Long road for Lumia

Horace Dediu:

Lumia sales have increased to 5.6 million units last quarter. Up from 4.4 during the previous quarter. Symbian devices have nearly disappeared from the market with only 0.5 million shipped.

Click through to see the chart which really shows the story. While Lumia shipments are steadily increasing rather nicely, growth still isn't sufficient to offset the rate at which Nokia's Symbian phone shipments are falling and worryingly Lumia shipments in the US are actually falling.

The futures of Windows Phone and Nokia are still very much uncertain, if Nokia can keep bankrolling new handsets then they may be able to ride through this rough transition patch from Symbian to Windows but it looks set to be a long road with slow traction.

Apple shares hit sub-$400 low

Shares of Apple dipped below the $400 mark for the first time since December 2011 amid concerns over slowing sales.

Its shares fell as low as $398.11 in Wednesday trading, before ending the day down 5.5% at $402.80.

Going by P/E ratio – the best metric by which to measure future value – Apple now has a lower valuation that Dell. Wall Street truly believes that Dell has a brighter future than Apple.

Now who has the reality distortion field?

iMessage encryption stumps FBI

Encryption used in Apple's iMessage service is thwarting federal drug enforcement agents' attempts to eavesdrop on a suspect's chat messages, according to a report published Thursday.

The CNET report cited an internal government document discussing a criminal investigation in February. It warned that because of the encryption, "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even when agents have obtained a court order.

That's pretty impressive.

Reasons for iOS outperformance in the US

Speaking of iOS in the US, Horace Dedieu's piece from earlier this week is a bit of a gem.

BlackBerry's doom summed up in one picture

Look at that piece of crap and check your calendar to make sure you know what year it is.

(via The Loop)

Microsoft’s mobile interests still floundering

Dan Frommer cuts straight to the point with this one. There's just no denying it, the figures don't lie. I have a lot of respect for Microsoft for what they've done with Windows Phone and I'd love for it to succeed but nobody seems to be tempted by it.

Interesting aside: looking at the charts it seems like iOS is still making significant gains in the US and Android is showing possible signs of an upcoming decline. Of course all of this is the complete opposite of the largely baseless rhetoric from the press and Wall Street, but who cares about facts and statistical data, right?

Pay for your apps, deadbeats

Lex Friedman:

I’m neither an economist nor a psychologist, but it strikes me that too many iOS device owners fail to act in their own best interests—both in the immediate near term and in the long term—when they scoff at the thought of spending money in the App Store. Here’s how customers who spend lavishly on iOS hardware punish themselves by skimping on apps.

Essential reading, Lex couldn't be more right; refusing to pay for apps now is going to lead to problems in the long-term. The current free and insanely low priced apps system we seem to have now is unsustainable. Developers survive on it now because the user-base is still growing rapidly with thousands of fresh customers appearing daily, but what happens when that dries up?

Google decides to fudge Android user-base figures

Google now uses the data collected when users visit the Google Play Store; under the previous system, any check-in to the store by the device would have been incorporated into the results, user-generated or not. The new system went into effect starting with this month's results.

So they're ignoring the large amount of users they have that they get zero to little engagement from. Hide from the problem, great solution.

Unsurprisingly, the new data collection tactic results in a landscape of Android users that are more current than what was described just one month ago. Jelly Bean accounts for 25 percent of the devices out there — up from 16.5 percent in March's results. The other numbers saw less dramatic shifts; Ice Cream Sandwich was on 29.3 percent of devices in the new figures (up less than a percentage point from the prior month), while Gingerbread users dropped from 44.2 percent to 39.8 percent.

Wow, all they had to do was skew the statistics to improve the statistics. Genius!

Samsung selling more refridgerators

The results show that Samsung is getting more profitable, making 45 percent more profits than it did last year, even though sales only increased around 13 percent.

Or maybe it's dishwashers, who knows?

Introducing the Technically Correct Podcast

Each week your hosts Simon, Richard (aka Reg) and myself discuss a broad list of subjects encompassed in the realm of technology. Expect personality, opinion and ridiculousness.

You can find episodes on the podcast page and soon we'll be launching on iTunes.

Listen to Episode 1: Chainsaw Frittata

Description & Show notes:

In this inaugural episode of the Technically Correct Podcast your genial hosts Mark, Simon and Reg discuss:

• The closing of Google Reader, Google's business practices and their new app: Google Keep 
• Apple's update to the podcasts app and what it might tell us about UI design at Apple under Jony Ive 
• The "Apple is doomed" chatter 
• Apple's inclusion of the launchpad and all my files features in OS X 
• The rumoured iWatch, other wearable technology and how all three of us have no interest in either 
• Some of Apple's naughty claims 
• Terrible product naming 

Mark says "don't get me wrong" too much, Reg eats a salad as well as revealing his secret love of Peter Andre, Simon launches into a fully justified tirade against silly ways people pronounce acronyms in technology, and a thorough deconstruction of Aldi somehow shoehorns it's way into proceedings.

Google Official Blog: A second spring of cleaning Google announces the end of a number of it's services including Google Reader in an official blog post, internet furore ensues.

James Whittaker: "Why I left Google' An inside account of working at Google by James Whittaker.

Chart of Google's lobbying of congress

Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman - classy guy.

Google Keep Google announces the launch of their new app 'Keep'

Apple's Podcasts App Minor update brings slightly less skeuomorphism.

Windows Phone's User Interface Microsoft's "live tiles" start screen is an interesting a different spin on how a smartphone can look and is in stark contrast to both iOS and Android.

CNN: Apple working on an 'iWatch' We're a little more skeptical than CNN.

Apple: Why iPhone Some of Apple's claims about the iPhone seem disingenuous.