During the iPad presentation, I was rather perplexed by Apple’s claim to be the largest mobile device company in the world. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one scratching his head, as Nokia itself, and even the Financial Times, is calling Apple out on its juggling with figures and definitions.
As I was following the numerous live text/photo streams of Apple’s event earlier this week, one claim in particular had me scratching my head. Steve Jobs claimed that Apple was now the largest mobile device company in the world; bigger than Sony, Samsung, and even Nokia. The catch here was that Apple had to include its laptop sales to get there.
In a post on Nokia’s company blog titled “A Fruit Confused?”, Nokia’s Mark Squires attempts to set the record straight. He says that Apple is not using a “generally accepted and stable definition of mobile devices” (i.e., one that doesn’t include laptops), and because of that, the comparison between the two companies isn’t fair. If you do use what is, according to him, that accepted definition, Nokia is still bigger than Apple: Nokia’s devices and services business brought in €8.18 billion from October through December, while Apple did €7.25 billion.
Squires then goes on to explain that if you were to use the “more common measure”, as he calls it, the difference is even clearer. “By that comparison, Nokia has been the largest mobile devices company in the world for a dozen consecutive years,” he writes.
“We all agree that size matters in business. It’s not everything, but it counts for a lot. It has allowed Nokia to spread mobile communications technology at ever more affordable prices to people in every corner of the world,” he continued, “As [Nokia’s CEO] said recently at CES, our devices ‘already have done more to improve lives at the base of society’s pyramid than perhaps any technology in history’. And I am proud of that, and I, like the rest of my colleagues don’t use the words ‘Connecting People’ lightly.”
Nokia and Apple are embroiled in a patent infringement war, so it’s no surprise to see the two going head to head like this in the media. At a presentation like the one Apple held earlier this week, you can obviously expect some tomfoolery with facts, but I have to admit adding in the laptop division was stretching it a bit for Apple. It gave them nice headlines, though, so I guess it was a success.
At the same time, Nokia shouldn’t whine. It’s all a little hypocritical, since Nokia is also a company, which inevitably means they lie, contort, and twist facts just as much as Apple or any other company does. It reeks a bit of… Envy. Nokia isn’t doing well in the high-end – although they still remain king of the lower and middle end, and looking at the various offerings in those segments from Samsung, LG, and others, Nokia has little to fear there.
Steve: “Whatever, I say what I want” (sounding like Eric Cartman from South Park)
I chuckled when I saw the redefinition of “Mobile Devices”. It’s like saying that OS X is the most used OS with a roman numeral on its name. Or that Opera is the browser with the largest market share based on Oslo. Both are true, but they kinda miss the point.
To be fair though, Jobs said in a clear way that his definition included laptops. To quote:
Edited 2010-01-29 23:26 UTC
It’s amazing now that due to the popularity of Apple’s products, everything they say and do either dissapoints or gets taken out of context.
Apple is treated like a celebrity, people are just waiting for them to say something, then take it out of context, and make fun of them. Many Tech sites are like TMZ nowadays… Oh my god! Did you hear what Apple said? And here is what Nokia said in response to that OH MY GOD, discuss…
Seriously, though, look at the quoted material before assumptions and accusations are made against a company. Apple’s come a long way this past decade. They didn’t ask for popularity, it just came to them.
Last time I checked, Apple was just the good’ol independent actor, now, it’s a hollywood star, and all the media outlets want a piece of it. The great thing is though, Apple still maintains a stand on their character.
I’m no fanboy, and I do not like some of their products, but I do respect them as a company, and I do enjoy my iPhone without Flash support!
Edited 2010-01-29 23:39 UTC
Respect Apple? Sheesh, that’s worse than respecting Microsoft or Disney.
Eh… I would respect a lion or a tiger too.
MS, Apple and other successful companies use cunning and at times deception combined with great marketing to obtain what they want: money and power. And all the share holders want them to succeed – just as I want the pharmaceutical companies I invest in to succeed.
What do you invest in? (Not directed at the person I am replying to, but people in general). If you invest in corporations, or even just keeping your money in a bank, you are supporting all kinds of cutthroats, thieves, liars, who will do whatever they can to remain in power (maintain power of you and your life in some way). These are the same corporations who spend more money lobbying our politicians to get what they want, to make MORE money and have MORE power while the little guy gets scr*wed. Lobbyists spend more money in this country than many third world nations GNPs… sick.
Apple sells niche products. There are other things that do what an iPod does, what an iPhone does, and what a Mac does. No one is stuck with any of those things. They stand in direct, fair competition with other devices, and they win because people think they’re better. I’m sure you don’t think they’re better. I’m sure you think everyone who buys one is an idiot and a sucker and secretly suffering terribly for making such an absurd choice. But none of that matters. What Jobs says to impress investors has no impact on product quality, and flashy, trendy advertising has no impact on customer satisfaction. Apple is not perfect, but they win in a fair fight, and that’s respectable.
Where does Microsoft win? Where there is no competition. Where hardware companies are eating the profit margin, if any, to compete for the rock-bottom entry level for people who barely know what they’re buying. Where IT purchases are an annual line item in an upgrade cycle where even thinking about changing any 20-year-old habits would just be an unacceptable inconvenience. Microsoft wins where it’s entrenched, where people are used to it, where completely outside factors make the decision before any meaningful competition has a chance to occur. And they’re chair-throwing sore winners about it too. Any time an innovative or successful new idea comes along that they wish they’d thought of, they pretend they did by announcing a future product that will do the same thing. You can say Apple steals ideas too, and I’m sure they do, but actually getting something to market that people prefer to buy is a whole different animal from suffocating creative upstarts with decades of strategic lies like that WiMo is almost ready and it’s going to be awesome. Microsoft is not respectable.
LEAVE APPLE ALONE!
*cough*
Boo, hoo, I feel so sorry for them. My heart fecking bleeds, in fact.
Since when does Apple’s marketing spew need to be taken out of context to make it laughable? Maybe you’ll try to tell us that the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK was taking statements “out of context” when they smacked Apple for false advertising (on multiple occasions).
Um, what? The “Switch” ads? The iPod commercials? The omnipresent iPhone TV ads? Or the painfully-stupid “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” campaign?
Speaking of that last one, does Apple even realize that portraying their users as smirking, pretentious faux-intellectuals is (while accurate) probably not the best marketing angle?
At least you didn’t make a WWE analogy (yet).
On that point, I agree: Apple has just as much character today as they have ever had, or are ever likely to have.
I agree with everything you wrote except this. If they can sell a computer to every aspiring pretentious faux-intellectual (being a real intellectual is far too hard), they’ll easily make enough money to buy a small continent.
Apple P/E: 18.74
Nokia P/E: 70.00
The cash Apple has on-hand can make a hostile take over, take all of their IP and auction off what they don’t want.
Dude, do you even understand what those P/E ratios listed are saying? Without proper context, P/E ratios are fairly meaningless.
Furthermore, Nokia has a market cap of over $50 billion, and fairly large assets. There is no way Apple has cash in hand for a buyout, not even close.
Apple said in October that they have $34 billion in cash. So if we assume that they didn’t suddenly lose $10 billion they can technically make a hostile takeover of Nokia, since they actually need only 50% of the shares. Of course, as you said, P/E is completely irrelevant to this.
Indeed. However a hostile take over is not an acquisition.
Nokia is too big of a fish, for apple to just swallow.
Only problem is neither US govt nor European govt will allow it
Apple doesn’t do big acquisitions. Never has and has no need to do in the foreseeable future.
Apple’s biggest acquisition was NeXT for $429 million.
Thanks genius. I worked at NeXT and Apple. I said it off-the-cuff to show if Apple wanted to part out Nokia it could and make a pretty penny doing it.
Obviously not in the finance department…. Especially hostile takeovers are so overly expensive for both parties, in the end there are only losers.
More likely candidates for takeovers are Motorola’s cell phone business and Palm, though I hardly believe Apple has any interest in them. Nokia OTOH…
Thanks genius. I worked at NeXT and Apple. I said it off-the-cuff to show if Apple wanted to part out Nokia it could and make a pretty penny doing it. [/q]Those P/E ratios are based on old data!
And Nokia has plenty of cash on hand as well, they would have more but they pay dividends and buy back stock.
2nd Hostile takeovers is always a bad deal for the acquirer and their shareholders.
Nokias biggest acquisition was Navteq for $8.1 billion in 2007.
What a load of Apple fanboy shit.
Let’s not forget that Nokia just started producing laptops too… Apple may have been at it a lot longer, but Nokia have been producing phones a lot longer than Apple..
While true, it’s still a flawed comparison. Unlike Apple, Nokia also aims at low cost markets.
Count shipped units instead of revenue and you’ll see Nokia dwarfs most other companies. Nokia’s 1100 series of phones alone sold twice as much as all iPods combined — making it the most successful electronic device of all time: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/12127 (very deserved, btw. I have one. It’s so sturdy, it’ll survive the apocalypse.)
Apple clearly spelled out what they defined as mobile devices, and, sure enough: not one of the devices Apple used in the comparison require you to sit down and plug it into the wall in order to use it (though, granted, typing on a laptop while standing up isn’t easy, but it IS portable and can be used on your lap readily enough, hence the name) and they also clearly stated the units they were measuring themselves against the other names compared against: revenue. Thus, Nokia and Sony, while almost certainly they have been selling a larger number of portable devices, due to the big differences in the fact that Apple doesn’t cater to the slim margin products, and Nokia absolutely does, for a huge portion of theirs, well, Apple’s claims are true, thus, Nokia really has nothing to say to them or about them that isn’t sour grapes: both companies are in it to win it, and both have chosen their strategies that they’re (presumably) happy with, so they’ve made their own beds.
Besides, it’s always entertaining to watch tech titans brawl, isn’t it???
Apparently the reality distortion field finally got the best of Steve Jobs…
You alos have to think.Look at what Nokia is complaining about. Just on numbers alone . Apple has shipped far less than Nokia yet are very close to Nokia’s number. Had Apple sold more doing the same thing they have always done they could handily make far more than Nokia. In that respect hey are the biggest mobile devices because they can make more revenue with less sales than most of the carriers mentioned, including Nokia. Nokia wishes it had that problem.
While that is not a justification for Apple fudging the numbers, Steve did say mobile devices and had clear pictures on the screen as to what he meant. Either way Nokia is going to look ratehr silly when they compare charts of Apple revenue vs. theirs and see the number of shipped units and how close Apple is to Nokia’s revenue with far less units sold.
It really comes down to how you define things. First, Nokia has sold more devices. So in that regard, Nokia is bigger. Apple is making more money, but how much of the money is from software/media or non mobile devices? So Nokia could actually be making more from hardware than Apple. Lastly, we have hard assets. Stock doesn’t really mean crap as it could crash tomorrow and be worth nothing. Hard cash on hand is in Apple’s favor. However, Nokia owns patents on most of the wireless tech in existence. And when the court case is over, Apple is eventually going to have to pay up for ALL the phones it has sold with a license. Remember, Apple can only buy Nokia if they can get more than 50% of the stock. If current owners refuse to sell, Apple can’t buy it. Plus, a merger would be shot down by the FTC as it would create a monopoly.
Well, that’s an interesting statement:
What monopoly would be created?
While Nokia sells lots of cell phones by pure volume, they are far from a monopoly in cell phones, period: there are many meaningful competitors, and most of their phones are the rather low-end inexpensive ones: the ones that will sell far more due to being affordable for a larger population.
Apple sells a decent number of iPhones, but they are hardly the largest seller of those, at least not nearly enough to be a monopoly of smart phones, of which Nokia also isn’t nearly close enough in this end of the market.
Sure, Apple makes computers and iPods and the Apple TV and a certain amount of software, but Apple’s share of the computer market, the OS market, and living room market in the form of Apple TV isn’t remotely close to achieving anything close to a monopoly in any of those areas, even if added to what Nokia makes: there’s no potential for monopoly even if you merged them.
All that being said: Nokia is a low-margin company, compared to Apple, and Apple simply isn’t interested in such a business model. If Apple were to acquire Nokia, it seems most logical they’d divest of most of the low-end products to whomever had the money to buy it off them, and do the whole thing purely for the sake of owning patents that won’t cause issues. But, really: are those patents worth THAT much long-term? A lot of them are becoming dubious in value as 4G comes online anyway.
Nokia has some 4G patents, although not a leader
http://www.abiresearch.com/press/1545-Qualcomm+Takes+Lead+as+4G+Pat…
I think Apple buying Nokia would create a monopoly in the smart phone business. I could be wrong, but I can’t see the EU or the FTC allowing it. Its better by far for the consumer to have them competing. As for a buy out, it would really depend on who owns 51% of Nokia. A hostile takeover only works if you can actually get 51% of the stock. It would be like trying to buy out MIcrosoft. Bill Gates still owns 51% so he is THE deciding vote.
There are two things I want to say about that. First, from what I have seen this week, Nokia makes more money that Apple.
Second, Apple has much higher margins. But if you look at this from another angle (the consumer angle), this means that compared to Nokia, Apple overcharges its product. Of course, you could turn this around and say people are happy to pay more for Apple products because they have higher quality, but remember that Apple products, specially their computer products, contain the exactly same components as anyone elses. And their products break as often as anyone else [in fact, Sony, Toshiba and ASUS are better according to a report we saw a few months back].
So Apple fans are basically defending Apple for selling them overpriced stuff, and they are proud of it…
Steve Jobs cranking up reality distortion fields is to be expected at these events isn’t it??
Anyway, laptops and mp3 players are also clearly mobile devices. The fact that Nokia felt it necessary to call Apple out shows how insecure they are feeling.
Anyone surprised by this Apple claim obviously hasn’t been paying attention to anything Apple has said over the last 15 years. Bloody, hell. Apple used the words “Rip, mix, burn” as if it were the first to think of it. Its just marketing.
OK, now I know Thom isn’t from a native English speaking country and neither are Nokia, so I suppose we need to give some leeway because something may be lost in the translation, but seeing as though the laptop market is often referred to as the mobile computing market – emphasis here on the word “mobile” – surely Apple have every right to count laptops in their “mobile device” list? Don’t people buy laptops specifically because they want something that is mobile?
Or have I missed something? Is there no such thing as a mobile computing market any more? Or are only certain types of devices allowed to be counted in that market? Maybe only ones made my Nokia?
Laptops have never been included in the mobile devices category. Sure, it’s arbitrary, but that’s just the way it is. Kind of like when you want to analyse the pen market, you don’t include crayons or pencils.
So laptops aren’t mobile devices? What are they then?
A laptop is a device designed to run on a battery and be moved around. Just like a MP3 player and a cell phone. Why shouldn’t they be considered mobile devices?
MP3 players and cell phone are hand held devices, laptops are not (iPad enters a grey area here), but all are mobile devices.
If the “definition” doesn’t include laptops, it is wrong in my view.
Because by that definition, we should include cars as well. They run on a battery and can be moved around. There we have it: Toyota is larger than Sony, Nokia, and Apple combined.
The thing here is that traditionally, laptops are not included in the definition, and the reasons for that are obvious: is a laptop closer to a computer, or to a cell phone?
And another inappropriate car analogy comes out! YAY!
Seriously: by the same logic you’re using, the earth is mobile, because it moves in terms of rotating while also orbiting the sun, which also is moving throughout the galaxy, which is then, at the next level of scale, moving throughout the universe!
“Mobile” in practical relation to humans means: something *A* human can carry reasonably enough without assistance, and isn’t location-dependent in any meaningful way, say, by needing to be plugged in. As such, a car of any type that can be transportation for one or more humans fails, but a bicycle can still qualify. Now, if we knew true giants, they just might consider a human-sized automobile…. a mobile device they can carry around, as a toy, like humans might also consider toy cars, because we can throw them in a bag, a box, or a pocket, or something reasonable to transport them, or just in a hand or two. So, while the word “automobile” in english denotes it’s self-mobile, it still isn’t a truly… mobile device by a human. Of course, no doubt you’ll conclude I’m splitting hairs.
Just because Nokia wants to be overly restrictive in their definition of “Mobile electronic devices” does not make their rant valid against Apple stating their definition of the various devices they spelled out: this is purely a case of Nokia splitting hairs like you are, which only results in intellectual split-ends that are often best to cut off.
You’re turning it around here. It’s Apple whowants to be overly loose, just so they can make another nice PR claim. Which is fine – that’s what companies do – but that doesn’t make it right.
Mobile devices have been defined they way they have for a long time, and Nokia is right in pointing that out. I’m wondering if all the Apple fanatics, such as yourself, would’ve been arguing in favour of including laptops if it had helped Nokia become the largest mobile device maker instead of Apple. I’m pretty sure you’d all be arguing against including laptops.
You don’t just change a definition willy-nilly to suit your PR purposes. Sure, a laptop is mobile, but arguing that a 17″ MacBook Pro belongs in the same product category as an iPhone or Nokia 3310 “just because it’s mobile” is idiotic, at best.
Edited 2010-01-30 09:35 UTC
So you do admit a laptop is mobile, but we can’t consider it to be a mobile device, because it’s not a cell phone?
The “category” discussed here is “mobile devices”. Steve mentioned a number of mobile device subcategories, including camcorders. He wasn’t comparing a laptop to a cell phone.
Mobile devices is a very broad and general category. If it’s a device and it’s mobile you can fit it in here. Apple makes a number of these devices so why can’t that say they’re a big player in that department?
You’re trying to disprove Steve/Apple’s claim not by fact, but by some semi-official definition.
You’re being pedantic. Laptops are general purpose computers. Portable, yes, but general purpose computers.
Mobile devices are special purpose computers, they represent a subset of what general purpose computers do. That’s why the analysts and media segment them as such.
As someone who reads a considerable amount of tech media, as well as works with analyst reports from companies like NPD, I have never seen laptops categorized as mobile devices until Jobs decided to have his way.
If Nokia turned around and claimed sell among the highest number of computers in the world, would you accept that as valid simply because a mobile phone comprises a CPU, memory and an OS? Because, you know, technically they’d be right.
Hadn’t even thought of that. Brilliant argument.
So an iPhone isn’t a mobile device either, as they are closer to general purpose than to special purpose and a mobile device isn’t a device that is mobile, but it’s a device that has a single purpose. Wicked.
Again, that’s not only pedantic, it’s not even an accurate interpretation of what I said. First of all, I never said that a mobile device had a single purpose, I said it was a special purpose device compared to a generic PC, representing a subset of the functionality you can achieve with a PC. Second, I never said the iPhone was closer to a PC than being a mobile phone.
If you’re going to really drag this out, then use this simple acid test: would the iPhone be an acceptable replacement for a laptop for the majority of laptop users? Would a laptop with an GSM card be an acceptable replacement for an iPhone for the majority of iPhone users? I think a reasonable person would answer no, because they are different types of products.
I’ll admit the lines are blurring, but we’re hardly at the point where we can consider a mobile phone to be the equivalent of a laptop. Would you categorize an iPad or iPhone to be the equivalent of a flat panel TV? They’re both capable of displaying video, and higher end TVs are starting to come with built in web-browsing etc., but they aim at entirely different markets due to their entirely different primary purposes.
The fact that they have some overlap in functionality doesn’t make them functionally equivalent overall.
You really think otherwise?
My problem isn’t with the functions of the device.
This all started with Steve saying Apple makes a lot of mobile devices, in fact most stuff they sell is mobile and he included MacBooks. Apparently Nokia disagrees and Thom too (but he hates Apple despite buying an iPhone).
The only argument I’ve read here against a laptop being considered a mobile device is not that it’s not a device or not mobile, but that some sort of unofficial definition of “mobile devices” doesn’t include laptops.
To me “mobile devices” is a very general and broad term and I think you can include anything within this term when it’s device and it’s mobile.
Now within this broad term you have categories like handhelds, palm tops, netbook, laptops, PDA’s, etc…
I’m not comparing a laptop with a cell phone, calling a cell phone a computer or pretending an iPhone is a laptop. What I am claiming is that Steve was right when he said laptops are mobile devices.
Why should a laptop not be considered a mobile device? A laptop is even intended to be mobile, that’s the whole purpose of it. If you’d never move it you might as well pay less and get higher specced hardware for a desktop computer.
The thing is, there are mobile devices, and then there are Mobile Devices.
For years, when the phrase “Mobile Device” has been used in the media, or by analysts such as Gartner, IDC or NPD, it has generally referred to a category of handheld computing devices, almost always PDAs and Smart/semi-Smart phones.
Laptops, and now netbooks, have always been categorized as PCs when referring to any discussion of the technology market.
It’s not like the phrase “Mobile Device” is trademarked or enforced by an international standard that specifies the exact criteria; rather, it’s a phrase that over time and in general usage has come to refer to a specific type of computing device that does not fall under the PC category.
Right, that’s your interpretation and it’s not that it’s wrong, technically it’s correct, it’s just that it doesn’t fall within the generally accepted “Mobile Devices” category that is most often referred to.
Right, a laptop is a mobile device, not a “Mobile Device”. Laptops are designed for casual portability, nothing compared to the mobility of standard hand-held devices. Being able to easily move your system from room to room, or office to conference room, or city to city, is the primary convenience of a laptop.
A Mobile Device would be primarily concerned with ultra-portability and constant availability, with the design considerations and sacrifices that would require compared to a standard laptop, which is comparatively less “portable”.
I understand where you’re coming from, but the issue is that Mobile Device is a category that is essentially accepted to refer to a specific type of device, and laptops have never been in that category. Whereas a mobile device would simply be any device that can be mobile. Programmable calculators, network test equipment, handheld wireless barcode scanners are also examples of mobile computing equipment, but you would not be likely to see them included in the same category of Mobile Device used to describe smart phones, PDAs, media players etc.
Now, having said all that, the definitions are not concrete and generally evolve overtime to adapt to changes in technology and the market, and certainly the mobile data market is in flux and advancing rapidly, but the terms also evolve through consensus by others in the media and related fields. It’s entirely possible, for instance, that if netbooks and smartbooks become even more ubiquitous, with always-on connectivity and more aligned with mobile service provider sales models, they may start being referred to under the Mobile Device category over time.
The real issue is the fact that Steve Jobs arbitrarily chose to “evolve” a generally accepted term for no other reason than to allow Apple to favorably meet that criteria. To get back to my previous example, Nokia sells considerably more digital music players than Apple sells with iPods and iPhones combined. Yet nobody would refer to Nokia being a leader in the digital music player market. Nor would Nokia be referred to as a world leader in the portable computer market despite the fact that they essentially sell portable computers. I’m sure their marketing team and spin doctors would love to be able to position the company that way, but nobody in the general public (media included) would buy into it.
We need to have consensus on some of these categorizations to keep the marketing people in check. And let’s face it, Steve Jobs is a marketing person. A brilliantly effective and high profile one, but a marketing person none the less.
I understand what you are saying and in general I agree.
But I (and Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_device) think it’s wrong to exclude laptops.
When you say “mobile devices” you are presenting a description, a broad and general one. Excluding stuff that fits this description is just plain confusing. Perhaps not for analysts, but surely for the general public (who Steve was addressing).
If you really want to exclude laptops you can say “small mobile devices” or “handheld mobile devices”. People can understand this doesn’t include laptops.
I think it would have been really odd if Steve said Apple sold a lot of mobile devices AND laptops. Now he included laptops and nobody raised an eyebrow until Thom dug up Nokia’s response. No other sites I follow seem to have found it interesting enough to pick up.
The Financial Times did. Engadget did. And those are just the ones I remember. I’m sure Gizmodo handled it too. Heck, I found it via Google News’ main tech page.
Edited 2010-01-31 07:59 UTC
I was curious about a similar question: if lap-tops are now “mobile devices”, is there another vendor – like Acer or Dell or whoever – who’s sold more lap-tops than Apple has sold lap-tops and iPhones, and could therefore be the “largest supplier of mobile devices in the world?”
The great thing about standards is that there’s so many to choose from!
Nokia is bitching and whining because Apple didn’t use their perceived definition of “mobile devices” which you’re defending religiously: I’m pointing out the simple fact of the matter that Apple clearly defined their definition of “mobile devices” as though they’d handed you a glossary with their definition, and proceeded to state what was what using that. In no manner was what Apple did remotely incorrect: it was merely different.
You only argue your point to argue your point and be heard, and it has nothing to do with logic of reality of valid word use, and then you go and accuse me of being a fanatic, when I’m merely arguing that you’re being overly sensational just to prove you’re “right” about something that’s… whining from one big company about what their competitor has stated, stating it’s an invalid statement, when measured purely objectively with full context, is not. This whole article you posted is… of invalid reasoning, as much as your earlier posting about Apple calling the A4 their custom-designed processor, and arguing what “is” “is” ala Bill Clinton during the impeachment hearings, all while taking the word of a piss-poor alternate site as being the gospel truth.
Believe it or not (I don’t expect you will) I’d defend Microsoft, or even Nokia, just as strongly, if they were making sense, or Google, or Yahoo!: two of those named corps are competitors of a former employer of mine, one of those is a former employer of mine, and one of those may soon become the next employer of mine, and I’ll let you puzzle that statement out
No, cars move you around. Laptops, just like cell phone, can be picked up and used in any place you want to (within reason).
In the keynote Steve mentioned Sony’s camcorders, he mentioned his laptops. I think he made it quite clear what he considers mobile devices.
I consider a mobile device an electronic device that can be picked up, moved and used in different places, inside and outside. I think we can agree that a car doesn’t quite fit this definition.
If a laptop isn’t a mobile device, then what is it? Wasn’t the laptop born as a computer that wasn’t stuck to a desk?
You should judge if a device is mobile or not based on what it is, not on some unofficial definition that mobile devices may not be laptops.
Regarding the pen example, you’re saying: analyze the mobile writing tools market, but only count pens.
Mobile: able to move or be moved freely or easily
Electronic: having or operating with the aid of many small components, esp. microchips and transistors, that control and direct an electric current
Device: a thing made or adapted for a particular purpose, esp. a mechanical or electronic; implement, gadget, utensil, tool, appliance, apparatus, instrument, machine, mechanism, contrivance, contraption; informal gizmo, widget, doohickey.
So, by definition, a laptop, which is an apparatus that uses microchips and transistors to direct electric current and can be easily and freely moved, is a mobile electronic device. It’s totally irrelevant what class you or Nokia want to put it in, or the rest of the world for that matter, by DEFINITION it fits the bill so there is absolutely no reason why it can’t be used in Apple’s figures.
Is it a marketing ploy? Absolutely. Nobody is debating that, well I’m certainly not. Is it another reality distortion field? Yep, that too, but we live in a world full of them – for example not classifying something in a category that by definition it fits creates a reality distortion field. In which case it could be argued that Apple haven’t created a reality distortion field here but rather taken a laptop and squashed one, because it all depends on who creates the “reality” to begin with doesn’t it.
And if you had approached this from a different angle, maybe indicating another manufacturer of “doohickeys” that could fall into Apple’s mobile electronic device definition – for example my LED torch could be loosely classed as such – who by Apple’s measurements are bigger than them, THEN you would have had a valid argument. But as is your standard approach you instantly jumped on the bandwagon of anyone who hits out at Apple even though the argument was totally irrelevant.
Your ability to get it wrong never ceases to amaze me. A “pen” is a type of writing implement, just like a laptop is a type of mobile electronic device. If you were analysing the pen market you wouldn’t include crayons or pencils, but by your definition you also wouldn’t include them if you were analysing the “writing implement” market…
“mobile devices” has a commonly understood meaning that it does not included laptops. You can’t just re-define stuff at will but I guess it would be ok with all the Apple Zombies if Nokia re-defined audio player to only include Nokia phones and then claim to be the largest manufacturer of audio players?
“mobile devices” has a commonly understood meaning that it does not included laptops. You can’t just re-define stuff at will but I guess it would be ok with all the Apple Zombies if Nokia re-defined audio player to only include Nokia phones and then claim to be the largest manufacturer of audio players?
Firstly, I don’t believe that for a minute. A mass producer of cheap-to-middlin’ mobile phones doesn’t in any way fit in with iSteve’s image of himself or his company.
Secondly, if iSteve, for some strange reason, actually SHOULD buy Nokia, I would stop using KDE immediately. QT in the hands of Apple – that’s an awful thought
Thirdly, market cap is not very useful when comparing companies. It was an enormous market cap that made it possible for AOL to buy Time Warner – one of the most disastrous take-overs of the last 20 years.
QT has always been in the hands of Apple. It is their primary multimedia framework.
I think he means Qt, that is the toolkit, not QT.
And I think anda_skoa knew that and just wanted to make a joke.
Indeed.
In the context of Apple it was just too good to let that uncommented
So you never print on Linux/Unix? Apple bought CUPS three years ago. Has it ever harmed Linux?
Nokia isn’t doing well in the high-end – although they still remain king of the lower and middle end, and looking at the various offerings in those segments from Samsung, LG, and others, Nokia has little to fear there.
Indeed, Nokia hasn’t really been the king on high-end lately, but personally I think they have good chances of raising their position there right now.
I’ve been eyeing the Nokia N900 for a while now and plan to get one myself; it’s a really awesome, powerful phone, it has been designed from top to bottom to make it easy and fast to multi-task, modify your phone to suit your needs, and install both free and non-free applications with ease. All the videos I’ve seen about it, everything I’ve read about it really makes it look like an awesome phone.
Though, Nokia has learned alot while developing N810 and the N900 and they are already pressing forward with the next Maemo version. And that’s where I think they’ll really start to really reel customers in. N900 is the first phone with Maemo platform and it has certain short-comings, like f.ex. no multi-touch. For me it is perfect, but for general public it’ll probably still feel slightly lacking, so I see it as a development step.
Ah well, now that I think about it, this might be slightly off-topic. Just wanted to say that I do feel they’ve got a bright-looking future ahead of them and might really start to push back on high-end mobile phone market.
N900 does not really suffer from not having multi-touch at all. I’m happy with the “finger rotate” zoom on N900 – pinch-to-zoom may make for a nice demo, but I don’t think the ergonomics of doing that are really that much better than the alternatives.
N900 is not lacking as far as the UI goes (it’s actually very appealing, not “raw” in the sense N810 and earlier Maemo devices were), but it’s still a young platform and hence does not have tons of third party applications, apart from the open source ones.
Qt is really turning a new leaf for Nokia. I’m horribly biased (as a Nokia employee), but it provides 5x better coding efficiency than the old Symbian C++ approach (or Gtk+), without sacrificing raw performance. Basically, Nokia is going to have superior technology stack when compared against Apple and Google, and this will certainly pay off.
Speaking of Qt and the n900, when is the 4.6 goodness coming? I’ve seen quite a few videos of development stuff.
I am loving my N900, sold a Motorola Cliq to get it. It’s full of awesome. Especially being able to use apt-get on it.
Sure it’s missing a few features, as I’ve always said, it’s more of a computer, with some phone things thrown in as an afterthought.
But the fact that it’s a totally open platform is actually making me want to learn programming so I can develop for it.
Most of the people I work with have iPhones, and I haven’t really seen any redeeming qualities that the iPhone OS has. Still makes me wonder why they didn’t just make a Mac OS X tablet, instead of making a Huge iPod. But then again, with such an uninspiring name like iPad, what did we expect?
You can already use all the goodness by installing the 4.6 beta. It installs next to the default Qt, so it won’t break Mail for Exchange ;-).
Next official platform update will probably have 4.6 replace the old 4.5.3, but you can start developing with it already.
Yeah, and being able to ssh to the device and use gdb, strace, dbus-monitor… We are dealing with a real computer in the phone form factor.
iPhone OS is Apple’s own nice locked down turf, I’m sure driving more users and developers there is financially more useful to them than the actual sales figures.
The good thing about iPad is that it probably will make the tablet form factor popular, and we’ll see tons of cheap, open variations on the theme coming out from Asia soon. Something you can slap Maemo, Moblin or Ubuntu on…
Not that I would care, I am an administrator for a proper email server (Postfix / Courier!) I hate exchange.
Ha, yeah, I could ssh from the Cliq (Android) but running gdb, strace, dbus-monitor, a compiler, actual firefox, a task manager that doesn’t suck, etc is extremely awesome.
The n900 is just awesome. I think it’s only fault in comparison to Android and iPhone OS is actually what makes it strong is well, and that’s it’s completely open source nature.
Some apps just aren’t quite there yet, but it’s new (Maemo 5) and the community for it rocks!
I’ll have to play round with Qt 4.6 soon. I already spend too much time at work playing with my phone…
MfE is essential for reading company email, typically.
You can ssh TO n900, not just from. I.E you don’t need to run the shell commands on the x terminal on the phone.
ahhahahah!!!
steve jobs…
ahahahahha!!!!
NINTENDO DS:
more than 125.13 million units sold
more than 20 billion $ revenue so far…
NINTENDO GBA:
more than 81.49 million units sold
more than 12 billion $ revenue
NINTENDO GAMEBOY:
more than 118.69 million units sold
more than 16 billion $ revenue
apple fanboys will never get games like zelda or mario on their “mobile divices”…LOL!!!!!
ps:
hp slate is more useful than ipad,ipad is only a bigger iphone…
and for sure in few months there will be more powerful slates from other brands.