John Gruber:
So 16 percent of bestselling titles are exclusive to the Kindle Store — and the Department of Justice is investigating Apple’s iBookstore. Got it.
Horace Deidu has some really amazing chart and table on Apple’s growth.
I wonder why this doesn’t look like any of the current Android phones.
Bonus: I know software change, but check out what Android looked like in 2007.
Apple PR:
The Company posted quarterly revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $24.7 billion and net profit of $6.0 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 47.4 percent compared to 41.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 64 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
The Company sold 35.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 88 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 11.8 million iPads during the quarter, a 151 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4 million Macs during the quarter, a 7 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.7 million iPods, a 15 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
That’s a lot of revenue, and a lot of iPhones, and a very high gross margin.
Sundar Pichai announced Google Drive this morning:
Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.
Steven Levy wrote in his book, In The Plex:
At the time, Google was about to launch a project it had been developing for more than a year, a free cloud-based storage service called GDrive. But Sundar had concluded that it was an artefact of the style of computing that Google was about to usher out the door. He went to Bradley Horowitz, the executive in charge of the project, and said, “I don’t think we need GDrive anymore”. Horowitz asked why not. “Files are so 1990”, said Pichai. “I don’t think we need files anymore”.
Horowitz was stunned. “Not need files anymore?”.
“Think about it”, said Pichai. “You just want to get information into the cloud. When people use our Google Docs, there are no more files. You just start editing in the cloud, and there’s never a file”.
I believe Levy was referring to around late 2008, when Google was about to launch Google Chrome. A lot has happened between now and then. If I recall correctly, Dropbox was launched in TechCrunch50 conference in September 2008. It was just shortly around the time after Google decided to axe GDrive. I don’t think Dropbox gained much traction until around a year after it was launched.
I personally think that file systems are going to go away. Pro users who need them will always be able to access it, but casual users won’t have to know it’s there. Not that many people understand file systems; I think it is one of the most difficult concept when someone starts learning how to use computers. I think users can work without file systems; iOS is a great proof of that. People have been using iOS for almost 5 years, and yet no one wants Finder for iOS. I do agree that the subset of things that iOS can do is still far less than the things that you can do with desktop OS, but what matters is that that subset of things are what most people use computers for. Even Google’s own OS, Chrome OS, does not have a concept of file systems.
So why launch Google Drive now? Did Pichai thought it was a mistake not to launch it back then? Pichai might have been right all along not to launch Google Drive, or maybe he’s kicking himself while watching Dropbox’s success. Who knows. What matters now is they think that they need to be in this business. If Pichai’s initial thesis that users don’t need files anymore still stands, then Google Drive is probably not being targeted to the entire Google user base.
There is one feature of Google Drive though, that I really like:
Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up.
I might as well start using Google Drive when it launches, if it’s not for this stupid thing.
A glimpse of the future: writing apps from iPads.
Charles Miller:
Today, if you’re a teenager with a Mac (insert some other platform into this paragraph if you object to Apple on moral or financial grounds), you can download for free the same tools that professional developers use to write Mac, iPhone and iPad applications. You can read countless free tutorials on how to use them, download reams of sample code for free, and ask for help on forums full of people who may never know you’re a precocious kid. And if you’re a thirteen-year old who can wheedle $100 out of your parents for the subscription, you can publish a best-selling iPhone app.
Can we just pause a moment and admit how mind-blowingly awesome that is?
We do indeed live in a mind blowing time.
Surely they don’t need app review.
Why do they have two different favicons?
John Paczkowski:
In other words: No, the iPad with WiFi + 4G doesn’t support Australia’s true 4G LTE network, but it does support networks that are fast enough to be defined as 4G. So, no harm, no foul.
I’ve written about Australia’s 4G branding before. Paczkowski is in agreement with me: Australia is being silly.
Nick Bilton, writing for New York Times:
Apple’s rivals are quick to say how much better, faster, cheaper or more popular their smartphones, computers and tablets are.
Yet when it comes to working conditions in the Chinese factories that build these competing products, Apple’s electronics rivals have been silent lately.
It’s so absurd that some people think Apple is the only one in the whole industry who isn’t responsible for their supply chain. Apple has been publishing environment and supplier responsibility reports since 2006. Nick Bilton asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Lenovo, and others about their labour conditions. He got minimal to no response from them.
Adam Messinger, VP of Engineering of Twitter:
Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of these inventions. However, we also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future; we sometimes worry that they may be used to impede the innovation of others. For that reason, we are publishing a draft of the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, which we informally call the “IPA”.
The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.
Kudos to Twitter. I hope other companies follow suit.
Classic claim chowder from Matthew Lynn, 2007:
The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. In terms of its impact on the industry, the iPhone is less relevant.
Wish they’ll do one with Taylor Swift.
Thirty-five years ago, on April 16 and 17, 1977, more than twelve thousand proto-geeks flooded into San Francisco’s Civic Auditorium. They were there to attend a new event called the West Coast Computer Faire, and the room brimmed with excitement over a new, futuristic gizmo known as the “personal computer.” The throngs packed the aisles, marveling at microcomputers and related gizmos from tiny startups such as Cromemco, IMSAI, Northstar, Ohio Scientific and Parasitic Engineering.
One of the tiny startups benefited from having an especially slick booth located in prime real estate near the entrance. The company was called Apple Computer, and a handful of its employees, including founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were demoing an unreleased machine they called the Apple II.
Three Windows editions: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows RT. Much better than what some people thought it’d be.
Jay Yarrow:
In December 2010, famed New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson wrote that startups should invest more in Android first, and iOS second because Android was wide open and it was going to be the dominant operating system.
While he’s correct Android is the dominant operating system, he’s incorrect that it’s the platform developers should be working on primarily.
As with John Gruber, I also believe that Instagram’s success is heavily influenced by their iOS app. Had they gone to Android first, I’m not so sure that this acquisition will happen.
Any Baio, writing for Wired:
A startup is acquired for any combination of the technology, talent, or the user base.
If we look strictly at the acquisition cost per user, Facebook got a relative deal with the Instagram purchase, paying roughly $28 for each of Instagram’s 35 million users. (The median cost across all the acquisitions is about $92 per user.)
I think Facebook got a sweet deal. Everyone’s screaming “Bubble!” because Instagram is not generating money, but what other mobile social network generates as many users as Instagram did? Especially when the app is exclusive to iOS up until last week.
Mark Zuckerberg:
I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.
The next time someone tells you that building an iOS app is a waste of time, show them this.
Google’s amazing new project. Let’s get back to it when it ships.
