Dan Nosowitz provides categorical proof.

(via Richard Dunlop-Walters)

Ryan Bateman:

Google stores your wifi password if you have an Android phone and sign into it. It stores it in Google’s servers.

This is useful if, as I do fairly regularly, you need to factory-reset a device or to purchase a new one…

…

But what I can’t help wondering is whether anyone at Google has thought to use this power for evil, and how that would work.

I can see how this would be a small convenience, but typing in my WiFi password when I reconfigure an iPhone or iPad isn’t a huge deal. I’ve let Google do this without realizing it on my Nexus 7, but I don’t really have any plans to wipe the unit and change my WiFi password.

I’m not saying Apple hasn’t or would never do anything questionable, but I am more comfortable with Apple bending the boundaries of these things because I’m their customer, not an advertiser. Yes, I bought the Nexus from Google, but at the $200 I paid last summer it’s clear I’m a commodity rather than a customer.

[Edit: I first edited this entry based on a Tweet by @HeuristicMethod who pointed out that Apple backups also store your WiFi password. But then Darren Rogers pointed out that’s just for local backups. Apple does not store WiFi passwords for iCloud backups. I had thought Apple didn’t store it for either because when you reset an iPhone, the first thing it does when it restarts is asks you for a WiFi password. But then I realized that’s before you apply a backup.]

Dan Moren and Lex Friedman for Macworld (Dan wrote the vowels and Lex wrote the consonants):

Through our own rigorous testing, we’ve managed to confirm that emails containing the phrase “barely legal teen” are simply never delivered to iCloud inboxes.

Shouldn’t the headline be “iCloud actually delivers some email”? Way to bury the lede, guys.

Also, I’m confused. These teens are still legal, right?

Ben Bajarin:

People say Apple is doomed, people say they have lost their “mojo” but those in the industry running actual fortune 500 companies disagree.

Apple is on the ropes, sliding down to irrelevancy because of lack of innovation. And yet any other company in the world would aspire to be Apple because it is incredibly well run and at the top of its game.

It’s complicated.

Or just stupid. Could be that.

CNet’s Casey Newton:

Speaking at the TED Conference today in Long Beach, Calif., Brin told the audience that smartphones are “emasculating.” “You’re standing around and just rubbing this featureless piece of glass,” he said.

Is there some sort of competition going on between Google executives to see who can say the dumbest, most tone deaf thing?

Alternate title for this post: “Those phones we make? They suck.”

You live long enough and you get to hear everything as Good Technologies reports:

This quarter’s report showed a clear preference for iOS devices, which accounted for 77 percent of all activations and captured eight of the top ten spots on the most popular device list this quarter.

I normally look askance at these things but Good is actually pretty widely used so it’s not a bad barometer.

And, because I’m a jerk, here’s some claim chowder from 2010 about how the Nexus One is “good” for the enterprise because it has Good (GET IT?) while the iPhone, which also has Good, is not because… er… Apple proprietary blahgiddy bloo blah.

I’m paraphrasing there but not by much.

Horace Dediu:

Apple’s P/E is now below that of Dell.

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Me writing for Macworld about how I better not see any of you damn punks talking up an “iWatch” while trash-talking Google Glass.

Rene Ritchie speculates on how Apple might release a cheaper iPhone.

If Apple sticks to their current pattern, there’ll be an iPhone 5S later this year, and the iPhone 5 will drop to $100 on-contract, the iPhone 4S will drop to free on-contract, and the iPhone 4 will be retired.

…

But Apple doesn’t always stick to their current patterns.

We’re not the only ones making this point, but on the panel I was on at Macworld Expo, I said the same thing Rene says: Apple isn’t going to do this if it can’t make money doing it.

Meanwhile, Dan Frommer speculates that maybe the cost of miniaturization means the cheap iPhone is a (new) big iPhone, not a small one.

I’m not sure I see Apple releasing a larger, heavier device just to make it cheaper. But, of course, it depends on how much larger and heavier. If I had to place a bet, I’d go with Apple leveraging the designs and components they’ve used to date, possibly mixing it up with an aluminum back on the iPhone 4 (something that was previously rumored) but keeping it 3.5 inches.

Which probably means it’s not going to be that at all.