Last week I created this chart to demonstrate how very different Apple and Samsung’s mobile strategies are: The evidence can be seen on Samsung’s Press Release page. March 14: Samsung GALAXY S 4 April 3: Samsung GALAXY Star April 3: Samsung Pocket Neo April 8: Samsung GALAXY Win BONUS! The Samsung Galaxy Trend II & […]
2013
The Death of HTC in Seven Bullet Points, Revisited
Bloomberg: HTC Corp., Taiwan’s largest smartphone maker, posted its lowest quarterly profit on record after the delay of its newest flagship phone caused revenue to miss the company’s target. First-quarter net income plunged 98 percent to NT$85 million ($2.8 million), the sixth straight decline, according to data released by the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company yesterday. The […]
Apps, People, and Jobs to Be Done
I read two great interviews tonight, and its the combination of the two that really captures why I’m skeptical about Facebook Home.1 First off was Mark Suster interviewing Clayton Christensen. The interview – as is the case with most things Christensen related – is fascinating and instructive, and well worth a read. However, I want […]
The Week in Review — March 30-April 5, 2013
Facebook Home launched this week, both as an app for top-of-the-line Android devices, and preinstalled on a mid-range HTC phone called the First. It’s an interesting move on multiple levels, particularly the fact that it is not a fork but more of a services layer. Moreover, it’s a services layer that still has access to […]
Home Turf
Matt Drance: You’ve built an enormous business around a desktop website. Unfortunately, people around the world are spending more and more time on mobile devices. The vast majority of these devices run software from only two companies. One of these companies is actively competing with you. You cannot put your future in a competitor’s hands. […]
Facebook’s ‘Phone’ Is Another Triumph of Mediocrity
Mat Honan perfectly captures why I’m hesitant to cast ultimate judgement on Facebook Home: Over the past few days, lots of pundits have been asking who this is for. Facebook gave us an answer today: It’s for people who don’t care about a rich, full experience on the Internet, yet love Facebook. People who want […]
China Losing the Global Propaganda War to Apple
The Financial Times: There was another important lesson that came out of the skirmish between the iPad maker and the propaganda apparatus. On the internet, which the party can corral with the “Great Firewall” but cannot really control, and particularly on Twitter-like Weibo, the backlash against the state and the cheering for Apple was devastating. […]
A Facebook of the Future
A glowing profile of Facebook’s business to date by Kurt Eichenwald:1 The Google concept of demand fulfillment—someone searches for a pink shirt and is shown an ad for a pink shirt—had an important place in Internet marketing, the pitch went. But Facebook was about generating demand by showing users content that they might not have […]
Anand Lal Shimpi Loves the HTC One
From his unofficial review: I’ve been playing around with a retail HTC One and felt compelled to share my thoughts on the device. It’s rare that I’m so moved by a device to chime in outside of the official review, but the One is a definite exception… The One is without a doubt the best […]
The Vanishing Uninformed, Charted
Last night I wrote: In the United States, where an iPhone 4 is free,1 customers who have the option of an iPhone choose it in overwhelming numbers (over 80% on AT&T and over 60% on Verizon). It’s increasingly clear that Android market share in the US was a direct result of iPhone carrier restrictions; those […]