Samsung Electronics Co has received some 9 million pre-orders for its third-generation Galaxy S smartphone from more than 100 global carriers, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Friday.

These are carrier pre-orders i.e. the chubby channel. And your source is a paper called the Korea Economic Daily. With an “unidentified Samsung official” as your source. Meaningless stat, nationalist rag with an obvious conflict of interest and an anonymous source from the company making the product. That’s a horseshit quadrafecta for those of you scoring at home.

Samsung Continues Playing With Numbers That Mean Nothing originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 18, 2012.

The Verge also has a cool feature that I first saw on Lifehacker (recently RIP due to my “no Gawker” policy): What’s in Your Bag? Because I’m a closet productivity nut, I’m always looking to see what other people in tech carry around with them daily to do their jobs. When I saw Jordan Oplinger’s entry today, I noticed he was packing a MacBook Pro. Curious about the rest of the entries in What’s in Your Bag?, I did a little digging and discovered a pretty distinct theme:

Adi Robertson

Chris Grant

Chris Welch

Dante D'Orazio

Jeff Blagdon

Joanna Stern (the PCs are review units, natch)

Jordan Oplinger

Joshua Topolsky

Nilay Patel

Sam Byford

Thomas Houston

Of the 11 writers interviewed, 10 of them used Apple laptops. Even for an unapologetic fanboy, I found this resounding endorsement a little surprising.

If you’re wondering what your next laptop should be, looking at what people who are exposed to the entire tech universe use is a pretty decent guide. These people could use – hell they could probably be given – any PC they wanted. The tech pros at The Verge use Macs. You probably should too.

Want to Know What Tech’s Elite Have in Their Bags? Hint: It’s Not an Ultrabook originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 18, 2012.

To illustrate how broken…err…differentiated the Android ecosystem is, the folks at OpenSignalMaps put together some interesting illustrations of how many different Android devices exist using data pulled from 6 months of device logging. The answer: 3,997. In other words:

This is not a Grand Perspective view of my hard drive

You’d think that having to write apps for so many devices, OS versions, screen sizes and screen resolutions would be a daunting task for developers, but the folks at OpenSignalMaps have a Schmidtism for that:

One of the joys of developing for Android is you have no idea who’ll end up using your app.

I’m sure the small-time developer shares this sentiment. They’re not in it for the money, after all.

It’s Not Fragmentation, It’s Differentiation originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 17, 2012.

OS X 10.9: Serval

My prediction is simple: Apple will just pursue 10.x versioning sans cat. Just like there’s no iPad 3 or MacBook Air Extreme, Apple will limit its post-Mountain Lion OS to “the next version”. No more Caturday releases for Cupertino.

Apple Running Out of Cats to Herd originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 16, 2012.

Gene Munster Should Stick to Regurgitating Others’ Credible Predictions for Apple

Please Shut Up About Apple Making a TV

Verities and Balderdash: TMA Applies Common Sense to the Latest Apple Rumors

I’m Going to Give This Apple HDTV Thing One More Shot

The Most Compelling Argument Yet for an Apple Television

I started this beat in August of 2010 when the rumors started building into what is now a deafening crescendo. If you look at the sheer volume of rumors about Apple’s television now, you’ll see that no source is turned away. Any whiff of “substantiation” creates an RSS feed explosion.

So imagine my surprise when I started noticing some contrarians weigh in about why the Apple TV is a bad idea. Marco Arment of Instapaper fame wrote something last year. Philip Elmer-DeWitt used his arguments to agree with him last month. Now the “real” analysts are piling on. That’s a good indication that something’s beyond obvious. Their reasoning?

• The market is crowded with low-cost producers
• The margins are terrible

These are the 2 most important, which is why it’s been the kick drum of my percussion line. There have been reasons cited by others that I think add to the case against the move:

• Cable companies are a bitch and seem destined to die via some sort of autoerotic asphyxiation – probably with a plastic bag filled with Benjamins tied around its head
• Their size makes handling and stocking impractical
• TVs are durable goods, not impulse buys
• There’s not a single global TV standard

If Apple can work out an umbrella deal with any cable and/or satellite content provider (solve the first bullet), these other problems become non-issues. But even if Apple makes a deal with Comcast, it doesn’t need to make a TV, a point that was also raised by Elmer-DeWitt:

Apple’s success in studio and broadcast media is and will continue to consist of 9 parts media, 1 part hardware. The value of the hardware has already been captured in a set-top box (the AppleTV); further integration would only add a cost barrier while decreasing consumer choice.

Oh wait-that was me. Almost a year ago. I guess it’s one of those things that’s so obvious that it’s become transparent.

So Apple Making a TV Isn’t a Good Idea? Fascinating. originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 16, 2012.

…it seems that Google’s trying to get hardware OEMs to differentiate from each other based purely on the hardware and not on the various custom Android skins that cause major delays in updating the OS (and reduce functionality, in many cases).

And OEMs would do this…why? Do you really think Samsung and HTC are going undercut phones featuring their own OS grafts and compete with each other on hardware? The whole point of TouchWiz and Sense was for these OEMs to be able to differentiate their phones from the rest of the 1,000 other Android shartphones. If Google thinks it has any leverage in this relationship, they’re deluded. That train’s left the station. Sorry, Andy.

I’ll tell you exactly what will happen, if this rumor actually pans out: the manufacturers that take the bait from Google will do so because their access to 5.0 will be somehow tied to it. These devices will be released quietly with barely any marketing flourish – no killer robots, no barista-bashing – and they’ll end up selling as well as every other Nexus device has – or hasn’t. If Google gets too pushy, don’t be surprised if one of the major players pulls an Amazon and forks Android themselves. It’s an extension of the same logic they’re using now to justify the crapification of stock Android with their bloat. They honestly believe they’re adding value, so what’s to stop them from cutting the cord altogether and just rolling their own?

Google Rumored to Partner with Multiple OEMs for 5.0 Nexus Phone, Logic Be Damned originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 15, 2012.

Apple’s filing asserts that Samsung destroyed “vast quantities of relevant evidence in blatant disregard of its duty to preserve all such evidence.”

That’s pretty heavy language to put in a filing. How could it be possible for Samsung to dispose of “evidence” without malicious intent?

At issue is Samsung’s company policy of automatically deleting e-mails from custodian computers every two weeks, even if the company is required to keep e-mail evidence relevant to an ongoing case.

That’s a pretty convenient policy for a company that’s embroiled in legal battles with Apple all over the world. I’d be curious to see if Samsung’s “2 week corporate memory” policy is in place worldwide. My guess is “no”.

So Samsung countersues using frivolous patents in an attempt to get Apple to drop their claims, stands accused of willfully withholding source code mandated to be procured by the court and is now being accused of trashing evidence. Their strategy appears to be working. It’s been over a year and Apple still hasn’t had its day court in its own country and Samsung has been ripping off Apple’s IP every day this drags on. I wonder if Samsung has themselves a good laugh back at the mothership in South Korea when they talk about our legal system. I sure would.

Samsung’s Curious Email Deletion Policy Called Out in Apple U.S. Patent Suit originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 11, 2012.

Take HP as a recent example. At an HP event discussing product design in Shanghai, Stacy Wolff, vice president of Industrial Design at Hewlett-Packard got a little prickly when asked if HP was worried about Apple suing it over the design of some of its Ultrabooks.

I would go back to the TC1000 [Tablet PC] from about 10 years, and that’s a tablet. I think if you look at the new Spectre XT, there are similarities in a way, not due to Apple but due to the way technologies developed. Apple may like to think that they own silver, but they don’t. In no way did HP try to mimic Apple. In life there are a lot of similarities.

Ah, yes. In that big bucket of things we call “life”, similarities are bound to happen. Purely by coincidence.

Crazy happenstance. Such is life.

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s call something what it is, shall we? Apple provided the inspiration for the Ultrabook lineup. Take a look at Intel’s Ultrabook landing page:

Let's dispense with the charade, shall we?

For the benefit of all those continuing to knock off Apple’s design of the Air, I’ve created a little sound byte that gives credit where its due, but also allows a rationale to “borrow” from Apple. Free of charge. Just click on an ad if you’re going to use it.

We recognize that Apple has been a leader in laptop design and in the MacBook Air, they created one of the most successful marriages of design and performance in the “ultra-portable” class of laptops – the category we now call Ultrabooks. At Company X, we wanted to build on some of the successes that made the Air one of the most popular Ultrabooks, while also addressing a market that Apple by definition excludes: the majority of users that choose Windows in the workplace and at home. We also wanted to build products with features the Air lacks, such as larger screens, HDMI connectivity and a variety of powerful Intel processors. In short, we wanted to provide users with a choice. We feel that the design language inspired by the MacBook Air to be an excellent starting point for an entire category of laptops that are thin and light, but also powerful. With our Ultrabooks, users not only have a choice of operating system, they can choose from among a vast menu of hardware features and price points that suit their particular needs.

That wasn’t so hard, was it?

How to Market Your Ultrabook and Not Sound Like a Douche originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 10, 2012.

When we last left our heroes, they were being asked to partner with their adversaries in paring down the claims so that they could have their day in court in July, as opposed to the not-so-veiled threat of a 2013 trial that would allow Sammy to mock Apple’s innovations for another year.

Apple is "unable to compete in the marketplace" and "instead seeking to compete through litigation"

Instead of conceding a 2013 date, which of course Samsung still maintains is necessary for a trial of this scope, Apple dropped half of its claims, including all of its trademark claims. Samsung, meanwhile, narrowed its “claims” from 12 to 7, or in Samsung’s words “42% of its fluff pulled from the filing cabinet marked ‘kevlar’ affirmative counterclaims.”

Florian Mueller has an excellent state of the case as it stands, including this nugget that sounds a lot like what I’ve been saying:

Samsung asserts a combination of allegedly standard-essential patents that Apple may infringe, but only if they’re standard-essential, and non-standard-essential patents that appear weak to me at this stage. Samsung’s counterclaims are underwhelming. They’re the kind of counterclaims someone brings only for the sake of bringing counterclaims, which is why it’s far easier for Samsung to drop a number of them (Samsung now proposed to withdraw 5 of its 12 technical patents). When Samsung countersued Apple over such a long list of patents, it knew that the case would be narrowed.

It remains to be seen whether this lightened load will be enough to persuade Judge Koh that the case can be processed by the frail capacities of potential jurors in July, but it does show Apple is so serious about defending its IP in the near term that its willing to skinny the docket at the expense of their case.

Apple Streamlines Its Claims Against Samsung in California, Hopes for Actual Trial in This Lifetime originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 8, 2012.

Yesterday, the jury ruled that Google did infringe on the “sequence, structure and organization” of 37 Java APIs owned by Oracle, but couldn’t decide whether or not this stealing ”redistribution” constituted a violation of “fair use”. If one assumes the jury understood from testimony the amount of work that went into crafting each of those APIs, one has to assume the jurors believed this work was put in for the betterment of mankind without any kind of financial motivation. In other words, how Google perceives the work that goes into the stuff they steal – for their financial gain. So in the jury’s view, it’s possible for a company to abscond intellectual property created by another company in a way that doesn’t constitute theft.

Both parties heralded the verdict as a victory. Oracle said “The overwhelming evidence demonstrated that Google knew it needed a license and that its unauthorized fork of Java in Android shattered Java’s central write once run anywhere principle.” Google replied “We appreciate the jury’s efforts, and know that fair use and infringement are two sides of the same coin.” whatever the fuck that means. It is expected that the fair use question as it applies to copyright will be resolved by Judge William Alsup as a “ judgment as a matter of law” (JMOL). It could also be the subject of a new trial, but that alternative would probably favor Oracle.

The verdict represents the first stage of trial. The trial will now move to its second phase, where it will tackle the more substantiative issue of Google’s alleged infringement on Oracle’s Java patents.

Google Stole from Oracle, But What Is Stealing Really? originally appeared on TheMacAdvocate on May 8, 2012.