Google

Metaphor of the day: If Google is a rain maker, what is Apple?

Horace Dediu invites us to imagine Google netting fish at the mouth of a giant river

FORTUNE -- Asymco's Horace Dediu on Tuesday posted an edited transcript of the part of his most recent Critical Path podcast in which he described Google's (GOOG) business model through an elaborate extended metaphor.

Think of the company, he suggested, as an enterprise that has strung nets across the mouth of the Mississippi and is trying MORE

Today in Tech: Your e-textbooks are watching you

Also: Pandora reports some stellar user numbers; why Marissa Mayer really paid $30 million for a startup. 

Teacher knows if you've done the e-reading [THE NEW YORK TIMES]

They know when students are skipping pages, failing to highlight significant passages, not bothering to take notes — or simply not opening the book at all.

"It's Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent," said Tracy Hurley, the dean of the school of business.

Microsoft MORE

48% of U.S. teens own an iPhone. 62% plan to buy one.

23% are looking to buy an Android phone, up from 22% last fall.

FORTUNE -- The results of Piper Jaffray's 25th bi-annual teen survey came in Tuesday afternoon. Once again, it showed Apple (AAPL) to be the most desired brand among American teenagers who care about things like smartphones and tablets, although Google's (GOOG) Android did make some gains.

The key findings:

91% of teens say they plan to buy a smartphone for MORE

Today in Tech: When Microsoft will unveil the next-gen Xbox

Also: JC Penney ousts former Apple store chief Ron Johnson. 

Microsoft planning Xbox event for May [THE VERGE]

Sources familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans have revealed that the event will be at a small venue with a focus on providing the very first details on the next Xbox, codenamed Durango, and Microsoft's plans for Xbox in 2013. Recent rumors have focused on reports that Microsoft's next Xbox may require an always-on internet connection. Comments MORE

Report: Google captured 51% of app downloads in Q1. Apple took 74% of the revenue.

Overall, quarterly downloads were up 11% and revenues up 9%.

FORTUNE -- Canalys on Monday issued a report on app downloads at four major mobile stores: Google (GOOG) Play, Apple's (AAPL) App Store, Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone Store and Research in Motion's (BBRY) BlackBerry World.

The news was good for Google and Apple. For Microsoft and BlackBerry, not so much.

Among the findings:

App downloads at the four stores totaled 13.4 billion in Q1, up 11% MORE

Facebook Home pre-release leaks

The web gets an early taste of Home, Facebook's next big thing.

By Matt Vella, senior editor

FORTUNE -- Facebook's much-hyped mobile phone software, Home, has slipped into the world early.

Home, which will operate exclusively on Google (GOOG) Android handsets, is set to be released to the public on April 12. Smartphone news site MoDaCo has leaked a pre-release version of the software.

Facebook's (FB) software will act as a launcher, taking MORE

Chart of the day: The rise and fall of Android in the U.S.

The arc of grey bars tells the story of Android in the second largest smartphone market

FORTUNE -- According to the chart above, drawn from comScore data and posted Friday by Asymco's Horace Dediu, sales of Google (GOOG) Android smartphones in the U.S. peaked in December 2011.

Sales of Apple (AAPL) iPhones, by contrast, continue to grow in the U.S. Dediu attributes that to broader distribution (three of the four major U.S. MORE

Facebook's Home for Android: What the analysts are saying

Great for Facebook power users. Provocative toward Google. No help for Apple.

FORTUNE -- Having watched Mark Zuckerberg introduce the new Home interface for Android phones, Wall Street analysts wresting with the implications for Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) drew on every literary, musical and film reference they could think of, including The Wizard of Oz ("There's no place like home"), ET ("Phone home"), Simon and Garfunkel ("Homeward Bound") MORE

Chart: Android continues to lose ground to Apple in U.S.

Of the 10.4 million new smartphone users between Nov. and Feb., 85% went to Apple.

FORTUNE -- One way to view the U.S. smartphone data released Thursday by comScore (spreadsheets below) is to look at the total number of new subscribers in the 3-month period covered (November 2012 to February 2013) and compare the number of users who bought Apple (AAPL) iPhones with those who chose Google (GOOG) Android phones.

Total new MORE

4 lessons for Apple in the Facebook phone

As Apple prepares iOS 7, it could stand to learn a few things from Facebook Home.

FORTUNE -- Now we know: The Facebook Phone is neither a phone, nor an operating system. Instead, Zuckerberg unveiled a downloadable collection of apps, available April 12, that will be supported on select Android phones to start, including the $99 HTC First, the first device to come pre-loaded with it. Home, as the whole kit MORE