With Apple shares down more than 20 percent from their all-time highs of only a few weeks ago, writers are piling-on about what’s wrong in Cupertino. But sometimes writers looking for a story don’t fully understand what they are talking about. And that seems to me to be the case with complaints that Apple is too far behind in adopting 5G networking technology in future iPhones. For all the legitimate stories about how Apple should have done this or that, 5G doesn’t belong on the list. And that’s because 5G isn’t really about mobile phones at all.
Just to get this out of the way, I see Apple shares currently presenting a huge buying opportunity. A good Christmas quarter will regain that lost 20 percent, and I don’t see any reason why Apple shouldn’t have a good Christmas quarter.
Back to 5G, I ran across this story about Apple being at a disadvantage to Samsung and others when it comes to introducing phones with 5G support. The gist of the story is that Apple is waiting for Intel to finish its 5G chipset while the other vendors are sticking with Qualcomm’s part that is already available. So Apple’s first 5G iPhone won’t appear until 2020 while Samsung’s will be out in 2019.
Apple and Qualcomm are in a $5+ billion legal dispute over claimed royalty evasion and IP theft, so it shouldn’t be surprising that Apple is trying to find alternate silicon suppliers. And Intel is somewhat delayed in its 5G roll-out. That all makes sense. But where I have a problem is with understanding how Apple is somehow at a strategic disadvantage by not having 5G in 2019.
5G networks aren’t here yet. They are close to being ready, but won’t start rolling-out until next year and most 5G networks won’t be available nationally until 2020 — just about the time Apple will be shipping its first 5G iPhone. So Apple’s a little behind, but not much really given the network build-outs still to happen. It’s hard to see much of a story here, frankly.
But it’s actually worse than that, because this story presumes that 5G support is somehow vital to mobile phones. It isn’t.
The first iPhone had 2G networking at a time when 3G networks were emerging, so we’ve been here before. But what’s different this time is that there’s little functional difference between 5G and the current 4G LTE (Long-term Evolution) networks we currently use.
Yes, there are myriad technical differences between 5G and LTE. 5G is way faster — at least 20 times faster than LTE. But the important question to ask here is why that speed difference matters for mobile phone users? It doesn’t. 5G is no killer app.
Remember that a killer app is an application so valuable to users that it justifies by itself buying the hardware upon which it runs. The original personal computer killer app was VisiCalc — the first spreadsheet.
What, then, does 5G enable mobile phone users to do that they can’t do today? I can’t think of anything. Sure, 5G will have us sharing 20 gigabits of bandwidth where LTE allows us to share just one gigabit, but what do we do that actually requires that kind of speed? Nothing.
I have a T-Mobile LTE portable WiFi hotspot that always gives me at least five megabits-per-second and I’ve seen speeds of up to 27 megabits-per-second. Both speeds can support, for example, streaming video at the highest resolution my phone can offer. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube — they all run flat-out already. What more is 5G going to offer me?
The traditional argument in this case is that we can’t know until the network is actually up and running at which point some developer will give us a compelling new class of app that does, in fact, need that kind of bandwidth. Only this time I don’t think it is going to work that way because, as I said, 5G isn’t actually about mobile phones at all. It’s about infrastructure.
The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum. Much of this spectrum has been bought-back by wireless carriers from TV license holders. We’ll see this trend continue over the next decade or so until there will be no over-the-air TV left at all. At that point you’ll still be able to watch all the same TV, but it will be over 5G, instead.
The wireless carriers are paying billions for this spectrum not just to takeover TV carriage from broadcast — they want to take it over from cable, too. They fully expect to destroy cable TV over the next 15 years, taking not just TV viewers but also the even more important Internet users.
The whole idea behind 5G is that it will allow the wireless carriers to totally eat the lunches of wireline telephone, cable and Internet service providers while also supplanting broadcast TV.
5G is truly the one network that will rule them all.
Wireless carriers fully expect to turn traditional TV networks into content developers while putting traditional phone and cable companies simply out of business.
All networking will be wireless and truck rolls will end forever. No more cable guy.
This is pretty much inevitable. I remember explaining it to a crowd of PBS programmers in a meeting at Sundance back in 2002. Back then the network was spending $1.8 billion rolling-out digital HDTV and I suggested saving that money, selling the spectrum outright, and moving service first to cable and then to the Internet, using the money saved from both sources to endow PBS effectively forever. They thought I was crazy, when in fact I was only somewhat ahead of my time.
I’m sure there will be bandwidth-intensive mobile apps that take good advantage of 5G, but I doubt that any will be game-changing. Retina-type mobile displays long ago reached limits of perceivable visual difference, which is why phones had to get so big. You can make the display 4K, 5K or even 8K and on a phone it will look all the same. We can up refresh rates, I suppose, but anything beyond 144K (for those of us who aren’t teen gamers just 60K) is also beyond our physical ability to perceive as different. Or maybe we’ll have some type of retinal scan display that puts a 100-inch 8K 3D screen directly in our eyeballs, but I seriously doubt even that will require bandwidth much beyond LTE given that silicon will also improve and, along with it, video compression software.
Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones?
See, they aren’t too late at all.
I always thought Apple was company that sells overpriced refrigerators to Eskimos.
[…] … I just have to read more. […]
Will the MineServer come with G5?
Great read. Cringely once again proving to be one of my favorite newsletters!
So while 5G changes nothing really, it changes everything – it’s the end of all data cables, everywhere.
Finally, another brilliant newsletter.
One of the 5g selling points is low latency, which might enable some killer apps. And even after that actually happens, low latency itself doesn’t mean much to the public.
“But sometimes writers looking for a story don’t fully understand what they are talking about.”
.
Bob, why do you need to call yourself out like this? …but seriously, you do this all the time; I wouldn’t go throwing any rocks if I were you.
5G will be great in areas that have dense population like New York City or Los Angeles. Eventually smaller cities will also benefit. The problem is the towers are expensive and the requirement for more of them since the coverage area per tower is smaller. This means that most of America will never see the benefit of this miraculous new service. I work in places in Pennsylvania where cell service is so poor now, that DSL is still th dominant way to get Internet. Some people aren’t so lucky and the best they can do is a 56k modem on a land line. Getting 3G service would be an amazing upgrade for the people in these areas.
Ummm, I think that 5G will make driverless cars/trucks/helicopters/people movers inevitable. The killer app is removing drivers, insurance companies that insure those drivers, and putting automobile repair shops out of business. That’s what will suck down the bandwidth, not a cell phone app. That is my prognostication for the next 5 years.
5G does not really need tons of steel in towers. it helps for distance. but one feature of 5G topband spectrum is short distances, which means you can put little radio cubes on light poles every mile or so and build a network that way. small towns will typically not have buried power, so a handful of cheaper cubes can power it up for data. assuming, of course, you can get Big Ass Trunkage in there.and that’s still going to be the rub for rural service. fiber and big routers are not cheap to run or light up.
one downside is the high spectrum is easily blocked, rained out, etc.millimeter is gone when a dense fog rolls in.
Where you say “144K” and “60K” in reference to refresh rates, did you mean 144 or 60 *Hz*? “K” is not a term I’m familiar with…
5G is a major step change compared to 4G . . . with 4G you can support thousands of sensor devices. With 5G you can support hundreds of thousands, so you can allot use cases such as asset tracking, smart cities
Plus holographic calls for business calls, might reduce the requirement for international business flights
The 5G backhaul is certainly not “all … wireless.” 5G is the key technology supporting the connected car, automobile emergency rescue systems, IoT, AR (until phone silicon becomes powerful enough to handle it all on-board), and remote sensing—to name a few of the new things coming soon. Although it’ll be nice to have 5G phones, it is true that perceived speed will seem much the same (in the blink of an eye, as for most things now using LTE/LTE-A). You’re right about 5G displacing cable and terrestrial digital TV in cities and those operators should be worried.
A major commercial test of what it can do will be the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The unspoken effect of this is broadband cost. Will this enable multiple local providers to bring back competition to ISPs? With most areas only having no more than two ISPs, additional providers could dramatically affect prices.
As an escort I can say with good authority there isn’t one journalist who knows what they are talking about when writing about the sex industry whoever they are. I cannot remember journalists being very reliable with IT either. Almost all journalism is fence sitting and disaster management. Journalists are very bad at predicting the future if for no other reason than it’s not them squeaking the bedsprings of commerce.
You can tell a lot about men by how they treat their lovers. I have clients at senior management/consultant level and international clients too. I usually learn what really matters to them and almost all of this is never discussed by the media. None of them care about Apple or Qualcom. Almost all are concerned with telecoms reliability and bandwidth availability whether its reducing the changes of a signal dropping or having higher fidelity communciations. In fact my whole escort business is based on my clients getting what they want when they want it and a three dimensional experience and as my bank account knows clients will spend what it takes.
Protip: Somebody give Tim Cook a hand job or he’ll never finish.
I’m sure Bob is right, except the part about Apple. Consumers will be bombarded by ads telling them 5G is the latest thing they’re supposed to have. That’s likely to make Apple look bad until they catch up.
Speaking of 5G, compare the archive link with the current:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180823124848/https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363244/the-problem-with-5g
https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363244/the-problem-with-5g
There’s already a killer app out there: the death of asymmetric up/down net plans.
There’s a commercial out there lately by at&t that begins talking about the power of tech but ends up being just about at&t kissing its own ass.
The tech is that the dad and his daughter get to have a FaceTime chat with their mom who is enlisted overseas. And that at&t gives discounts to servicemen and first responders.
Here’s the key tho: dad and daughter can see mom in >24fps and at least 480p, where, because of at&t’smtypical <10kbps upload speed, dad and daughter come across like a typical Skype call across town (in other words, like shit)
With 5G, directionality goes away. Right now, symmetrical internet plans are for businesses and are slow and expensive, but with high QoS.
With 5G, if it lives up to the hype and people come to depend on new uses that require it, the internet would feel less like a roadmap and more like an “as the crow flies”.
Maybe that’s a bad analogy. I also think of 5G as analogous to ipv6: everything works better, but everything still works the same
5G does not offer a significant gain in spectral efficiency over 4G LTE Advanced. And some of the advancements are already being implemented with 4G, further reducing the gap. For carriers that are keeping up 4G advancements, 5G probably isn’t going to offer a noticeably large jump in performance like we noticed when switching from 3G EVDO to 4G LTE.
Most of the hype surrounding 5G is with the 6Ghz+ small cells. But it remains to be seen how much of an impact those networks will really make. Frequencies 20Ghz+ are less than ideal for mobile devices. The networks may be able to compete with home broadband, but it won’t blow existing technologies away. NG-PON2 already tops 5G and will naturally replace GPON. DOCSIS 3.1 is competitive with future advancements on the way. Or MSOs will just replace the last mile with fiber. The only real losers are probably going to be the Telcos who don’t deploy fiber.
With 5g your home router will be the choke point. But wait, are we talking about Apple or 5G? I am confused.
Great article. Apple always seems to be the media’s favorite for “doom and gloom.” The 5G rollout will be interesting to watch given all the hype. WiIl it supplant TV in it’s various flavors? enable the IoT? Who knows.
The key, I think, will be two-fold – speed and cost. Consumers always want and appreciate faster speeds. We’ll find things to take advantage of and even require more speed. BUT people are getting a little tired of the monopoly pricing games the cable and telcom companies have been enjoying. We need serious competition and the resultant reasonable cost structures for consumers. Only then will 5G really transform our digital society.
[…] But what’s different this time is that there’s little functional difference between 5G and the current 4G LTE (Long-term Evolution) networks we currently use. Remember that a killer app is an applicat… ( read original story …) […]
Never mind 5G, I live in the middle of Silicon Valley (not B.F. Egypt), and would be satisfied if I didn’t run into some dead spots on AT&T’s network. (Fry’s Palo Alto location on Portage, for one)
It’s true that 5G is about much more than mobile – it’s going to be the end of tearing up streets or stringing cables on poles for the cable companies, or the ever-larger companies that will own the cable companies, at least in metro areas. Already satellite covers 95-99% of consumers here in the U.S., but that is very asymmetrical. There is very little upload from the consumer endpoint, and none in the vast majority, except over accompanying landlines at DSL speeds. There will be more consolidation in this space, from Comcast and AT&T to acquire more consolidated territory, and from smaller landline and cable companies that simply won’t be able to compete.
As far as Apple and Samsung, they’ve already hit a bit of a brick wall as far as device sales go. The annual cycle of equipment refresh is pointless, and consumers have largely realized that, voting with their pocketbooks. The newest iCrap isn’t compelling enough to generate sales, and the last two generations of Galaxy are likewise. Incremental improvements, for sure, but many have sat out the refresh, because they simply don’t need it. A two-year cycle would make more sense. Apple and Samsung both have wasted money trying to market phones that look just like the last one. Apple in particular, the so-called innovation leader, ran out of steam long ago. Tim Cook simply is not a visionary. He wants to come off as one, but to me Apple looks like IBM in the late 1990’s, bloated and gassy. Endless variations on the same theme, think iPad, iPhone, iWatch, do not display innovation as they once did. I’m certainly not interested in spending $1700 on an iPad, and more than a grand on a phone? Give me a break.
trashtalk: Thanks for the laugh, that was a great post!
Bob: good article.
Mineserver trolls: Just shut up already!
Will 5G make mesh networking practical?
There’s nothing currently wrong with Apple’s stock price that isn’t also wrong with the entire stock market. But somehow analysts are saying it’s Apple’s specific problem?
Got my popcorn ready and came for the mineserver comments. Come on guys, don’t let up now!
Nothing in here about the potential health effects that may come with 5G and all the other things being added to our telephone poles.
@ Foggyworld Not in Bob’s article, but I provided 2 links in my previous comment. One is the original 5G article by John Dvorak (that got him fired and was pulled from the PCMag website), the other is a PCMag article to which it now redirects. Both are interesting.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180823124848/https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363244/the-problem-with-5g
https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/363244/the-problem-with-5g
Wow. Does this mean that the big wireless outfits now own Pcmag? What a substitution!
Yes, the original iPhone was 2g, while 3g was being rolled out on networks.
What you seem to have forgotten Bob, is that the original iPhone had HUGE problems, because it was chewing up all the data AT&T could feed it on the old 2g network.
Selling a 5g phone before the 5g network is rolled out, means that get you a “free” upgrade to your phone as the network gets rolled out wider and wider. So having the feature in your phone in advance is actually a pretty solid selling point. It’s called future-proofing. Allowing you to buy a phone in 2019, that will still be useable in 2020 and beyond.
Of course encouraging you to buy phones every year or two is kinda Apple’s business model now.
There’s little doubt that 5G to the home will come, and it will be excellent for streaming video and general surfing. But the question is what will the latency be? Gamers won’t tolerate big latency numbers. I was in a World of Warcraft pick-up group a few years ago where the tank had EarthLink wireless. The group wiped over and over again because he was so slow to respond. Turns out he had 1200ms latency, ten times longer than the worst of the rest of us.
@trashtalk: you certainly have a knack for livening things up. I was forced to basically quit reading the comments here, on account of the mineserver trolls. If you’re one of them, you definitely bring a better game than most. I was inspired to search out all of your contributions here and found them diverting.
I do have to take issue with your claim that Pournelle dead is more interesting thay Cringely alive… Pournelle went off the rails, hard, when Obama got elected, and frankly he’d gone quite a while without having anything interesting to say before that. Cringely on the other hand does occasionally still come up with something worth reading, the present post being a case in point.
When they can make tornado proof towers and poles, service that doesn’t get interrupted or dropped, service that works seamlessly all the time 24/7/365, that we take it for granted like breathng, that’s when I’ll be satisfied.
No more tiered service, no more advertising, as we now experience it, everyone gets same excellent quality, they can make money from content (and subsidies as people petition government to ensure everyone has same access to content, that’ll be a future issue)
@Kevin: How much are you willing to pay for it? You can get whatever you want if you have the money for it, and if not, service providers have no reason to give you what you want if you’re not willing to cover their expenses for it.
After reading this article, I started doing some googling on 5g-FWA, and to my pleasant surprise found that Verizon is already doing a small trial: https://www.fiercewireless.com/5g/verizon-goes-after-cable-50-month-fixed-5g-service-at-300-mbps
@Adam Luoranen: Actually money cannot buy everything. I won’t sell my self-respect and dignity for money nor will I accomodate anything unethical or unjust. I do my best to the best of my abilities for my clients but I also have my limits whether they be client requests outside my competency or I’m simply not in the mood for them that day. Now I won’t presume to know a clients a business or boss a client around but clients have shared work and life and sometimes relationship issues. Not every client wants my input or choses to listen but some clients enjoy our conversations more than the sex and some clients have valued my input. I feel that escort like a lot of jobs is one of those whereif you take a client simply for the money then this is asking for trouble. Professional standardsand consent do matter. Last but not least I don’t want a bad client giving me a headache which puts me in a bad emotional place so other decent clients suffer. Sometimes you just have to say “No”. This may surprise some people but I decline on average atleast three quarters of prospective clients for these reasons.
>A good Christmas quarter will regain that lost 20 percent,
This is dumb. It explains why you constantly have to pump up the stocks you buy.
Still waiting for Blockbuster to use IPods to rent movies.
Am surprised you didn’t put Apple branded TVs into this article.
@trashtalk: I know you’re doing your usual commentary (and like most people here, I do enjoy reading it), but at the risk of giving a dorky answer to a provocative assertion, I don’t think you can apply the same emotional reasoning that is inherent in an industry like yours to the technology industry, or any other industry. You are in a fairly unique industry where you’re selling yourself as a person; essentially, you are the product being sold, and so there are certain ethical considerations to be made which hardly apply in any other industry or product market. So yes, I agree with everything you said, but when I say “You can have anything you want if you have enough money”, I’m mostly talking about physical goods, not escorts or prostitutes.
“I don’t see any reason why Apple shouldn’t have a good Christmas quarter.”
.
Ooh, does that mean that Apple will be bringing the MineServer to market?
@Adam
Selling my body for money is a physical thing. I am my own product dongle and the marketing and sales of this including tilting branding towards preferred markets and avoiding timewasters is no different from any other business. Some businesses only sell products direct to governments or have export restrictions so unavailable for general purchase. Other products are only available to invite only customers.
I do agree you make a valid point about ethical considerations. The same is true to a degree with “artistic rights” where international copyright law recognises that an artist can withhold or withdraw permission where their artistic integrity is at stake.
@roger
Speaking of Mineserver I had a call from a prospective new client today. I won’t discuss the details but when I declined him at the last minute he couldn’t handle it. After he pestered and I kept cancelling his calls I decided to indulge one. During his squabbling he claimed to be a male escort and wanted a personal experience with me before leaving town. I’m yeah whatever about this. He insisted and said he had an escort profile and I told him I didn’t care and wasn’t interested in seeing it. The thing is I’m ruthless about avoiding difficult clients and timewasters and scams. Nothing felt right about this from the beginning. Maybe I did lose money but I never count it as lost money. It’s was money that was never there. I’m feeling curious about this call but as the saying goes “curiosity killed the cat”. I’m not so curious I wanted to call him and see his cards in person assuming the whole things wasn’t just a fantasy in his head or a phishing attempt or worse. Almost all experienced escorts will be familiar with the issues. Filtering and security checks are part of the job and you get good at it because you have to.
The way I see it is Cringely goofed. He either doesn’t have the business skills of people who do this for a living or was just playing out a fantasy. The obligation is on Bob to decide which.
There’s more to 5G than the gadget in your hand. Bob says its infrastructure. There’s a company that’s on top of the infrastructure tech, but might also lose bigtime. They eat with chopsticks in Huawei’s lunchroom, so fear and madness will overcome technical competence.
@trashtalk: In a way, your business is not that different from the business of luxury or limited-run goods. You can’t compare yourself to something like an iPhone because Apple really doesn’t care who buys their iPhones, and Apple is happy to sell as many of them as possible as long as people have the money to buy them. But buying an escort is more like a limited-run good: The seller has a sentimental and moral interest (if not a financial interest) in ensuring that the product ends up in the right hands, and therefore reserves the right to withhold business to customers whom they deem unfit for a product of such refinement or who wouldn’t take care of the product. If you’re selling the world’s most valuable diamond, you wouldn’t necessarily just sell it to the person who bids the most money; you would want to make sure that it ends up in a setting worthy of its value. I get it, it’s just a world rather far removed from the day-to-day tech world, as most technology products are commodities which are by no means in limited supply and which companies just want to sell for money, without any sentimental or ethnical restraints. (In a nod to your usual penchant for double entendres, I might note in passing that your work probably involves occasional use of restraints of an entirely different nature.)
To sum up your story about the guy who claimed he was an escort: When someone wants to get you to believe something, they will promise you everything. They’ll promise you the sun and the moon from the sky if they think it’ll help you believe them. And then when push comes to shove (yes, another potential pun there), you’ll realise that it was all hot air, and that they’re empty, in every way possible.
@Roger,
Even though it has been several years since the Min server project was kicked off. Apple would never use technology that is less than 5 years old and proven. Mineserver meets neither of these requirements.
@Adam
I don’t make these sector differentiations but I hear what you are saying and it’s fair comment.
At a work level I aim for the girlfriend experience and only go as far as tie and tease. Anything more graphic than this opens the door to lifestyles and people I don’t want to mix with. I don’t do BDSM or pornstar experience. Yes I can do the style and like other styles too like trashy MILF togged up in satin and suspenders but only as a style not a practice. I would only go further than this with a regular client I knew and felt comfortable with as a performance on the basis that it was a sex fantasy not a lifestyle choice or psychological reality. This reminds me. I have a pair of new fluffy stilletos I haven’t worn for clients yet.
I’ve had a few clients who will boast and say anything or act like they are the wounded victim but see through this very fast and they become “not clients” very fast or in some cases “never will be a client”. I tend to be reactive with sex. This means sex is very dependant on what my clients are like as men. I usually find I have the best and most enjoyable sex with decent and intelligent men.
This week has been havoc.Sex is a seasonal thing plus we’re nearing payday. I have a queue of new clients wanting to see me and some of them are almost tripping over their own feet with lust. Glancing at Apple’s annual conference cycle I have a suspicion these cycles loosely match up. Cinema releases and retail are also in the mix. We are all vying for the same money without treading on each others toes. Age is a factor too and I certainly notice younger men are chasing after the over the Autumn. I personally try to avoid clients under the age of 30 and favour older men as older men are by and large less bother. For the rare client with ED I’ve never failed to perform the Indian rope trick on him. The novelty and excitement of seeing an escort obviously plays a role but I take care to allow them to feel relaxed and sexually dominant which I believe does their confidence a lot of good. At no point do I lose control or allow a man to dominate me and if this happens they will stop being a client and find themselves thrown out hence my verification processes. An escort friend has had trouble and she gets lots more no shows than I do because her verification processes aren’t so tight and she attracts the kind of men who just want a fuck. It can be a cesspit out there but this is typically BDSM clubs or swingers nights where sex is available for free and includes people who couldn’t get sex even if they offered to pay for it because no escort in town will see them.
As much as I would love every client to bea wine and dine billionaire with a jet and private island and an account at Harrods most clients are not. Most clients are ordinary men with ordinary jobs and ordinary lives. Some are real sweeties who respect me with intelligent conversation or who take time to appreciate the work I put in looking good and value me as a person or who bring me gifts of chocolate or wine. Without the money we would never be together but for a moment we can forget it is about money and just be two people together having a lovely time.
I guess this all boils down to do men want a phone which is obsolete by next year or a fuck they will remember for the rest of their lives.
“The whole idea behind 5G is that it will allow the wireless carriers to totally eat the lunches of wire-line telephone, cable and Internet service providers while also supplanting broadcast TV”
Bob, I understand your reasoning on this and maybe some day it will come true, but my engineering/technical “gut” tells me this is just not likely in the near future. In terms of quality, reliability, durability, robust-ness, resistance to interference……hard wired connections always beats wireless, at any point in the connectivity trail. (case in point: it’s still pretty obvious, as soon as you answer or place a call, to tell whether the peron you’re talking to is on a landline or a cell phone, isn’t it?)
Furthermore, you ARE aware that many providers are in the process of replacing their existing old-school copper cabling with fiber-optic all the way up to house connection, at least in urban/suburban areas? I can’t see any wireless technology, let alone 5G, competing in bandwidth or quality with that. I also can’t imagine why so many providers would be moving ahead with these ultra-expensive fiber-optic cable replacement projects if they thought that 5G was going to replace or reduce the need for cable as drastically as you claim (and yes I do realize that the fiber-optic will also be used for backhaul connections from the 5G towers).
Another point that gives me pause is that in some areas (at least around here) alot of the providers are both wireless AND wire-line telephone, cable and ISP’s…..AT&T, Verizon, etc. I don’t see such a great attraction on their part to eat their OWN lunch.
So, while I do agree with you that 5G really is about infrastructure, and there’s no doubt that all providers are committed to installing that infrastructure to enhance cellular service, I think it’ll be quite a ways off before 5G will be a sufficient presence (at least in the U.S.) to serve as a replacement for the wire-line based seervices. My two cents….
Gee, I kinda wish trashtalk had her own blog…
I had my own blog then took it down. As Cringely knows it takes a lot of energy to produce compelling content. I know some clients liked it but men can never give a serious opinion when thinking with their dick. I also had the odd reader who liked reading my blog and never turned into a client. It narked me some guy was whacking off and I wasn’t getting paid for it. I also like to write about everything but sex and writing about nothing but sex was doing my lid in.
The funny thing is you could fuck me for what it cost to put money down on a Mineserver and have more to show for it after. At least you’d have a fuck out of it. $30,000 would also keep me in make up and clothes and the odd boob job and photographer for a long time too.
Speaking of which I read China owns much of the tech 5G is dependent on. Slashdot totally bypassed Cringely on this story. Maybe he needs to sex things up a bit too?
I think I know one of the killer apps for 5G already: full-immersion VR conferencing. You don’t just see the people you’re talking to on a 2D surface, you see them as a 3D model in the VR or AR environment.
Only thing it needs that we don’t already have in our portable devices is a couple more cameras to get an all-around view.
-jcr
If it’s even slightly true or obliquely true that “China owns much of the tech 5G is dependent on”, they probably stole it. By the way, please don’t ever get an odd boob job. An old friend of mine did and she was very unhappy.
I find most men don’t care what size my boobs are when my skirt rides up and my top is unbuttoned. The funny thing is when I’ve worn boosts to try D/DD I feel so self-concious when out and about. My boobs part the front of my jacket and stick out just a little too much. I feel like the whole world is staring even when wearing a scarf.
I don’t know about China. It’s something I read on the internet! I’m just trying to get Cringelys pulse working and put a little bounce into his writing.
And completely misses the biggest problem Apple are facing. Price.
.
Tim Cook is repeating the mistakes made by John Sculley. Moving Apple further and further up market based upon price alone. Not performance, because you can get as good or better for less elsewhere.
.
Where does this end? More and more people are leaving Apple and moving to other phones. And once they’re gone they’re gone. They won’t come back any time soon.
.
The solution?
.
Job talked about cannibalisation of products. If you had a new great product but feared it would eat the sales of another of your products you still had to bring it out otherwise your competitors would. That’s what’s happening at Apple. They’ve priced themselves out the market allowing other competitors to eat their sales. Apple needs to sacrifice some of their phone profits to keep the App store bringing in revenue. If customers don’t have iPhones they can’t buy apps!
I’ve had TMo for 20 years and live within a mile of an interstate (coverage on and near the interstate system was what TMo started with when they were PowerTel). If you look at their maps, you’d think I wouldn’t need cable internet connection.
I also have a company-paid Verizon phone.
At my house, both phones are limited to a couple of bars and less than 5 bps when in OTA mode. I expect there are still a LOT of people who need their cable connection for a satisfactory mobile experience at home.
So unless 5g comes with a whopper of a tower transmission improvement, it will be a toy for the inner-city yuppies and those in the near ‘burbs who can afford it (oh, did no one mention it will likely come with a premium price?).
Don’t count cable out yet.
@ Dr John
Apple has to hike up prices because of two fundamental problems they have:
1. Lack of innovation –
On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs announced iPhone at the Macworld convention so it was almost 12 years ago.
Apple Watch is a dud mostly.
2. Saturation – Even Eskimo needs only one refrigerator.
Here is a good article from Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-30/apple-iphones-and-mcdonald-s-fast-food-have-the-same-problem
That sentence sounds real bad although you probably get the intention – should be – Even if you manage to sell refrigerator to Eskimo you’ll be able to do it only once.
The 5G thing IS a non-story. 5G will get built and sold only as fast as large wireless telecom companies build out their towers. And it WON’T be fast! In fact, these companies put building out 5G BEHIND paying top dividends to their shareholders. And with a big recession coming, the build out will slow down even more. My guess is 2021 – 2023. In fact, most of the big telecoms are so terrible at building out 5G, they outsource it to people like American Tower, Crown Castle, and SBA Communications with other companies managing the supply chain I can’t remember. How fast will these build out companies go? Only as fast as they get paid by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Which is not fast. We should split up AT&T, Verizon, and others into Internet Suppliers (and even split up Wireless Internet and wired Internet), and content. It’s a huge CONFLICT of INTEREST if companies control the pipes and the content. If we do not address this soon, we will have the Internet of N. Korea, China, or Russia censored and tightly controlled by government and big companies. The providers of wired and wireless should be regulated utilities and the consumers should be able to chose their Internet content providers (Roku, Sony, etc.) separately. Like electric power in Texas. ONCOR provides the line maintenance, and you get to pick your Electric Provider (who puts your electric power onto ONCOR’s grid). Same thing with Internet. There are enough holes in 4G coverage now, that 5G won’t be any better for 50 years. Stay wired for your primary.
So @trashtalk , let’s talk about Yahoo shutting down porn on Tumblr. Maybe that’s more interesting as a form of advertising just disappeared for sex workers. But you’re allegedly a high-end escort, so it probably does nothing for your business… But, I think it does portend Internet Crash 2.0 (where Internet Crash 1.0 was 2001), and general ownership of the Internet by large companies, and the shutting down of “communities”, replacing them with giant advertising monster companies. Facebook played a video on my phone the other night, and there wasn’t even an [X] in the corner to stop it. After fumbling around with my phone for 2 minutes, I finally found a swipe motion that moved it off the screen and silenced the noise. Good thing it wasn’t porn! I think our “Great and Wonderful” government and the business leaders of big companies are now doing their collective “Harumphs” to regulate the Internet. Can we build a new “free” Internet like the cool 1990’s again? I miss those days.
The size of female breasts mattered tremendously years ago. It certainly mattered to me, but I was 12 at the time. It’s not comforting to imagine the entire male world was 12 years old right along with me. But I think that’s mostly gone away these days. I’ve grown a bit and so has the culture. Not completely, of course, but there are signs that even a professional woman such as yourself may have noticed. Then again, there’s always a succeeding generation of 12-year-old boys.
There’s a great line from The Magnificent Seven where the old man of the village remarks to Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen: “As for women, I became indifferent when I was 83.”
I live in Britain where sex work is legal and use other advertising and content monitization avenues. I have neverbothered with Tumblr for much of any reason. I’m not sure about Tumblr. Tumblr may be suffering from bland corporatism and puritanical attitudes being imposed. There is a line between kinks and abuse and there is no indication this is the reason behind Tumblrs new policy. It may just be another knee-jerk “kick the ladder away” policy. While there may be an argument for some form of regulated behaviour this is also a public health issue and social issue. I personally find most abuse gets driven out or people leave so most responsible forums are self-governing. Where there is legal ambiguity or clear abuse the natural course is democratic lobbying or in the case of abusers prosecution for which many avenues of prosecution exist.
In the real world I would guess from experience 90% or more on any sex orientated online venue are flakes. They like the fantasy and go no further than if they were flicking through a porn mag and either timewaste or bottle it in reality.
Chat shows and magicians know this which is why in the past women were part of the show as attractive wallpaper. Men are human too and it’s never going to be a divorce issue because men know what side their bread is buttered on and love their wife too much. I’m personally monogomous in my private life. Part of being an escort is the money is symbolic that an escort is doing a job and that’s where it ends. No complications. I wish the world were different but what can you do? The corporates are responding to the women’s movement which is a good thing but has also been shown up as changing nothing. There is still a lot to do. I would probably start at respect and go from there.
@Terence
This is true. Your film quote is so true too. Only a few sex mad clients liked the idea of me having big breasts. Most are happy with a C cup or express no preference. A few clients have said they like me as I am. In the main most men are good about things.
@wwwpirate
.
I like what you’re saying, but McDonalds are also changing! They’re not having as many burgers sitting but making them up when you order; improving the product. And whilst people will visit Burger King or KFC, there’s nothing really stopping them from returning to McDonalds again.
.
The problem for Apple is that selling the phone is only one part of the equation. The next part is getting the user to use the phone and buy apps, and make in-app purchases. If you make a huge barrier to people buying in to Apple then you won’t get the follow revenue. And unlike the McDonalds, once someone has left they’ll stay away for their next purchase, and one after that too. Even existing owners aren’t upgrading because of the cost of the product. It is a dead-end strategy.
.
This is very dangerous times for Apple and if Tim Cook doesn’t realise it then there’s no Jobs to rescue Apple again!
@Dr John. The problem comes when the finance people start running the company. The creative energy slowy dies without a dynamic founder/leader which provides a counter balance to those who care more about next quarter’s profits than the next 20 years, which is most investors and especially pension and retirement funds. Apple has crossed the line, the founder/leader has been dead a few years and his ideas have finally exited the pipeline. There will be an occasional win, like AirPods, but fewer and fewer “big wins”, Apple is the next IBM. And IBM is the next Computer Associates or BMC, buying companies well past their prime and milking the cow to extinction. The best thing we could do for tech right now is break up IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and even Salesforce and 1000 new companies of creativity would be created with razor sharp focus on various problem domains, and no fat cat financial leadership telling them who to do business with, and who not to do business with. The newly created break up companies would either thrive or die, and computing would be cool again. And innovation would explode.
The same economics affects escort. At the customer interface clients who think in cliche and have the wrong priorities don’t have the best experience. I had one big paying new client this week like this who splashed the cash so easily he didn’t care if he overpaid or not. He rounded everything up to my highest rate then rounded it up again to the nearest hundred to save the bother of counting. The joke is I found his booking to be one of the worst I had ever had and he missed out on building a personal connection and intimacy. No wonder he’s divorced. Another funny thing is he offered big money for me to wear a wedding dress and his eyes could linger on me all day wearing Victorian. The problem is he thought waving big money meant he could dictate like a corporate takeover which brings us back to divorce. Unless mergers and takeovers are equitable they don’t work and destroy value which is nearly all of them.
Exactly. If you don’t like your jobs being whored out, and cheap labor pimps bringing in hookers to take what’s left, they call you “intolerant”.
I find I can tell a lot about a man by how he is in bed. Men are often unguarded and share more about their lives because I’m their “fuck on the side”. Decent clients aren’t always the best in bed but I always say it’s the man not his cock which counts. The others tend not to see me a second time, call me fussy. I know this costs me money but I always say my dignity is not for sale. Why did Red Hat management sell out to IBM? Only they can say. Was it worth it? I don’t feel any excitement with this.
I’m glad the client bought wine. I needed a drink to put up with him which is not the way to go. I’ve marked him down as two stars. My scheme is that a two star client I will see if I have absolutely nothing else on and find myself needing the money otherwise it’s “no”. I usually decline to see these clients again.
I wrote a killer app once upon a time. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comdex_1986.png
@trashtalk . And Mergers and Acquisitions are hardly ever “equitable”. There’s typically buyer and bought and the buyer dictates the terms and the bought takes the money until their contracted requirements are fulfilled. Sound familiar?
@Gene Mosher I hope you patented the touchscreen software and are now earning royalties from all the people running simple POS touchscreen interfaces at restaurants. They are literally everywhere now. If you are still innovating and not retired, then maybe you should reach out to me for my idea on making a “Senior-friendly” tablet to order groceries, medicines, video chat with family members (like Amazon and Google are selling this Christmas), and act as the “base station” for monitoring devices for falls and “need help” issues. Maybe even link in a FitBit-like device to do heart and health monitoring as well. Apple Watch is a start, but probably too expensive except for the most high-end customers.
@trashtalk What I speak about is “divestiture” where a smaller company leaves the mother ship and becomes something new all on it’s own. It is the opposite of mergers and acquisitions. Chipotle was a very successful (until recently) divestiture from McDonalds as an example. And it’s probably not completely Chipotle’s fault on the lettuce problems, since the problems are popping up all over the green vegetable supply chain. Hint: it’s about the quality of the water that growers are using and how clean it is… And BTW, since we have a Republican President in office, those things like “healthy food” are not as important now, because companies can regulate themselves…
Said the fox to the sheep when discussing what to have for dinner! Thankfully in Britain contracts for sex work cannot be enforced. Almost all my clients have left feeling satisfied or been very agreeable company so this has neverbeen a problem. I have had Muslim clients… None of them have asked for Nikah mut’ah (pleasure marriage) arrangement. Having said this perhaps businesses might consider this kind of arrangement? I’ll leave this for others to discuss.
I can concoct a number of use-cases for having 5G bandwidth, but all of that is moot because at the moment most USA mobile users do not have unlimited data plans, or if they do they are quickly speed throttled.
So what’s the point unless you have unlimited unthrottled 4G/5G data?
Didn’t Cringely say Mineservers would be delivered by the end of 2018? What happened to his insurance claim? Wouldn’t it just be easier to refund people’s money?
Please advice with an update on the mineservers
Hey writer, write a Mindserver update or obituary
Woohoo, just over a week until my Mineserver arrives! I’m so excited!
.
“Every supporter will get their Mineserver before the end of this year.” — Bob Cringely, May 21, 2018, 1:10pm
https://www.cringely.com/2018/05/21/cloud-computing-may-finally-end-the-productivity-paradox/#comments
I had an absolutely amazing client this evening. After a lovely time with each other the poor darling couldn’t hold back before I got on top and he had his happy moment before he was inside. Of course I got paid before we began and got to keep the money but this is expected in my business and per the unwritten contract. Better still not only is he an amazing client but he loved his time so much he wants to see me again! Speaking of which I wonder if Cringely will pull the plug and announce Mineserver 2. Any takers for this one? He aced $30,000 the first time. Another $30,000 has to be tempting. Maybe after working the first time he has already pulled it under another pseudonym? Update please and no porkies this time!
@Roger, I’m sorry, but at this point I’m just going to be honest and tell this to you straight. You might not actually get your Mineserver before the end of this year.
@trashtalk, as usual, I enjoy your reports from the trenches, but I do have to question what a prematurely climaxing customer has to do with Mineserver. If anything, they seem to be opposites: Your customer finished early, and Cringely… still hasn’t finished.
@Adam Luoranen – “I’m sorry, but at this point I’m just going to be honest and tell this to you straight. You might not actually get your Mineserver before the end of this year.”
.
What? No! Say it isn’t so!
.
I mean, he said it, so it must be true, right? Right?
Every time I read “killer app” it reminds me of your PBS series. I hope one day you will do part III!
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
Still waiting for my mineserver refund… You say it’s not a scam, prove it and give me my money back.
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
Here it is, December 31, 2018, and I just know my Mineserver will arrive today, right Bobby old boy?
.
“every supporter will get their Mineserver before the end of this year.”
.
– Bob Crookely, May 21, 2018
Bob, I think you have my address wrong as I never received anything in the mail. I checked with my neighbors as well and they didn’t receive my Mine Server by mistake, so I’m not sure what happened.
.
I’m sure just a typo on the address. Can you please PM me so we can get this straightened out? I feel like a schmuck as the only guy on my block without this schweet new tech. FML, amirite?
I guess we’ll see those New Year’s Predictions about mid-February?
Hey Bob,
.
I’d like to check my address too since my Mineserver didn’t show up either. Can you shoot me an e-mail so we can make sure everything is all good?
[…] Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, Not mobile phones 6 by evo_9 | 0 comments on Hacker News. […]
[…] Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, Not mobile phones 6 by evo_9 | 0 comments on Hacker News. […]
[…] Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, Not mobile phones 6 by evo_9 | 0 comments on Hacker News. […]
[…] Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, Not mobile phones 6 by evo_9 | 0 comments on Hacker News. […]
[…] Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, Not mobile phones 6 by evo_9 | 0 comments on Hacker News. […]
[…] Read More […]
[…] https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
5G frequencies in the double-digit GHz spectrum will have serious biological effects. Period.
Lower carrier-frequency technologies like 3G & 4G are already having health effects on large segments of the population. These effects manifest mainly as neurological symptoms like sleep problems, headaches, fatigue etc.
You have been warned.
[…] Read More […]
Eh… Try streaming a 4K video over a distance of 3 meters, no cable, without a perceivable delay and let me know how it went.
Best of luck,
Greg
I check back now and then to cringely.com to see if there is anything new. Today I did that and noticed that this last article is like 6 weeks old. Now I know that Bob has had some trouble with his vision and also that because of that he was posting sporadically, but when I noticed it was about 6 weeks I checked to see if he had died? Does anyone know what’s up?
@Greg: “An electromagnetic wave transports its energy through a vacuum at a speed of 3.00 x 108 m/s (a speed value commonly represented by the symbol c). The propagation of an electromagnetic wave through a material medium occurs at a net speed which is less than 3.00 x 108 m/s.” https://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/waves/em.cfm
Michael Gamble, I’m guessing Bob is too busy working Mineserver order fulfillment to do the prediction pieces this year.
SQRL will be ready in 2019.
I’m getting in early on the prediction comments this year. So lets look at what last year’s predictions were.
Prediction #1 — the rise of 5G networking will lead to a crash in broadcast TV.
5G isn’t really widespread yet, so no crash, but steady declines. Cringely claims a win.
Prediction #2 — the end of Windows supremacy.
Windows still going strong, but not as strong as past years. (Down 1-2% in market share.) Cringely claims a win.
Prediction #3 — 2018 foreign profit repatriation is a $591.8 BILLION taxpayer ripoff
Economists will argue both ways depending on their political stance. Cringely claims a win.
Prediction #4 — Bitcoin stays crazy until traders learn it is not a currency
Bitcoin started the year at over $16,000 and ended below $3,700. So yes, Cringely can claim a win.
Prediction #5 — The H-1B visa problem will NOT go away.
H1-B is still around, Cringely can claim a win.
Prediction #6 — AI comes of age, this time asking the questions, too
Not sure if AI has come of age, but it is growing. No Skynet yet though. Cringely claims a win.
Prediction #7 — 2018 will see the first Alexa virus.
Some glitches, but no virus. Cringely gets one wrong.
Prediction #8 – Apple will in 2018 buy one or more of the many startups helping shift desktop computing loads to the cloud. Cupertino will compete with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft offering virtual cloud PCs.
No virtual cloud PCs for Apple. Cringely gets one wrong.
Prediction #9 – Ginni Rometty will this year be replaced as IBM CEO.
Ginni Rometty is still IBM’s CEO. Cringely gets one wrong.
Prediction #10 – My final 2018 prediction is that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will give up his political ambitions
It seems Zuckerberg is not pursuing politics currently. Cringely can claim a win.
@Robert – You forgot one more prediction that he got wrong:
“every supporter will get their Mineserver before the end of this year.”
@Mineserver — “You forgot one more prediction that he got wrong”
.
Since it’s unlikely that any of the folks who backed the Mineserver project still supports Crookely, there are no “supporters” who *didn’t* get their Mineserver.
.
Cringely claims a win.
.
(and then blasts his backers for being so mean to him when he’s done everything he could to make them happy.)
Apparently Mark was serious about this retirement thing…although I miss the annual prognostication more than I probably should. I’m sure he is trying to figure out how to fulfill the Mineserver commitment, I’m just as sure he wonder’s why he puts up with the incessant whining and posters like Trashtalk….
I used to come here to read Cringely. Then I started following the comments. Then I kept coming back to read the latest Mineserver snark. Now I read Cringely for trashtalk’s comments…
Bob?
Oh Bob?
Bob?
PS… Thank you for the laugh, trashtalk.
You all know what I’m excited for? The inevitable post from Bob followed by the flood of comments that state “Awww yissss! Bob is back in pure form! Way to go Bobby boy!”. This is, of course, despite that he ignores you all for months on end, can’t be bothered to participate in the comments section anymore, doesn’t want to stop this flame war that generates traffic to his site, [insert other reasons here].
.
Bob, you are trash and your followers aren’t far behind. I look forward to the anti-mineserver propaganda coming. I’ll save you all the trouble and just assume the role that you like to assign – I’m a whiner and don’t know how KickStarter works and will go back to playing my games since that’s all any of you seem to see/care about and can’t see the bigger picture/nuances of what happened in this scam. *cue the people who still post/comment on the KickStarter wondering what the hell happened to this project and why Bob just dropped off the face of the planet over 2 years ago*
.
what a joke.
@ Ignorant Whiner
You forgot to take your medication man.
First take your medication than start writing comments.
I’m predicting Cringely’s Predictions Page will come about the time of the Spring Equinox. (March20-22?ish?)
@FormerTXIBMer
No Predictions Page will come on 1st of April – All Fool’s Day
Latest news – Mineservers will be shipped same day too
I’ve followed Bob since the mid 90s and his work genuinely changed the course of my life and got me working in IT
I couldn’t give a fucking shit about mineserver, Roger “the arsehole” Sinasohn, or any of this bullshit.
Please come back and continue writing, Bob.
Cheers
@Paul Green History if full of people revered by the people who, years/decades later, were shown to be up to some shady s**t. “Normal” people reevaluate their view for said people, I see you’ve chosen to turn a blind eye.
.
I personally don’t care about the Mineserver either and view the flame war that exists here more as comedy than anything else, BUT as someone who has been watching this story since the beginning, I can say with confidence that Bob has been shady AF with the whole thing. He continues to give empty promises, has yet to communicate with the Kickstarter backers on THAT site, and has shown little/no remorse for any of this.
.
If that’s the kind of man you hold in high regard, then I question your judgement. If it was JUST Roger and 1-2 others complaining, I’d say maybe you have a case and they are just being whiners. But if you look deeper, both here and on the Kickstarter website, you will see a LARGE number of people wanting answers, which, according to Kickstarter, they are owed.
.
So before you continue to spew ignorance, I just wanted to give you another opportunity to reevaluate your stance in this war. I’m pretty sure if you asked someone on the street “what is worse – someone who steals $35k and then goes into hiding or someone who complains on a message board wanting answers” the average person is going to say the person who stole the money is worse, ESPECIALLY when they are a complete ass about the whole thing. But hey, you do you, Paul.
@Greg
Fuck off, cunt.
@Paul Green — Way to be a civilized adult. Nice bit of misogyny too. But, as Greg said, you do you. Maybe when you grow up, you’ll be a nicer person.
Meanwhile, Crookely is MIA here too. I do hope he’s okay, but it sure would be nice if he dealt with his issues… y’know, like an adult.
It’s kinda funny… I loved Cringelys Triumph of the Nerds and his PBS column when I discovered it. It was uplifting to feel your worldview mattered. Today Cringely has been exposed as a shady bullshitter. I have left the whole world of IT behind me and am paid by guys to fuck my body and leave them feeling on top of the world. It’s a cool job in a lot of ways. It irritates me knowing I’m better qualified and experienced than many of my clients but at the same time I get to see another side of men help set them up to feel good and succeed in their everyday lives.
Cringely could have done so much better. Why he isn’t on Youtube as a pundit hosting his own panel show and doesn’t have a million or more followers I don’t know. Christ, for the right format and royalties off camera I’ll even fuck his other guests for free. Any takers?
@trashtalk … You need an avatar here. Not a photo of course. Maybe a trash can? Maybe a stiletto. Something clever.
.
Since our host hasn’t given any 2019 predictions … would you like to give us some of your own? Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Google, IBM, China, SpaceX, Brexit, Trump … lots of topics to pick from. Keep the predictions clever but slightly vague.
.
Similarly, perhaps you could look at his 2018 predictions, and give your own grade to them. As a courtesy to the host, I would avoid being too harsh – after all, he usually grades himself, and rather fairly IMO.
.
Agreed – Cringely could do well on YouTube. It could pay better, and that would help increase the production value as time goes on. If he’s too concerned about production value consistency, start a simple channel, use that money to fund a better channel.
.
13 years ago, Cringely gave a speech in Vegas about Google’s shipping-container datacenters. There were a few related I, Cringely posts about it (on PBS I think). A revisit to this topic could be interesting.
I would love to go back to watching John Madden on Monday Night Football on a 13″ screen with rabbit-ears in the garage!!!
Roger, you and your fucking mineserver are not the most important thing in this world.
Move on with your bearded life, please. You will feel better for it.
Allah Akhbar!
@Robert Bertrand
.
Looking at your run-down of the 2018 predictions …
.
• Prediction #1 … I’d call this a half win. He did say “crash” after all. My gut tells me the crash will happen, but very slowly, so less of a crash, and more of a steady decline.
• Prediction #2 … Again, maybe a half win. Still ahead of its time. Windows may not be growing, and may indeed be declining, but it can still claim supremacy. For now.
• Prediction #3 … Above my pay grade.
• Prediction #4 … Agreed. Solid win.
• Prediction #5 … Easy win.
• Prediction #6 … Probably a win, if only because so much of what AI is doing these days is either secret or too opaque for public discussion.
• Prediction #7 … Agreed.
• Prediction #8 … Agreed, and I expect the prediction to be recycled in 2019, and this year it’ll be true.
• Prediction #9 … Agreed, wrong on this one.
• Prediction #10 … Agreed. Solid win.
Re: Doug Nickerson
January 17, 2019 at 7:42 pm
“I would love to go back to watching John Madden on Monday Night Football on a 13″ screen with rabbit-ears in the garage!!!”
How about a rooftop deal with a rotator that has to change position based on which local or distant channel you’re trying to receive. Add multiple remotes for different rooms. Hope the high winds don’t blow it down again. Add an 8-foot C&Ku-band dish, with all mechanical parts made of steel, so they’re sure to corrode.
You have no idea how grateful I was when the cable company put a drop near my house in the late 80’s-early 90’s. Threw out all that outdoor junk and never looked back.
@Howard
Since I moved on from tech I have given up predictions. I always had a design role which is the best predictor of all. Doing escort my priorities have changed. I’m more into backroom support and managing young thrusting talent. Tech is now so mature and big the issues are more political or qualitative. I’ve always been more interested in systems or graphics development than business but I sense there is a lot of scope for business systems development. There is a lot of interesting work possible in the field of AI and ethics and resource allocation as economic switchs over to a steady state green social democratic model. The nationalstic MIC is collapsing and geo-political-economics will be replaced by lifetsyle management. Nations states will be seen as more curators within an international human rights framework. Within the next ten years America will wealth tax the top 100 companies and legalise prostitition. Prosttites will be available on Medicare for seniors and the disabled and unemployed. Russia will pivot to be a Disney for the middle classes and a top holiday destimation. Saudi Arabia will become a UN protected zone and supply solar power to the Middle East on a none discriminatory ability to pay basis. Africa will become the world centre for cryptocurrency and Supercomputing cloud facilities and gayer than a Christmas tree. Ok, maybe not in the real world but tomorrow is not yesterday so you never know.
Cringely really missed out on YouTube. There are formats which allow for informed chat and the personal touch. I’m quite happy drinking a glass of wine and flashing stocking tops for the right mix and for the right “inconvenience fee” off the producers cool for a fuck after if anyone wants it. I know how these things work and anyone who says they are not tempted is lying. Ask Eric Schmidt! If nothing else a Youtube channel like this is a way for Cringely to rehabilitate himself.
I have no ideas for an avatar. I’m not too invested and Cringely may bring the hammer down. If I did it would be something tasteful with meaning not pornographic. Ok, maybe a tease but nothing offensive.
@ronc . . .
And how much does your cable cost per month?
And what do you do when one disaster or another destroys infrastructure and the cable fails?
During my last hurricane, I used a small portable TV and an old UHF antenna that I strapped to the storm shutters. Also, I had a fully charged UPS/SBS. I watched it for 10 minutes at the top of each hour. The power company and the cable company were off-line during most of the storm.
@ Gnarfle My cable bill is about $100/mo since I don’t subscribe to so-called premium channels or cable-internet. I also bought a Tivo several years ago so most of what I watch is pre-recorded and ad-free thanks to fast forwarding. The cable hasn’t failed in years, but if it did I could still watch the Tivo recordings. I could also use the Tivo apps via a separate cellular internet connection. I imagine we rarely have infrastructure failures since all of that stuff is underground. Back in the 80’s and 90”s we sometimes had a power outage which encouraged me to install a back-up diesel generator that can keep me going as long as I keep filling it with fuel.
Valley of the Boom?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bob,
Come back. All is forgiven.
Your loving family…
@trashtalk
.
Fascinating. How about some predictions more catered to your own business?
.
Or, for a wholly different topic… any thoughts about the El Chapo soap opera? It certainly proves what Bruce Schneier often says: any software backdoor you set up can and will be used against you.
.
In this case, El Chapo installed spyware on the phones of his wife, his mistress, his top lieutenants, like 50+ people … and the USA got access to all of it in near real-time.
You are missed sir, big hug, happy new year.
[…] 3、5G 不是关于手机的 […]
@Howard
.
I don’t know if I can make predictions about the escort industry. I expect/hope there will be more liberalisation. I’m hoping to write erotic content either for my escort diary or stories which is partially educational both to market myself but also as a guide so clients have a better impression of both sex and escorts than from porn or the media. I had some very good clients this week and enjoyed the contrasts of providing mistress/girlfriend. On man mentioned I liked the classy while on the leading edge look and it struck me he made a good observation.Another man compared me with another escort I think is really hot and said we were both too expensive and out of his league. I’m not cheap I agree but the right side of accessible. Using my services may work out cheaper as an ego boost than buying a new smartphone each year or a therapist and keeps the economy going. Hiring a professional is cheaper than a divorce too. Just ask Jeff Bezos.
5G isn’t really about mobile phones at all.
geometry dash
Apple being at a disadvantage to Samsung
[…] With Apple’s plans finally set to unveil 5G on their eagerly awaiting public in 2020, Robert Cringely’s timely article “Apple knows 5G is about infrastructure, NOT mobile phones” sheds some light on whether or not Apple has missed the boat by allowing its competitors to release 5G enabled phones nearly a year before they make the same leap. Cringely states that the move from 5G will not change the mobile phone user’s experience from its current incarnation known as LTE or 4G. Among Cringely’s claim is the belief that not only is Apple not “behind the times,” but the promised Android 2019 5G rollout will not occur during its projected time. Cringely takes his support from this statement: “The current 5G roll-out is by far the most expensive network roll-out in wireless history. That’s because where previous network technologies generally made more efficient use of existing spectrum, 5G requires new spectrum — lots and lots of new spectrum …Whatever amazing 5G mobile apps appear, the very earliest we’ll see them is 2020 or later when the 5G roll-outs are finally complete. And isn’t that when Apple is supposed to be shipping 5G phones? See, they aren’t too late at all.” To learn more about the latest plans for a 5G rollout from Cringely’s perspective, read his entire blog post here: https://www.cringely.com/2018/11/21/apple-knows-5g-is-about-infrastructure-not-mobile-phones/ […]
What’s up friends, its fantastic post on the topic
of cultureand entirely explained, keep it up all the time.
Nice information you shared here. However, T-Mobile’s full nationwide 5G coverage won’t be around until 2020, and they’re on track having completed their first low-band 5G signal in November 2018, in Spokane, Washington. In early 2019, T-Mobile confirmed that on the 600 MHz spectrum, one 5G tower can transmit signals over one thousand square miles.
thanks liz! I will definitely try!
Thanks for this information. However, no matter when apple is going on to set up 5g. For me, the essential part is to secure my online privacy with https://www.vpnunlimitedapp.com/en/malaysia-vpn and be sure that I’m in safe from cybercriminals.
.
Quite well. And you?
Iframe:
Embed alone:
Embed inside div:
I really like reading through a post that can make people think. Also, many thanks for permitting me to comment!