'Open' will ALWAYS Beat 'Closed' Myth. The 'Clueless' Apple-haters Cheering Not Realizing iPhone rising to 41% of Worldwide Smartphone Profits

Just scanning the web I see a whole bunch of Android fans and assorted Apple-haters cheering (mindlessly) as apparently Android smart- phone market share rises vs iPhone.

Note: that's smartphone, not total iOS devices. Smartphone numbers don't include about 50% of iOS which is on iPads and iPod Touches. Actually latest from Google and Apple quarterly financials released in January (and not analysts estimates) puts Android activations at 300,000 and iOS at 366,000 a day.

This 'market share' gains has led to this myth : 'Open'  Many OEMs will always beat 'Closed-lone-wolf-Apple'. (Questionable how open Android actually is as many Droid phones are locked down etc but that's a topic for another day)

Always beat Apple? Well perhaps I should remind people of iPod!!

In 2009 Barclays Analyst Asks "(What if) Steve is Unable to Return". Tim Cook's Revealing Answer

In 2009 when Steve Jobs was on medical leave for his liver transplant Cook answered a question during the Q1 Earnings call in January on Apple's response to Steve Job's absence. It gives a very interesting look at Tim Cook's beliefs and Apple's philosopy :

Trying to Read some Hopeful Signs in Timing of Jobs Medical Leave Announcement

Steve Jobs Goes on Medical Leave

This morning Steve Jobs through a email to employees and reproduced for the media announced that he will be taking a leave of absence.

Google Vs Apple. Is Android Killing Apple? A Brief Look at Android's Effect on Apple's Growth since 2007

It seems that there is hardly anywhere on the net that I go where the argument that Android is killing Apple is put forward. I've even read that Apple will soon be heading towards insolvency like what happened two decades ago during the Mac PC Skirmish I. The belief is that Google (the new Microsoft) is raking in all the money and Apple is suffering diminishing returns.

Fact is in 2007 when Android was announced with great fanfare and plenty of prognostications of imminent Apple demise, Google was a larger company by market capitalization than Apple. Apple blew past Google in 2009. Now after 3 years or so of Android 'success' Apple is now larger than Google by a $100 billion ( $318 b vs 197 b ).

see chart:

Goog vs Aapl Growth since Android

Apple Erasing the Haze of CES while still Limbering Up for 2011

CES came and went and except for the most devout tech columnist who itemized every doodad in some database it was a blurry haze of products. Out of the plethora of items nothing earthshaking. Most casual observers won't be able to remember much: "Yeah I think there were like a whole bunch of tablets, but no one said there was an iPad killer. And I think iPad 2 is coming... ".

How does Steve Jobs live on $1 a year when he doesn't sell any Apple shares and why Tim Cook is walking home with $59 million.

It was revealed last week from Apple's 2011 Proxy Statement that Steve Jobs the iconic CEO of Apple took home his usual 1 buck a year salary and that Tim Cook was awarded a total of $59 million in salary and bonuses.

Steve Jobs' Jet N2N (Photo Coolspotters)

Steve Jobs got no bonuses and basically his only perk was expenses for his Gulstream jet which came up to $248,000. He was awarded the jet in 1999. Steve Jobs has a $1 a year salary since his return to Apple in 1997. He has not been awarded any new shares since 2003. He owns about 5.5 million in Apple shares now which is valued around $2 billion. He has not sold any Apple shares since his return except some for tax purposes. 


So what does Steve Jobs live on?

Apple launches new Mac App Store

Today the Mac gets some love with Apple opening it's Mac App Store.

NPR on the Steve Jobs - Jonathan Ive partnership at Apple.

An interesting look at Steve Jobs' partnership with Jonathan Ive Apple's chief designer at NPR, there's transcript here and the audio file. Jonathan Ive is of course the famous lead designer of various pieces of ground breaking Apple hardware since the radical candy colored imacs that started Apple's renaissance to practically everything Apple today including the 'retina' screen iPhone 4. Ive is a cornerstone  of Apple's success.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball says Asymco.com is his favorite weblog of 2010

CNN votes iPhone 4 tech fail of the year. The phone which has the highest customer satisfaction ranking from JD Power and Changewave

CNN has vote the iPhone 4 as number one on its list of 2010 tech failures.

Gartenberg says Apple TV turning from Hobby to Full-time business

Michael Gartenberg at Macworld says:
"Apple TV sometimes feels like the Rodney Dangerfield of Apple products: it gets no respect. No less than Steve Jobs calls it not a product line, but a hobby. Hobbies are funny, though. Stick with one long enough and it can transform from side interest to full-time business."


Gartenberg's conclusion seems on the money as Apple has just announced that it has sold a million new Apple TVs in about 80 days. (To put this in context as a significant number Windows fan sites are jumping up and down when Microsoft proudly announced they have sold 1.5m WP7 phones in 6 weeks with 10 different phones on 60 carriers in 30 countries. Considering Apple TV is/was a 'hobby' and WP7 a major platform initiative with a 500 million ad budget... )

Forbes: "Apple and the Mac: No iPad Cannibalization in sight"

Bruce Upbin of Forbes wrote : "People have been wondering if and when the iPad is going to finally start cannibalizing Mac sales. It hasn’t happened yet. In the year of the iPad’s release, Mac sales continue to break records. Apple sold 3.89 million Macs in the fourth quarter, up 27% over the 2009’s fourth quarter. It sold 3.47 million in the third quarter, up 33% over 2009. The fact that quarterly growth rate is slowing is suggestive, of what I’m not sure.

As Apple drops Wikileaks app, Google keeps it. Will Apple be a Wikileaks target?

Bazinger (an investment site) staff writer Jonathan Chen speculates that Apple which this week removed the Wikileaks app from it's App Store might become a target for Wikileaks.

"  "Is it likely that Apple could become a target? Of course," said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer for the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit."Anyone that distances themselves from WikiLeaks could potentially become a cyber target."  "

Steve Jobs is Financial Times 'Person of the Year'

AppleInsider reports that Steve Jobs has been voted UK's Financial Times person of the year. Financial Times considers Steve Jobs unveiling of the iPad as capping "the most remarkable comeback in modern business history"


"Of all the fingers that Apple has poked into Microsoft's eyes over the years, none can have rankled as much as the early success of the iPad," the report reads. "Mr. Gates himself championed a tablet computer nearly a decade ago, though the stylus needed to write on its screen and the PC-like interface generated little demand."

1.5 m Windows Phones sold on sixty carriers vs 1 m iPhones on one carrier

On Dec 21 Achim Berg, VP of business and marketing for Windows Phone 7 announced "We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence." WP7 is of course the major overhaul of Microsoft's phone platform, a completely new OS from the end of line Windows Mobile. It was designed to take on Google's Android and Apple's iPhone.


1.5m sold in 6 weeks is pretty dismal.

Steve Jobs Action Figure Apparently sold for $2500 on ebay.

A few weeks back sales of hot selling limited edition Steve Jobs figurines were stopped by an Apple injunction. Now AppleInsider says one them was apparently sold on ebay for a whooping $2500 a big gain from the figurines original $79.90. Analysts say Apple probably stopped sales due to the unauthorized use of the Apple logo and other copyrighted items.

read more at AppleInsider with nice close-up photos.

Google Chrome and Nexus S Twin Daggers at Microsoft's Heart?

Rich Jaroslovsky at Bloomberg argues that Google is less a threat to Apple than to Microsoft. It's Chrome OS and Nexus S smart phone are 'twin daggers at Microsoft's heart'.


He writes "On the surface, neither seems particularly menacing.... Still, the two devices represent an enormous threat to Microsoft and its chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer. The success of Android is rapidly foreclosing Microsoft’s growth prospects as more computing is done on mobile devices. Meanwhile, Chrome OS takes dead aim at its great twin cash cows: the Windows and Microsoft Office franchises" . Google's great competitive advantage:  "Google offers Android to manufacturers at a price that Microsoft can’t beat: free."

Charged Insider Trader says even mentioning the prototype iPad codename K48 could get you fired

Recently four people were arrested in a probe into insider trading in tech companies. One of them Walter Shimoon worked in Flextronics which builds for Apple.  Apparently Shimoon was privy to various Apple trade secrets including that the new iPhone had two cameras, the iPad had none etc. Apple is well known for it's fanaticism on secrecy. Shimoon's revelations to the Feds sheds a glimmer on Apple's security policies. According to Shimoom if you worked for Apple you could get fired even if you just mentioned the codename of the yet un-released iPad which was K48. 


More on this by Larry Dignan at ZDnet
and by John Brownlee at Cult of the Mac.

Earliest for Verizon iPhone is February?

Many people seem to be waiting for the Verizon iPhone. According to this post from Tom Kaneshige the earliest it would be is February. Why?  According to Kaneshige one big reason is "If a Verizon iPhone came out in January—that is, inside of the 30-day return policy—Verizon customers would return their Christmas phones for iPhones, leaving Verizon stuck with crushing inventory."


Squeeze Da Apple: Yeah, we think so too, if Verizon had a January iPhone launch they were be inundated with Christmas phone returns. 


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