» I got yer platform right here
Horace Dediu puts some analysis behind those numbers he published over the weekend:
iPhone users are about three times more engaged in shopping with their devices than Android users. Two years ago the ratio was two to one.
Why Android users don’t use the “smart” part of their phones seems to be the question of the day, even on some political sites. Without any data, the most logical answer to me is that Android phones are pushed as free replacements for flip phones to people who are simply phone users. It’s hard for technology people to understand, but there are a lot of people who actually just want to make phone calls on their cell phones. As sick and depraved as that sounds.
Believe it or not, I know a guy in his 40s who still doesn’t have a cell phone of any kind (anecdotes!). And, no, he’s not Amish.
» Sponsor: Colugo
My thanks to Colugo for sponsoring the Very Nice Web Site RSS feed this week.
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Colugo is a simple solution to a simple organization and communication problem. Colugo doesn’t use gimmicks like other apps do. No “magic” albums or location based sharing or other features that may sound cool in theory, but when you actually use them you find they are not very useful (at best), and a privacy nightmare (at worst). Colugo is private photo sharing done right.
Want to share some of your photos publicly and others privately – in a single app?
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Tired of returning from a party and having to contact all your friends for pics?
With Colugo you won’t have to. Partygoers can take pictures directly into a party album you create and you all share.
» iOS dominates Black Friday mobile sales
Horace Dediu proves the graph.
iOS took 77 percent of mobile online sales while Android won with 21 percent, just one percent of which was from the Kindle.
Oh, and iOS sales grew more than Android from last year, despite Android growing market share by infinity.
» MOAR IPADZ
The Register reports that Barclays has bought 8,500 iPads (via TUAW):
The buy, made with dealer Insight UK, is believed to be one of the largest roll outs of the iPad or indeed any tablet in the UK finance sector, and signals the growing acceptance of the tab tech in corporate land.
Companies are surely eschewing the Surface RT and waiting for the Surface Pro, but those are going to be pricier than iPads and, well, still kinda sucky. I’m sure some, if not many, companies will deploy Surfaces, but I’m not terribly worried about the iPad’s place in the corporate world.
» Why can’t it be both?
Kontra:
One way to make sense of this situation is to declare the very notion of (software) patents archaic and indefensible in the 21st century. But what if the problem isn’t the fundamental notion or the general utility of patents, rather the inefficiencies in our legal system?
I don’t know much about patents, but I’m pretty sure it is both.
» Opting out of that PayPal user agreement
Remember, you have until December 1st to opt out of PayPal’s douchey “Agreement to Arbitrate”. Shawn King tells you how. Matt Drance suggests sending a separate notice for each account, which probably isn’t a bad idea.
» App Store scamming made simple
The Panic Blog:
1. Scammer makes an extremely simple iOS app and submits it to Apple.
2. Once it’s approved, they change the screenshots, Piggyback off a popular game!
Panic recommends an algorithm to track reviews that include the word “scam”. I fear that will get a lot of false positives. If you did buy “Mooncraft”, which turns out is an infant-level counting game, Apple also allows you to “Report a Problem” with a purchase.
Too bad. “Mooncraft” would be a cool game.
» MG Siegler’s Surface review
I don’t think anybody had any illusions as to how this was going to go but I’m sorry, I just can’t not link to it.
I could go on. And on. And on. But I’m around 2,500 words now and I realize that I’ve already lost most of you as I’ve just been dragging this device through the mud since I started. The point is, you can’t just have this many bugs, performance issues, and overall mindfuckery and still expect this to be a good device.
So, still feeling good about my personal decision to go with two iPad Minis instead of a Surface. I can see the appeal of the Surface for certain people in certain uses but I think iPads, as is typical of Apple products, are more appealing to a broader audience.
» Always bet on the two-headed baby
Jakob Nielsen (via Adrian Kingsley-Hughes):
The Roman god Janus; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; even Batman’s arch-foe Two-Face — human culture is fascinated by duality. We can now add Windows 8 to this list. The product shows two faces to the user: a tablet-oriented Start screen and a PC-oriented desktop screen.
Unfortunately, having two environments on a single device is a prescription for usability problems for several reasons…
Hey! I think I said that! Well, now it’s backed up by a usability expert. So there.
About one of the aspects of Windows 8 I thought interesting and would most like to see in iOS, Nielsen says:
Win8 does have an option to temporarily show a second area in a small part of the screen, but none of our test users were able to make this work.
Well, regardless, you should still follow Bret Arends advice and invest in Microsoft instead of Apple because Windows 8 is “a powerful competitive edge against existing tablets, such as the iPad, which run on more limited operating systems.”
Do people really feel more limited by using an operating system that makes it easier to do things, even if you can’t do all things?