Linked List: May 24, 2013

Friday, 24 May 2013

My thanks to Nozbe for sponsoring this week’s DF RSS feed. Nozbe is a tool that helps busy professionals and teams organize time and manage their projects to get things done efficiently and effectively. Nozbe syncs tasks, and they offer a wide variety of client apps: web, iPhone, iPad, Android (including a tablet-optimized interface), Mac, and Windows. They even have apps for Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10 coming soon.

Nozbe integrates with other apps, like Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Calendar.

They have a variety of plans to fit the size of your team (including a personal single-user tier). There’s even a free level — try it and you can’t lose. When you upgrade, use coupon code “FIREBALL” and you’ll save 20 percent on any Nozbe plan — this week only.

Digging in on the Church of Market Share ★

This whole article from Jay Yarow is weak. He disparages John Kirk’s widely-cited Techpinions piece on Android market share, but addresses none of Kirk’s actual arguments. Underlying the entirety of Yarow’s piece is Church of Market Share dogma: higher market share is always better, just because. But here’s a paragraph I actually agree with:

Based on these quotes, the goal for Apple shouldn’t be to be the company with the most money in the bank. It should be to make the best products in the world, and get them in as many hands as possible.

That’s exactly what Apple is doing. No one, or at least no one with a clue, is arguing that making the most money should be Apple’s goal. (Nor is anyone arguing that market share is irrelevant; the argument is whether market share alone is of primary importance.) Apple’s profits are the result of having achieved their goal: making the best products and getting them into the hands of the most people. The and there is very important. In simple terms, iOS is what you get when you try to make the best products and maximize the number of people who use them; Android devices are what you get when you try to maximize the number of people who use them.

Apple has so much money right now that it basically doesn’t know what to do with it. A company that is defined by brilliant, world-changing ideas has decided the best use for its $145 billion in cash is a rather pedestrian stock buyback and dividend to shareholders.

This reiterates my belief that Yarow is digging in to defend Business Insider’s years-long campaign of click-bait sensational anti-Apple-ism. (“iPhone Dead in the Water” — April 2011.) For one thing, what is “pedestrian” about the company’s stock buyback and dividend plans? More importantly, does Yarow really believe that Apple isn’t spending enormous sums of money on initiatives — billions of dollars per quarter — that will drive future products and services? (See Horace Dediu’s third question today.) If he’s not aware of this, he’s not competent to cover Apple for a business publication; if he is aware, then the above is a blatantly dishonest attempt to mislead.

The truth is that focusing on market share as the primary metric is the only way to paint the iPhone as anything other than a roaring success.

Mailbox for iPad ★

Even though I don’t use it (because it’s Gmail-centric, rather than a general IMAP client), I greatly admire the design of their iPhone app. This iPad version feels a bit half-assed though:

Landscape only.
The content pane only appears after you select a message in message pane. Feels unfinished.
Popover menus appear centered on screen. That’s wrong on the iPad — they should be attached to the button or object that makes them appear. (E.g. the hamburger button in the content pane.)

See Also: Ryan Tate’s interview with Mailbox founder/CEO Gentry Underwood. It’s interesting, but I almost laughed at this question from Tate:

You did a very cool thing, but in some ways a very simple thing. Why hadn’t anyone tried more of this before?

There is nothing simple about making an email client.

‘The Making of Kubrick’s 2001’ ★

Stanley Kubrick:

“I don’t like to talk about 2001 much because it’s essentially a nonverbal experience. Less than half the film has dialogue. It attempts to communicate more to the subconscious and to the feelings than it does to the intellect. I think clearly that there is a basic problem with people who are not paying attention with their eyes. They’re listening. And they don’t get much from listening to this film. Those who won’t believe their eyes won’t be able to appreciate this film.”

Hard to believe this book is out of print. What a find. (Via Adam Schoales.)

Benedict Evans: ‘On Market Share’ ★

Benedict Evans:

However, there’s a rather important problem with looking at the data like this: there is no such thing as a “smartphone market”. Or rather, talking about the “smartphone market” is like talking about the “3G” market or the “colour screen phone” market: you’re picking out a sub-segment that is going to grow to take over the whole market. And ignoring the growth. […]

The whole mobile phone market is converting to smart. Apple is taking the high end and Android is taking the rest. Both are growing very fast, and Android is growing faster. But what matters is phone share, not smartphone share.

Hallelujah.

Android and iOS Are Both Winning ★

Virtual Pants:

People often forget that Google and Apple are playing the same game with different goals in mind. Apple strives to maximize profitability in hardware sales. Google, on the other hand, is striving for maximum market share, providing the most users for its services. This is a rare, if not unique, war where both Apple and Google can win, and that seems to be very confusing to people.

This is in reference to yesterday’s “Android’s Market Share Is Literally a Joke” by John Kirk. Judging by my email, Kirk’s piece touched a nerve among many of the true believers in the Church of Market Share. Virtual Pants is right about one thing: the fact that Apple is winning with iOS does not mean Google is losing with Android. They might both be getting exactly what they want.

But Kirk didn’t argue about Google’s interest in Android. It’s the market share zealots who seem to believe there can be one and only one successful platform. And as for Virtual Pants, I don’t think there’s anything rare or unique about this situation. Again I say: just look at the mature, stable PC market. Windows has held a decades-long monopoly on PC operating systems, exactly what Microsoft wants. The Mac reaps an enormous chunk of the industry’s hardware profits, exactly what Apple wants.

My belief, though, is that what Google is winning with Android is a booby prize — overwhelming majority share of the unprofitable segment of the market.

Keyboard Maestro 6.0 ★

Great update to one of my favorite “secret weapon” utilities. I feel lost on a Mac without Keyboard Maestro installed.

Horace Dediu’s Questions for Tim Cook ★

Horace Dediu:

Next week at AllThingsD’s D11 conference in LA, Apple CEO Tim Cook will be interviewed by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. Here are some questions I’m hoping they will ask.

Good questions. Not sure Cook would give a straight answer to any of them, though.

Trucks, Cars, and Vespas ★

Watts Martin:

Am I saying Steve Jobs’ famous cars and trucks analogy was wrong, then? Sort of. Desktop computers may be trucks, but the laptops are the cars. That’s why they’ve been outselling desktops for years. Tablets are motorcycles. Maybe Vespas. They’re fun and in some circumstances they’re genuinely your best choice, but most people just aren’t going to get by with them as their only vehicle.

Maybe. And the evidence today certainly fits Martin’s theory. But I say give it a decade — a decade of slow, steady, incremental improvement in post-PC devices and software, a decade for people to gradually adjust their computing habits. (Also, a decade for iOS-using teens of today to become adults who never saw Macs and Windows PCs as anything other than legacy devices for their parents.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re both right, and Apple meets us in the middle with an iOS notebook. (I expect an iOS notebook eventually; I expect never to see a touchscreen MacBook.)