Mobile
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C is for Choices
I have to admit, it was a bit of a thrill breaking the news to the western world of the latest iPhone leak: Taiwan's Apple Daily claims to have iPhones 5C and 5S: http://t.co/bAZ8F49Wzn Double flash on 5S, highly scratch-resistant plastic on 5C. — Ben Thompson (@monkbent) August 21, 2013 Still, it really wasn’t anything new […]
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The App Store Rainbow
Postulate: The greatest differentiator for iOS is the quality of its apps. That’s the position taken by Benedict Evans in a must-read piece: If total Android engagement moves decisively above iOS, the fact that iOS will remain big will be beside the point – it will move from first to first-equal and then perhaps second […]
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BlackBerry — and Nokia’s — Fundamental Failing
In December 2009, while a first-year student at Kellogg, I went to a RIM (now BlackBerry1) recruitment presentation. “Our problem,” the relatively senior fellow said, “is that when I get on a plane, everyone uses a BlackBerry until they close the door. Then they pull out their iPods. We need to make BlackBerry’s the only […]
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The iPad is like the iPod, not the iPhone
Most folks seem to instinctively compare the iPad and the tablet market to the iPhone and smartphone market, and it’s easy to see why. They share the same OS, the same competitor, many of the same apps, and, of course, the same time period – the present. But in reality – and this touches on […]
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Understanding Google
The surest route to befuddlement in the tech industry is comparing a vertical player, like Apple, with a horizontal one, like Google. Vertical players typically monetize through hardware, only serve a subset of users, and any services they provide are exclusive to their devices. Horizontal players, on the other hand, monetize through subscriptions or ads, […]
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The (alleged) 13-inch iPad and the triumph of thin clients
The WSJ, in an article entitled Apple Tests Larger Screens for iPhones, iPads: In recent months, Apple has asked for prototype smartphone screens larger than 4 inches and has also asked for screen designs for a new tablet device measuring slightly less than 13 inches diagonally, they said. The current iPhone 5 has a four-inch […]
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Why Doesn’t Apple Enable Sustainable Businesses on the App Store?
This series of posts is about enabling sustainable businesses on the App Store. In Part 1, I discuss why Paper and other productivity apps may not be doing as well as you might think. Part 2 explores why casual games, in contrast, are a sustainable business, but not a differentiator for platforms (I added a […]
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Yahoo, Tumblr, and the Signal-to-ads Cycle
Tumblr is worth far more to Yahoo than $1.1 billion, and worth far less as a standalone company. That makes this acquisition a win-win; Yahoo is buying three important parts of the signal-to-ads cycle, and Tumblr’s investors are getting a nice exit. There are three ways to improve advertising revenue: Sell more ads Sell more […]
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Paul Otellini’s Intel
From an extended feature in The Atlantic: Even Otellini betrayed a profound sense of disappointment over a decision he made about a then-unreleased product that became the iPhone. Shortly after winning Apple’s Mac business, he decided against doing what it took to be the chip in Apple’s paradigm-shifting product. “We ended up not winning it […]