Will Apple Get 48% of All U.S. Mobile Advertising by End of 2010?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs predicts the Apple iAd network will get 48 percent of spending on mobile advertising in the United States from July through December of 2010.

That's a stunning prediction, given that total U.S. mobile advertising for 2010 is estimated to be about $593 million. Apple has about six months to get that done, starting from zero. Well, not zero.

Apple says it already has gotten commitments for about $60 milliion from  Nissan, Citi, Unilever, AT&T, Chanel, GE, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, Geico, Campbells, Sears, JC Penny, Target, Best Buy, Direct TV, TBS, and Disney.

Apple iPhone 4: All that Metal Includes the Antenna

Which means signal reception is going to be affected by the way the user holds the device, though possibly less so than in the older design.

That's a lot of metal, with fairly good spatial dispersion for the antenna element. So in a weak signal area, reception might improve, for voice, when the speakerphone is activated and the user is "hands free."

Apple Demo Crashes: 570 Wi-Fi Networks Live in the Room

Sign of the times: Apple demo crashes. Attendees told to shut everything off. Why? "There are 570 Wi-Fi base stations operating in this room...That’s why our demo crashed.”

But the iPad updates are pretty amazing. About two million iPads were sold in the first 59 days (one every 3 seconds).

Some 35 million apps have been downloaded, about 17 per iPad.

Five of six biggest book publishers say the share of iPad e-books is 22 percent of all ebook sales in the first eight weeks.

There’s now more than 225,000 applications in the App Store and there have been five billion downloads.

About 15,000 apps are submitted every week, and 95 percent are approved in seven days.

AT&T Appears to Allow Some iPhone 3GS Users to Upgrade to iPhone 4 Without ETF

AT&T says it has adjusted eligibility requirements for at least some iPhone owners, allowing them to upgrade to the version 4 model without being slammed with an early termination penalty.

It is not clear to me that "every" iPhone customer will be able to do so. One of the iPhones on my account was replaced in November 2009 and it still appears that the upgrade date remains November 2011.

With some exceptions such as this, it appears AT&T wants to avoid negative reaction from most iPhone users who have gotten their 3GS devices and have had them a year or so.

Last year, AT&T likewise allowed some, perhaps most, iPhone 3G users to upgrade to the newer iPhone 3G S at the same discounted price as new subscribers. The move followed customer criticism about having to pay a $200 fee to upgrade to the iPhone 3G S before their two-year contract was over. Now AT&T is getting ahead of the crowd to make sure recent customers will see the same heavily-subsidized iPhone pricing as new and out-of-contract users.

iPad Gets 22% of E-Book Reader Market in Several Months on Market

Steve Jobs says Apple's iPad already has gotten 22 percent market share of e-book readers. Not too shabby for a product that allows users to read e-books as a feature, not as the primary device function.

Is Microsoft About to Fall Behind in Tablets AND Mobile Phones?

Goldman Sachs analysts caution that Microsoft is at risk of falling behind the iPad in the same way that the company fell behind the iPhone.

"Given iPad’s success, tablet PCs dominate many investor conversations, as it has created the potential of a fourth consumption device (PC, phone, TV and now tablet)," writes Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar.

Microsoft seems to believe the tablet is simply another form factor for the PC. Apple perhaps doesn't agree, and maybe doesn't have to worry about which view is correct. If all Apple can do is make the absolute-best tablet PC, then it wins. If it uncovers the fourth media device, and executes, it also wins, and maybe wins even bigger.

But it is hard to see how Apple can lose, at this point. The bigger question is whether anybody else can win, and if they can, how big they can win.

As Ballmer shrugs off the iPad, Microsoft risks another late start:

Google TV: Still the Business of the Future?

There's no telling what Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, might bring up today at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. He might announce something that would make Apple TV more than a hobby, which is how Apple formally characterizes it.


But that hasn't stopped Google from launching Google TV, its own effort to meld "the best of TV and the best of the web in one seamless experience." Google  TV builds on Google Chrome to allow users to access all of their favorite websites and easily move between television and the web.

Google TV will use an SDK and web APIs for TV so developers can build richer applications and distribute them through Android Market.

Google is working together with Sony, Logitech and Intel to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale in the fall of 2010, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide.

"The TV industry is eventually going to be severely disrupted by the Internet, and eventually, I hope that I'll be able to get everything I want to watch online," says Dan Frommer, Business Insider deputy editor. "But it's going to take longer than it should, because TV companies are still fairly insulated -- especially as Comcast buys NBC -- and can protect their legacy business models for a while longer."

link