TechCrunch:

I’ve spent the last week throughly enjoying my new Droid, and while I’ve come across some problems, most of my issues have simply been with the fact that Android does things differently than the iPhone — the transition just takes some getting used to. But there’s one big issue that needs far more than a UI tweak: Android Market. If there was a theme common to nearly every Droid review, it was that Android’s app selection just doesn’t cut it compared to the iPhone. I think that consensus is only half the story. These reviewers are finding that Android has a weaker selection of applications than the iPhone not just because some of their favorite apps aren’t there, but because actually browsing the Market just isn’t as enjoyable as what Apple’s iTunes offers. If Android’s Market’s perception as a poor man’s App Store is going to change, this experience needs to improve.

Microsoft and Google are trying to pass off the hard work to others – Apple has worked hard and devoted a lot R&D $ to make the vertical integration seamless and it shows.

TMO on how the Miami New Times tries to spin a David and Goliath story with Pystar and Apple:

Two men fighting the good fight against a corporate behemoth bent on controlling our technical lives – a company willing to trod upon Lady Liberty in the process with their “millionaire lawyers” riding around in their Bentleys and Jaguars and stuff. Sniff…It’s a story for the ages.

Or so The Miami New Times would have us believe. The Pedraza brothers are the owners of Psystar, and the New Times has published an ode to these two secondhanders that reads somewhere between a love letter and a fairly tale, mixed with a splash of yellow journalism.

Here is it in the journalists own words:

For hundreds of buyers — and lately a score of copycats in Los Angeles and around the world — the brothers’ bold move has meant freedom: Mac’s acclaimed software has been liberated from its pricey hardware.

What a load of crock. I wonder if it would be okay if I took every Miami New Times story and re-printed it with a new site name and new byline, plaster ads and make money of Miami New Times work? Interesting enough, here is the Miami New Times’ rights of use:

Copyright and Trademarks:
All materials on the Site, including without limitation, logos, images, text, illustrations, audio and video files are protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, or other proprietary rights which are either owned by or licensed to the Site or owned by other parties who have posted on the Site. Materials from the Site and from any other web site owned, operated, controlled, or licensed by the Site may not be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way.

I guess its not okay to reproduce their hard work, but it’s ok for a couple of twerps to reuse the hard work of some faceless corporation (for the sake our troops, I am sure).

Wankers.

Cult of Mac:

Microsoft has blamed one of its own, calling “inaccurate and uninformed” comments Wednesday that its new Windows 7 operating system was inspired by the Mac. Wednesday, Microsoft partner group manager Simon Aldous told a magazine the software giant’s OS aimed to mimic the Mac’s graphics.

It’s not like we don’t know where Microsoft gets their ideas from.

Someone should have thought longer about the name of the new mobile OS. Bad for business?

h/t Daring Fireball

Profits matter more than market share. Market share erodes product and service quality – next time someone points that Apple has 20% share of the US installed base or 5% of the global market, you can say, “so what”?

Apple also disdains the mass marketers’ credo that there should be a product tailored to every taste. HP’s U.S. online store offers 35 different laptop models, from a $300 netbook to $1,300-plus monster with an 18.4-in. display, each of which is available in multiple configurations. Apple offers just five laptops, and the options for configuring them are limited to disk size, amount of memory, and sometimes processor speed. Every computer Apple makes, from the $599 Mac mini to the 8-Core Mac Pro desktop, which approaches $12,000 when it’s fully loaded, comes with the same version of the OS X operating system and the same set of preloaded applications.

Apple’s approach causes it to neglect huge swaths of the market. For example, the company serenely ignored analysts’ advice that it “had to” break into the hot netbook market. It has avoided the fast-growing segment of low-cost, lightweight consumer notebooks. Entering those markets could boost Apple’s share even further. But the move would take a toll on profit margins and fight the company’s commitment to choose what types of products it believes best serve its customers’ needs. CEO Steve Jobs has dismissed the low end of the market, saying: “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.”

Apple has clung to its retrograde philosophy, fighting a tide in which manufacturers target products at minutely sliced-and-diced subsectors of the market. But the philosophy still works, and, happily, Apple is unlikely to outgrow it.

I am sure it won’t stop Ballmer from claiming that Apple only has 5% of the market and thus can be ignored. He has to say that because he is riding on the backs of low margin providers who’s existence is tied to increasing market share at all costs while Microsoft collects 25% from every sale.

Glad to see that the media are getting clued in. MG Siegler gets clued in as well:

Market share is probably the easiest and most often used point of comparison between competing products. It makes sense: If something has a large share of the market, it’s probably doing well. But that doesn’t always mean that it’s doing better than something with less market share, especially from a business perspective.

I bring this up because today brought some very interesting numbers from the research firm, Strategy Analytics. According to them, Apple has surpassed Nokia as the most profitable phone maker in the world. I’ll throw some numbers at you in a second to show why this is really incredible, but the key takeaway is that this is why, at the end of the day, Apple wins.

While the press and rivals obsess over market share, Apple quietly comes in and makes an insane amount of money. It’s the same in the computer industry. Small market share, huge amount of money. The most important thing for all of these are companies is the bottom line. Apple wins that battle.

According to the report, Apple made $1.6 billion in operating profit off of the iPhone in Q3. Nokia, meanwhile, made $1.1 billion. Let’s put this in perspective. Recent numbers suggest Nokia controls roughly 35% of the worldwide handset market. Apple? About 2.5%.

Not 25%. Two point five percent.

What does it all mean? Moolah – tons of it. From 2.5% mobile hardware share and 5% global market share:

Apple brought Steve Jobs back to the company in December 1996. Since then, he’s been building a massive pile of cash, rolling out new product after new product.

On December 27th, 1996, Apple had $1.8 billion in cash and securities. Today it has $34 billion.

Still think market share is the be all and end all? You would, if your name is Rob Enderle, Philip Emer DeWitt, Paul Thurott, or Scott Moritz.

Margins, bitches.

Digital Daily quotes Vivek Arya:

In a note to clients today, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Vivek Arya said Palm (PALM) is well-poised for growth in 2010. “Despite increasing smartphone competition, Palm can maintain differentiation and remains well-positioned to launch its products with multiple new Tier-1 carriers in early 2010 by which time it should have a robust apps catalog,” Arya wrote. “While we expect the stock to remain volatile, the recent sell-off creates an interesting buying opportunity, in our opinion, for a company with an attractive platform, selling into a high-growth market, and at a compelling valuation.”

What “differentiation” is Vivek talking about? In the Apps market? Touchscreen? Sprint? Quality? iTunes sync? Retail experience?

Pushing on while Microsoft lurches:

Google has agreed to acquire AdMob, a fast-growing start-up that developed technology to place ads on mobile phones, for $750 million in stock, the company said Monday.

Google said that the acquisition, the third largest in its history, will help the Internet search company to speed up efforts to develop more effective tools for creating and placing mobile ads on smartphones and other devices, a small, but rapidly expanding market.

Why was this app rejected? Public figure caricatures are illegal? Dumb!

This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. These caricatures aren’t mean or very exaggerated. They are simple, fun cartoon likenesses of the politicians and the purpose of the app is a informational database. There is no editorial commentary involved at all.

This is the very reason that Apple as a company should be taken to task over it’s ludicrous sanctimonious attitude. Clearly this app does not “ridicule public figures” and is violating nothing, but Apple has decided the world must be protected from the insidious subversiveness this would force upon the public and the brutal, heinous ridicule that my cruel, cruel caricatures would subject these politicians to.

This isn’t sanctimonious as much as it is dumb – I mean, is Apple so concerned that some teabaggers are going to show up because Michelle Bachmann was caricatured (it may happen, but so what?) Some scamming douche with 900 apps linking to a website was approved and this doesn’t?  Come on, guys.

h/t DF.

They are always doomed and this just nails it shut! Via True/Slant:

Franz A. Wakefield is trying to get what he thinks he deserves in a suit against Sarah Jessica Parker and Steve Jobs. You see, Wakefield invented the iPod, iPhone and iTunes – way back in 1989. At a time when I was still fiddling with clunky portable cassette players and nifty little Pocket Rockers, Wakefield foresaw the future and the Internet and a way to monetize it all via a media store that would transfer music and movies onto tiny, portable devices and phones… until the FBI stole his secrets and suffered the betrayal of Sarah Jessica Parker.

The suit details the wackiness:

The suit claims that Wakefield [...] developed a friendship with Parker and “made a trade secret deal” with her to commercialize the iPod classic, nano, mini, shuffle, video, touch and photo, as well as iTunes and the iPhone. The supposed agreement would have granted Parker 2 percent of gross revenues from the products. Wakefield said he asked the FBI to watch over him to ensure the security of his inventions and deal with Parker.

He also wrote a letter to Steve Jobs:

This letter is to serve as a DEMAND for payment. Otherwise I will seek legal recourse for the immediate cease and desist from the manufacture, marketing, and sale of all the iPOD, iTunes, and Iphone lines; along with pursuing damages from the products sold to date, unjust enrichment caused by the theft, enforcement of the agreed 2% gross revenues on all sales, and any other applicable damages or compensation.

Game, set and match! Your jig is up, Steve Jobs.

Apple store opening 11/7:

Microsoft store:

Woo.