According to 9to5 Mac, the next generation iPhone will have a 4 inch retina display. It will fit in the same size phone. So, while the display will be bigger, the size items shown on the display will remain essentially unchanged.
Peter Kafka: You’ve complained publicly before about the difficulty in supporting multiple flavors of Android for your apps. But this year you’ve expanded the number of Android handsets you’re supporting from 6 to 11. Did you ever consider not working with Android at all?
Bob Bowman: The short answer is no. But what we have done is that we don’t support every Android phone. Because at some point, it’s diminishing returns. The Android user typically is less likely to buy, and therefore the ROI on developing for Android is different than it is for Apple.
Peter Kafka: Why do you think an Android owner behaves differently than an iPhone owner?
Bob Bowman: The iPhone and iPad user is interested in buying content–that’s one of the reasons they bought the device. The Android buyer is different.
It’s a great phone–make no mistake about it. But if you really want first rate digital content on a device, your first look will probably be an iPhone. And on the tablet, an iPad.
– Bob Bowman runs Major League Baseball Advanced Media, including MLB.com and its subscription services.
The answer to the question, at least regarding web usage, is that only the iPad has a significant web browser usage, according to Chitika. According to their analysis, for every 100 iPads browsing the web, only 1.3 of the next largest competitor (Samsung Galaxy) is browsing.
Going forward the competition is going to be hard pressed to find a way to overthrow the seemingly omnipotent Apple. Not only do they offer a great product they have the undying devotion of their enthusiasts. Thus far Apple’s iPad offering has been able to thwart any attempt by competitors to develop a rival (or even equivalent product). Apple produces a product that is both aesthetically pleasing and technologically robust.
So, who is that is winning again?
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model. Apple iMessage is a classic example. If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.
– AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, regretting that the telco carriers’ massively over-priced text messaging plans are under serious assault.
I think this Tweet expresses my view quite ably:
@parislemon What an insufferable asshole. Maybe if they didn’t charge margins of +10,000% Apple wouldn’t have had to side step them.
— Tristan O’Tierney (@tristan) May 4, 2012
Apple Inc.’s iPad widened its lead in the tablet market to 68 percent in the first quarter, while most devices running Google Inc.’s Android software saw sales slump, according to IDC.
Apple’s market share climbed from 55 percent in the previous three months, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm said. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) (AMZN)’s Kindle Fire, which runs on Android, saw its share tumble to about 4 percent, from 17 percent in the previous quarter.
Yup, Android is winning.
According to Horace Deidu, here are the phone industry profits for Q1 2012:
Apple captured 73% of phone industry profits and Samsung captured 26%. HTC took 1%. Everybody else lost money.
— Horace Dediu (@asymco) May 2, 2012
Meanwhile, RIM pushed out a crippled developer preview of its new phones, and the stock plunged.
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
Arik Hesseldahl, writing in All Things D, points out that the New York Times story about Apple and its tax payments was misleading in certain respects.
…the implication the story leaves you with — that Apple is somehow doing society a disservice by not paying its fair share of corporate taxes — is simply wrong on many levels. The most dubious of lines that the Times attempts to draw is between Apple and the budget crisis at De Anza College, a local community college where Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was once a student. The college is facing a “death spiral” because of a decline in funding from the state. This funding, the reader is led to conclude, would be more plentiful if corporations like Apple were to step up and pay and not escape the tax bill by setting up an office in neighboring Nevada.
What the Times fails to make clear is how community colleges are funded in California. The picture is much more complicated. California community colleges draw the majority of their funding from the state’s general fund — which is drawn directly from the state’s personal and corporate income taxes — and from local property taxes collected by counties. As of the 2009-2010 budget cycle, these two buckets made up about 88 percent of the system’s funding. State lottery funds, federal funds and student fees made up the remainder.
Here.
(via Daring Fireball)
Today, the New York Times runs another article attacking Apple as part of the Times so-called “iEconomy” series. This piece focuses on on Apple’s international tax planning and minimization. Once again, the New York Times attacks Apple despite the fact that many, many other corporations do the same thing. And, of course, the bulk of taxes paid with respect to Apple income is actually paid by its shareholders.
Apple’s response is here.
The New York Times itself describes its iEconomy series as examining the “challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries.” So why the continuing focus on one company in one high tech industry?
By the way, providing that Apple’s tax planning techniques are legal (and even the Times seems to confirm that), Apple is doing the right thing for its shareholders.
Perhaps the New York Times should turn a portion of its investigative talents on itself for a change. Its market capitalization is currently a little under $938 Million. Five years ago, in June, 2007, its market capitalization was $3.6 Billion. So, over the past five years, the New York Times has lost approximately three quarters of its shareholder value. And when its Chief Executive Janet Robinson left the company at the end of 2011, guess what compensation she received for her work leading the company to falling profits? $24 Million. Great job, Times management.
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
S&P yesterday cut its rating on Nokia bonds to junk. [Moody's had downgraded the bonds to junk earlier this month.]
Why?
Standard & Poor’s downgraded Nokia’s bonds on Friday to junk status, noting that the company’s first-quarter revenue fell below its expectations, particularly because sales of its phones that include the older Symbian software had fallen so drastically.
***
In the smartphone category, Nokia slips to third place behind Apple, the leader with 35 million phones shipped, and Samsung, with 32 million devices, according to iSuppli. In that category, Nokia is slipping faster than Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry. The smartphone segment is the only part of the handset market that is showing any growth.
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
Guess which mobile platform is winning in the business sector in the US?
Android is in steep decline in the workplace, according to an analysis by Good Technology, a major information technology firm that provides software for about 3,000 businesses to manage Android and iOS devices.
The company said that from tracking device activations among clients using Good’s software, it saw that 73.9 percent of smartphones in use were iPhones and 26.1 percent were Android devices. The iPhone’s share is up from 62.3 percent in the similar period last year and Android is down from 37.7 percent.
The numbers for tablets are even uglier for Android, partly because they haven’t changed from last year. The iPad accounted for 97.3 percent of tablet activations for the quarter, compared to 2.7 percent for Android.
When the tablet and smartphone categories are combined, about 80 percent of Good’s clients are using Apple devices, including iPhones and iPads, up from 70 percent in the year-earlier quarter.
Android is winning … not.
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.
Simplify, simplify.
– Henry David Thoreau
Simplify.
– Apple
The above is from the opening pages of a new book titled “Insanely Simple – The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success” by Ken Segall. It captures the essence of what Apple tries to do with all its products. Ken Segall is an advertising executive who worked closely with Steve Jobs on many of Apple’s most important campaigns.
Apple has captured has 59% of the U.S. smartphone sales at the top three carriers, versus 36% of smartphone sales a year prior.
Android is winning . . . not.
Anything can be forced to converge but the problem is the products are about tradeoffs. You begin to make trade-offs to the point where what you have left at the end of the day doesn’t please anyone.
You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user.
– Apple CEO Tim Cook, disparaging Microsoft’s plan to sell devices that convert from a tablet into a notebook computer, without specifically naming Microsoft.
Alright, Apple believers. You win.
– Jonathan Cheng, writing in the Wall Street Journal.
Disclosure: I am long AAPL.