Linked List: February 9, 2015

Monday, 9 February 2015

Charles Arthur on Q4 in the Phone Market ★

Charles Arthur:

Wow. I mean, truly wow. As it says, that’s never happened before. Android shipments have always increased from quarter to quarter, both for “Google Android” and AOSP, since the platform’s first phone. (Unlike pretty much every other research company, ABI also breaks its Android figures down into “Google Android” — ie Google Mobile Services certified, carrying all Google’s services — and “AOSP” — principally, China.)

Yet here ABI is, saying G-Android shipments fell by 11.9m, and AOSP by 0.47m, a total of 12.4m. That’s quite a lot more than a margin of error.

Part of this was Apple’s monster quarter for the iPhones 6 drawing Android switchers and feature-phone upgraders, and part, I think, is that Android is already so huge. Android has already grown such that it’s the de facto standard OS for all non-iPhone smartphones. But it’s interesting that Google Android handset sales fell while AOSP sales were close to flat.

Apple World Today ★

New website from former TUAW staffers Steve Sande, Dave Caolo, and Kelly Hodgkins. Off to a good start.

Apple’s Profit Monopoly ★

Report from Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley pegs Apple’s share of mobile profits last quarter at 93 percent. Samsung took 9 percent, and the rest of the industry (combined) was in the red.

Jean-Louis Gassée on Apple’s Record- (and Law-) Breaking Quarter ★

Good column from Jean-Louis Gassée:

Law 1: Larger size makes growth increasingly difficult.

This is the Law of Large Numbers, not the proper one about probabilities, but a coarser one that predicts the eventual flattening of extraordinary growth. If your business weighs $10M, growing by 50% means bringing in another $5M. If your company weighs $150B, 50% growth the following year would require adding $75B — there might not be enough customers or supplies to support such increase. Actual numbers seem to confirm the Law: Google’s FY 2014 revenue was $66B, +19% year-on-year; Microsoft’s was $87B, +11.5%; Apple’s $183B in revenue for 2014 was a mere +7%.

And yet, last quarter, Apple revenue grew 30%, breaking the Law and any precedent. iPhone revenue, which grew 57%, exceeded $51B in one quarter — close to what Google achieved in its entire Fiscal 2014 year.

Swift 1.2 ★

Lots of new language features in the new version of Swift released today. Swift’s development is moving incredibly fast.

Same-Sex Marriages in Alabama ★

Alan Blinder and Richard Pérez-Peña, reporting for the NYT:

In major county seats like Birmingham, Montgomery and Huntsville, gay couples lined up outside courthouses as they opened, and emerged smiling, licenses in hand, after being wed by clerks or by the judges themselves.

At the Jefferson County Courthouse here, Judge Michael G. Graffeo of Circuit Court officiated, at times tearfully, at the civil wedding of Dinah McCaryer and Olanda Smith, the first to emerge from the crowd of same-sex couples who lined up Monday morning. “I now pronounce Olanda and Dinah are married spouses, entitled to all rights and privileges, as well as all responsibilities, afforded and placed upon them by the State of Alabama,” Judge Graffeo said.

It’s a good day.