settle for less pay than we could earn. Simply stated, we settle because our cost benefit analysis of the world tells us security is more important than pay, job satisfaction, or status.

Several weeks ago, I wandered into an impossibly expensive bed store in Beverly Hills with my wife (where some beds cost as much as $50,000) and when I asked why someone would spend so much on a bed the salesperson told me that we spend one third of our lives there. However, we spend far more than one third of our lives at work–or thinking about it. Furthermore, if we do not work, we cannot even afford a bed! Therefore, work is one of the most important aspects of our existence.

When you add up everything we do in our lives, whether it is participating in a church or synagogue, spending time with friends or family, or engaging in various hobbies-you will quickly discover that most of our time is spent working. Work may be the predominant activity in our lives, whether we want to admit it or not, and, more importantly, if we do not like our work, we are probably not enjoying life.

Have you ever spent time with people who hate their jobs? This is practically all they talk about. Not liking their jobs makes people depressed or angry. Being around people who hate their jobs is a miserable experience. I remember growing up in Detroit, where many of my friends’ parents would come home at the end of the day from jobs they hated. They would walk straight to the liquor cabinet, pour a drink, and, after 20 minutes or so, begin complaining to their spouses about how much they hated work, or about some slight they received from their boss that day. Several hours later, a loud argument might even break out between the parents. This process would be repeated day after day. Even at the age of seven or eight, watching this process taught me that not liking one’s job was a huge problem.

Sometimes it takes a child’s mind to see what is really going on in the world. I remember writing reports about Russia when I was around seven or eight. The major conflict in the world that existed up until the 1990s was the threat of communist Russia against the United States. We were afraid of communism, but, in reality, communism is nothing more than an economic system wherein people are given jobs and told exactly what to do. They are paid less by the state but, in exchange, they receive security. In the United States, capitalism is built on a lack of security. You have your choice of jobs, but it is up to you to find security within the capitalist system. Entire civilizations have been built on the quest for security.

In the United States, a giant strike was going on in late 2008 between the machinist union at Boeing and the company. The company was demanding the right to outsource certain work, and the workers were demanding security in their jobs. This fight cost the company $100 million a day. At the same time, similar conflicts between unions and automobile companies were having far-reaching implications for the American auto industry.

The fight for security is all around us.

When a man loses his job, you will usually find him in a bad mental state. Sometimes the man will stop shaving. He may look confused. He will fight with his wife more and snap at people around him. The stress of not having a job, or feeling a lack of purpose, can quickly bring on emotional problems. When people are having emotional problems, a psychologist or doctor may prescribe drugs or treatment, maybe wanting to talk about the person’s parents, for example. Most often a better solution would be to look at how the person’s job is going-or how their lack of a job is affecting them. Fix a person’s career and most other things often quickly fall into place.

If security is so important, how does one go about finding it in a job? People get college educations, professional degrees, and do everything within their power to make themselves attractive to employers so they will have security. People rehearse interviewing so they can get a job. People attempt to go into industries or work in sectors with presumed security, whether they are in government, real estate, medicine, or law. Every industry out there has been presumed to be secure at one time or another. However, all of them involve some level of instability.

Best of Formula Offroad Extreme Hill Climb!

History of iPhone: Apple

On January 9, 2007 the late Steve Jobs put sneaker to Macworld stage to give one of the most incredible keynote presentations of his life — a life filled with incredible keynotes — and in the history of consumer electronics. There, he said he would be introducing a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet device. But it wasn't three products. It was one product. We got it. It was the iPhone.

 

It was  rare enough, Jobs said at the beginning of his keynote, to revolutionize even one product in the history of a company. Apple had already revolutionized the personal computer with the iMac and the personal music player with the iPod. Next was the phone.

After setting up and knocking down everything from the physical keyboard and stylus pens that dominated BlackBerry, Motorola, and Palm smartphones of the day, Jobs went over the multitouch interface that let the iPhone smoothly pinch-to-zoom, and the delightful interface that included touches like inertia and rubber banding in the scrolling, and the multitasking that let him move seamlessly from music to call to web to email and back. Apple:

iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone. We are all born with the ultimate pointing device—our fingers—and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.

Technology alone isn't enough

The original iPhone, based on the P2 device of the Project Experience Purple (PEP) team, code named M68

and model number iPhone1,1, had a 3.5-inch screen at 320x480 and 163ppi, a quad-band 2G EDGE data radio, 802.11b.g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, and a 2 megapixel camera. It was powered by an ARM-based Samsung 1176JZ(F)-S

processor and PowerVR MBX Lite 3D graphics, with an 1400 mAh battery, and had 128MB of RAM on board, as well as 4GB or 8GB of NAND Flash storage. The iPhone could also be charged — and importantly, synced to iTunes — the same 30-pin Dock connector as Apple's already exceedingly popular iPod.
The iPhone also included several sensors to enhance the experience, like an accelerometer that could automatically rotate the screen to match device orientation, a proximity sensor that could automatically turn off the screen when close to the face, and an ambient light sensor to automatically adjust brightness.
The iPhone software, under the auspices of Scott Forstall,

was equally impressive. Led by Richard Williamson's mobile web group, the iPhone launched with a relatively full version of Safari, based on the exact same WebKit HTML rendering engine that powered the desktop version on the Mac. They also created the best mobile YouTube and Maps implementation ever seen on mobile. Nitin Ganatra's native apps team covered more than half the screen with colorful, functional icons as well, for everything from SMS to Mail, Camera to Photos.
What the original iPhone didn't have was CDMA

and EVDO

rev A network compatibly. That meant it couldn't work on two of the U.S.' big four carriers, Verizon

and Sprint.

Not that it mattered; the original iPhone was exclusive to AT&T. It also lacked GPS, or support for faster 3G UTMS/HSPA

data speeds. In addition to no hardware keyboard or stylus, the iPhone also didn't have a removable, user-replaceable battery. None of that pleased existing power users of the time. Nor did the absence of an exposed file system, copy and paste or any form of advanced text editing, and, critically to many, support for third party apps. Likewise, since the iPhone had a real web browser instead of a WAP browser, which was required to display carrier-based multimedia messages, the original iPhone didn't support MMS either.
Then there was the price. The iPhone debuted at $499 for the 4GB and $599 for the 8GB model - on-contract. Those prices weren't unheard of at the time; early Motorola RAZR

flip phones were pricey in their day as well. However, it meant Apple couldn't penetrate the mainstream market.

  Only much more

OnJune 6, 2007 Steve Jobs again took the stage at Moscone West, this time for Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, again showed off the original iPhone, and announced the launch date: June 29, 2007.

At Apple Stores, especially flagship stores like the glass cube in New York City, lineups formed and people waited for hours. It was an event. The novelty and experience were so good, many people simply didn't care about missing features or high price tags. Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret of The Wall Street Journal

Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

Ryan Block, former Editor-in-Chief of Engadget:

It's easy to see the device is extraordinarily simple to use for such a full-featured phone and media player. Apple makes creating the spartan, simplified UI look oh so easy -- but we know it's not, and the devil's always in the details when it comes to portables. To date no one's made a phone that does so much with so little, and despite the numerous foibles of the iPhone's gesture-based touchscreen interface, the learning curve is surprisingly low. It's totally clear that with the iPhone, Apple raised the bar not only for the cellphone, but for portable media players and multifunction convergence devices in general.
On September 5, 2007, at Apple's "The Beat Goes On" music event, Steve Jobs announced they were dropping the 4GB model

entirely, and dropping the price of the 8GB model to $399. Apple:

"The surveys are in and iPhone customer satisfaction scores are higher than we've ever seen for any Apple product," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We've clearly got a breakthrough product and we want to make it affordable for even more customers as we enter this holiday season."

On February 5, 2008, at the they introduced a 16GB model. Greg Joswiack, vice president of Worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing at Apple

:

For some users, there's never enough memory. Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world."

There was still no subsidized price, even on contract, but there was movement.

Competitive contempt

While the iPhone certainly wasn't universally adored, the entrenched incumbents in the smartphone space were some of its harshest critics. That was, after all, their job. Ed Coligan, former CEO of Palm:

We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.

But they did, and precisely because they weren't making a phone that was smart, they were making a PC that could make calls. Palm figured that out too late, struggled to launch the excellent webOS, ended up being sold to another set of PC guys — HP — and then discontinued and licensed to LG for use in TV sets. Maybe.
Steve Ballmer, now retiring CEO of Microsoft:

You can get a Motorola Q

for $99. [...] [Apple] will have the most expensive phone, by far, in the marketplace. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.

Apple reduced price, first total and then, thanks to the subsidy model, up front as well, making it competitively priced, and its market share grew steadily. Ballmer was correct, at the time, but failed to foresee the future. Now he's leaving Microsoft as their mobile phone platform has become a distant third place.
Mike Lazaridis, former CEO of RIM (now BlackBerry):

Talk -- all I'm [hearing] is talk about [the iPhone's chances in Enterprise]. I think it's important that we put this thing in perspective. [...] Apple's design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality. I think over-focus on one blinds you to the value of the other. [...] Apple's approach produced devices that inevitably sacrificed advanced features for aesthetics.

Yet it turned out consumers valued design and experience so much, they eventually forced iPhones into enterprise, beginning the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) movement. It was Lazaridis' insistence on hardware keyboards and data compression as primary consumer demands that lacked perspective. And now he's gone and BlackBerry remains years behind, struggling to catch up.
None of them realized the game had changed, and none of them would respond for years to come. Ironically, the only company that did realize what had happened, and was able to spin on a dime, wasn't a competitor at all. At least not yet...

One year later

By June of 2008, when Apple discontinued the original iPhone — later to be nicknamed the iPhone 2G

— total sales had reached over 6 million units. That was on four carriers in four countries. But its impact was felt far beyond those numbers or borders. And it was just beginning... history continues.....

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Five Ways APIs Can Streamline Business Operations

When we think about application programmer interfaces, if we think about them at all, we conjure up images of Google Maps integration and mashup sites that pull together data from multiple web sites such as Craigslist and, well, Google Maps.

APIs are about more than just consumer web sites and experimental tech sandboxes, however. While Salesforce.com generates 50 percent of its revenue from its APIs and eBay 60 percent, according to ProgrammableWeb, businesses also can use them internally for improved operations.

In fact, APIs already may be moving away from public use and toward a model of privately sharing data, according to Deloitte Consulting’s Tech Trends 2015 report.

API success story Netflix now sees roughly 99.97 percent of its API traffic between services and devices. What was once a tool for reaching new audiences and creating mashups has become a driver for enabling overall business strategy and efficiency, according to Deloitte. This is underscored by the discontinuation of the Netflix public API program last June. For Netflix and other firms, APIs are a way to improve business operations.

There are many ways that APIs can improve operations, according to David Sisk, Deloitte Consulting director and co-author of the chapter on the API revolution in the Tech Trends report.

“Look for opportunities in areas where there is significant volumes of transaction, high degree of human interaction, or information coupled with process that enable value,” he says.

Here are five places to start when considering how APIs can streamline business operations at your company.

1. Break down operational silos

APIs can be packaged and repackaged as a mixture of current and new data sources to break down the silos of networks and data, a move that can improve operational nimbleness.

“Organizations are often built around data ownership,” says Sisk. “Where data can be shared, it should be.”

For example, businesses can improve sales operations by mixing data from several departments. APIs can bring together live CRM data, customer support, and inventory and buying propensity data in the case of sales, for instance.

Field service personnel also can use APIs to grab logistics, location, inventory, outage/failure and customer data, a merging of otherwise siloed data that can increase customer satisfaction and reduce response times.

2. Better promotional programs with partners

APIs can enable businesses to better share promotion-specific data with partners in real-time, which can cut down on fraud and deliver a better user experience to customers.

“Today, client promotional programs are increasingly complex,” says Jeffrey Schaubschlager, the senior vice president of digital services for marketing and promotions firm, Young America. “A single client program is likely to have multiple API connection points to ensure we are able to securely access program-specific information, such as a list of active promotion codes or eligible products, real-time, to validate and verify submission information.”

Through using APIs to automatically share data, customer service also can be streamlined for these promotions.

“Due to APIs, we’re able to give promotion participants real-time information about the status of their offer approval and can even provide information into why they haven’t qualified versus waiting for a mail-in entry to be processed,” Schaubschlager says.

3. Increased automation

There was a time when office work largely was about paper pushing, which is another way of saying that moving around business data was not automated. With APIs, businesses can greatly reduce the manual component of moving data among systems.

“The current system and website paradigms require a human to integrate the systems by looking at the screen and typing information retrieved from one system into the other,” notes Sisk. “APIs enable communication directly between computer systems, lowering the need for human involvement.”

This automation saves time, improves operational speed, and of course cuts down on human error.

Automatically modifying data is one area where businesses should think about API use internally; APIs can cleanse, standardize and append data entering a business system.

4. Bridge the gap with legacy systems

APIs can manage the interaction between legacy systems such as procurement, financials and personnel and the fast-moving front-end applications such as mobile apps, analytics and businesses exchanges.

While businesses cannot always immediately update their legacy systems to react to changing market conditions, they can bridge the gap by connecting the data from legacy systems with the newer technologies through an API.

5. Enable more self-serve data use

Amazon is famous for its internal API use, and Jess Bezos once purportedly said that he would fire anyone who didn’t expose corporate assets to others in the company through an API.

So much of a business is now founded on data, not making data easy to use and share internally is a significant waste of corporate resources. APIs enable better use by making it easy for teams to access and work with company data.

Self-serve also can play a powerful role with partner relationships.

APIs enable companies to quickly integrate data or services from a business into their own business processes and products. At the same time, control and usage is retained.

“Think outside of the box when it comes to self-service,” says Sisk. “The status quo has been disrupted in a significant number of businesses that didn’t see APIs or new business models coming.”

Like any good set of building blocks, API use to streamline business processes is only limited by the imagination. Forward-thinking companies are thinking hard and coming up with new internal uses for the technology.

                Story of the Crystal Skulls

An old native American legend describes the existence of thirteen ancient crystal skulls, the size of human skulls, with moveable jaws that were said to speak or sing.

The legend tells that these crystal skulls contain important information about some of the great mysteries of life and the universe. They contain knowledge about the past history of our species on this planet, and information about mankind’s true purpose and future destiny.

The Cherokee version of the legend says that there were originally twelve planets in the universe inhabited by human life and that there was one skull for each of these planets, together with a thirteenth skull which was vital to reconnecting all of these worlds.

The legend also says that one day, at a time of great need, all of these crystal skulls will be rediscovered and brought back together to reveal their information vital to the very survival of the human race.

But the legend also warns that when that time arrives mankind must first be sufficiently developed, suitably evolved both morally and spiritually, so as not to abuse this great knowledge.

When we first heard this legend, whilst visiting the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala, we considered it merely a colourful story, until we found out that a real crystal skull had actually been discovered on an archaeological dig in Central America, way back in the 1920’s.

The Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull

Frederick Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959)

was your archetypal British adventurer-explorer; a member of the Maya Committee of the British Museum and a real Indiana-Jones type character determined to make his mark in the twilight years of the British Empire.

He was of the opinion that the cradle of civilisation lay not in the Middle East, as is commonly supposed, but instead he was convinced that Atlantis was a real civilisation which had disappeared after some natural catastrophe.

He believed that the remnants of this Atlantean civilisation could still be found somewhere in Central America, and he was determined to prove it.

To this end, he gathered together a party of explorers who set sail from Liverpool in 1924 bound for British Honduras (now Belize). One day, deep in the jungle, his party stumbled upon some mounds of stone overgrown with moss and foliage, and suffocated by roots and vines.

So they set fire to the undergrowth. When the fire had subsided the ruins of a once great city emerged from the flames.

It was a place known to the local Mayans as ‘Lubaantun’ or ‘The City of Fallen Stones’, and it was in this lost city that Mitchell Hedges’ adopted daughter Anna found a magnificent and perfect crystal skull, buried beneath an altar in the ruins of one of the great temple-pyramids.

                                         

The Mayan helpers on the dig went wild with joy on the emergence of the skull. They seemed to recognise it. They kissed the ground crying, placed it on an altar, and performed ceremonial rituals and dances around it.

But what was this mysterious object and did it have anything to do with the ancient legend?

The crystal skull is a mystery as profound as the Pyramids of Egypt, the Sphinx, the Nasca Lines of Peru, or Stonehenge.

Ever since its original discovery the crystal skull has been the source of much archaeological controversy – nobody seems to know quite how old it really is, how it was made, what it was used for, and where it originally came from.

All that is known for sure is that ever since it emerged from the temple ruins, the most incredible claims have been made about the crystal skull and there have been a whole host of reports of strange and unusual phenomena surrounding the skull.

As mentioned above, Anna Mitchell-Hedges

Although the crystal skull was found on what most archaeologists consider to be a Mayan site, Anna Mitchell-Hedges and many others like her believe that it is actually much older than this, and that it belonged to some mysterious pre-Mayan civilisation that has now long since disappeared from this Earth.

is the woman who first uncovered the crystal skull as a teenager back in the 1920’s.

The crystal skull has been valued at several millions of dollars, but it is far more than just an expensive and exotic ancient artifact.

For, over the years, people have reported all kinds of strange and unusual experiences in the skull’s presence. In particular, it is said to have incredible ‘psychic’ and ‘healing’ powers.

According to Anna Mitchell-Hedges, who passed away at the age of 100 in 2007, it is thanks to the ‘healing power’ of the skull that kept her alive. She said that all through her life the skull kept her in good health and happiness.

                                             
The skull, she said, ‘protected’ her and ‘communicated’ with her all through her long life, and she is not the only person to have reported such experiences.

Anna allowed many visitors into her home and she accumulated hundreds of letters from the many people who came to her house to sit with the skull and who claim to have been ‘healed by the skull’ or that it somehow ‘communicated’ with them. Many of those who have spent time alone with the skull claim to have seen or heard things in its presence.

Many say they have seen a gentle glow, like an aura, extending around the skull, or that they have heard sounds, like the soft chanting of human voices, emanating from it, such that it has now earned the title ‘the talking’ or ‘singing skull’, just as in the old legend.

Others claim to have seen things inside the skull. When they have sat with the skull for a long time it has started to present them with images, almost like watching a bit of cinema film.

Hundreds of visitors attest to having seen incredible images from the past or the future deep inside its crystalline structure. The reports include images of ancient sacred sites, with ceremonies being performed beneath great pyramids.

Others say they have seen whole periods of planetary history with great shifting of continents, the rising of sea levels and destruction of land masses, and geological cataclysm on a global scale.

One of the most commonly reported images is considered by many to be the holographic image of a UFO appearing within the crystal skull – and this has even been photographed! This image in particular has led many to suggest that perhaps the crystal skull has some kind of strange unearthly origin?

But, just as the ancient legend suggests, this is not the only crystal skull to be discovered. Several other crystal skulls have since come to light. All are of mysterious origin and all are surrounded by claims of strange or unusual phenomena and tales of inexplicable, paranormal powers.

Max, the ‘Talking’ Crystal Skull

A woman named Joann Parks, 

 who lives in Houston, Texas, also has a crystal skull. She, too, claims that her crystal skull has the power to heal and can communicate with her telepathically.

The story of how Joann Parks came into possession of her crystal skull starts with a very sad story. In 1978 Joann’s eldest daughter, Diana, was diagnosed as having bone cancer and the conventional med  medical doctors gave her only three months to live.

                                                                                Joann turned to the help of a Tibetan Lama and healer named Norbu Chen. This man owned a crystal skull, and with the help of this healer and his crystal skull, her daughter managed to live for a further three years.

When her daughter eventually died, the healer gave Joann the crystal skull, telling her nothing about it except that he had originally received it from a Guatemalan shaman and that one day Joann would understand it and know what it was for.

Not knowing what to do with it, Joann put the crystal skull in a box in the bedroom closet. A few years later the skull started to appear in her dreams. Then it started “speaking to her,” saying that it wanted out of the closet.

She tried to ignore this ‘voice’ but it started “talking to her” at all times of day, saying “You must let me out of this closet.

I am important to mankind,” and “I will be remembered.” Joanne thought she was losing her mind and even spoke to her family doctor about it, but the voice just wouldn’t go away, and so she eventually found herself sitting in the bedroom closet “talking to this lump of rock” and telling it to go away, saying “Just leave me alone skull!”

She slammed the skull away in a case and pushed it to the back of the wardrobe, but as she ran back down the stairs the skull kept talking to her.

“It was very persistent,” explained Joann and it was determined that I take it out of the closet and “tell mankind” of its existence. It even added that, “By the way, my name isn’t skull, it’s Max!”

And since that time Joann has been showing the skull all over the United States where she says “Max has now spoken to and healed many people.”

The skull had also told Joanne that it came many thousands of years ago from a civilisation far in advance of our own, and from a dimension different from our own, and that one day soon this is something mankind would understand!

What can we learn from the other crystal skulls that have now been discovered? Recently a massive crystal skull turned up at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington under very sad and mysterious circumstances.

It had been sent through the post by an anonymous donor whom it transpired had taken his own life, apparently on account of the ‘curse’ the skull had brought on him since it came into his possession.

The British Museum also has a crystal skull which is kept in The Museum of Mankind, just off Piccadilly Circus, in London. Like the Mitchell-Hedges specimen, this skull is made from highly transparent crystal and displays an incredible degree of anatomical accuracy.

This skull has been in the museum’s possession since 1898 and is reported by staff to have been seen moving around by itself in its sealed glass case. The museum’s cleaners are said to be so frightened of this skull that it has to be covered by a cloth before they will go anywhere near it.

Where did this skull come from?

The British Museum have always considered their skull to be of Aztec origin. The note accompanying the Smithsonian skull also said that it had once belonged to the mighty Aztecs of Central America.

Anna Mitchell-Hedges and Joann Parks said their skulls are at least as old as the ancient Mayan civilisation of Central America, if not far older and perhaps of extraterrestrial origin.

The ancient Aztec and Mayan people built up highly developed civilisations in an incredibly short period of time. These civilisations appeared as if from nowhere and the Mayan civilisation, just as suddenly, mysteriously disappeared.

Many archaeologists are baffled as to where they got their advanced knowledge from and why they suddenly disappeared.

All the evidence that remains of this civilisation suggests they were great watchers of the skies and the heavenly bodies. They were great scientists, mathematicians and astronomers. They had a complex calendar based on the movements of the planets and the stars and which they used to predict the future.

They were able to predict eclipses, even ones they could not see and that were happening elsewhere in the world. They even managed to accurately predict eclipses that have happened recently – over a thousand years after their own civilisation mysteriously disappeared.

Some researchers claim the Mayan records say their people came from Atlantis and their ancestors before that ‘came from the stars’. The Mayan civilisation was also obsessed with the image of the skull, which made up an important part of their sacred, divinatory calendar.

Modern Fakes?

Many archaeologists, however, unable to explain the strange phenomena associated with the crystal skulls, claim they are simply ‘modern fakes’.

So how old are the crystal skulls and where did they really come from? Are they modern, Aztec, Mayan, or did they come from some other civilisation altogether?

In an attempt to try to answer these questions, Anna Mitchell-Hedges loaned her skull to one of the world’s leading computer companies, Hewlett-Packard, for rigorous scientific testing.


The scientists in their crystal laboratories were completely unable to determine the age of the skull, as crystal cannot be carbon-dated. But what surprised the scientists was that both the skull and its detachable lower jawbone were made from the same massive piece of pure, natural rock crystal.

As crystal is only slightly softer than diamond, this finding was truly incredible.

The scientists concluded that even with modern diamond-tipped power tools, it would have been impossible to carve such an object without it shattering.

At first they thought the skull must have been made by hand using sand and water to slowly abrade the material over several generations – a process they estimated must have taken around “300 man-years of effort!” But soon they were forced to revise even this conclusion.

For when the skull was examined under intense magnification the scientists were in for an even bigger surprise – they were completely unable to find any evidence of tools having been used to make the skull at all! A fact which led one member of the team to comment:

“This skull shouldn’t even exist!”

The crystal skull challenged all conventional opinion. Here was an object that simply defied explanation. It showed no evidence of any existing technology used in its construction, no evidence of tool markings either ancient or modern.

But the scientists at Hewlett-Packard said they were simply not prepared to countenance the only alternative explanation – that the skull had not even been made by humans.

The scientists other interesting discovery was that the skull had been made from precisely the same type of quartz now used in modern electronic equipment. Modern science has established that among the unusual properties of quartz crystal is its ability to hold under control electrical energy and to oscillate at a constant and precise frequency.

In other words, the crystal skull is able to hold electrical energy – potentially a form of information – and send out vibrating impulses – or waves of energy information. This is why quartz crystal is used for the ‘brain cells’ of electronic equipment such as watches and computers.

The silicon crystal chip inside a computer, for instance, is where the information is actually stored. This finding raised the distinct possibility that the crystal skulls are in fact some kind of information storage system, just as the ancient legend suggests.

But what might that information be, and where do the crystal skulls really come from?



The Legend of the Crystal Skulls

Native Americans have long believed in the power of quartz crystal. They refer to quartz crystals as “the brain cells of Mother Earth” and have traditionally used them for healing.

The crystal skulls have long been a part of Native American teachings but until now they have been forbidden to speak about them. Now, they say, the time has come for them to speak out about these amazing artefacts and to reveal their secret knowledge.

Professor Paula Gunn-Allen of the University of California is of Laguno Pueblo origin. She specialises in Native American literature and is well versed in the mythology and oral history of Native America.

According to her the crystal skulls were created by beings “who are not humans like we are.” She says the crystal skulls were designed specifically for the purpose of communication with extraterrestrial life.

As she explains, “What they are is transceivers – devices to help us communicate with the other quadrants of the galaxy.”

She said that we might think of them “as like telephones” that get you connected with Galactic Central and enable you to stay in touch with “civilisations beyond our littie bitty modern world.”

Native American medicine woman Jamie Sams says that “the crystal skulls contain information about our own ancestors, about our own past and our own future that will very soon change the whole way we see ourselves, our world, and our true place in the universe.”

According to Metis Cherokee medicine man Harley Swiftdeer,

the full version of the legend of the crystal skulls says that there were originally twelve planets in the universe inhabited by human life; that there was one skull for each of these planets, and a thirteenth skull which was vital to finally reconnecting all of these worlds.

According to Harley Swiftdeer and other native Americans, the crystal skulls were brought to this Earth as “gifts from the gods” – brought long ago by these beings from elsewhere in the universe.

These crystal skulls contained the wisdom necessary to found civilisation on this Earth and when all thirteen crystal skulls are brought back together again, we will have finally found the key to reconnecting with our brothers and sisters elsewhere in this beautiful universe.