“Integration” As A New Way To Define iOS

In case you missed it, Steve Jobs made a surprise appearance at today’s Apple Q4 earnings call. What he had to say about 7-inch tablets, Android, Nokia, RIM and Apple’s philosophy is all over the internet. You can read a full transcript here.

Reading between the lines, what strikes me is the focus Steve put on the word “integrated”. The iOS platform is integrated, Android is fragmented. With the iPhone, you get an integrated device. You don’t have to mess with hundreds of different devices running multiple versions and variations of the Android OS. But that’s not really the point, we get Steve’s thoughts on Android. Tweetdeck’s developers get them even more.

What interests me is the use of the term “integrated” as a new way of defining iOS, and thus the devices is runs on, against competitors. By definition, to integrate means to “combine two or more elements so that they become a whole”. So it’s clear that, in Jobs’ mind, Apple deeply integrated the hardware with the software to create a new, reliable, user-friendly experience. Read more

Complete Transcript Of Today’s Steve Jobs Statements→

Complete Transcript Of Today’s Steve Jobs Statements

This one pretty much sums it all up:

Nokia makes $50 handsets, and we don’t know how to make a great smartphone for $50. We’re not smart enough to have figured that one out yet, but believe me I’ll let you know when we do. And so our goal is to make really breakthrough great products, make the best products in every industry that we compete in, and to drive the cost down while constantly making the products better at the same time. That’s what we did with iPod. We updated our products many times every year with better functionality, often times at same price and sometimes at a lower price. And it was the relentless improvement at in some cases a lower price, that was able to beat our competition and yield the market share that it did.

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At Apple’s Q4 Earnings Call, Steve Jobs’ Rant Sets The Record Straight

So here’s what happened: at the Q4 earnings call Steve Jobs grabbed the mic and started talking. No one expected Steve Jobs to be available at the conference, because Steve Jobs doesn’t usually attend earnings calls.

But it happened, and he went on a 10-minute long “rant” where he set the record straight about overly discussed arguments such as Google’s openness, Android’s sales numbers, Apple’s App Store and closed system and the rumored 7-inch iPad form factor. He’s still taking questions at the moment of writing this. Read more

Apple Low On iPad Sales in Q4 2010? 7.46 Million iPads Sold So Far

Once again, Apple’s quarterly fiscal results broke any record: $20.43 million revenue, 14.1 million iPhone sold (despite the whole Antennagate “thing”), 3.89 million Macs and 4.19 million iPads.

Looking at the numbers reported above, it appears that analysts this time almost got the whole situation right: they predicted 4 million Macs, 13 million iPhones and…6 million iPads. So is Apple low on iPad sales, with “just” 4.19 million units out from the shelves in Q4? Not really: of all the analysts Fortune contacted, only one placed his expectations above 5.95 million units sold. Nine of them went for a 4.00 - 5.00 million range. Not exactly “low sales”, but perhaps many expected record sales as the iPhone 4.

We have to look at the big picture, and not just the raw numbers. In two quarters, the iPad is already outselling the Mac. 7.46 million iPads are out in the wild, 5 months after its release date.

I think those are the numbers worth to be considered.

Steve Jobs: We still have a few surprises left for 2010

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in the press release for Apple Q4 financial results:

We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple. iPhone sales of 14.1 million were up 91 percent year-over-year, handily beating the 12.1 million phones RIM sold in their most recent quarter. We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of this calendar year.

A few surprises left might mean a new MacBook Air on Wednesday, or a CDMA iPhone (that runs on Verizon) announcement before the end of the year. Or maybe something entirely new, such a 7-inch iPad model? What about a complete MobileMe revamp?

Truth is, with $20 billion revenue in the last quarter they can pull out whatever surprise they want.