From Searchme:

I wonder what Apple’s intellectual property lawyers think about it?

The Fake Steve Jobs blog is getting a bit tired, but some of the comments are fun. “Vladimir Putin” is a regular commenter. In response to another commenter complaining about the $50 cost of iPod TV adaptors, Vladimir responded (imagine Russian accent):

iPod TV adapter contain metal, plastic, and so has cost. Best profit margin is from iPod Sock, which is costing $0.001 of cotton from Africa, and $0.02 of Chinese slave labor to make, yet retail for $49.95!

Do not think of this as raping of customer so much as making sweet love to shareholder. Welcome to America!

This video compares prices of identical Apple products in Australia and the US. The Australian prices are all significantly higher, when converted to US dollars:

In Apple’s defence, you could say that the US dollar is historically very low at the moment, and you can’t expect Apple to update its Australian prices every day in response to exchange rate changes to keep them in line with US prices. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure similar differences hold if you use, say, the average exchange rate over the past 12 months, and surely 12 months is a long enough time for Apple to update its prices. In the past I’ve observed similar things with New Zealand Apple prices too, while Japanese prices seem pretty much in line with the US.

It’s hard to see an obvious reason for persistently higher Australian prices. The video suggests that shipping costs could be some part of it, but at least some Apple products are made in China, and China is roughly the same distance from the US as it is from Australia. Local retailing costs can’t explain it either, as I don’t believe that wages or retail space are significantly more expensive in Australia than the US. And finally, I don’t believe that Australians have significantly higher willingness to pay for Apple products on average compared to Americans. So does anybody have any ideas about what’s really going on?

Related: Joshua Gans wonders why iTunes movie rentals will not be available in Australia.

I thought everyone knows that pie charts are bad graphics. Humans are very poor at comparing angles, which is what you need to do when you compare slices of the pie. 3D pie charts are the worst, because you introduce an additional useless dimension into your display. With a 3D pie chart, you’re displaying one-dimensional data in three dimensions, which is not a good thing to do.

So I was surprised to see this picture of so-called master of design, Steve Jobs, giving his latest Macworld presentation (via Engadget):

Anyway, the new Macbook Air looks cool, but it’s too expensive. And you can’t replace the battery yourself. That seems kind of annoying, because in my experience laptop batteries only last about one year before they start to wear out.

In spite of his using 3D pie charts, you do have to admire Steve though. What other CEO can get people to camp out overnight waiting for him to make a presentation of new products?

In Round I of the Apple saga, Apple battled with Microsoft for control of the personal computer and operating systems market. Apple and Microsoft used very different strategies. Apple sold relatively expensive hardware that would only run its operating system, and did not license its system for use on non-Apple hardware (except for a brief period as far as I know). Microsoft concentrated on its operating system and some other software (eg Office), and allowed its system to be used on hardware made by a wide range of manufacturers. We all know who won Round I: Microsoft. Only recently has Apple relented and made its hardware able to run Windows, although its operating system still only works on its own hardware.

Round II is shaping up to be Apple versus Google, battling for control of the mobile Internet. Apple’s iPhone has been popular, but again it followed the strategy of a ‘closed’ platform, where it was difficult for third parties to develop software for the iPhone. Under much pressure from users and following repeated attempts by hackers to break open its system, Apple has relented and said that it will allow third parties to develop applications for the iPhone from early next year. Then this week Google announced its own mobile telecommunications/Internet platform, which will be truly open, in the sense that anyone can develop applications for it.

To me, the open question is which platform and business model leads to the most efficient creation of applications for end users. Google’s open model seems to have both advantages and disadvantages compared to a closed model. Having an open system allows for a greater range of application developers, but also introduces greater variability in quality. For example, browsing the collection of Google Gadgets that can be incorporated into a website or personalised homepage reveals a wide variety of quality. Some gadgets are cool, but a lot of others suck. This imposes costs on users to sort the good from the bad. If that discourages people from using gadgets, then gadget developers will have less incentive to develop them in the first place. I see similar tradeoffs at work in Google’s mobile phone platform. Apple’s model, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat more controlled. Although they are opening up to third-party developers, but knowing Apple they will have rather stricter quality controls and requirements in place. This will raise costs to developers, but may help to improve the quality of applications that do get developed.

Another key to the puzzle of how to get the right quantity and quality of mobile applications is the way that developers are compensated. It seems that Google will use a similar model of sharing advertising revenue with application developers that they use in their gadget system. Basically, build a popular application that attracts a lot of users (and hence shows a lot of ads to those users) and you get more revenue. I haven’t heard anything about what model Apple is going to use for sharing revenue with applications developers. Maybe something along the lines of iTunes, where applications can be downloaded for a fixed price. Both models reward popularity, so it’s really a question of whether end users prefer seeing ads or paying a price as the way of paying for the applications that they get, and which model rewards popular applications the most.

It’s hard to make a prediction of who’s going to win this battle, in part because the advertising-supported business model for software development is still quite new. But if I had to bet on it, I’ll bet on Apple. I think people’s preferences for quality are relatively strong, especially among people who want to use Internet applications on their mobile phone. I think a platform that provides some quality control over the applications available on its system will have an advantage over one that doesn’t, even if it reduces the number that are available. Of course, this depends on getting all the prices right — how much to charge for applications and how much to pay developers. This makes me more nervous about betting on Apple, as they don’t have a history of getting prices right the first time.