Britons waste up to eight days a year dealing with computer problems at work and home, a new study found. [From Britons waste up to eight days a year on computer problems]
They should switch to a Mac.
January 27, 2010
Britons waste up to eight days a year on computer problems
January 26, 2010
Apple sees profits increase 50%
Apple reports a 50% increase in profits after seeing its most profitable quarter ever over the Christmas period. [From Apple sees profits increase 50%]
These results just mask the fact that they are really beleaguered.
January 17, 2010
Nokia Moves To Ban Apple Imports, Apple Moves To Ban Nokia Imports [Lawsuits]
First Nokia sued Apple. Then Apple sued Nokia. Last week, Nokia went to the International Trade Commission and requested a ban on the import of infringing Apple products. Today, Apple asked ITC to ban the import of infringing Nokia products. This game of patent-infringement ping pong dates back to October, when Nokia first sued Apple for violating 10 patents, including holdings related to GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN. About a month and a half later, Apple countersued, claiming that Nokia was attempting to steal their technology. Since then, both sides have filed further lawsuits claiming further patent violations of various sorts. This week, the squabble’s stage has moved to the International Trade Commission. A few days ago, Nokia requested that the ITC ban the importing of any and all Apple products, from MacBooks to iPhones, that make use of the patents in question. Today, Apple fired back, requesting the same ban on Nokia’s mobile phone imports. The ITC’s evaluation process takes 15 months, so don’t worry about these companies’ products disappearing from shelves anytime soon. But Apple’s latest filing reminds us that we shouldn’t expect this this legal game of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better to go away anytime soon. [Bloomberg][From Nokia Moves To Ban Apple Imports, Apple Moves To Ban Nokia Imports [Lawsuits]]
So what’s the next step then? An undisclosed settlement?
January 8, 2010
Jackass of the Week: Henry Blodget
Remember how with the iPod, year after year, we were inundated with punditry arguing that the iPod would suffer the same fate as the Mac — “superior technology beaten in the market by cheaper commodity products because Apple tried to maintain too much control”. Or some similar analogy. That didn’t work out well for those pundits.
I haven’t seen as much of that with the iPhone, but Henry Blodget is giving it the old college try, positioning Android as the Windows in the analogy. Now, it’s true that Android is open and the iPhone isn’t, and Android is definitely gaining attention and market share. But the analogy has no legs. The mobile OS market today bears almost no resemblance to the PC market of the ’80s. Blodget can’t even muster an argument as to what Apple should be doing differently. Really: What? License the iPhone OS to other handset makers? Give me a break.
Anyway, this argument is stupid if for no other reason than that iPhone sales are still growing fast.
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With hindsight it seems that argument didn’t even apply to the Mac/PC situation in the first place! Different forces were at work.
January 5, 2010
Apple’s App Store: From 2 To 3 Billion Downloads In Just Over 3 Months
Apple this morning announced that more than 3 billion apps have been downloaded from its App Store by iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide. This comes nearly 9 months after it first hit 1 billion downloads served, and just over 3 months since it reached the 2 billion downloads mark. No doubt, the holiday season helped increase the number of downloads so rapidly. But still: 1 billion additional downloads in 3 months and one week is just incredible. When the 2 billion mark was reached, Apple also said 85,000 apps were available in the App Store at the time, but the company chose to stick to download numbers only for this announcement, although they said 100,000 apps were published to the store separately at the beginning of November 2009. Steve Jobs in a statement, said: “Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months–this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.” Nice jab there, Steve, and excellent timing with the official announcement of Google’s Nexus One phone just around the corner. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0[From Apple’s App Store: From 2 To 3 Billion Downloads In Just Over 3 Months]
All the new iPhones and iPod Touches sold this Christmas probably helped.
Nokia Plans to Patch Hole From Iceberg by 2011
Nokia executive vice-president Rick Simonson, in an interview with The Economic Times:
By 2011, our efforts will start producing results, as we will be
at par with Apple and RIM in smartphones. Not only we draw level
with them, we will also win the war because, in addition to email,
we will be adding content, chat, music, entertainment and several
other features, which will soon become very critical for success
of any company in this space.Even with where Apple (and RIM) will be in 2011, or even with where they were in 2009? And in what way have “content, chat, music, and entertainment” not been key factors in the iPhone’s success since 2007?
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Nokia are thrashing.
January 4, 2010
Nokia sues Apple (again)
Finns to match Apple ‘by 2011’ Nokia has beefed up its legal challenge to Apple, filing a second patent-infringement lawsuit against Cupertino in US District Court in Delaware. This time around, the Finnish outfit says that Apple stole patents that make Nokia unique, including patents for a camera phone and a touch-screen display.…Offloading malware protection to the cloud [From Nokia sues Apple (again)]
Smacks of desperation.
December 30, 2009
Nokia expands claim against Apple
Nokia ramps up its legal fight against Apple, claiming that almost all of its products infringe its patents. [From Nokia expands claim against Apple]
I guess the next move is for Apple to dig up even more patents it claims Nokia infringes. Apple has been in the computer business a lot longer than Nokia has been in the phone business, and smartphones are computers.
December 28, 2009
Flurry: App Store Sees Record Breaking Christmas, 50% Growth From November To December
As predicted here on MobileCrunch earlier this month, Apple rocked it this holiday season, and the early numbers are showing it. According to Flurry, the biggest mobile app analytics company, iPod Touch download volume saw a nearly 1,000% jump in downloads on Christmas Day. Overall, the App Store saw a 51% increase in downloads from November to December (downloads only increased by 15% from October to November). Christmas also marked the first day that iPod Touch app downloads surpassed iPhone app downloads, which makes sense (the iPod Touch is a more common gift than an iPhone; more on that later). Furthermore, the Android Market saw a nice 20% bump in app sales as well, sparked primarily by an uptick in downloads from the Motorola Droid. Read the rest of this post at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.[From Flurry: App Store Sees Record Breaking Christmas, 50% Growth From November To December]
The field is shaking out.
December 23, 2009
Software development’s winners and losers, 2009 edition
In 2009, the computers got smaller, the databases got bigger, and HTML’s dominance grew. None of these trends are new, and some of these changes are as old as computers themselves, but the magnitudes are greater or smaller than ever before. Here are the winners and losers we spotted on the software development landscape in 2009. For the programmers, alas, many of the year’s ups had downsides. [From Software development’s winners and losers, 2009 edition]
Pontification and punditry for the end of the year. Some good points, some interesting links.