The iPhone in Your Pocket Is Worth Millions

The iPhone in Your Pocket Is Worth Millions

Several years ago, I had a bit of fun estimating how much an iPhone would have cost to make in the 1990s. The impetus was a story making the rounds on the web.

A journalist had found a full-page newspaper ad from RadioShack dating back to 1991. He was rightly amazed that all 13 of the advertised electronic gadgets – computer, camcorder, answering machine, cordless phone, etc. – were now integrated into a single iPhone. The cost of those 13 gadgets, moreover, summed to more than $3,000. Wow, he enthused, most of us now hold $3,000 worth of electronics in the palm of our hand.

I saluted the writer’s general thrust but noted that he had wildly underestimated the true worth of our modern handheld computers. In fact, the computing power, data storage capacity, and communications bandwidth of an iPhone in 2014 would have cost at least $3 million back in 1991. He had underestimated the pace of advance by three orders of magnitude (or a factor of 1,000).

Well, in a recent podcast, our old friend Richard Bennett of High Tech Forum brought up the $3 million iPhone 5 from 2014, so I decided to update the estimate. For the new analysis, I applied the same method to my own iPhone 7, purchased in the fall of 2016 – 25 years after the 1991 RadioShack ad.

My iPhone 7 has 128 gigabytes (GB) of flash memory, which would have cost around $5.76 million back in 1991. Its A10 processor, which includes a CPU and GPU, has 3.3 billion transistors, running at 2.34 gigahertz (GHz) and delivering roughly 120,000 million instructions per second (MIPS). This amount of computing power would have cost something like $3.6 million back in 1991.

The iPhone 7 also delivers astonishing communications speed via 4G LTE mobile networks. Peak and average mobile speeds vary, depending on geography, network load, and other factors, so I just decided to use the speed I normally get on my mobile LTE connection (not Wi-Fi) at my office. With just two of five dots’ worth of signal strength, I enjoy a connection of 33 megabits per second (Mbps). That kind of wireless bandwidth might have cost something like $3.3 million back in 1991.

Adding it up, we get $5.76 + $3.6 + $3.3 = $12.66 million to produce today’s iPhone back in 1991. And that’s just for the three components that are easiest to measure and compare across time. This estimate doesn’t include the camera, display, random access memory (RAM), MEMS gyroscope and accelerometer, or any of the other amazing parts and features packed into an impossibly compact package. Nor does this account for inflation, which means our comparison may understate the effect.

These are fairly rough estimates. Yet it’s interesting that the new $12-million figure is four times the $3-million estimate from three years ago – which just happens to be the pace of Moore’s law, a doubling every 18 months or so. By many accounts, Moore’s law is slowing down or is even “dead.” Yet these types of cost-performance improvements suggest Moore’s law, at least for now, lives on.

Reprinted from American Enterprise Institute.

Bret Swanson


Bret Swanson is a visiting fellow at AEI’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy and president of Entropy Economics LLC, a strategic research firm specializing in technology, innovation, and the global economy.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Why Do So Many Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

Following the valuable advice of co-blogger David Henderson, I've gotten my hands on Milton Friedman on Freedom, a new collection edited by the Hoover Institution. The book will surprise all of us who never properly appreciated the insights and wisdom of Friedman's political thinking. His own peculiar blend of classical liberalism comes out all the more as subtle and relevant.


Among the several chapters, I did particularly enjoy a 1974 interview with Reason magazine. Friedman was then interviewed by the editorial trio (Tibor Machan, Joe Cobb, Ralph Raico), who were challenging him from what they considered a more consistent libertarian position.

The interview is rich and interesting in many ways. Friedman defends a negative income tax and school vouchers as "devices for enabling the free market to play a larger role." He admits that the work of E.G. West made him revisit his own rationale for compulsory education (but not to abandon vouchers as a practical policy proposal), and he discusses inflation and the gold standard.

Friedman also speaks on a matter which has likewise been pondered by many of his contemporaries: why intellectuals oppose capitalism.

To these questions, some have replied that the main reason is resentment (intellectuals expect more recognition from the market society than they actually get); some have pointed out that self-interest drives the phenomenon (intellectuals preach government controls and regulation because they'll be the controllers and regulators); some have taken the charitable view that intellectuals do not understand what the market really is about (as they cherish "projects" and the market is instead an unplanned order).

Friedman rejects the resentment view and proposes a version of the self-interest thesis by looking at the demand-side, so to speak. And it shows – behind the veil of his civility – very little consideration for the tastes of his fellow intellectuals for complex arguments, which seems to me quite a criticism.

Here's the passage:

REASON: Perhaps we can go back to your comment about intellectuals. What do you think of the thesis put forth by von Mises and Schoeck, that envy motivates many contemporary intellectuals' opposition to the free market?

FRIEDMAN: Well, I don't think we'll get very far by interpreting the intellectuals' motivation. Their critical attitudes might be attributed to personal resentment and envy but I would say that a more fruitful direction, or a more fundamental one, is that intellectuals are people with something to sell. So the question becomes, what is there a better market for? I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there's something wrong pass a law and do something about it. If there's something wrong it's because of some no-good bum, some devil, evil and wicked – that's a very simple story to tell. You don't have to be very smart to write it and you don't have to be very smart to accept it. On the other hand, the individualistic or libertarian argument is a sophisticated and subtle one. If there's something wrong with society, if there's a real social evil, maybe you will make better progress by letting people voluntarily try to eliminate the evil. Therefore, I think, there is in advance a tendency for intellectuals to be attracted to sell the collectivist idea.

REASON: It's paradoxical but people might then say that you are attributing to the collectivist intellectual a better feeling for the market.

FRIEDMAN: Of course. But while there's a bigger market for Fords than there is for American Motors products, there is a market for the American Motors products. In the same way, there's a bigger market for collectivist ideology than there is for individualist ideology. The thing that really baffles me is that the fraction of intellectuals who are collectivists is, I think, even larger than would be justified by the market.

Reprinted from Library of Economics and Liberty.

Alberto Mingardi


Alberto Mingardi is Director General of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free-market think tank.

 

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

PSM (December 1997)

There was the Official PlayStation Magazine and then there was PSM who prided themselves on being "independent". There were others too but I think these were the most popular by far. The December 1997 issue of PSM includes:

Features

• Cover Story: Tomb Raider 2 Strategy - Part One of a complete walk-through of the game. Useful if you are stuck...or to completely spoil the game.

• Cover Story: Girls & Games - What do girls want in a game? Not sure why they seemed to portray this as such a novel thing. Even in the dark ages of 1997 there were plenty of girl gamers.

• The PSM Holiday Special - A holiday buyer's guide with a list of naughty and nice games broken down by category.

• Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back - Review of the 3D platformer Crash Bandicoot 2. PSM gives it 5 stars which is their highest rating.

• Parappa Contest - A trivia contest in which you could win a Sony 200 Disc CD changer, PlayStation varsity jacket, a PlayStation T-shirt, and much more.

• Street Fighter EX Plus Complete Special Moves and Super Combos - Special moves and combos for all of the Street Fighter EX Plus characters.

• Test Drive 4: Producer's Strategy - Detailed info on all of the cars, their difficulty level, tracks they are best on, and more. Plus, some general strategies for the game.

• Colony Wars - A walk-through guide for the first five acts along with some general tips and strategies.

• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - A strategy guide for this platform/puzzle game with an excellent atmosphere. How to rescue all 99 Mudokons.

Monitor

• Feature Story: Diablo Burns Up PlayStation - The classic action/RPG and one of the most popular games of all time comes to the PlayStation.

• Yaroze News - Various web sites with info about the Net Yaroze, the PS development system anyone could buy.

• Gossip - Square to publish its own games; Acclaim reorganizes; New Contra game on the way; development of Mortal Kombat 4 well underway; Crash 3 coming soon...

• Nihon Game Otaku! - The latest out of Japan, including info on Chou Atsui!, Ore! Tonba!, Crime Crackers 2, Space Adventure Cobra the Psychogun, Konami Antiques - MSX Collection Vol. 1, Metal Gear, and more.

• Other News - PSEmu lets you play PlayStation games on your PC but only Raiden Project for now; controller with vibration feedback may be coming soon; and more.

Reviews

• Crash Bandicoot 2 - See above.

• CART World Series - A mediocre racing game.

• NHL '98 - The hockey game to have...if you wanted a hockey game anyway.

• Nightmare Creatures - A beat-em-up 3D adventure with a horror theme.

• Pandemonium 2 - A psychedelic 3D adventure on rails.

• Test Drive 4 - A continuation of the classic driving game. I played the first one on my Commodore 64.

• Jet Moto 2 - Hover bike racing game.

• Mass Destruction - No complicated missions here. Just blow stuff up with your tank.

• Need for Speed: V-Rally - Another entry in another racing game franchise.

• Cool Boarders 2 - Snowboarding, including half-pipe and downhill.

• Tomb Raider 2 - This sequel gets the highest possible score here. Tomb Raider popularity was at its peak.

• Red Asphalt - Not much new here but if you like Wipeout and Twisted Metal then you might like this game.

• Rampage World Tour - A port of the arcade Rampage sequel.

• Fighting Force - A 3D beat-em-up.

• MDK - Did this really stand for Murder Death Kill? I've forgotten...

• MK Mythologies: Sub Zero - This seemed like an interesting concept. Take a Mortal Kombat character and throw them into a platform beat-em-up type game. The title seemed to also hint at future entries in the series. However, it wasn't very well executed and sequels never came.

• Flashback - A look back and previously reviewed games, including Epidemic, Assault Rigs, and NHL Face-Off.

Previews

• Breath of Fire III - Classic fantasy RPG for the PlayStation.

• Spawn: The Eternal - A 3D adventure game based on the comic book character.

• FF Tactics - A Final Fantasy game emphasizing the battles.

• Auto Destruct - Inspired by Twisted Metal but with more of a story.

• Skull Monkeys - Sequel to the PC game Neverhood. A 2D platformer that uses claymation styled graphics.

• NCAA GameBreaker - For those preferring college football

• Pitfall 3-D - One of many game that it was felt (by someone) needed a 3D remake.

• Batman & Robin - Not the best Batman movie. Probably not the best Batman game either.

• Super Motocross - Motorcycle racing game.

...and much more!

Super Strike Eagle (Super Nintendo)

SUPER STRiKE EAGLE MicroProse Super NES 1993

F-15 Strike Eagle was a combat flight simulator developed for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit and Apple II and eventually ported to other systems as well. This is not that game. Whereas F-15 Strike Eagle was much more of a true combat flight simulator, Super Strike Eagle is a somewhat simplified game with more of an arcade feel and except for the general theme, isn't really related to the original or its sequels.

Super Strike Eagle was released by MicroProse for the Super Nintendo in 1993. In it, the player plays the role of a U.N. pilot attacking targets in various rogue nations, depending on the mission, in order to bring them back into line with the U.N. Despite the improved graphics, it really isn't as good or as in depth as the original game. Still, it's a decent game and ok for a bit of fun if you're looking for a combat flight game on your Super Nintendo. Those looking for a true sim probably shouldn't be looking on a console anyway, even today.

As far as I know, there were no sequels or re-releases of this game and it wasn't available on any other system. If you are looking for this particular iteration of Strike Eagle, then a real SNES and cart or an emulator are your only choices.

I really hate how so many games on the Super Nintendo were preceded by the word "Super"...