Mobile
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The Android Detour
Google is at its best when its product focus follows its business model; for too long Android was a detour.
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Change for Change’s Sake
iPhone OS was, but for copy-and-paste, a perfect OS (bear with me here – assume this is true). It handled every function the iPhone was expected to do in an incredibly elegant and polished way, and it’s not an accident that much of the core functionality has gone unchanged for six years. The tech press […]
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If Not for Android, Where Would Google Be?
John Gruber responded to yesterday’s piece about an alternate reality where Android didn’t exist and Apple gained 70% market share with piece called If Not for Android, Where Would the iPhone Be?: But with today’s piece, we have a first: one where I disagree with Thompson’s conclusions. I don’t think the iPhone’s market share or […]
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Two Bears
There are two Apple bear cases; only one applies to Apple, though, and the other applies to Samsung.
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Why Do Carriers Subsidize the iPhone?
Horace Dediu at Asymco used the data I compiled1 in “The Case for the Low-Cost iPhone” to further elucidate why carriers tolerate the iPhone’s industry-leading subsidies. The presumption behind smartphone usage is that it leads to more browsing which leads to more network usage which in turn, leads to more network revenues and, finally, more […]
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Observations on the App Annie Index
App Annie posted their quarterly app report this week, and there were three big-picture trends that jumped out at me. 1. Google Play is getting over the monetization hump, and it’s likely due to in-app purchase From the report: Over the past quarter, Google Play has achieved higher growth rates than the iOS App Store […]
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Apple, Samsung, and the Parable of the Model-T
Steve Jobs was famously fond of the Henry Ford adage: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” It’s true! New products – new categories – require vision and an unflinching focus on the job to be done (i.e. transport), not simply enhancing or extending solutions that already exist […]
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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 […]
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The iPad and the Disaggregation of Computing
In the 10 days this blog has been online I’ve spent a lot of time on mobile, and understandably so! It’s the biggest business in tech, and the entry point to computing for much of the world. But, like many geeks, it is traditional computers that have always been closest to my heart, and what […]
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Strategy 101 and the Wall Street Journal: A Fisking
The Wall Street Journal has 531 words in a news item about Apple’s plans to start production on a new iPhone in the second quarter. 155 of the words are useful:1 Apple Inc plans to begin production of a refreshed iPhone similar in size and shape to its current one in the second quarter of […]