Apple Won't Issue a Recall of iPhone 4

Nobody outside the top ranks of Apple knows precisely what the company plans to do July 16 when it addresses the iPhone 4 signal reception issue. The Wall Street Journal reports that a product recall, however, will not be among the options.


Despite the embarassement, the company doesn't need to do that. There is no safety or product defect here, and Apple engineers knew of the potential issues "as early as a year ago," the Wall Street Journal reports.

Perhaps Apple will offer free "bumpers" to buyers, which aside from protecting the phone will fix the signal fade problem. It just isn't the "crisis" that crisis management professionals insist it is.

Apple's brand will survive intact, and people will not stop buying iPhones, period.

Do not Neutralize Search Innovation, Google Argues

Google has responded to growing European Community scrutiny of Google's search algorithms in a Financial Times opinion piece. Google is right, as far as the opinion piece goes.

Algorithms embody rules that decide which information is “best”, and how to measure it, and search competitors ought to be free to sort in different ways.

Clearly defining which of any product or service is best is subjective. "Yet in our view, the notion of 'search neutrality' threatens innovation, competition and, fundamentally, your ability as a user to improve how you find information," Google VP Marissa Meyer says.

Ironically, Google does not take the same view where it comes to other partners in the Internet ecosystem, though. Fighting to retain or gain as much advantage as possible within the ecosystem is normal. The irony is that the "freedom for me, regulation for thee" stance can backfire. EC regulators might decide it is Google that requires regulation, not other participants in the value chain.

In all likelihood, the whole ecosystem would be better off with a "lighter touch" that lets clever developers and entrepreneurs, and the consumer response to new products, sort most of these issues out, most of the time.

FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Do not neutralise the web’s endless search

Stimulus? Really?

Stringing along workers with temporary federal freebies isn’t a sustainable enterprise, and Department of Education adviser Maura Policelli admits as much when she says taking the cash “does involve the possible risk of investing in staff that you may not be able to retain in the 2011-12 school year."

Temporary spending that allows state government to avoid inevitable hard choices a year later is not investment or stimulus, despite the nonsense we keep hearing in certain quarters.

Is it ‘stimulus’ if you hire, then fire a year later? | Face the State

Google Faces More Regulatory Pressure

Google might need regulation, the New York Times seems to suggest.

Google argues that its behavior is kept in check by competitors like Yahoo or Bing. But "a case is building for some sort of oversight of the gatekeeper of the Internet," the Times writes.

In the past few months, Google has come under investigation by antitrust regulators in Europe, for example.

In the United States, Google said it expects antitrust regulators to scrutinize its $700 million purchase of the flight information software firm ITA, with which it plans to enter the online travel search market occupied by Expedia, Orbitz, Bing and others.

Not all software companies are used to such scrutiny by regulators. But Microsoft is. Apple also has come into the spotlight as well, of late. "Freedom for me, regulation for thee" doesn't always work.

Editorial - The Google Algorithm - NYTimes.com

HTC Seems to Be Taking Motorola Android Share

The latest survey of smartphone demand by Changewave Research suggests HTC is taking Android device share from Motorola.

The change seems to have occurred about March 2010.

BlackBerry Satisfaction Plummets, Changewave Finds

Though end user satisfaction with the iPhone has remained fairly constant over the last year, Research in Motion BlackBerry devices seem to have suffered a dramatic decline in satisfaction, dropping from a high of about 55 percent in January 2008 to June 2010, Changewave Research reports.

A reasonable observer would suggest this portends some trouble for RIM, the reception issues with the new iPhone 4 notwithstanding.

Apple iPhone Demand Seen Exploding

ChangeWave's latest smart phone survey of 4,028 consumers shows an "explosive transformation" occurring in consumer demand, suggesting some major new mobile handset winners and losers for second half 2010.

Changewave says its latest survey shows the strongest interest in smartphones ever recorded in a Changewave survey. But there's a significant change within that demand pattern: Apple and HTC devices are getting strong demand at the expense of Motorola and Research in Motion.

The future buying plans suggest coming huge moves upward for Apple and HTC, with a whopping 52 percent of respondents who plan to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days saying they'll get an Apple iPhone.

It also appears that Android demand has shifted to HTC and away from Motorola.

Explosive Changes in Consumer Demand Shake Up Smart Phone Industry

Net Neutrality Issues for Google in Search?

Network neutrality proponents implicitly assume that the key bottleneck, in terms of innovation or competition, is to be found in the broadband access connection, and the way such connections are managed.

It now appears that antitrust regulators in Europe have begun to look at other potential bottlenecks, and search practices already are getting a look, the Financial Times reports. Google's purchase (or planned purchase, as there might be antitrust review) of ITA Software, a travel technology company, is not going to help.

Joaquin Almunia, Europe’s top competition official, already has hinted that European Community regulators are taking Google’s search power seriously. An informal review of search practices already is underway, and seems to be getting more pointed attention now, given the growing issues regulators now seem to be detecting in the mobile content space.

Google has powerful competitors who will not be shy about adding their concerns, and U.S. regulators have been paying more attention to both Google and Apple of late.

The point is that gatekeepers might exist at potentially multiple levels in the Internet business ecosystem, and raising the issue in one area seems to be raising issues in other areas as well.

FT.com / Media - Net neutrality comes back to haunt Google

Mobile App Stores Shorten Time to Market and Time to Payment

Mobile app stores have shortened "time to market" for mobile apps, especially compared to older distribution methods such as placement directly on mobile phones.

Mobile app stores also mean developers get paid faster, according to Telefonica.

iPhone 4 recall would cost $1.5 billion

A full product recall of the iPhone 4, though highly unlikely, would cost Apple $1.5 billion, or 3.5 percent of its total cash on hand, says Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Apple could issue a free rubber bumper case with each phone. Although Apple charges $29 at retail for the rubber cases, Bernstein estimates that giving them away to iPhone 4 customers would cost the company $1 per unit.

Analyst: iPhone 4 recall would cost $1.5 billion | Circuit Breaker - CNET News

Mobile Users 45% More Interested In Local Search

Perhaps it is intuitive, but users on mobile devices are 45 percent more likely to enter a local search query than users on non-mobile devices, according to data from online advertising network Chitika.

Chitika’s research division came to this conclusion after breaking down a sample of more than 24 million impressions.

Local search and mobile search do seem highly correlated.

Mobile Users 45% More Interested In Local than Non-Mobile – Chitika Research

Odds the iPhone 4 be Recalled

About 4:6 odds a full mechanical recall will be issued in 2010, oddsmaker says. Odds a full mechanical recall will not be issued by Apple in 2010 are 11:10.

Will the iPhone 4 be recalled? Betting from Paddy Power

Apple's iPad Is Going To Destroy The Netbook Market, Says Goldman Sachs

Whether you believe the tablet PC is a substitute for, or a complement to, a netbook, it does seem clear that a tablet's function is different.

The iPad is focused squarely on information consumption versus information production, analysts at Goldman Sachs note. A device that looks like “just a big screen” suggests what users should do with the device: consume information, with limited ability to manipulate it.

The lack of a physical keyboard suggests that the primary purpose of the device is not for inputting large amounts of information, but instead selecting among options, or performing light editing using a soft keyboard, the analysts suggest.

If that is the case, a key element of the experience will be relatively tight integration with content sources. 

I'm not so sure the netbook is destined by be replaced by tablet devices, though it seems obvious that if the reason lots of people carry netbooks or notebooks is simply to consume information and content, that will be the case.

For users who still have to "work" and create content, a tablet simply isn't going to be a viable choice.

Apple's iPad Is Going To Destroy The Netbook Market, Says Goldman (Sorry, Microsoft):

Apple Makes More Profit Than All the Rest of the Handset Industry

Since getting into the mobile handset business with its iPhone, Apple has blown away the whole rest of the handset industry in earnings (before interest and taxes), according to a new  analysis by Goldman Sachs analysts.

The other angle is that the rest of the suppliers have lost earnings momentum  precisely as Apple has grown.

At the moment, Apple likely accounts for about 58 percent of the mobile handset industry's annual earnings.

That's shocking, and a measure of Apple's new stature.

76% of Users Prefer Ad-Supported Apps to Paid

Users always have had a complicated relationship with advertising. If you ask them, they typically will say they "don't like ads."

But if you ask them whether they would like access to a desired type of content, for free or at vastly-reduced prices because of the presence of ads, they will tend to opt for the advertising.

That appears to be true for 76 percent of smartphone owners with web access, who say they would rather have access to ad-supported applications for no additional cost, rather than pay for them, Jiwire has found.

see the survey results here