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Googlephone sales top, um, 135,000
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Google has sold a mere 135,000 Nexus One phones since the smartphone’s much-ballyhooed launch on 5 January, according to the latest numbers from mobile analytics outfit Flurry.
The estimate covers the handset’s first 74 days of existence. By comparison, the inaugural Apple iPhone reached a million sales in its first 74 days.
And the iPad sold 120,000 on its first day of availability (if you define “available” as “for sale” instead of “people actually getting their hands on them”)
Least surprising announcement this week
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We just got out of a meeting with Microsoft’s Todd Biggs, who dropped a little bombshell on us: the only official way to get apps on a Windows Phone 7 Series device will be to download them from the just-detailed Windows Phone Marketplace. That means developers will have to abide by Microsoft’s technical and content guidelines in order to make it in, with the very real possibility of rejection — sound familiar?
I wonder of the people who refuse to use the iPhone over this will refuse Phone 7 as well..
Google runs into a problem with Nexus One trademark application
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Google filed an application for the Nexus One trademark back on 10th December 2009 for use in connection with mobile phones. It would appear however that whoever handled the filing didn’t spend a lot of time on the initial conflict search report, as the Trademark Office has recently issued a notice of refusal:
SECTION 2(d) REFUSAL – LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION
Registration of the applied-for mark is refused because of a likelihood of confusion with the mark in U.S. Registration No. 3554195.
The refusal has been issued on the grounds that the mark could conflict with an existing NEXUS trademark (3554195) granted on December 30, 2008 to Integra Telecom under the same class with a description which includes the provision of telecommunication services and the transmission of voice and data.
So, how did that Cisco iPhone trademark work out?
Battle lines drawn in Apple-Google warfare
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The battle between Apple and Google is heating up, with execs taking potshots at each other and Silicon Valley insiders choosing sides – some by getting new business cards.
“It’s World War III. Amazing animosity is motivating two of the most powerful people in the industry,” a “well-connected” investor told The New York Times, referring to Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt. “This is emotional. This is the biggest ego battle in history. It’s incendiary.”
[..]
Microsoft, for its part, is being unusually cordial to its one-time bête noire. First, Steve Ballmer praised Apple’s App Store, and now The Seattle Times reports that Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith recently gave “a nod of support” for Apple’s patent-infringement lawsuit against Android-phone maker HTC.
And then there are the persistent rumors that Apple is in talks with Microsoft to dump Google from its privilged spot as the iPhone’s – and the iPad’s? – default search engine and instead promote Redmond’s Bing into that role.
/the/path/of/most/resistance
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I began telling them that if they would buy a Mac, I would give them 24/7 tech support without complaint. Initially, they scoffed, but as the Mac became fashionable, I had more and more family members calling to let me know they had switched. Now, most of them are Mac users and the rate of support calls have dropped from several a month to several a year.
These days, tech support calls involve questions of how to do stuff these folks like to do. Because they can now actually use their computers instead of simply restarting them, I’m able to better see how they use them. And the one commonality I’ve seen is that no one knows how to use the file system.
Unfortunately for the average person, the file system is so complex that everything outside of the desktop and the documents folder appears to be a vast labyrinth which most likely hides booby traps and minotaurs.
[..]
In Japanese aesthetics, one of the most striking things is the focus on negative space. The Japanese concepts of “Ma” and “Wabi-sabi” put as much focus on what is omitted as what is added. The result is beautiful art and architecture that invoke a sense of peace and stillness.
Apple is doing something rather daring with their new iPhone OS. They are essentially omitting features that people once took for granted in a typical computer. And one of the biggest things they’ve omitted is the visual file system. Instead, in the iPhone OS, the concept of the file is essentially gone. It’s been replaced by “apps and their stuff.”
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Apple talks tough to handset makers
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“Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.
“Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for work-arounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.”
[..]
Why pick on HTC? Reiner speculates that as the earliest and most aggressive user of Android, HTC was the perfect proxy for Apple’s real target: Google
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iPad Application Design
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I held a 6-hour workshop at NSConference in both the UK and USA recently, focusing on software design and user experience. Predictably, an extremely popular topic was the iPad, and how to approach the design of iPad applications. I gave a 90-minute presentation on the subject to start each workshop, and I want to share some of my observations here.
Excellent piece on the user interface, go read it!
shakedown!
(you also wouldn’t believe how many advertising networks have contacted me asking me if I want to “monetize” my apps…)
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : We’re not litigious — we just like to sue people
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Everyone is going nuts because we just sued HTC for violating several hundred of our patents, including our patent for the 12-box keypad (1-9 plus * and #) which we introduced on the iPhone and are now seeing copied everywhere, and our patent on the “audible tone to indicate an incoming call on a telephonic communication device,” which also is just showing up everywhere.
Naturally there’s a risk when you start suing people that people will view you as a kind of bully, but we’re trying to make clear that we are just attempting to defend our rights and protect the innovation and invention that we’ve spent years innovating on inside our incredibly innovative invention labs. Gizmodo says the patents we’ve got are “incredible!” and that HTC had no idea we were going to sue them. AllThingsD provides complete copies of court documents which I recommend you go read, from front to back, right away. TechCrunch says that the suit is actually an attack on Google and Android, which is true. It’s war, people.
Quite. Here is a breakdown of all the claims.
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Extrapolate
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Apple uncovers child workers in its plants
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Apple has found children were hired to help build some of its products, with one employer in its Mac, iPod and iPhone supply chain falsifying records.
Three facilities were found to have hired 11 workers aged 15 in countries where the minimum work age is 16, as part of the annual audit of companies adhering its supplier code of conduct.
Apple audited 102 companies in 2009, up from 83 the previous year, in China, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US.
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iMaxi The Apple iPad Case with Protective Wings
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Introducing Hip Handmaids’ exclusive iMaxi—the only Apple iPad case made with protective wings!
With its durable vinyl outer layer and plush, quilted-cotton sleeve, the iMaxi helps keep your iPad clean and dry. Plus, the iMaxi’s Velcro-latched, advanced wing design wraps snugly around your device, so your iPad always stays where it should. Best of all, it shields it from all those unsightly and embarrassing data leaks that would make any motherboard worry!
iGotaBigAssPocket Concept
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How to compete with iPad
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Dear Potential iPad Competitors,
[..]
Several of you have announced you’re going to create products that you call tablet computers. I think we’re immediately heading off down the wrong path here, at least if your intention is to compete with iPad and grab a decent chunk of the market. A big part of the reason for all the excitement about the iPad is that, similar to the Nintendo Wii in the videogames industry, it appeals to segments of the market which have not traditionally been targeted. Segments which are nevertheless ready and willing, as with Wii, to buy devices in their hundreds of thousands.
It’s difficult to get our heads around the fact that these non-technologically-savvy users can suddenly constitute a core market for a device, yet that’s the case here. Nintendo saw it, and Apple sees it too. It’s an uncomfortable realisation since these people are so unfamiliar to people like you, as hardware manufacturers, and me as a software engineer. This discomfort leads to a kind of understandable blindness, and more importantly can make us leave money on the table. The relative sales and demand figures for Wii vs PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over the last several Christmases are indicative of that.
When competing with iPad, you have to realise that, to your new core market, tablets are not computers. There’s no such thing (to your customer) as a “tablet computer”; the very name reduces the likelihood they’ll buy it. The potential of the tablet is that it’s not even seen as a computing device. This is an incredible opportunity to expand into a new market, if you’ll only commit to that mindset.
[..]
There’s been a lot of press about the limitations of the iPad, and you’re probably both frightened and overjoyed by it. Frightened because you don’t want those complaints to be levelled at your product, and overjoyed because you feel that if you overcome those limitations then you’ll have a strong comparative marketing campaign and a shot at the market.
Be very careful. For the most part, those oft-mentioned “limitations” are limitations for a computer. Yes, a computer without multitasking and Flash support and expandable storage and a built-in camera would indeed be relatively undesirable, and vulnerable to competition. But you have to remember that limitations aren’t portable between product categories.
Apple ambushed in Barcelona
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The mobile industry – most of it – has finally got its act together to challenge Apple’s dominance of mobile applications.
The “Wholesale Applications Community” can certainly claim wide support – three handset makers, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, along with dozens of carriers and operators including China Telecom, AT&T, Orange and Vodafone. It is expecting more members in coming weeks.
The group, which claims three billion customers, wants to create a single market place for mobile applications regardless of what platform they run on.
So it’s been three years since Apple woke them up, and this is what they figured was needed? They couldn’t be more wrong on the wrongest day of their life if they had an electrified wronging machine.
I’m a mobile developer, and I don’t give a shit about a single market place. I might give a shit about a single development environment, but that probably leaves me with an API that doesn’t cover the device features that aren’t as generic as a monochrome 480×320 pixel display, so I’m perfectly willing to port apps around a bit.
What I do care about is a device where users actually buy shit for. And there have been several attempts (mostly by folks not on this “Wholesale Applications Community” vendor list) to create those devices. Like RIM, Palm, and Google. And how many apps are sold on those platforms? Right now it’s just a rounding error in the numbers Apple is seeing.
Until these idiot corporations realize that the user experience matters far more than whichever marketing buzzwords they’ve been able to shoehorn into their clunky tat, they’re just going to keep on hearing a strange, almost continuous whooshing sound. It’s the sound of the fucking point whizzing right by them over and over again. If I were Steve Jobs, I’d want all my competitors to get involved in a project like this.
Leaving me with just a single platform to target. I understand the “complaints” about Apple, about locked devices, the app store process, multitasking, etc. Say about it what you want, but it did change the game. Understand that, and give me an alternative already!
Until then, I’m not going to port my stuff to your devices.
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Microsoft’s Creative Destruction
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Another example: When we were building the tablet PC in 2001, the vice president in charge of Office at the time decided he didn’t like the concept. The tablet required a stylus, and he much preferred keyboards to pens and thought our efforts doomed. To guarantee they were, he refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet. So if you wanted to enter a number into a spreadsheet or correct a word in an e-mail message, you had to write it in a special pop-up box, which then transferred the information to Office. Annoying, clumsy and slow.
They could have had what Apple is going to deliver with iWorks for the iPad almost a decade ago, if it weren’t for the internal politics…
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The iPad introduction, abridged edition
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the iPad
Cartoons
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AppKit may be the next Carbon. UIKit is the frontier
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Yes. Five. We want to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad: OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, and OmniGraphSketcher.
iPad keynote
I finally had some time to watch the keynote.
Now all you folks saying that the iPad is just a bigger iPod Touch, go watch the iWorks demo in the keynote presentation.
Go ahead, I’ll wait….
Back again? Okay. Now ponder the following things:
- multi-touch (as in, three fingers or more)
- user interaction design
There’s some major progress being made here. Regardless of hype, the way Apple does introductions and all that. The real progress being made will not be by iPhone apps being scaled up. The real progress will be made with the mundane productivity apps.
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Microsoft: iPad’s Closed Platform is “Humorous”
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Watson claimed that many developers of applications for the iPhone OS–which the iPad uses–are not making money. Developing applications for the iPhone and iPad is expensive, he said, because iPhone OS uses the Objective C language rather than Microsoft’s more pervasive .NET platform. And Apple’s control over the platform has alienated some people that make software for its products, he said.
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Yes, there is much jealousy from iPhone developers at the sacks full of money being made by Zune and Windows Mobile app developers.
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Google responds to the iPad
Cruft: A message to the Internets regarding the iPad
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Remember way back to January 2007, when the iPhone was announced? Oh Internets, you wailed and gnashed your teeth endlessly. No 3G network? No MMS? No apps on the iPhone? No replaceable battery? Oh, your complaints were endless. You were sure that the iPhone was doomed because it didn’t meet all your requirements.
And what happened? Well, Apple has sold 40 million iPhones. FORTY MILLION. They have become the largest mobile device company in the world.
So today, you moan on and on about all the features you expected and demand in the iPad. What no Verizon? No two-way camera? It’s not weightless? A full half inch thick? Only 10 hours of battery life? You make tons of predictions on the success and failure with scant details and without ever actually trying one.
[..]
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.” – Steve Jobs
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Apple Special Event January 2010
The video is available here.
I can’t wait for the next generation – I expect Apple, just like with the iPod, to introduce an iPad Nano….
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Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet | The Onion
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Claiming that he completely forgot about the much-hyped electronic device until the last minute, a frantic Steve Jobs reportedly stayed up all night Tuesday in a desperate effort to design Apple’s new tablet computer. “Come on, Steve, just think—think, dammit—you’re running out of time,” the exhausted CEO said as he glued nine separate iPhones to the back of a plastic cafeteria tray. “Okay, yeah, this will work. This will definitely work. Just need to write ‘tablet’ on this little strip of masking tape here and I’m golden. Oh, come on, you piece of shit! Just stick already!” Middle-of-the-night sources reported that Jobs then began work on double-spacing his Keynote presentation and increasing the font size to make it appear longer.
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iPad
Remember, everything Steve does during a keynote is on purpose:
First picture of the Apple Tablet leaks!
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Prediction Score Card
Try it, I’m going for yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yes, no, no, yes, yes, yes, no, yes, yes.
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The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : An anxious world awaits
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Check out the line that’s forming outside our store in San Francisco as of this morning.
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I absolutely will.
What is an iPhone and what is a Phone 7?
Here, grampa:
iPhone
Phone 7
I know I will.
IMHO, Palm Pre FTW – but you already knew how I feel about it.
yep I absolutley will refuse.
Second on the pre!!!