Apple

Android global market share is at 48%

Canalysis did a world-wide study of mobile markets and published their results. Make sure to read the whole article – there are many other numbers and trends.

Canalys today published its final worldwide country-level Q2 2011 smart phone market estimates, showing substantial market growth in all regions. Globally, the market grew 73% year-on-year, with in excess of 107.7 million units shipping in the second quarter of 2011. Of the 56 countries Canalys tracks around the world, Android led in 35 of them and achieved a global market share of 48%. Asia Pacific (APAC) remained the largest regional market, with 39.8 million units shipping there, compared with 35.0 million in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and 32.9 million in the Americas.

Android, the number one platform by shipments since Q4 2010, was also the strongest growth driver this quarter, with Android-based smart phone shipments up 379% over a year ago to 51.9 million units. Growth was bolstered by strong Android product performances from a number of vendors, including Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and Huawei. The final country-level data delivered to clients today shows there were particularly strong performances from Android devices in APAC countries, such as South Korea, where Android holds an 85% platform share, and Taiwan, where it has 71%.

With shipments of 20.3 million iPhones and a market share of 19%, iOS overtook Nokia’s Symbian platform during the quarter to take second place worldwide. In doing so, Apple also became the world’s leading individual smart phone vendor, stripping Nokia of its long-held leadership position.

Mark Malkoff : Apple Store Challenge

Here is a funny short video where Mark Malkoff tests how far Apple Store will let you go.

Things that he tried and got away with are:

Pizza delivery.
Romantic date.
Darth Vader iPhone repair.
Bring in a pet goat.

That’s pretty cool. The biggest surprise for me though is not with Apple Store, but with that pizza delivery service. If it wasn’t the crew, then I am pretty impressed. I’ve never heard of pizza being delivered to a visitor of a shop. But then again, I’m sure many services exist in the States that don’t in Cyprus.

P.S.: I wish it was on YouTube. It would have made so much easier to embed. I tried the code that is on the site, but it doesn’t work for some reason with my blog. And I’m too lazy to look into it.

Mesmerizing iPad

Today iTouched the iPad. I mean I spent a few minutes holding it, touching its screen with my dirty fingers, rotating it, shaking it, browsing to a few sites that people said won’t work, checking out my own blog on it, and doing a few more trivial and usual things. What can I say? It’s mesmerizing. Hypnotic.

I am not a big fan of Apple products. I never had one and I am not planning to have one. I appreciate the slickness and everything, but it’s just not my cup of tea. Especially at those prices. And I wasn’t ever much interested in their products either.

But the iPad seemed different. Nobody could quite figure out what it was, and even reviews from those people who had the device seemed confusing. It’s seemed like a cool toy that nobody knew how to play with. Which usually means you either have something revolutionary or something really stupid. And Apple and Steve Jobs aren’t stupid, so circumstances were suggesting revolutionary.

After seeing it with my own eyes and touching it with my own fingers, I have to agree. It is revolutionary. Not necessarily in a way that everybody should run to the shop and buy one, but in a sense that Apple and Steve Jobs are experimenting with something that more people should be experimenting with.

Now, enough with all that non-sense. How was it, really? I liked it. A lot. It was pretty intuitive and easy to use. It was pretty much the size and weight that I was expecting after seeing a billion reviews. And it works well. My own blog looked nice in it. Even embedded YouTube videos were working fine (using the HTML5, not Flash, but I had nothing to do with it on either publishing or consuming end). YouTube itself worked fine. Flickr was fine, except for the slideshows which require Flash. I tried a few applications that were installed on the iPad – Kindle, LinkedIn, solitaire and more. Checked Google Maps. Everything was working nice.

I particularly enjoyed the YouTube experience. An embedded video from a blog post, expanded full screen and rotated horizontally was something. Somehow it just felt natural to do so. And I never felt I should do this in the browser. Plus I was pretty impressed by the sound quality coming out of the device. It wasn’t like your average mobile phone. It was way better.

After using the device for just a few minutes I started thinking of buying one. I was discussing with other people in the room if should batch order together and if we should wait for the 3G version or get the WiFi one, etc. It was only when I came home and spoke to my wife I got the hypnotic effect dissolved. That often happens when I speak to someone smart. And it had nothing to do with her being my wife. Her arguments were solid. After all, I recently bought a laptop for roughly the same price. And the laptop does way more things than the iPad, and most of them it does better than the iPad too. I have the full-blown QWERTY keyboard, not a touch screen. I have bigger screen. I have a hard disk with a whole lot of files. I have a better choice of software – anything from games to personal finance tools, not simple apps to access websites. And so on and so forth.

Resume? It’s a slick device, it’s pleasant to use, and it will get quite popular. There are certain people and certain scenarios which would benefit from using iPad instead of a mobile phone or a laptop. But I am not one of those people and I none of those scenarios happen in my life often enough to throw away that much money.

How about you? Have you touched one already? Do you want one? Do you see yourself using one? What for and how?

Will Apple acquire Intel?

CyberNet News report that Apple is in the acquisition talks with Intel.

Several sources are reporting this morning that Apple is in discussions with Intel to acquire the chip manufacturer for upwards of $12 billion. Over the last 22 years Apple has acquired 25 different companies, but this single transaction will likely beat the sum of all the others combined.

I find these news interesting, because I remember reading some speculations on Intel buying Apple just a few days ago. On the other hand, there was a discussion on whether Apple should buy AMD a few years after that. One way or the other, someone will buy someone. And judging by how things go now and not five years ago, I guess Apple is in the better positions to buy.

As a side note, have a look at stock prices and market capitalization for Apple, Intel, and AMD.

P.S.: And one should not forget that it is the April 1st today, so everything is possible.

Jobs vs. Schmidt = product vs. service

Gizmodo is running a very speculative – and yes, there are speculations, – post about a meeting between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt. It took place in a public place, and someone noticed it and made a couple of pictures and now everyone and their brother is running around trying to figure out what these two were talking about. Things went as far as even consulting a body language expert.

Firstly, my reaction to this is: “C’mon! Leave them alone already!“. Who cares? But it seems too many people do. So there kicks in my second reaction – since we don’t really know what it was all about, let’s speculate and blow this out of all proportions. After looking at the pictures, reading through the comments, and through the body language expert’s analysis, here is my view of what is captured on those pictures.

This is, quite obviously, a historical moment, where two schools of thought are standing against each other. Steve Jobs represents the old school which stands for closed things and for products, as in things that you can touch, feel, and break. Eric Schmidt represents the new school of thought, which is characterised by openness and the idea of a service. Two great men with two great companies behind them meet at the neutral point. And while Eric seems to be more uncomfortable, as body language expert suggests, the important bit here is that they are at the same table on the same terms. The clash of the titans, so to speak. The outcome is obvious for some of us though. Go, Eric, go!

P.S.: Before you start throwing lava balls at me, I do mean this as a joke, and yes, I am drunk. It’s Friday night after all.

P.P.S.: There is some truth to every joke.