Anglicans are the least angry religionists I know — which is what makes this post by Quentin so delicious!
Apple devices dominate mobile wi-fi access
Interesting Mashable report.
Mobile ad network JiWire just released the stats from its latest public Wi-Fi study and found that 56% of connections are from mobile devices like the iPhone, the iPod touch, Android smartphones and Sony’s PSP handheld gaming console.
JiWire serves ads through public Wi-Fi spots in places like airports, coffee shops and hotels. Last year it published another interesting stat: Just shy of 98% of mobile devices that connect to public Wi-Fi are made by Apple. The iPod touch and iPhone took 55.95% and 41.7%, respectively.
Those numbers have slipped slightly since then, with Google Android devices passing Sony’s PSP to take the third-place spot on the list.
Subverting Gmail’s adstream
Well, well. Just came on this exciting report.
Cambridge UK startup Rapportive has released a Firefox and Chrome extension that will replace the ads in your Gmail with photos, biographic data and social media links, including a live display of recent Tweets, for whoever you're corresponding with by email. It’s fantastic and takes about 2 minutes to set up.
Sounds good, eh? But
You don’t need to give Rapportive your Gmail credentials, the service asks you to login via secure Google Federated Login, or OpenID. The startup doesn’t have access to your password, but it does access the contents of your email – that’s how it builds a service for you to use. Any browser extension has access to everything you do on the web, but I expect some people will feel a little nervous about installing a webmail related extension from a small company. I don’t think that concern is warranted enough to justify missing out on this awesome service.
Oh yeah?
Watergate
Sutton Gault. Flickr version here.
Where the road used to be
Sutton Gault after last weekend’s downpour. The Old Bedford River and New Bedford River (aka the Hundred Foot Drain built by Cornelius Vermuyden) pass through the townland and flood into the land between them after heavy rain.
What the well-dressed bottle is wearing these days
Michael’s birthday present. Flickr version here.
The holy well
Flickr version here.
This academic life…
Broad Street, Oxford, on Wednesday. Flickr version here.
Only the paranoid survive
Interesting insight from a recent speech given in Dublin by Google’s European sales chief.
Google believes that in three years or so desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment. That’s according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy who said that smart phones enhance Google’s mission to make information universal.
Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD, Herlihy said that the cloud-computing opportunity will make sure that every mobile device will be capable of doing rapid-scale applications.
“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity.
“Mobile makes the world’s information universally accessible. Because there’s more information and because it will be hard to sift through it all, that’s why search will become more and more important. This will create new opportunities for new entrepreneurs to create new business models – ubiquity first, revenue later.”
In fact, the disruptive effect that Sergey Brin and Larry Page had on the internet when they were maxing out credit cards in 1998 to buy servers to build their search engine haunts Google to this day, Herlihy said.
“The fear is the next Sergey and Larry will come up with a disruptive technology or service that will eliminate the need for Google. That spurs us on to deliver the best quality return on investment to advertisers in an open and transparent partnership that works for them.
“There is a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs to end the need for Google. It’s our challenge not to let that happen by continuing to drive innovation and value.”
Apple goes after Android
Rather than take on Google directly, Apple has sued HTC, the manufacturer which makes most of the handsets currently running the Android operating system. But to the detached observer, it’s clear what the real target is. Here’s GMSV’s take on it:
Although not named in Apple’s suits accusing HTC of multiple violations of iPhone-related patents, Google made a point Tuesday of publicly declaring its support for the company that makes many of the most popular Android-based smartphones, including the Google-branded Nexus One. “We are not a party to this lawsuit,” a spokesman told TechCrunch. “However, we stand behind our Android operating system and the partners who have helped us to develop it.” Unless Google can come up with a reason to turn loose its own legal hounds in a counterattack against Apple, however, that support, whatever form it takes, will be coming from the sidelines. In an effort clearly aimed at halting the Android advance, Apple avoided tangling with the search sovereign mano a mano and instead hit the HTC flank, opening the possibility of winning a U.S. International Trade Commission injunction sealing the border against any HTC phones found to be infringing.
Judging by HTC’s latest statement regarding the action, it may already have gotten some advice from Google on framing its position in the court of public opinion. In advising stockholders that it doesn’t expect the Apple suits to have any short-term material impact or affect Q1 guidance, HTC flew the freedom-of-choice banner, saying, “HTC believes that consumer choice is a key component to success in the smartphone industry and this is best achieved through multiple suppliers providing a variety of mobile experiences. HTC has focused on offering its customers a uniquely-HTC experience through HTC Sense and its broad portfolio of smartphones.”
Where things go from here is anyone’s guess — ITC action, countersuits and amended complaints, out of court settlement, royalties, IP sharing, full review of the patents themselves. But as a first-strike FUD missile, Apple’s litigation seems to be doing its job right now.
What it suggests to me is that Android is beginning to bite, in the sense that Apple thinks it may turn out to pose a strategic threat to the iPhone/iPad market.