by Conrad MacIntyre
By Conrad MacIntyre
[A]fter 18 months, iPhone retains 53 percent of its retail value, compared to 42 percent for Android and 41 percent for BlackBerry.
Matches up with my experience. I recently (December) sold an iPhone 3G for $115. That's 42 months later and 17.7% of the original, unsubsidized price. 52% of the contract price I paid when I bought it.
Foss Patents said Motorola likely wants Apple to deny the request so it can seek injunctions.
Motorola wants 1 billion worth of Apple's iPhone sales for 2011. Sounds FRAND to me.
Andy Greenberg, on the latest Android malware research:
The malware’s trick–what researchers call “privilege escalation”–would be far more difficult on Apple’s more restrictive platform for the iPhone and iPad, which only allows approved code to run on the devices.
Feeling pretty secure in my walled garden. Just sayin'.
Samsung makes a lot of great things, but the Note is not one of those things. It’s an awkward experiment that they felt could only break even on if they promoted it so relentlessly that people would have to believe it was a big-deal device. It’s a troubling trend and marks another point on the trend of CE companies competing awkwardly on either personality or spec. Few CE companies have any personality, unfortunately, and spec-sells are at best misleading and at worst a pack of lies. Samsung has no personality, and the Galaxy Note’s specs aren’t really salable. So they’re in the awkward position of selling by sheer visibility.
Online travel pricing site Kayak has revealed that it has dropped its BlackBerry app after it came to “practical” decision to cease supporting the RIM platform, which it says is attracting lessening interest.
In 2008, we launched Google Chrome to help make the web better. We’re excited that millions of people around the world use Chrome as their primary browser and we want to keep improving that experience. Today, we’re introducing Chrome for Android Beta, which brings many of the things you’ve come to love about Chrome to your Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone or tablet.
This looks like a really terrific browser, and has been touted by some as having some features that even make it better than mobile Safari. That all may be true, but my questions is this:
Why has it taken over 4 years to make this happen?
Seriously. Chrome was released in 2008, the same time as modern Android, presumably the two were being developed at the same time. Surely they could have included Chrome in the first version of Android if they wanted to at all. This is the sort of thing that would never happen at Apple. One of the three marquee feature touted by Jobs at the iPhone's unveiling at Macworld 2007 was the "Breakthrough Internet Communicator". It's well-known that the default jukebox software is sub-par. So when Android shipped it only had one of the three marquee features present in Apple's iPhone. Jobs said iPhone was 5 years ahead of anything else — history is again proving him right.
(via The Next Web)
But there was one ad that struck me as the most honest, most riveting and most compelling of all. You see, the game had just ended, and Colts great Raymond Berry ran the Giant gantlet with the Lombardi Trophy. Suddenly it seemed like every other Giant pulled out an Apple iPhone to snap pictures of the moment. One after another after another. And I said to myself, there it is, not some pet dangling a bag of chips or some headlights killing vampires or King Elton getting trapdoored. Nope, there was an ad worthy of Steve Jobs and the company he built.
(via Daring Fireball)
Tristan Schaap wrote a thesis on his time at Apple shortly after he left the company in 2010, but he was unable to publish it until August 16 2011, when an embargo protecting the sensitive subject matter was lifted. It’s now available for anyone to read, and it details Apple’s work on porting its Snow Leopard desktop operating system to devices powered by ARM processors.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. Jobs was porting OS X to Intel well before theirs were the superior processors. Apple like to have options. I'm sure they run all kinds of scenarios and have plenty of avenues being explored at any given time.
[Facebook] doesn’t have an inventory of widgets or gadgets, cars or phones. Facebook’s inventory consists of personal data — yours and mine.
Mmhmm.
Killian Bell on Proview suing Apple for trademark infringement:
Proview is said to be trapped in a “debt crisis,” and is hoping the case will get the company out of its financial troubles.
Proview sold them the name, but withheld China as a territory of use. Now, strapped financially, they want big money, a cease and desist, and an apology. Apple could tie them p in litigation until they literally have no money, then film their offices shutting down with an iPad. I think they'd best tread carefully.
Another source familiar with the negotiations said Apple is open to working with multiple companies for its connected TV project, which some have dubbed the "iTV." The tipster indicated that Rogers and Bell had been approached by Apple during its search for partners.
The last part of this paragraph is what really concerns me. Neither Rogers or Bell create anything. They only serve content created by others. They are just cable operators. If this Apple iTV is just a front-end for existing cable packages I'm really not interested. If this was Steve Jobs way of 'cracking' television I'm not seeing it. I hope there's more to it than this. I hope, I mean I really, really hope, they are working with content creators as well.
A new report suggests that Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is opening a small, Kindle-focused retail store in Seattle to test whether the concept could be expanded to other markets.
I've always felt like Amazon's greatest strength (and the reason they were able to keep prices down) was their online only approach. Kindle is the defacto standard e-reader. If someone's not sure what Nook or Kobo is, you tell them it's "like a Kindle".
Whomever it was that Samsung was trying to advertise to, they managed to insult instead.
I thought this ad smacked of the 1985 Lemmings ad Apple drew heat over 20-some-odd years ago.
In response to profits that dropped 26% this quarter, HTC had admitted that making an early transition to LTE was a “big mistake.”
I don't know that LTE was solely to blame, but this is a huge admission. Apple's strength has always been saying no. And for as much complaining as tech pundits have done about it, it's never negatively impacted Apple's bottom line.
Acknowledging that piracy is theft, and therefore illegal I'd like to offer some thoughts on the subject.Firstly, I don't think piracy will ever die, that's just a fact of life with the internet. Knowing that, what can be done to curb piracy? Should we sue the downloader?
No. You may remember Metallica tried this with Napster in the early part of the 2000s and it didn't work so well. I was a Napster user after the Metallica Raid — I got back online later that day. My new username? "MetallicaBannedMeToo". The fact of the matter is piracy is so rampant that trying to catch all the downloaders and sue them would tie up the courts for decades.
Should we jail the uploader?
No. The way torrenting, Magnet Links, and Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing networks operate everyone who downloads is an uploader. See previous problem with finding, charging, and trying all of those millions (billions?) of people.
Should we shut down the middleman?
No. Like Napster, Kazaa, The Pirate Bay, Megaupload, and BTJunkie? For as many as get shut down another will open. It's like a game of Whack-a-Mole - no one ever wins. You just play for the highest score.
Should we police the internet?
No. This is a dangerous and slippery slope to flirt with.
So, what's to be done?
The best part of downloading music in the early 2000s was that I could get just one track. I know it seems normal now, but back then the only way to get one track was to buy a 'single' which usually cost about $8 and came with two or three other tracks you didn't really want. Now, what if the song you want is a deep track, not released to radio? Or the label didn't release a single for it? You had to go to the record store (remember those) and buy an album for $15 rip the one song you liked to your computer. So what happened? The iTunes Music Store. Did it stop piracy of music? No, but Steve Jobs decided that rather than try to kill it, they'd try to compete with it. Genius. Here is the video of the iTunes Music Store introduction in 2003. The audio is out of sync, but it's still worth watching:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2n86TROxzY&w=640&h=360]
Right now, the industry is still stuck in the past, and is crawling oh-so-slowly into the future. They still believe people are going to want to buy DVDs or Blu-rays in five years, and that a movie ticket is well worth $15. Netflix is the closest thing they have to an advocate, but the studios are trying to drive them out of business as they see them as a threat, not a solution. It’s mind boggling.
Paul also posted this image from reddit:
Studios and Networks needs to yank their heads out of the sand and build a model that allows them to compete with piracy. Make your product better and MORE convenient. Say I want to watch Commando. Video rental stores are dead so I have to go down to Best Buy, drop $8-$12 bucks to pick up a movie who's special features are "Interactive Menus" and hopefully I like it. This is how I ended up with Seven Pounds - which I will never watch again.
Put the movie for rent in iTunes for $2. And I will rent it cause it's cheap and reliable. Then, offer an upgrade path, so if I like the movie I can upgrade my rental to a purchase for $3 more — $5 for a catalog movie from 1985 seems pretty fair to me. More for movies with special features. More for new releases. As it is now I can download a movie from the internet in 10 minutes and own it forever with no DRM. Hollywood has nothing to compete with that.
An anecdote in closing:
A couple years ago I spent over $250 to buy every season of MacGyver. A show that had been off the air for 15 years. There was not a single special feature or commentary or anything. And it took almost 2 years to get the full set and an additional 4 years to get the TV movies. In two days I could download every MacGyver episode and movie ever made and it would be free. Most of the time, in fact, it's faster to download something I already own then it is to rip it off my DVDs.
Two thoughts about this:
- If your brand new product is being compared to a Palm Pilot, then you have already lost.
- If the first feature of a new touchscreen device that you want to tout is a stylus — perhaps you need to rethink that device.
Samsung’s new Galaxy superphone is set to measure just 7mm, coming in almost 1.5mm thinner that its predecessor.
The Galaxy S II is not 8.5mm thick. It's 9.91mm thick. Daniel Ionescu:
[T]he Galaxy S II has bulges at the top (for camera lens) and bottom (speaker, antenna) of the phone. If the bulges are taken in consideration for the thickness, the Galaxy S II measures 9.91 mm, which is thicker than the iPhone 4 (9.3 mm)
By Samsung's measurement practices the MacBook Air is only 3mm thick. Crown, please!
The scene is set. The lines are drawn. The summer of 2012 is set to play host to a massive battle: the iPhone 5 vs the Samsung Galaxy S III. But don’t get caught up in the nonsense war. Stand on the sideline and watch as two, likely awesome, smartphones trade shots. In the end it doesn’t really matter. The consumer wins no matter what.
While I have no doubt the Samsung Galaxy S 3, Galaxy S3D, and Galaxy Stylus 3 will sell well this summer, they won't be competing against the iPhone 5. They'll be competing against the iPhone 4S. iPhone 5 won't be announced at WWDC, at least that's my bet based on Apple's last holiday quarter. And despite going head-to-head against the iPhone 4S they'll still lose. Mark my words.
Ross Rubin:
The iPhone 4S outsold the iPhone 4 by 75%, and outsold the iPhone 3GS, available for free on AT&T, five to one...
This means (approximately) 9.5 million iPhone 4S, 5.5 million iPhone 4, and 2 million iPhone 3GS. We know that the Samsung Galaxy S II came in behind the 3GS, so let's say they got 1.9 million in sales and let's give the Galaxy S 4G 1.8 million (Android OEMs don't seem to release sales numbers). That means iPhone as a brand outsold the Galaxy phones by a factor of 4.6-to-1.
(via TechCrunch)
US Smartphone Sales Q4 2011, according to NDP:
If you've seen Samsung's latest series of ads mocking iPhone users (culminating in an unbelievable Super Bowl ad) who standing line for a phone but are worried about people knowing they've upgraded, or if it has 4G, or bemoaning the lack of a pen.
FIrst of all, the idea that people lining up for an Apple product launch wouldn't already know this stuff is crazy-pants.
Secondly, the iPhone 3GS outsold the Galaxy S2 in Q4 2011. The phone that went on sale in Q2 2009 outsold the Galaxy S2. Suffice it to say that I doubt people in line at an Apple store are falling all over themselves to try the latest stylus tablephone. I would also wager that Samsung wouldn't be making fun of those line-standers if they had some of their own.
(via 9to5Mac)