Business

Repairability, then reusability, then recyclability

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Yesterday I posted about the repairability scale, with the comment that a bad score on that scale is bad for the planet. The post generated a number of excellent comments, both here and on Twitter.

A big part of the argument was the bias on the repairability scale. In effect, saying that if a device is easily recyclable, it is not as important that it be repairable. Another related argument stresses that the folks at iFixIt are concerned with user repair and not professional repair.

These and other comments, all good stuff. Thanks for opening my eyes a bit more.

My 2 cents on this? The best solution, the one that is most respectful to the planet and our limited resources, is that of repairability. Better if it’s user repairability, but if it takes special tools and/or a pro, so be it.

Next down on the scale is reusability. If your device still works, but you want to replace it, find a new home for your old one, if possible. Not always practical, so if you can’t find a new home for your old device, recycle it.

One point I really missed out on is Apple’s incredible dedication to recyclability. This is from Apple’s web site:

Apple recycles responsibly. When you recycle with Apple, your used equipment is disassembled, and key components that can be reused are removed. Glass and metal can be reprocessed for use in new products. A majority of the plastics can be pelletized into a raw secondary material. With materials reprocessing and component reuse, Apple often achieves a 90 percent recovery rate by weight of the original product.

Apple meets the requirements of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. All e-waste collected by Apple-controlled voluntary and regulatory programs worldwide is processed in the region in which it was collected. Our recyclers must comply with all health and safety laws, and we do not allow the use of prison labor. Apple recyclers do not dispose of hazardous electronic waste in solid-waste landfills or incinerators. For an example of the stringent processing and operational controls Apple places on its directly contracted recyclers, read an excerpt from our recycler requirements agreement [PDF].

Hopefully, both Google and Microsoft have similar policies for the devices they make themselves and partner policies for the manufacturers of devices that run their operating systems. If not, worth considering I think.

Blackberry’s rep tarnished by fake BBM reviews

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Hundreds of fake reviews of BBM.

BlackBerry’s BBM app was downloaded 10 million times within 24 hours, but at least on Android, some of its many positive reviews seem to come from a less than savory source. Writer Matt Baxter-Reynolds noted yesterday that a huge number of reviews contained the exact same praise for BBM:

Thank you so much blackberry team. I was waiting this app. Its really great user friendly and smooth Blogger Terence Eden looked through more reviews and found more evidence that somebody was astroturfing the Play Store. In addition to the sheer numbers he found, at least one person seemed to have accidentally copied and pasted more of the text than intended: “Dear Mr Ahmed, please post the following comment on the new BlackBerry Messenger APP…” Fake reviews are a frequent issue across many sites, and a September crackdown resulted in fines for 19 companies. More recently, Samsung was fined for hiring commenters to talk up its own products online and leave negative comments about those of its competitors (allegedly HTC.)

Who would do this? Blackberry? Someone looking to harm Blackberry’s rep? Definitely an unneeded black eye.

Surface Pro 2 tablet gets 1 out of 10 on repairability scale

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This is bad news. Bad for Microsoft and bad for our planet.

The result is a tablet that is practically unrepairable and is therefore, in essence, disposable. The Reg has criticized Microsoft before for adding to the pile of discarded tech in the world’s landfills, and we’re disappointed to report that the Surface Pro 2 does nothing to slow this trend.

The original Surface tablet got the same score. Was hoping the Surface 2 would show some advancement in that department. To be fair, the 4th generation iPad did not do much better, scoring a 2 out of 10. We’ve got to do better than this.

Can HTC’s billionaire chairwoman bail out a sinking ship?

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Can Cher Wang, billionaire co-founder of HTC, keep them from following in the footsteps of other beleaguered smartphone manufacturers? She faces a tough putt.

My favorite part of the article:

It’s worth noting that the 55-year-old, Berkeley-educated Wang personally managed HTC’S relationship with Microsoft during the time when its phones primarily used the Windows Mobile operating system. “Once a year,” the Times noted in its profile, “she flies to Seattle and meets with Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer, the company’s chief executive.”

The last mobile-phone chief with close ties to Microsoft was Nokia’s Stephen Elop, who recently presided over the sale of the Finnish firm’s handset business to Microsoft. With Wang taking the helm, will HTC find itself similarly drawn into Microsoft’s orbit?

Google’s iron grip on Android

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Back in November 2007, Google had zero share of the mobile market. They watched the original iPhone rollout and could see it was going to be a game changer. To protect their search turf, Google released the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).

In that era, Google had nothing, so any adoption—any shred of market share—was welcome. Google decided to give Android away for free and use it as a trojan horse for Google services. The thinking went that if Google Search was one day locked out of the iPhone, people would stop using Google Search on the desktop. Android was the “moat” around the Google Search “castle”—it would exist to protect Google’s online properties in the mobile world.

Fast forward to today, and Android owns a significant market share. But a true open-source Android means other companies can release their own versions of Android (à la Amazon with the Kindle Fire) with Google getting none of that particular revenue stream.

The linked article digs into that problem, shows one example of Google’s move from an open source proponent to an ambitious protector of market share. Interesting read.

Supreme Court decision could force patent trolls to have skin in the game

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It has long been a patent troll strategy to carpet bomb little companies with lawsuits. The cost of defending against the suit is much larger than the money at stake, so the little companies invariably cave. A key to this strategy is the fact that there is little cost to the patent troll if they lose a case. Currently, if the patent troll does lose a case, they just walk away, they have no obligation to pay the winner’s attorneys fees, which can be substantial.

This may be about to change.

The Supreme Court announced this month that it would hear two appeals of decisions by the federal appeals court that oversees all patent cases. In each case, the company that was sued for patent infringement won on the merits but did not prevail in having its legal fees paid by the losing party.

The court will decide whether to make it much easier for victors in patent suits to force their opponents to pay their legal fees. If it does so — and patent watchers generally assume that the court would not have agreed to hear the appeals if at least some justices were not sympathetic to the companies being sued — that could make it much more expensive to file a frivolous suit, and perhaps scare patent holders away from filing meritorious suits. Losing such a suit could conceivably bankrupt a small company if it was forced to pay the other side’s legal bills, which can run into the millions of dollars.

This could have huge implications. At the very least, it would force a patent troll to think twice before filing an industry-wide suit. If they lose, they risk everything.

Apple Inc., bashed and thriving

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I get all the Apple bashing, I really do. Blogs need eyeballs, pundits gotta predict stuff, doom and gloom sells papers. But that Apple bashing is tiring to read and saps the credibility of those who write it.

The linked article is Mike Wehner’s take on the question, “Is Apple thriving?” Short answer, yes.

The Twitter story

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From doodle to IPO, from first CEO Jack Dorsey to Evan Williams and then former stand-up coming Dick Costolo, Twitter is a great story. Terrific read.

Reddit running in the red

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Reddit has 70 million page views per month. That’s a heady number. Someone somewhere is thinking of ways to turn this into big money.

I can’t help but wonder if Reddit will turn the corner and become a revenue pursuing entity, or keep their sights on providing the service they provide so well. A classic moment in a company’s life. Wonder which way they will turn.

95 percent of custom apps developed by businesses are written for Apple devices

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The headline says it all. Businesses are investing in the Apple ecosystem, building far more custom apps for iOS than Android.

As a developer, I think no small part of this trend is due to the ease of developing for iOS as compared to Android, as well as the lack of fragmentation device-wise.

Nanigans reports Facebook ads generate significantly more profit on iOS than Android

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Nanigans is an ad engine used by companies such as eBay, Zynga, and T-Mobile to advertise on Facebook. Though this article is based on a single report, this is a report worth paying attention to.

In their report, it was noted that, “For the first three quarters of 2013, RPC [revenue per click] on iOS averaged 6.1 times higher than Android and ROI [return on investment] on iOS averaged 17.9 times higher than Android.”

Why the huge difference? iPhone users represent a larger percentage of smartphone web traffic, and spend more money as a group.

Speaking to Businessweek about the mobile industry, Mr. Cook said, “There’s always a large junk part of the market. We’re not in the junk business … There’s a segment of the market that really wants a product that does a lot for them, [emphasis added] and I want to compete like crazy for those customers. I’m not going to lose sleep over that other market, because it’s just not who we are.”

This sounds like arrogance, but it’s really shrewd business. What Mr. Cook is telling us, in other words, is that Apple designs its products for people who aren’t buying bottom of the barrel smartphones. Apple implicitly designs its phones for people who can and do spend money.

WSJ backpedals on alarmist iPhone 5c supply chain story

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Amazing to me that journalists (take the term with a grain of salt) like this keep their jobs.

In Apple’s January quarterly earnings conference call, Cook warned analysts, “the supply chain is very complex, and we obviously have multiple sources for things. Even if a particular data point were factual, it would be impossible to interpret that data point as to what it meant for our business.”

Cook continued to recommend that analysts not base their predictions on supply chain “checks” throughout 2013. However, a series of analysts have continued to issue “supply chain check” reports that fueled headlines despite being, more often that not, completely wrong.

And yet this habit continues. Yeesh.

Chevy to add Siri integration to 2014 Camaro, Cruze, Equinox, Malibu, SS and Volt

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Connection to the phone will be via Bluetooth, initiated via the steering wheel voice activation button.

To help further minimize distraction, Siri takes hands-free functionality even further with an Eyes Free mode which enables drivers to interact with their iPhones using nothing more than their voice while keeping the device’s screen from lighting up.

Bypassing the screen entirely. Interesting.

Apple hires Burberry CEO as Senior VP of Retail and Online Stores

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Tim Cook announced that Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, will be joining Apple in a newly created position, as a senior vice president and member of the executive team.

Ahrendts will have oversight of the strategic direction, expansion and operation of both Apple retail and online stores, which have redefined the shopping experience for hundreds of millions of customers around the world. Apple retail stores set the standard for customer service with innovative features like the Genius Bar®, Personal Setup and One to One personal training to help customers get the most out of their Apple products.

Ahrendts will start in the Spring. Let’s hope she can bring some stability to the position. Ron Johnson really built the retail foundation at Apple, leaving in 2011 for an ill-fated run at JC Penney. John Browett replaced Johnson, but was at Apple less than a year.

Microsoft’s $7.2 billion Nokia bet not luring apps

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Uh-oh.

Consider Tommy Palm and Jeff Smith. Palm, who oversees development at smartphone-game maker King.com, and Smith, who runs music-application maker Smule Inc., have long avoided building apps for devices using Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Closer ties with Nokia haven’t swayed them. Both say even after the acquisition closes, Microsoft still won’t have enough users to make it worth the time and money.

You could see this coming a mile away, but still, uh-oh.

Amazing new parking tech, park your car while you stand outside it

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This is pretty cool. Ford is not the first to bring this parking tech to production, but they are definitely the first of the big car makers to do so.

FAPA uses ultrasonic sensors to scan for an open parking space at speeds as high as 19 mph (30 kph). When the car finds a suitable spot it alerts the driver, who can stay in the car or get out and use a remote to finish the parking job. The car then backs itself in to the parking space.

Amazing. The car scans for available parking spaces in real time, as you drive. The car alerts you that it found a space, you get out, and the car parks itself. The future!

PC market falls 8%, Apple year-over-year market share drops slightly

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Gartner and IDC released their quarterly PC shipment numbers. No tablet data, no phone data, just personal computers. Lots to chew on. Some highlights from Gartner’s US numbers:

  • The big winner in all this seems to be Lenovo. They trail Apple in units shipped, but increased their market share by 24.6%.
  • Apple’s year-over-year market share fell 2.3% to 13.4%.
  • Apple’s 3rd quarter market share showed growth over Q2, going from 11.6% to 13.4%. 3rd quarter numbers are traditionally stronger, as it is the back-to-school quarter.

    • To me, there are two big takeaways from this. First, tablets are cannibalizing PC sales. No big news there. Second, I see any decline in Apple sales as a sign of the aging of Apple’s Mac line. The iMac and MacBook Air refreshes are recent and the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro lines are due, hopefully soon. My instinct here is that we’ll see a nice bounce in the numbers, starting with Q4.

    iPad and iPhone usage remains strong among US teens

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    Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster just released data from their latest semiannual teen survey. Interesting read. Three things jumped out at me. In the three survey periods (Fall ’12, Spring ’13, Fall ’13):

    1. iPhone ownership climbed steadily (40%, 48%, 55%). Shocking numbers for a device Samsung portrays as uncool.
    2. Expected next phone purchase: iPhone as next phone increased (62%, 62%, 65%). Android also increased, but with a much smaller share (22%, 23%, 24%).
    3. On the tablet side, Android marketshare is growing (plan to buy an Android table: 16%, 24%, 28%), while iPad plus iPad Mini drops (75%, 68%, 64%). Why add iPad and iPad Mini? Seems right, since Android does not break out their numbers by form factor.

    My gut reaction to the tablet numbers is that the tablet share change is due to the ongoing maturation of the tablet market. The iPad mini was not around for the first survey and Android tablet use is still finding its level, at the cost of the existing iPad. Looking forward to the next survey.

    10 mobile app design tips

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    Design tips worth reading before you start your next app project. These aren’t perfect, they aren’t exhaustive, but good food for thought.

    Bill Gates and the future of Microsoft

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    The Microsoft campus is buzzing about the coming changes in leadership. Everyone knows Steve Ballmer’s plans, but what about Bill Gates?

    Mr. Gates’s role at Microsoft has been a source of wide fascination since he left his day-to-day responsibilities in 2008. But interest in it has grown in the past few years as Microsoft has stumbled, and it intensified sharply in the weeks since Steven A. Ballmer announced he would be retiring as Microsoft’s chief executive in the next year.

    Some Microsoft employees say they have noticed Mr. Gates around the company’s campus in Redmond, Wash., more often since Mr. Ballmer’s announcement, leading to speculation — perhaps mixed with a dash of hope — that he might want to assume a bigger role and return the company to its past heights.

    Clearly, there are a number of people who see Bill Gates as a hero and hope for him to come to the rescue, to return as chief executive. But there is certainly a faction who would prefer Bill Gates to leave altogether, to avoid a battle over strategy once a new CEO takes over.

    Last week, news reports surfaced that three unnamed shareholders had begun pressing the Microsoft board for Mr. Gates to leave as chairman because they believed he would be an impediment to strategy changes by the new chief executive.

    Any such push is very unlikely to succeed in forcing Mr. Gates to distance himself from the company, according to several people who know Mr. Gates and the dynamics of the board. Last Thursday, the Microsoft board recommended Mr. Gates’ re-election as a director, according to a company filing with securities regulators.

    Good article, nice coverage of some of the CEO candidates Microsoft is supposedly considering.

    Why Apple may win the gaming market

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    Apple is on the precipice of making real inroads into the gaming market. Certainly, there’s no question that there is a thriving iOS gaming market, but the vast majority of those are casual games at low price points. There are a number of compelling factors that might signal a real change in the balance of power between iOS and the consoles. Between SpriteKit and native iOS support for real gaming controllers, the only real barrier I see is a lack of storage space. Certainly not an issue on the Mac side, but how can a programmer access 50 Gb of cut scenes from an iPad or iPhone, even one connected to a TV. Wonder if some kind of network storage peripheral could solve this problem.

    A bit heavy on conjecture, this is a good read nonetheless.

    How Twitter is going to take a billion dollars from YouTube

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    Terrific analysis. Twitter has a big opportunity, especially if it adds a long-form video capability.

    In a world with long-form video on Twitter, the next time a video advertiser wants to catch the attention of ABC’s “Scandal” audience, that advertiser will have a plethora of options for its ad buying, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, ABC and more. But think about the benefits that Twitter presents to an advertiser. All it needs to do is to post a tweet with the video, which will reach its followers for free, and then promote that tweet to people watching “Scandal” during its airing (which generates 2,200 tweets per minute and can be targeted via Twitter’s TV targeting). That video tweet will end up being more valuable than pre-roll on YouTube, as it’s targeting users watching “Scandal” across a variety of platforms, such as cable, Web and satellite, and it is ridiculously easy to embed across the Web. What started as a tweet to your followers ends up giving you hyper-targeting that reaches Twitter’s highly engaged audience in real time and has unlimited distribution via the rest of the Internet.

    Twitter is already the medium of choice for event interaction.

    In addition to its one-up with television, Twitter has a big step ahead of YouTube when it comes to direct engagement. Brands successfully engage with their communities in many different ways on Twitter. Major brands have customer service monitoring Twitter 24/7. They share updates, interact with fans, comment on Super Bowl power outages and more through the social network. Each brand’s account essentially turns into the public persona for that brand on the Internet.

    The stakes are huge. Twitter’s next move will have a huge impact on both the cost and implementation of advertising over the foreseeable future.

    Samsung built a smartwatch but forgot to make it do stuff

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    I love this review.

    The frequent “First!” cry of the Internet troll declares some strange pride in being the first to comment on an article. The commenter put little to no effort into the post; it added nothing to the conversation, and it was completely devoid of substance. The troll did secure the spot at the top of the thread, though, and every additional commenter will be forced to scroll past the pointless contribution.

    The Samsung Galaxy Gear says “First!” in hardware form. Samsung has beaten Google and Apple as the first major manufacturer to market, but much like the Internet commenter, it has sacrificed substance for the sake of timing. The Galaxy Gear is a product (with some impressive internals, no less) that has such limited use and such crippling compatibility requirements that it is currently the equivalent of hardware spam.

    Ouch. I wish I had written this.

    Tesla, the fire, the market, and Apple

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    Tesla founder Elon Musk knows from success. Musk started and sold Zip2, a web software company, pulling $22 million out of that sale. He rolled that into the company that ultimately brought PayPal to market, got about $175 million in stock when eBay bought PayPal. He used that nest egg to create Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002 and to fund Tesla Motors in 2004. Nothing but hits.

    A lot has been written over the past few days about a fire in one of Tesla’s cars. A video of a burning Tesla S went viral, creating a large PR problem for the company.

    Elon Musk took the wheel on this, so to speak. He wrote a calm narrative that laid out the facts, as he saw them. If you have any interest in electric cars, take a minute to read Musk’s blog post. Here’s how the accident happened:

    Earlier this week, a Model S traveling at highway speed struck a large metal object, causing significant damage to the vehicle. A curved section that fell off a semi-trailer was recovered from the roadway near where the accident occurred and, according to the road crew that was on the scene, appears to be the culprit. The geometry of the object caused a powerful lever action as it went under the car, punching upward and impaling the Model S with a peak force on the order of 25 tons. Only a force of this magnitude would be strong enough to punch a 3 inch diameter hole through the quarter inch armor plate protecting the base of the vehicle.

    Clearly, this accident was no fault of the car design.

    The Model S owner was nonetheless able to exit the highway as instructed by the onboard alert system, bring the car to a stop and depart the vehicle without injury. A fire caused by the impact began in the front battery module – the battery pack has a total of 16 modules – but was contained to the front section of the car by internal firewalls within the pack. Vents built into the battery pack directed the flames down towards the road and away from the vehicle.

    Read the rest of the post. The car is designed with safety in mind. Certainly no more dangerous than any of its gasoline-filled brethren.

    So how does the market react? From the linked article:

    Tesla’s stock had been on a tear after the company announced its first quarterly net profit and began expanding into Asia and Europe this year. But share prices declined 6.2 percent, to 180.95, the day the video was released, and kept falling the next day. (It closed Friday at $180.98.)

    To be fair, if you read the article, there were a number of factors that influenced the market reaction. But I think the timing of that stock plummet rests largely on the release of the video showing the burning Tesla S. The market reacts quickly to news, slowly to reason.

    Apple shares a common fate with Tesla in this regard. Some of the news that impacts Apple’s stock price appears made up of whole cloth, based purely on an analyst’s misunderstanding of market forces. That is unfortunate. Personally, I want people like Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jony Ive, and Craig Federighi to worry less about analysts and spend their time making great products.

    Security firm says iPhone bug can thwart remote wipe

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    When you are at or near the top of a market, you become a target. Microsoft lived that life for many years. Now, the emergence of the mobile market has shifted the spotlight, as well as the security risk, over to iOS and Android. Though the rigor of Apple’s app inspection and certification process does keep the iOS app ecosystem significantly safer than Android, iOS devices are just as highly valued a target for hackers.

    The point is, these attacks are going to keep coming. Apple’s job is to keep tweaking their processes to keep the bad guys at bay. So far, Apple has done their job well.

    This new attack takes advantage of a flaw in the “Find my iPhone” process. The video below does an excellent job laying out the scenario. In a nutshell, the thief steals an iPhone and immediately turns on airplane mode to prevent the iPhone from being remotely wiped. This gives the thief enough time to break into your phone and use your credentials to reset your Apple ID password, take control of your phone, Apple account, and other accounts.

    The video also offers 5 suggestions for fixing this problem:

    1. Apple should make Airplane Mode inaccessible from the lock screen by default and require a passcode – not just a fingerprint – any time Airplane Mode was activated or the SIM card was removed

    2. During Apple ID creation, Apple should warn users not to store credentials to password-reset accounts on their registered devices

    3. On Find My iPhone, Apple should differentiate between likely-temporary and likely-permanent loss scenarios, and in the latter, should advise users to immediately revoke the devices’s access to all accounts it has credentials for, e.g. email-, social media-, and telephony accounts

    4. The iOS lock screen should not display whether the phone is protected by a simple 4-digit PIN or a more complex passcode, and on devices with Touch ID, it should not display whether fingerprint authentication is being used

    5. Upon reconnecting to the Internet, iOS should not allow email retrieval before the device’s wipe- or don’t-wipe status can be retrieved

    As with every other legitimate problem of this nature that Apple has faced, the problem has a fix. No doubt, Apple will do their analysis, find the best possible fix, and roll it out quickly so we can all sleep safely again.

    BlackBerry hit with securities shareholder class action

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    The news just continues to get worse for Blackberry. Shareholder Marvin Pearlstein filed this lawsuit in Manhattan federal court:

    Pearlstein is seeking to represent a class of “thousands” of shareholders who bought stock between September 27, 2012, when the company touted its strong financial position, and September 20 of this year, when it revealed it would have to write down between $930 million and $960 million related to unsold BlackBerry 10 devices, according to the lawsuit.