In a few weeks, Apple will unveil the next generation iPad, John Packowski of AllThingsD confirms today. If history (and carrier code) is any indication, it should go on sale shortly after that. Maybe even just a few days later. And that’s interesting because it doesn’t give developers a lot of time to prepare. And they’ll want to prepare for the higher resolution “Retina” display that the device will pack.

The situation is similar to the Summer of 2010. That year at WWDC, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4, the first device to feature a Retina display. That conference took place on June 7. The iPhone 4 first went on sale on June 24 — two and a half weeks later. That timeframe allowed some developers to get their apps Retina-ready, but for many it took quite a bit longer. Again, this year, the window may be even more condensed.

But as Steve Jobs noted at the iPhone 4 unveiling, the Retina display made existing apps “look even better”. One reason for this is that the version of iOS that shipped with the device automatically rendered text to be optimized for the new display. Expect the same for the Retina iPad. But Jobs also noted that apps which updated to higher-resolution artwork would look “stunning”. “We suggest that you do that,” he said at the time.

And that will undoubtedly be the suggestion again. Luckily, because the Retina display iPad has been rumored for a long time and because many developers remember the initial Retina transition, some developers have jumped the gun and prepared the graphics in their iPad apps to be Retina-ready as well.

The first two iPads had a resolution of 1024 x 768 — which actually isn’t all that far from the Retina display iPhone resolution of 960 x 640. The new iPad will have a resolution of 2048 x 1536. Earlier this week, it was revealed that Apple was now requiring developers to submit Retina-level screenshots of their apps to the App Store (for new apps, at least). Some assumed this was related to the gradual fade out of the iPhone 3GS. But it may also be related to this new iPad. Because Apple allows the iPad to run iPhone/iPod touch apps with the option to scale them up 2x, non-Retina iPhone apps (480 × 320) will undoubtedly look pretty bad on the Retina iPad.

Given how many visually-focused apps there are for the iPad, some developers are worried how their apps will look on the new device. Apple, of course, isn’t talking yet. While there may be a handful of larger developers that will get an early peek at (or a heads up on) the Retina iPad, most will get to see the thing the same time the rest of us do — on stage in early March.

Some aren’t just worried about the iPad either. Rumors have been circulating for a few months that Apple may also be on the verge of launching high-resolution Mac displays. It’s looking increasingly likely that Apple will do a one-two high-resolution punch with high-res Macs (probably MacBook Pros or maybe even a new MacBook Air) and Retina iPads in the coming weeks.

Recent code changes in OS X with added HiDPI support suggest the former may be coming very soon.

If you think a 2048 x 1536 iPad sounds great, think about a 2880×1800 MacBook. Unlike resolution changes in the past, elements on the screen wouldn’t get smaller, they’d just get crisper. But to take advantage of all those pixels, Mac developers will also have their work cut out for them updating all the graphical elements in their apps.

My suggestion is that developers get ready. The future is looking crisp.

Yesterday, Gizmodo ran a story about a supposed bug in iOS, specifically related to iMessage. The title: The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy on a Total Stranger’s iPhone. Essentially, Gizmodo got ahold of an iPhone that was receiving iMessages not intended for that phone. The fact that some of these messages were quasi-sexual in nature and that the phone belonged to a teenage boy made the story more salacious. But here’s the thing, fear mongering aside, this “bug” is something that is so convoluted that it’s almost not worth even addressing. Almost.

Here’s what happened: a kid was having trouble with his iPhone. His mother took that iPhone to an Apple Store. When there, an Apple Store employee screwed up. Rather than following protocol and using a test SIM to debug the phone (Apple has test SIMs in their stores for this exact purpose), he oddly used his own SIM. This essentially turned the kid’s phone into the retail employee’s phone. The employee probably thought this was fine since it would only be temporary while he fixed the phone. The problem — which one has to assume he didn’t realize — is that even after you take the SIM out of the phone, the pairing leaves behind an imprint of that SIM. In this case, the iMessage account.

iMessage has made a lot of headlines in the past few months as it’s Apple’s brilliant way of helping to destroy the rip-off that is SMS. One key element of iMessage is the ability to pin an Apple account to the service alongside your phone number. This needs to happen in order for users to take full advantage of iMessage. Because of this connection, Apple can automatically figure out whether to use standard SMS or iMessage within the iMessages app. And iMessages has a bonus: the ability to work with many devices at once, ensuring your messages stay in sync.

These upsides — trying to make something that’s somewhat complicated as user-friendly as possible — lead to a downside like this. If you happen to be swapping SIM cards, you might transfer your iMessage credentials over to this other phone. But let’s be honest, how many people are going to do that? In the U.S., most people have no idea what a SIM card even is. And if they do, it doesn’t matter since most iPhones are locked. In other countries, SIMs are obviously popular, but this issue would involve you swapping SIMs with someone with an unlocked phone (and not wanting to set up your own iMessages account when you swap back).

But none of that is even what happened here. In this case, an Apple retail employee simply made a mistake. Reached for comment, an Apple spokesperson acknowledged this:

“This was an extremely rare situation that occurred when a retail employee did not follow the correct service procedure and used their personal SIM to help a customer who did not have a working SIM. This resulted in a temporary situation that has since been resolved by the employee.”

The bigger issue here is if your phone is stolen. Ars Technica actually addressed this about a month ago. This is still an edge case (as the vast majority of phones aren’t stolen), but Apple should come up with a way to remotely disable iMessages on a per-device basis. The way to do it right now seems to be to disable your Apple account, which is unfortunate (see: update). Of course, having your phone stolen in the first place is unfortunate. And unless it’s remote-wiped immediately (which rarely happens), any crook can get access to things likely much worse than your iMessages. This is a downside of life and scumbags.

Speaking of scumbags, it sure was nice of Gizmodo to run several of this Apple retail employee’s private messages and images along with the name that everyone knows him by. Part two of this story will probably involve kidnapping him, locking him in a basement, and liveblogging his emails — which were not secured because Apple doesn’t have a security feature to auto-lock and wipe phones when someone is hit over the head by a two-by-four.

Update: Apple has pointed out the following things that can be done if your device is stolen to ensure the problems above don’t occur:

Remote Wipe and then call your carrier/de-activate your SIM (de-register must be within 24 hours after Remote Wipe)

or

Activate a replacement phone with a replacement SIM using your same phone number

or

Change your Apple ID password (only works if you use an Apple ID with iMessage)

[photo: flickr/anonymous9000]

When Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in 1998, he did something unusual. For the first time in any presentation he had ever given, he ended with a slide reading, “Oh, and one more thing…” This phrase would of course enter the Apple lexicon in the subsequent years. But what was it that was hidden behind this first “one more thing”?

“Think Profit.”

You see, Jobs had just been named interim CEO in September 1997 after successfully pushing out the man who brought him (back) in, Gil Amelio. And he had good reason to do that: under Amelio, Apple had lost $1.04 billion in the prior year and was less than ninety days from being completely broke. Just a few months later, as he announced on stage, Jobs had the company back in black: a $45 million profit — the first profit the company had seen in more than two years.

Jobs’ move wasn’t magic. He slashed thousands of jobs and killed off dozens of products. Walter Isaacson details this time in his Steve Jobs’ biography. One part in particular stuck out to me.

In 1997 Apple was selling StyleWriter color printers that were basically a version of the Hewlett Packard DeskJet. HP made most of its money by selling ink cartridges. “I don’t understand,” Jobs said at the product review meeting. “You’re going to ship a million and not make money on these? This is nuts.”

I was thinking about this in relation to Amazon’s recent earnings. The company posted a record $17.4 billion in revenue in Q4 2011, but from all those sales, they were only able to squeeze $177 million in profit. Compare this to Apple’s most recent quarter in which they posted a record $46.33 billion in revenue and, more importantly, a record $13.06 billion in profit. The margin difference could not be any more stark.

Obviously, the first thing everyone jumps to is to say that Amazon and Apple are in two different types of businesses. Amazon is a retailer while Apple sells hardware. But the line is increasingly blurring between the two companies. Amazon now sells a number of hardware products thanks to its Kindle line. Apple, meanwhile, sells plenty of content via iTunes.

The thing is, even with Amazon entering the hardware game, they’re not making the kind of money that Apple is. In fact, with the new Kindle Fire tablet, it’s believed that they’re losing a small amount of money on each one sold. “This is nuts,” you could imagine Steve Jobs saying once again.

But is it nuts?

Amazon clearly views products like the Kindle Fire as a loss-leader to keep customers happy and keep them shopping for more content. Apple’s model is the exact opposite. Content sales are a loss-leader to keep customers happy and keep them buying new hardware.

At least for now, one model is working, one isn’t. Not only did Amazon only make $177 million on sales of $17.4 billion last quarter, they’re warning that they could actually lose money this quarter. They have enough money in the bank to sustain this for sometime, but at some point, they’re going to have to get back in the black in a meaningful way. And if they keep selling hardware, investors are going to look at their margins compared to Apple’s and wonder what the hell is going on?

Amazon has said time and time again over the years that they’re perfectly happy to live in the low-margin space. But these most recent margins are likely getting too thin for comfort. The Q4 profit numbers are 58 percent lower than they were a year earlier. Presumably, they have a plan that justifies these losses for the sake of the bigger picture. But again, it’s not unreasonable to think that this bigger picture will eventually pit Amazon against Apple directly.

Amazon may find itself in a race to get to Walmart-size revenues before there’s true competition in the space. Last quarter, Walmart pulled in $109.5 billion in revenue, which led to $3.3 billion in profit. As with Amazon, the margins are awful, but at that scale, it doesn’t matter. Walmart’s quarterly revenue more than doubled Apple’s which resulted in profit less than a quarter of what Apple saw — but at the end of the day, Walmart still walked away with over $3 billion in their pockets. That’s all that matters.

As their dance with the dreaded red line proves, Amazon isn’t anywhere close to operating the way Walmart does yet. In fact, Amazon’s margins are so slim that Facebook, which just filed to go public today, recorded nearly double the profit of Amazon last year ($1 billion versus $631 million). That’s pretty crazy when you think about it.

Jobs’ decision to exit Apple from the printer business 15 years ago proved to be a smart move. Of course, had Apple been selling ink — which has ridiculously high margins — it may have been a tougher call. Amazon’s problem is that the “printers” they’re selling have crappy margins and the “ink” they’re selling has crappy margins. It’s starting to sound a little nuts.

$46.33 billion in revenue. It’s a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It’s a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it’s ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it. Ever.

Until yesterday.

I’ve already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they’re still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers.

The simple answer is that Apple’s iPhone sales were off the charts. 37 million units sold is mind-boggling when the previous record was 20 million, set in Q3 2011. A year ago, in the same holiday quarter, Apple sold “just” 16 million iPhones. That was also a record at the time and lead to record revenue and profit at the time. This year, Apple quite simply took things to the next level — and then went a level beyond that.

Because the iPhone is over 50 percent of Apple’s revenues, amazing iPhone sales equates to amazing revenues. Again, the simple answer. But to figure out why this quarter was so far ahead of any other quarter, you have to go deeper. It was really a confluence of events.

First of all, this past quarter was set up by the preceding quarter, which saw Apple fall short of Wall Street expectations for the first time in years. But as we noted at the time, this was misleading. Apple surpassed their own expectations (which isn’t surprising given that they’re always low), but failed to meet Wall Street’s simply because Wall Street’s numbers were lazy. Analysts didn’t take into account the fact that the new version of the iPhone did not launch in the summertime, as it had in years past. Because it did not — and again, the iPhone is about half of Apple’s revenue — there was no burst in iPhone sales that Apple usually sees in Q4.

Instead, that burst came in Q1 — last quarter. And unlike previous years, this burst was compounded because Q1 is also Apple’s holiday quarter. A new iPhone plus holiday shopping season is apparently like gasoline on a fire. Now we know.

But it would be foolish to think that Apple’s big numbers were only about the iPhone. Remember, Apple set new records in Mac and iPad sales as well. The iPad in particular is interesting because while it’s Apple’s newest business, it’s already the second-largest in terms of revenue. This past quarter, 20 percent of revenue came from iPad sales.

The third-biggest source of revenue is Mac sales — they accounted for 14 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter. In other words, 87 percent of Apple’s revenue last quarter was from products that all saw record sales.

The lone dim spot in Apple’s numbers were iPod sales, which continue to decline year-over-year. But because the other businesses have grown so massive, so quickly, the iPod only accounts for 5 percent of Apple’s revenues now. Pretty soon — maybe even next quarter — the iTunes Store itself will be a bigger money-maker for the company. When you consider that iTunes (including the App Store) was initially set up to be run as a break-even business, this is impressive.

Something else to consider: the iPhone, iPad, and Mac have the highest margins amongst Apple major products. The iPhone 4S, because it is largely based off of the design of the iPhone 4, probably has one of the best margins that Apple has ever seen. That rings especially true when you hear that Apple’s overall gross margin for the quarter was 44.7 percent. It’s a number so big that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said he couldn’t recall ever seeing a number so high in his 15 years of service. And he was skeptical that Apple would ever hit it again.

That huge margin meant huge profit. In fact, it meant profit the likes of which had never been seen before by a technology company.

Something else: Q1 2012 for Apple happened to span 14 weeks. This was unusual, and Apple was quick to note as much in both their press release and on the earnings call. Normally, quarters span 13 weeks (do the math: 13 x 4 = 52). You simply cannot discount an extra week of sales. And you especially cannot discount it during the holiday quarter.

And one more thing: the passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in October drove people all around the world to Apple Stores to pay their respects. When people visit Apple Stores, they don’t often walk away empty handed. And what better way to pay respect to Jobs than to buy a product from the company he cared so much about? It’s a delicate subject, but worth mentioning.

Again, this monster quarter was all about a confluence of events. It was about a new iPhone launch during Apple’s typically busiest quarter merged with a newer product, iPad, coming into its own, and the Mac continuing its methodical growth. Add to that amazing margins plus one more week of sales — and the fact that Apple as a whole has been killing it for several years now across the board — and you get a jaw-dropping quarter. It all came together.

Next question: will Apple be able to replicate the magic next quarter? Well, no. The quarter after the holiday one is typically weaker as consumer spending cools. And when you consider that it will span the regular 13 weeks instead of 14, you have two things working against it. Add to that the fact that the iPhone 4S will no longer be a new product, and you have another dip. There could be a new iPad in the quarter — but it may only go on sale at the tail-end. Or it may not be on sale until the following quarter — we’ll see. Either way, that probably dings iPad sales a bit next quarter too.

But even with all those things working “against” Apple next quarter, Oppenheimer still gave guidance of $32.5 billion in revenue. That would be Apple’s second-best quarter ever. And again, Apple always low-balls such numbers, so perhaps $35 billion in a more reasonable guess.

In other words, Apple may only have the second-best quarter of any tech company ever in terms of revenue next quarter. And profits may only be near the bottom of the all-time top 20 amidst the oil empires. Boo hoo.

[photo: flickr/ConvenienceStoreGourmet]

Simply looking over the numbers, it might be hard to wrap your head around what Apple just announced for their Q1 2012 results. A company this big is not supposed to be able to nearly double revenue year-to-year. Nor are they supposed to more than double profit. But Apple did both. The numbers are so big that they almost seem like they should be typos — especially coming after a quarter that was a “miss” (though we can now clearly see what a joke that “miss” was). So perhaps it’s best to point out some bigger numbers and to frame some of them in ways to make them easier to understand. That’s what all of Twitter seemed to be doing anyway during the earnings call this afternoon.

Apple’s profit of $13.1 billion was equal to their revenue in Q4 2010, as Jordan Golson notes. To be clear, that was just a year and a quarter ago. That’s how quickly Apple is growing.

Apple added $38 billion in cash to its reserves just in the past year alone, as Horace Dediu points out. They now have $97.6 billion in cash and equivalents. $64 billion of that is offshore, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer stated during the call — meaning, it would cost money (taxes) to bring it back into the U.S.

Apple’s cash hoard alone is worth more than all but 52 companies on Earth, as Dennis Berman notes.

Apple earned more money last quarter than the entire company was worth (in terms of market cap) just eight years ago, as Mathew Ingram relays from Eddy Elfenbein.

Apple likely sold three times as many iPads as Amazon sold Kindle Fires. At twice the price. And at a profit, as Jon Fortt notes. When asked about the impact of the lower-cost tablets, Apple CEO Tim Cook specifically mentioned the Kindle Fire and noted that when looking over Apple’s numbers, they didn’t seem to see any impact (positive or negative) from the Kindle Fire being on the market.

Apple’s revenues, while massive, are nothing compared to a company like Walmart, which reported $109.5 billion in revenue last quarter. BUT that $109.5 billion only turned into $3.3 billion of actual income for the quarter. In other words, Walmart has more than double the revenues of Apple, but Apple has more than four times the profits of Walmart. That’s remarkable.

Apple’s profits place them on this exclusive list of the most profitable quarters among corporations. You’ll note that Apple is the only company on the list that’s not an oil and gas company. And they’re a “mere” $3.2 billion from the top spot.

Back in July, we noted that while Apple was destroying their tech peers in profits, HP still held the revenue crown. Not anymore. HP’s last reported quarter (in November) saw the company announce $32.1 billion in revenue. They’ll report Q1 2012 earnings in about a month, but if history is any guide, Apple will be far, far ahead of both numbers. Likely well over $10 billion ahead.

It was only October of 2010 when Apple passed Microsoft in terms of revenue. At the time, Apple posted $20.34 billion — they’re well beyond double that now. Microsoft’s most recent quarter saw record revenue of $20.9 billion. Again, Apple came in at $46.33 billion.

Meanwhile, it was only April of last year that Apple surpassed Microsoft’s in profit. This past quarter, Microsoft’s net income was $6.62 billion. Apple’s was $13.06 billion.

The iTunes Store alone generated 50 percent more revenue than all of Yahoo did last quarter, as Jordan Golson notes.

Likewise, the amount Apple paid to third-party developers via the App Store last quarter ($700 million) is more than double Yahoo’s overall profits. (Overall, Apple has paid over $4 billion to third-party developers now via the App Store.)

It would take TechCrunch parent AOL cloning itself 124 times to be as big as Apple, notes Mike Brown Jr. No idea what the metric is there, but sounds about right. (See: update at bottom)

Apple’s profits for the last quarter exceed Google’s entire revenue for the last quarter, as Farhad Manjoo points out. And it’s not even close ($13 billion to $10.6 billion). Think about that for a second.

And actually, Apple’s profit for the entire year now beats Google’s revenue for the entire year, as Marcel Molina points out. That gap is likely to get bigger given the most recent quarter.

After a short halt in after-hours trading following the earnings release, Apple’s stock popped nearly 10 percent from where it closed at the end of the day. Since then, it has settled back into the $450-a-share range which would be far and away a new record high for the stock if and when it opens around there tomorrow. That surge also pushes Apple well beyond the $400 billion market cap — and once again past Exxon as the most valuable public company in the world.

At over $400 billion, Apple is now worth more than Greece, CNN Tech says.

Towards the end of the earnings call, Tim Cook dropped a huge nugget of information: led by 15 million iPads sold last quarter, the tablet market is now larger than the entire desktop PC market. Someday in the not-too-distant future, the tablet market will be bigger than all of the PC market, he predicts. (Apple has sold 55 million iPads since the original launch in April 2010, Cook revealed.)

Apple’s gross margin for the quarter was 44.7 percent — a number which Oppenheimer stated he’s never seen in his 15 years at Apple. Of note, he also doesn’t expect Apple to ever post a margin that high again.

Apple sold half as many Apple TVs last quarter (1.4 million) as they did for the entire previous fiscal year. But Cook still considers the product a “hobby” — though it’s one he “couldn’t live without”.

Apple’s profit last quarter was $3 billion more than all of Hollywood’s gross box office receipts for all of last year, notes Eric Spiegelman via Anthony De Rosa.

With 37 million iPhones sold last quarter, Apple is now the largest smartphone marker, besting Samsung’s (guesstimated) 35 million, as The Next Web remembers.

Apple is now selling twice as many iPads to K-12 schools as Macs. Perhaps that will help with this issue.

But perhaps all you really need is a picture. Just look at the chart Macworld made below. It’s absolutely staggering.

Update: Mike Brown Jr. messaged me with the following:

I’m actually dead wrong on AOL size – Aol would need to clone itself 260 times on market cap vs market cap basis.  And here I was thinking AOL was around a 3b market cap.  Crazy numbers…

As I watched Apple’s iBooks event in New York City last week, my mind began to race about the ramifications of such announcements. Everyone had a pretty good idea for weeks (or months if you read the Steve Jobs biography) that textbooks would be a focal point for Apple, but there wasn’t much thought given to what this would mean. During the event itself, I just kept thinking, “wow, Apple just incentivized every college student to get an iPad”.

Except, they didn’t. Not yet.

The weird thing about Apple’s event was that it mainly focused on high school education. Yes, the iTunes U update is fantastic, but for now, the textbook side of the equation is about high schools. And again, that’s weird because the iPad plan seems better suited for college students. In fact, it seems almost perfectly suited for college students.

In kicking off the event, Apple SVP Phil Schiller noted that high school students in the U.S. that enter as freshman only have a 70 percent chance of graduating these days. In urban areas, it’s more like 60 percent, he said. Schiller was setting up Apple’s iBooks textbooks as a possible way to  improve this.

The problem is that the cheapest iPad is still $500. What high school student is going to buy that? Basically none — their parents will have to. And that’s fine for some students, but not all. Not even a high percent, I’d imagine. In the inner-cities — again, where education is even more of an issue — it’s probably even less likely of a purchase.

As Josh Topolsky points out, Apple does work with school districts to lease iPads on a four-year schedule, presumably at a nice discount. But that means the school owns the iPads and temporarily gives them out to students. That goes against Apple’s stated mission that students should now buy (or get via redemption code) all iBooks textbooks and keep them forever, keeping their notes, highlights, etc.

The school leasing also probably means the iPads are staying at the schools. How does that help for homework? Or are the schools allowing students to take the iPads home, risking losing them or damaging them? That doesn’t seem like a tenable idea for many budget-minded schools.

Schiller also told The Verge that he felt the numbers worked out favorably if the school districts bought students iPads instead of old-school textbooks and computers for the classroom. Maybe. But computers are a purchase the high schools do in multi-year cycles and students share them. For this new iPad textbook system to fully reach its maximum potential, schools would have to buy one iPad for each student that comes through the school. And again, what if they get lost, or stolen, or break?

My point is that Apple’s textbook plan for iBooks is a wonderful, obvious, and much needed evolution of the current system. But it’s more naturally suited for college students. At least right now.

One could easily imagine students buying $499 iPads and $15 textbooks instead of paying several hundred dollars a year for just the old-school textbooks alone. (Though it wasn’t entirely clear if college-level textbooks would have the same $15 ceiling that high school ones do — again, the focus last week was on high school.)

Yes, college students can (and often do) sell back books once they’re done with them. But having been a college student myself, I feel safe saying the entire experience is pretty crappy. I’d much much much rather have an iPad with all my textbooks on it — that I get for a reasonable price, and keep forever, along with all my notes.

Even better, you could imagine the universities themselves wrapping the cost of an iPad into tuition. Many schools started doing this with laptops years ago. Because college is so expensive — and again, college textbooks are so ridiculously expensive — this works. At the very least, it works a lot better than it currently does for high school students.

Even if when the next iPad is announced, the current model drops in price to something like $400 — or even $300 — that’s still an expensive sell to high school students and/or their parents and/or their schools. If every kid in the world already had an iPad, this would be the most brilliant program ever. Unfortunately, Apple needs to sell at least a few billion more iPads to get to that point.

I’m worried we may have a chicken and egg problem here. Apple is giving students a huge incentive to use iPads, but it’s still prohibitive for many of those students to get one. And if many can’t get one, does the iBooks program take off like it should?

If it does take off, I bet it does in colleges first. And that’s why it’s weird that Apple is starting off by focusing on high school.

The education system in this country (and I’m sure you could certainly argue the same is true in most parts of the world) absolutely needs fixing, and it’s great that Apple is working on the problem. I’m just not sure I see how it’s anything but an extremely slow process with iBooks, if it works at all.

I have no doubt that in the not-too-distant future, students walk around with tablet computers carrying all of their textbooks and other education needs. But we need to get the tablets in their hands to get to that future.

Today at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Apple held an event to talk about two key things: “Reinventing textbooks” and “Reinventing curriculum”. But perhaps lost amid the tentpole announcements (iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and the all-new iTunes U) were some subtleties of those products and Apple’s plans for the education space.

Among them:

• “Education is deep in our DNA,” Apple SVP Phil Schiller said shortly after taking the stage. He then rattled off some starting statistics: high school students in the U.S. that enter as freshman have only a 70 percent chance of graduating. In urban areas, the statistic drops closer to 60 percent.
• Among industrialized nations, the U.S. is 17th in reading, 31st in math, and 23rd in science. “We all want to do better than this,” Schiller said.
• The number one items on teens’ wish lists for the holiday season this past year was the iPad, Schiller said.
• Over 20,000 education and learning applications have been built specifically for the iPad already.
• The iBookstore already contains “hundreds of thousands” of books, according to Schiller
• There are over 1.5 million iPads in use in education instituions, Schiller said.
• Schiller praised the invention of the book in the mid 1400s, but noted that while one is still quite portable, kids often now are forced to carry around 3 or 4 or 5 of them. In that regard, they’re not portable, he said — naturally setting up the iPad, which is quite portable by comparison.
• Textbooks are also not durable, not interactive, not searchable, and not current, Schiller pointed out. “But they do have great content,” he said — setting up a partnership with publishers.
• There’s a big focus on glossary terms for textbooks in iBooks 2.
• An emphasis was also placed on being able to quickly jump to a page number via search — how often have you heard a teacher say “please open your book to page X”? This is a nice solution.
• Textbooks have page numbers when held horizontally, but vertically, they infinitely scroll. (But jumping to a “page” still works.)
• Textbooks can feature inline quizzes — “The bottom line is immediate feedback,” Apple VP of productivity software Roger Rosner said.
• Highlighting has been improved over the original iBooks. It’s faster not and easier to trigger.
• There’s also now an ability to underline text as well as highlight it in several different colors (which you could do in the old iBooks).
• All highlighted passages and any notes attached to those are automatically turned into “study cards” — think: flash cards. “No more ever having to make paper flash cards,” Rosner joked.
• Study Cards can be sorted/filtered by highlight color.
• Glossary terms are also automatically made into Study Cards (but can also be filtered out).
• The iBookstore is getting a categories view.
• The reason is to highlight the new textbook area of the store.
• You can download free samples of all textbooks (as you can with regular books).
• You can buy any textbook with one-click via your iTunes account, or you can use a redemption code. Look for Apple and schools to play up this feature quite a bit. Imagine a teacher giving each student in their class a personalized redemption code for a textbook so they don’t have to buy it.
• Once you buy a textbook from the iBookstore, you own it forever and can re-download it to future devices. In other words, there’s no more giving back the book at the end of the terms. And there’s no more concern about students taking notes in books that need to be passed down.
• Like the original iBooks, iBooks 2 will need to be downloaded (it won’t come pre-installed on iPads), but it’s a free download.
• Though not stated, textbook content presumably will only work on the iPad, not iPhones or iPod touches.
• Also not stated, but textbook content should work on the original iPad as well as the iPad 2.
• iBooks Author only works on Macs.
• “Creating books has been really hard, we think we changed that,” Rosner said.
• It’s similar to Pages, and plays nicely with Keynote presentations for embeds.
• Interactive widgets can also be embedded in iBooks via Author, and anyone who knows HTML and Javascript can write one.
• With that in mind, these widgets are technically the same as OS X Dashboard widgets.
• Support for orientation switching is added automatically in iBooks Author. “This is a total miracle in terms of time saving,” Rosner said.
• Any iBook created with Author can be previewed immediately on an iPad if you connect it to your Mac. I saw this in action, it works very well.
• While Apple noted that you can “publish right to iBookstore” in their presentation, it appears to be more complicated than that. When you hit the “Publish” button, it actually just saves the file to your desktop. This is the file you then presumably submit to Apple for inclusion in iBookstore. In other words, no, you can’t just publish right to the store. There is still a process — including, undoubtedly, a review process.
• On the other hand, because you save these files to your desktop, you can share them with others who can load them on their iPads. For example, you could email the file to someone and if they open it on their iPad it will work.
• Books are not technically in the EPUB format, but they borrow from it (likely EPUB 3). Certain interactive elements of the books require the files to be done in the slightly different iBooks format, Apple says.
• “Authoring tools often cost hundreds to thousands of dollars,” Schiller said before pleasantly announcing that iBooks Author would be free.
• While the focus of the event was on textbooks, it’s clear that any author can use iBooks Publisher to write and publish their books to the iBookstore. There’s no word yet on how they can price such books, etc.
• The initial focus is on high school textbooks, implying that college textbooks will be the next step.
• Apple is committed to a $14.99 or less price point, and apparently have their publisher partners on board with that. Peter Kafka has a good explanation as to why publishers would agree to such a price cut (long story short, they’ll do just fine financially thanks to boosted volume).
• Textbooks in iBooks can be constantly updated.
• Big time publishers Pearson, McGraw Hill, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are on board right off the bat. In the U.S., these three account for over 90 percent of (presumably high school) textbook sales, Schiller noted.
• Apple is also working with DK Publishing for their educational books.
• Schiller was particularly excited about announcing a partnership with the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, saying they aim to “reinvent the biology textbook”.
• The first E.O. Wilson title, Life on Earth, will be exclusive to iBooks — “take that, Amazon,” Schiller failed to say.
• While it wasn’t explicitly stated, it seems there will be in-app purchasing available for iBooks. Life on Earth, for example, will have more chapters available down the line “at an aggressive price,” Schiller said.
• The first two chapters of Life on Earth will be available for free for everyone to download — aka, the first taste is free.
•  The key line from one of the videos Apple showed: “Instead of carrying 30 pounds of books in a backpack, you just need one iPad.”
• The video also highlighted the three key points of textbooks on the iPad: 1) really fast, fluid navigation 2) beautiful graphics 3) better, easier way to take notes and use those notes.
• Apple SVP Eddy Cue took the stage to show off the new iTunes U.
• He said that over 1,000 universities and colleges around the world are using iTunes U now.
• There are over 500,000 pieces of audio and video material available through iTunes U right now, which is the largest catalog of free educational content in one place, Cue said.
• There have been over 700 million iTunes U downloads, he also said.
• The new iTunes U is all accessible via a stand-alone app for the first time.
• iTunes U integrates tightly with iBooks — curriculum links to iBooks textbooks will not only open the book on the iPad, but they’ll open to the right page.
• Videos linked to within iTunes U can be downloaded or streamed
• iTunes U can also link to apps available in the App Store. You can buy/download them right from within the app.
• As professors add items to curriculums, tasks not completed are badged within the app (so if you have 3 incomplete tasks, you’ll see a “3″ on that course within iTunes U).
• Duke, Yale, and Stanford are among the first schools to create content for this new iTunes U.
• For the first time, K-12 schools can sign up to use iTunes U as well.
• iTunes U is free and available in 123 countries, Cue said.
• Schiller closed by repeating a line that Steve Jobs used to love to use to describe his company: “Apple exists at the intersection of liberal arts and technology.”

With the deep inclusion of Google+ into Search, Google is tempting fate. We’ve been over this. A lot. And this story is going to continue for some time to come. It sure looks like Google is almost asking for an inquiry into potentially anti-competitive practices (and it’s coming). Which is insane. So the next logical question is why? Why is Google risking so much to do this?

My colleague Eric had a very interesting theory earlier. Maybe Google’s real motive is to get the government to also look into Facebook’s often-unfair practices with regard to their network ahead of their IPO. If social and not search is indeed the future, call this pre-subversion. And if there’s any shred of truth to this theory, more power to Google — it’s rather genius (though still extremely risky).

But the more likely answer as to why Google is doing Search+ is much simpler. At a high level, they believe social elements are going to be an extremely important part of search going forward. Given that the two biggest players in social, Facebook and Twitter, don’t give them full access to their data (Twitter used to but the relationship ended, Facebook never did), Google is doing the only thing they can in their minds to still get the data they need: bolster Google+.

That makes sense. The problem, again, is how they’re doing it — with Google Search, a property which has a (natural) monopoly.

Google will argue that they have no choice due to the lack of data from Twitter and Facebook. But that’s not good enough.

First of all, they do have enough data to equalize the two most troublesome areas of Search+: the “People and Pages” box (let’s call it the Google+ Juice Box), and the social profiles in Google Search drop-downs.

Second, Facebook and Twitter can likely argue that giving Google access to such data would be a huge detriment to their respective businesses. Again, Twitter used to give access, but then they could not reach an agreement on new terms. It was all about money. Google saying that Twitter “chose” not to renew reads like a public shakedown, in that light.

And this points to something deeper going on behind the scenes here, which is likely the actual crux of this problem. Google believes it’s their right and duty to perfect their search engine at all cost. That’s the only way you can explain some of their actions (not only this, but surfacing some of their other data over competitors as well). But because of their market dominance, Google’s rivals believe the measures the search giant is taking in order to improve their product are unfair.

This makes for a great battle because both sides have a valid point. But ultimately, Google’s point may be rendered invalid. Because Google is so successful, it may actually impede further success that they could otherwise pursue openly.

This is the problem with having a monopoly. Even if you don’t intend to use it for “evil”, you end up doing just that because “evil” is relative. If Google was the number four player in the search market, no one would care if they included Google+ data. In fact, people would likely applaud it because it is well done.  In Google’s view, all they’re doing is improving their product. In Facebook and Twitter’s mind, it’s evil.

You can make the “with great power comes great responsibility” argument — that is, Google should recognize their position of power and temper their actions accordingly. To some extent, I’m sure they do. But it’s a hard predicament to be in. You’re essentially forced to hold yourself back from being the best company you can be. And this often means changing some of the practices that got you into your position of power in the first place.

When Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows in the 1990s, the courts ultimately decided that it was anti-competitive. But you could certainly argue that IE was actually the best browser at the time. And if you believe that, you believe that it made Windows a better product as a result. I’m not saying that situation is the same (it’s obviously not), but perhaps some of the lines of thinking were similar — and perhaps it suggests how companies find themselves in these (seemingly obvious) bad situations.

When you consider Apple, things get even more interesting — I am the Apple columnist, remember.

By many standards, Apple is the most powerful technology company right now. And by many standards, they’re also the most controlling. How on Earth can a company that is the most dominant and most controlling get away without many of the anti-competitive concerns that their rivals run into? It’s a question that has come up more than a few times this week.

The answer is that their model is genius. Whether it’s by accident or on purpose, Apple has largely fortified themselves against the anti-competitive argument, at least with regard to monopolistic practices.

Because Apple focuses on profit and not market share, it’s more or less impossible to pin a monopoly case on them. With the exception of MP3 players (which is a dying market) and tablets (which is a burgeoning market), Apple doesn’t dominate any market they’re in from a market share perspective. Sure, they make the majority of the money in smartphones and computers, but they do so as an “underdog”.

This position protects Apple and allows them to do things like control their entire ecosystem and bundle all the software they want. It also allows them to branch into new businesses without much fear of government intervention. Google, as not only a market leader but again, a company with a natural monopoly, does not have this luxury — just as Microsoft before them did not have this luxury and were ultimately burned as a result.

That last bit is another key. It’s not just Google’s drive to improve their product that’s at work in this sticky situation, it’s also the bottom line.

You can certainly argue — as I have — that Google has spent much of the past few years spreading themselves way too thin. What started as a killer product, Google Search, has evolved into dozens upon dozens of products, some of which are successful, but many of which are pure “meh”.

When they have such a great business with Search (and subsequently advertising), why does Google keep bringing the “meh”? Because they have to.

As a public company, Google needs to keep growing revenue or they may as well be dead to investors. Some companies can keep growing revenue by focusing on and improving current products. But for almost all companies, there’s a strong desire to accelerate growth by finding new revenue streams — this includes Apple, by the way (though I’d argue that they move into new businesses in a much smarter, more methodical way).

More, more, more.

The problem with more, more, more when you’re Google is again the monopolistic aspect of your business. If you attempt to leverage your strongest asset (Search) to help along these new potential revenue streams, it goes from looking smart to looking evil. Again, it’s all about perspective.

Just in case it’s not clear by this point, I’m trying to form an argument as to why Google is doing what they’re doing as of late. It seems batshit crazy, but I have to believe it’s not. When people like Matt Cutts — who seems genuinely forthright in situations like this — writes posts extolling the virtues of Search+, I have to believe he actually believes it’s a good thing. That’s why I think much of Google may just have blinders on to this whole situation.

But that’s no excuse. Google may say they’re trying to do what’s best for their users, but that’s not 100 percent true. What would be best for their users is to incorporate Facebook and Twitter data into Search+. If they can’t do that (which again, they can to some extent), they should come out and say as much and be completely transparent as to why. They shouldn’t try to pretend like Google+ is God’s gift to internet search — it’s not. At best, it’s second rate.

Essentially, Google should say what I just said for them. Yes, they have a monopoly — a monopoly which they earned, mind you. Because of this, it’s hard to innovate without pissing off rivals. This makes negotiations with said rivals hard as well. But they’re trying to do what’s best for their users. That’s all that matters.

Instead, we’re getting nonsense and doublespeak. It makes it seem like Google is looking out for one entity and one entity alone: themselves. That never wins. I’m not sure when “don’t be evil” and “don’t be disingenuous” diverged, but they have.

For Google, it’s a hard place to be in. Especially when your main rival has beaten the system. Apple only has a monopoly in profits.

On October 19 of last year I wrote a post entitled: If You Sold Your Apple Stock Today, You’re An Idiot. Because their Q4 numbers missed Wall Street expectations, Apple’s stock dropped over 5 percent on that day, to close below $400-a-share after hitting an all-time high just days before. My argument was that it was the Wall Street expectations that were horribly flawed, not Apple’s actual performance. And the stock would recover quickly as a result leading up to their Q1 earnings, which even Apple was predicting would be a blow out.

Reading the comments on that post — which I love to do — you’d think I was saying something insane. When the stock fell to $363 right after Thanksgiving, a few remembered the post and once again pointed out the irrational insanity of this fanboy.  But then a funny thing happened yesterday. Apple’s stock closed at a new all-time high.

So yes, if you sold your stock on October 19, you were, in fact, a moron. We’re now two and a half weeks away from Apple’s Q1 earnings — and again, all indications are that they’re going to be massive. Apple CEO Tim Cook is already on record predicting record iPhone and iPad sales, and those prediction both seem solid right now. The real question is by how much will they be records?

Apple’s previous record for iPhone sales was 20.24 million in Q3 2011. If Verizon’s numbers are any indication, it looks like Q1 could see total iPhone sales north of 30 million — and possibly well north. Given that the iPhone is by far the most important product to Apple’s bottom line these days, that could mean not only the first $30 billion quarter in company history — but the first $40 billion quarter as well.

Do those sound like numbers for a stock you should have sold because analysts failed to do their homework? No they do not.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20 — except that we wrote about all of this on October 18, the day before the sell-off.

For a great explantion of why professional Wall Street analysts are so often off the mark when it comes to quarterly predictions, be sure to read this post by Asymco’s Horace Dediu. Here’s the main point:

Analysts have an incentive to put forth a version of the future that supports their call on the stock. Bloggers have an incentive to put forth the most accurate version of the future. By taking the prediction out of the picture, accuracy in describing the future improves.

Analysts often lower their own numbers to ensure their calls are not only right, but pleasantly surprise investors. That explains the past decade of Wall Street being wildly inaccurate with regard to Apple. Apple has been killing it, so when analysts think they’re being cutely conservative to make their calls look good, they’re actually being way too conservative. Except for last quarter (Q4 2011), where they simply missed what was happening due to the shift of the iPhone introduction from Q3 to Q4 (in other words, instead of Q4 sales exploding as was the case in the past, Q1 sales were going to). They got lazy and screwed the pooch.

But this quarter should be a return to form. Burned by last quarter, some analysts may even be a bit more conservative than usual. But Apple’s numbers will not be. And that’s exactly why it was the wrong call to sell your Apple stock in October. But on the flip side, if you bought the stock at the $360 price, you’re really happy right now.

I would have been in that boat were in not for this column preventing me from being conflicted in such a way. The things I do for TechCrunch…

Are you ready for CES? I know I am. The PR emails are flowing in and I’m going to respond to every single one of them. I can’t wait to hear about Samsung’s social media stuff. And Vizio’s new thingy. I can’t wait to get my hands on that one thing made by those guys who did that other thing last year that no one bought. It’s gonna be fantastic. So pumped.

…

No, I’m not going to CES. I’ve never been to CES. I doubt I’ll ever go to CES. Why would I?

As far as I can tell, every person that I know who is going to CES views it as more of a chore. They’re not excited to go; they dread it. PR people may seem overly enthusiastic about it (27 emails about iGoldenShower or whatever — really?), but following this tweet, a few messaged me to say that they actually hate it more than any other week of the year. By all accounts, CES is a shitshow. And to make matters worse, it’s not even timed with the porn convention this year.

Maybe I’m being a bit unfair. While those of us on this side may be burned out (apparently even Microsoft), there are clearly still plenty of consumers and trade folk buying tickets to go or CES wouldn’t happen. And while I might not give a damn, I also only cover Apple now for TechCrunch (like this post, clearly). And as everyone is well aware, Apple never has any presence at CES. But others have to go to cover it because there is more to the gadget (and larger technology) world than Apple. Yes, I’m actually acknowledging this.

But actually, thinking back to the past few CES conventions, all I seem to recall is people talking about Apple anyway. If Sony announced something, it was compared to what Apple was doing in the space. Each keynote was compared to a Steve Jobs keynote. If LG sneezed, a thousand bloggers would check the tissue for Apple snot. Everyone else was consumed with what Apple was always just about to announce…

In years past, Apple used the stage at Macworld to one-up CES. More recently, they hold their own events to do so. Two years ago, it was the iPad. Last year, the Verizon iPhone. That tradition of overshadowing is likely to continue — only this year, it will be overshadowing on steroids.

Part of this will be the fault of the companies actually at CES. Oh look, an iMac clone. Oh look, a MacBook Air clone. And another one. And another one. Don’t forget the blatant MacBook Pro rip-offs too! And a few iPhone rip-offs for good measure. And 35 “iPad killers” that will ultimately kill themselves.

But the biggest story is going to be the beast unseen: the Apple Television.

Talk about this still-mythical product kicked into high gear leading up to the release of Steve Jobs’ biography — and for good reason. Now that talk is in pure overdrive. It will come later this year in 32-inch and 37-inch sizes. No wait, make that 42-inches. Actually, a 50-inch one already totally exists in a dark dungeon somewhere in Cupertino. “Advanced backlighting” FTW!

At this rate, by the end of CES, the thing is going to be 200-inches and be powered by cold fusion.

Every single television that is unveiled at CES this year is going to be accompanied by talk of Apple’s device. Executives from other companies will try to deflect this talk, but they won’t be able to. Instead, they’ll have to stray into talk about “Apple forcing everyone to up their game” or worse “we’ll just have to wait and see”. The truth is that Apple — which again, hasn’t actually said a word about any such product — already has the entire industry scrambling.

The tidal wave of Apple talk will be compounded by whispers of the iPad 3. It’s coming, but when? What will it look like? This manufacturer over at this booth talked to someone in the supply chain. How does the screen on this device compare to the as-yet-unseen 9.7-inch Retina Display? SIRI!!!!

And finally there’s the known-but-unknown Apple event taking place just after CES in New York. Publishing and textbooks will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue at CES. What do those have to do with gadgets? Doesn’t matter, just go with it.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to CES this year.

[image: flickr/primeimagemedia.com]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Those words seem to encapsulate Apple’s 2011 perfectly. The year saw the company both became the most valuable company in the world and lose its founder, savior, visionary, and leader.

Earlier, Erick published his roundup of the bigger stories and themes in tech this year. Topping that list is the passing of Steve Jobs, a story so big that it far transcended typical tech news. But even without that sad news, 2011 was all about Apple. There was certainly enough news to constitute its own roundup. So here we go.

January

Though January has historically been a huge month for Apple where key products were unveiled at Macworld, 2011 marked the second year of Apple marching to its own beat.

January marked the first time the company surpassed a $300 billion market cap. The only public company ahead of them in that regard was Exxon. And that wouldn’t last…

On January 6, the Mac App Store officially opened for business, phase three of Apple’s plan to kill off the optical disc. The Mac App Store also offered an early taste of OS X Lion, which would come later in the year.

On January 7, Verizon sent out mysterious invites to an event in New York City. The fact that I was invited said something. Sure enough, Verizon took the stage with then-Apple COO Tim Cook to unveil the Verizon iPhone. Finally.

And of course, January saw the beginning of the iPad 2 rumors…

On January 17, Apple announced that Steve Jobs would be taking another medical leave of absence, and released Jobs’ letter to the company. As with his past medical leaves, Tim Cook would step in to the lead the company day-to-day, but Jobs would retain his CEO title (and remain involved). Sadly, this time, the situation was not temporary.

Apple’s Q1 earnings were the best ever for the company, with $26.7 Billion in revenue, $6 Billion in profit on 7.33 Million iPads and 16.24 Million iPhones sold.

At the end of the month, the App Store hit 10 billion downloads.

February

The month kicked off with controversy after Sony’s eReader app was rejected by Apple. The issue wasn’t that Apple changed their App Store rules, it’s that they started enforcing them (around in-app purchases) which jumpstarted a shitstorm.

Part of the App Store tweaking was due to the fact that Apple was about to launch full-on subscriptions starting with News Corp’s The Daily, which launched on February 2 — incidentally, the same day Google unveiled Android Honeycomb, the first version of their OS built for tablets.

The iPad 2 rumors continued. And rumors of the iPad 3 started! And so did new rumors about an “iPhone nano”. And, of course, the iPhone 5.

Meanwhile, Apple’s stock continued to soar — they became the most valuable tech company by over $100 billion dollars.

When Apple formally launched in-app subscriptions in the middle of the month, the shitstorm hit new highs. It sure looked like all kinds of apps ranging from Dropbox to Pandora were in danger of having to drastically alter their business models to work with Apple.

Work on OS X Lion was wrapping up — and a developer preview hit. Work on a new Final Cut Pro version was also believed to be nearing completion.

Whispers of new MacBook Pros started, potentially with something called “Thunderbolt“. A few days later, they hit.

March

It started out with a bang as Apple held an event with a special guest — Steve Jobs. He wasn’t about to let his medical leave let him miss the iPad 2 unveiling.

One of the cooler new elements of the iPad 2: the Smart Cover.

On March 11, the iPad 2 went on sale in the U.S. and a handful of other countries. A few weeks later, it went on sale in 25 more countries.

On March 23, Apple announced that Bertrand Serlet, the SVP of Mac Software Engineering, was leaving the company. He had worked with Steve Jobs for 22 years. Craig Federighi, the driving force behind OS X Lion, took his place.

Word started to get out that iOS 5 would be pushed to the fall, instead of a summer release. But the good news was that it sounded like Apple’s new cloud service would be launched at WWDC.

Apple set the WWDC dates for early June. But it seemed clear this year would be different, with the fall playing a key role for iOS products instead of the summer.

April

News hit that an official Steve Jobs biography was being written and would be released in 2012. Of course, that plan changed later in the year.

Apple announced the new Final Cut Pro X at NAB with a very attractive new price (thanks in part to the new Mac App Store distribution): $299.

Meanwhile, left for dead, rumors of the white iPhone began to resurface. I even saw one at dinner one night in San Francisco. It became official on April 28.

Apple earnings were a blow-out again with $24.67 billion in revenue on 18.65 million iPhones, 4.69 million iPads, and 3.76 million Macs sold in Q2. Apple’s quarter was so good that they actually surpassed Microsoft in terms of profitability, something which hadn’t happened in a couple decades.

There was a flare up over location tracking information found in iOS (and Android phones). But it was largely overblown.

May

Apple kicked off the month by refreshing the iMac product line with better chips, graphics, and cameras.

We started our reports on Apple and Nuance, which would turn out to be important later in the year when Siri was unveiled.

Apple and Google were forced to defend themselves about location privacy in front of the Senate.

A lot of talk started circulating that Apple was finalizing a deal with the record labels for a cloud music service.

The name “iCloud” started gaining a lot of steam — and for good reason. On May 31, Apple actually pre-announced it ahead of WWDC. Weird.

Meanwhile, we started hearing an interesting rumor: there would be Twitter integration in iOS 5.

Talk also started picking up about an upcoming bid for Nortel patents…

June

On June 6, Apple held their WWDC keynote. OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud were the main areas of focus. Among the more notable things: iMessage, Newsstand, and the aforementioned Twitter iOS 5 integration. Oh, and iTunes Match. There was nothing about a Nuance partnership however, that would come later.

On June 7, Steve Jobs (still on medical leave) went to Cupertino City Hall to pitch Apple’s plan for a massive new headquarters in the city — one that looked like a spaceship.

Amid pressure from multiple sides, Apple quietly backpedaled from their new (and not yet fully implemented) App Store in-app purchase and subscription rules. It was the right move.

Apple’s stock continued its run. By June 13, Apple was worth more than Microsoft, HP, and Dell — combined.

Nokia and Apple settled a patent dispute — after Apple agreed to pay up. Meanwhile, Apple’s patent war with Samsung continued.

On June 21, Apple released new Time Capsules and released Final Cut Pro X into the Mac App Store. Massive backlash started immediately about the latter.

Rumors of an actual Apple Television started popping up again. And with the WWDC no-show, new rumors about the next iPhone(s) started.

July

On July 1, it was revealed that not only had Google lost the Nortel patent bidding, but a familiar foe won them: Apple (along with others like Microsoft).

The App Store hit 15 billion downloads.

Apple destroyed earnings estimates once again in Q3 with record revenues, profits, iPhone (over 20 million), and iPad sales. As a result, Apple shot past $400 a share on the stock market.

On July 20, Apple updated the Mac Mini, the MacBook Air, and their displays (now with Thunderbolt power).

Also released: OS X Lion.

By late July, Apple had more cash (and cash equivalents) on its books than the U.S. government.

August

Apple quietly launched the ability stream television shows from their cloud.

Google got really mad about Apple and Microsoft’s patent strategy.

On August 9, Apple pushed past Exxon to become the most valuable (in terms of market cap) public company in the world. For the rest of the year, they would go back and forth.

The launch of Steve Jobs’ biography was pushed up to November of 2011 (up from 2012).

Referencing the success of the iPad, HP shocks the world by saying they’re not only giving up on tablets, but looking to get out of the PC game as well (they would later backtrack on this after a CEO change).

Talk suggests the next iPhone will be a GSM/CDMA dual-mode one. Meanwhile, talk starts to circulate that Sprint will be getting the next iPhone as well (though the stuff about an iPhone 5 exclusive turns out to be nonsense).

On August 24, a shockwave is sent around the Apple universe when Steve Jobs formally steps down as CEO. While he had been on medical leave since January, this was a clear sign that he didn’t think he would ever feel well enough to return fulltime. Jobs asks the Apple Board to appoint Tim Cook as CEO (which they do) and asks to stay on the Board as well (which he does).

September

“iPhone 5″ rumors hit a fever-pitch but not much actually happens in the month leading up to October…

October

Apple holds an event on October 4 to unveil the iPhone 4S.

But the star of the show is Siri, the new iOS 5 feature exclusive to the iPhone 4S. Also new to iOS 5 is Find My Friends.

With the 4S, the iPhone 4 price goes to $99 (with a contract). And the iPhone 3GS goes free (with a contract).

Apple announces that 6 million copies of OS X Lion have been sold, outpacing Snow Leopard. They also announce that iTunes now has over 20 million songs which have been downloaded 16 billion times. Apple also announces that 300 million iPods have been sold in 10 years. Tim Cook also says that 250 million iOS devices have now been sold.

On October 5, just one day after Apple’s iPhone 4S event, Apple announces that Steve Jobs passed away earlier that day. Worldwide, tributes to Jobs begin to appear and this lasts for weeks.

After days of mourning, Apple starts iPhone 4S pre-orders, which top 1 million in just 24 hours.

On October 12, iOS 5 is released.

Two days later, the 4S goes on sale and in the first weekend alone, over 4 million units are sold — double the pace of the iPhone 4.

Apple’s Q4 numbers were a bit of a surprise for many, because for the first time in several years, they actually missed on Wall Street’s expectations.

Apple’s stock plunged as a result of the miss, and Tim Cook did something odd: he went on the record predicting record iPhone and iPad sales in the upcoming quarter (Apple’s holiday quarter).

Following Jobs’ passing, the release date of his biography was moved up again, to October 23.

Leading up to the day, several excerpts from the book were leaked. The most intriguing one revolved around Jobs’ comment about Apple finally “cracking” the television market.

On October 24, Apple quietly updated the MacBook Pro line again (though very subtly). They also tweaked the Smart Cover colors.

By the end of the month, many iPhone 4S users are experiencing battery issues (Apple begins work on a software update to fix them).

November

On November 8, Adobe announced they’ll be winding down support for Flash on mobile devices. This was long a sore point between Apple and Adobe, to say the least.

Five years after it was released, Apple recalled the first generation iPod nano.

On November 14, iTunes Match officially finally launched — it had been promised by October.

Rumors of a 15-inch MacBook Air (or thin Pro) begin. More rumors of a “Retina” iPad 3 also surface. And the talk of a larger-screen iPhone 5 starts up again.

December

Talk starts to pick up again that Tim Cook is open to the idea of Apple issuing a dividend to shareholders as their cash supply approaches $100 billion.

The patent nonsense continues. Depending on which country you select, Apple or one of their rivals may be banned from importing their devices. But not really since there will be endless appeals.

Apple announced their “iTunes Rewind” apps of the year awards. Instagram wins for the iPhone, Snapseed for the iPad.

Apple announced 100 million downloads from the Mac App Store in less than a year.

In mid-December, it’s reported that Apple bought flash memory company Anobit, for several hundred million.

The iPad 3 unveiling is rumored to be weeks away…

Business as usual despite a crazy year. 2012 should be the most fascinating one yet.

The past few days, there’s been a lot of talk about web browsers. The report that Google will be paying Mozilla close to one billion dollars over the next three years to ensure that their search engine remains the default for Firefox is fascinating for a few reasons. The biggest is that Google now makes a Firefox competitor, Chrome. And it got me thinking about Safari.

Remember Safari?

While Chrome has skyrocketed from 0 percent market share in August 2008 to over 25 percent last month, Apple’s web browser lingers somewhere between 5 and 8 percent, depending on what numbers you look at. While its growth seemed to stall out in late 2008/early 2009, Safari has been growing again since then. But it has been at a very slow, methodical pace compared to the Google browser.

Given the fact that both browsers are based on WebKit — a layout engine which was born out of Apple — why hasn’t it been Safari that has taken off, instead of Chrome?

The easy answer that most people jump to is Windows. Microsoft’s OS is still by far the dominant one even with record Mac sales quarter after quarter. But while Safari is usually associated with the Mac (since it’s baked into OS X), it has actually been available for Windows quite a bit longer than Chrome has been.

Safari for Windows was unveiled in beta in June 2007. It was formally released in March 2008. Chrome wasn’t unveiled until September of that year. Incidentally, it was Windows-only at the time. But it took Google’s browser just a year to surpass Safari in market share.

So if it wasn’t Windows, what else led to Chrome’s rise?

Another thing people often point to is speed. A number of benchmarks point to Chrome being the fastest browser available in terms of both page rendering and JavaScript performance.

But remember too that when Safari for Windows was announced, several of the same tests showed that it was the fastest browser available for both Macs and PCs (remember, Chrome didn’t exist yet). If this was just about speed, shouldn’t Safari have taken off starting in June 2007 similar to the way that Chrome did in September 2008?

On the flip side, most users throughout the years have complained that Safari for Windows more or less sucks. It’s been a long while since I’ve used it myself, but I recall it being somewhere between Firefox and Internet Explorer in terms of practical performance (that is, how fast it actually feels when using it, tests be damned). But Apple has continued to iterate on it and the latest version, 5.1, is still available on both platforms.

Others point to Google itself as the reason for Chrome’s rise compared to Safari. It’s true that Google does quite a bit of promotion for their browser, including on Google.com every once in a while. But it’s hard to imagine that being a bigger advantage then either IE or Safari which are both baked into Windows and OS X respectively. To get Chrome, a user still has to download something (unless they’re using Chrome OS — but if that’s the case, they’re already probably going to be using Chrome on their other machines). I would imagine that most IE and Safari users don’t download their browser, they use it because it’s the default that comes pre-installed on their machines.

Plus, Safari being bundled by default with iTunes for a time should have helped it gain massive Windows market share. But it would appear that many people downloading it simply weren’t using it.

Maybe it’s extensions that give Chrome the advantage? Maybe, but Safari has had them as well since mid-2010. Sure, Chrome’s extensions are better and much more plentiful, but if that is all that was holding Safari back, developers probably would have stepped up their game there. Plus, Firefox had extensions way before either Chrome or Safari and while they undoubtedly helped grow that browser, it’s also shrinking now in the face of Chrome.

With the launch of OS X Lion, it seemed as if Safari might be poised for a bit of a renaissance. Because the default controls were inverted, third-party software like Chrome was largely broken to begin with on the new OS. Safari also offered features like better multi-touch support and Reading List (which syncs between iOS and OS X Lion) which rivals didn’t match. But with a few months of data in, it looks like the Safari growth is still the same slow and methodical variety, likely rising simply as more Macs are sold.

Given the rise of mobile, it would seem that the massive usage mobile Safari is seeing might help Safari on desktops/laptops too. But again, the numbers don’t really suggest that. Safari is growing, but slowly. Meanwhile Chrome, which isn’t actually a part of Android — not yet, anyway — is skyrocketing without any sort of mobile presence.

Personally, I’m a Chrome user myself. I’ve tried a few times to use Safari as my primary browser (most recently with the OS X Lion upgrade), but I always end up switching back. To me, it’s still about practical performance. Things like: with a dozen or more tabs open, Chrome seems to perform in a way that Safari cannot.

Plus, I can’t live without the URL/Search Omnibox that Chrome offers. And I’m addicted to “pinned” tabs (browser tabs I always have open and are shoved to the left and shrunken down, out of the way from general tabbed web browsing).

It has been nearly 9 years since Safari was first formally introduced on stage by Steve Jobs at Macworld 2003. It has steadily improved and grown market share, but the rise of Chrome in less than half of that time has made Safari look a bit silly.

Of course, that could all change rather quickly if devices like the iPad really are the future of general purpose computing. On mobile devices in general, there’s no question in my mind right now that mobile Safari is ahead of what Google is doing. That’s why it’s odd that the opposite is true on more traditional computers.

And it’s not entirely clear why. Some point to Apple neglect — since the App Store has been such a phenomenon, they’re more inclined to throw resources at native work rather than web work, is the basic argument — but again, given the state of mobile Safari versus the other mobile web browsers, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It could simply be that Google’s Chrome team is really good at what they do, and nailed it from the get go. Good things happen to good products.

Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open.

Every chance they get, someone from Google brings this up as a huge advantage of Android over rivals like iOS. Never mind the fact that a good percentage of the time it’s pure marketing bullshit — why exactly isn’t Google Wallet on Google’s own Galaxy Nexus device? — even when it’s true, there are some very real downsides. The user experience angle has been debated ad nauseam. More interesting is what we’re seeing now. A downside for Google.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire runs on Android, but nothing about it is Google’s Android. It doesn’t look like Android and it doesn’t feature Google’s own apps. That has to annoy Google, but something exposed the other day must truly piss them off: the Kindle Fire redirects all Android Market requests to Amazon’s Appstore. That includes all attempts to go to market.android.com even when the Fire’s accelerated browsing (routed through Amazon’s servers) is turned off.

Amazon has commandeered Android and is closing it down for their own purposes. The problem for Google is that those purposes are decidedly anti-Google purposes. Amazon wants to control the Android app ecosystem — the one created and nurtured by Google.

Despite what they may have you believe sometimes, Google is not a pro bono company. Their work with Android is an attempt to create another billion dollar-plus business. Apps are a part of this, but the bigger parts are things like payments and content, and of course, search and advertising. Amazon is taking over apps, content, and payments with the Fire. And you have to think that search might be in their sights as well. At the very least, they could cut a lucrative deal with someone like Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine on the Kindle Fire.

This would mean that Google would be making essentially nothing off of each Kindle Fire, even though they created the platform on which it runs. And this matters because the Kindle Fire is poised to be the most successful Android tablet — it may very well be already.

But that’s just tablets, you might say. Google Android still dominate phones. That’s true, Amazon isn’t in the smartphone game — at least not yet. But what happens if the rumors are true and Facebook releases a phone with an OS built on top of Android? And what if they do the exact same things that Amazon is doing? Say they create their own app store, bake in their own payment and content services, and eventually cut a deal with Microsoft to make Bing the default search engine. Remember, Microsoft has a search deal with Facebook already, and is a minority stakeholder in the social network.

And those are just the big guys in the U.S. Companies all around the world are also exploring (or already executing on) using Android as the basis for their own OSes. Some of these help Google, some do not. What if HTC builds they own flavor of Android? What if Samsung does? At least Google knows that Motorola won’t now…

With Android’s rise to smartphone market share domination (but not actual smartphone revenue/profit and/or developer mindshare domination), much has been made of the comparison to what Microsoft did in the 1980s and 1990s to blow past Apple towards PC domination. But one key difference that no one ever seems to bring up is the fact that Windows was anything but open. If you wanted to use it, you had to pay Microsoft. You would never have been able to build your own version of Windows without getting sued into oblivion.

Imagine if Microsoft had open sourced Windows back then. Would they still have become the dominant player? Possibly, maybe even likely at first, but eventually it’s feasible that a competitor would have used their work as the basis for a better version of Windows. That’s the real risk Google is now facing.

Back in May, I wondered what would happen when it’s Google/Android versus Amazon/Android? That was before Amazon’s hardware ambitions were fully revealed. But it seemed obvious this battle was coming. And now it’s here.

Update: With an update, Amazon has unblocked their web browser from accessing the Android Market website, Kevin Tofel reports for GigaOm. But it’s more of a PR move. You still cannot install Android Market apps without side-loading them.

[image: flickr/justin marty]

You have to hand it to Google. They know that I prefer Apple products and have been generally critical of many Google moves in the past couple of years. And yet, they’re unafraid to give me their newest products to test out. To be honest, I’m not sure Apple would do the same. But I think this is a smart move on Google’s part. On one hand, they may get a negative review but they know that many will discount the negativity coming from me. On the flip side, if it’s positive: gravy train time.

Thus: my thoughts on the Galaxy Nexus. But before I begin…

Rather than do a full-on review — you’ve probably already seen plenty of those — and given that I now write an Apple-centric column for TechCrunch, I figured it was the perfect opportunity to continue my “An iPhone Lover’s Take…” series. For some background, here are my previous stories from the same angle on the Nexus One, the HTC EVO 4G, the Nexus S, a Windows Phone, and even the iPhone 4.

My colleague Jason Kincaid took a similar approach for a post a few weeks back, but did it from a slightly different angle — call it: An Original iPhone Lover Who Learned To Love Android Until Switching Back To The iPhone… Reviews The Galaxy Nexus. Oddly, he just had just switched back to the iPhone after years of Android use — but he says the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich in particular may get him to switch back yet again. Meanwhile, GigaOm’s Darrell Etherington also looked at the Galaxy Nexus from an iPhone user’s perspective and ultimately decided the iPhone 4S was still the device for him. So I’m here to break the tie.

I’ve been using an iPhone since the day the first one launched in 2007. It is without question my favorite and most-used gadget of all time. Over that same span, I’ve tried about a dozen different Android devices ranging from the G1 to the Nexus S — the results have been decidedly mixed. I pretty much hated the G1, generally liked the Nexus One, thought the EVO 4G was more or less crap, and basically enjoyed the Nexus S. But none, in my mind, could touch the iPhone.

So what about the Galaxy Nexus?

I was given the device shortly before I took off for Europe a couple weeks ago. Given that it’s unlocked and I got a 3G SIM, I’ve been using it a lot — just as much as I’ve used any of the other Android devices listed above. For a few nights, it has been my primary device when I’ve been out and about. Unfortunately, I have not been able to test any sort of 4G network with it, so consider all of this a Galaxy Nexus 3G review.

First and foremost, the Galaxy Nexus is way too big. The 4.65-inch screen is nice when I’m sitting on my couch, but out and about it feels like I’m Zack Morris holding his Gordon Gekko phone. I’d consider myself to have average sized hands for an adult male, and the screen is so large that it killed several one-handed operations for me (especially since many Android apps use a top nav system). I’ll admit that for some apps, like Gmail, having a screen larger than the iPhone’s 3.5-inch variety is very nice. But 4.3-inch may be better. This is just too big.

While the screen is too big, I am happy that Google has finally decided to get rid of hardware menu buttons and go all-in on the screen. Previous Android hardware was always made worse by the decision to include fixed nav buttons along the button. With Ice Cream Sandwich, all these buttons can now be software-based. There isn’t even a home hardware button like the iPhone has anymore — it’s all software.

I like this. The iPhone home button wears down over time and it makes noise when you click it. (Of course, the Galaxy Nexus still has a wake/power button of the right side.) I hope Apple does something more inventive with the button if they choose to keep it in future iPhone hardware iterations. Perhaps a multi-touch top on the button that allows you to swipe between open iOS apps would make the continuation of the physical button worth it.

I also like the inclusion of an indicator light on the Galaxy Nexus. Both the Galaxy Nexus and iPhone have options to vibrate or give you audio cues to alert you to new messages, but if the phone isn’t on me, I often miss those. The light allows you to see if you have new message waiting without having to turn the screen on. This is one of the few things BlackBerry got right that Apple for whatever reason hasn’t bothered to mimic.

The rest of the Galaxy Nexus hardware leaves something to be desired. The iPhone feels like a completely and thoughtfully designed object. By comparison, the Galaxy Nexus still feels rather cheap and plastic-y. It’s not awful, but you’d think Samsung could do better at this point. Some people will like having the option to remove to the back to get at the battery, but the method for doing so remains a joke. You essentially have to rip it off. I feel like I’m peeling a nail away from a finger every time I do it — it’s that unpleasant.

The battery life itself on the device is very good. I felt like the Galaxy Nexus was lasting at least as long as the iPhone 4S on a fully charged battery, perhaps even a bit longer if some cases. Again, I didn’t try it on a 4G network, which is known to drain battery quicker. (I also haven’t had the battery discharge issues that some iPhone 4S users have been reporting since the launch.) But fear not, this is not the EVO with its temper-melting 30-minute battery.

The camera on the Galaxy Nexus is definitely worse than the iPhone 4S, both in megapixels (8 vs. 5), and in image quality. But the iPhone 4S is also a ridiculously good camera. The Galaxy Nexus is still a fine point-and-shoot replacement, in my opinion. The camera seems better than any other Android device I’ve used. One nit is that while there is a method to go right into the camera from the lock screen (just like iOS 5 has), it’s too slow if the camera isn’t previously running. You’ll hit the camera button and watch as the Android main screen loads and then the camera apps loads. This feels like more of a macro than a feature.

And let’s talk about Ice Cream Sandwich. The artist also known as Android 4.0 is very solid. There is no question that the software is much improved over previous iterations in terms of speed, but mainly usability. I really like things like the multi-task tray and some of the new widgets.

Unfortunately, the system still lacks much of the fine polish that iOS users enjoy. The majority of Android users will probably think such criticism is bullshit, but that has always been the case. I imagine it’s probably hard for a Mercedes owner to describe to a Honda owner how attention to detail makes their driving experience better when both machines get them from point A to point B. As a Honda owner myself, I’m not sure I would buy it — I’d have to experience it to understand it, I imagine. And most Android lovers are not going to spend enough time with iOS to fully appreciate the differences.

Still, if the Android team ever wants to convert (or at least convince) most iOS users, they still have quite a bit of work to do here. Then again, they probably don’t (or shouldn’t) care too much about converting iOS users over to Android. All the non-smartphone users out there remain the much bigger prize to go after (for both Google and Apple).

Other things that will sound like nits but drove me crazy with ICS included the constant focusing on text fields only to have to click again to get the keyboard to pop up. If I’m in a text field, I clearly want to type something. Why should I have to click again? This doesn’t always happen, but it happens a lot — particularly in third-party apps.

Another: why is there a separate app for Messaging and Google+ Messenger? Apple baked iMessage into their SMS app, why didn’t Google? If they’re worried about anti-competitive concerns, why would they bundle all the Google+ stuff into ICS to begin with? Similarly, why do Gmail and Email continue to be two separate apps? And why on Earth is the web browser not Chrome yet!?

The new People app social unification is nice — I love the big pictures. But my god Google needs help with their duplication/merging detection. One of my friends has four separate entries — one for his phone number, one for his Gmail/Google+, one for Twitter, and one for another email. Several others had three different entries. Most had at least two. Also, Google provides an option to link your Facebook account in Accounts & sync, but it does nothing. I’m sure this is due to the Google/Facebook fracas, but why include something in your OS that is completely broken?

Ice Cream Sandwich’s voice command functionality is a joke compared to Siri — but that may be changing soon, we’ll see.

In his write-up, Jason noted that iOS is still far behind Android when it comes to notifications, I have to disagree. I find Android’s notification tray to be far less useful than it is on iOS. For example, if I get three new emails, with Android, I just see that I have three new emails all grouped together. With iOS I can see at least some of the context. Same with Tweets. The size of the alerts in this tray also isn’t uniform in Android, so Facebook alerts seem more important with their huge logo.

I do like the ability to “clear all” in Android’s notification tray though. The iOS micro clear button remains a joke that badly needs to be fixed.

When it comes to web browsers, arguably the most important feature on any of these devices, there is no question that iOS still has a big edge here. I’ve seen arguments on both sides for why one is faster than the other — most recently, data today favors iOS — but just doing a simple use case test, mobile Safari kicks the ass of Google’s don’t-call-it-Chrome mobile web browser across the board. Some pages still refuse to render correctly on Android’s browser. And the ones that do cannot seem to get the simplest feature right: double-tap to zoom. You do it on Android and there’s a good chance you could end up looking at the middle of a random paragraph.

You’ll also still see a bit of lag in ICS when you do seemingly simple things like this. It’s still not as smooth as it should be. For the most part, ICS fixes many of Android’s performance issues, but there are plenty of times that you’ll still see stutters here and there.

And then there are the apps.

To be fair to Google, Ice Cream Sandwich is currently only on the Galaxy Nexus and it still hasn’t even officially launched in the U.S. But there’s a lot of work to do here. One app that I had on my Nexus S constantly crashes now on the Galaxy Nexus. And rather than quietly closing in the background, I get a nice big Windows-style pop-up that it has stopped running. Many other apps look fairly bad on the larger screen simply because they’re not optimized for it — again, something a wider release of ICS will hopefully fix.

The main problem I have with Android apps on the Galaxy Nexus/ICS remains the ones that are also available on iOS. When the apps exist on both platforms, it’s easy to compare them and the iOS version almost always wins — and often by a landslide. Take the latest version of Twitter, for example. It was just updated to run on both. On iOS it’s smooth, on ICS, there is noticeable stutter when scrolling. It’s much worse on Facebook Messenger and Facebook itself — no big deal, only the biggest app on both platforms.

The reason for the app differences between the two platforms remains a hot topic of debate. Again, all I know is what I see: app to app, iOS still easily beats Android in most cases. One counter-example, which I talked about on stage at LeWeb last week, is SoundTracking. I actually think their app is better on Android. But that has less to do with performance, and more to do with the fact that it can access hooks that iOS doesn’t offer, like background Spotify integration. Android developers should focus more on these benefits of Android and less on making their apps exact ports of their iOS ones. Something always seems to get lost in translation — often badly lost.

Now it just sounds like I’m focusing on the negative. It’s important to emphasize the fact that the Galaxy Nexus is without a doubt the best phone I’ve ever used that’s not an iPhone. And there is no question that it does certain things better than an iPhone — namely all of the Google apps and any third-party background/OS integration beyond Twitter, which is now baked into iOS 5. Google has also managed to just about match Apple in app quantity. This is all good — competition is good.

The next step that Google needs to take (or to help third party developers take) involves around app quality. Put simply: they need to create better tools for developers to use in order to take advantage of the strengths ICS offers. This won’t happen in 6 months, but it can happen if Google works at it.

After that, it’s the intangibles where iOS holds the huge advantage. And just like in sports, it’s not clear how well you can “teach” those. At some point, Google may simply have to acknowledge that iOS looks and feels better than Android because Apple’s entire fabric is woven with design, tight integration, and attention to detail. Google’s strengths are elsewhere; they should embrace that.

Google has done some very nice work here. Both the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich are a new pinnacle of the Android platform. But in the end, it still comes down to something very simple: which device do I want to use day-to-day? Which phone do I reach for when I’m not doing a review? It’s still the iPhone. Without question.

Keep at it, Google.

“Six months from now you’ll say the opposite. Because ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume. And the volume is favored by the open approach that Google is taking.”

That was Google Chairman Eric Schmidt speaking at LeWeb a couple days ago. Specifically, he was addressing a question from the audience wondering why most big application developers are still choosing to develop for the iOS platform first instead of Android.

First of all, if you haven’t watched Schmidt’s entire talk with Loic Le Meur yet, you really should. They cover a range of topics important to both Google and the broader tech space. Plus, it will avoid the small situation that arose yesterday when Schmidt was misquoted, making him sound much more arrogant about the Android platform than he actually was.

While Schmidt was misquoted, the core of this latest debate around iOS and Android remains very much intact. Schmidt predicted that 6 months from now, most app developers will choose to make their app work on Android before iOS. This statement gives us an actual date that we can mark down to see if he’s right or not: June 6, 2012.

Of course, my stance is going to be that there’s no way he’s going to be right about that. Not a chance.

In fact, I’m not even sure he would say the same thing again if pressed. Because while the way he answered the question may have sounded reasonable, history has already given us plenty of guidance as to why he’ll be wrong.

The audience member who asked the question clearly did so because Android already is the dominant player in the space. And it has been for quite some time now. Schmidt brushes that fact (a fact which he so often states when it’s advantageous to an argument) aside completely and instead implies that the only reason developers aren’t rushing to Android is because the software hasn’t been good enough until now.

Of course, that goes against basically everything Google has been saying for the past couple of years. In that time, it was always been that Android was ahead of iOS when it came to software. Last year at Google I/O, for example, the knives were out for Apple’s platform. At one point, they showed Android 2.2 (Froyo) literally running laps around iOS.

So when Schmidt says: “It’s taken us a while to get software that really is capable of delivering on the promise that you’ve just articulated.” to the audience member, you have to wonder why then such a software comparison was a focal point of previous Google I/Os?

That’s not to say Android Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t good (I happen to be testing it out right now, and it is quite good — more on that in another column soon), it’s just that Google has consistently said the newest version of Android is the one that will blow the doors off the iOS house. It just hasn’t happened yet. And I see no reason why we should believe that the situation will be different this time.

Further, Schmidt goes on to imply that another reason why ICS will bring all the developers over to Android is that Google has now gotten better at working with their carrier and OEM partners to ensure the latest software is available to customers. “With the ICS release our core objective as a company is to get all of the hardware vendors onto that platform,” was his actual quote.

Yes, that has been a problem — a huge one. But again, I see no reason why it’s going to be solved here. At Google I/O this past summer, Google went on and on about their new “Android Update Initiative”. It sounded great. Google was going to get all the OEMs and carriers in line and make sure that Android updates came to all in a timely manner. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll figure it all out,” Android chief Android chief Andy Rubin said at the time.

That was seven months ago. Guess how much we’ve heard about the plan since then?

*Crickets*

Worse, just yesterday, Motorola — the hardware company Google is buying, mind you — took to their blog to dampen expectations about when their users may seen ICS on their wide variety of phones. They don’t come out and give a date, but putting two-and-two together, it sure sounds like it’s going to be many months at the earliest. Hell, they aren’t going to even finalize which devices they want to and can update until a month from now.

Here’s my favorite bit:

3. Submit the upgrade to the carriers for certification

This is the point in the process where the carrier’s lab qualifies and tests the upgrade. Each carrier has different requirements for phases 2 and 3. There may be a two-month preparation cycle to enter a carrier lab cycle of one to three months.

I’m starting to wonder if sure any Android device besides the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is going to have ICS by June 6, 2012. That doesn’t bode well for Schmdit’s prediction.

All that aside, let’s just think about what Schmidt is saying for a second. He’s saying that  developers are just months — and maybe even weeks — away from changing their current line of thinking. Are there some developers out there that do Android first right now? Sure. Has that number been growing? I think that’s fair to say (though I have no data to point to either way). But it’s also fair to say that the vast majority of the key mobile software developers are still focusing on iOS first. The audience member cited Flipboard, everyone else can probably rattle off a dozen big names.

Again, Android is already the biggest smartphone platform out there. And again, that has been the case for a long time now. So when Schmidt says “ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume”, Android should already be dominating in the race for getting the best apps. But they aren’t.

I’ve spoken to many mobile developers over the years about this issue. There are a few refrains, but they’re all largely the same.

First, many of them still seem to prefer to use iOS as their own primary device. The likelihood is greater that they’re going to develop for a platform they actually know and use.

Second, most developers are still unconvinced that you can make any meaningful amount of money trying to sell an Android app (Schmidt hit on this quickly in his remarks, saying that the Market is now better, but doesn’t really address the issue). Instapaper creator Marco Arment is going to put his money where his mouth is in this regard by offering to split the revenue with any developer who can make a decent Android port of his app and sell it in the Android Market. If he thought it would be a huge money maker, obviously he would do it himself.

Third, the Android Market is still no App Store when it comes to both distribution and discovery. Again, Schmidt sort of alluded to this being fixed, but it’s not yet clear if the changes made are actually working.

Fourth, if volume was all that mattered, everyone would still be developing for Symbian, as Anil Dash pointed out earlier. Or they might even still be focusing on Windows, as John Gruber pointed out yesterday.

Fifth, while eventually Android volume may be a boon to apps largely based around advertising, many app developers don’t want to move in this direction. Most still want to make something and get paid directly for it (imagine that) — see: argument number two.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Android development itself remains a huge pain in the ass. I hear this again, and again, and again — just as much today as I did two years ago. Android has what are widely considered to be vastly inferior development tools when it comes to making apps for Android versus what Apple gives you to make apps for iOS. Many refer to them as a joke. Or a nightmare. Or the bane of their existence. Or all of the above.

And you have to use them to ensure that your app will work on the huge number of devices in the Android ecosystem. Very few developers even bother to actually test on the majority of them, and it’s still a pain. It makes IE6-specific development look like a cakewalk.

I actually brought this up on stage with SoundTracking creator Steve Jang at LeWeb on Wednesday. They were at the conference to launch their Android app after finding some success going iOS first. When asked what the Android development process was like, he admitted it was long and painful. Pretty much every app developer going from iOS to Android will tell you the same thing — and if they don’t happen to be on stage, they’ll use many more expletives.

So you’ll forgive me if I laugh when Eric Schmidt says that by June of 2012, all of this is going to change. Suddenly, the Flipboards, Instapapers, Soundtrackings, Instagrams, etc, are going to launch on Android first. It’s like saying that by the middle of next year, the majority of all TVs are going to be running on the Google TV platform.

Oh, wait.

[image: flickr/LeWeb11]

In my home office sits a 27-inch iMac with a secondary 24-inch LED Cinema Display attached to it. It’s a glorious vision of screen real estate.

And yet, I dread using it.

First world problem? It’s perhaps the definition of the term. But it’s true. I’m sitting here on a couch adjacent to my desk because I’d rather type this post on my MacBook Air. To be completely honest, I’d rather be using my iPad right now. But I must admit, it doesn’t come anywhere close to cutting it when it comes to typing more than a few dozen words. So for now, the MacBook Air exists as the pinnacle of personal computing in my eyes.

And it appears that those eyes are about to widen a bit.

The rumors which started as a trickle have now become a full-on stream. Apple appears to be gearing up to release a new 15-inch model in their thin laptop line. As of right now, the current MacBook Air models end at 13 inches. For many people, that doesn’t seem to be enough.

Earlier today, I posted some quick thoughts about a possible 15-inch MacBook Air. Most of the responses were along the lines of “WANT!!!”. But why? It’s not like the difference between 13 and 15 inches will be that dramatic.

Instead, I believe it’s related to a continuing shift in computing. Whereas a decade ago, big, bulky desktops (towers, even) were the norm, today’s computing world is increasingly mobile. And it’s more than that. Computing is quickly moving in the direction of the machines themselves disappearing into the background, as Mathew Ingram highlights today on GigaOM.

It was a little over a year ago that I realized I would be ready to buy something like a MacBook Air. I noticed that I had never once used the optical drive in my MacBook Pro, it was just a giant waste of space and unwelcome bulk. My sense was right. I immediately replaced my Pro with an Air and haven’t looked back since.

But others have been hesitant to do so. Some worry about having less storage. Others worry about less potential RAM upgrades. Even more seem to worry about using a smaller screen. Of course, that argument is already more complicated than it may seem because the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 15-inch MacBook Pro actually offer the exact same screen resolutions (1440 x 900). Still, we’re in this weird transition moment where the previous era of expanding screen sizes is running headfirst into the era of shrinking computers.

Many likely view a 15-inch MacBook Air as a perfect compromise between the two worlds. It represents as many as 1920 x 1200 pixels (guesstimate based on the resolution of the 17-inch MacBook Pro — but might it be even more?) floating in your lap. Sure, there’s a computer attached to it, but it’s so light that you’ll barely notice it.

Remember when laptops were humongous? I recall having a 15.4-inch Dell that weighed just shy of 10 pounds and doubled as a thigh cooker. The battery lasted 2 hours if I turned the brightness down all the way and prayed. A 15-inch MacBook Air would probably be no more than 3.5 pounds — or a full two pounds lighter than a 15-inch MacBook Pro. The battery may last 9 hours.

Such a machine represents the opposite of being chained to a desk. You can take it anywhere for an extended period of time and still feel like you have a fully operation personal computer at your disposal. You don’t even think about it being a computer at that point, it’s just a big screen with a keyboard that gives you all the same abilities as that big, bulky machine on your desk.

It will lack multi-touch, but that’s clearly next. The iPad 3′s 2048 × 1536 resolution display should only drive that point home.

While the Apple may have kicked this transition into high gear, they’re hardly alone. When netbooks were surging in popularity, everyone focused on the price. But just as important was the portability factor. But the reality was the netbooks did not turn out to be worthy traditional computer replacements — MacBook Airs are. That’s why this year at CES, the PC industry is poised for a do-over with the “ultrabooks” — a name that sounds as if it was dreamt up by a completely unimaginative 12 year old.

The vast majority of those will probably fail, but the idea is the right one. Push forward into computing’s future by removing the computer as much as possible. That’s also the promise of the 15-inch MacBook Air.

What exactly is a PC? That question is likely to become a hot topic over the next few years.

Originally, we thought of PCs as the Apple II or then the IBM PC. They were machines that had to sit on a desk because, while significantly smaller than a mainframe, they were still big and bulky. They had large monitors, boxy bases, and big keyboards. The original Macintosh attempted to make this footprint a bit smaller and the package more compact, but the IBM clones won the day. Windows won the day. PCs by Compaq and HP led to machines by Gateway and Dell. Boxy bases were joined by massive towers. Bigger seemed better. Small monitors were replaced by huge monitors. Then something changed.

While laptops had existed in various forms for years, by the mid 2000s, the prices, performance, and size made them viable “desktop replacements”. They were different enough from traditional PCs that they had their own name, and people thought of them differently. But eventually, as they started to dominate the market, people just began thinking of laptops as PCs as well. They were, after all, personal computers.

Now we’re in the midst of another new age. People are now carrying around computers in their pockets, called smartphones. But those aren’t considered PCs. Instead, they’re considered descendants of the original mobile phones. The truth is that they’re closer in just about every way to a personal computer — in fact, they may be the most personal computers ever. But they look more like phones, so we consider them phones — even as people make fewer and fewer actual phone calls on them.

And now this line is being further blurred by the rise of the tablet. Cosmetically, it’s almost like a PC screen merged with a smartphone. People have still been very hesitant to call this a PC. That included Steve Jobs, whose iPad dominates the market. Jobs instead thought of the iPad (and the iPhone) as ushering in the “Post-PC” era. He did not want to lump his new devices together with the PC world he had long since lost.

But is that right? Again, if anything, these machines seem more personal than the personal computers of yesteryear. To some, we’re simply arguing cosmetics. The iPad isn’t a PC because it doesn’t look like a typical computer. Of course, neither did a laptop to most people back in the day. Others argue that since devices like the iPad can’t do quite as much as a traditional computer, it’s not a PC. But it’s silly to think that this won’t change over time. The lines will continue to blur.

That’s why I agree with British research firm Canalys’ decision to include tablet sales alongside PC sales in their new report. That’s going to piss some people off because the combination has them projecting that Apple will become the top PC vendor by the middle of next year. If their data is right, Apple will unseat HP to take the crown.

That statement is amazing when you consider that just 15 years ago, Apple nearly went out of business. And just 5 to 10 years ago, they still had single digit market share in the PC space. But that may have actually helped them pull off this stunning comeback. Because they didn’t have the baggage that other PC makers had, they were free to re-invent the wheel — the personal computer — with their iOS devices. Because Apple lost the PC battle to Windows in the 1990s, they may end up winning the personal computing war.

Again, not everyone will agree over this classification of the iPad as a PC. But the whole classification system is really nothing more than marketing (which Jobs also clearly knew). Who cares what the computer looks like or what category it falls in? What matters is what it does and who is using it.

Other numbers released today by eMarketer are staggering. By 2014, they believe there will be close to 100 million U.S. tablet users (the vast majority using an iPad). Meanwhile, HP reported their quarterly earnings today. The traditional PC numbers continue to fall. Things are bleak enough that HP had said they were going to sell off their PC business entirely (though they ultimately decided against that after a CEO change).

Things are crazier still when you look at the numbers from a bottom-line perspective. Apple is the juggernaut making far more profit than anyone else in the industry. We’re arguing semantics about the meaning of the term “PC”, but doesn’t this matter more? Shouldn’t the most successful PC vendor be aligned with the most successful company in the space? Otherwise, who cares who is winning the “PC War”? Great, some guys losing money sold more desktop PCs than Apple last quarter. Does that mean anything of any significance other than showing that the traditional PC business is a shitty one to be in right now?

One high profile person who does believe that tablets should be labeled at PCs? Steve Ballmer, as Nick Wingfield reminds us on Bits today. But Ballmer wants us to buy that so he has a justification for putting Windows on these machines. He doesn’t seem to realize and/or care that by helping to unify the personal computing space, he’s eroding his company’s own dominance.

Apple is set to become the top personal computer maker in the world. They’ll never win the desktop PC battle, but who cares? That fight hasn’t mattered for years.

Like everyone else in the tech world, I’ve been reading Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography. Simultaneously, I’ve been reading the reactions to it. The one that seems to stand out above all others amounts to: “wow, Steve Jobs was a jerk”. Those who have followed Apple closely throughout the years have heard dozens if not hundreds of stories of Jobs berating employees. Isaacson’s book brings a handful of these stories to the masses, and it’s rubbing some people the wrong way.

Here’s the thing: the tech world could probably use more jerks.

I’ve been thinking about this since reading Robert Scoble’s post a couple days ago entitled “Why I’m treating startups more critically lately“. Depending on who you ask, Scoble is a lot of things. But I don’t think anyone would call Scoble a jerk. In fact, most would probably say he has the opposite problem. He tends to puff up startups into thinking they’re the best thing in the world. (A social network for your Roomba to take pictures of food? Brilliant! Game-changing!” — Okay, I exaggerate. Slightly.) That’s great. For five minutes. After that, reality often sets in.

That’s why Scoble’s post was important. Even he’s starting to realize that being a “yes” man really isn’t all that helpful. What startups and tech companies need are doses of reality.

The truth is that it’s a hell of a lot easier to be a “yes” man than to be a jerk. You’re the nice guy, you’re everybody’s friend, you say winning things, you make everyone feel great. Meanwhile, the jerk makes every situation awkward. Both sides feel bad. It sucks.

But I’d argue that the latter is actually much more helpful. It sounds like Scoble would argue that now as well. And I think Steve Jobs would argue that as well.

Obviously, Jobs is an extreme. Some contend that he would say extremely harsh things to people just because he could, or because it was therapeutic against his own personal demons in some way. Other descriptions seem to border on the definition of a sociopath. But I also think his abrasiveness, whether a conscious on his part or not, provided something of value, at least in the workplace.

By saying something is “shit”, no matter how good it actually is, you force people to reexamine their work. The end result is usually better.

There are also stories of Jobs telling people that an idea is “shit” — and then coming back a few days later with the same idea. It seems that his default was to call something “shit”, maybe without even really thinking about it.

Is that helpful? Not on the surface, but the truth is that nothing is perfect. Something can always be made better. And people wrapped up in their own idea or product often lose perspective. They may believe what they’ve done is perfect — or at the very least, the best they can do. But it’s often not. They can do better. It’s all about motivation.

A “yes” man provides zero motivation. “What do you think?” “That’s awesome.” Great, done.

Meanwhile, the jerk tackles the same question. “What do you think?” “It’s shit.” Really? Oh. Hm. What can I do better?

Oddly enough, this reminds me of my early days at TechCrunch. I’d publish something and Mike Arrington would come over and tell me how badly I screwed up the story. The truth, as I only later found out, was that he probably didn’t even read it. Maybe he didn’t see it on Techmeme. Or maybe someone tweeted something negative about it. Or maybe the problem was that no one said anything at all. It didn’t matter. It was all about motivating people to do better. It certainly made me better at my job. As a writer covering the tech space, you’re often surrounded by sycophants. What you need is often the opposite motivation.

The same is true for startups. Especially now in this age of plentiful funding, there are a ton of “yes” men out there. The space would benefit from a few more jerks. Ideally, honest jerks, but any type of jerk should do. Let the public be the “yes” men after jagged rocks have been turned into polished stones.

The same is also true in the broader tech space. Apple is an outlier in that they’ve benefitted the past several years despite gathering little or no outside perspective before a product launch. But they didn’t need to. They had Jobs. “It’s shit” — until it’s ready to launch. It will be interesting to see how they handle the post-Jobs era in that regard.

Hopefully not like Google, a company famous for “dogfooding” their own products before launch. It’s “yes” men re-enforcing “yes” men. Google Wave was an awesome product according to internal tests. Same with Google Buzz — hell, I think they still use it internally. What would those products have evolved into if someone was there telling them they were “shit” every step of the way? Something better, I imagine.

Google+ has been largely positive for the company. Part of it may be because they brought in outside tech luminaries to consult on the product and give honest feedback as they built it. No, I don’t believe Steve Jobs was one of those, but I was told some time ago that an initial version of Google+ was more or less called “shit” by someone who saw it. That feedback was taken into account and the product that launched was something completely different.

Thinking about all of this, I also (again, oddly) found myself think of Manny Pacquiao’s fight against Juan Manuel Marquez this past weekend. By most accounts, Marquez was winning the fight going into the final round. Apparently, his corner even told him as much. He went on to play it safe and lost the last round. As a result, he lost fight itself in a split decision (which was still controversial).

Imagine if Marquez’s corner hadn’t told him he was winning? What if they told him he was fighting like “shit”? They would have been lying, but that’s not the important thing. Motivation is the important thing. Again, you can always do better. In this case, “better” may have well resulted in him winning the WBO welterweight title.

Marquez needed a jerk in his corner.

Earlier today, my colleague Matt Burns wrote a post noting that most tablet makers may be largely failing because they’ve sold their soul to Android and are now just in the middle of a spec war, which no one can win. I’m gonna go one step further in that line of thinking: the spec is dead.

There have been a few key stories from the past couple of weeks that highlight this new reality. Barnes & Noble unveiled the new Nook Tablet. Consumer Reports looked at the iPhone 4S. And the first reviews came in about the Kindle Fire.

On paper, the Nook Tablet is the Android-based reading tablet to buy. It has twice the RAM of the Kindle Fire, twice the built-in storage space, a better battery, and it’s lighter to boot. Yes, it’s $50 more expensive, but come on, the RAM difference alone is worth well more than that. Clearly, this is the better value for your money.

And yet, the Nook Tablet will not outsell the Kindle Fire. That’s the thing: “on paper” doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that the Kindle Fire comes with Amazon’s content ecosystem attached to it. Perhaps more importantly, it will be peddled like no other on the all-important Amazon.com homepage. The specs are secondary in this race at best. The reality is that they will be an afterthought. Or again, the Nook would win.

Next up, Consumer Reports’ take on the iPhone 4S. Hey, this time, they actually like it! And thank god, because as everyone saw the last time around, their damning report really hurt iPhone 4 sales — to the tune of all-time record sales of the device, leading Apple to their most profitable year ever.

More on that in a second. First, it’s important to note that while Consumer Reports liked the device, they didn’t like it as much as a few other Android devices. Why? Specs. Marco Arment ripped this apart last week already, but the thing reads like a bad joke. For example, they love the LG Thrill’s ability to capture stills and videos in 3D. This is one step short of knocking the iPhone 4S because it doesn’t have frickin’ laser beams mounted on the top of the device.

And such comparisons show just how clueless Consumer Reports has become. Last year, they milked “Antennagate” for the pageviews, not realizing that it could actually undermine their own credibility if the device still sold well. “Sold well” ended up being a major understatement. So in effect, they themselves highlighted that no one cares about Consumer Reports anymore. And why not? Because they Consumer Reports largely cares about specs. And consumers do not anymore.

The NPD Group just released their latest numbers. The number one selling smartphone last quarter was the iPhone 4. The over-a-year-old phone which Consumer Reports refused to endorse over a year ago, remember. Meanwhile, the number two phone for the quarter? The two-year-old iPhone 3GS. Does anyone really think that the LG Thrill is going to outsell the iPhone 4S this quarter? What about the Motorola Droid Bionic? Maybe the Samsung Galaxy S II?

Consumer Reports now matters just as much as specs do. Which is to say, not at all.

Finally, we have the Kindle Fire. This is likely to be the final nail in the coffin for the spec. By pretty much all accounts, this is a cheaply-built device. Spec-wise, it’s pretty ho-hum. But it’s a cheaply-built device that comes at a cheap price. That matters more — especially when paired with Amazon.com, as I previously mentioned.

The Kindle Fire outselling the Nook Tablet, even though the latter wins the spec argument, will be one thing. But if sales compete with the gold standard of tablets, the iPad, that will really be something. So far, no other tablet device has come close to remotely competing with the iPad. The Kindle Fire should. They’re clearly different devices — the iPad is a much larger form factor and a price that is more than double the Kindle Fire — but I have no doubt that for many people, the Kindle Fire will be a good enough tablet that they’ll at least wait on an iPad 3 (or iPad 2 HD, or whatever it will be called).

That’s a key thought: “good enough”. None of the initial reviews say that the Kindle Fire is better than the iPad — because it isn’t. It can’t match Apple’s product in either specs or polish. But it is $199 versus $499. That matters far more than any spec. You’re paying for something that’s perhaps half as good as the iPad, but it’s less than half of the cost. There’s at least perceived value there.

And “good enough” also speaks to where we’re at in the broader computing world. I used to get excited for Sunday inserts in the local paper so I could see what new machines were available at Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA. The only thing I cared about were the specs. Which Intel chip did it have? What was the clock speed? How much RAM? How big was the hard drive? How fast was the CD burner? How much cache? Those things mattered.

Then three things happened. First, computers kept going more mainstream — the above listed specs look like gibberish to most people. Second, the web took over and most computers quickly became more than fast enough for the majority of users. Specs became a thing that PC gamers cared about. This contributed to the rebirth of the Mac, because it was never much of a gaming machine throughout the years — especially in the PowerPC years when it was getting smoked by Intel chips (which Apple, of course, eventually adopted). And third, buoyed by the first two things, new platforms arose.

During the PC years, specs also mattered because there was one common dominant force in computing: Microsoft. Because Windows was everywhere, you could fairly reliably gauge the performance of one machine against another. But with the rise of the Mac and more importantly, smartphones and tablets, you can’t as easily stack machines up against one another performance-wise.

My MacBook Air doesn’t have the specs of a brand new HP PC laptop — but it still feels faster. Maybe it’s OS X, or maybe it’s the solid state drive. Point is, consumers don’t and shouldn’t care. They care about which machine will boot faster and which will be easier to navigate. Time to web matters.

And now connected ecosystems matter more than specs. This again helps Apple and Amazon. Does the machine seamlessly integrate with the iTunes ecosystem? Does it have access to the App Store? Can it access the Kindle Bookstore or Amazon’s streaming video service?

We’re starting to see backlash against reviews of products that just do spec-by-spec rundown. Because really, who cares how the device sounds on paper? It’s how it feels that matters. Is the Kindle Fire smooth? Is the Nook Tablet fast? Is the iPad a joy to use? Drew Breunig spoke to these things last week in a post entitled “Device Specs have Become Meaningless“. Dustin Curtis put this more succinctly in two tweets last night:

Electronics should always be reviewed from the user experience point of view, not the technology point of view… yet no one does that.—
dustin curtis (@dcurtis) November 14, 2011

The section headings for a Kindle Fire review should not be "battery, internals, screen;" they should be "reading, surfing the web," etc.—
dustin curtis (@dcurtis) November 14, 2011

I agree. Why base reviews around specs when specs don’t matter?

You could certainly argue that Apple is the company which has ushered in this post-spec era. They’ve flourished in recent years despite (and maybe because of) being cagey with most spec information on their newer devices. Does the iPhone 4S have 512 MB or RAM or 1 GB? Apple refuses to say. But who cares? It’s the fastest iPhone yet. (It’s 512 MB, for the record.)

Apple is more traditional with the Mac when it comes to specs (undoubtedly due to legacy), but they still mostly bury that information. Whereas PC sites often trumpet the processor and other specs on the main landing page for their products (HP laptops, for example), Apple instead focuses on natural language descriptions: “The new, faster Macbook Air”.

But the post-spec era works both ways. If the iPad specs don’t matter when going up against the Motorola Xoom, they also don’t matter when going up against the Kindle Fire. What matters is how the device performs, the ecosystem, and the price. In other words, the way you compete in computing now is to do so by focusing on things that human beings understand. On things that matter.

The year was 2008. I was at an event focused on mobile, sitting in on a roundtable discussion with several folks from key companies in the industry. One gentleman was from Adobe. The iPhone had launched the previous year, famously without any support for Flash. A lot of folks were up in arms about this — including several at this table. The guy from Adobe assured everyone: mobile Flash would be coming soon. And it was going to be wonderful. The notion that Apple wouldn’t include it on the iPhone because of performance issues was pure hogwash.

The same thing was said in 2009.

The same thing was said in 2010.

The same thing was still being said in 2011.

So you’ll forgive me when I snicker a bit at the news tonight that Adobe plans to cease development of their Flash player for mobile devices. Jason Perlow has the scoop for ZDNet, and it’s a doozy. Here’s the apparent forthcoming announcement from Adobe on the matter:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

This announcement, along with talk of a focus on HTML5, should be out in the next day or so, according to Perlow. Yes, Adobe is ending their efforts to get Flash onto mobile devices.

But again, that’s odd, since all we’ve heard out of the company for the past 3+ years was either how mobile Flash was coming, or how it was just about to be perfected. While it did finally come — in June 2010 for Android — it was far from perfect. That’s putting it nicely. Put less nicely, it sucked.

The technology on mobile devices was never ready for primetime. As Harry McCracken put it this past February: Mobile Flash: Always Exciting, Always Not Quite Here Yet. In that post, McCracken noted that Motorola was touting full Flash support as a big selling point of their then-new Xoom tablet. But there was an asterisk. Flash would not ship with the device itself. It would come later. It would always come later.

Things got really heated in April 2010, when Steve Jobs took to Apple’s website to write a missive against Flash. Simply titled, Thoughts on Flash, Jobs destroyed the technology in 1,700 or so words. Perhaps most damning were his thoughts on mobile Flash in particular. The key parts:

• “In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.”
• “Adobe publicly said that Flash would ship on a smartphone in early 2009, then the second half of 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we’re glad we didn’t hold our breath.”

This letter prompted an ill-advised advertising campaign (which they ran all over the web, even on TechCrunch) by Adobe in which they proclaimed: “We Love Apple”. It was transparent and lame. Worse, it was just about the weakest response possible. Adobe didn’t address any of the issues Jobs brought up. They tried to be cute. They brought an advertisement to a gun fight, as I noted at the time.

When pressed, Adobe would only call Jobs’ dismissing of Flash “a smokescreen“. And they would continue to promise that the technology would soon be perfected. Better, Adobe’s platform evangelist summed up his feelings with: “Go Screw Yourself Apple“.

It’s sad that Jobs is no longer with us to see this day. But the truth is that he probably didn’t need to see it — he knew he was right. In his post, he outlined the need for a move towards technologies like HTML5, and now that’s exactly where Adobe is heading.

Steve gets the last laugh.