I posted a while back about how much I hated Instagram. Turns out I was misinformed. Instagram isn’t the target of my dislike: it’s Hipstamatic.
I spent.. no.. wasted $4 on Hipstamatic and two filter/camera sets today to test out the software. It’s really dumb. The filters are taken to the extreme… to the point where I’m convinced that people who use it don’t understand what art actually is. It reminds of me HDR photography and how some amateurs bump up the saturation in their photos to ridiculous amounts because it “looks cool.” No, it doesn’t look cool. It looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.
At least Instagram’s filters are much more subtle (see http://goo.gl/mSSJz). So yes, maybe I should issue a revised statement: Instagram isn’t the problem, it’s Hipstamatic.
Chief Operating Officer of Operations -
Jim Rowan is taking on the expanded role of COO, Operations and will continue to be responsible for manufacturing, global supply chain and repair services.
So Rowan’s title is now the Chief Operating Officer of Operations. Yep, this company is doing great!
Apple and the future of tablets -
If you agree that the main source of growth in consumer technology over the next few years will be in tablets, you should take a look at John Gruber’s article from yesterday.
A big question people have been asking is how to measure tablet market share, particularly because Android doesn’t disclose Android sales outright. They disclose shipments, but that’s only the number of tablets that have been sent to stores, not actually sold to customers. Apple’s shipment numbers can be substituted for sales simply because they’ve sold every single tablet they’ve shipped.
So using some wonky (but pretty clever) math, Robert Synnott estimated on Twitter that there are about 1.35 million tablets (135 million Android devices multiplied by 0.9% using Android’s 3.0 “tablet” operating system). Apple disclosed on Tuesday that they’ve sold 28.73 million iPads. Do the math, and that means Apple is a 95.51% market share. That’s a practical monopoly.
I’m not saying that there isn’t room for a competitor to jump in and take market share away from Apple, but who would it be? Google clearly isn’t successful so far, and based on their roadmap, it doesn’t look like they will be anytime soon. Microsoft is so far away from a real tablet strategy that you can pretty much count them out (at least in the short term). And then there’s… no one else.
Coupled with favorable supplier contracts due to their ridiculous cash horde, Apple seems poised to keep holding that tablet market share steady or even (this sounds crazy) grow market share over the next few years. That means that once again, I posit that the third largest corporation in the world (by market cap) is also still one of the fastest-growing corporations in the world. And trading at only 15.3 times earnings, it’s a value company too. Buy this now.
Nothing is more humbling about technology than watching someone who doesn’t understand computers try to use a computer. Doesn’t matter how smart you are or how great your engineering is: if a regular person can’t use your product then it’s an utter failure.
Looking for a stock pick? Buy Apple. 125% net profit growth year over year and the second largest firm in the world is still a value company at a price to earnings under 20. Q3 top and bottom revenue figures higher than 2010’s holiday season (typically Apple’s most profitable quarter), so you can expect 2011 to be an absolute blowout (especially with a new iPhone coming out in late September/early October).
Not only that, but the consumer tech industry’s largest growth segment at this point are tablets, and Apple retains a practical monopoly over the market (and continues to stronghold that position with favorable agreements with suppliers). Ever wonder why Apple’s iPads have aluminum backs and their competitors’ tablets don’t? It’s because aluminum is expensive, and Apple’s supplier agreements keeps costs down and product quality high.
Quote me back on this post in six months and tell me I’m wrong.
I started a new project a few days ago which I’m calling Instasheil (creative, I know). It’s a new Tumblr blog featuring photos I’ve taken with the Instagram app on my new iPhone. Yes, I know I’ve spoken out about how much I hate Instagram and Hipstamatic before, but the fact is that Instagram makes sharing photos on Facebook and Tumblr so damn easy, it’s hard not to use it.
I used the built-in filters in Instagram the few first days I used the app, but I’m finding that taking a photo with Camera+ (a much more powerful photo app) and then posting it with Instagram works much better. Instagram would have butchered photos like this, but using Camera+ and Instagram together allows me to keep the integrity of the original shot, while still sharing it on Facebook and Tumblr.
Hopefully, the ease of taking and sharing photos means I’ll be taking a lot more of them, something I’ve been trying to do for years. Keep watching that blog for updates.
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