> Still, that’s a compelling data point. Apple had been expanding the range of iPad retail outlets beyond Apple Stores and AT&T all this quarter; you can buy them at Wal*Mart, for instance. But Verizon is the first mobile wireless store that will have it…and barring another Interesting email, the online. > > So! Rumors of a “sooner rather than later” Verizon iPhone have just clicked one stop higher on the credibility scale. Mind you, it’s still firmly in the “I won’t believe it until I hear an official announcement” zone. Andy Ihnatko is right, as usual. This new deal for Apple to sell iPads at Verizon stores (even if they are WiFi-only iPads) is a sign that at least the two companies are capable of making a successful deal of some kind. But it’s not a smoking gun for the illusive Verizon iPhone, by any means.

But forget the iPhone implications. The real story here is that Apple is preventing the iPad from suffering at the hands of the only force that has hurt the iPhone: Verizon. After all, if customers are eventually going to see Android tablets in Verizon stores, Apple might as well make sure that iPads are sitting there right next to them on the table.

This move in effect kills the only opportunity Android had for making any significant inroads in the tablet form factor. Subsidized tablets tied to a service provider contract seemed to be the only way Android manufacturers could at least APPEAR to be price competitive. Now, the sales rep at Verizon is going to be forced to explain that a month-to-month MiFi is actually a better deal over the life of the device.

This is all about plugging the holes in the market share armor. It will be interesting to see how Android manufacturers react.

> To date we’ve had 36,427 active beta testers and below you can see the massive variety of phones and Android OS versions everyone is running. We were really shocked to see the number of custom roms, crazy phones and general level of customization/hackalicious nature of Android. From our perspective it’s pretty cool to have our app work on such a wide variety of devices and Android OS variations. The charts that go along with the linked article above show just how fragmented the Android ecosystem is.

You can call it awesome, or you can call it a QA nightmare. I tend to think of it as a great reason not to develop for Android.

> Twitter will get to a billion members,” Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and former chief executive officer, said Monday, echoing a goal set by Facebook. Williams didn’t elaborate on a time frame. There are roughly 7 billion people on the planet. 1in 7 can’t possibly have Twitter accounts.

What Twitter will have soon is 1 billion accounts, which is not the same thing. I have two Twitter accounts. I know some people who have three or more.

Not saying 1 billion accounts isn’t impressive. But let’s be realistic here. And news outlets, how about pointing out obvious facts like this, rather than running Twitter’s spin machine verbatim.

October 20th, Apple gets “Back to the Mac.” Nice.

This should quiet those who have said that Apple doesn’t focus on the Mac enough. At least for a day or two.

Some are speculating already some new hardware to go along with this announcement. The only Mac really due for an update is the MacBook Air; I’m not sure if that would get rolled into this event or not. I’m guessing not, but it could go either way.

The real focus will be 10.7, of course. I can’t wait to see what they’ve cooked up for that. I expect a lot of design cues from recent iOS UI developments. Mail will get the iOS Mail look and feel, for sure. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. But considering how long Apple has let OS X sit still, I think they have to have at least something pretty big to say, or else why have a special event at all?

> [Microsoft](http://crunchgear.com/tag/Microsoft), ostensibly, is trying to break us of this habit and I say ostensibly because, if you really look at the [Windows Phone 7](http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/10/11/the-windows-phone-7-launch-our-take/) UI, you’re actually dealing with more swipes and taps than you’d expect given the sparse interface they are presenting. Sure, the phones are fast and the UI, at times, is strikingly beautiful, but it’s still a phone and, as such, requires lots of attention. Many opinions floating around about the new Windows Phone 7 ad campaign. This article from Mobile Crunch is correct in noting that while the new OS from Microsoft isn’t going to actually solve the problem of the “face down culture” Microsoft is smart to target this audience anyway.

Take a look at the market, and you can quickly see that Microsoft’s best shot for success is with first-time smartphone buyers. Apple iPhone users are loyal the extreme, so much so that they stick with crappy service just to keep their precious iPhones. So you’ll never get them. Blackberry users are hard-core business users, and although Microsoft has a strong customer base there as a company, this new OS is largely lacking the security features and overall business appeal necessary for that group. Android users are mostly one year into a two-year contract. (Remember, the explosive growth of Android in the US all happened in the last 12 months.) So it would be financially painful to leave your Android phone, even if you wanted to. So that leaves people who have never had a smartphone before.

And there are lots of people in that situation. Tech geek that I am, I have lots more friends and family members who don’t have a smartphone than have iPhones or Android phones. And while many of those people haven’t taken the plunge to a smartphone mostly because of the financial commitment (something that Windows Phone 7 won’t help), many have also expressed a discontent with the seeming obsession of people like myself with my phone. They don’t want to “become a slave” to their phones. Many of them avoided getting mobile phones in the first place until it became absolutely socially unacceptable not to have one. These are the “late adopters,” the people who get dragged kicking and screaming into the next technological wonders. And they are a big group.

They also won’t care at all about the lack of “cut and paste.”

So while the ads may be largely deceptive in the sense that Windows Mobile 7 will not fundamentally reduce your “face down” time, from a marketing standpoint, this is actually a pretty smart campaign.

Just as the DROID marketing campaign succeeded by appealing only to the relatively small market of supergeeks (much to my surprise and chagrin), these Microsoft ads will specifically appeal only to the much larger group of non-supergeeks. Like everything else Microsoft has done with Windows Phone 7 so far, I think this is a smart tactic.