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Author: Horace Dediu

Rumor: iAd App Store service on April 7th

Citing an unnamed executive familiar with the plans, MediaPost claims that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has been touting the upcoming service, rumored to launch April 7th, as “revolutionary” and “our next big thing” amongst his inner circle. No further details were reported.

via AppleInsider | Apple rumored to introduce iAd App Store service on April 7th.

On December 30th 2009, I wrote:

I think it’s a certainty that Apple will introduce an ad serving platform for the iPhone (and any tablet) in 2010. This will amount to a checkbox that developers will check when submitting their app to the store.

Google’s Advertising Rev-Share Deals With Carriers

Well, at least part of the answer appears to be that Google is sharing advertising revenues with carriers that use Android, according to multiple sources who are familiar with the deals.

via Android’s Secret Sauce? Google’s Advertising Rev-Share Deals With Carriers | mocoNews.

This must be why AT&T replaced Google search with Bing on its Android phone and gutted all Google services as well.

Who will be the iPad's Orson Welles?

Time’s Managing Editor: iPad Content Awaits ‘Its Orson Welles’ – Digits – WSJ

He compared it to the era after sound first came into motion pictures. For a while many movies were more like filmed plays, until directors really learned to take advantage of the opportunities of the medium. For the iPad, too, “the medium is waiting for its Orson Welles,” Stengel said.


Why Google is headed for trouble

Never mind the gossip and tales of intrigue. Ignore the stories of betrayal and affairs. Forget the animosity and ego tripping.

No, the real reason you should be nervous if you are betting on Google long term is that Schmidt gave his first iPhone away.

By August of 2007 it’s reported that “Schmidt had long ago given up on the Apple handset because he couldn’t stand the on-screen keyboard. His wife had tested a prototype, but didn’t care to keep it. Schmidt, we’re told, ended up giving his iPhone to [his mistress] as a gift”

Here is a guy who has in his hands one of the first iPhones and he treats it with contempt.

He did not get it.

Nor, it seems, does he get the iPad.

Google does not understand where computing is going.

I don’t mean this in a small way. I mean this in a big way.


Symbian Admob impressions grow 22% in a year

Smartphone impressions triple in a year « Asymco

Following up on the previous Admob numbers, it seems that Symbian impressions grew by 22% vs. overall growth of 43%.

In absolute terms, total impressions a year ago for Symbian reached about 1 billion vs. 1.22b in February.

Symbian’s share of requests therefore fell from 43% in February 2009 to 18% in February 2010.


Smartphone impressions triple in a year

link: Smartphone traffic is up 193% in a year – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Brainstorm Tech

What is important to observe is not the share numbers in the link above but the absolute growth and trend.

Doing a bit of algebra from the data Admob provided we can calculate that:

  1. The overall traffic admob handled was 14.1b up from 6.6b a year ago. (114% growth)
  2. Smartphones generated 6.78b impressions in February, up from 2.3b a year ago. (193% growth). The iPhone OS generated 3.4b impressions.
  3. Feature phones generated 4.9b, up from 3.5b (43% growth)

Although it’s dangerous to equate “usage” to these impression numbers, the overall trend is that most of the growth is happening on smartphones. Of those, the iPhone OS and Android are taking 75% share of eyeballs, at least on Admob’s network.

The iPhone platform generated as many impressions in February as all feature phones generated a year ago. It does not seem a stretch to predict that iPhone will overtake all feature phones in overall impressions in the near future.


Could the iPad become Apple's most popular product?

There were an estimated 228 million U.S. Web users in 2009, so if Apple was able to sell iPads to only one-third of those it would mean domestic sales of 76 million units.

Link: San Jose Business Journal

More interesting stats from Business Pulse survey by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal that was conducted between March 16 and March 23:

  • 9% plan to buy right away
  • 23% said they expect to buy but can wait (total of 32% plan on purchase)

Additional survey data from comScore:

    • 65% awareness
    • 1% of those aware already ordered the iPad
    • 15% of those aware plan to buy within 3 months

    Another from Sybase and conducted by Zogby International surveyed 2,443 adults with a mobile phone, 770 of which own smartphones. Among the smartphone-owning respondents, more than half — 52.3 percent — said they are most likely to use a tablet device like the iPad to do work

    AppleInsider | No. 1 planned use for Apple iPad: working on the go.