Rumor Roundup: An analyst who actually analyzes
If you ignore the stacks of, "Look at this Apple patent application we found, Apple must be building one of these," posts -- and I've chosen to -- then this week was relatively light on rumors.
Two-thirds of Americans will own an iPhone by 2017, calculates analyst (9to5 Mac)
Based solely on the headline, I was all set to rip this story a new one like I do every time some analyst decides to predict what the smartphone market will look like at some arbitrary future date. Then I saw the source was Horace Dediu, one of the few people actually worthy of the title "analyst", because his thinking includes actual analysis.
Dediu's math seems sound. However, if there's one thing I learned from Asimov's Foundation series (not to mention real life), it's that you can't always accurately model the behaviour of large groups.
Apple's 12.9-inch 'iPad Pro' reportedly coming in 2014 with 2K, 4K displays (BGR)
"In a report that's something of a jumbled mess [but that we're going to reblog anyway, because pageviews] International Business Times claims to have some details on Apple's upcoming larger iPads."
I've read through that "jumbled mess" of a report several times, and I can't find a single original bit of data in there. Everything I've seen is just an echo of what some other rumormonger said earlier.
Samsung reportedly still very much present in iPhone's future (BGR)
From the article: "The iPhone future is still not Samsung-free, Digitimes reports." Well, then. Since this is sourced from Digitimes, start placing your bets now on how long it takes before Apple devices have no Samsung-sourced components.
The iPhone 5c may be a costly mistake for Apple (BGR)
From the article: "it's hard to say whether the iPhone 5c is an out-and-out flop." It's apparently not difficult to call it a dud, however. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Perhaps even obsessively. Who knows what BGR's agenda is for continually trying to paint the iPhone 5c as a failure, but it bears repeating (as always): Until or unless Apple breaks down its iPhone sales by model, no one knows how many iPhone 5c units have sold.
The "evidence" for this article's claim is laughable: It comes from an analyst who says that weak iPhone 5c sales are the reason Apple hasn't made a deal for iPhone sales with China Mobile. Except the company just did exactly that. Oops.
