» Samsung Electronics loses $12 billion in market value

Reuters:

Samsung Electronics Co lost $12 billion in market value on Friday, hit by brokerage downgrades that have underscored concerns about slowing sales of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone.

But… everyone wants bigger phones.

(Via Kontra.)

» HTC One ‘mini’

Don’t they know that all customers want larger screens?

I’m starting to see a pattern here.

» Meet Vesper

Vesper is a new note-taking app for the iPhone from the unholy trinity of John Gruber, Brent Simmons and Dave Wiskus. I’ve been beta-testing Vesper for a couple of weeks and it’s earned a coveted spot (I over-anthropomophize apps) on my home screen. Personally, I use it to capture and keep track of story ideas, tagging them by type or who I want to pitch them to. Federico Viticci sums Vesper up thusly:

Vesper is a solid app with a clear vision: it is an elegant and purposefully unspecific destination for thoughts. It’s not a diary, a reminder app, or a plain text-based todo manager – but it’s fast, nice-looking, and easy to use.

It’s not huge on features, but it’s great at what it wants to do: let you get notes down fast and keep them organized. Like Viticci, I would have liked to have seen an iPad version as well.

And, yes, I’m a friend or at least a tolerated acquaintance of all three gentlemen who worked on this app and have done “business” with at least one of them.

Nothing weird.

Or super weird.

OK, it was super weird. But I think it’s still legally considered “business” in Nevada.

You can get Vesper for $4.99 on the App Store.

» Kingdom Rush Frontiers HD hits the App Store

Looks like I picked the wrong week to… do anything else.

(Via Jason Kottke.)

» Staying Power

People interested in entering the fun-filled world of dog ownership might like my new piece in The Magazine. The article is accompanied by some terrific art by Christa Mrgan which you can acquire for your own self in t-shirt form.

» Paragraph 4: forget the premise of this piece

In this New York Times piece proclaiming “Samsung May Have Passed Apple in U.S.”, Brian X. Chen waits a little too long — paragraph 4 — for this petite caveat:

That may look like a milestone, but the report should be taken with a grain of salt. The survey doesn’t include Apple’s retail stores, where many iPhones are sold.

“Many.” It could actually be most. I’ve never been able to find numbers on that. It’s certainly a metric crapton. Way more than are needed to put Apple in the lead and make the headline completely false.

(Via Matthew Panzarino.)

» Estimating a population

Benedict Evans hypothesizes on how many Android users really care that it’s “open”.

  • Less than a tenth of Android users care that it’s open
  • The number of people who care that Android is open is about the same as the number of people who run Linux

Most of the usage data and app store data back up the idea that the enthusiasts are a relatively small portion of the population. And, as the government still won’t let us capture, tag and release Android users, we’re stuck with estimating.

» Samsung wins US import ban on certain iPhones and iPads

Adi Robertson for The Verge:

In a cease and desist order issued today, the International Trade Commission ordered Apple to stop importing AT&T models of the iPhone 4, the 3GS and 3G, the iPad 3G, and the iPad 2 3G into the US.

Newer models don’t use the technology in Samsung’s patent. Apple will, of course, appeal.

Amusingly, I got this error message on The Verge’s site when loading the story:

THERE WAS AN ERROR LOADING THE COMMENTS. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.

Umm, yeah, I think I won’t, thanks.

» Pump up the volume

Philip Elmer-Dewitt:

The way [Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty] sees it, if Apple lowers the cost of owning an iPhone, more people will buy them.

Well, pardon me for saying so, dur-hey. As long as you’re not First CityWide Change Bank and you actually make at least a small profit on each unit, you can always increase your profit with volume. The question is whether or not Apple can make and sell the volume Huberty models.

NOTE: An earlier version of this said “margin” instead of “profit”. Thanks to Keuril Smythe for pointing out my error as Huberty expects margins will be higher on a cheaper iPhone.

» Apple TV predictions

Just the other day I was wondering what happened to the rumor about an SDK for the Apple TV. That used to be a thing we talked about but I hadn’t heard much about it lately. Ben Thompson lights that fire again, predicting it’ll come next week with a revamped Apple TV controller.

I certainly don’t know, but I’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop for a couple of years now.