3IS4

Date: August 12, 2009 8:00:00 PM GMT-04:00

Subject: Best practices for mobile search engine optimization

Source: Mobile Marketer Homepage Feed

Webmasters and marketers need to take specific steps to prepare their sites for mobile Web users.

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Date: August 13, 2009 9:32:13 AM GMT-04:00

Subject: iPhone market share grew 375% in Q2

Source: Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0

Author: Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Source: Gartner August 2009

Sales of Nokia's (NOK) Symbian smartphones are drifting. Apple's (AAPL) iPhone is gaining on RIM's (RIMM) BlackBerry. Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Mobile is still sinking. And the launch of the Palm (PALM) Pre barely made a ripple in the gobal smartphone market.

Those were the headlines from the smartphone portion of Gartner's 2009 Q2 mobile phone report, which saw smartphone sales grow 27% even as overall mobile phone sales, feeling recessionary pressure, fell 6%.

In this context, Apple was the clear winner. Its iPhone sales, as Gartner counts them, grew more than 500% year to year, and its market share, as we figure it, grew 375%. (See chart below the fold.)

"Apple's expansion into a larger number of countries in the past year has produced a clear effect on sales volumes, as have the recent price adjustments on the 8GB 3G iPhone," according to Gartner's press release. "Apple brought its much-anticipated new device — the iPhone 3G S — to market at the end of the second quarter of 2009, but its full potential will only start to show in the sales figures in the second half of 2009."

Gartner made note of the declining market shares of Symbian and Windows Mobile, but it expressed particular concern about the Palm Pre.

"This device attracted a lot of media attention but showed mixed results at the cash register as sales only reached 205,000 units," said Gartner principal analyst Roberta Cozza. "Palm currently ranks tenth in the smartphone market and Gartner remains concerned about its ability to gain traction outside the US market, where its brand is less strong."

     

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Date: August 10, 2009 10:15:42 AM GMT-04:00

Subject: Sex-predator iPhone app is back in business

Source: Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0

Author: Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Map: ThinAir Wireless

Of all the applications that Apple (AAPL) has pulled from the iPhone App Store — and there have been quite a few — none were as creepy, sad or profitable as Offender Locator.

Launched in early June by ThinAir Wireless, a Houston-based GPS-tracking services company, in both free and $0.99 versions, it displayed the names, addresses, faces and criminal records of registered sex offenders living near you or anyone you know — or, using GPS data, near whatever street you happen to be driving down.

The app quickly moved into Apple’s Top 10 lists, where it caught the eye of the media — including the Washington Post and ABC News. On Thursday, Aug. 6, the $0.99 versiondisappeared from the App Store. By Sunday, Aug. 9, it was back.

Here’s what happened.

But first, a few words about the controversial application, which has almost as many critics as it has defenders. (Of the 9,209 reviews of Offender Locator Lite as of Monday morning, 3,181 gave it five stars and 2,471 gave it one, the lowest possible rating.)

Many have pointed out that under Megan’s Law, the same sex offender lists are available on Internet sites maintained by each state. In fact, most states sites give you far more information than Offender Locator provides. For example, the Sex Offender Inquiry System in Oregon, where I am vacationing this week, provides — in addition to the bare bones criminal records that the iPhone app displays — such details as the conditions and restrictions imposed by the court, the age and sex of the victims the offender is known to target, and his or her (although it’s almost always his) “methods of offending.”

Others have suggested that the app could be an invitation to stalk the stalkers — although opinion seems to be evenly divided whether this is a good thing or a bad.

ThinAir Wireless promotes its app as offering parents POM — peace of mind. “They know where you and your family are,” goes its promotional copy. “Now it’s time to turn the tables so that you know where they live and can make better decisions about where to allow your kids to play.”

There’s more than a whiff of fear-mongering there. And as several critics have noted, there are numerous discrepancies between Offender Locator’s data and the states’, raising questions about how often the information is updated or checked for accuracy.

And at least one critic has voiced what she admits is an unpopular opinion “that once a person has finished serving his or her sentence, the offender shouldn’t be further stigmatized.” In a post on NJ.com, from the very state where Megan Kanka was murdered, Maria Andreu writes:

“If sex offenders continue to pose a risk to the public, either don’t let them out or monitor them electronically, but don’t give everyone access to their home address. Leave that information in the hands of law enforcement, where it belongs.

“By making the information mobile, it cuts down whatever ‘thinking period’ there was between finding the information and possible acts of violence or harassment. With approximately 20 million iPhones sold, that’s a lot potential anti-sex offender ‘vigilantes.’” (link)

But it was not for fear of creating an army of iPhone wielding vigilantes that the app was pulled.

Neither Apple nor ThinAir Wireless has commented for the record, but the sticking point was apparently a California law that prohibits the unauthorized sale of personal information — even about ex-criminals.

How else to explain why Offender Defender disappeared from the App Store, but not Offender Defender Lite (which limits users to five searches per day and lists a maximum of 10 offenders per search)?

In any event, it took ThinAir Wireless about three days to find a work around and start making money again. It simply removed California’s data from the for-profit version.

By Sunday, Offender Locator was back on the iPhone App Store. By Monday it was the No. 8 bestselling app and No. 1 utility program.

Thanks to Seth Jordan and iPhone Savior for the tip.

     

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Date: August 5, 2009 6:27:32 AM GMT-04:00

Subject: Goodbye iPod, hello iPhone

Source: Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0

Author: Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Apple passed an important milestone last quarter that nobody on Wall Street seems to have noticed: the iPod, once Apple’s (AAPL) No. 1 source of revenue, fell into third place after the Mac (No. 1) and the iPhone (No. 2).

Think of Apple’s business model — as Steve Jobs often does — as a three-legged stool: Mac, iPod, iPhone. As recently as 2006, the iPod leg accounted for 55.5% of Apple’s revenue. By last quarter, its share had shrunk to less than 18%.

But this is a good thing, argues Bullish Cross‘ Andy Zaky, a day trader and occasional blogger whose estimates of Apple’s earnings regularly beat — by a long shot — the estimates published by professional analysts.

“Many Apple critics have argued that Apple would essentially fall off the earth because at some point in time the iPod’s growth would collapse,” says Zaky. “The second part is true.  The iPod growth rate has in fact fallen off a cliff as Apple posted its first yearly drop in iPod sales ever in Q3.”

“However,” he adds, “Apple is still firing on all cylinders thanks to the explosive growth of the iPhone.”

To make his point, Zaky has prepared three charts that pretty much say it all.

The first shows in percentage terms how much the iPod has contributed to Apple’s revenue stream since 2006 Q1. The spikes represent holiday sales seasons, when iPods are popular gifts, but the downward trend is clear.

The second chart shows the rapid growth of iPhone revenue as reported quarterly using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). This caveat is necessary because Apple spreads revenue from iPhone sales over the life of a 2-year contract. If you use non-GAAP numbers, revenue from the iPhone last quarter was considerably higher: $2.9 billion, according to Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer.

Zaky’s third chart puts it all together. It shows the relative height of the three legs in terms of their contribution to Apple’s quarterly revenue. As you can see, the iPhone passed the iPod for the first time in 2009 Q3. The Mac, however, is still the largest and most important leg of Apple’s three-legged stool.

Zaky predicted all this back in January in a long post that warned (incorrectly, as it turns out) of the “downfall of Apple,” in part because the iPhone appeared to be cannibalizing iPod sales.

“The Phone itself has acted as a destructive double-edged sword regarding the appearance of Apple’s financial health. On the one hand, the handset market is significantly larger than that of the MP3 market. And so it makes a whole lot of sense for Apple to have entered that market… On the other hand, it would be incredibly naive for one to believe that iPhone sales aren’t cannibalizing iPod sales to some degree. While not everyone who is in the market for an iPhone is in the market for an MP3 player, iPhone purchasers who are in both markets have little need to own both an iPod and an iPhone.

“The main problem with the iPhone cannibalizing iPod sales is that it makes iPod unit sales growth appear significantly weaker than it actually is. The iPhone is basically an iPod with a phone. One who decides to buy an iPhone over an iPod touch is essentially buying an iPod. Yet, analysts, traders and the media don’t portray it that way. Instead, the financial community tends to view any apparent weakness in iPod unit sales growth as being attributed exclusively to either market saturation or weakness in the consumer.

“Yet, if one were to combine iPod and iPhone sales, he or she would get a drastically different picture regarding iPod unit growth…” (link)

     

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