* Posts by Steve Todd

2644 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Sep 2007

Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros

Steve Todd

Re: I had an Enterprise 128

Nice hardware, dreadful software. Who in their right mind thought that double precision FP only on an 8 bit CPU was a good idea? Worse still it was buggy. I crashed one with a simple DIM statement (I used to use a Sieve of Eratosthenes as a performance benchmark, 8 byte variables meant it didn't have space for the array, so helpfully it crashed).

Dr. Web disputes Flashback Mac Trojan bot army estimates

Steve Todd
Happy

Nah, they'd never get it passed the patent examiners

Theres too much prior art in the Windows world

Apple claims Aussie 3G is so good it's 4G

Steve Todd
Stop

@leexgx

What makes you think that LTE is all new? To a large degree its based on UMTS, which was in turn based on GSM. Its an evolutionary rather than revolutionary upgrade.

Non of this is relevant though. If the ITU says you can call it 4G then you can call it 4G. End of.

Steve Todd
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Wrong analogy

Its like Ford advertising a car as being capable of 200MPH, but if you run it on the low octain gnats piss that they call petrol locally it will only hit 120. Same engine, same spec, different local infrastructure.

Steve Todd
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Re: Its the ITU's standard

Comentards please note: the ITU have decided to use a new description for what they originally called 4G. This will now be called IMT-Advanced. 4G will be considered to be LTE, WiMax, "and other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement" over the original 3G. They won't be suing anyone who's technology meets these requirements and who calls it 4G, now or later.

HSPA+ meets this requirement. Dual channel HSPA+ certainly does, and that IS available in Australia.

You can see this in black and white over here

http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.aspx

Steve Todd
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Its the ITU's standard

and if they say that HSPA+ and LTE (both of which don't meet their original definition, but are around 100 times faster than the original 3G) can be called 4G then who are you to say that this is fraud?

Apple throws free Snow Leopard bone at MobileMe punters

Steve Todd
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Either

You've got a pre 2006 Mac (in which case what are you moaning for, it doesn't owe you much at that age) or rather more likely you don't have a Mac at all. Apple tried the OS licensing route before and it was an unmitigated disaster, why would they be stupid enough to try it again?

Apple's business model is to make money selling the hardware while providing software and service at fairly low cost as incentives to buy. You don't like that? You're free to chose another supplier with a different model, but don't expect Apple to give you a free OS to run on it.

10x power boost for Freeview as London analogue signal cut

Steve Todd
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Re: 4G, not not on your iPad

No, existing TVs are going to be fine. Ofcom's proposal is that the upper end of the current range of TV channels (61-69) be used for 4G while the lower end (channels 21-60) continue to be used for TV.

O2 declares 4G trial success... with 1000 users

Steve Todd

Re: "which makes one wonder why O2 wants any of the old analogue TV spectrum at all"

Simple answer: 2.6GHz is good for urban areas where you have a lot of users in close proximity. 800MHz is good for rural areas where you want few base stations to cover a large swath of land (rolling out a 2.6GHz network nationally needs a lot more base stations).

Apple TV third-generation (2012)

Steve Todd
Stop

Being able to push content

from a device with a rich user interface and easy control (be that a PC/MAC, phone, tablet etc) is infinitely preferable to trying to navigate a file system hierarchy on your TV using a remote control. NON of the streaming devices I've seen to date are much good for finding content.

DNLA was a step in the right direction, but it's too hit-and-mis over whether it will work between any two devices and it's too hard to configure. Airplay has the advantage of being idiot simple to use and pretty decent in quality.

Formats aren't much of a problem either. MKVs are normally H.264 encoded video, so you can re-MUX them to Apple compatible MP4 in fairly short order. Audio support covers the most common bases (MP3, AAC) and AirPlay accepts PCM audio, so your client can decode from whatever format it is using and play back the result (Spotify's OGG format plays perfectly for example).

Apple can't agree with Australian regulator on iPad 4G

Steve Todd
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Re: Can someone explain this to me?

The problem is that the people who define what is or isn't 4G, the ITU, moved the goalposts to redefine LTE as 4G (only LTE Advance met the original definition, and no one has that yet), and at the same time redefined HSPA+ to be 4G also. Australia has 42Mbit dual-channel HSPA+, which the iPad can talk to, so technically it IS 4G in Australia.

Intel shows Apple how to win a trademark dispute in China

Steve Todd
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Not comparable cases

I've no idea how you can claim that what Intel have done shows Apple how things should be done. The Intel case involves a trademark that they had registered being infringed by a similar name. The Apple case is about ownership of a single trademark that Apple claims had been sold to it. Completely different areas of the law.

Laptop computers are crap

Steve Todd
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Re: I had a marvellous on-line argument the other week

Try using a netbook screen in portrait mode sometime. Then look at what it takes to get you from off to connected to 3G Internet (iPads run in standby for weeks and the 3G models are permanently connected).

There are many reasons why a tablet is better for some tasks, and a netbook for others. Pick what suits you personally and be happy that the choice exists.

WD pushes out super-slim shock-resistant Ultrabook drive

Steve Todd
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Re: Near SSD performance?

With a hard disk the peak speed equates to how fast data that is already in the cache can be sent to the host. As the cache in this case is 8MB it will take slightly more than 1/40th of a second to read all the data in it. At this point the speed at which you can transfer data off of the platter becomes important, and that's typically 1/3rd of the speed of cached data. A sequential read of the entire disk will likely average below 100MB/sec, an SSD will average close to the 550MB/sec number.

Steve Todd
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Near SSD performance?

Not even close. If ALL you are comparing is sequential read speed then a *peak* of 300MB/sec doesn't compare well to the sustained 550MB/sec that a decent SSD can manage today. When it comes to latency and random IO the HD gets creamed by a couple of orders of magnitude.

Apple flooded with iPad 3 wireless connection complaints

Steve Todd
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Re: To be fair

No, it's a misquote. Someone emailed Steve Jobs complaining that if they held their iPhone 4 in a certain way then the signal dropped. SJ replied "Don't hold it like that", which was a fairly civilised response considering.

The iPad 3 would make me so horny...

Steve Todd
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Re: All it takes is to be first

The iPad WASN'T the first tablet. It was the first to combine form factor, content, hardware, software and price in a way that the public liked. Other companies are at a disadvantage from the software and content points of view so the obvious factors to compete on are price and form factor.

Cheaper tablets compromise on the hardware. TN rather than IPS screens, single A8 rather than twin A9 CPUs etc, and people don't seem to be keen on that.

Smaller tablets seem to be a hard sell also. They're not much more portable than 10" devices while decently spec'd models aren't much cheaper. Mostly people just go for the bigger models. The exception is Amazon, where they've got the content and a very low price point in their favour. The hardware is far from impressive.

Steve Todd
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Re: 2048 x 1536

@Mage - the things that take the extra power are the GPU and the LCD backlight (higher resolution screens have lower light transmission, so need more light from behind to give the same brightness), TFT switching is neither here nor there. See the Pixel QI screen for a prime example of this.

Sub-pixel anti-aliasing of fonts isn't a perfect solution, and needs more CPU power to achieve. The results aren't much better than fax quality (150 dpi, way short of the 500 you've pulled out of thin air), and there's a good reason that laser printers print text at 300+ dpi, pixels are much more obvious in high contrast B&W than colour photos.

Steve Todd
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@Bob Vistakin

iOS is considerably better at offloading rendering tasks to the GPU, plus what CPU is required for the GUI is handled as a real time task. Android renders on the app thread, so it needs a more powerful CPU to provide the same apparent (free from glitches and jerks) GUI experience.

The reason that the iPad runs SLIGHTLY warmer than Android tablets like the Transformer or the Galaxy Tab (2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit, not a significant difference) is the HUGE GPU pushing 3-4 times the number of pixels. It's still faster than the Tergra 3 GPU, even with the extra work.

Apple's stock price swells above stuttering Google

Steve Todd
FAIL

Wrong index

P/E ratio is the closest thing you get to a stupidity index. This is the ratio of stock price to profits earned. The normal range for this is 10-20. Above that tends to indicate overpriced stock (or optimistic buyers), below that indicates underpriced stock (or pessimistic buyers).

Guess what, Google's current P/E is 20.2, Apple's is 18. Who are the bigger idiots?

Freeview TV shoved aside for iPad-compatible 4G

Steve Todd
FAIL

@AC 11:58

That "undefined" standard was approved by the ETSI in September 2009, and can run side-by-side with older DVB-T channels. It gives 60%+ extra capacity in the same space, gives better error correction, uses a better video CODEC (non of the blocky artefacts of MPEG2 video) and defines HD modes that didn't exist in the old DVB-T standard.

The channels that FreeView does have (like them or not) all have to fit into less spectrum and HD coverage is being rolled out nationally at the same time. Something had to give way, and the idea that you'd have been able to watch HD digital on an old FreeView TV without using an external decoder is laughable anyway.

What system builders need to know about solid state drives

Steve Todd
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Re: You have just been downvoted

You'd need to have a zip up the back of your head to spend $12K on a 400GB SSD. HP pretty much stick their label on someone else's drives and add a zero to the end of the price.

The author comes across as elitist and not particularly well versed in the technology behind SSDs. AnandTech did an interesting test, running their web site off of Intel consumer grade SSDs (SSD 320 - 120s) and concluded that they's be good for 1.5-2.5 years in a database server. The bigger 300 & 600GB drives double and quadruple that.

SandForce based controllers have extra tricks to throw into mix. They de-dup data, and compress it before writing to flash. The result is write amplification of less than 1.0 (as low as 0.14 in some cases).

What you need definitely depends on the workload you expect. Consumer grade drives are fine in some circumstances, and not in others.

Oz regulator to Apple: Don’t call it 4G if you can’t connect

Steve Todd
IT Angle

Re: Quibbling with semantics

Its the ITU who define what is or isn't 4G. Their original spec was 100Mbit/1Gbit, but they relaxed that to include both LTE and HSPA+ (previously only LTE Advanced qualified, and no-one has that yet)

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/12/18/itu-reverses-its-decision-lte-wimax-and-hspa-are-now-4g

The Australians have a 41Mbit HSPA+ network, and that qualifies under the new definition.

Elgato Thunderbolt SSD

Steve Todd

Re: hardware compression

Probably because they are using a Sandforce SSD controller. They compress and de-dup the data before writing it to the physical flash chips in order to minimise the number of writes. Uncompressed data bumps up against the maximum write speed of the flash chips in use whereas compressible data is limited by the speed of the SATA interface.

iPad queue hog doesn’t want it, won’t be first

Steve Todd
FAIL

@bullseyed - Your analysis is both wrong and incomplete

The iPad is aimed at use at home on the couch, or when traveling. Not when walking about the street. These are occasions when you don't need the ultimate in portability, but the larger screen size makes many things easier or more comfortable. Most people in their mid 40s or beyond can't focus on the small screen of a phone without reading glasses. Younger people find it uncomfortable holding a phone close for extended periods etc.

A 10" screen gives you a near full sized virtual keyboard. Not as good as a real keyboard for data entry, but more than good enough for casual emails, and Apple's built in email client is fast, clean and easy to use.

Web browsing. The web browser is little short of excellent. It implements web standards well, is fast and fluid to use and is fast to scroll/pan and navigate. The lack of flash is far from the fatal blow that the fandroids would have you believe (flash adds? Who cares! Video? There's an app for most non-HTML5 content. Games? They are mostly available as apps also), and there are multiple apps that let you view flash sites if you really want to.

Movies? WAY better than seat back entertainment systems, much better than video on a phone and enough battery life to cope with all but the longest trips.

eBooks? You're not just limited to iTunes. Any ePub or PDF format book can be read, plus there's a Kindle app that gives you access to the Amazon store.

Content development? Pages, Numbers and Keynote give you the full set of office apps. More than enough for most users. Add to that Photoshop, Garage Band and a host of other apps. Not all content creation is done by typing.

They are small enough to still be easily portable (including fitting on your lap when seated on a train or aircraft), run 10+ hours on a charge, cover 90%+ of most users computing needs, switch seamlessly between WiFi and Cellular radio and they're easy enough to use that your gran can manage one. As a complete package they're head and shoulders above the competition.

You'll find other devices that are better at SOME tasks, and for SOME people but it's the overall combination that people like, and is why they shift of the shelves like hot cakes. Every time Apple have launched a phone or pad in recent years people have said the numbers are hyped, that they can't possibly be selling that fast, that the supply has been artificially constrained. Then the financial numbers are released that proves them wrong.

Viewsonic Viewpad 10e tablet

Steve Todd
Stop

Re: The saving

The argument wasn't that £200 isn't less than £330, but rather that the claimed saving of £400 wasn't true (the comparable iPad ISN'T £600), and for that extra money you get a much higher spec device.

CF ports aren't a requirement to get data on/off the device either. Services like Dropbox can solve the problem for you, or you can send data directly from the CF card via WiFi using Eye Fi CF cards.

Steve Todd
Stop

The saving

Would only be £130 compared to the entry level iPad, for which you get a twin core A9 rather than a single core A8, plus 16GB of storage rather than 4, and 12 hours of video playback rather than 3. It looks rather less like a bargain at that point.

Apple hands iPad screen contract to rival Samsung

Steve Todd

Not a state of play that will continue

Apple like to source screens from multiple vendors. If one has production issues they can keep shipping with parts from the others. Ramping the new iPad up to full production will require more than just Samsung and as fast as Apple can get the other manufacturers up to speed the happier they will be.

Everything Everywhere grabs UK 4G wheel, rivals thrown off bus

Steve Todd

Re: Quite a large amount

TV bandwidth is allocated in blocks of 8MHz over here, so 30MHz is a little over 4 multiplexes, not 6.

iPad 3 benchmarked

Steve Todd
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Re: Downgrade in fact

The OS hands anything screen related over to the GPU to render so the only thing that should be slower is loading/manipulating bitmaps in code.

Hands on with the Apple iPad 3

Steve Todd
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@AC 22:33

I've lapped up some independent reviews of the Transformer Prime. They put browser performance as slightly faster than the iPad 2 (for example sunspider results of 1685ms vs 1808ms, or about 7% faster) while being slower when running OpenGL (GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt scores of 6897 vs 9827, or 40% slower for the Prime). The PowerVR SGX543MP2 in the old A5 chip still seriously out horsepowers the Tergra 3 GPU.

iTunes not required? You can buy an iPad, set it up, upgrade the OS, read/send emails, browse the web, buy apps (many of which are free), watch video and listen to music without ever connecting or synching it to a PC. I've no idea why you posted that link, its about people complaining about a third party PC music management app not synching properly with iOS. It doesn't change any of the above.

Steve Todd
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Re: The New iPad in Just 1 paragraph.

You seem to be labouring under some misapprehensions.

The Infinity screen is a 10.1" 16:9 ratio screen that works out smaller than the 9.7" 4:3 screen of the iPad. You're looking at a diagonal measurement, less square = less area.

The Tegra 3 that also powers the Transformer Prime is only slightly faster at tasks like web browsing than the current iPad 2, and is slower at graphics intensive tasks like OpenGL. Chances are that Apple have at least reved the clock speed of the CPU cores in the A5X so expect the wins that it does have to be reversed.

The Infinity only gets more battery life than the iPad when the keyboard is attached, at which point it becomes thicker and heavier than the iPad.

iTunes hasn't been required since the release of iOS 5. You can work completely without it.

There's no pricing or precise availability for the infinity, so any guesses on your part as to it's price are just that. The iPad has both.

GM puts the brake on Volt e-car output

Steve Todd

You're assuming that all electric cars charge at peak hours

In reality there's lots of surplus capacity over night (hence Economy 7 rates to encourage people to use it). Charging over night will meet most folks needs and won't stress out the grid.

Steve Todd
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Re: There's one reason why it might be more popular here.

£1.56 for 46 miles is the equivalent of 180MPG, assuming petrol costs £1.35 per litre. I'd like to see an S Max manage that.

SHOCK: RIM PlayBook outsells Apple iPad

Steve Todd
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You missed the fact

That the iPad 3 is being launched this week so sales are down pending details of the new model. The fact that RIM are losing money on each PlayBook sold won't be much consolation either.

iPad 3 launch news pushes Apple shares to $500bn high

Steve Todd

Re: Re: Re: Balls

Better off than you thought. Splitting $7,000M by 932.37M shares outstanding = $7.5077 per share. Five shares * $7.5077 = $37.54. At current exchange rates that's about £23.50 (less tax). Don't spend it all at once/

Leap-day Visual Studio beta provokes 'passionate' response

Steve Todd

Re: Alternatives

You're a little behind the times on Delphi. The IDE is Windows only, but it will generate OS X and iOS native binaries in addition to Win32 these days.

Security biz scoffs at Apple's anti-Trojan Gatekeeper

Steve Todd
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Real *nix experts I see

Completely ignoring the fact that software on USB drives, CD/DVD/BR, network shares etc. WON'T just install without being screened. All software requires raised privileges to install and will cause a prompt for an admin account and password.

What's more code signing means that having been installed rogue software may be remotely killed by revoking it's certificate.

iPad 3 chip leak squeaks dual-core tweaks

Steve Todd
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So why is it not possible

That Apple are going for 4 ARM Cortex A9 cores in this variant? The A4 SoC had a single Cortex A8 CPU, so moving to twin A9s was worth a full version bump. ARMs A15 core is a bit heavy on the juice (which is why they came up with the new A7, which could quickly activate an A15 and transfer heavy tasks to it) so it makes sence to rev the clock and number of cores in Apple's A5 until the A7/A15 combo is ready.

Anglo-French nuke pact blesses 4th-gen reactors

Steve Todd
Stop

Re: Happy time for the French

You do know that they've got 59 nuclear plants on their own soil and export surplus power to the UK? Nearly 80% of French electricity comes from nuclear.

Apple files patent for simplified iPhone media sharing

Steve Todd
Stop

When are the comentards around here

going to figure out that a "Patent for a method" doesn't mean that something needs never have been done before. The requirement is only that it never have been done THAT WAY before.

People have been catching mice since time immemorial. It's still possible to patent a better mousetrap.

Apple demands US ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus

Steve Todd
Stop

@Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT) - apparently lack of reading comprehension and memory

are among your flaws.

Your original post stated "whining that FRAND licencing agreements (which countless others have happily agreed to) shouldn't apply to them", but the legal filing stated that this was the precise opposite of what was on offer. The "countless others" get their licenses paid for in the cost of their base band chips. MMI want Apple to pay a completely different royalty based on the RRP of their devices. This doesn't meet the ND part of FRAND. It's completely unsurprising that Apple, having agreed to pay the cost of a licensed baseband chip, are upset that MMI have revoked that license and demanded a much higher rate.

Your next post, in response to the legal ruling PDF, claimed "Because that is about Motorola applying to have Apples calls for exemption from FRAND dismissed", which is again completely wrong. It's about Apple's claims that MMI had abused FRAND terms and tried to charge them an unreasonable licensing fee being found to be of sufficient merit to require trial. The ONLY thing it ruled out was the possibility of a free license as valid remedy of those alleged abuses.

Your final post made a bunch of stuff up. Nowhere else in this thread did you say "Motorola have behaved less than perfectly", to which you add "if they wish to withdraw licences from 3rd parties, (whilst not something I necessarily agree with) that's between them and the 3rd parties", which is actually in contravention of ETSI FRAND rules so it's not just between those two parties. Then you state "This raises the situation where Apple are required to licence things they previously didn't have to.", ignoring the fact that they didn't have to because they'd ALREADY paid for it (go look up patent exhaustion).

Non of this shows joined up thinking or understanding on your behalf of what Apple are claiming.

Steve Todd
FAIL

@Rameses Niblic the Third (KKWWMT) - apparently there IS something in the world

more stupid than plankton, that would be you.

Apple raised a series of legal claims in a countersuit against MMI, saying not that they wanted to be free of FRAND, but that MMI were abusing FRAND comitments, that they were omitting to mention IP to standards bodies relevant to standards that they were partaking in (which they were subsequently declaring to be essential) and that they were withdrawing/revoking licences from chip manufacturers (in disregard of ETSI FRAND rules which require all licenses to be irrevocable) in order to try to force licensing terms on Apple that were different to the rest of the market. The judge ruled that Apple had valid cause (not that the case was proven, but that MMI needed to answer).

The ONLY point that the Judge sided with MMI over was the request for waiver (which is technically only usable as a defence plea, not when raising a suit) as a means of relief from MMIs actions. Apple are still free to seek huge damages if the court finds in their favour.

Now how on earth do you think that matches your claims?

Steve Todd
FAIL

@Rameses Niblick the Third (KKWWMT) - did you bother reading any of the preceding 37 pages?

The reason that the claim of waiver was dismissed was a technical one.

"I will deny Motorola’s motion to dismiss, with the exception of its motion to dismiss Apple’s claim of waiver because waiver is an affirmative defense, not a cause of action."

All other motions were ruled in Apple's favour.

Steve Todd
FAIL

Considering that the data tapping patent

was filed 16 years ago (1 Feb 1996) I don't think the Nokia counts as prior art. (U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, go look it up yourself). Also the patent is about a METHOD of achieving this effect, not the effect it's self. It should be possible to create a method to do something similar that doesn't infringe (abet with reduced usability).

Revealed: Apple's plea for fairness in mobile patent war

Steve Todd
FAIL

Did your grandmother say anything

about being paid for something at an agreed price, then coming back and demanding more money?

That's what Xerox tried (they gave Apple the rights to look at the Xerox Star system with the intention of producing commercial derivatives, in exchange for the right to buy pre-IPO shares) and what Motorola seem to be trying (they are revoking FRAND licence agreements with companies that sell chips using licensed paid technologies to Apple).

Double dipping isn't generally well looked upon by the courts.

Steve Todd
FAIL

@AC 04:11

It's very simple. There were tablet PCs before the iPad. Show us examples that looked like it does. It's obvious from looking at them (and indeed a number of current 3rd party tabs) that the iPad design is far from the ONLY way that it could have been done.

Why I'd pay Apple more to give iPad factory workers a break

Steve Todd
FAIL

@AC 20:52

So nothing to back up your claimed cost (and remember iSupply etc were talking about the raw cost of parts, not the assembled, packaged, delivered cost, along with software, licensing and certification expenses on top of that) and you ignore that the UK price is actually £499, £99.80 of which is VAT (sales tax for the folks from the US). The margins are nothing like those you are claiming.

Apple iPhone 4S grabs back ground lost to Android

Steve Todd
FAIL

You missed out

Faster CPU (twin Cotrex A9s rather than a single A8), faster GPU (PowerVR SGX543MP2 vs SGX535) and a faster 3G radio (up to 7.2Mbits/sec). I can see how that's all trivial stuff that no one would want </sarcasm>

First ever private rocket to space station in launch delay

Steve Todd
FAIL

Launching satellites and delivering supplies to the ISS isn't doing anything?

They may not have run many commercial missions yet, but they have a fat NASA contract and a queue a mile long of customers willing to put down deposits on a launch slot.