Apple iPhone 5s #1 in November; Apple iPhone 5c #3; The Announcement "Pushed All But Samsung" Out Of The Picture; Relegated The Galaxy S4 To Runner-Up Position Across The Board -- Cream Rises To The Top

I was going to post this earlier, but ran out of time, and then forgot. Better late than never.

MacRumors is reporting:

The iPhone was the top-selling smartphone at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for September, October and November of this year, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley.

The iPhone 5s, which came out in the second half of September, has proved extremely popular with customers and has only recently gotten close to a supply/demand balance.

Not in a million years would I have expected that. With all the reports in the mainstream media, I wa sure Samsung/Androids would have been #1.

And then get this: what was #3? The much despised, criticized, and minimized Apple iPhone 5c.

From the linked article:

Before the iPhone 5s and 5c's release, Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Sony, and Motorola all had handsets enjoying top-three sales at at least one of America's big four carriers. Apple's September announcement pushed all but Samsung out of the picture and relegated the South Korean conglomerate's Galaxy S4 to the runner-up position across the board.
Apple has maintained a significant edge outside of the U.S. as well, even before the long-anticipated launch of the company's devices on China Mobile, the world's largest wireless carrier. The iPhone 5s was "by far the top selling smartphone...at most channels where the smartphone launched globally," Walkley notes.

Samsung's Galaxy S 4, the iPhone's chief competitor, now holds second place across all carriers with the iPhone 5c coming in third. Closer to the launch of the 5c and 5s, the 5c held second place at AT&T and Sprint.

I can't wait to read the comments.

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Note to the Granddaughters

I'm continuing to enjoy Max Tegmark's OurMathematical Universe. The publication date is January 7, 2014.

It's an incredibly enjoyable book and an incredibly difficult book at the same time. It's difficult because of the concepts, not the actual writing. I've learned that with these kinds of difficult books it is best not to get bogged down; slog through it, get to the end and then go back and read the portions that are of most interest.

The nice thing about Tegmark's book is the personal touch and the biographical sketches he provides.

Today this caught my attention; it was nice break from the difficult concepts --

I used to feel there were two kinds of physicists: the titans and the mere mortals. The titans were towering historical figures such as Newton, Einstein, Schrödinger, and Feynman who possessed supernatural powers and were surrounded by legends and myths. The mere mortals were the physicists I had met who, although perhaps brilliant, were clearly just ordinary people like you and me.

And then there was John Wheeler. When I saw him in January 1996, I felt overwhelmed. There he was, eighty-four years old, in the Copenhagen cafeteria where we had our conference lucnh. To me, he was the "last titan."

He had worked with Niels Bohr on nuclear physics. he had coined the term black hole. He had pioneered spacetime foam. He had had Feynman and Everett as grad students. He had become one of my physics superheroes with his passion for wild ideas. And there he was, simply eating, like a mere mortal!   ....

... I very rarely cry, but I did in 2008 when I learned that John Wheeler had died.

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Yesterday, I sent this note to my wife --

I am reading a most fascinating physics book -- helps me talk with Arianna AND understand better "Big Bang Theory."

The author discusses a physicist, Hugh Everett, who made an exiting discovery back in 1957. No one followed up; this particular author did and suggests that Hugh Everett's insight could equal that of Einstein, but for some reason his ideas were so far-fetched, he was ignored and his work ignored. It was his doctoral thesis.

This is what the author wrote about this physicist:

"Because his thesis and he was ignored, he did not get a job; he "became rather bitter and withdrawn, smoked and drank too much, and died of an early heart attack in 1982. I've learned more about him recently because I got to meet his son, Mark, at the shooting of a TV documentary called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives. The producer wanted me to explain Hugh Everett's work to his son, Mark...... ".....Mark is a rock star, and if you've seen Shrek, you've heard him sing. His dad's fate really tormented his family, and you can hear it in many of his son's songs. He and his sister had almost no contact with their dad even though they lived together. His sister committed suicide, leaving a note saying that she was going to visit her dad in a parallel universe."

A good book for the lay person who loves physics, though grad students with time on their hands might enjoy it also.