Linked List: October 17, 2013

Thursday, 17 October 2013

What Tim Cook Said Back in April Regarding ‘New Product Categories’ 

I’ve been fielding a few questions from readers who seem under the impression that earlier this year Tim Cook promised an entry into a “new product category” by the end of this year, and what I expect that product to be. Here’s the thing though, I don’t think Cook promised any such thing. From Macworld’s transcript of Apple’s April 23 quarterly analyst call, here is what Cook said in his opening remarks:

We will continue to focus on the long term, and we remain very optimistic about our future. We’re participating in large and growing markets. We see great opportunities in front of us, particularly given the long-term prospects of the smartphone and tablet markets, the strength of our incredible ecosystem which we plan to continue to augment with services, our plans for expanded distribution, and the potential of exciting new product categories.

Take the smartphone market, for example. IDC estimates that the smartphone market will double between 2012 and 2016 to an incredible 1.4 billion units annually. And Gartner estimates that the tablet market is growing at an even faster rate, from 125 million units in 2012 to a projected 375 million by 2016.

Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services that we can’t wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014.

Those two phrases I’ve highlighted in bold aren’t necessarily related. Cook said Apple sees opportunities in new product categories, and had new products lined up for introduction in the fall of this year, but it doesn’t follow from his words that Apple has a product in a new category to introduce in the fall of this year.

It’d be great if Apple does have something altogether new to unveil next week, but if they don’t, it won’t contradict what Cook said in April.

Regarding Nike’s Decision to Forgo Android Support in New FuelBand 

Roger Cheng, writing for CNet, “Nike’s No-Android Stance on FuelBand Is a Huge Mistake”:

It’s a glaring omission that Nike still doesn’t offer support for Android, which is the undisputed mobile platform champ with 80 percent of the global market. At a time when more developers are looking to expand the number of platforms they are on, Nike has stubbornly clung to its comfort zone and stayed with iOS.

600 words into the article:

Bluetooth support is also an issue. The new FuelBand SE also runs on the newer Bluetooth 4.0 standard, which hasn’t really yet been embraced by the Android community and was only recently officially supported by Android in version 4.3.

In comparison, Apple’s iPhone 4S and later all support the standard, which allow for simpler, longer, and more power-efficient connections between devices.

So even if you want to argue on market share alone (which is a terrible idea, but let’s go with it), Android may well account for 80 percent of the world smartphone market, but it accounts for only a small slice of the Bluetooth 4.0-capable smartphone market. Cheng is effectively arguing that Nike should have: (a) used magic to make the new FuelBand work with most Android phones in use; or (b) designed an entirely different device that could work with most Android phones in use; or (c) spent the effort to support the Android phones that do support Bluetooth 4.0. None of those options suggests that keeping the FuelBand iOS-only is a “huge mistake”.

The Verge Reviews Windows 8.1 

Tom Warren:

Microsoft ties together its visual changes and features with a new set of built-in app improvements, centered more than ever around SkyDrive. Microsoft’s cloud-based storage system really powers Windows 8.1 this time around. The sync engine is built directly in, and Microsoft has made some smart improvements to the way that files sync to Windows 8.1 PCs. Instead of pulling down the entire SkyDrive storage to a local PC, it loads icons, and just enough information required to identify the file. When you open the file, it downloads it on the spot. You can set folders and files to download fully so they’re available offline, or just set an entire SkyDrive instance to remain offline on the PC.

The end result is that all your settings, files, and apps are stored in SkyDrive. This makes it incredibly easy to log in to any other Windows 8.1 PC and start loading apps and documents as if it was your own machine. Like so many things about Windows 8.1, sync seems like a logical update, but it’s one of the most significant improvements to Windows 8.1.

Sounds like a great feature. Effectively, system-level Dropbox.

Update: Regarding Warren’s overall review of Windows 8.1, keep in mind that he gave Windows 8.0 a glowing review (and 8.8/10 score) in his review last year.

David Pogue on Windows 8.1 

David Pogue:

The fundamental problem with Windows 8 hasn’t changed: you’re still working in two operating systems at once. You’re still leaping from one universe into another — the color schemes, fonts and layouts all change abruptly — and it still feels jarring. There are still too many duplicate programs and settings, one in each environment. And you still can never live entirely in one world or the other.

The more you work with Windows 8, the more screamingly obvious the solution becomes: Split it up. Offer regular Windows on regular computers, offer TileWorld on tablets. That way, everyone has to learn only one operating system, and each operating system is suited to its task.

Microsoft PR chief Frank X. Shaw, on Twitter:

Dear David Pogue, what a classic Pogue piece. Funny, inaccurate, opinionated in the skewed way only you can bring.

I haven’t seen Windows 8.1 yet, so I can’t comment on it in particular. But the fundamental flaw in the “two worlds” approach of Windows 8 has been obvious to me from the get-go. A big part of the appeal of iPads (and even Android tablets) is that they are so much less complex than Windows or Mac PCs. Complexity is a turn-off. Windows 8 is inherently more complex than even Windows 7, because it includes all the complexity of traditional Windows plus the new Metro layer.

Study Claims Facebook Ad Return on Investment 18 Times Higher on iOS than Android 

John Koetsier, writing for VentureBeat:

The study is by Nanigans, one of the biggest buyers of Facebook ads, and it focuses on retailers, saying that in the past year on Facebook’s desktop ads, clickthroughs are up 375 percent and overall return on investment is 152 percent.

But it’s when the report focuses on mobile advertising that the really surprising numbers pop up.

“Retailers are realizing significantly greater return from audiences on iOS than audiences on Android,” the report says. “For the first three quarters of 2013, RPC [revenue per click] on iOS averaged 6.1 times higher than Android and ROI [return on investment] on iOS averaged 17.9 times higher than Android.”

The report explicitly states that it applies to retail ads only, and results may be different for other categories, but the differences claimed here are so remarkable I find it hard to believe.

A Look at the iPhone 5S 120fps Super Slow Motion 

Philip Bloom, explaining how he made this lovely short film shot using an iPhone 5S. (Via Ryan O’Donnell.)

2001: The Aliens That Almost Were 

Fascinating, copiously researched piece by Simone Odino regarding Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s fruitless efforts to conceive a way to show alien life forms in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

(Via Scott Falkner.)

iPhone Still Growing Share at Verizon 

John Paczkowski, reporting on Verizon’s Q3 resuls:

Of the 7.6 million smartphone activations Verizon racked up during the quarter, 3.9 million were iPhones, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said during the company’s earnings call. That means that Apple’s device accounted for about 51 percent of all smartphone activations for the period. In the year-ago quarter, the 3.1 million iPhones Verizon activated accounted for 46 percent of its 6.8 million smartphone activations.

Siri Response Times 

I was listening to the latest episode of Accidental Tech Podcast, and they had a segment about Apple’s seemingly institutional inability to get online services right. It made me think about this anecdote from Marissa Mayer back in 2006, as relayed by Greg Linden:

Marissa started with a story about a user test they did. They asked a group of Google searchers how many search results they wanted to see. Users asked for more, more than the ten results Google normally shows. More is more, they said.

So, Marissa ran an experiment where Google increased the number of search results to thirty. Traffic and revenue from Google searchers in the experimental group dropped by 20%. Ouch. Why? Why, when users had asked for this, did they seem to hate it?

After a bit of looking, Marissa explained that they found an uncontrolled variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to generate. The page with 30 results took .9 seconds.

Half a second delay caused a 20% drop in traffic. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction.

If a half second difference made people search less on Google, imagine how much less people are using Siri given that its response times are often multiple seconds long. I think the single biggest improvement Apple could (and really must) make to Siri is to make it faster. And that’s exactly the sort of thing Apple has never really shown the chops for.