But the even bigger news comes from the CEO himself:
Even though we launched the ad platform on the Web already, a couple of weeks ago we saw mobile revenue in a day greater than non-mobile.
Wait. Let’s hear this again:
…we saw mobile revenue in a day greater than non-mobile.
The WP7 Marketplace has reached 100,000 apps, faster than Android but slower than iOS. Kevin Tofel at GigaOM thinks this doesn’t mean a whole lot:
Here’s the funny thing and part of the reason that the number of apps really means little, or not as much as it used to. Guess where the most apps are available for Windows Phone devices? According to the data, the U.S. leads the way, with 77,450 of the 100,000 available. Going back to the China example, where the phone is allegedly doing well: There are 33,063 apps available to Windows Phones in China. Something doesn’t add up.
Competes with both the Wii U and Airplay, offering some interesting functionality as well. From Bryan Bishop on the Verge:
Game of Thrones was demonstrated as an example, with the Smart Glass app displaying an interactive map of Westeros, pinpointing where the action in a given scene was taking place. Developers will also be able to use it in association with games; a Madden title was shown as one example, with users able to draw hot routes on a Windows 8 tablet’s touchscreen, with a Halo 4 concept allowing players to view their stats, get notified of different waypoints, and initiate multiplayer gaming sessions from the app.
Rafe Blandford, reporting for “All About Windows Phone,” reveals stats on applications in the WP7 Tango marketplace and the compatibility with phones that have 256MB of RAM (Lumia 610 being the most important):
However, if we look at the 10,000 most popular apps (UK downloads), then 464 (4.6%) apps are incompatible with 256MB devices. In other words, for the top 10,000 apps, the proportion of incompatible apps is greater than for the overall marketplace. Taking just the top 1,000 apps gives a slightly higher proportion, with 64 incompatble apps and games (6.4%) – of these, just under 50% of the total are games. This should come as no surprise, given that games are generally more resource hungry than apps.
And this isn’t too bothersome. The real problem is revealed earlier in the article: apps still show up in the marketplace, and then users are warned that they cannot download them because of the hardware limitations the phone possesses. This is prototypical of a poor UX: warning messages leading to frustration. The lesser devices are dead on arrival when they can’t access the hottest apps, which include big names like Angry Birds and The Sims 3. A much better solution would be to simply not display them in the listing, or create lists that are “optimized for your phone.”
These quips make me wonder who the target audience for an Apple product is. The first two things are heavily focused on media consumption. The latter thing, retaining talent, is more of a point to keep developers on board so that they have the ability to produce the former items. This seems to suggest that a high priority clientele for Apple are creatives. But this is, in reality, just one of many demographics.
Apple is still trying to figure out the balance of having a great platform and having great software. So far, the focus is iCloud, which attempts to unite all of their hardware pieces together. Software has been somewhat neglected. There have been major updates to the iWork/iLife suite, but other, everyday apps have rolled along, seeing little to no attention for the past few years, since the iOS revolution.
(Article by Guy English, via Marco Arment)
It looks like the free online editions of newspapers is coming to an end sooner rather than later.
Dan Frommer:
The majority of my Facebook friends don’t use Instagram, and I’m not Facebook friends with the majority of the people I follow on Instagram. Heck, I don’t know many of the people I follow on Instagram. And like most normal people, I don’t accept Facebook friend requests from people I’m not actually friends with. (Unlike many people who work in tech.) Facebook is my Path, you might say.
Facebook is primarily used to share content with friends, exclusively. Instagram isn’t held to that standard.
Dieter Bohn speaks to Bradley Horowitz, VP of PM for Google+. Much of the article talks about the “long game” of service. In particular, an emphasis on creating a community for professional photographers to user the service as a social platform for their photos. Ironically, Horowitz worked for Yahoo! during the days of the Flickr acquisition, which many argue had the buddings of the first photo social network. Too bad it wasn’t.
Michael Wolff:
At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, valuation of around $100 billion, and the bulk of its business in traditional display advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of the fallacy.
It comes off as being a tin foil hat argument, but the reasoning is based on simple supply/demand economics. The bottom line: Facebook needs a disruptive idea in order to prove their worth, and it really needs to happen fast.
Regulators are concerned, in part, that banks may have shared information with certain clients, rather than broadly with investors. On Tuesday, William Galvin, Massachusetts’ secretary of state, subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over discussions with investors about Facebook’s I.P.O. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s self regulator, is also looking into the matter.
The upshot of this deal is that you now have an actual exchange rate set for Zynga dollars. The idea could be a really big deal for other companies to pursue.
Joey Devilla on Global Nerdy spotted this on StatCounter:
This is quite a change from a year ago, when Internet Explorer still held first place at about 45% and Chrome was a distant third with about 20% by StatCounter’s measurements.
Daniel Terdiman, on CNET:
Leap, by comparison, can sense motion down to the most subtle movements of a finger, which the company says is 200 times more sensitive than anything else on the market. The system creates a “three-dimensional interaction space” of four cubic feet and is more precise and responsive than a touchscreen or a mouse, and just as reliable as a keyboard.
Watch the video.
Great headline. Brian X. Chen for NY Times:
Customers with unlimited plans will get to keep their unlimited plans. But when shared data plans become available, the unlimited option will no longer be available to customers when they buy a new device at a subsidized price, usually with a two-year service contract.
Basically 95% of people who buy an iPhone 5 soon. What me is that AT&T already hates the idea of unlimited plans, so you can expect to see other carriers follow suit.
Apple said in a recent court case that if a customer has a problem with Siri they should probably return the phone and buy a different one.
Cool idea. No software other than a Facebook app, and you can share a file up to 1GB with your friends.
Interesting thoughts on USB 3:
It will be interesting to see if Apple addresses this rumored MacBook Pro’s lack of Firewire 800 and Gigabit Ethernet by making adapters available, and if so, whether those adapters use USB 3 or Thunderbolt.
I had wondered about this omission from the adapter lineup, and I really hope they do release one, as I’m sure it would also work on the Macbook Airs already out.
Which makes me wonder — will they drop the “Air” signification this year, like they did when they added “Pro” to the entry level unibody Macbook in 2008? An “Air” classification would mean one that is light weight, but according to Marco removing that optical drive doesn’t really decrease the weight.
So glad Gruber linked to this, as it was something I’d always wondered about:
Apple has spent decades strengthening its subtle but powerful grip over Hollywood, and unlike many companies, says it never pays for its products to appear on television or in movies. The company’s gadgets were discussed or shown 891 times on TV in 2011, up from 613 in 2009, according to researcher Nielsen (NLSN). In the same year, iDevices appeared in more than 40 percent of the movies that topped the weekly box office, according to Brandchannel, which tracks product appearances. That’s nearly twice the penetration of the next most common brands in Hollywood—Dell (DELL), Chevy (GM), and Ford (F).
Kara Swisher points out a few other key mistakes Thompson has made during his tenure, but a false résumé shouldn’t have been the thing that pushes the company over the edge. In any case, it is a welcome sight to see a digital media expert taking the wheel of the company.
9 to 5 Mac with the scoop.
This is one area that Apple has been dependent on a third-party for, and using in-house software/development will seal the deal in terms of having complete control over the OS.
I don’t really think I would use the 3D mode though, if bandwidth is still at 3G/HSPDA+.
Normal job application rules don’t apply in high level position hunting — especially when headhunters were looking for someone to run a company..
John Gruber:
My advice to Microsoft would be to go after Android, hard. Make Windows Phone the carriers’ best friend. Target your advertising on BlackBerry holdouts and dissatisfied Android users. Position Windows Phone as the alternative to the iPhone.
I saw a brick and mortar Nokia store today in a high end mall in Singapore. The store had 2-3 onlookers, but nothing to sway customers to make a purchase on the spot. They don’t have the 900 on sale just yet, and the 800 costs about $500 USD. Subsidies are unavailable, which can cause a huge impact in sales.
Another note: the iPhone has a strong presence in Singapore, but so do several other brands, like HTC and Samsung. Both companies also have dedicated stores the their brands in the country. What really struck me was the tablet usage: the iPad represented roughly 90% of the tablets I saw in the 5 or so train rides I’ve been on thus far.
I love Dieter Bohn’s articles. They are great bits of reporting. This one outlines the increasingly crowded mobile payment space — one where there is no dominating figure.
When I read this, I can’t help but wondering why Paypal, the biggest online wallet, is losing here. Everything I buy online is through Paypal, and it couldn’t be easier to make the handshake.