Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: Android is “Clearly” Winning the Mobile Wars::

Google chairman Eric Schmidt, well known for being outspoken on all manner of tech issues, especially where Apple is concerned, sat down to an interview with Bloomberg recently. As usual, Schmidt had a lot to say – including that Android is clearly winning the mobile platform war!

Bloomberg:

Booming demand for Android-based smartphones is helping Google add share at the expense of other software providers, Schmidt said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. Android snared 72 percent of the market in the third quarter, while Apple had 14 percent, according to Gartner Inc. Customers are activating more than 1.3 million Android devices a day, Schmidt said.

“This is a huge platform change; this is of the scale of 20 years ago — Microsoft versus Apple,” he said. “We’re winning that war pretty clearly now.”

The core strategy is to make a bigger pie. We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.”

Schmidt’s comments aren’t entirely without merit, of course – Android has certainly seem tremendous growth since it first launch (arguably as a result of completely redesigning Android for touch devices when the iPhone was announced). But that doesn’t make a clear win – and it leaves out some very important factors, such as the fact that Apple produces a grand total of 5 devices (three iPads, and 2 iPhones), compared to the hundreds of devices running Android.

Android’s success also has much less to do with it being an “open platform” than it has to do with Android’s “we’ll sell to ANYBODY” licensing agreements with manufacturers. Schmidt also called Google+ a viable competitor to Facebook, which seems blatantly incorrect – Google+ still hasn’t taken off at anywhere near the level of other social platforms (500 million total users in a little over 14 months, versus Facebook’s one billion monthly active users).

iDownloadBlog also rightly points out that while Google has captured a great deal of global market share, Apple still controls the majority of mobile platform profits:

It’s nice to claim the world’s leading shipments, but then again the iPhone (along with the iPad in tablets) is still the world’s best-selling individual smartphone model which accounts for the vast majority of the mobile web traffic share.

More importantly, Apple owns the profits. In fact, if you ask people like Kantar, the iPhone in the US is beating Android to market share. Elsewhere, Apple’s handset is pretty much #1 in key usage statistics, the stuff like web share, e-commerce and so forth. 

Finally, it’s also worth noting that Apple is still developing their platform in many parts of the world, and the iPhone is available in fewer markets than Android. In the U.S., Android’s marketshare is much closer to Apple’s iOS.

The full hour-long interview can be viewed over at Bloomberg. What do you think? Is the war over? Has Android won? or is Schmidt just tooting his own horn?

Seven Missing Features in iTunes 11:

Apple released iTunes 11 to the masses today, and while it includes some great new features, we here at MacTrast thing they missed a few tricks – and they’ve also left out a few features from previous versions of iTunes! We’ve rounded up the top 7 features we think they missed!

1) iTunes Radio:

In previous versions of iTunes, Apple included a Radio tab in the left-hand sidebar, complete with a full collection of internet audio streams of all varieties. In iTunes 11, the Radio feature appears to be missing. While you can still stream audio if you have the stream URL, iTunes no longer provides a directory of presets. You can also no longer set up radio shortcuts, forcing you to track down the stream URL again every time you want to listen.

4) Cover Flow

 Remember Cover Flow? That slick way of viewing and flipping through your album art just like you were shuffling through a box of old vinyls? With iTunes 11, Cover Flow has gone the way of the Dodo. While some argue that it was time for Cover Flow to die, I still enjoyed it – and I can’t be the only one!

3) iTunes DJ:

For years, iTunes has included a feature called iTunes DJ, which allowed you to choose and play random songs while giving you a number of ways to control the actual play order. That feature has now been replaced by a new feature called “Up Next.” While Up Next is clever, it’s not quite the same as the iTunes DJ we’ve come to know and love.

5) Genius Sidebar

Apple’s default view in iTunes 11 has removed the useful left-hand side bar, which has been with iTunes for years, and makes it simple to quickly view connected devices and navigate through your media. Fortunately, you can get it back with a simple setting change – but what you can’t get back is the other right-hand sidebar, which was used to offer quick Genius recommendations based on the currently playing track. Some of those recommendations are now much harder to get at.

Will the right-hand sidebar be missed? I already miss it – and I’m sure others miss it as well.

2) Multiple Windows:

iTunes 11 is all about simplicity – much like the iPhone and iPad interface. But along with that comes a lessened ability to use iTunes like a power user, breaking various functions (like the App Store, listening to streaming radio, or iTunes Match) into their own separate windows while continuing to work in the main interface.

Being limited to just one window can feel crippling to those that were use to spreading things out in iTunes. Ah, the price we pay for simplicity

6. Gapless playback editor

The ability to play numerous songs back-to-back with no break in between has always been a landmark feature of iTunes – and it’s important for playing back live albums, or other albums that were ment to be played continuously, such as The Wall by Pink Floyd. While gapless playback itself works in iTunes 11, you can no longer tweak the gapless settings for your existing albums, which can disrupt the experience of listening to certain works of art the way they were meant to be heard!

7. Wishful Thinking

These next two features were never included in iTunes – but many think they should have been, and iTunes 11 would have provided a great opportunity to introduce them! I’ve lumped these both into  collective Missing Feature #7.

• 1) iBooks Reading / Previewing Ability

Sure, you can download a preview of an iBook to you iOS device, but how great would it be to be able to read a quick chapter of a book you’ve been reading on your iPad while you’re taking a break while working on a project on you Mac? Amazon has had a Kindle reader available for computers for quite awhile. I’m just saying it’s time for that to happen with iBooks.

• 2) Selective iOS Device Restores

One of my long-time gripes with the iTunes and iCloud restore processes for iOS devices is that it’s an “all or nothing” approach. You have to restore all of a device’s settings or content, or none at all. The ability to restore only settings (such as folders and home screen arrangement), or even select which settings or content you would or wouldn’t like to restore, would be extremely helpful. Setting a device up “new” just to waste time adjusting many of the  settings back the way you had them on a previous device is an obnoxious chore that I wouldn’t mind doing without.

All in all, I feel that iTunes 11 is a step forward – but I do fear that Apple has chosen to remove a fair bit of functionality in their never-ending quest for simplicity (or at least what they consider simplicity). Are there other features you’ve noticed are missing in iTune 11? Do you find the exclusion of any of these features to be bothersome – perhaps so much that you wish you’d never upgraded? Let us know in the comments!

And don’t worry – you can always downgrade to iTunes 10.7 if it really gets you down!

iPad Grabs 71% Share of Chinese Tablet Market::

The iPad is dominating the Chinese tablet market, according to new data from Chinese research firm Analysys International. Of 2.6 million tablets sold in China during Q3 2012, Apple’s iPad grabbed 71.42%, taking first place by a wide margin.

The Mac Observer:

The country’s home company Lenovo, which acquired IBM’s personal computing business in late 2004, came in a distant second place with 10.52 percent of the market for the quarter. Another Chinese company, Eben, took third with 3.61 percent, followed by Korean company Samsung and Taiwanese firms Acer and Asustek. A variety of other firms, including Google-owned Motorola Mobility, each secured less than 1 percent of the market.

Market share for what Analysys calls “business use tablets,” was significantly different. The iPad made no penetration in this market. The figures for this sector showed: Eben taking the top spot with 41.07%, followed by Samsung (19.66%), Asustek (9.17%), ViewSonic (4.37%), and Lenovo (3.89%).

The 2.6 million tablets sold in China during the third quarter reflected an 11.1% increase for the quarter, and 62.5% year-over-year.

7 Men Sentenced After Chinese Teen Sold His Kidney For an iPad::

According to Bangkok Post (via MacGasm), 7 men have now been sentenced for the crime by a Chinese court, after five of those men were reportedly charged in June of this year. The sentence is a result of a trial which began in August

Some of the First Apple Computer Photos Ever::

 

 Paul Terrell opened the Byte Shop in Mountain View, California in December of 1975. It was one of the first computer stores in the world, and did a lot to help popularize a business which just barely existed at the time. And it earned an even more legendary spot in tech history in 1976, when a couple of local proto-computer geeks tried to convince Terrell to sell the rudimentary PC they'd cobbled together.

Those geeks were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. They called their machine the Apple-1, and it was a do-it-yourself kit; any buyers would have to solder the necessary chips onto the circuit board themselves, then supply accoutrements such as a power supply, keyboard and display.

Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).

Terrell's deal helped turn Apple from a project into a company. Just as important, it steered Jobs and Woz in the direction of making gadgets which were unusually approachable. Apple kept that concept going with 1977's Apple II. It's still at it today.

I've written about Terrell before; here's an old post which is mostly him telling the Apple-1 story in greater detail. But he knocked my socks off recently when he used Facebook to share some photos of the first Apple-1 from his fifty-machine order, which he took in 1976, when there were very, very few Apple products in existence. They're Polaroids — which seems like the right sort of photos for them to be, somehow — and if you know of any earlier Apple photos which survive, I'm impressed. Here they are, with Paul Terrell's kind permission.

This is the naked-but-assembled Apple-1 with an uncased keyboard (the aesthetic kind of reminds me of the original iMac, with its see-through case):

Paul Terrell opened the Byte Shop in Mountain View, California in December of 1975. It was one of the first computer stores in the world, and did a lot to help popularize a business which just barely existed at the time. And it earned an even more legendary spot in tech history in 1976, when a couple of local proto-computer geeks tried to convince Terrell to sell the rudimentary PC they'd cobbled together.
Those geeks were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. They called their machine the Apple-1, and it was a do-it-yourself kit; any buyers would have to solder the necessary chips onto the circuit board themselves, then supply accoutrements such as a power supply, keyboard and display.
Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).
Terrell's deal helped turn Apple from a project into a company. Just as important, it steered Jobs and Woz in the direction of making gadgets which were unusually approachable. Apple kept that concept going with 1977's Apple II. It's still at it today.
I've written about Terrell before; here's an old post which is mostly him telling the Apple-1 story in greater detail. But he knocked my socks off recently when he used Facebook to share some photos of the first Apple-1 from his fifty-machine order, which he took in 1976, when there were very, very few Apple products in existence. They're Polaroids — which seems like the right sort of photos for them to be, somehow — and if you know of any earlier Apple photos which survive, I'm impressed. Here they are, with Paul Terrell's kind permission.
This is the naked-but-assembled Apple-1 with an uncased keyboard (the aesthetic kind of reminds me of the original iMac, with its see-through case):


Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/11/22/behold-some-of-the-first-apple-computer-photos-ever/#ixzz2DJyMund3

iPad mini Doesn’t Cannibalize Full-Size iPad Sales::

It’s better to take your money from one pocket and put it in another than it is to lose it completely. That would seem to be Apple’s motto, as the new iPad mini HAS to be cannibalizing sales of the full-size iPad right? Not as much as you’d think.

AllThingsD:

Prior to its launch, analysts and observers estimated the iPad mini’s cannibalization rate of iPad sales at between 10 percent and 20 percent, with some hazarding guesses of as high as 50 percent. And while those at the lower end of the spectrum might appear reasonable, consumer sentiment… …suggests they’re more than a bit high.

The survey, from Cowen And Co., shows that Apple’s “eating of their own” may turn out to be minor, if not downright miniscule.
Cown surveyed 1,225 adults in the United States, and 12% of respondents said they planned to purchase an iPad mini in the next 18 months. Of that group, 52% said they had never owned a tablet before. Going deeper, only 16.6% said they intended it as a replacement for another device, and of those, 29% said the device being replaced was an iPad. (13% intended to replace a Kindle Fire, and a whopping 42% intended to give the heave-ho to a Windows PC.)

“The iPad mini creates more demand than it cannibalizes,” Cowen analyst Matthew Hoffman explained. “Since 52 percent of the mini intenders in our sample did not own a tablet of any type, we see it successfully positioned as likely to penetrate new entry-tier segments. … Mini will no doubt take some iPad “4″ sales, but its low price also looks like an important tool to capture new consumers’ attention.”

These number show that few consumers are buying an iPad mini with the intention of using it as an iPad replacement. For many buyers, in fact, the mini wil be their first tablet. It looks like Apple isn’t drawing those who would have purchased a larger model iPad, but is indeed tapping into a fresh market of folks looking for a smaller version of the popular device.

 

Huge Skype Security Hole Allows Anyone to Hack Your Account With Only Your Email Address::

 A major security hole was discovered in Skype today, allowing accounts to easily be hijacked using the password recovery tool. The scariest part? Your email address is all that’s required to take full control over your account!

TheNextWeb has the details:

To exploit this flaw, all you need to know is your victim’s email address tied to their Skype account. To protect yourself, you would have to change your email address to one that nobody knows or could easily guess, but most likely Microsoft will get around to fixing the problem before that becomes necessary.
We reproduced the attack, step-by-step, and managed to access the Skype accounts of TNW writer (with permission) Josh Ong (as well as editor Matt Brian to verify again) with only their email addresses. Essentially, that email address is used to create a new account with your own email address tied to it. Then, minus a couple of key steps, you can use a password reset token to gain access to your target’s account.

Fortunately, Microsoft acted quickly be temporarily disabling password resets, and has now fixed the issue – but this should still be a wakeup call for users. Those who use Skype would be well advised to secure their accounts by changing their password.
Microsoft released an official statement clarifying that they have addressed the problem:

We have had reports of a new security vulnerability issue. As a precautionary step we have temporarily disabled password reset as we continue to investigate the issue further. We apologise for the inconvenience but user experience and safety is our first priority

Scary stuff!