Linked List: January 22, 2013

Tuesday, 22 January 2013

A Close Look at How Oracle Installs Deceptive Software With Java Updates ★

Ed Bott:

Congratulations, Oracle.

Java is the new king of foistware, displacing Adobe and Skype from the top of the heap.

Oracle only does this with their Java installers for Windows, but there’s nothing stopping them from doing it with their Mac OS X installers eventually. Well, except for Java’s inexorable slide into obsolescence as a desktop technology.

Peter Cohan, Still a Jackass ★

Remember this guy, who argued back in October that Apple’s board should fire Tim Cook? Still banging that drum. This is the type of nonsense Forbes runs.

Google’s Quarterly Results ★

The AP:

Google earned nearly $2.9 billion, or $8.62 per share during the final three months of last year. That compared to net income of $2.7 billion, or $8.22 per share, at the same time last year.

Revenue surged 36 percent from the previous year to $14.4 billion.

Revenue way up, profit only up slightly.

Asymconf ★

Horace Dediu’s Asymconf next week in San Jose still has a few seats open. I can’t make it, but sure wish I could.

iPhone Activations on Verizon ★

Yoni Heisler, writing for Network World:

All told, Verizon activated 6.2 million iPhones, with nearly half of them being the iPhone 5. Put differently, the iPhone accounted for 63.2% of all of Verizon’s smartphone sales this past quarter. That figure represents the highest proportion of iPhones sold in any previous quarter. […]

Last quarter, Verizon activated 3.1 million iPhones, which accounted for approximately 46% of their total smartphone activations. […] During the holiday quarter of 2011, Verizon activated 7.7 million smartphones, 4.2 million of which where iPhones. That translates to the iPhone accounting for 54% of all smartphone sales on Verizon for the quarter.

Year-over-year, Verizon smartphone activations were up 27 percent; iPhone activations were up 48 percent. iPhones outsold Android phones about 2 to 1. This, on the carrier that owns and promotes the “Droid” brand.

On their analyst conference call, Verizon said “about half” their iPhone activations for the quarter were for the iPhone 5. I’m betting the “free” (with contract) iPhone 4 played a big part in that — this is the first quarter Verizon has been able to offer a “free” iPhone, because the 3GS was GSM-only. Which in turn is a good reminder that Apple already has a low-cost iPhone — the two-year-old iPhone 4.

Theories on AAPL’s $500 Close ★

Nick Summers, Businessweek:

Take a look at the option chain data for Apple, for those bets expiring Jan. 19. (Monthly options expire on the Saturday after the third Friday of the month.) There were more than 66,000 contracts at $500, more than twice as many than at any other price.

“People are correlative animals,” says Lipkin. “They tend to see things that are patterns. But what they don’t see are the probabilities.”

The conspiracy, if you will, is not that AAPL closed at precisely $500.00 Friday. The conspiracy is that those who stood to profit from Apple closing at or under $500 have been spreading pessimistic bullshit for months to drive the stock price down.

‘It Might Not Get Weirder Than This’ ★

Fascinating, insightful, well-illustrated trip report by Sophie Schmidt, who accompanied her father Eric to North Korea.

On the Future of the Mac Mini ★

Kasper Jade, AppleInsider:

Therefore, it comes as little surprise that sources, for whom AppleInsider holds the utmost respect, are now pointing towards the mini’s impending demise. […]

Ladies and gentlemen, AppleInsider believes in all sincerity that the Mac mini is dead.

I’d be worried if this article weren’t from 2007.