Apple-Orange

Let’s see if I got this right:

• They uses ASUS VivoTab to compare with iPad 64 GB, instead of using Surface RT.
• On the Microsoft Surface RT tab, they sneakily swap the iPad with the 32GB model to compare with Surface RT 32GB. Why? Because the 64GB Surface RT costs the same as iPad 64GB.
• They are touting 7GB of SkyDrive when Google just came out with 15GB storage of Google Docs, and most people use Dropbox nowadays anyway.
• They are touting that Windows 8 runs Microsoft Office while iPad doesn’t. I guess now we know why they still haven’t released Office for iOS yet.
• They still love product comparison checklist. Marco should make one for them too.

Update: So apparently there is a SkyDrive app in the AppStore. So if you use iOS, why not use both?

Marissa Meyer:

We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going. We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO. The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve. Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster.

Do you want to know what Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Gandhi, and Ryan Seacrest have in common?

Larry Page:

About 14 years ago, I got a bad cold, and my voice became hoarse. At the time I didn’t think much about it. But my voice never fully recovered. So I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with left vocal cord paralysis. This is a nerve problem that causes your left vocal cord to not move properly. Despite extensive examination, the doctors never identified a cause — though there was speculation of virus-based damage from my cold. It is quite common in cases like these that a definitive cause is not found.

Best wishes to one of the best computer scientists of this generation.

Jordan Golson, Marcumors:

BlackBerry has announced that it will bring its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) platform to iOS this summer. BBM was one of the first proprietary mobile messaging services — not unlike Apple’s iMessage service — and remains hugely popular.

I still don’t get why people are still using this in 2013.

Google:

Life gets a bit easier when your Google products work well together—whether that’s inserting a Drive file into an email or sharing a photo from Drive on Google+. As this experience becomes more seamless, separate storage doesn’t make as much sense anymore. So instead of having 10 GB for Gmail and another 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos, you’ll now get 15 GB of unified storage for free to use as you like between Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos.

I think sharing between Drive and Gmail makes a lot of sense, for some heavy Drive users, this will save some space. But I wonder if this is going to be beneficial for Google+ users. I don’t think other social networks impose limitations like this.

Sharpness and megapixels are only some small factors of good photography, but boy the iPhone has come a long way.

It’s pretty clever of them that they made this in the Google Search app instead of releasing another app. Facebook on the other hand has so many iOS apps to do lots of things, and I don’t think that is the right approach to take.

After playing with it for a few minutes, it looks like Siri is very far behind. Let’s see what iOS 7 will bring.

This is one of the best iPhone ads since Apple started the Siri ad series two years ago.

The Verge:

Nintendo made an operating loss in 2012 for the second consecutive year as its new Wii U console failed to spark excitement among consumers. The company lost 36.4 billion yen ($366 million) over the 2012 fiscal year; last quarter, the company unexpectedly predicted that it would lose $220 million in 2012 after previously saying it would turn the same amount in profit. The Wii U has sold 3.45 million units worldwide to date, missing Nintendo’s goal of 4 million units for the financial year — itself a lowered expectation after the company initially predicted it would sell 5.5 million systems. Three months ago, Nintendo announced worldwide Wii U sales of 3.06 million.

Not a good result for Nintendo last quarter.

I think Wii U has a great potential as third party developers and Nintendo release more games. The moment they release the new Zelda for Wii U, I’m probably buying one. Keep in mind that PS2, the world’s biggest selling game console, did not have their first year sales number that good.

Matthew Panzazrino:

Apple’s WWDC 2012 conference sold out in just two hours, but the tickets went on sale in early morning hours for West Coasters, and with no advance warning. Here’s the full chart of WWDC sellout times over the years:

• 2008 – 2 months
• 2009 – 1 month
• 2010 – 8 days
• 2011 – 10 hours
• 2012 – 2 hours
• 2013 – 2 minutes

Guess how quick next year’s tickets will sell?

Marco Arment:

I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.

5 years is a long time to be working on a product, especially if you are a solo fighter. If I was Marco I’d probably do the same, and probably a lot earlier.

Apple just announced financial results for Q2 2013. Sold almost 20 million iPads, 37.4 million iPhones, with revenue of $43.6 billion and net profit of $9.5 billion. This is shitload of iPads, people.

One of the reasons why the profit margin dropped is probably because the margin of iPad minis is much lower than regular iPads. Another reason is because they’re selling tons of free iPhone 4 and cheap iPhone 4S. Here’s a chart of gross margins by products by Horace Dediu. He’s also gave a really close estimate this quarter.

So what do you get by having a $43 billion quarter? Stock price drop, probably.

AppleInsider wrote a really nice article about the recent Apple stock price drop. One of the tones that we hear over and over again in the past week is that Tim Cook is not doing his job right and he should be fired. This notion is absurd because other than the stock price, Apple has been as healthy as ever since Cook took over the CEO job.

In the words of John Gruber:

Wall Street thinks Dell has a brighter future than Apple.

Dell’s PC operating profit is less than a third of Apple’s Mac business. The only conclusion that you can get from this is that Wall Street is being illogical.

Interestingly, as Eran Dilger pointed out in AppleInsider, this has happened before when Steve jobs was under the CEO helmet. When Apple released iPhone 3G back in 2008, Apple’s stock dropped from nearly $200 down to $117. Here’s Jobs’s comment:

When asked by Jim Goldman of CNBC, back in mid 2008, why Apple’s stock had fallen from nearly $200 down to a low of $117 before rebounding to $185, Jobs simply replied, “I think we’ve done pretty well for our stockholders over the past decade, and I would just encourage them to trust us. Maybe we know what we’re doing.”

Jobs further add the following remarks:

Jobs added, “you know, Wall Street: I’ve never been able to figure out Wall Street. But someone once told me manage the top line, which is, your strategy, your talented people and your execution, and the bottom line will take care of itself. And I’ve always found that to be the case. So, we’re turning in record quarter after record quarter, and Wall Street eventually comes out in the right place.”

And as Eran Dilger noted:

Within six months of Jobs’ comments, Apple stock fell to $82. A year later it was back up to $200. The next year it hit $322, then $422 the following year before peaking above $700. Apple started this year at $527.

So if you still believe that Apple is doomed just because the stock price fell below $400 this week, chill out. It happened before, and it will keep happening as long as Apple is in business. When Apple announce their earning in just a few more hours, regardless what the result is the only certain thing is that you won’t be able to predict Wall Street’s behaviour.

Horace Dediu:

The real problem for the PC vendors is not that they have such low margins–they’ve had low margins for decades. It’s that the volumes which “made up for” low margins are disappearing. Apple is not immune to a gradual erosion of Mac volumes, but they have positioned themselves for growth with devices and content commerce and services.

According to Dediu, sales of Mac in the last quarter is more than sales of PCs from Asus, Acer, Lenovo, HP, and Dell combined.