by Conrad MacIntyre
By Conrad MacIntyre
Apple’s iPhone business alone is larger than all of Microsoft’s businesses combined. And — just as remarkably — if you took away Apple’s iPhone business from the chart, the remaining Apple businesses would still be larger than Microsoft’s total business.
Wow. Who could have predicted this when Start Me Up was antheming in Windows '95? Ballmer didn't even see it coming six years ago.
Google:
Google is also a developer within [the Android] ecosystem and we want to offer the apps we develop such as Google Wallet, so people have access to the full range of functionality offered by the platform.
1% of Android phones are running Android 4.0. Doesn't really seem like they're all that fussed about it to me.
(via The Next Web)
Fresh off the leaked Windows Phone 8 news that seemed to signal the end of Zune as we know it, Microsoft has a new deal out that seems to paint a very different picture.
The new Zune will be less of a poo brown and more of a mud brown. Delightful.
Read this. Some of the comments are well reasoned and articulate as well.
A 23-year old League of Legends player named Chen Rong-yu was found dead, sitting upright in his chair, in an Internet cafe in Taiwan. According to the report from Sky News, the young man could have been dead for up to 9 hours before anyone took notice.
Horace Dediu:
Apple reached 75% of profit share, nearly 40% of revenue share and 9% of units share.
This is very impressive. What's even more interesting is that from the consumer's perspective all these phones are the same price — $199. But while RIM, LG, and Motorola are executing on razor thin margins Apple is making tonnes of money. Check out the charts.
This change in wording should make it clear, as many right minded people have assumed, that Apple was never interested in limiting the distribution of content that was not packaged in the .iBooks format.
Users are reporting a significant number of applications being affected by the issue, including Microsoft Office X and 2004, older versions of Adobe Photoshop, Quicken, Filemaker 7, and various other applications that had been written to run on PowerPC chips used in Apple's older machines.
Office X? Filemaker 7? I really think it's time to move on.
Google Inc has been quietly policing its online store for months now...
Jim Dalrymple, in response to rumours of a February Apple Event:
This is not going to happen, according to my sources. Apple will not hold an event in February, unusual or otherwise. That’s it.
Settles it for me.
(via The Loop)
† If you didn't get the song reference in the title you need to check out the late, great Jim Croce.
Amazon’s margins are so slim that Facebook, which just filed to go public today, recorded nearly double the profit of Amazon last year
Amazing to me that a company as large and ubiquitous as Amazon isn't making more money. They offer a good product and have great customer service.
(via Daring Fireball)
$5 video-editing iPad app from Avid. No word on an Android version.
I laughed out loud. It doesn't happen that often on the internet, so I had to re-blog.
Killean Bell (one of my favourite CoM cotruibutors):
Apple has made another addition to its team this week with a former Microsoft Product Marketing chief, Robin Burrowes, joining the ranks to become the head of App Store Marketing for iTunes Europe. Burrowes was previously part of Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE team, and he’s not the first gaming executive to head for Cupertino as Apple gets serious about battling consoles head on.
I think we all know what this means… Pippin II!
(via Cult of Mac)
Wow. Remember when everyone was convinced the iPad was a toy, not useful for real work? This laughable list comes to mind as well. And finally this gem of a live blog by Paul Thurrott:
Overall, this is a letdown. I'd be surprised to see anyone try to claim otherwise.
Gold.
(via MacRumors)
I drew some heat for my post yesterday about Foxconn from Mike Daisey. Very cool. You can read his blog here. Mike Daisey:
You do understand that we chose to put our production in a fascist country run by thugs? If you create a union or engage in union activity in China, you go to prison…so your proposal that we have no responsibility, and that people lift themselves up, is not only ridiculous, it’s actually impossible.
Mike, you are a smart and reasonable man who has been looking into this situation for years. I appreciate you championing a cause — and for what it's worth I think it's a good one. Raising awareness of situations like this is a good thing. But as you yourself said in response to Tim Worstall's condescending spiel:
Mr. Worstall must be aware that the industrial revolution wasn't alone in making those living standards what we see today. It was those economic engines coupled with a century of labor struggles to create safe, humane working conditions. Those conditions did not naturally emerge out of economic ferment, but were fought for by workers tooth and nail by organization and struggle.
That was my point in my original piece. China needs an industrial revolution. Mike, you talk about a man who's hand was crushed while at Foxconn who got another job where he was only required to work 70hrs/week. You talk about how unionizing in China is illegal and how people who demand to be paid will be labeled "troublemakers" by the labour board and blacklisted. I do not dispute these things, and I would like Chinese workers to be treated fairly — as they deserve.
There's no debate about this—it's why these standards are embedded in China's labor standards, and in Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct. Instead of excuses and explanations for why there aren't problems, we need to admit they exist and set our shoulders to the wheel to change them. That is how things are made better.
It sounds like you want all the companies that use Foxconn (and presumably every other western company that develops products in China) to change the Government, and the Labour Board, and the laws, and every factory in China. The west cannot simply barge into another country and force it's practices and laws on them. Surely you know that.
If the cost of production in China rises too much, the production will be moved elsewhere. If the production moves elsewhere the people will be unemployed. I say again, these people are not slaves, they can choose to leave, but instead new workers are queueing up to get in. You have also said there is high turnover — so clearly many do choose to leave. The rest choose to stay.
I'm not saying it's fair. I'm not saying it's right. But everyone on the earth isn't going to stop buying things manufactured in China (much as you may want them to), so the Chinese people need to make the change from within. Changes from within are the lasting ones. Always.
Keep fighting the good fight, Mike. Raise awareness. Change the world. I wish you all the best.
Mike Daisey:
So you’re going to see some good people [...] who happen to love their Apple products very much, say some horrible things because they don’t actually understand how to reconcile the beauty and grace of their wonderful Apple products with the unvarnished, verified truth of how they are produced.
Mike, as sad as the situation may be over there, the people are not slaves, they can leave if they choose, and people are lining up to get in just the way it is.
Also — if you want change, Mike, real change, it has to come from within. Do developed nations have good working conditions because those employers are just nice guys? No. Americans and Canadians and Brits and everyone else takes what they can get and give the least they have to. That's sadly the way it is. But workers in the United States (for example) stood up for themselves and said "no". They forced the employer to listen, and they forced the government to back them up.
I'm all for these workers striking in quantities unseen before in history and forcing the employers (and the government) to take care of their workers. I don't mind my iMac, Xbox, ThinkPad, or other electronic device being held up because the factory is in turmoil while those employees fight for their rights. I would support that entirely.
(via Cult of Mac)
Eric Silvka:
Research firm IDC today released its estimates of global mobile phone sales for the fourth quarter of and full-year 2011, finding Apple moving past LG to claim third place in the rankings for the first time.
Of course these are based on units shipped (which is a terrible metric), but still very interesting because this isn't about smartphones, just mobile phones.
(via MacRumors)
Jordan Crook:
Just from the results of last night’s Crunchies awards, it’s clear that Eric Schmidt was right. With 700,000 activations daily, Android simply can’t be ignored any longer.
I don't think anyone has been ignoring Android. I suspect that for iOS users (update: and holdout developers) it's been a combination of quality, consistency, and security. Those have been the biggest factors — for me at least.
(via Tech Crunch)