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Google is either lying when they 1.3 million phones are activated per day, or Android is such a piece of shit operating system that you have to activate it continuos over and over again to get it to work.

In 2011 there were a total of 491.4 million smart phones sold. 491.4/365 is ~1.3 million. As we all know not every one of those phones is an android phone.

Fun chart plotting Androids activation a day.
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-android-activations-per-day-2012-9

Google is either lying when they 1.3 million phones are activated per day, or Android is such a piece of shit operating system that you have to activate it continuos over and over again to get it to work.

In 2011 there were a total of 491.4 million smart phones sold. 491.4/365 is ~1.3 million. As we all know not every one of those phones is an android phone.

"Yes there are a few small (ie 3.2"-3.5") Android phones but the bulk is over 4". I think it's a pretty safe assumption."

I don't. I think you're missing the forest for the trees...and you are completely dismissing Symbian, RIM, Microsoft...

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/wireless-mobile/smartphone-statistics.htm

Gartner, eComScore, Neilsen, all put Apple and Android a lot closer than you are as of Q1, and I think you are letting the media coverage of larger devices affect your assumptions as to how many there actually are. I don't think the 3.2-3.5 market is as negligible as you seem to believe.

According to Email Marketing Reports, Yahoo! Mail has somewhere between 275 million and 310 million users.

Therefore, if you have one Yahoo! Mail account, the odds of your password being in the leaked list are about 0.15%, or about one in 666.

There is some information that the email addresses and passwords are not for Yahoo! Mail but for Yahoo! Voice, which is supported by a look at the list. It includes a lot of non-yahoo domains, including many for gmail and hotmail. This seems to support that conclusion, although those could be what Yahoo! calls the "primary email address," which is an address an account creator must provide for authorization, and to which account notices, warnings, etc. are sent.

And I think it sucks nobody gives old Bill credit for that. Sure he had selfish reasons but there is a good chance we wouldn't have AAPL as we know them now if it wasn't for MSFT. Look at the stories written about Apple then, it was being labeled a corpse, stick a fork, its done. By coming out on that telecast with Jobs and saying "We think Apple has a bright future and we're gonna support them with MSFT software" and buying those stocks he calmed a spooked market and gave many developers a reason to think writing software for Apple could be profitable. After all if MSFT was writing software for Apple surely they are expecting a profit, right?

As for TFA Ballmer screwed the pooch, not by failing to finish a frankly waaaaay overpriced deal, but by buying the search and NOT the golden egg of Yahoo which was and is webmail. Look at the numbers folks, that is over a quarter of a billion unique users and double what Gmail has in the US. It is THAT which Ballmer should have been after, not search. Just another example of why Ballmer is a piss poor CEO IMHO.

Actually Yang may end up with the last laugh, as it is pretty common knowledge that he has wanted his company back and the collapse may allow him to take Yahoo private again which seems to have been his main goal all along.

And let us not forget that the REAL value of Yahoo was NOT search but webmail which MSFT did NOT get and which if you'll read the stats I have provided shows that Yahoo has DOUBLE the users Gmail has. That is a hell of a lot of eyeballs for ads friends. If he can take it private and capitalize on those eyeballs he'll make out like a bandit.

Fun fact:You're wrong. The largest is Yahoo! Mail followed by Gmail with Hotmail third.

I personally think THIS is why Ballmer had such a hard on to buy out Yahoo! and why they were quick to jump on the search deal, as Yahoo Mail has a TON of users and funnily enough the Yahoo Web Portal is the #1 home page (Yeah I know its a cluttered mess, apparently people like cluttered messes) by a large margin. Hell that damned portal is so popular now the only time I notice anymore is when someone brings in a PC to be fixed and Yahoo Portal ISN'T the default, that is how damned popular that thing is.

As for TFA they ain't blocking HTTPS they had a bug that screwed up setting HTTPS as default. Surprise surprise new software rollout finds a bunch of bugs that need fixing. Until they chase down the bugs you can either use the FF plugin or just set it manually which isn't exactly a hardship. If this were anyone else it wouldn't even rate a mention but since it is MSFT the tinfoil hatters have to get in a few shots.

Hell only the old folks use Hotmail anymore anyway, mostly those like my dad that got a branded account with his DSL. I can't even remember the last time I saw a customer under 50 that had Hotmail bookmarked. Everyone else it is Yahoo Mail followed by Gmail for the under 30s.

Yahoo said they were #1 but I have also seen evidence than Hotmail is. In any case, they're neck and neck.

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm

Here is a link to the '361 patent the above poster mentioned,and reading it one could see why MSFT might covet it. That said,I always thought MSFT going after yahoo search was just to throw everyone off what they really wanted,which I think is Yahoo mail. While I personally think Yahoo search is a LOT better than Google,thanks to the "more" tab which will give you relevant queries connected to the original search,I just can't believe MSFT would pay that much for it. And they know that buying outright will probably get them smacked with antitrust.

But if you look at the data you'll see that Yahoo is the largest webmail provider,followed by MSFT with Hotmail. Not only would buying Yahoo Mail give MSFT the lead in webmail,but all those emails are a goldmine for data mining,which I'm sure MSFT can capitalize on. That would also give them a lot more eyeballs for their ads,cross promotions,etc while giving MSFT a boost against Google at the same time in the search arena,sine I have noticed many users check their email and then begin searching for their topics from the searchbox at the top of the webmail page.

Personally I hope that MSFT buys it and has enough sense to leave the search and Webmail alone. Because Hotmail and Live search really REALLY suck and I'm quite happy with my Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search,thank you very much. But knowing MSFT they'll turn it into "Super Live Search 2.0 with the new Vista Look!" and then I'll have to find a new webmail provider. Because as someone who often has to go to areas where there is only dialup I can say that IMHO Gmail sucks the big wet titty when you are on a low bandwidth connection. Their "loading the entire series of emails as one long chat session" really slows it to a crawl. And I like my email folders dammit!

Actually I believe that MSFT wanted yahoo because Yahoo mail is the number one web mail,followed by Windows Live mail. That combination would not only give them a big chunk of the web mail but tons of new data to mine. I am personally glad they quit as I would have hated to see my Yahoo mail end up some nasty Hotmail copy. But that is my take on it,YMMV.

- everyone had hotmail ids once; it would seem webmail was /their/ world. no one would say that now.

You can check facts, you know. According to this industry group, Hotmail is #2 behind Yahoo:

http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm

It's not "owning" the market, but it's not shabby by any stretch of the imagination.

- most people never heard of another OS than Windo[ws]. it would seem PCs were /their/ area. i doubt it now.

There are two factors here. Virtually everybody is aware that there are a type of computers called "Apples" and that "Apples" look and work differently than Windows. However, that was as true in the 1980s as is it now, so I think I have to take issue with your first observation.

The only change in this area is that people who understand what an OS is are as likely to have heard of Linux as they are to have heard of Macintosh.

- IE was the browser king. it would imply that they owned all of www. is IE doing that well now?

Yeah. Wikipedia puts it at 81.63%:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

- let's not even get started on zune..

Ok then.