Link: The Mac Goes Corporate →

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Chris

About 46% of corporations now issue Macs to employees, up by half in just two years. “The use of iPads and iPhones in the workplace is creating increased awareness and consideration of Macs,” said Frank Gillett, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Even though more companies are starting to issue Macs, the percent of workers using them is still fairly slim. About 7% of computers companies give to employees are Macs, he said.

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Link: Lumia 900 Target Market →

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Tarun

According to Sebastian Anthony:

The Lumia 900 isn’t targeting iPhone or Galaxy users; it’s targeting the 41% of the US public who still own a feature phone. If you’re already firmly set on getting an iPhone, the Lumia won’t stop you — but for walk-in customers, the $200 price difference is really quite significant. For customers on the fence — if saving $200 isn’t enough — the Lumia has a bigger screen than the iPhone and a better camera than most Android phones — two factors that could easily sway people towards the Nokia device.

I can agree with the reasoning behind this claim, but the conclusion doesn’t seem to line up. If you have 2% marketshare, you are going to do everything you can to shave away at the vertical you are currently in. Smartphones are fundamentally different than feature-phones, and feature-phone owners probably both a) realize this and b) don’t care. It is a lifestyle choice to move to a smartphone still. Eventually, this won’t be the case because of cheaper components, etc. But for now, the world still believes in feature phones.

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Link: Topolsky on the Lumia 900 →

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Tarun

He’s a fan of the design and build quality, but thinks the OS falls short still.

John Gruber agrees with him, and notes that if he were in the market for a Windows Phone, it would be for the 800 instead.

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Link: Freemium Will Rule Gaming Industry →

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Tarun

Matthew Handrahan, talk about Ben Cousins’ (ngmoco) opinion on the freemium model:

As soon as one competitor in a specific field drops the price to zero, he argues, it becomes very difficult for others to continue charging. It happened to mobile games in the space of a few years, and the touch-paper that will spark the same transition in PC and, ultimately, console gaming has already been lit.

You have access to the world, but you pay for how you use it. Compelling, perhaps? Zynga and others have already proven its prowess, but the stability of the market remains up in the air.

The fact that Americans are now betting on sports like football, baseball, and basketball instead of games one plays at a casino is one reason why the legalization of sports betting has blurred the boundary between iGaming and gambling. The National Football League (NFL) will be gambled on by 45 million Americans this season, up 36% from last, according to figures from the American Gaming Association. Beyond this, well-known sports brands like ESPN are thinking about granting sports betting operators a license to use their name.

The explosion of live streaming on sites like Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Gaming, Caffeine, Owncast, Mobcrush, and Steam TV was another factor in the rise of eSports and gambling games to place legal bets in US. Younger people are attracted to eSports because they are eager to watch digital natives like themselves, who are not elite athletes, compete online. Additionally, the game-playing dynamics of live streaming eSports have made it one of the fastest-growing segments in both iGaming and gambling today due to the enthusiasm of even older individuals.

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Link: iPad As A POS Disruption →

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Tarun

Square has already started to implement the iPad as a POS system for local merchants. Fast Comapny’s Kit Eaton looks at how Revel Systems is taking this to the next level. The firm is partnering with Best Buy’s Geek Squad to have the system installed in stores. You can imagine Best Buy may begin implementing this themselves by year’s end.

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Link: Internet Explorer Strikes Back →

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Tarun

IE is making a slight comeback with a .99% gain last month. This may sound pathetically minuscule, but the amount is almost enough to recoup their losses that they experienced over the past year.

The chart also shows Firefox’s continual decline. I quit Firefox a few years ago after using Chrome, but now use Safari primarily due to its speed. However, I have recently experienced an odd increase in hard drive usage due to the amount of temporary data it stores to pull off the fast speeds.

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Link: People Really Like the iPad →

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Tarun

ChangeWave Research reports that 98% of iPad customers are satisfied with their device.

The biggest reason? The retina display.

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Link: RIM Board Shakeup →

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Chris

On our podcast we talked a little about RIM and their current issues. It looks like things may have gotten a little worse in the past day. Jim Balsillie, former co-CEO, has resigned from the board in this afternoon’s Q4 earnings call.

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Weekly Download #34: Windows Phone, Google, RIM

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Tarun

In this episode, Chris and I talk about the upcoming Lumia 900 launch in the US; the “Smoked by Windows Phone Challenge”; Google’s loss of who they are; and RIMs continued falterings.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:31 — 67.6MB)

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Link: The Windows Phone Challenge →

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Tarun

This is a great ad campaign, more so than a contest that can actually be beaten. Sean Hollister has a good analogy:

In some ways, Microsoft’s challenge is like a carnival attraction, complete with an outlandish prize, a smooth operator, and a game that (only in hindsight) is deviously unfair. Watching Kyle’s hands move, like any good carny, I couldn’t help but grin at the speed with which he handled these tasks. The difference, and the real genius of the game, is that it’s not about the laptop prize at all: it’s about showing you how fast Windows Phone can be so you’ll want one yourself.

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Link: The Case Against Google →

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Tarun

Mat Honan writes a great article on – surprise – Gizmodo:

Google has forgotten why we loved it. It has degraded its premier product in service of promoting others. It has done devious things to ferret out information from its users that they do not willingly provide. It is too much focused on the future, and conversely too scared of current competition.

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Link: The Lumia Push →

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Tarun

The first comment from user “Top Gear” seems to hit the sentiment I had on the nose:

Bad news for Android. Not so for Apple. People don’t buy iPhones because their carrier rep recommends them. They buy the iPhone because it’s the iPhone. The iPhone’s popularity is out of the carrier’s control.

But Android on the other hand… If most people walk in and ask for a ‘touch phone’, they’re being guided towards Android. If they’re guided towards a WP, then they will get that instead.

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Link: Ads Based on Environment →

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tarun

Creepy and annoying. (via Jim Dalrymple)

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Link: iPhone Outsells BlackBerry in Canada →

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tarun

John Paczkowski, AllThingsD:

A humiliating reversal for RIM’s BlackBerry, which just four years ago was outselling the iPhone in Canada by a nearly five-to-one margin. While losing traction like this among the hometown crowd isn’t a massive strategic defeat, it’s surely a devastating psychological one for RIM, a Canadian success story.

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Weekly Download #33: the New iPad, Apple TV, Draw Something, Mike Daisey

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Tarun

This was some amazing, top-notch reporting by Chris and myself. Chris griped about the new iPad (and we discussed why there is no “number”); the Apple TV as a hobby; Zynga acquiring OMGPOP; the entire nonsense of Mike Daisey and whether or not we should be mad at the “idea”.

Play

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:48 — 56.9MB)

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Link: Zynga Purchases “Draw Something” Developer for $200 Million →

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Tarun

Peter Kafka with the details:

People familiar with the company tell me it has recently been netting around $250,000 a day from the game — that’s after Apple takes its 30 percent cut.

Wow.

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Link: Apple to Pay Dividends →

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Chris

This morning Apple announced plans to pay dividends of $2.65 per share. This is the first time since 1995 that has Apple has pay a dividend. Apple last paid a dividend of $0.12. It is worth noting that Apple will spend roughly $45 billion on this new program over three years, an amount for which in case you make , you will like to check this guide on how to file taxes with the previous paystub. Tim Cook said,

“Even with these investments, we can maintain a war chest for strategic opportunities and have plenty of cash to run our business. So we are going to initiate a dividend and share repurchase program.”

The tax burden on firms has an impact on growth and investment. Businesses are more likely to leave the formal economy if taxes are high. Higher tax rates are linked to fewer formal enterprises and less private investment, according to a research. Up to 2 percentage points less investment to GDP and a little decline in the rate of new businesses starting up are caused by a 10-percentage point rise in the effective corporate income tax rate.

Over the next three years, output is reduced by approximately 3% when taxes are raised by an amount equal to 1% of GDP. The local earnings from current investments would typically be reduced by 1.3% for every percentage point rise in the statutory corporate income tax rate, according to research on the investment decisions made by multinational corporations. A 2.9% decrease in the chance of establishing a subsidiary in an economy results from an increase of one percentage point in the effective corporate income tax rate.

 

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Link: Using Electronics on Flights →

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Chris

We touched on this topic on a podcast way back when, but it looks like it is getting some attention again. The FAA says it will conduct tests to see if it should lift the ban on electronic devices during take off and landing.

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Link: Cash Call →

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Tarun

Apple will have a conference call tomorrow, 3/19, 9:00am EST:

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, and Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, will host a conference call to announce the outcome of the Company’s discussions concerning its cash balance. Apple® will not be providing an update on the current quarter nor will any topics be discussed other than cash.

If they are making a conference call about it, that means investors are involved closely. This could result in a dividend to stock holders or a buyback.

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Link: Retraction →

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Tarun

This American Life has completed retracted it’s story called “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory”, as the theatrical performance portrayed in the story was just that — theater based on no actual investigative reporting.

Though this is truly unbelievable for TLA to not follow up with diligence, I think that the release of the story nevertheless set up much of the press leading up to the ultimate investigation of Foxconn and factory conditions in China.

Update: The reporter that TLA will invite onto the show (which actually airs tonight) speaks out in his own story, which also interviews Cathy Lee, Mr. Daisey’s translator.

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Link: Not a Hobby →

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Tarun

Roku exec Anthony Wood:

Personally, I think they call it a hobby not cause they’re not trying–they’re putting a lot of effort into Apple TV–but because they haven’t been that successful compared to the iPhone and iPad. So it’s a way for them to keep working on it but not look bad because they haven’t sold that many for the Apple world.

This sentiment compares with Apple/Cook’s opinion on Siri — they are really investing in the technology but haven’t lifted the beta terminology quite yet… because they wouldn’t want to look bad by fully releasing an unfinished product.

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Link: An Overlooked Piece of News From the Apple Keynote →

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Tarun

An insight from Kit Eaton, Fast Company:

What Apple is quietly doing is changing how you pay for things online, and the more speculative reader may wonder if this is a bigger step toward a long-rumored mobile payment system from Apple.

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Link: Twitter acquires Posterous →

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Tarun

This is most likely a talent hire.

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Link: All About the Milliseconds →

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Tarun

Microsoft Applied Sciences Group shows how current tablet technology still has a few years before it gets to the point of actually feeling like you are painting with your finger.

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Link: The Move to OpenStreetMaps →

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Tarun

You may have noticed iPhoto for iPad using a different mapping service than Google’s. The reasoning, according to this article, is the push to monetize the service based on the number of impressions that the map makes.

It is unclear whether Apple (and other companies) will transition entirely from Google’s offerings, but the move does implicate Apple’s increasing need to distance themselves from the information behemoth.

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