Comment by brown9-2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brown9-2 | Hacker News Reader

JR Raphael: "First, when you say that Apple has more daily activations than Android, your figures include all iOS devices: iPhones, iPads, and iPods. The Android figures we've been looking at so far focus solely on phones."

The actual quote from Steve Jobs on the earnings call:

"Well, what about Google? Last week, Eric Schmidt reiterated that they are activating 200,000 Android devices per day. And have around 90,000 apps in their App Store. For comparison, Apple has activated around 275,000 iOS devices per day on average for the past 30 days with a peak of almost 300,000 iOS devices per day on a few of those days. And Apple has 300,000 apps on its App Store." (Source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/230710-apple-s-ceo-discusses...)

Why is the author rebuking Steve Jobs about "your figures include all iOS devices" when that is exactly what Steve Jobs actually said?

Mr. Raphael even cites an article which has a disclaimer at the top that says "The story you're about to read is not (entirely) true" as evidence that Mr. Jobs doesn't allow the word "open" to be used in his house.

This feels like manufactured criticism.

I believe that the author was implying that Steve Jobs carefully chose data to support an argument when other data would have better suited the comparison that he as making. Disagreements about whether he was trying to conceal his choice in data don't seem very relevant to me.

EDIT: You are probably right about the author. He does seem to have an axe to grind. But I don't think it make his argument (in this case) less correct.

This reads like an argument analysis answer choice on the LSAT or GMAT. In a good way.

I believe that the author was implying that Steve Jobs carefully chose data to support an argument when other data would have better suited the comparison that he as making.

Which is likewise wrong. Jobs cites total iOS activations because Apple makes no distinction. It's reflective of how the company that he represents actually thinks, and he used the data that they actually pay attention to.

The author presumes that including iPads and iPods is somehow "cheating", but he's the one selectively picking only the market in which Android is succeeding. If you look at everything that runs either OS, Jobs is right. It's only if you selectively pick smartphones (and growth, specifically, as Apple's share is still greater) that Android looks good.

>Jobs cites total iOS activations because Apple makes no distinction. It's reflective of how the company that he represents actually thinks, and he used the data that they actually pay attention to.

So you mean Apple has no way to find out the number of iPhones activated per day since they make no distinction?

Analysts want to compare the number of Android phones vs. the number of iPhones sold. Apple is intentionally withholding that data because it makes them look bad and is instead talking only iOS numbers.

So you mean Apple has no way to find out the number of iPhones activated per day since they make no distinction?

No, that's not what I mean at all. What I am saying is that Apple thinks of the iPhone, iPod, and iPad as three different containers for the same thing rather than as three wholly independent product lines. I don't see how that's controversial or unusual, and the existence of Android media players and tablets is evidence that this thinking is not unique to Apple. It's not clear that Schmidt's 200,000 activations/day figure excluded such devices, either, nor do I think it should.

Analysts want to compare the number of Android phones vs. the number of iPhones sold. Apple is intentionally withholding that data because it makes them look bad and is instead talking only iOS numbers.

Nonsense. The quarterly sales figures for the iPhone were stated twice in the very same call (the transcript linked above). It's also very hard to believe that Jobs is afraid that the iPhone being out-sold by the sum of all Android phones makes Apple look bad when he even said so himself in the same call:

"[...] Android is our biggest competitor. They out-shipped us in the June quarter as we were transitioning to iPhone 4. They out-shipped us for the first time according to Gartner's numbers, which we think are pretty accurate."

Clearly the only legitimate comparison is the number of phones activated on Verizon's network. Anyone who feels differently is a sheep who puts fashion and popularity ahead of the only things that really matter and has been sucked into Steve Jobs's reality distortion field.

> Apple is intentionally withholding that data because it makes them look bad and is instead talking only iOS numbers.

Eh? http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/apple-s-14-1m-...

is that withholding?

The author wrote the joke article he cited, himself, so I’m pretty sure he knew it was a joke. [Doesn’t invalidate your broader point that his reasoning is sloppy and (I find) his writing neither insightful nor funny.]

I have been somewhat baffled at the insistence on only comparing "smartphones" vs all devices. Seems to be a fairly irrelevant distinction if you're not an exec at a wireless carrier.

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