I mean, you said this...

Developers and technologists often want to learn about companies as they begin to evaluate opportunities in order to understand things like the company culture, the work/life balance, the social and environmental policies, the tech stack, and the learning and development opportunities companies offer. This is collectively referred to as “Employer Branding.”

If jobs aren't a part of that "branding and needs", why is your user base going to view that content? Why do I care about a company's work/life balance if I don't want to apply? I can tell you the only reason I ever access that content now is to see if I want to work at that company.

Labels: business, hats of money, money, stackoverflow

Remember Joel Spolsky's "Let Me Go Back" letter? I do.

Microsoft, specifically Microsoft Office, doesn't.

I'm obviously trying to save the file to my local drive. And I obviously would prefer not to have to navigate that horrendous UI Word has now to move from OneDrive to my drive.

For an app that still impressively honors old keystroke recipes -- like alt-I, B (alt-insert, break) to insert a page break -- this really offends me (haha) as a user. They are actively preventing you from saving to your drive. (This is not new. This is simply the first time I got aggravated enough to post.)

This is not progress. This is a commercial for OneDrive.

... but...

Fewer keystrokes is better! Let me go back!

Labels: cloud, hats of money, microsoft, microsoft fail, office, UI, usability, users

From A Guy Walks Into an Apple Store by Matt Birchler

"This sounds like it will all work great, but now I have a new phone, two new cables, and one new charging brick, but I didn't get a charging brick with the iPhone because that was supposed to help reduce waste?" "You got it. Thanks for buying the things our ads say you should buy, and enjoy your new iPhone."

I mean, I get it. It is a convoluted set of steps to go from “new to iPhone” to “fully equipped with my iPhone”. I mean, it’s not crazy…

1. Buy an iPhone.
2. Buy a MagSafe charger/cable.
3. Buy the new charging brick.

Seems fine. And if we’d never built the expectation that those would be freebies we find in the box, nobody would be the wiser.

The real underhanded trick Apple’s performed is, however, that this makes the iPhone $39 + $19 = $58 more expensive because the price of the phone itself didn’t change.

Oh, wait. As we all know, it actually did. If you’re not on AT&T or Verizon, the phone went up $30 too.

That means the iPhone price silently went up $88. I know I’m belaboring that a little with the previous post, but that’s not great.

In this one case, it really doesn’t feel Jobsian. He would always claim the products were worth the price. He wouldn’t play the shell game with $90.

Or have I forgotten something & I’m using memory’s rose colored glasses?

Do we already know if that’s the case for the iPhone 12 mini, or is there a chance they could reverse course at least for that non-Pro model?

Real-time update: The wacky $30 carrier-free surcharge is there for the mini:

Labels: apple, hats of money, iphone

Okay, the Apple forces ProtonMail to add IAP story is getting a lot of play today, but I don't see why it's anything new.

From the linked article at The Verge:

[ProtonMail CEO Andy] Yen says Apple’s demand came suddenly in 2018. “Out of the blue, one day they said you have to add in-app purchase to stay in the App Store,” he says. “They stumbled upon something in the app that mentioned there were paid plans, they went to the website and saw there was a subscription you could purchase, and then turned around and demanded we add IAP.”

Emphasis mine.

ProtonMail makes money selling email plans. They're not required, and you can get a free one.

If you don't talk about a paid plan in your app, no IAP is required. If you do, Apple has pretty good precedent to require you also offer it as an IAP. You are not allowed, as I understand it, to mention the ability to buy services through another, off-app means.

Look, I don't love that, but at least I get it. It's not inconsistent unless I'm missing something here.

I'm also surprised by this...

“When Apple charges 30 percent extra ... we don’t have a 30 percent margin! It’s very odd to find a business with 30 percent profit margins,” [Yen] explains.

Come off it. You can't say that and have this on your pricing page:

ProtonMail is community software, funded by the community, and open source. We do not show ads or make money by abusing your privacy. Instead, we depend on your support to keep the service running. Revenue from paid accounts is used to further develop ProtonMail and support free users such as democracy activists and dissidents who need privacy but can't necessarily afford it.

70% of a donation, so to speak, is still a donation. If you weren't going to get ANY dough from iOS users -- if they're all free tier users and the app doesn't mention other tiers -- then 70% of something is all found money.

The point being these quotes are from companies who of course want Apple to charge less. This isn't a "I can't eat with this model" type principled stand, afaict. It's a PR tool to put pressure on Apple to give up some revenue. I get why they're doing it, and I don't disagree with their goal, just their methods. Which is to say that I don't think Yen is being especially straight with us here.

Want to use the iOS App Store increase your range? Do it. But understand that has a cost.

My sentiment in that last paragraph reminds me a little of Ballmer talking to Java (What was it, "get on our backs and ride"?) and I'm trending into Rene Ritchie level pro-Apple screed, which scares me, so I'm going to stop now.

Labels: app store, apple, business, hats of money

Epic mentions that it's "likely to suffer irreparable harm" if Fortnite is not made available on the ‌App Store‌ and that "the balance of harms tips strongly in Epic’s favor," citing that daily iOS active users have already declined by over 60% since the app's initial removal from the ‌App Store‌. 

• How much has usage gone up on other platforms for those users, and...
• How much has spending changed across all platforms, bottom line?

Labels: apple, business, gaming, hats of money

Ah, what to do about music. I like music. I've joked that different companies I've worked for owe The Black Crowes or The Sounds or Metric or Halestorm -- or, in extreme periods of lethargy, Rob Zombie -- for 30% of my productivity while I worked there. I listen to music while working more often than not, and there's no perceivable detraction from my ability to be "in the zone". Music has been only a positive wrt productivity.

In other words, I consume music. Lots of music. Often lots of the same music. I have a "morning" playlist that I play through at least partially a quarter to a third of my working days.

Is a subscription right for me?

The Selfish Caveat

So look, there are lots of reasons not to carry a subscription. One is that the people who make the music don't seem to get as much of the dough from streaming as an outright purchase. That's bad.

You might also like supporting your local record store so that these experts can continue giving you good recommendations. Or maybe you just like 'em as people. Or maybe you really enjoy perusing physical artifacts. It's a particularly relaxing experience for some. Buying music allows your local store and employees to keep some cash too.

But I'm going to be really selfish below, ignoring these "altruistic" sorts of bonuses, for now.

Argument for buying your music

The argument against subscription is my "morning playlist" argument. If the music you listen to doesn't churn a ton, why not buy?

If you're spending less than or equal to a monthly subscription price on new music, it's a no-brainer.

If you buy your music, you're buying an asset... of sorts. Maybe you can't technically share it with anyone, but you have a never-ending license to listen to your music, and if you ever did stop your monthly buying, you still have your entire collection of favorite tunes.

Having a perpetual license for music without any ongoing fee is very good!

Argument for renting/subscribing

But what if you're buying is equal to or greater than a monthly unlimited music subscription every month? Now we've got an issue. If you're spending that much every month and you're absolutely sure you won't stop buying music for your entire life, well, a subscription makes sense.

There are, of course, risks.

What if your streaming service dies off?

Well, as long as any service is in business, you're fine. As long as both services are unlimited and the catalogs are essentially the same, all you really stand to lose are playlists, etc. That stinks, but you don't lose the music.

I guess at some point music subscriptions could go the way of the 8-track. It's a real possibility. That's a Worst Case for this choice, of course. Consider it.

What if the price goes up?

I don't find this super likely. If the services are $10 a month now and you're spending $15 a month on music, I bet both numbers go up at give or take the same rate. But this could happen. Spotify and Apple and friends could go to $35 a month in a cash-grab after feeling they'd killed off music purchases. It's a risk, though I wonder how likely.

What if I stop listening to new music when I'm old?

That's possible, and, like term life insurance, not whole, you don't get that subscription money back. It's burnt. You're not building an asset. You have to be into the subscription whole hog, for life, or you're potentially losing money.

But the counterargument is that you got to listen to so much more music than you would've if you'd purchased a small subset, your life was better for it. ;^) I mean, you have a copy of REM's Automatic for the People, but when's the last time you listened to it? (It's not that bad. Maybe you should. But you get the point.) If you're not going to listen to your old music and a subscription helps you discover new music with no serious opportunity cost (the opportunity cost being REM mp3s gathering dust bits on your cloud drive somewhere), well, who wins? (The subscriber, that's who. Probably.)

Winner?

Oh, okay. Fine. I still buy music. But I cheat. I have Amazon Prime, and hog the single license to stream from there when I'm working, using it to discover new music. This has also suckered me into buying lots of my digital music from Amazon, as their player mixes purchases in well with their subscription service in the player, meaning I don't have any (many?) files on my work box, but can still access playlists via streaming. And I use Spotify with ads to listen to new music to see if I like a new album before buying if the music isn't on Prime.

But I'm probably getting close to wanting to buy three or four albums a month, and, at some point, maybe it's worth trading one album purchase a month to also have adless streaming. (The ads do kill my productivity a bit. And they're annoying.) Though, currently, knowing I have to stay under $10/month to easily justify purchases is probably putting a ceiling on those purchases... that may or may not total a little above $10 a month. I'm also a sucker for releases on cassette for some reason. Ah Bandcamp. You're killing me.

So trick question, I guess. The answer isn't buy or rent for me, it's buy and rent and listen to ads.

But this Circle K ad during a Green Leaf Rustlers album is making me reconsider.

Labels: Apple Music, hats of money, music, spotify

Of course Giphy is going to retain its own brand. If they renamed it to “Facebook Tracking Pixels”, usage might drop off.

Labels: facebook, hats of money, privacy

Labels: business, hats of money, podcast

Matt Henderson:

This is fascinating insight into the, I suppose unsurprising, mindset of many venture capital investors. They’re not looking for a profitable business; instead, they’re looking for growth that provides the opportunity for a 100x exit. And their expectation is that you, the founder, will work to achieve that at any cost. And since their investment also brings the expectation of participation and inclusion in the running of the business, any company owner considering taking on investment would be well advised to make sure at the outset that everyone’s on the same page in terms of objectives. [emphasis mine -mfn]

Labels: business, hats of money

Labels: business, hats of money, Other Stuff

From allenpike.com:

[Consistency works] Except when it doesn’t

As far as consistency will get you, if you work with startups or other rapidly growing businesses, sometimes they’ll struggle with cashflow. To manage these problems, you need to apply fair but undesirable consequences when a client consistently doesn’t pay on time. While individual tastes vary, popular selections include:

• With[h]olding IP rights to the work in question
• Charging interest
• Ramping down or halting development after a warning period
• Telling a client “[Forget] you, pay me” (advanced users only, offer not valid in Hawaii or Canada)

[highlighting and PG censoring performed by me -mfn]

Had a "duh" moment reading this one. I've been lucky that most of my clients pay on time. I'm probably also lucky that I don't act like I'm only around to pluck every living dollar out of what one might act like is their tightly clenched hand. I bet it helps you to get paid in some-to-many situations if you don't act like getting paid is the only reason you're interested in them. Clients are not ATMs; they're [usually, ultimately] people. If you're interested in helping them succeed -- and can competently help them do it -- they'll be happy to bring you along.

But the "duh" moment -- to be clear, a moment when I'm slapping myself in the head -- is to withhold IP. You might do yourself one better and include in your contact that you will also assume rights to any design elements and other IP that you've been made privy to while working. I realize you could get into a mess if the client has licensed stuff that they shouldn't or can't officially allow you to use, and some folks would balk at their current clients or test data, but you get my point.

Clients don't always respond to "time out"

The problem with "ramping down... development" and "charging interest" is that they don't guarantee you'll get anything. Those are really only useful if the companies want to work with you again, or if you're owed so much it's really worth suing. That is, those two remedies usually require the client to participate in their punishment for them to be effective. (If you're currently still working for a client that agreed to and is not now paying, we need to have a talk.)

It's like being a parent -- if your only punishment requires the punished's cooperation, you're often left with a battle of wills. This includes stuff as simple as, "That's your third strike. Go to time-out." If they don't go to time out, what do you do? Pick 'em up and put them there? Stand over them and forcibly keep them in time-out? (Um, I don't recommend that, btw.) These aren't great situations, are they? [... is a rhetorical question most any parent has likely already confronted.]

But tell someone you now own their ideas and legally become their competitor? Now that's punitive and enforceable.

Litmus testing

I really can't see anyone pitching too big of a fit for that being in your contract either, if it's well written and sounds fair and even, not like you're dying to stick it to your client. Anybody who tells you they're not willing for you to own their stuff if they don't pay might not be who you want as a client, right?

If they're worried about slow times or unexpected issues, I'd feel okay negotiating the, "Pay or I can play" clause as far as they want, until they're comfortable. I'd also probably need to add some soothing language that you wouldn't use their brand itself, and would perform what you felt were minimal distinctive changes to address possible user confusion...

But at some point, a reasonable entity would have to recognize that, if they're not paying their own contractor what they contracted, that's unfair.

I should probably also add now that I don't typically fix-price something past the first contract. I don't mind taking a little bath to try and show someone I'm worth keeping around, but later, I try to make it clear that you're paying for hours of work, whatever they produce. This tends to keep clients on track if they're exceptionally cost-conscious, and also from them asking for the moon -- and from moving the moon biweekly because of some incredible insight!!1!121! they had over breakfast.

Two lessons here:

1. Well-written contracts work well as a litmus test for your clients.
2. Clients paying for time tend to be more responsible clients.

Google fails in search for blog

Headline, headline; read all about it!

One quick aside: When I was searching for Allen Pike's post, above, using a very specific string of words from the post, "to manage these problems, you need to apply fair but undesirable", Google gave me nothing, at least nothing tempting on the first page of results. That's crazy-insane.

Bing found it, no problems (though its third hit was, um, strange).

Go figure. As I've said before, Programming is Hard, (c) 1842.

Labels: bing, business, contracting, Google, google fail, hats of money, indie

The MacBook Pro with Touch Bar review embargo is apparently over. From Review: Apple's late-2016 15" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar:

The 15 inch model has two base configurations: the first ($2399) using a 2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 Skylake (6700HQ) with 6MB shared L3 cache...

If that's right, and I'm a little surprised to see it, the $2400 entry-level 15" MacBook Pro has exactly the same processor my $850 Lenovo Y700 has.

Wow. I got 15" MacBook Pro internals over half a year earlier for a third of the price. Okay, okay, my battery life STINKS and the keyboard & trackpad aren't nearly as nice as the MBP's likely are, but wow. The Touch Bar & Force Trackpad simply aren't worth $1500 to me.

YMMV, of course.

<rant>But this is why I hate articles like this one that ended up on DaringFireball:

On the 27th October Apple unveiled their new line of MacBook Pros. Since then half of what I read online seems to be “Professionals” (those guys), telling me it’s not Pro at all, not Pro enough or not the right kind of Pro. How many of these people have even touched the new devices?

Very few.

I’ve been using the new 15” MacBook Pro (with Touch Bar) for the last week or so for actual work, so here’s my “Professional” opinion.

Oh, like I have to touch it to know it's really worth an extra $1500. (Even more ironic now that we know I've been using the MBP 15"'s processor for six months.) Or that fact that it works great today means that it's a good deal and well spec'd out. Would you rather buy a brand new box in two years and still have spent $700+ less than you would have buying a MBP today, or would you rather be stuck with something that's already debatably underspec'd for the next three or four years?

So what is he doing?

From co.uk:

I’m an editor at Trim Editing in London, where we cut high end commercials, music videos and films. We’re a small company and choose individually what we want to edit with. I happen to use Final Cut Pro X (If you’d like to debate with me endlessly about the Pro’ness of FCP X, you can do that here) So I’m in a good position to try out the new devices and see what they are/aren’t capable of.

Oh, oh good. Video editing. With Final Cut Pro. Yes, I'll readily admit the MacBook Pro is a better box for FCP users than a Windows box. /sigh

I understand that if money's no object (and nowhere does that review mention "price" or "$"), this is a great computer. Would I like my Lenovo to have a great keyboard, insanely great trackpad, more battery life, and a fancy function key replacement bar? Yes, yes I would. But I do worry about price. We all should. Heck, imagine the amorphous "good" you could do donating $1500 somewhere. If you have to use Final Cut Pro, well, there's no conversation to have. But FPC !== Pro, kk?

Or this...

From Daring Fireball:

MacRumors forum member, in the first comment after the announcement of new MacBook Pros:

Well, I’m sure I’ll be attacked for this, but I’m gonna say it anyway:

Tiny harddrive, barely enough RAM (and not upgradable to the “enough” level), no dedicated graphics, only dual-core processors. It certainly isn’t bad, but Apple just took the “pro” out of the 13-inch line. And come on - it’s freaking expensive. […]

The 13” is NOT a pro device in my opinion. It’s more like a beefed-up and slightly heavier MacBook Air. For that, it just costs way too much.

This isn’t a new comment. This was posted 4 years ago, in response to the last major MacBook Pro redesign. Déjà vu. (Via.)

Clever. Sooooo the reaction's been the same for two generations (at least) of MBP. As if that made the overall lack of Mac updates bearable. If anything, it just reminds me that the Mac Tax returned earlier than I gave it credit for. Why am I waiting years to get a new processor in a mini or Pro again?

Look, if you need macOS to do your work, I get it. This $2400 beast is your new laptop. If your work is OS agnostic, the chasm just keeps growing. Stick with Windows or Linux and enjoy your fat wallet.</rant>

Labels: business, gruber, hats of money, macbook pro

Here are some quick benchmarks for my $700 Lenovo Y700 vs. the $1500 "low-end" MacBook Pro I talked about Friday:

Remember, for $850, you've got 24 gigs of RAM and 128 Gigs of SSD (plus a terabyte of spinning platter storage) on that Lenovo.

I just don't get it. The Mac Tax is Back. Maybe the more expensive version will outperform at single-core tests, and I could rationalize banking one, but at $1800, $2000 for the 16 gigs of RAM, ewww. I guess I'm destined for Xamarin on PC for the foreseeable future, and will simply hold out for a new mini (ha).

Labels: apple, business, hats of money, mac tax, macbook, macbook pro

For a limited time, buy two select tires, and get two free when you purchase our Value Installation Package on all four tires
...
Valid on purchase of select in-stock tires. Purchase of Value Installation Package at regular price required on all four tires. Charge for additional parts/service if needed. Plus up to 10% shop fee based on non-discounted retail price not to exceed $35 (where permitted). Local, state and/or tire disposal fees where applicable. In instances of a staggered fitment vehicle, the purchase combination must include four (4) qualifying products. Discount will be taken off the lowest-priced tires. Not valid with other discount offers. Eligibility may vary depending on tire size and model

Buy 2 tires, get 2 free..
2 tires, installed, costs $465, and that's if you only buy the 2 and don't get the other 2.
Now, if you get the 2 free and get those installed, it's $950.

Tire places : Zombies :: Used Tires : Brains

1. The new tire
2. The used tire I'd recently purchased
3. The first and second four year-old tires that are left.

1. New Tire: Right front, exactly where you guessed.
2. "New" Used: Right rear! As bad as my worst remaining old tire!
3. Four-year old tires: Both lefts!
   • One painfully better than my "new" used.
   • Of course the one I'd replaced was a rear tire that looked just as good as the "7" here (－‸ლ)...

TL;DR

Labels: business, hats of money, Other Stuff

Labels: hats of money, noteToSelf, printer, toner

I've had my ThinkPad T440 for over three years now, and though I've been exceptionally happy with it, I'm looking to upgrade. Biggest want? A fast processor. Everything else seems pretty fungible from one computer to the next, including screen resolution (the other place my T440 lacks), with the possible exception of ports. But as long as I have a USB in and video out, I'm fine, honestly. I like the "always on" charging port on my T440, which lets me charge my phone anywhere, but that's about the only "want".

Of course this means I'm wasting hours price comparing and processor spec studying. I'm also doing a really poor job putting all the info somewhere I can find it easily. So let's sum, just for me.

Pro tip: Don't get hung up on the huge red number. Also compare the "Single Thread Rating!

Processors (all scores from cpubenchmark.net)

Current Desktop (to make me feel badly):

Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.00GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA1150 Clockspeed: 4.0 GHz Turbo Speed: 4.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 88 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  32.96     Overall Rank:  63 Last Price Change:  $339.99 USD (2014-07-09)	11206 Single Thread Rating: 2529 Samples: 9749

Current laptop (ThinkPad T440)

Intel Core i5-3320M @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: BGA1023 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.3 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 35 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2012 CPUmark/$Price:  16.66     Overall Rank:  558 Last Price Change:  $239.99 USD (2012-11-24)	3998 Single Thread Rating: 1626 Samples: 992

ThinkPad T460p (quad-core)

Entry price is $935. i7 not available yet.

Intel Core i5-6440HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.5 GHz No of Cores: 4 Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6440HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2016 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  285 Last Price Change:  NA	6443 Single Thread Rating: 1932 [I'm not buying this. Geekbench puts it 11% lower than the i7, below. See that there's only 12 samples -mfn] Samples: 12

Intel Core i7-6820HQ @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HQ CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  163 Last Price Change:  NA	8640 Single Thread Rating: 1874 Samples: 127

ThinkPad T460 (dual cores, 3 options)

Entry prices by proc: $875, $922, and $1050.
P50s runs the same stuff, give or take. P50 speeds aren't significantly better.

Intel Core i5-6200U @ 2.30GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.3 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6200U CPU @ 2.30GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  575 Last Price Change:  NA	3902 Single Thread Rating: 1501 Samples: 388

Intel Core i5-6300U @ 2.40GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.4 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.0 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  508 Last Price Change:  NA	4296 Single Thread Rating: 1646 Samples: 227

Intel Core i7-6600U @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6600U CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  434 Last Price Change:  NA	4777 Single Thread Rating: 1847 Samples: 161

Current MacBook Pro 13"

Entry prices by processor are $1300, $1400, and $1600.

Intel Core i5-5257U @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 23 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  491 Last Price Change:  NA	4375 Single Thread Rating: 1716 Samples: 56

Intel Core i5-5287U @ 2.90GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 2.9 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.3 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 28 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5287U CPU @ 2.90GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  454 Last Price Change:  NA	4636 Single Thread Rating: 1873 Samples: 5

Intel Core i7-5557U @ 3.10GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 3.1 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 28 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5557U CPU @ 3.10GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  5.42     Overall Rank:  413 Last Price Change:  $915 USD (2016-02-04)	4959 Single Thread Rating: 1899 Samples: 133

Current MacBook Pro 15"

Worth remembering that these are, entry-price for each proc, $2000, $2100, and $2300

Intel Core i7-4770HQ @ 2.20GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.2 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770HQ CPU @ 2.20GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  152 Last Price Change:  NA	8917 Single Thread Rating: 1888 Samples: 43

Intel Core i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.7 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4870HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  122 Last Price Change:  NA	9372 Single Thread Rating: 2058 Samples: 135

Intel Core i7-4980HQ @ 2.80GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 4.0 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4980HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  85 Last Price Change:  NA	10060 Single Thread Rating: 2234 Samples: 102

Alienware 15 r2

Though prices change on a dime, right now it's $1200, $1250, and $2550

Intel Core i5-6300HQ @ 2.30GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.3 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.2 GHz No of Cores: 4 Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300HQ CPU @ 2.30GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  335 Last Price Change:  NA	5734 Single Thread Rating: 1643 Samples: 123

Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.5 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  190 Last Price Change:  NA	8030 Single Thread Rating: 1791 Samples: 1259

Intel Core i7-6820HK @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HK CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  142 Last Price Change:  NA	9069 Single Thread Rating: 1904 Samples: 120

Razer Blade Stealth & QHD+

$1000, $1800 (Pro is the same proc as QHD+, so not including it in "entry price" list)

Intel Core i7-6500U @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  497 Last Price Change:  NA	4331 Single Thread Rating: 1647 Samples: 499

Intel Core i7-4720HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: BGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  187 Last Price Change:  NA	8100 Single Thread Rating: 1935 Samples: 1959

MacBook 2016

Intel Core m7-6Y75 @ 1.20GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1515 Clockspeed: 1.2 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 7 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) m7-6Y75 CPU @ 1.20GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  622 Last Price Change:  NA	3704 Single Thread Rating: 1501 Samples: 27

My quick take home (again, for my specific use case; it is my blog, after all! ;^D) is that the MacBook Pros are impressively spec'd, and that the T460p, my initial choice b/c of price and quad-core proc, has an excellent single thread on the i5, tempered by there only being 12 samples taken.

I think the take-home is to wait on the new MacBook Pros this summer, to either get a deal on the old or to see if the new procs make sense. The real crux is whether I think I need mobile Mac hardware to write up some Xamarin apps for iOS. I have good but dated desktop Mac hardware, and can't figure out if $300-$500 is worth it to take a Mac on the road. I want to say yes, but with Xamarin Forms, it's not quite the deal breaker it used to be. And man, that T460p is cheap, relatively speaking.

EDIT: One more quick addition -- my Mac mini 2012, bottom of the line, as I try to convince myself to get a Windows laptop and use the mini as a Xamarin iOS build server...

Intel Core i5-3210M @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: PGA988B Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 35 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2012 CPUmark/$Price:  17.18     Overall Rank:  606 Last Price Change:  $220.33 USD (2016-02-29)	3786 Single Thread Rating: 1518 Samples: 4334

Labels: alienware, hardware, hats of money, lenovo, razer, thinkpad

TextExpander has gone to a subscription model, and, as almost always, Michael Tsai gives you the best rundown of what's been going on. Here are two of the quotes he shares:

TJ Luoma (via John Gruber, comments):

But is this just another case of “Users are cheap and don’t value developers’ time?” I don’t think so. […] There’s the rub for Smile and TextExpander: I don’t see anything that I really need in TextExpander version 6. I’m not using it with a “team” and my family members probably have no interest in sharing a group of text snippets with me. Yes, I realize that Smile made their own syncing service, but I have used iCloud, Dropbox, and BitTorrent Sync, and they work fine for TextExpander. Creating their own syncing service was solving a problem that I didn’t have.

Joe Cieplinski:

And that’s what makes TextExpander an interesting case. Is it “pro” software? Or is it more like a consumer product? I tend to think of it as somewhere in between.

[…]

Because I actually use TextExpander, I find myself in a position of having to evaluate this decision to go subscription-only from two different perspectives: that of a fellow developer, and that of an actual customer of the product.

But if you're having a hard time following, I can sum it up even more quickly:

Smile is charging the consumer market too much for their subscription to TextExpander.

Charge consumers $2 a month, $20 for a year for recurring subscriptions, and you'll see folks signing up and paying with as much laissez-faire as they do their overpriced phone bills. Problems solved.

These micro-subscriptions are just smart. Now you've got a workaround for trials, as someone can now experience all of your service for $2. And you've got a workaround for updates, since you're charging everyone for the upgrade every month.

But the conversation about subscriptions in general is interesting. And powerful. I caught a little of the Back to Work podcast on the topic, and the TextExpander stuff starts at 45:25 (btw, why, oh why are so many techesque podcasts so danged long? Sheesh. Shout out to Manton's Timetable.)

A while into their discussion, after all the description of what TextExpander does, is this:

What is happening with the world of subscriptions today?
...
Whenever it seems like you're moving away from a model that's easy to understand and what you're used to, and when it involves asking for more money, that's naturally going to cause friction... Smile must have their reasons for doing this.
...
These features are not things that will benefit me much. [emph mine]

So there's my point... if it costs more to cover features folks don't use, well, people will leave. I think most people quickly realize this subscription isn't just more cash than they were paying before, but a lot more cash. As Tsai points out:

TextExpander 4 was $35 in 2012, and there was a $20 update for TextExpander 5 in May of 2015, about three years later. Now, after less than a year, the price for a yearly subscription is $47.52. (There is a one-time, one-year 50% discount for previous customers.) So the price for three years has gone from $20 to $142.56.

More interesting is this:

[Higher Pitched Voice Dude:] Like right now, I'm paying for Hulu, HBO... as far as subscription stuff... Netflix, Hulu, HBO; I pay for those over-the-top. I have Amazon Prime, which means I get Amazon Prime stuff... And then on top of it, now, I've got this PlayStation Vue service...
...
[Lower Pitched Voice Dude:] There are all of these services that we pay for that we use a little bit that we don't use a lot. [He then talks about not owning what you "subscribe" to, and how it goes away when you stop.]

So for HPVD, that's $8-$12 for Hulu, $15 for HBO, $8-$12 for Netflix, so $31-$39 a month. Sheesh, Higher Pitched Voice Dude. That's a lot. LPVD is right on the money -- That's a lot to pay for something you use "a bit". Do we really think we couldn't lose $1-2 a month for TextExpander in that bucket of monthly payments somewhere?

Quick point: Katie Floyd does not frame this correctly:

Katie Floyd:

There’s also another important benefit to the new model, Smile has a steady revenue stream with which to continue development of their products. If you take a look at the company’s “About Us” page, you’ll see more than a dozen smiling faces of real people who work at Smile and depend on the revenue their apps and services generate. [emph mine]

ARGH. Comma splice. Hate it. ;^) /rant

Actual point: Business is not welfare. You have to earn the money. They're asking for too much money.

If they were 12 bums and they refused handouts of less than $5? Might work. But it's chancy.

Prediction: Smile drops the price for consumer use.

Edit 12 April: As an old, fat, bald, orange man would say, I believe I had that.

Labels: business, hats of money, indie, subscriptions, TV