LG Foldable Glass Is A Good Start But Imagine Its Third or Fourth Version

 Source: Engadget.

When Apple came out with the original iPhone and spoke about how great the first version of the Gorilla Glass from Corner was, I tried to imagine what it would be like five versions down the line. It would be so strong and scratch resistant that, well, it would eventually be crack and scratch resistant, right? Just like this new LG foldable glass, the first generation is promising but I don't know if it will live to up expectations. So, I wonder what the third or forth generation of this foldable glass will be like. To do that, we will have to visit the first time we were told about how strong the original iPhone glass was.

When Steve Jobs went on stage to unveil the iPhone to the world for the first time, it was also the first time we have ever heard of Gorilla Glass from Corning. We heard later about how Apple with with a plastic screen during the prototype stages and how bad the screen became as a short period of use and how Apple went to Corning and Steve Jobs warped Corning's CEO into his reality distortion field and convinced him to give him something impossible.  And the Gorilla Glass was born. 

As far as I know, Apple is still using the Gorilla Glass from Corning. I think we can definitely say that the glass has improved vastly since 2007. I still get a small scratch here and there and continue to cringe each time I see a broken glass in an iPhone 11 or 12 on the Internet. We are not at the point of shatter resistant and through also more scratch resistant, today's Gorilla glass isn't quite there yet. 

So, with LG marketing about how good it's foldable glass is, I have to believe that they have some way of backing up all this talk, especially if Apple will use it one day. Apple will continue to demand only the best and, again, the impossible as far as how durable and scratch resistant the LG glass is going to be. Oh, and let's add crease free to that.

If what LG says is true about its foldable glass and Apple is impressed enough to use it, imagine what the third or fourth generation of the glass is going to be like. Imagine how impress and cool that would be. 

If it all goes according to plan, expect LG to start selling them to customers (ahem, Apple), in a couple of years. 

Should You Upgrade Or Get A Computer, Smartphone, New Car, Or Anything That Runs On A Computer Chip Amidst The Global Chip Shortage

 Source: CNBC.

We seem to be running now on a lot of things. Since this blog is geared more towards, the vast majority of readers probably are aware of the chip shortage for a while now. And with the Holidays coming, tech toys are likely to continue to be in high demand and should fly off the shelves as fast as retailers can stock them. And that's before we even get into the Black Friday discussions. Question is should you upgrade now? 

This reminds me of when a lot of Apple users who are not up with the in-and-outs of Apple's product release schedule and will ask if they should upgrade now or wait. The quick and easy question is upgrade when you need to. And if you can wait, why not? 

However, this chip shortage may be different. The disruption seems to be mostly in the car industry as car manufacturers slow or shut down plants due to chip shortages. Consumer electronics are affected but not to the extend of other markets. You can still get a PC, Mac, or smartphone that you want. Right now, the new Galaxy phones and iPhones are just going through the channels and some models are more difficult to find because of the pinned up demand for new models. There are posts out there that suggest the wait may be longer than past years. 

Let us not forget that media reports of these types are high unreliable and we will not know for sure until the tech companies report their financials for the current quarter to know what is really going on. Production relays are not unusual. Apple devices have taken longer than expected, at least those of public exceptions, and took longer to ramp up. Recent reports suggest that the new Apple Watch 7 which just became available for presale are limited in quantity and the reason seems to be a production issue rather than the result of a chip shortage.

This seems to be different than that of the car industry. If anything, the question about getting a car is a bigger one than if you should get the new game system now or wait for a Black Friday deal. And given that there is a global chip shortage, can you afford to wait too long? 

One other issue to consider beyond chips is the disruption in the supply chain. That is a bigger issue than if your car model is going to be available when you go into the car dealership. Your car, computer, Xbox, or Mac may be sitting on a ship that is currently dock off the coast of California waiting for its turn to have its cargo off loaded. There are good chances that they may not get into the retail stores or warehouses on time.

The chip shortage and supply chain issues may be here to stay at least through all of 2022 and into 2023. Personally, I'm a good place now. I'm happy with what I have. This affords me the chance to sit back and wait to see what the next MacBook from Apple is enough to entice me to upgrade.

Work From Anywhere: Mac or PC

 Source: 9to5Mac.

During the work from home period of the pandemic last year, I had been using my personal MacBook from 2016 as my primary computing machine for work. Since returning to work in the office this June, I had been given a Windows laptop with an i7 chip, which I assume is at least towards the high end of the speed spectrum, with 16 GB of memory.  From my experience, if I was given a choice of a new Macbook with M1 or the Windows laptop, I think I would rather go with the MacBook.

The Windows laptop I was given was an HP laptop with a much bigger screen than my 12” MacBook. There were many advances in laptop technology in the last 5 years and the HP is faster with most operations. It had the advantage of a faster Intel ship, native software from Microsoft, and 16 GB of RAM to my 8 GB on the MacBook.  Plus, my Macbook was barely above 1 GHz.

So, my new Windows HP laptop is a monster, right?  Fearlessly chewing up Excel sheets while allowing me to open about 10 tabs on the default Microsoft browser, Edge, and playing a Youtube video of someone who recently visited Universal Studios, the real one in California, for Halloween without breaking a sweet.

Well, maybe. Maybe not. I could not really tell. See, while it did all that, I also was able to do the same on the Macbook with only 8 GB and an aging CPU vs 16 GB on the latest Intel chip. The Windows laptop was faster with a very large Excel file but I was still able to walk away, make coffee and get a snack and enjoy it before it was finished. With the MacBook, I had time to go for a run and come back and it would be finished. However, with the recent updates from Apple and Microsoft, the same Excel file was also faster on the MacBook as well.

And that same file on a Surface laptop? 16BG and whatever the high end option we could get from earlier in the year seemed to have to labor through those calculations. I think it is faster than my MacBook. I think.

So, I can see why companies that invest in getting Macs for its employees have a better return in the long run than those who go with the traditional Windows option. And this is just a small company I work for.  For enterprises with hundreds if not thousands of companies, they stand to save over $800 per user (see link above) over three years by going with a Mac because it needed less support and had a longer uptime without having to worry about the usual issues that come with machines running Windows.

Furthermore, the Forrester report finds that companies with Macs tend to have a higher worker retention as well as increase productivity. What if you are a small company with only a hand full of employees or going solo?

I still think the Mac is the way to go - the MacBook Air with M1 seems to be designed just for that. It has everything you need right out of the box - Safari for Internet access, Mail for emailing, and Apple’s suite of productivity apps, while far from perfect, are good alternatives to Microsoft Office. Furthermore, the computing environment we have today are nothing like those of the late-90s and the 2000s when even if companies want to deploy Macs, they could not because many applications were Windows only. Today, there is virtually a native Mac version of the top applications. On top of that, many applications can now be accessed through a browser. 

And let’s not forget about the native security features of the MacOS. As far as I know, there has not been a major ransomware hack of a company or government agency running Macs (I do not think there is a government agency in the world that operates with mostly Macs). (See Macworld UK). There are Trojan horses rather than traditional Windows viruses that require the user to do a few things like disabling security measures Apple have in place that keep them at bay. 

On the Windows side, if you’re mostly safe if you do not venture into the bad neighborhoods if you get my meaning.  Even then, there are things that could go wrong. And with hundreds if not thousands of employees, the risk is amplified when running Windows vs Mac. I keep to myself. I run whatever my work laptop is for. I have my iPad or iPhone with me when I need to do stuff that are not work related. I watch YouTube videos and that’s as far as I go with the work computer. And even then, I sometimes wonder if something has snuck in and running in the background without me knowing it just because it’s a Windows laptop.

I don’t have the same concern on a Mac.