In December, the Google Nexus made by Taiwan’s Asustek Computer Inc. accounted for 44.4% of all tablet sales by volume electronics retailers. That’s according to a survey of 2,400 stores nationwide by market research firm BCN Inc., released Wednesday.
Google’s figure beat Apple’s 40.1% share, dethroning the iPad for the first time since it went on sale in May 2010.
Impressive. Fluke, seasonal Christmas surge, or an example of an underlying trend? The Japanese market is a dwarf compared to the US and China, with sales of four million tablet sales total across the entire of 2012, but the fact that the Nexus was able to beat the iPad in any market is noteworthy, especially a quarter in which the iPad lineup was updated.
He called in a few favors and got a meeting with the leadership at Apple. He explained that he had offers from the largest mobile OS competitors and that they wanted to acquire his music startup. Cue knew if Google obtained Lala the ownership of the service coupled with search dominance could be disruptive to their stronghold. Bill was notorious at getting great deals with the music elite, usually through Lala’s investor, Warner Brothers Music.
At the time, everyone on the outside — including myself — thought the Lala acquisition was part of a master plan for a streaming music service …
It’s funny that, in reality, the reasoning was very bland and monotonous; a defensive move to protect the iTunes ecosystem.
Still a remarkable operation, but one that seems to follow the more traditional model of giving customers what they want, rather than the Jobs model of dictating to consumers what they will want.
Don’t believe me? How are you enjoying that iPad Mini that Steve told you you’d never want?
I’m sorry, but what?
Jobs didn’t “dictate” what consumers want; he just knew what consumers would want and put Apple on a path to do that. I see no difference to how Cook is running Apple today. The iPad mini is a great product that many people found out they liked.
You can’t trust what Jobs said about the Mini publicly as proof ‘he would have never have done it’. As most sane people know, Jobs changed his mind on lots of stuff that he previously declared terrible. There are emails from the Samsung trial that say Jobs was “receptive” to the idea.
Regardless of Jobs’ stance on the matter, if the product is good, and by all measures the iPad mini is very good, why is there a need to complain? Are you telling me that you would prefer Apple to ditch a good product from being released because Jobs expressed his dislike whilst he was still alive? Now, that is an example of a dysfunctional company.
Considering Apple to be failing because it isn’t channelling Jobs is just bad logic. Nobody knows what he would think about their current product lineup and — despite the fact that many people forget — Jobs was not a god who never tripped over. Defying Jobs can very well be a good thing.
At the end of the day, what matters about Apple’s stability and growth is whether they are making the best products in their class and selling them in increasingly higher quantities. That is the parameter by which Apple needs to be judged.
In early January, Facebook began testing free calling over Wi-Fi and cellular data for all Messenger for iPhone users in Canada, and said that a US launch could be coming soon. Apparently, the test went well — a new free calling button has appeared in the app. Facebook has confirmed to The Verge that the feature began rolling out to US users today, and requires no update through the App Store.
Facebook really wants to emphasise the “freeness” of this feature; the button to call is literally labelled “Free Call”. Although a bit obnoxious visually, I think it is a smart design choice. I am asked all the time by family whether they will be charged for FaceTime, because it’s unclear. I would expect the consumer uncertainty surrounding free ‘traditional’ voice calls to be even greater than ‘new’ Skype-like video chat.
Give the option to Joe Customer to let Joe Developer reply to him about his issue either directly or publicly, or not at all. With this strategy the customer is always in control (which will please Apple) however, if the customer is legitimately interested in getting a response from the developer on said issue, he can give permission for the developer to respond privately or publicly. In the end, Joe Customer can make his point and optionally get a response and Joe Developer at least has a chance (assuming that’s what Joe Customer chooses) to respond to what could be a very explainable issue.
Whatever the solution, Wray is spot on that customers need the keys to end communication with the developer at any time.
That being said, I think Wray’s distinction between public and private seems unwieldy. Reviews are public, so it makes sense that replies to reviews are as well. By forcing publicness, the procedure is simplified (encouraging users to actually enable feedback) and helps to keep the members of the conversation in check.
I think it should be implemented as follows:
There is a checkbox when leaving a review for the customer to allow responses from developers; the default should be to leave the option unchecked.
Responses appear on the app’s page beneath the original review. The customer is alerted to responses by some UI in the iTunes Store and, maybe, a push notification on their iOS devices.
At any time, the original reviewer can close the discussion ‘thread’ to any more responses. This decision should be displayed in the review section to clarify that it was the customer’s choice to end the conversation, rather than the developer’s lack of care to reply.
If the original rating or review is changed, the associated thread is deleted. This ensures that future readers are not confused by mismatching incongruent comments, as well as preventing App Store pages to clutter with outdated information.
On the topic of that cheaper iPhone, Misek says that the device “looks close to being greenlit or may already have been” and offers some “likely specs” in order to help bring Apple’s costs down:
“Similar to the iPad mini, we expect a concentrated low-cost iPhone rather than a “cheap” one. Likely specs: polycarbonite case with 4” non-Retina display and no LTE. We believe a new low-cost iPhone would increase Apple’s share, decrease [gross margins], but have little impact on [earnings per share].”
If you take non-Retina at four inches to mean half the iPhone 5’s resolution, that is 568x320. That’s a PPI of 162; the same pixel density as the iPhone 3GS (a device that is four years old).
When I first read Jeffries report, I thought it was ludicrous to say that Apple would sell such a low density screen nowadays. However, I then remembered that Apple released the iPad mini in October, a device that, conveniently, has a display with exactly 162 pixels per inch. So now it doesn’t seem so crazy.
“The tragic and heartbreaking information you received is, regrettably, true,“ confirmed Swartz’ attorney, Elliot R. Peters of Kecker and Van Nest, in an email to The Tech.
I never spoke to him, let alone knew him, but his impact on my life, through his contributions to the web, has been profound.
The good news keeps rolling in for BlueStacks, the startup best known for making technology that enables one and all to download and use Android applications on their desktop PCs — and more recently, their Macs. In anticipation of CES, the company announced today that it has secured a global distribution deal with Chinese PC maker, Lenovo.
Is it time to simply refer to them as “apps” then?
HTC Corp. (2498), Asia’s second-largest smartphone maker, posted its lowest profit in eight years as a lack of new models prompted a loss of market share.
Fourth-quarter net income was NT$1 billion ($34 million), the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company said in a statement today. That’s the lowest since 2004 and less than the NT$10.9 billion it posted a year earlier, while being higher than the NT$764 million average of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Being frank, Bloomberg is being kind here. Even if they had released new device models, I doubt HTC would have been profitable in the last quarter. Its marketshare has halved in a year.
According to California-based Net Applications, OS X 10.8, better known as Mountain Lion, accounted for 32%, or nearly a third, of all Macs that went online during December. That was an increase of nearly three percentage points from November, when Mountain Lion powered just over 29% of all Macs.
Eventually, Apple will sell OS X upgrades for free and eliminate this problem entirely.
But I keep coming back to the same argument I’ve always had about the Surface in particular, which I’ll now make for all touch-based Windows 8 PCs/devices as well. They are too expensive.
And we’re reaching the point, given the actual sales data, where this too isn’t so much opinion as fact. Consumers are voting with their wallets, and the Windows PCs they’re buying today are cheap and non-touch-based. And the reason is that the touch-based machines are too expensive.
Is it just an issue of price? The iPad is sold at a minimum price of $500 and sells extremely well. I don’t see the logic that, for Windows 8 devices to succeed, their prices need to fall.
No doubt, lower prices would cause an increase in sales but I don’t think budget prices are required for anyone but Apple to succeed. I just think companies need to offer better products that can justify ‘premium’ price tags. Windows 8 has an ecosystem problem that it needs to solve. Android has usability problems.
The answer to “selling more” is not always price. I hate to see the market develop as it is currently, with Apple being the “premier” offering and everyone else battling at the budget level.
it has been reported that Waze was holding out for $750 million, multiple sources have told us that the company was valued around $200 million in its last funding round, and current investors were aiming for a higher price, somewhere nearing $1 billion.
Waze politely declined the offer, and the deal is definitely off — at least for now.
Our sources also tell us that Waze has received more than one acquisition offer in the last year, but has declined them all, as it looks to build something big and not look for a quick exit.
Isn’t The Next Web’s article a bit contradictory? At the start of the quoted excerpt, above, it says that Waze was open to accepting offers of $750 million but then ends by saying that Waze isn’t looking for a “quick exit”.
Regardless, Waze’s decision can only be described as brave; it must take extreme nerve to turn down a buyout offer from the most valuable company in the world. Good luck to them.
As to the Apple side of this story, I wonder why Apple wanted Waze in the first place. Or, more precisely, why do they suddenly want Waze now? If they have technology or information that Apple can benefit from, why did they not attempt an acquisition before Maps was released, at the time when they were more than happy to scoop up Placebase and C3 Technologies …
What changed to make Apple admit they need more outside talent to help with maps?
Currently under development, traces of Apple’s new iPhone and iOS software have begun surfacing in app usage logs. Developers have contacted The Next Web to share references to a new iPhone identifier and the next big operating system update for the smartphone and tablet devices: iOS 7.
Do you reckon iOS 7 will show the impact of Ive’s input? Or will it be a slower, more gradual transition that takes longer … There are big developer implications for radical changes to UIKit that need to be considered.
If iOS 7 is a true rethinking of iOS interaction paradigms, I would expect an iOS event in March, to give developers time to start redesigning their applications. For example, a major change to how notifications are displayed on screen (dynamic resizing of the forefront app, for instance) require meaningful developer input. Whereas, if April comes and no preview event, my odds on a major UI change to iOS coming this year will drop dramatically.
I sincerely hope that the latter scenario isn’t the case, though. 2012 was a great year for Apple’s hardware (the Retina MacBook Pro is awesome) but a relatively lacklustre software showing.
The European commission’s competition arm, run by Joaquin Almunia, issued a formal statement of objections last Friday.
The potential fines can run to 10% of a company’s worldwide turnover, which in Samsung’s case would amount to nearly $15bn (£9.3bn), based on its 2011 revenues of $148.9bn. The commission opened its investigation into Samsung in January.
FRAND patents have to be licensed to all parties who want to use them; that is the law. Apple wanted to license for a “reasonable royalty”, but Samsung refused and instead tried to use these patents to enforce a ban on the iPhone. This is why they are facing these potential fines.
Juxtapose this to Apple’s patent policy. To date, Apple has not used standard-essential patents in an offensive manner.
Based on Apple’s change we can make POP the way we had promised and the project is back on. We will not be processing refunds and are going full speed ahead to produce and deliver the product to you ASAP.
Good to see, because Apple’s original stance was stupid and stopped cool accessories like POP from being made for no good reason.
The assumption of Walmart just paying for that discount is unrealistic. There’s a partnership with Apple. Price will go down elsewhere, too.
In another tweet, Mueller says that “there is a demand problem”, with the implication that Apple is forgoing profitability to sustain iPhone sales.
This is not true. There is a relationship between Apple and Walmart to enable the sizeable price cuts ($50 off an iPhone 5, for instance), but Apple isn’t sacrificing its margins.
The only agreement in place is that Apple has allowed Walmart to sell the iPhone at a discounted price. The reduction comes at the expense of Walmart’s margins, however. Walmart is the one who is losing money. Apple continues to sell the iPhone to Walmart at the same price as anyone else; their ASP is unaffected by this arrangement and remains as stable as ever.