Horace Dediu makes an interesting point in this piece by Bloomberg:

“The narrative has been focused on the consumer demand, and the narrative needs to shift to the operator,” said Dediu, a former in-house analyst for Nokia Oyj. (NOK1V) “Apple has run out of the kinds of operators that will say yes to them.”

Also, I find this kind of loose wording Bloomberg uses leads to the fallacious idea that sales of iPhones are falling:

As Cupertino, California-based Apple sells fewer iPhones and more of its less-profitable products, its gross margin also has narrowed — to 37.5 percent last quarter from 47.4 percent a year earlier.

What they mean is proportionally fewer. As Benedict Evans notes:

Fascinating how many people think Apple’s iPhone sales are falling. That this is wrong is a matter of maths, not opinion

The growth in iPhone sales has started falling and if Apple has tapped out its viable markets it might start considering lower-cost iPhones to penetrate further. Evans again:

The commonality in phones that collectively outsell Apple isn’t features, screen size, ‘cloud’ or ‘openness’. It’s that they’re much cheaper

I understand nerds like this kind of thing. I wouldn’t know.

Wonder why they’re publishing this today. Is something coming out this weekend or something? Huh. Well, whatever. Back to my sporting events.

JP Morgan’s Gokul Hariharan and Mark Moskowitz as quoted by 9to5Mac:

Currently Samsung dominates this segment ($200-500 price range) with 35+ percent market share. … We believe Apple could take 20-25 percent of this market in the next 12 months (from almost no market share currently), if it prices a lower-priced product at $350-400 levels.

I certainly don’t see why Apple would suddenly jump down to the low-margin end of the market. The iPad mini provides an example of why they wouldn’t, shouldn’t and don’t have to. If they do ship a cheaper iPhone, I look forward to being told how they blew it, either by pricing it too low or too high.

Abdel Ibrahim looks back at Apple’s stock movements and sees a pattern: Apple’s stock drops by about half and then it goes back up again. It may or may not be starting another rebound right now, but his moral is:

In fact, the entire point of showing you these charts is not to give you some Jim Cramer buy signal. It’s to tell you to ignore the bullshit headlines that seem to be flooding the internet and newspapers. They come from analysts. Analysts with agendas to either inflate the price of a stock they own or deflate the price of a stock they want.

Over at Macworld, I talk about the current set of Apple rumors compared to rumors of yore. But don’t fret! I also come with a message of hope!

The Verge reports that Path is spamming peoples contacts.

Digital marketer Stephen Kenwright downloaded the app earlier this week, tried it out, uninstalled it, and went to bed. When he woke up, he found that Path had gone on a rogue mission early in the morning, texting and robocalling an unknown number of his contacts, including his grandparents.

Which prompts Richard Dunlop-Walters to quite correctly note:

Stop using Path, idiots.

Well said.

If you want to close your Path account, here’s what I did:

1. Unlink Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook accounts in the app (thanks to James Mitchell for this tip as I had never linked those accounts in the first place).
2. Sign out from the app.
3. Go to the Path web site and log in.
4. Go to Settings and scroll to the bottom.
5. Click Deactivate.
6. Learn to trust all over again.

It’s that easy. Well, except for step 6.

On the latest edition of The Talk Show, John Gruber and I talk about Apple’s quarterly results and how many days Tim Cook has left.

Brian S. Hall on Apple and Samsung’s latest ads:

But I suspect the biggest difference between the two will remain just as it has been revealed in their latest commercials: Apple will remain focused emotional appeal, a less is more approach, and on what the product means to you. Samsung will stay focused on adding new features, increasing old specs, and promoting what their product can do for you.

And Microsoft will continue to jump up and down on the diving board yelling “Look at me! Mom! Mom! Mom! MOMMMMM! LOOK AT MEEEEE!”