Uncategorized

Apple’s iPhone 5c ate up Android while Google’s Moto X flopped: why everyone was wrong

. Appleinsider:

Virtually everyone who had offered an opinion about Apple’s iPhone mix got everything wrong.

In stark contrast, no drastic measures were recommended for fixing Moto X. Even the Wall Street Journal couldn’t bring itself to describe Google’s price slashing of the Moto X (from $550 to $399) as a desperate measure to move inventory.

Despite all the media pampering for Google, the reality in this case was that Motorola lost over $700 million for Google in just the last six months of Moto X sales.

As a follow along to the previous “iPad is doomed!” story comes this. I truly do not understand how the tech and mainstream media can see the same data points and come up with the exact opposite conclusions. That is, the iPhone 5c is a flop and the Moto X isn’t. Even if you are being intentionally biased for Google, the data doesn’t support you.

The astonishing, disappointing iPad

. MG Siegler:

iPad sales did disappoint one group of folks immensely: Wall Street.

As a standalone business, just based on the last 12 months of revenue, the iPad would be in the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500. Think about that for a second. The iPad alone is bigger than almost all Fortune 500 companies.

If the iPad is a fad, it’s the greatest fad in the history of American business.

It’s easy to point to “fewer iPads sold” and Chicken Little the story to death – as respected columnist Gassee and Mossberg have done. But it would still be wrong.

The state of photo sharing

This is 2014. This doesn’t seem like a a problem that still needs solving, yet we still don’t have a de-facto platform for private and semi-private photography sharing and backup.

I use Apple’s built-in apps and tools.

‘Secret’ journalism

Kevin Wild on the Secret app:

It fits into a new paradigm in today’s tech journalism, the act of reporting on one anonymous source. With the ease of sharing secrets, will Secret be the one anonymous source that new outlets use to break future stories?

I hope not.

App Store reviews and contacting the customer

Dan Counsell, the Founder of Realmac Software, brings up some good points in this article. I’ve never talked to a developer that didn’t want to help customers correct a problem. We all make mistakes and when customers are upset, it’s useful to be able to contact them directly.

Don’t give up on the iPad

. Stratechery:

The future of the iPad is not to be a better Mac. That may happen by accident, just as the Mac eventually superseded the Apple II, but to pursue that explicitly would be to sacrifice what the iPad might become, and, more importantly, what it already is.

Anyone “giving up” on the iPad really has no clue as to what Apple’s long term strategy is and has always been.

Taking credit

The thing is, attribution can also mean responsibility. Putting your name on something (or allowing that to happen) isn’t just an endorsement, but also an admission that the buck stops with you. If there’s a problem with this, it’s my fault.

Craig Mod on where digital publishing is heading

Mod and I talked about how Hi was developed, how to build tools to encourage a regular writing routine, and where online publishing is heading next. Here’s a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Craig is a really smart fellow.

Anonymous sources

That’s one problem with anonymous sources: They often get it wrong because why make sure you have it right when you will not be held accountable for what you say.

I really enjoyed this article.

Brand minimalism

Visitors to Chicago’s Renaissance Society in the winter of 1980 encountered a concise exhibition with a provocative thesis. “Objects and Logotypes: Relationships Between Minimalist Art and Corporate Design” was a polemical juxtaposition of two strands of postwar American culture that, at first blush, could hardly seem more opposed.

Great read.

[Via Khol Vinh]

Facebook revenue grows 72 percent

Facebook said that mobile ads represented 59 percent of its ad revenue in the first quarter, up from 30 percent in the year-ago period. Facebook’s overall revenue grew 72 percent year-on-year to $2.5 billion in the first quarter, above the $2.36 billion expected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

“They’ve got the right products for what advertisers are looking for and that’s manifesting itself in the results you’re seeing,” said JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey.

Remember, you are the product being sold.

Apple reports $10.2 billion second quarter profit

Apple on Tuesday announced a $10.2 billion profit for its fiscal second quarter on revenue of $45.6 billion. These results compare to revenue of $43.6 billion and profit of $9.5 billion, in the year-ago quarter. […]

iOS 8 Wishes

Federico Viticci did a nice job on bringing together some features he would like to see in the next version of iOS. One thing I’ve learned over the years is how different people’s wish lists for an operating system can be. Also, Viticci did a nice job on the site redesign.

Steve Jobs in my small world

. Matt Haughey:

Like Steve Jobs, I grew up in California, and though I knew he attended (and dropped out of) Reed College in Portland, Oregon, I was surprised to read that Steve took frequent trips to an apple farm-slash-hippie commune near McMinnville, Oregon established by his friend (and Reed College student president) Robert Friedland.

The part that surprised me was I was sitting in my house in McMinnville, Oregon when I read that. McMinnville is a fairly small town about 35 miles southwest of Portland, Oregon, but thanks to farm roads and small two lane highways, it takes over an hour to get to Portland. Often people I meet in other parts of Oregon have never heard of it. It’s rare to meet anyone in California or beyond in any other US state that has heard of the city. When I read that Steve Jobs spent time near the place I’ve called home since 2003, I did some more research.

Interesting story about an area where Jobs spent a lot of time.

Daylite 5

A huge update. I really like Marketcircle and its products—they work hard and care about what they do.

Apple opens OS X betas to the public

Big news today from Apple: the company is opening its OS X Beta Seed Program to its customers. In the past, you needed to be a developer to access beta builds of OS X, but as of OS X 10.9.3, released earlier today, customers can also apply for access.

Auto-Tune EFX 3

Auto-Tune EFX 3’s new variable Retune Speed and Humanize controls provide an entirely new level of natural, realistic pitch correction. And with our unique Auto-Motion Vocal Pattern Generation, stunning new vocal effects are only a mouse click away.

I’ll be interested to see how the Humanize function helps.

Apple releases iOS 7.1.1

Apple says there are improvements to Touch ID, a bug fix for keyboard responsiveness and a fix for using Bluetooth keyboards with VoiceOver. The update can be downloaded on your iPhone by going to Settings > General > Software Update.

Experts making tons of money at Apple, Samsung trial

Just as impressive is the amount of time the experts have spent on the case. Rinard said he had spent just over 800 hours on the case, for a total bill of $765,000, while Chris Vellturo, a damages expert who testified for Apple, revealed he’d been paid a stunning $2.3 million by Apple over the past few years for all his work on the case. That’s a lot of iPhones.

The jurors aren’t making quite as much money. The court provides them $40 per day with a raise to $50 per day after the 10th day of the trial.

Where do I sign up?