Techmeme: Apple's R&D spending hits bottom as percentage of revenue (Larry Dignan/Between the Lines Blog)

11:50 AM ET, October 17, 2011

Top Items:

iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Top Four Million — Apple® today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world's most advanced mobile operating system …

Reuters:
Apple's iPhone luring people to ditch rival phones

Discussion: Tech Sanity Check Blog, Appolicious Advisor, parislemon and Real Dan Lyons Web Site

Stefan Constantinescu / IntoMobile:
Apple sells more than 4 million iPhone 4S units in just 3 days, that's double the iPhone 4 sales rate

Discussion: TUAW

Jung-Ah Lee / Wall Street Journal:

Samsung Seeks iPhone 4S Sales Ban in Japan, Australia — SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. said it is seeking to stop the sale of Apple Inc.'s new iPhone 4S in Japan and Australia, further ramping up a legal clash with the U.S. company after a series of setbacks in courts around the world in recent days.

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:

Samsung won't get preliminary injunction against iPhone 4S in Australia, situation less clear in Japan — A couple of hours ago, Samsung claimed to be “counter-attacking Apple again” with preliminary injunction requests in Australia and Japan, targeting the iPhone 4S.

Discussion: Computerworld, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney Morning Herald, AppleInsider, Electronista, iTnews.com.au, Electronista, Techie Buzz, Guardian and Delimiter

Christian Zibreg / 9to5Mac:

Samsung to supply A6 processors for next iPhone as chairman dispatches heir apparent for talks with Tim Cook? — In spite of its ongoing litigation with Apple, Samsung is allegedly ramping up production of the Apple-designed A6 chips in its manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas, which opened in 2007.

Discussion: The Korea Times, AppleInsider, GigaOM, Business Insider, Sammy Hub, Softpedia News, MacDailyNews, SlashGear and iClarified

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

Introducing Instapaper 4.0 for iPad and iPhone — The iPhone reading screens also no longer show the top status bar by default (but there's an option to put it back). This gives a larger, less distracting reading area without sacrificing easy access to the toolbar or annoying customers with finicky full-screen tap modes.

Discussion: GigaOM, Gizmodo, Betabeat, ReadWriteWeb, iLounge, MacStories and everythingiCafe

Jim Gianopulos / Hollywood Reporter:

A Studio Chief Pens Revealing First-Person Steve Jobs Remembrance … “I'm coming to Paros.” Hearing those words was much scarier than you'd think. — During the spring and summer of 2006, Steve Jobs was negotiating with Fox and other studios to expand iTunes from selling digital music and TV shows to selling feature films.

Discussion: CNET News

Peter Delevett / Mercury News:

Luminaries pay tribute to Steve Jobs at Stanford service — The technology industry's leading lights gathered Sunday evening to bid farewell to one who shone perhaps the brightest. — Steve Jobs — the former Apple CEO who revolutionized computing, telephones, animated films and the music industry …

Discussion: 9to5Mac, Bits, AppleInsider, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, SiliconANGLE, Telegraph, The Tech Herald …, Inquirer, Neowin.net, VentureBeat and iPhone Savior

David Streitfeld / New York Times:

Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal — SEATTLE — Amazon.com has taught readers that they do not need bookstores. Now it is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers. — Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form.

Discussion: VentureBeat, gHacks Technology News, Good E-Reader and Neowin.net

Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:

Serving at the Pleasure of the King — I enjoy my iPhone tremendously; I think it's the most important product Apple has ever created and one they were born to make. As a consumer who has waited far too long for the phone industry to get the swift kick in the ass it so richly deserved, I'm entirely on Apple's side here.

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Apple's R&D spending hits bottom as percentage of revenue — Summary: Apple's research and development spending as a percentage of revenue has been on the decline for years. Apple doubled down 2000 through 2005 and is harvesting the returns now. — Guess what Apple's research and development spending is as a percentage of revenue?

Discussion: 9to5Mac

Scott Hanselman:

There is only one Cloud Icon in the Entire Universe — I recently worked on the update to the ASP.NET site, now in beta at http://beta.asp.net. On that site we used an icon from the Pictos collection. I have an email from March of 2010 where we selected that icon, in fact.

Discussion: The Next Web

Ron Amadeo / Android Police:

[Exclusive] The Ice Cream Sandwich Gallery Is Likely Getting A Built-In Photo Editor; We've Got The Feature List — Google is working on building a photo editor into the Android Gallery. That much we're certain about - we've got the icons for it. It's not 100% confirmed that this will actually ship …

Discussion: Engadget, Softpedia News, Electronista and Android Phone Fans

Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:

Google Music Store Will Launch This Quarter — Google's long awaited music store is on schedule for launch this quarter, and the major labels are starting to spread the word to their subsidiaries and partners. — We got word from the owner of an independent record label.

Discussion: Softpedia News, Gizmodo UK, Mobile Entertainment and MobileBurn.com

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

David Cameron will never shut down Facebook, even in times of civil unrest, such as the riots, according to a top executive at the social network. — It was thought that after a number of executives from Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry were summoned to a meeting with Theresa May …

Discussion: TechEye, Gizmodo UK and Between the Lines Blog

Steve Lohr / New York Times:

Default Choices Are Hard to Resist, Online or Not — IN the wide-open Web, choice and competition are said to be merely “one click away,” to use Google's favorite phrase. But in practice, the power of digital distribution channels, default product settings and traditional human behavior often matters most.

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, Thanks:lutherlowe

Jordan Kahn / 9to5Google:

Patent analyst accused of anti-Google stance funded by Microsoft — Florian Mueller, who writes at FOSS Patents and often takes a harsh stance on Google in covering patent related litigation, has revealed that he's being funded by Microsoft to create a new study related to “fair, reasonable …

Discussion: Matt Cutts, FOSS Patents, @timbray and Softpedia News

Steve Kovach / Business Insider:

Here's Rhapsody's Plan To Get Millions Of New Users Without Giving Away Free Music — Find out more about the future of mobile streaming music at IGNITION, Business Insider's Conference on the future of media, on November 30 - December 1 in NYC! — Thanks to the hype surrounding Spotify's U.S. launch …

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

Too Little, Too Late: Motorola Will Start Selling A $400 Xoom — Motorola will start selling a $400 Xoom this Sunday, the WSJ reports. — The $400 Xoom will have 16 gigabytes of storage. The original Xoom had 32 gigabytes. — Will it make a difference? Probably not.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and Between the Lines Blog

Archived Page Info:

This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 11:50 AM ET, October 17, 2011.

View the current page or another snapshot:

Techmeme Sponsor Posts:

Meta:

Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few — Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.

Zoho:

How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free — As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving. While the season brings immense happiness …

Genesys:

Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots — How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.

Tribe AI:

Build AI products that matter — Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact. We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.

Sponsor Techmeme

Who's Hiring in Tech?