You guys are going to love this because someone has written a pitch-perfect satire of your average Business Insider piece.
Jim Edwards writes “Android Kicked iPhone’s Butt At CES, And Apple Ought To Worry About Becoming the BlackBerry of 2014” (tip o’ the antlers to Wes Kroesbergen).
So. Funny. First off, it would be just like Business Insider to try to figure out a way to jam something about Apple into a trade show the company doesn’t attend. Hysterical. Second, a comparison to BlackBerry? Standing ovation. We’re just two weeks into the year, but this could be the best satire of 2014 because …
What?
Oh.
The Macalope has just been informed that this is an actual Business Insider piece.
Uhhh … huh.
About 150,000 people attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, about 5,000 of which were tech journalists.
Only 5,000? Seems more like 100,000 for all the “UGH, I HAVE TO GO TO CES.” whining.
Yet everywhere you went, people were using large-format Android phones instead of Apple’s iPhones, which are generally smaller.
Let’s forget the fact that Kantar Worldpanel put the iPhone’s October market share in the U.S. (where CES is held, dontcha know) at 52.8 percent and just pretend it’s all about “CES attendees I saw.”
Of course, there is a huge bias in my anecdotal, straw-poll impression.
The Business Insider’s ethic: as long as you say there’s a huge bias in what you’re saying, it’s fine to publish.
This is not a good sign for Apple.
Hang on, gotta check the URL again because this really seems like satire.
Nnnnope.
OK. Well. Let’s soldier on.
The size difference between iPhone and Galaxy was also acute: My tiny iPhone looked like a dumbphone next to Samsung’s Galaxy and Note devices.
“Size issues” jokes are so lame, so please stop lobbing the Macalope these softballs.
At CES I had a hectic schedule that required Ninja-level calendar skills.
Ninja are actually notoriously bad at calendaring.
Yet I felt my iPhone was conspiring against me because I had the temerity to use Google’s calendar app instead of Apple’s.
Why don’t you just get a big Android phone? Is someone forcing you to use an iPhone? Who writes pieces like this? “UGH, GOD, I HATE MY STOOPID PHONE, IT’S SO LAME.” Presumably there is something Edwards likes about the iPhone, but he won’t tell you what that is because he’s in full Business-Insider-Apple-smash mode.
Lesson: big screens rule.
Actually, no! They don’t! Big screen phones are only about 20 percent of the market. Oh, gosh, something completely wrong in a Business Insider piece? What are the odds of … 100 percent, actually.
While the iPhone killed off BlackBerry and the feature phone business, business users never went away. And if there is one thing business users need it is to type.
Apple is a consumer electronics company. To the extent it gets enterprise business it’s certainly happy but it’s not chasing BlackBerry holdouts. Oh, gosh, a Business Insider piece that doesn’t understand Apple’s business? What are the odds of yeah, you’ve got it.
So Apple, without a big-screen phone, risks becoming the BlackBerry of 2014, if it keeps its screens so small.
Let us remember what Edwards’s scientific sample is here, upon which he bases his entire argument: people he saw at CES. But the people he saw at CES confirm his personal experience! That’s like two data points! Well, two anecdotes. But any scientist will tell you that anecdotes are a kind of datum.
Just a very small kind with no statistical relevance.