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The reason people tout diversification isnt because you cannot be successful without diversifying, its because you take a big risk by not doing so. If iPhones / iPads ever stop being big, does Apple have a backup plan?

I think you are right that it's good to have some diversity in one's business portfolio and it's certainly true that Apple has not made inroads into the enterprise market, but I disagree that Apple is not diversified. I have an iPhone, I use Linux primarily and Windows 7 secondarily and don't consider myself a fanboy, but I would like to point out a few things:
* Aside from phones and tablets, Apple been stealing market share from MSFT's primary market, the PC Market, for some time. They also still do iPods and Apple TVs (and possibly other stuff sooner or later). Besides, why are we talking about iPhones and iPads going away? Consumers are supposed to buy 1.2 billion of them in 2013. Like I said, the PC market is not only smaller (349M units in 2012) but the market shrank year-over-year by 14%.
* They have essentially revolutionized/pioneered both the smartphone market and the tablet market. There's every reason to believe they will also capitalize on home entertainment and/or wearable computing.
* There is competition in all these markets but Apple's margins are exceptionally high
* Aside from hardware, Apple has been growing iTunes as a software and entertainment portal (almost $13B in 2012 and growing rapidly). They are the largest distributor of music in the entire world and they dominate the download-to-own movie business.
* Apple has introduced cloud services directed toward mass market consumers rather than esoteric cloud services directed toward software developers. These cloud servers are seamlessly integrated with their consumer products in such a way that consumers don't really have to learn any new skills to use them, which is actually kind of a software design triumph, IMHO
* Apple's general strategy, although consumer-focused (look how they seem to have abandoned Final Cut!), is pretty shrewd in that it offers consumers all the necessary devices, all their basic software needs, all their entertainment needs (music, videos, books, games), and all their communications needs (talk, text, email) whenever they want it and whenever they need it in easily digestible form and they make it hard to pack up all your email and your movies and music and software and move it to another service. They cover all the bases, serve them well, and make it difficult to switch to someone else. This is a lot like Microsoft's vendor lockin in the enterprise markets, only it's for the larger mass consumer market. Apple controls the interface point for the consumer and they control the portal through which all the content flows.

It's arguable that, much like IBM, Apple's strengths lie not in hardware manufacture but rather in brand, software capabilities, and media delivery. It's obvious that their market position is very, very strong and growing stronger.

The web is not their domain.

No, it's much bigger than the web.

If you call that incremental evolution, then you'll have to credit AOL, not Google, with this increment (altomail.com).

So Google plans to copy what AOL was trying to do with Alto? Sheesh. I have an account at altomail.com; I wasn't very impressed and haven't been using it.

http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/facebook-opens-its-first-ad-sales-office-in-italy/

Facebook have an office in Italy. They are actively doing business in Italy.

How is Facebook operating in Italy?

Perhaps by having a sales office in Milan?

When did Slashdot sell its soul and start accepting stories from companies?

It was no later than 18 Sept 2012.

Dice Holdings Pays $20M Cash For Slashdot, SourceForge And Freecode From Geeknet

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/jollas-other-half/

Right after they arrest Android developers for the huge malware problem on Android, and then Apple developers.

"91.3% of smartphone malware/viruses written for Android"
"Apple's iOS, Microsoft's Windows Phone and Blackberry are free of any malicious activity"

http://www.macworld.co.uk/ipad-iphone/news/?newsid=3448046

"Newly Discovered Android Malware Was Downloaded Millions Of Times"
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/20/newly-discovered-android-malware-was-downloaded-millions-of-times/

Last week, American security researcher Jacob Appelbaum found that malware on an Angolan human-rights activist's Apple laptop was "signed" with a legitimate Apple developer ID, allowing it to slip past Apple's baked-in Gatekeeper security software. A new and unusually sneaky piece of Mac malware, discovered last week, has been linked to a larger online espionage campaign being waged from India.

  The campaign, dubbed "HangOver" after a text string in the malware code, appears to be based in India and focuses on stealing industrial secrets from companies all over the world.

http://www.technewsdaily.com/18120-hangover-malware-india.html

How come the "Superior UNIX design" that have lead to tens of thousands of +5 Insightful Slashdot posts over the years doesn't protect Android and OS X? If the blame goes to the users, why are you trying to blame the Windows dev team?

by petermgreen (876956) Alter Relationship on Sunday May 19, 2013 @07:11AM (#43767707) Homepage

The difference is of course that with apple nowadays the desktops/laptops are a sideline and the phones/locked down arm based tablets are the main thrust of the buisness. With MS the OS for phones/locked down arm based tablets is a sideline and the desktop/laptop OS is the main thrust of the buisness.

http://www.osnews.com/story/25547/Apple_Restricts_Certain_APIs_to_Mac_App_Store_Applications
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/29/windows-store-metro-mode-no-sideloading-psa/

Apple is focusing less on OS X for a simple reason - it's not bringing home the cash. It's still raking in more money than iTunes (which rakes in a lot, but since it's run merely as a complementary business...), but iOS devices are making a pile of money for Apple. And business dictates that you should invest in things that are making money now, and less in those that made money in the past (the future IS a post-PC world - most PCs are "good enough" for the vast majority of people), and tons in stuff that will bring in future profits (whatever that might be).

As for restricting APIs - yes, because it makes sense to. iCloud allows for persistent storage of data. Mac App Store apps are sandboxed. Let's say you have a malware infection - if it infects a MAS app, it's sandboxed so damage is contained. EXCEPT, well, there's iCloud, and it may hop onto there. You delete the app, install it on another Mac. Boom, that app is again reinfected when it scans iCloud.

Should iCloud be allowed on non-MAS apps, then it will need to be enforced on sandboxed apps to prevent whole-system infections that persist across reinstalls. Think about it - app gets infected and spreads the infecting document via iCloud. You reinstall the OS. Reinstall the app, and it scans iCloud and boom, infected again.

Sure, Apple could virus-scan it all, but what to make of virus documents? They may be legit documents that users want, and it may be impossible to remove without damaging it.

So for security, it's best to contain the infection to whatever little damage it can do.

Hell, it's a surprise no Windows malware has thought to use Dropbox or other service to persist itself across reinstalls.

Just found this quote by Mark Dillon the software director. Essentially anyone can create a cover (the tools are open):

“Of course we will be offering a choice of Other Halves for the user to buy but this is a place where we want to see others get involved. Designers can design Other Halves for the device, engineers or hackers or techies can design new interfaces and maybe add physical hardware features that they wish they had on their device but might have a smaller market than to deserve having a whole entire device,” he said. “We talked about 3D printing them today. So it could be those kinds of things, but really we’re offering a new kind of interface for a device so that people can really take their imagination, and I believe there will be a lot of third parties and a lot of people who have a lot of great ideas in order to help you use the Other Half of the Jolla device.”

http://www.osnews.com/story/25547/Apple_Restricts_Certain_APIs_to_Mac_App_Store_Applications
http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/29/windows-store-metro-mode-no-sideloading-psa/

There are many ways to hack a cell phone. It is a network connected computer FFS.

Like this one: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/20/newly-discovered-android-malware-was-downloaded-millions-of-times/

I was at a security conference (AUScert) last year where a presenter talked about a crafted attack on St.George bank which involved malware on a persons PC, which prompted for a mobile phone number in a man in the browser attack, and then sent an SMS which exploited a weakness in the OS to compromise their mobile phone. It was truly scary stuff which told me:
a) do NOT underestimate the cunning of people that can make millions in a day or two through a carefully planned attack
b) be grateful that banks cover the costs of fraud (in Australia at least, other countries may differ).

> Of late I've been using LastPass.

That's great! Except... you know that LastPass had their entire database compromised, right? Fool me once...

"However, once the photo is opened, and the timer goes off, Snapchat does in fact delete the photo."

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/09/actually-snapchat-photos-are-just-as-deleted-as-any-other-file-you-trash/

He's an example of somebody sent to prison for it.

"Documents reveal that Nook Media plans to discontinue selling tablets and transition to a model under which media is distributed through partners"

According to the Techcrunch report, Nook Media plans to discontinue its Android-based tablet business. Are these two events related?

First, if the numbers were any good, Google would be bragging about them instead of hiding them. That shows how badly they're selling. Because of this, we have to use the numbers we can get. If you have any better metric, let me know.

Second, if you hadn't failed reading comprehension, it says right there in the summary that the 5000 figure is from 2011 from the first six months of selling them.

Also, the Nokia Windows Phones were bestsellers on Amazon, so you're arguing that they sold really well?

http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/09/532392/
http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/04/12/nokia-lumia-900-dominates-amazons-best-seller-chart/
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-tops-amazon-best-seller-chart-for-all-carriers-takes-top-3-spots-on-att/
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-swarms-amazons-best-seller-charts/

Facebook has been profitable since 2009.

They basically get money for every PC sold..

They get money for every Android device sold!

But we don't really know how much, and it's certainly not enough to replace the Windows+Office income they are slowly losing.

Yes, actually it's almost impossibly hard to determine tax in so many other locales because of the extreme complexity. There've been many posts made about this, so I'm not going to repeat them here, but here's a quote from this article:

"Cnet kindly reminds us how convoluted this country’s tax structure can be. You can expect to pay sales tax on bottled soda in New Jersey, but not on bottled water, even cookies. A mink handbag is taxed in Rhode Island, but not a mink fur coat. It’s a big mess, in other words."

In addition, there's places where the location isn't good enough, because certain people get a tax and others don't, regardless of their address; this is the case on many Indian reservations.

They basically get money for every PC sold..

They get money for every Android device sold!

However, people who want to play Android games will play them on their Android phones (if they have one)

Absolutely, and their tablets too. Ignoring the fact that they in themselves are pretty good game platforms. I have owned a Android console from Sony over 18Months http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xperia_Play. Right now the Ouya is not the only successful kick-starter Android console http://gamestick.tv/ or that there are gaming tablets from Archos http://www.archos.com/products/themed/gamepad/index.html?country=us&lang=en#a Wikipad’s and 7-inch Android gaming tablet called Wikipad http://www.wikipad.com/...or even that Sony have introduced native DUALSHOCK 3 controller support for Xperia phones http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/09/sony-adding-dualshock-3-controller-support-to-xperia-devices/ Android gaming as you can see is taking off right now...even with traditional controllers.

My company focuses on a small subset of local businesses (mostly service-oriented businesses), but we've been doing it quite successfully for a number of years. We're profitable, nearing the $100m/yr run rate and were acquired last year for ~$425m.

get your latest news on bitcoinsocially.com (no im not affiliated but it IS like the facebook of bitcoin with everyone revolving around that) but i was saying euh ...
ah, yea, the price is down under $60 by now which is still 50% up from last month and what i hear is someone exploited something on mtgox cleaning out accounts by inviting users to a java chat applet
here is the link to that
as to the coward above, its not all that unregulated imo, some people seem to be regulating it quite well, this whole anarcho crypto thing is something i never hear anyone sitting on a zillion coins talk about (not that i know anyone but they must be there, the first ones who mined it from the start)
my biggest fear is big government intervening because a few would be making a lot of money without paying their share in taxes, and that could fk up more than some smart speculation and creative use of d-dos No matter what, it's still quite the phenomenon but until my baker and butcher accepts my usb-stick with some coins on it it's not really replacing anything
so governments shouldnt be scaredd since who sits on it makes no difference and who uses it to buy stuff provided vendors with cash and is actually making the flow flow (which this crazy idea of unlimited growth in limited space with limited resources they call economy is all about right), its actually new input from the bottom up, like colonizing africa, only without exploitation of human beings, just fresh input from scratch (does that make sense, i know i can come over like nostradamus on acid sometimes)

You want to bet they want a simpler tax code? => TurboTax Maker Funnels Millions To Lobby Against Easier Tax Returns

Here's a writeup in Techcrunch.

I don't know if it's going to get that big but I realized the other day that even in my non-criminal, law-abiding life there are still a lot of things that I send to people via SMS that I probably should not have. Lots. Of. Things.

They have a tech FAQ which goes into detail about encryption, privacy, etc.

No; your SSID & MAC are broadcast, so you hardly claim it's private data. This was supposed to be the only data they collected.
The idea was that - together with its GPS location, (that they supplied and recorded) - you would then be able to know approximately where you were just from the SSID & MAC.
The problem was, they "accidently" collected a shitload of additional data, (from 'open' networks).

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/14/google-admits-to-accidentally-collecting-personal-data-with-street-view-cars/

For anyone who was wondering what Dice's real interest in Slashdot was, this seems to be it.

The first link goes to a "Dice News" story.
The second link goes to a Slashdot "Business Intelligence" story (remember, Business Intelligence is code for "someone paid us to put this up") that is a "Dice News" story by the same author as the first link.

Obviously Dice pushed the Slashdot editors to post this as a news item. So much for editorial independence from the parent company. The disappearance of LucasArts may be Slashdot-worthy news, but when Slashdot's parent company, Dice, is writing the story it looks like they just want lots of techies to think "techies are losing their jobs, it could happen to me, I should look and see what's out there."

It's a Facebook app for those who treat Facebook more like crackbook. Who care's? There are thousands of different android phones out there, this one just happens to have one particular app ingrained as a theme. This phone isn't going to hurt anyone and it will benefit those who live their lives through that particular corporations product.

Might I suggest the much more usable and robust CAT themed smartphone instead? At least that phone should survive any drunken friends or small children that happen to get their hands on it.

A scary reminder of how insecure ALL money is in the computer age...

Really? My Celtic ring money is still fully intact around my wrist and still worth the silver it's made out of. All currencies have their ups and downs. Some benefits are double edged swords (just ask Renminbi traders). Nice editorial though -- the services surrounding BitCoin are clearly infantile and only now are getting DDOS protection.

My credit union offers two factor authentication. Could a Bitcoin exchange do the same? You bet. But they haven't. The fact is that it's easier to find legit and robust exchanges and institutions in USD than BitCoin.

> It might be a year or two before Adobe delivers
> Web-only versions of its products

LOLOL. Fucking A. The day Adobe stops shipping native apps will be the day when the bandwidth between adobe.com and my house is as high as the bandwidth between my CPU and my RAM, and as reliable. Which is to say, FUCKING NEVER.

What MORON doesn't see much difference between between editing 140 MB images and reading 140-character posts? That's literally a million-to-one difference right there. (1,048,576 to 1, actually.)

In other news, the head of a company with a BILLION users said moving to HTML5 was his biggest mistake.

I think the down payment option is a good deal. However not everybody agrees, and I think the reason why is kind of stupid.

Techcrunch basically attacks t-mobile over this one because if you want to change carriers, you're still stuck with a $600 (or whatever) phone, as opposed to a $350 early termination fee.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/26/t-mobiles-uncarrier-pricing-isnt-so-different-from-the-contract-devil-you-already-know/

I'm wondering if they have a bone to pick with t-mobile, because a few hours ago slashdot posted an article from them about how t-mobile UK are scamming customers with premium SMS.

The only possible way I could see the light in this statement would be if you could bring that phone to any of the other major carriers. Sadly, as far as major carriers, your only other option is AT&T. Though you can get some pretty good deals with the MVNO's, their coverage isn't as good. Personally I'd prefer to just own the phone than be in a contract.

They are being dishonest. The termination fee partially recoups the unpaid portion of the customer's phone. The cost of early termination is more than $350 when the down payment for the phone is factored in. For example, the typical smart phone cost the customer $200 out of pocket plus a two year contract. If the customer breaks their contract their total cost would be $200 that they paid for the phone + $350 early termination fee = $550. So, the cost to the customer is the same under both scenarios. Also, the Nexus 4 costs $299 and $350; so, in many situations the cost to the customer is no more than the termination fee of all the major carriers.

I think the down payment option is a good deal. However not everybody agrees, and I think the reason why is kind of stupid.

Techcrunch basically attacks t-mobile over this one because if you want to change carriers, you're still stuck with a $600 (or whatever) phone, as opposed to a $350 early termination fee.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/26/t-mobiles-uncarrier-pricing-isnt-so-different-from-the-contract-devil-you-already-know/

I'm wondering if they have a bone to pick with t-mobile, because a few hours ago slashdot posted an article from them about how t-mobile UK are scamming customers with premium SMS.

The only possible way I could see the light in this statement would be if you could bring that phone to any of the other major carriers. Sadly, as far as major carriers, your only other option is AT&T. Though you can get some pretty good deals with the MVNO's, their coverage isn't as good. Personally I'd prefer to just own the phone than be in a contract.

Galaxy SIII on Verizon $199 + $350 ETF reduced by $10/month
Galaxy SIII on T-Mobile: $549 or $69 + $20/month for 24 months = $549

If you break your Verizon contract in the first month, your phone cost is $199 + $350 for the phone, or $549
If you break you T-Mobile contract in the first month, your phone cost is $69 + 20*24 = $549

If you break your Verizon contract after 6 months, you owe $350 - ($10*6) = $290 to break your contract
If you break your T-mobile contract after 6 months, you owe 18 * $20 = $360 to break your contract

If you break your Verizon contract after 12 months, you owe $350 - ($10*12) = $230 to break your contract
If you break your T-mobile contract after 12 months, you own 12 * $12 = $240 to break your contract

However, in the last 2 cases, you saved $130 on the price of the phone so you still break even or come out ahead.

And, at the end of the payback term, if you stay with T-Mobile, you save $20/month since the phone's paid off, but with VErizon you keep paying the same amount.

I think the down payment option is a good deal. However not everybody agrees, and I think the reason why is kind of stupid.

Techcrunch basically attacks t-mobile over this one because if you want to change carriers, you're still stuck with a $600 (or whatever) phone, as opposed to a $350 early termination fee.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/26/t-mobiles-uncarrier-pricing-isnt-so-different-from-the-contract-devil-you-already-know/

I'm wondering if they have a bone to pick with t-mobile, because a few hours ago slashdot posted an article from them about how t-mobile UK are scamming customers with premium SMS.

The only possible way I could see the light in this statement would be if you could bring that phone to any of the other major carriers. Sadly, as far as major carriers, your only other option is AT&T. Though you can get some pretty good deals with the MVNO's, their coverage isn't as good. Personally I'd prefer to just own the phone than be in a contract.

I was going to say that they could kill the TV by using WebOS for the UI, but they sold WebOS to LG...to use on Smart TV's...

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/25/lg-acquires-webos-from-hp-but-only-plans-to-use-it-in-smart-tvs/

Notebook, since apparently even google agrees enough to be testing a clone

Sets is still around, it's been added to their spreadsheets.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/22/samsung-to-cut-the-cord-end-lcd-panel-supply-relationship-with-apple/

They are apparently not just killing Google Reader either, they are declaring war on RSS itself it seems.

Are they making a move towards turning their services and established userbase, into a giant walled garden, like Apple/Microsoft?

It had a bunch of "social" features which were axed in favor of Google+ integration.

You might be joking, but they already implemented this years ago on the office keg: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/27/facebook-buzz/

Well, here's one, for real. Actually two.

http://www.zdnet.com/google-app-engine-has-a-friday-fail-7000006451/

http://techcrunch.com/2008/06/17/google-app-engine-goes-down-and-stays-down/

And what's your point? Google has it's share of dumb mistakes. Like this one. http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/17/long-november-google-left-december-out-of-its-date-picker-in-android-jelly-bean-os-4-2/

This is also why I'm skeptical of suggestions, like this one from the founder of academia.edu, that decentralized metrics will remove the prestige of the top journals. In a formal sense, they will make it possible to have a prestigious paper outside of a prestigious journal: you could have high citation counts and a high h-index publishing exclusively technical reports or self-hosted whitepapers. Therefore, the argument goes, there will no longer be any need to chase the prestigious journals, because on your CV people will look at citation metrics and not care where those papers are published.

But in practice, the metrics actually work to strengthen the prestigious journals even more. If your paper appears in Nature or Science, many people will see it who would not have otherwise seen it: even people outside your usual field, and science journalists who may write stories further disseminating it. This greatly raises the odds that your paper will get a lot of citations. Therefore, if citation metrics are important to you, that's just one more reason, not one less reason, to prefer the prestigious journals.

What do you mean "doesn't happen under Android" ? Have you been sleeping under a rock?

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2012/12/31/android_malware_using_google_play_store_icon_to_trick_users

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/03/android-malware-emerges-on-google-play-which-installs-a-trojan-on-your-pc-uses-your-microphone-to-record-you/

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/10/3751202/google-android-malware-scanner-test

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/05/android-malware-surges-despite-googles-efforts-to-bounce-dodgy-apps-off-its-platform-f-secure-ids-51447-unique-samples-in-q3/

If the Play Store gets so much attention from malware writers, the PC ecosystem with a couple of billion of PCs most of them with good network connections(for spam and DDoS) and used to login to banks and in heavy corporate use across the largest companies in the world has no chance not attracting malware.

And note, iCloud uses only file services, iirc, and uses both Azure and Amazon, also iirc, though I don't know the mix.

Of course, that is just a survey. Otoh, it's from Forrester, which is often accused of a bias for MS (I have no idea of the truth of that).

I'm not in this to give stuff away. How do I make money by never charging for my product?

Well, most Android apps are free apps (73% according to this site: http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/26/how-free-apps-can-make-more-money-than-paid-apps/). And they don't have a problem making moeny (80% through advertising). It's also not uncommon to have a "Pro" version that either offers more features (or is ad-free). I'm just saying, the market for paid apps is pretty dismal: http://www.appsgeyser.com/blog/2011/06/30/3-ways-to-earn-money-with-a-free-android-app/
"80% of all paid applications in the Android Market have been downloaded fewer than 100 times."

Virtual Cat toys is a unique app that has lots of values for cat owners - why should I not be compensated for this?

Not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying that the "mobile App market" is a strange beast that is largely driven by Free upfront costs with profit driven on the backend. I didn't invent the market, that's just how it is ;P

By the end of the business day, maybe one or two of those customers pass through those filters, to make my target audience, and even if I achieved a 100% sell rate with that audience (extremely unlikely), that amounts to maybe 2 sales per day.

I think you're underselling it. People browse pet stores even if they don't intend to buy. And then there's the word of mouth effect as well. And it's permanent advertising. And it's a one-time and fairly low upfront cost to you (assuming ~$20 tablet)

I might consider advertising there, though.

Also a great idea.

It seems that HTC One press release photo has been leaked. So the green 1 probably hints to that.

Trolls mostly attack companies already profitable enough to put up a fight.

Actually, many times they attack smaller companies that can't afford to fight. See, for example, here.