iPhone 5c Thoughts

Today, Apple announced what many people have already been speculating for months: two new designs for what is now the non-existent iPhone 5. They started off with the introduction of the iPhone 5C - a colorful version of the iPhone 5. It's packed with the standard A6 chip, the usual 8MP camera, and LTE. All seen on the iPhone 5.

What obviously stands out are the wide variety of colors - white, pink, yellow, blue, and green. These are all very light, iOS7-esque colors, and each will fit in with the iOS 7 wallpaper out of the box (if you buy a blue iPhone 5c, the wallpaper on the phone out of the box will be the same blue. It actually fits in really nicely). 

Not only that, but you can further customize your 5c to your liking using Apple's new cases. They are $29 a pop, and are offered in the same exact colors - with the addition of black.    

WTF is this?

While I personally like the design - though not the colors - of the iPhone 5c, we need to have a serious discussion about these cases. What is this? They look like crocs. Crocs are bad. Additionally, look towards the bottom: you see "hon" exposed (It's the "iPhone" that's been so famously attached to every iPhone made) partially but not completely. And/or not completely covered either. When I noticed this, it completely ruined the whole design of the cases, and every time I look at them, the first thing I see is the ridiculous HON. Also, those holes are prone to so much dust collection & other debris, I'm already sneezing at the thought. 

iPhone 5Cheap? Nope. 

The iPhone 5c was never meant to be a cheap alternative, however. That is just what the rumor mill told you it was going to be. The 5c starts at $99 for the 16GB version, but unlocked it still remains the full $549 for the 16GB version (and $100 more respectively as you double the GBs). So surely this isn't really meant for emerging markets as we thought in the previous few months. This is simply a colorful, more personalized alternative, additionally to those who want a slightly cheaper entry price. It isn't exactly very friendly with international pricing, either. Apple is hoping that it becomes a hit in China, who gets it on day one. 

All in all, the iPhone 5c is something that will definitely cater to a younger audience. All of the vibrant colors - with vibrant cases - just seems like the hip thing teenagers will dig these days. And there's nothing wrong with that - it's not meant for us geeks.

March Madness - Academic Style

March Madness is officially here! Though, instead of showing you my legit bracket, I decided to add an extra one to my list of yearly brackets: A bracket based off of Forbes' best colleges list. Granted, college rankings tend to be very subjective, but other academic-based indicators for brackets such as APR (academic progress rate) aren't so great either. InsideHigherEd's bracket had Kentucky in the Elite 8 - just a little over a year removed from Calipari being criticized for his team having mediocre academic standards. So, that doesn't bode well for the APR system. 

Here's the Bracket. The numbers next to each school indicates the rank Forbes gave:

It's no surprise that Harvard won, but there were a few upsets along the way. Although not the best* way of completing a bracket through the means of academics - it's certainly a better route than APR or anything of the such. 

*I also tried to do this through combining SAT scores and GPAs of those admitted to these schools and then come up with an arbitrary number, but the range of both indicators were too wide (as well as "unknowns" all over the place), so the margin of error would be too high for me to even try. Though, if I had all information for every school precisely, it would be the absolute best to go about it. 

The Fall of Angry Birds

Trey Smith writes on his blog:

“One of the things I talked about was an in-depth analysis of Angry Birds VS Tap Pet Hotel and how premium .99 games were going to be overtaken by free to play games. That sounds obvious now, but remember, this was 12 months ago and at the time I held the webinar Tap Pet Hotel was only a few months old. Many people on the webinar didn’t really know how social games worked.”

This has been something I've been noticing as time goes along as well. It's actually pretty incredible - out of the top ten most grossing apps on the iPad, seven are free-to-play games.

In the case of Angry Birds, however, I honestly feel like it's fading away. Smith disagrees, saying "I would also like to clarify that I don’t think the Angry Birds brand is going to die out", but not all games last forever, especially on an ecosystem like iOS. Remember games like Super Monkey Ball? Granted, it already existed on other consoles before coming to iOS, but the popularity came and went. The same is in store for Angry Birds.
 

Remember when Apple's Stock was $90 Three Years Ago?

Apple's stock has kinda been successful the last few years. Google's been alright too.