Steve Jobs, Yesterday on Apple’s Quarterly Analyst Conference Call

The boss made a rare appearance on Apple’s analyst call, and he was en fuego. Macworld has a full transcript, and it’s chock full of good stuff. Highlights, paraphrased:

  • Upcoming iPad competitors are going with 7-inch screens as a cost-cutting measure, because they can’t compete with Apple on price. Apple has tried 7-inch screens and deems them too small for iPad-caliber apps — squeeze everything down and tap targets get too small and too close to each other. He pretty much squashed rumors that Apple is building a 7-inch iPad.

  • Apple passed RIM in smartphone sales this quarter, and Jobs doesn’t “see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future”. RIM is in trouble, because the industry is moving toward software platforms, and that’s outside their expertise.

  • Waiting for numbers from Gartner to see whether the iPhone outsold Android this quarter. Jobs is using total iOS device activations for comparison — not just iPhones — and says Apple averaged about 275,000 per day over the last month.

  • Google’s argument is “open vs. closed”. Apple sees it as “fragmented vs. integrated”. The iPhone model is better for users, and better for developers.

★ Tuesday, 19 October 2010