Business Insider reported that low instant noodle sales points to the economic rise of rural China.

• China is selling 8 billion fewer packets of instant noodles than it was in 2013.
• Fewer local migrants from rural China are moving to cities, which is affecting sales.
• Instead, workers are staying in rural areas of China where annual incomes are rising at a faster rate than in cities.

Fair points but I would say that a bigger factor is the increasing awareness of proper nutrition and diet. People here are very health conscious and particular about the food they eat. Between ordering food delivery and grabbing an instant noodles, the former is deemed a healthier choice.

Quartz reported that Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled.

Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers—even when location services are disabled—and sending that data back to Google. The result is that Google, the unit of Alphabet behind Android, has access to data about individuals’ locations and their movements that go far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy.

Quartz observed the data collection occur and contacted Google, which confirmed the practice.

The cell tower addresses have been included in information sent to the system Google uses to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones for the past 11 months, according to a Google spokesperson. They were never used or stored, the spokesperson said, and the company is now taking steps to end the practice after being contacted by Quartz. By the end of November, the company said, Android phones will no longer send cell-tower location data to Google, at least as part of this particular service, which consumers cannot disable.

When Apple collected location data locally on the phone, there was a big outcry by the media over it. Let’s see what’s the response regarding Google collecting the data.

John Gruber wrote a loose theory on the continuing cooling of iPad sales.

The peak years (2013 and 2014) were inflated because it was an untapped market. Steve Jobs was right, there was room for a new device in between a phone and a laptop, and the iPad was and remains an excellent product in that space. But people don’t need to keep buying new iPads. I think the replacement cycle is clearly much more like that of laptops than that of phones. This was not obvious to me at the time, but it seems obvious now.

People use iPhones and iPads differently and the replacement cycle is only starting to emerge after being confounded by the demand after it was released.

John Gruber commented on Apple’s Q1 2017 Results.

Year-over-year unit sale changes, from Apple’s data summary:

• iPhone up to 78.3 million from 74.8 million.
• iPad down to 13.1 million from 16.1 million.
• Mac up slightly, to 5.4 million from 5.3 million.
• “Services” are up significantly, percentage-wise, to $7.2 billion in revenue, from$6.1 billion a year ago.

iPhone, Mac, and services are strong. iPad sales aren’t a disaster, but continue to slide. The year-over-year revenue numbers are telling (Q1 2017 / Q1 2016, in billions):

• iPhone: $54.4 /$51.6
• iPad: $5.5 /$7.1
• Mac: $7.2 /$6.7
• Services: $7.2 / 6.1

A year ago, iPad revenue was greater than that from Mac and services. Now, iPad has fallen behind both.

Record quarters revenue.

Rene Ritchie wrote about the unfair treatment of Apple Watch by the tech community.

One of the hits on Apple Watch is that Apple doesn’t break out numbers for the product the way they do for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Many companies provide no numbers on any products, Amazon being a prime example. Yet that hasn’t prevented the very same tech community from pushing a very different narrative around Echo.

Double standards when it comes to Apple.

Yet, the narrative around Apple Watch was so lost that when Google delayed Android Wear 2, vendors like Motorola/Lenovo exited the market, and Pebble sold itself off, hot takes tripped over each other claiming the “smartwatch market” might be dead.

This is similar to the tablet market.

It could be that there is no real “Smartwatch market”, just an Apple Watch market. Much like there’s no real “tablet market”, just an iPad market. Since it’s such a new product category and most of the existing products are still bound to phones, it could also simply be too soon to tell.

Perhaps there isn’t a smartwatch market and Apple is now firmly in the watch market.

John Gruber wrote about Xiaomi ceasing disclosure of phone sales figures.

Which companies other than Apple still release their phone sales numbers? Samsung stopped way back in 2011, and as far as I can tell, never started again.

How to avoid criticism of slowing or poor sales? Don’t reveal your sales numbers.