Data and trends from the iTunes store

To tie in with their 25 billionth app download (made by Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China), Apple have released the top 25 rankings for their paid and free apps within the UK iTunes App Store. Some interesting (and in some cases unexpected) things have emerged. Data below is correct as of March 6th. Where apps [...]

Learning from Steve Jobs

Understandably, technology news over the past week has been dominated by Steve Jobs’ resignation as Chief Executive from Apple. While he will stay on as Chairman, Tim Cook – former Chief Operating Officer – will take the helm. There have been many wonderful pieces on Jobs (though some do read like obituaries) – these from [...]

Recommended reading – 24th July 2010

I’ve been a bit neglectful of this blog over the past month or two. Come September, this should change. I haven’t written a “recommended reading” post for over a month, so I will rectify that by posting two this weekend, featuring the very best of the various articles and blogs I’ve read over the past [...]

Recommended Reading – 24th April 2010

I decided against posting a list last week, and instead held out until I had a decent number of quality links worth sharing. I now have a high-quality list, which can be found below: Laura Miller on Salon suggests how Apple could learn from Amazon in its use of metadata, if it is serious about [...]

Fighting potential irrelevance

Disclaimer: My employer, Essential Research, has worked with several of the UK network providers in the past, and hopes to do so again in future. All opinions expressed in this blog post – and this blog in general – are my own. The first to market isn’t always the ultimate category “winner”. There were cars [...]

The general public doesn’t need an iPad

Steve Jobs’ powers of presentation and salesmanship have been well remarked upon. However, one statement in his recent keynote address launching the iPad jarred for me. All of us use laptops and smartphones now Who is this “us”? The people in the audience? The people in Apple’s target market? Because it certainly isn’t everyone. Data [...]

Is TV advertising responsible for Apple’s success?

I was in a meeting a few days ago where Apple was described as a company that had retreated from large-scale TV advertising, despite TV advertising being responsible for its success. I disagreed at the time, and remain pretty sure that this is a fallacy. Am I right? Buttressed by Wikipedia and recent “25 year [...]

Links – 9th January 2009

Enjoy your Friday Products Jon Canter rants against the rise of personalised copy on product packaging. “We’re the couple who love to make crisps.” It sounds like a personal ad in Snackmakers Weekly: a couple seeks another couple who also love to make crisps, in the hope of meeting up in a car park in [...]

The power of successful rebranding

Rebranding can be a large scale venture. Rebranding can be a small scale venture. Some rebrands work. Some don’t. Successful rebrands don’t have to be complete overhauls. They can be minor tweaks – a new campaign, or a new logo for instance. Look at Dave. It was the same channel, and had minimal schedule change [...]