From the “that makes sense” file: Smartphones like the iPhone and the BlackBerry now account for almost one in three phones sold in the U.S. And if they keep getting better and cheaper–remember when iPhones sold for $600?–that share is only going to increase.
Does the world need another gadget site? Yes, say two of the gadget world’s biggest stars, who are launching gdgt.com today. The site is the work of Peter Rojas, who helped build Gizmodo and Engadget, and Ryan Block, who took the torch from Rojas after he moved on. Gizmodo and Engadget are the best known and most powerful of the new generation of gadget sites, which makes Rojas and Block revered by the gadget gang and able to cobble together funding. But they’re still taking on a very crowded field.
Did you want to buy or sell a media or tech company in the last six months? Chances are you didn’t: New data from banker The Jordan, Edmiston Group say the M&A market for the first half of 2009 was nearly nonexistent, at least compared to the post-MySpace Web 2.0 heyday. One exception to the drought: A booming market for mobile companies.
Still waiting to get your hands on the new iPhone 3G S? Here’s something that should occupy you for a few minutes while you wait: A side-by-side-by-side-by-side comparison of four iterations of iPhones going through various speed tests, performed by Pali Research analyst Walt Piecyk. And as a bonus, a clip of the new iPhone vs. the Palm Pre, featuring a surprise twist.
I’m a Sprint customer, so the wireless company knows where I live, how to find me online, what kind of phone I have and what I spend each month. And it knows my contract expires at the end of the month. So why isn’t it trying hard to keep me from the clutches of AT&T and its iPhone?
Last week at the All Things D conference, Palm investor Roger McNamee made a point of touting the Pre’s supposedly female-friendly attributes — like the fact that it has a mirror on the back. No mention of the shiny surface in this first TV ad touting the new phone, but this one certainly seems geared toward the xx set. Or maybe Palm has been stung by accusations that it’s an Apple ripoff and wanted to come out with some distinctly un-Jobsian marketing.
The Palm Pre debuts this week. Next week, we should hear about a big update for Apple’s iPhone. And by the end of the summer we’ll have new phones running Android platform. So who’s going to emerge as the winner? Easy, says Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney: It’s Google. But Mahaney isn’t talking about Google’s smartphone platform. He’s talking about Google’s core search business, which he thinks is finally about to see significant lift from mobile users.
Next to no news from the Apple earnings call this afternoon, which is just the way Apple execs like their earnings calls. Once again, the company provided no information about CEO Steve Jobs’s health except to note that he is still scheduled to come back to work in June. And the company continued to pooh-pooh the concept of netbooks–supercheap, supersmall laptops with very little horsepower that are the hottest part of the PC business right now.
Give Palm credit: The handset maker, which has been struggling to figure out whether it wants to heighten expectations or dampen them, delivered third-quarter results that were just as lousy as it had promised. Palm said it lost 89 cents a share–or 86 cents a share after excluding one-time charges–on sales of $96 million, and said smartphone sales were down 72 percent. That’s what Palm meant when it warned earlier this month that revenues would be bad and that it would experience “continued margin pressure from its legacy product lines” for a while longer. But just wait till the Pre arrives!
Barack Obama’s move into the White House meant different things for different people. For Elevation Partners head Roger McNamee, it meant he could get a haircut.
Palm used to own the smartphone market, but now it’s barely hanging on. Today the company unveils its long-awaited comeback plan: The Pre, which features an iPhone-like multi-touch screen but also boasts a keyboard. Will it be enough?
In October, Mahalo.com founder Jason Calacanis laid off staff at his human-powered search engine. Then he announced he was hiring engineers for a mysterious new “Project A.” Today he’s unveiling it: An “answers” service designed to compete with one of Yahoo’s most successful sites.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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