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Apple, Android and a truckload of watermelons

2013-05-23T19:43:44Z

Looking at market share vs. profit share every which way to Sunday.

FORTUNE -- "Have you heard this one?" asks John Kirk in Android's Market Share is Literally a Joke, a Tech.pinions piece posted Thursday.

It starts like this:

Two farmers bought a truckload of watermelons, paying five dollars apiece for them. Then they drove to the market and sold all their watermelons for four dollars each. After counting their money at the end MORE

Jon Stewart on Tim Cook, Apple's taxes, and the subcommittee

2013-05-23T19:13:19Z

"Who are those people? What is the opposite of a Genius Bar?"

FORTUNE -- You knew The Daily Show wasn't going to pass up a chance to comment on a hearing as unintentionally comical as the Senate subcommittee's probe into Apple's (AAPL) taxes.

Apologies for the fuzzy YouTube clip. There's a better version on Comedy Central's Daily Show site.

Filed under: Apple 2.0

Analyst: Apple caught 'flat footed' in Asian smartphone race

2013-05-23T16:07:27Z

Says current iPhones are "poorly aligned" with the factors driving smartphone growth.

FORTUNE -- In a note to clients Thursday, Nomura's Stuart Jeffrey raised his estimates for smartphone sales in 2013, 2014 and 2015 by 13%, 16% and 14%, respectively.

But not for Apple (AAPL).

"Despite Apple commanding an 18% smartphone share," he writes, "we have not increased our Apple estimates."

The reason, he says, is that Apple's current crop of iPhones are "poorly aligned" MORE

Joe Nocera does it again

2013-05-23T13:56:52Z

On the New York Times Op-Ed page he calls Apple CEO Tim Cook a liar.

FORTUNE -- I met Joe Nocera once, and he seemed like a nice guy. Over his long career as a business journalist -- including more than a decade at Fortune -- he's done some first-rate work on Apple (AAPL). "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs," a profile for Esquire of the entrepreneur at age 31, may MORE

Forecast of the day: iPhone and Galaxy June sales

2013-05-22T23:09:05Z

Google Trends says Apple beats low expectations, Samsung momentum stays strong.

FORTUNE -- Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty unveiled a new crowdsourced forecasting tool Tuesday. As explained in an April whitepaper, the AlphaWise Smartphone Tracker is based on an analysis of Google Trends, using different search terms for different regions and adjusting for seasonal trends.

The results of the first month's survey of the U.S., U.K., German, French, Japanese and Chinese markets are shown in the chart above.

As MORE

Bloomberg: Apple stuck bond buyers with a '$280 million loss'

2013-05-23T13:09:49Z

As if Apple's bonds were the only ones whose price fell as interest rates climbed.

FORTUNE -- As John R. noted in the comment stream of Mary Childs' latest story on the Bloomberg newswire, she is not an idiot: "She knows using a sensational headline containing 'Apple' will attract readers."

Thus a rise in interest rates across the board is reported on Bloomberg as Apple (AAPL) news:

Apple Bonds Stick Buyers With $280.6 MORE

Guess which senator asked Apple the smartest questions?

2013-05-23T22:25:04Z

To the surprise of many, it was the Tea Party candidate from Wisconsin.

FORTUNE -- Sen. Ron Johnson -- not to be confused with the Ron Johnson who created the Genius Bar -- gets a lot of heat from liberals in his home state for his positions on abortion (he's against it), same sex marriage (ditto), global warming (caused by sun spots) and the Violence Against Women Act (unconstitutional).

There's even a MORE

Tim Cook's testimony on Apple's taxes: The reviews are in

2013-05-23T18:35:28Z

Reporters wrote two kinds of second-day stories, with two very different takes.

FORTUNE -- A search of Google News the day after Tim Cook's Senate testimony on Apple's (AAPL) taxes turned up two kinds of stories.

Headlines reporting on the fact of the hearing tended to use metaphors of violence ("rip," "lambaste," "clash," "spar," "fend off") or of high-temperature torture ("grilled," "under fire," "hot seat").

But the journalists who reported on the atmospherics MORE

Mr. Cook came to Washington and escaped unscathed

2013-05-21T23:00:25Z

No one laid a glove on Apple's CEO, not even the subcommittee's hostile chairman.

FORTUNE -- In February, the Huffington Post's Jason Gilbert reviewed the performance of Apple (AAPL) shares on days that Tim Cook spoke in public and concluded, as his headline put it,

The Last 6 Times Tim Cook Has Talked, Apple's Stock Has Dropped.

So it was with some trepidation that Apple investors tuned in to C-Span.org Tuesday morning to watch Cook's MORE

Sen. Rand Paul: 'The Senate should apologize to Apple'

2013-05-21T16:19:33Z

The junior senator from Kentucky has been tweeting up a storm in Apple's defense.

FORTUNE -- In subcommittee hearings Tuesday, Senators Carl Levin and John McCain were careful to balance praise for Apple's (AAPL) achievements with outrage over its "convoluted and pernicious" (McCain's words) tax avoidance strategies.

Sen. Rand Paul showed no such balance. He lit into his own committee's leadership for "dragging" one of America's great success stories into what he MORE