Linked List: January 18, 2011

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Samsung Denies That They’re Charging Carriers for Android Updates ★

Well, whatever the reason, the Galaxy S is still on Android 2.1.

Apple COO Tim Cook on Android, Components, and More ★

Macworld’s transcript of Tim Cook’s comments on the quarterly earnings analyst call earlier today. Things that stood out to me:

Demand for the iPhone 4 is still outstripping supply. They can’t make them fast enough, and haven’t even launched on Verizon yet.
For phones, he’s talking about the “handset market” in general, not just smartphones. Going forward, “smartphone” market share isn’t the number to look at. It’s handset market share, period. All phones will soon be smart phones. People with feature phones are future smartphone buyers.

Regarding components, Cook said this:

On the operational side of the house, as you probably remember, we’ve historically entered into certain agreements with different people to secure supply and other benefits. The largest one in the recent past has been, we signed a deal with several flash [memory] suppliers back in the end of 2005 that totaled over a billion dollars, because we anticipated that flash would become increasingly important across our entire product line and increasingly important to the industry. And so we wanted to secure supply for our company. We think that was an absolutely fantastic use of Apple’s cash, and we constantly look for more of these. And so in the past several quarters, we’ve identified another area and come to some recent agreements that Peter talked about in his opening comments. These payments consist of both pre-payments and capital for process equipment and tooling. And similar to the flash agreement, they’re focused in an area that we feel is very strategic. And so I’d prefer not to go into more detail about what specific area it’s in, but it’s the same kind of thinking that led us to those deals.

My guess is that this is about touchscreen display technology. Apple is ahead of the entire industry here — no competing device has a display as nice as the iPhone 4. I think they want to push ahead technology-wise, and are paying up front so they can meet demand.

Regarding iPad competitors:

Then you have the Android tablets, and the variety that are out shipping today, the operating system wasn’t really designed for a tablet, and Google has said this. This is not just an Apple view by any means. And so you wind up having a size of tablet that is less than what we believe is reasonable or even one that would provide what we feel is a “real tablet experience.” So basically you wind up with a scaled-up smartphone, which is a bizarre product, in our view.

So those are the two that are shipping today, and frankly speaking, it’s hard for me to understand, if somebody does a side-by-side with an iPad, I think some enormous percentage of people are going to select an iPad there. Those are not tablets that we have any concern on.

Translation: “We still don’t have any competition.”

Macworld’s Overview of Apple’s Financial Results ★

Worth it for the charts alone.

Update: But their chart on Apple’s revenue-by-product contains an error: for the just-completed Q1 2011, they used the iPad’s unit sales (7.3 million) rather than its revenue ($4.6 billion). So the iPad hasn’t yet passed the Mac in terms of revenue, but probably will within the next quarter or two. (Source: Apple’s SEC filing.)

Update 2: And just like that, a few minutes later, Macworld has fixed the chart in question.

Hope He’s Hungry ★

Alex Cook on 3 April 2010:

I don’t buy the iPad hype. Analyst expectations for iPad revenue are way overblown. If I turn out to be wrong, I’ll gladly eat my words, but I’m pretty sure that I’m not wrong.

A Hint That Steve Jobs’ Departure Date Has Been Planned for a While ★

Andy Zaky:

About a month ago, when Apple released the date when it planned to report its fiscal Q1 earnings results, I found the date extremely peculiar. Here’s why:

Since 2007, Apple has always chosen to report earnings during the last week of the month in order to avoid the manipulation that usually comes with options expiration week. If you go back at least 14-16 quarters, Apple has reported during the last week of the month in every one of those reporting periods. I remember that it started doing this in response to reports of complaints of share manipulation during OPX.

But now that we have the Steve Jobs news, the reporting date makes a whole lot of sense.

With the holiday yesterday and blockbuster results today, I think it’s fair to say that yesterday was the single best day of the entire calendar year on which Jobs could have announced a medical leave of absence.

Claim Chowder: How Many iPads Sold in 2010 ★

Back on April 2, on Fox News’s Strategy Room, host Clayton Morris asked how many iPads Apple would sell in 2010. This was one day before the Wi-Fi version went on sale. The answers from his guests:

Jason Snell: 3 million
Andy Ihnatko: 3 million
Yours truly: 8 million
Mike Rose: 4.5-5 million
Ross Rubin: 5 million
Natali Del Conte: 5 million
Clayton Morris: 9 million

The actual answer: 14.8 million.

Software Updates: Windows Phone vs. iPhone ★

Paul Thurrott on the lack of software updates for Windows Phone 7, three months in:

To summarize, the Microsoft of 2011 doesn’t compete effectively with the Apple of 2007. How, exactly, are they going to compete with today’s Apple?

I wonder if Microsoft sees that this is a problem, but are stymied by the handset makers — or if they really don’t see that Windows Phone 7 is already falling behind?

Bomb Found Along MLK Day Parade Route in Spokane ★

Violence begets violence.

Apple Reports First Quarter Results ★

Apple PR:

The Company posted record revenue of $26.74 billion and record net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15.68 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, or $3.67 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. […]

Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter.

I’m almost certain Apple has never before sold 4 million Macs in a quarter. And I love the almost off-handed tone of the sentence announcing the iPad number.

They really did beat Wall Street’s revenue consensus by $2 billion.

LBJ Buys Pants ★

Jesse Thorn:

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson needed pants, so he called the Haggar clothing company and asked for some. The call was recorded (like all White House calls at the time), and has since become the stuff of legend. Johnson’s anatomically specific directions to Mr. Haggar are some of the most intimate words we’ve ever heard from the mouth of a President.

Engadget Has ‘Renders’ of Upcoming WebOS Tablets From HP/Palm ★

Reminds me of something I’ve seen before.

Macworld’s Live Coverage of Apple’s Q1 2011 Earnings Call ★

Call starts at 5pm Eastern, but the numbers should be released any minute now.

The Ambiguity of ‘Open’ and VP8 vs. H.264 ★

Remarkably good look at the H.264/WebM/HTML 5 video codec saga by “Antimatter15”.

Why U.S. Galaxy S Phones Still Run Android 2.1 ★

Samsung isn’t building a software platform. They’re just selling phones.

Boring Old AAPL ★

Bespoke Investment Group makes the case that AAPL is a boring stock:

Over the last year, AAPL’s average daily move has been a relatively calm 1.24%, and the last time the stock declined more than 3% in a day was 109 trading days ago, back on August 11. While AAPL is getting a lot of headline attention today over Steve Jobs’ medical leave, the most notable fact of the whole saga is probably that the stock is down only 2.5% on news that the founder and CEO is taking an indefinite medical leave of absence.

How to Shoot an Anvil 200 Feet in the Air ★

Now you know.

Badge of Shame ★

Jeremy Keith on the W3C’s attempt to use “HTML5” as an umbrella term for just about every modern web standard technology:

What. A. Crock.