Lovers Spurned #1 : Facebook & Apple

Earlier this month, Apple announced and showed off “deep integration” of Twitter in the new iOS 5. Meaning wherever an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch goes, Twitter is there - the hot new celeb couple in town!

News (and gosh leaked photos too) is circulating in the feeds showing Apple’s ex-lover to be none-other than Facebook – Twitter’s archrival. The circulating pictures of unreleased betas are showing that same “deep integration” with Facebook, exactly where Twitter is now. After all Facebook is the undisputed king of social media, many times larger than Twitter.

How did that Apple and Facebook relationship run into the rocks? Is it a clash of egos? Jealousy? Who ditched whom? Some say the cracks started with the Apple’s Ping social music network which was supposed to be a service with “iTunes on Facebook”. Some say it’s because of Facebook being in bed already with Microsoft in Windows Phone 7.

Whatever it is, Apple’s jumping straight into bed with arch rival Twitter is surely not making things smoother. So, skip the “let’s be friends” politeness, and get straight into the cat fight of spurned lovers. meowwrrrrrr.

Facebook attacking Apple with HTML5 App Store for iOS devices
Coming soon Facebook’s very own App Store for your iPhone / iPad / iPod Touch. Seriously. Currently the only way to get apps are through Apple’s iTunes Apps. Facebook is determined to break that monopoly and shift Apple users onto Facebook’s own ecosystem. The project is still in development, a pure coincidence that it is being leaked now, right after the leaks of the Apple-Facebook integration.

Apple Game Center in iOS 5 mirrors Facebook gaming
An amazing 53% of Facebook users play games on Facebook. Based on the latest numbers of 700m Facebook users, it means Facebook Games has more than 350m gamers! Far far ahead of the last September launched Apple Game Center with 50m subscribers. So to compete, Apple is launching new look and new features in iOS 5 that makes Game Center more like Facebook’s Games page!

Actions of a spurned lover? Or root of the break-up? Watch out. Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned.

Will you be Facebook-ing on dutch design Sofa?

The saying goes “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”. Everyone knows this. Apply this to company acquisitions, and this is exactly what Facebook has done in buying Sofa, a design-interface-software company based in (i.e. till now) Amsterdam, best known for Mac apps like Kaleidoscope and Versions.

“The Sofa team will be moving from Amsterdam to Palo Alto in the coming weeks – and we’ll make sure to infuse some of our particular flavor of Dutch culture at Facebook” – says Sofa on its blog

The news broke already late last week, especially the dutch media seems thrilled with this acknowledgment of dutch design prowess. I thought and wondered… here’s a team of design talents letting go of its past work, uprooting and shipping themselves across the oceans. There must be more than exciting opportunities, there must be creative space! At least I sure hope so for the Sofa team.

Indeed, the Facebook acquisition of Sofa is not about buying the software products in the company’s portfolio. Products are specifically left OUT of the deal. It’s all about buying the Sofa Team, the team that creates not only great working software, but also great looking software – it’s the experience they create. “Buy a great product; you have a product for today. Buy an awesome team; and you have awesome products for a lifetime.”

“The team will contribute to a wide selection of the products that the design team works on. Typically, each Facebook product has a designer who is a core part of the team.” – says Facebook in a statement

Take a look at Sofa’s past work Kaleidoscope, Versions, Checkout, Enstore and their website / blog. Check out their app/web design style and interface.

With social media as hot as it is, competition from Twitter following right on their heels and Google fuming green with envy, Facebook is upping their game with hyperactivity - changes and new features like Happening Now, FriendFeed, Facebook Lite etc. In a time where User Interface shapes user behavior, this is a truly timely acquisition.

Will Facebook start looking and feeling like Twitter? Will Twitter start looking and feeling like Facebook? Will I be Twittering from Facebook? Or Facebooking from Twitter? Or will I Facebook/Twitter in Google or iOS? The kettle is boiling as we speak and the landscape is about change.

Where will they put their brand new Sofa shipped in all the way from Amsterdam? Or will each and every programmer, developer, marketer and all get to rest their creativity bums on their very own dutch-flavored Sofa? Or will the Sofa simply be left in a corner in the recreation room? Time will tell how much Dutch user interface and design signature we will see.

As a user, I’ll be looking forward to enjoying a Facebook on my dutch Sofa.

Good luck, goede reis en veel succes!

China iPhone iPad iTouch users = 10 million

10,000,000 – that’s the number of iOS users according to sampling by a Chinese software company targetting iOS, as at end April 2011. They go on to further breakdown by the various models iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and data on type of apps and the most used apps in China. There has been little official data published about iOS in China. This report is one of the firsts I’ve seen stating numbers. Here’s some of the figures.

 

iPhone has the biggest share of the pie at 70.25%, that means a cool 7 million iPhone users in China! Given that they cost more than a month’s salary for your average grad with starting job in an office, that’s not a small number. But from another angle, with a population of 1.3b, that’s only 0.005%. Don’t you just love China numbers?

 

The take up of iPhone 4 went fast, already at 63.17%, 3x more than 3GS. Given its position as a status and trend icon, no wonder old models are ditched fast and hard like they are diseased. I myself have seen enough friends / acquaintances do the switch, it’s not so much an upgrade but more of a keepingup(up)grade. If your social circle switches to the 4, you can’t seriously not hurry and do the switch too, can you? or at least that’s how it goes in China. I must say the keepingup happens in Europe too, just not as pressure-cooked as in China – just my casual observation.

 

iPad 2 showed up in the numbers too, even though it is new, a month plus into its US launch, and not officially launched in China yet. So the iPad 2 numbers surely are “imports”. With iPad1+2 at a share of 16.45%, that’s 1.6m users.

 

What do all these numbers mean? That’s a good installed userbase of iOS in China  - currently 10m, translating to 0.007% which means awesome growth potential. Just imagine hitting 0.05% is already a 7x growth! You App developer, yes you… tempted? It seems to go quite unnoticed by everyone outside China and there is not much data on the internet. Which got me really thinking! Wanna think along? Anyway, there are more slides, if you are interested, do email, tweet, comment. Or simply questions? Love to talk/share/chat about app opportunities.