Linked List: April 22, 2009

Wednesday, 22 April 2009

Jason Snell reads the tea leaves on Tim Cook’s comments from today’s quarterly conference call regarding “netbooks”. Here’s a quote from Cook:

“For us, it’s about doing great products. And when I look at what is being sold in the netbook space today, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens, and just not a consumer experience… that we would put the Mac brand on, quite frankly. And so it’s not a space, as it exists today, that we’re interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in.”

Whatever they’re cooking up for this space, it will not be a Mac. I’m thinking iPhone OS (perhaps renamed) and a touchscreen keyboard. (There must be some reason why the keyboard in iPhone OS 3.0 now appears to be rescaled dynamically — i.e. rendered resolution independently.)

Apple Second Quarter Results: ‘Best Non-Holiday Quarter Revenue and Earnings in Our History’ ★

Apple:

The Company posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. […]

Apple sold 2.22 million Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing a three percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 11.01 million iPods during the quarter, representing three percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone units sold were 3.79 million representing 123 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter.

Nice jump in revenue and profit during the worst recession in recent history. Not bad.

Twitter Must Be Stupid Because It’s New, See? ★

Biz Stone gives smart answers to Maureen Dowd’s stupid questions regarding Twitter:

ME: If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?

BIZ (dryly): In the middle of what?

AT&T’s First-Quarter Results ★

AT&T PR:

Continued strong integrated device adoption including more than 1.6 million iPhone 3G devices activated during the first quarter; the number of AT&T postpaid wireless subscribers with integrated devices more than doubled over the past year.

You can see why AT&T is so hot to extend its exclusive deal with Apple. (Keep in mind, those 1.6 million iPhones are just in the U.S. Apple will announce its quarterly results today at 5 pm EDT.)

I’m Pretty Sure AT&T Is Not an Apple Subsidiary ★

Joshua Topolsky at Engadget:

Need more proof that Apple (and AT&T, by proxy) is taking the Pre kind of seriously? Enter this internal document from the iPhone carrier exposing the Palm phone for what it really is — a second-rate claptrap that is doomed to failure because of its inferior and stupid design.

Everyone should and will take the Pre seriously. The software, at least, is impressive and well designed. But how does a leaked AT&T document indicate proof of anything from Apple? And I think even these talking points — the whole point of which is to cast the Pre in an unfavorable light compared to the iPhone — make it clear that it’s not bad at all.