Apple and Samsung have been busy at the circus in the court room, Judge Koh has been questioning the recreational drug use of lawyers, iPhone update rumors are on the rise, analysts can’t 
decide how many iPhones Apple will sell this quarter, and there’s a good chance you should just get off Mac OS Ken Ken Ray’s lawn right now.
Apple & Samsung: Court Room Smackdown
So you know how I’ve joked off and on that Judge Lucy Koh, the judge presiding over the Apple v. Samsung v. Apple trial in San Jose might eventually pull a nutty? Maybe start hitting people with her gavel or something? She apparently let her displeasure be known in a fairly big way this week.
From CNET:
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has had her fill of courtroom ‘theatrics’ and questionable legal maneuvering from both sides in the Apple v. Samsung patent trial.
“I want papers,” said Koh yesterday in response to Apple’s objection to a Samsung witnesses. “I don’t trust what any lawyer tells me in this courtroom. I want to see actual papers.”
Did she say she doesn’t trust the lawyers in front of the jury?
Judge Koh seemed to have had a sort of Casandra going, too. The Mac Observer has the judge in the Apple v. Samsung v. Apple trial urging the heads of both Apple and Samsung to work out a settlement on their own, before it’s too late. Those weren’t her exact words, though the piece does have her pointing out that both sides face risk if the case is decided by the jury.
Interestingly, she also thinks both sides have already gotten a lot of what they wanted: publicity. Judge Koh said Apple and Samsung had done at least part of what they wanted to do: make their cases to the public and raise awareness of their various innovations.
Quoth the justice: “In many respects, [it is] mission accomplished and it is time for peace.”
Lawyers for both sides said they’d tell their respective CEOs, who would try — yet again — to talk things out. I really think it’s gonna work this time.
You’ll be happy to hear that Apple’s lawyers are not on crack, and that’s in the court record. You know how I’ve been amazed at how unflappable Judge Koh has been throughout the Apple v. Samsung v. Apple case? Forget it. She’s flappable.
She’d be perfectly at home at Gatsby’s place. She’s a flapper.
She’s not really a flapper, though that is a funny idea. And if you don’t know what a a flapper is, get off my lawn!
So Apple did this thing this week where they introduced a list of 22 rebuttal witnesses they’d like to question. Thing is Judge Koh has been pretty strict about how much time each side has in the case, and she doesn’t think Apple can pull of 22 rebuttal witnesses in the time allotted.
A Mac Observer piece said that has Judge Koh saying, “Unless you are smoking crack you know these witnesses are [not] going to be called.”
Bill Lee, attorney for Apple’s side responded, “First, I am not smoking crack, I can promise you that.” He went on to say that he and his had timed out the testimony and he just knew they could get through it in the time allowed.
Judge Koh’s response: Nope.
After a bit more back and forth, Apple agreed to call fewer than the 22 rebuttal witnesses it wanted to call.
iPhone Rumors: Why isn’t this a Drinking Game?
Remember how amazingly most financial analysts — both professional and unaffiliated — whiffed iPhone sales last quarter? Imagine trying to do it again this quarter, part of which may or may not include a new iPhone.
Most analysts have pretty low iPhone expectations for the quarter because most thought for sure we’d not see a new iPhone until October, which would be sales for next quarter, not this one. But more and more people are glomming to this idea that we’ll see one week of iPhone sales this quarter, leaving the people who guess this kind of thing for fun and profit in a bit of a pickle.
Well, like the Vlasic Stork, Gene Munster is one man who knows how to handle a pickle.
I may have said that wrong.
Fortune has the Piper Jaffray analyst putting his money where his mouth might end up. Which still doesn’t sound good.
According to the piece, Uncle Gene has not updated his iPhone expectations for the quarter, though he is willing to say how many iPhones he thinks Apple could sell if it launches the next iPhone this quarter. Basically, if they get ten days of new iPhone sales for the September quarter, they could sell between 6 million and 10 million of the devices before we’re done singing bah-dee-yah. That, he thinks, would lead to a total of between 26 million and 28 million iPhones sold, accounting for almost no one buying an iPhone for the week to ten days between when the next iPhone is announced and when it actually goes on sale.
The biggest drag here, though, is what it could do to the December quarter. That 6 to 10 million would be drawn from the following quarter, which would force him to reduce those numbers.
But again, he’s not changing his numbers yet. Because Apple hasn’t announced the new iPhone for this quarter. Yet. And besides, he says, it doesn’t really matter. And now, the thrilling conclusion to his note:
While predicting the timing of the iPhone release is topical for investors, we continue to believe that whether iPhone 5 launches in the September or December quarter is largely irrelevant to the overall story, which we believe is that the new phone will be the largest consumer electronics product upgrade in history.
More for the iPhone Rumor Pile
iMore is piling next iPhone rumor on top of next iPhone rumor… rumor upon rumor was my point.
iMore was the first to hit in February with word that Apple would add a new, smaller dock connector to the next iPhone. They were the ones to hit last month with word that the next iPhone would be launched next month on September 12th, along with a new iPad mini and some other hardware. Not everyone agrees on the iPad mini happening on the same day, but a number of sources seem to have confirmed that week for the introduction of the next iPhone.
Finally, iMore said last month that the phone would end up in the hands of the first round of consumers on September 21st, and now they’re fleshing out those details.
According to iMore, a trustworthy source tells them that not only will the next iPhone be announced on September 12th, but pre-orders for it will begin that day, at least here in the states. Also, it’s said to still be on track for a September 21st release, with “the second wave of iPhone launches, the ones in international markets,” set to begin on or around October 5th.
Still rumors, though. iMore points out that “Nothing is confirmed until an Apple executive holds it up on stage, or Apple puts out a press release.”
Well, fine. Doesn’t mean we can’t seek support elsewhere. Like in the virtual pages of Boy Genius Report. They’ve got someone they call “a trusted AT&T source” saying the Death Star is powering up to launch the next iPhone in “the third or fourth week of September,” which would coincide with iMore’s September 21st rumored release date.
According to the piece, the carrier has “an all-hands-on-deck policy in place for employees that will extend through to the middle of October.” A second source inside the Death Star says a big training event for AT&T has been moved from the first week of October, because leaving it then would have conflicted with a “huge announcement.”
Just… Get off My Lawn
And finally this week, mark the date boys and girls, it’s official: It was on August 14th, 2012 that I became an old man.
How do I discover music? Mostly through friends, though a good bit of my deep discovery of late has happened through the music-subscription service Spotify. It does not happen through the radio, though that still seems to be the biggest source for music discovery for adults in the United States. So says the latest “Music 360” report from media-tracker, Nielsen. TechCrunch cites that report as saying 48 percent of consumers in the U.S. still see radio as the dominant way to discover new music.
That my music discovery comes largely from online sources may make me seem pretty “hip” and “with it,” despite my use of such terms as “hip” and “with it.” But I tell you, this story, published on August 14th, 2012, made me an old man. Because the kids, you see — 64 percent of them in the U.S. — access a majority of their music through YouTube. That’s bigger than the radio at 54 percent percent for kids, bigger than iTunes at 53 percent for the young whippersnappers, and bigger than CDs at 50 percent.
Did you know they’re still making CDs, by the way? According to the piece, “among all respondents, 55 percent said physical CDs are still a very or fairly good value.”
See, I’m not that. I cannot remember the last time I bought a physical CD, though it may have been at the Jonathan Coulton merchandise table at the New Media Expo in 2008.
That really may be the last time I bought a physical CD.
But YouTube? That’s where you go to discover kitten videos… videos of people falling off skateboards… videos of people being accidentally kicked in the groin. But music? So please, if you’re under 18, get off my lawn.
Hey, wait a minute. YouTube is the only place I’ve been able to find Radiohead’s cover of “Nobody Does It Better,” which I go back an watch-slash-listen to fairly regularly because, did I mention, YouTube is the only place I’ve been able to find that? So I guess I am still “hip” and “with it.”
Who wants to go to the roller rink?