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| Monday, March 31, 2008 |
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Apple testing Mac OS X 10.5.3
Mac OS X 10.5.3, which bundles over 75 fixes, has been released to Apple's developer community
By Jonny Evans, Macworld.co.uk
March 31, 2008
Apple has begun testing Mac OS X 10.5.3, releasing the software to its developer community for widespread testing.
The upgraded OS bundles over 75 fixes and first began to appear with developers on Thursday night. System components addressed in this release reportedly include: AddressBook, AppleScript, Audio, Back To My Mac, Dashboard, Dock, DVD Player, Finder, Graphics, iCal, Mail, Portable Home Directories, Printing, Rosetta, Spaces, Spotlight, Time Machine, and VoiceOver.
The release also implements patches and security improvements across system components. It's not known yet when Apple will ship the latest system update.
Apple shipped its last Leopard update, Mac OS X 10.5.2, in February. The update offered an extensive collection of fixes and patches across the OS and updated Stacks with the addition of a List and Folder view option and introduced an updated background for Grid view. It also added a menu bar for accessing Time Machine.
Macworld.co.uk is an InfoWorld affiliate
Source: InfoWorldLabels: Apple, Mac OS, OS X, security |
| posted by Perimbean @ 9:35 PM |
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BofA sees 3G iPhone build in May, predictions "too conservative"
By Aidan Malley
Published: 06:15 PM EST
Further fueling talk of a 3G-capable iPhone this spring, a research note from Bank of America claims knowledge of next-generation Apple handset production beginning in May, and warns that past sales predictions have been timid.
In his message to investors, financial analyst Scott Craig points to channel investigations which show an iPhone capable of faster, third-generation cellular Internet access produced in small numbers in May, with a larger number surfacing in June as Apple prepares a formal rollout for the new device.
"This likely implies a launch announcement in [the second calendar quarter]," Craig says.
Apple is also likely to significantly increase its iPhone production compared to its most recent full quarter. While iPhone production during the holidays totaled 2.3 million, the Bank of America researcher estimates about three million 2G and 3G iPhones made during the spring quarter and a much larger eight or more million during the summer. Each additional million units sold could add about $400 million to Apple's bottom line, Craig notes.
Simultaneous reports on Friday supported the analyst's statements., with the Taiwanese Commercial Times paper alleging that bidding is underway for 3G iPhone manufacturing while Dow Jones ventured so far as to claim that Hon Hai had already won a contract for production of an advanced model.
The investigations of the supply chain have been enough to warrant a significant rethink of longer-term predictions for 2008. As Apple may now produce the same eight million iPhones in one quarter that analysts have been predicting for the entire year, previous estimates are now "starting to look too conservative," according to Craig.
The expert maintained existing forecasts for the rest of Apple's lineup. iPod shipments are estimated to drop by several percentage points year over year for the first quarter, dipping below 10 million units, while a combination of the MacBook Air and refreshes to existing portables is tagged as a likely upside for computer sales.
Source: AppleInsiderLabels: 3G, Apple, iPhone |
| posted by Perimbean @ 7:45 PM |
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Apple job listing hints at handwriting recognition for the iPhone
Posted by Dusan on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am
You never know what's Steve's up to. Apple already have the handwriting recognition software in OS X and now they are searching for a new person to help them out to extend the technology "beyond Max OS X to other applications and the iPhone." Hmmm, sounds interesting, even though we're not actually dying for a stylus on the iPhone. Here's the full text ad.
The Handwriting Recognition team is seeking an engineer who will be responsible for advancing Apple's handwriting recognition technology for Mac OS X. The ideal candidate will be an expert in the area of pattern recognition, with an excellent understanding of handwriting recognition issues. The person will also assume primary responsibility for maintaining and enhancing existing code and tools. The recognition technology you create may extend beyond Mac OS X to other applications and the iPhone.
You can find the ad — and apply if you have the skills required — from here.
Source: IntoMobileLabels: Apple, iPhone, OS X |
| posted by Perimbean @ 7:00 PM |
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| Saturday, March 29, 2008 |
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Apple Releases Aperture 2.1 with Powerful Image Editing Plug-In Architecture
CUPERTINO, Calif., March 28, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Apple(R: 60.83, -1.35, -2.17%) today released Aperture(TM: 103.79, +1.53, +1.49%) 2.1, which introduces an open plug-in architecture that makes it easy for photographers to use specialized third party imaging software right from within Aperture. Available today as a free software update, Aperture 2.1 includes the Apple-developed plug-in, Dodge & Burn, which adds brush-based tools for dodge (lighten), burn (darken), contrast, saturation, sharpen and blur. Over the coming months, third party software developers will deliver image editing plug-ins for localized editing, filters and effects, noise analysis and reduction, fisheye lens correction and more.
"The image quality in Aperture 2 has won over the most demanding photographers," said Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of Applications Product Marketing. "Now, thanks to our open plug-in architecture, users can access an entire industry's worth of imaging expertise without ever leaving Aperture."
"To date, maybe two percent of my photographs needed to be touched up outside Aperture," said John Stanmeyer, founding member of the VII Photo Agency and contributing photographer for Time and National Geographic magazines. "Now that I can dodge and burn right within Aperture's new plug-in, I can't imagine when I'll have to open any other application to tone my images."
By clicking on one or more images within Aperture, users can choose from a menu of installed plug-ins and apply specialized imaging operations to either TIFF or RAW images. Apple is working closely with key developers to bring the most requested plug-ins to Aperture such as:
- Nik Software's Viveza plug-in, powered by U Point technology, which provides a powerful, precise and easy way for photographers to selectively control and adjust color and light in their digital images;
- PictureCode's Noise Ninja plug-in that delivers advanced high ISO noise analysis and reduction;
- Digital Film Tools' Power Stroke plug-in that features a simple, stroke-based interface to quickly mask and intuitively perform targeted adjustments;
- The Tiffen Company's Dfx plug-in that provides an expansive suite of creative filters and effects;
- dvGarage's dpMatte plug-in, which is a high performance chroma key tool for creating seamless composites, and the HDRtoner plug-in that enables the selection of multiple photos to create a single high dynamic range (HDR) image; and
- Image Trends' plug-ins that include Fisheye-Hemi to quickly and effortlessly correct fisheye lens distortion, ShineOff which automatically removes shine from faces and PearlyWhites that automatically whitens and brightens teeth.
Pricing & Availability
Aperture 2.1 is available immediately as a free software update to currentAperture 2.0 users. Full system requirements and more information on Aperture can be found at http://www.apple.com/aperture. Information and availability for third party imaging plug-ins can be found on http://www.apple.com/aperture/resources, http://www.apple.com/downloads and at the Aperture community site http://www.aperturepluggedin.com.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
(C: 20.83, -0.96, -4.40%) 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh and Aperture are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Apple
Source: FOX BusinessLabels: Aperture, Apple, OS X |
| posted by Perimbean @ 10:19 AM |
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| Friday, March 28, 2008 |
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Nintendo Wii controller and Apple iPhone to be used by the US military
BY DAVE PARRACK
MARCH 27, 2008
The Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPhone are two of the most popular gadgets on the market right now. But their uses go beyond mere entertainment, and the technology in both devices has now been adapted to be used by the US military.
According to New Scientist, two boffins, David Bruemmer and Douglas Few from the US Department of Energy centre in Idaho, have adopted the Wiimote controller for use in a military robot used to dispose of bombs.
While gamers use the Wii remote controller to play tennis and baseball without ever having to leave the comfort of their own homes, soldiers will now be able to use them to clear war zones of potentially lethal mines, and bombs set to detonate on impact.
The robot system, called the Packbot, is already used by the American military, and there are 500 or so in Iraq right now, but traditional remote controllers were found to take up too much of the operators attention.
The simplicity of the Wiimote allows operators to instinctively operate the robot, allowing them to better concentrate on the data being collected.
Meanwhile, the Apple iPhone is also being targeted for use in a military setting, with the two scientists looking to utilise the design to help communication in the field.
It’s thought the iPhone could even replace the Panasonic ToughBooks which soldiers currently use to communicate with each other, and receive messages from base.
I’m all for popular applications being used in a military setting, especially if they can save lives, but the iPhone isn’t exactly the most sturdy of products. Maybe a little bit of a redesign is in order before it reaches the heat of battle.
The Wii remote though should be a good fit, as it was designed to be used by kids as young as five. If highly trained military personnel can’t operate one successfully, then I think we may have a bigger problem on our hands.
Source: BlorgeLabels: Apple, iPhone, Nintendo, wiimote |
| posted by Perimbean @ 2:44 PM |
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RIM, Apple May Gain From Motorola Split
03/27/08 - 11:29 AM EDT
Motorola's (MOT - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) decision to splinter off its handset unit has come far too late, and it will actually provide a spark for smart-phone makers Research In Motion (RIMM - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Apple (AAPL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), according to an analyst.
On Wednesday, Motorola announced it will divide its operations into two separate publicly traded companies, one for its mobile phones and the other for network gear and TV set-top boxes. The company expects that the separation of its businesses, if completed, would take place in 2009.
According to RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky, other smart-phone makers will see a hefty gain in market share as Motorola's for-the-moment leaderless and long-struggling handset unit is separated from the remainder of the company.
The decision is coming just as smart-phone adoption "is reaching an inflection point, offering an opportunity for RIM and Apple to gain share," said Abramsky in a research note. "RIM is positioned to take share in Motorola's key CDMA markets. Poised to launch a 3G iPhone, Apple ... is expected to continue rolling out innovations and gaining [market] share."
Shares of Motorola were falling 40 cents, or 4%, to $9.62. RIM was shedding $3.28, or 2.8%, to $114.86, and Apple was off 87 cents, or 0.6%, at $144.19.
Additionally, Abramsky noted that employee turnover, restructuring and strategy changes will likely put Motorola in organizational disarray until the company's 2009 separation target.
"Carrier disruption over Motorola's roadmap may impact strategic relationships with Motorola and increase 'shelf space' at carriers for RIM and Apple, given the clarity and compelling nature of their roadmaps," he said. "RIM in particular with its broad distribution is well positioned, as it is viewed as an enabler of carriers' mobile data strategies, offering a delivery platform to drive adoption of value-add mobile messaging, content, navigation, browsing, etc."
Abramsky isn't alone in his belief that Motorola's planned split may be too far out. In a letter released late Wednesday, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has waged a proxy battle with Motorola's board for over a year, called the announcement to divide the company "a step in the right direction," but also questioned the length of time to get it done.
"Time is of the essence and decisive action is required to reposition the Mobile Devices business for success as an independent company," said Icahn. "Why will it take you until sometime in 2009 to accomplish the separation? Do you intend to carry out your proposals or will it be a repeat of last year's proxy fight strewn with a string of broken commitments?"
Source: TheStreetLabels: Apple, CDMA, Motorola, RIM, smartphone |
| posted by Perimbean @ 1:49 PM |
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iPhone – The DS/PSP Killer?
Posted by: Matt Vella on March 25
The buzz over Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone as a potential gaming platform has yet to subside. Ever since the company unveiled its SDK in early March, showing off a couple of stellar prototype games in the process, developers have rushed to the platform. But the chatter has been just that, mostly excitement over the potential and little real analysis.
Now, blogger and tech writer Daniel Eran Dilger has posted a length inquiry into what the iPhone’s chance might actually be, not against other phones with gaming chops but dedicated handhelds from Nintendo (NTDOY) and Sony (SNE).
I’ve boiled down the technical comparison in the chart above, but Dilger’s analysis is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the subject. Whereas the tech specs are the blunt force argument, the minor details are even more revealing. He points out rather astutely that Apple has cagily laid the groundwork for distributing its iPhone applications – games included – with the iTunes games store for iPods. From Dilger’s introduction:
At first blush, one likely wouldn’t think of the iPhone as being in the same league as handheld gaming consoles. However, when Apple showcased a half dozen prototype apps at the SDK launch, fully half of them were games. Clearly, Apple isn’t going to be ignoring games on the iPhone.
Source: BusinessWeekLabels: Apple, DS, iPhone, ipod, iTunes, Nintendo, SDK, Sony |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:47 PM |
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The new Apple TV: A true multimedia device
The recent update of the Apple TV fulfills its promise of easy home entertainment.
By Ryan Faas
March 26, 2008 (Computerworld) Although the Apple TV first shipped on March 21, 2007, it didn't get an overhaul for almost a year. During that year, the device, which promised to bring digital media (music, photos and video) from the computer to the living room, tried to establish itself in a marketplace rife with competitors. Systems such as Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Netgear's EVA series, not to mention TiVo, are all striving to dominate that elusive space.
Introduced at Macworld in January, this second iteration of Apple TV (which some call Apple TV Take 2) is a response to many of the initial criticisms of its predecessor as a media device that lacked direct access to online content. Users can now search and buy content from the iTunes Store directly on the Apple TV, including music, TV shows and movie rentals (which were introduced at Macworld).
In addition, it now allows users to browse Flickr and photo galleries from Apple's .Mac service just as easily.
In other words, the new-and-better Apple TV (a firmware/software update is free for existing owners) is designed to make the device an entertainment product in its own right rather than a computer accessory connected to a TV. The question is: At a cost of $229 for a model with 40GB of storage space and $329 for a 160GB model, does this new version of the Apple TV make the cut?
Improved interface
As with my first experience with the Apple TV, I found the menu structure and navigation to be almost brilliant in its simplicity. In Apple TV Take 2, the menu has been somewhat redesigned. Instead of maintaining an iPod-like navigation in which users must drill down through several options to locate a feature, the new two-column approach makes it faster and easier to switch from one facet of the device (say, music) to another (such as YouTube browsing).
Like the original Apple TV, Apple TV Take 2 includes and relies on Apple's standard remote, the same one that Apple ships with current Mac models. The remote carries through that ease-of-use theme: It features only six buttons (up, down, right, left, pause/play/select, and menu). Apple has certainly figured out how to limit the confusion often associated with remote control devices.
The one thing that I wish could be improved is the method Apple TV uses when you need to actually type in a search term or a site ID: You have to maneuver around an on-screen keyboard, picking out letters one at a time using the directional buttons on the remote. It works, but the process of entering even moderately long movie or song titles or search strings quickly becomes tedious.
Admittedly, there's really nothing that Apple can do about this, short of providing a remote with a keyboard on it — but at times it did feel like I spent more time typing with the on-screen keyboard via the remote than actually accessing content.
iTunes Store at your fingertips
One of the most exciting new features of the Apple TV Take 2 is its direct integration with the iTunes Store. This is one of the areas where the original Apple TV design failed to live up to its potential — you could use it with content that you owned, but adding to it required going to the computer, searching, buying and downloading, then syncing or streaming content to the Apple TV. All of this took you out of the TV/entertainment center experience that is the whole point of the Apple TV.
The iTunes Store integration now makes it effortless, for example, to buy yesterday's episode of The Daily Show after finding out that the guest had been, say, a certain senator running for the White House. It also makes it easy to add music to your library as you're watching or listening to something (during a commercial break in the middle of the Grammys, for example).
Combined with the iTunes preview feature, this integration is something that the Apple TV needed, and it works incredibly well. The fact that content becomes available while downloading and then automatically syncs to your computer with no effort at all makes it even easier than purchasing content from an iPhone or iPod Touch (although the only effort that they require is that you connect the device to the computer).
The one drawback to the iTunes Store on the Apple TV is that it may be too easy to use. I'm all too aware that the effortlessness of browsing and buying music, TV shows or movies could quickly become an expensive habit.
The integration of the iTunes Podcast directory is also well done. The Apple TV's new ability to not only browse and subscribe to podcasts directly from your television, but also to browse and listen to individual episodes without having to subscribe to the entire series, is a major boon. It reminds me of the way we browse on-demand cable content or YouTube. For anyone who has yet to become a podcast aficionado, the Apple TV Take 2 stands to change their mind by making podcasts more like other forms of entertainment — and less like a subscription-based service.
Renting movies: Good but not great
With deals in place with all major movie studios and the promise of HD and standard-content options, Apple seemed poised to deliver a user-friendly device that could be used to rent high-quality movies over the Internet and deliver them to a TV rather than to a computer.
That promise has still not been realized. Despite a commitment of 1,000 movie titles as rentals by the end of February in Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote, a recent inventory conducted by Christopher Breen at Macworld indicated that fewer than 400 were actually available. Many of those are not available in HD, and according to a recent AppleInsider report, those that are available in HD include a number of legacy titles that cannot make full use of the HD format because they were shot before modern film-making technologies and processes existed. Some movies also don't appear to include support for Dolby 5.1 surround sound — a major component of a home theater experience — even though they are recent enough to support it.
For those movies that are offered in HD, the quality is rather good, as is the Dolby surround sound support. It may not quite reach the level of Blu-ray, but it does come close enough that most viewers won't see a noticeable difference. It also tends to exceed the quality of many HD video offerings from cable providers. (iLounge has an excellent side-by-side comparison of Blu-ray, DVD, cable, HD and standard Apple TV formats.)
While there might not yet be that much in the way of selection of movie rentals through iTunes, the mechanism for renting and watching movies from the Apple TV is as simple as everything else about the device. It is, in fact, easier than most cable on-demand services and features similar pricing and time limits. Of the choice between an iTunes rental over the Apple TV and video on demand from my cable company, I would choose Apple TV.
ITUNES RENTALS VS. NETFLIX
While I can say that I'd have little problem relying solely on the Apple TV for movie rentals (and indeed for most of the cable TV shows I watch regularly), I can't honestly say that I see myself giving up my Netflix account any time soon. Though I think that the Apple TV and iTunes rentals deliver a much better experience than the Netflix watch instantly service — particularly if you want to watch movies on your TV instead of your computer. I think Apple falls short of Netflix in two ways.
First, iTunes functions on a per-rental pricing structure. While the costs aren't unreasonable — indeed they're comparable to most brick-and-mortar video stores and video on-demand services — Netflix's approach of offering an unlimited number of movies over the course of a month for a set fee is still very attractive. It is simple and cost-effective if you watch more than handful of movies per month. It's so simple, in fact, that I rarely ever think of it — the movies are just there, and I, like most Netflix subscribers, pay the associated credit card bill every month.
The second area where Netflix has a clear advantage is in the breadth of its selection. Even if Apple hit its end-of-February target of 1,000 movies, there would have been plenty of movies and TV shows available on DVD that will never make the iTunes Store. Netflix is a treasure trove of not only recent blockbusters but small independent and obscure films. It also has a much richer selection of major TV shows, both past and present, from all major networks that couldn't be matched — even before NBC's departure from iTunes. This rich selection goes beyond any service available online or in traditional video stores.
A glorified photo frame
While most of the focus on the Apple TV Take 2 has been on iTunes content, it isn't the only new source of content. The Apple TV had previously only allowed viewing of photos synced from a computer. Now it allows browsing of Flickr and .Mac Web galleries. If you have family and friends who use either service, this is a nice feature that has been almost lost amid the other advances.
The process of finding galleries works very much like YouTube browsing and allows Apple TV users to navigate through not only their own photos on Flickr, but also the photos of any Flickr contacts. This not only harnesses the power of sharing photos that Flickr offers but also the social networking aspects of Flickr. Likewise, photo sharing through multiple .Mac Web galleries allows easy access to photos from all your family members (including those added directly from an iPhone or similar phone/device).
The Apple TV screensaver also allows you to set Flickr and .Mac Web galleries as a source for photos — making your TV the worlds coolest digital picture frame (and far bigger than the ones you see in department stores).
Conclusions
I've been a fan of the Apple TV since its initial release. The addition of YouTube to its repertoire of features last summer became a major part of my home theater experience. (YouTube direct from the TV is still one of my favorite features of the Apple TV).
If I have one real criticism, it would be that the Apple TV needs more storage capacity. This is a device for multimedia content of all kinds and from sources ranging from purchases and rentals from iTunes to home photos and movies. Many people will quickly outgrow 40GB, and even 160GB can quickly get small. Although it is possible to stream content from one or more computers, with Apple positioning the Apple TV as a repository for directly purchased content, the ability to stream will probably be overwhelmed by the need to sync/store content on the device itself.
After renting movies, buying music and TV shows, picking through podcasts, and browsing photos of friends and friends of friends, I have to say that the new Apple TV has more than lived up to my early expectations and truly blew away my previous experiences. The iTunes Store integration (even with its small selection of movies) has brought Apple TV where it should have been from the get-go and has transformed it into both a spectacular entertainment device in its own right as well as an even better nexus of technology and entertainment.
Source: ComputerWorldLabels: .MAC, Apple, Apple TV, Blu-ray, Dolby, DVD, HD, iLounge, iTunes, Netflix |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:35 PM |
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Microsoft Sees Software Possibilities For iPhone
With the exception of Apple, Microsoft makes more software for the Mac than any other vendor.
By Antone Gonsalves
InformationWeek
March 26, 2008 06:00 AM
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) plans to offer software for the iPhone, saying in a recent interview that developers are considering a variety of possibilities that include offering Office functionality on Apple's smart phone.
Microsoft's focus on the iPhone stems from Apple's release of a software development kit this month. The iPhone SDK, released in beta, gives developers access to the same tools Apple developers use for building applications that run on the iPhone's Max OS X-based operating system.
In an interview with Fortune magazine, published online Tuesday, Tom Gibbons, corporate VP of Microsoft's Specialized Devices and Applications Group, said the software maker was looking closely at the SDK and considering its options.
"It's really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone," Gibbons told the magazine. "To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we're actually in the process of trying to understand that now."
With the exception of Apple, Microsoft makes more software for the Mac than any other vendor. Among its most popular offerings is its Office suite for the Mac.
"We do have experience with that environment, and that gives us confidence to be able to do something," Gibbons told Fortune. "The key question is, what is the value that we need to bring? We're still getting comfortable with the SDK, right? It's just come out. So we had a guess as to what feasibility would be like, now we'll really get our head wrapped around that,"
Apple plans to release the final version of SDK in June, along with new versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch operating systems. The latter gadget contains the same platform as the iPhone, minus the cellular component. AT&T (NYSE: T) is the exclusive cellular provider of the iPhone.
One element of the iPhone upgrade that should prove helpful to Microsoft is support for the software maker's Exchange e-mail server. Earlier this year, Apple said it licensed Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol for connecting the iPhone's e-mail client directly to an Exchange server. As a result, e-mail, calendaring and contact items can be pushed directly to the smart phone.
Source: InformationWeekLabels: ActiveSync, Apple, iPhone, Microsoft, SDK |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:31 PM |
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Apple orders 10m 3G iPhones - report
Apple is accelerating manufacture of the 3G iPhone
Jonny Evans
Apple has ordered the manufacture of ten million 3G-capable second-generation iPhones, according to Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney.
Dulaney cites sources in Asia that told the analyst of the news. He suggests the order for ten million units of the new model handset to be in addition to the ten million V1 iPhones Apple has ordered.
As reported by iPod Observer, the new version iPhone could also include an OLED display. This would make for a thinner device with longer battery life.
The analyst claims Apple to have accelerated development of the new model of the device in reaction to weaker than anticipated sales in Europe, where potential consumers aren't satisfied with the EDGE data connection offered by the first model.
Source: MacWorldLabels: Apple, EDGE, iPhone |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:23 PM |
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Sony/BMG Supports Unlimited Music, Says Profits Rose 15 Percent
By Eliot Van Buskirk March 26, 2008 | 9:35:49 AM
The idea of tying unlimited access to major label music to devices has been gathering more steam. For record labels, it represents a chance to grab a percentage of the money being made by device manufacturers to create machines mostly used to play music people didn't pay for.
As for manufacturers, unlimited music will let them offer something extra to their customers.
And, of course, cellphone carriers love the idea of retaining customers by storing their music collections.
Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, the head of Sony/BMG, became the latest major label executive to announce support for unlimited music devices earlier this week. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an interview on Monday in which he said an unlimited music service could offer Sony/BMG downloads for six to eight euros per month ($9-$12).
Schmidt-Holtz also claimed the songs would play on the iPod. Either this is an indication of something new or he doesn't understand how subscription DRM works.
He said Sony/BMG is talking to a number of distributors -- most likely cellphone carriers, but possibly ISPs as well -- about tying unlimited downloads to their services.
Other nuggets from the interview (rough translation below):
- Sony/BMG is in talks with Nokia to join Total Music.
- Sony/BMG has 252 360-degree artist deals.
- He's not losing any sleep over label defections by Madonna and Radiohead.
- The unlimited music services he's talking about could roll out this year.
- Sony/BMG profits increased 15 percent last year.
Here's the Babelfish version of the article:
Sony BMG, the second largest music company of the world announces a new subscription offer and co-operation with mobile phone manufacturers. In the interview with the F.A.Z. speaks Rolf Schmidt Holtz, as he wants to stop so driving downhill of the music industry.
Mr. Schmidt Schmidt-Holtz, a whole generation of young humans wants to pay nothing more for your music. How is it to continue for disk companies such as Sony BMG?
Amazingly well it will continue for us. Because we by attractive digital offers and new business models will see medium-term again growth. And because we have fantastische artists - established like newcomers. Take only to Leona Lewis this year. Therefore are Sony BMG very well. We increased the profit in the past year by 15 per cent, although the music market shrank last year world-wide around approximately 10 per cent. To the topic *
How did this year begin?
For us very well. But the CD paragraph in the market falls at least just as strongly as in the past year. Growth in the digital business cannot adjust the losses with the CDs.
When does the music industry get again firm soil under the feet?
That is the hundredthousand dollar question. I expect that the industry still two to three years shrinks, then stabilized and afterwards again grows themselves.
How do you want to create that?
We have many ideas. For example a subscription offer in the digital music selling, on which we work at present. In the simplest and perhaps most attractive variant a kind would be inclusive the Musikflatrate for all MP3 Player iPod: For a monthly contribution the entire music world is open to you. With the Musikflatrate get you everything of us - from the fire-new Chart hit to Beethoven.
Subscription is called: If I do not further-pay no more, I can listen to also nothing more. Correctly?
If you do not extend the subscription, naturally also the music entrance becomes closed. It would be however even conceivable that the customers cannot partly evenly only listen to the music, but also some titles downloaden and thus possesses. They can develop themselves so a digital music collection.
How would much cost?
Six to eight euro in the month are realistic. That is half so much, as CD costs. And you consider: At the end of the yearly additionally 40 or 50 songs would belong to you. And counts itself for you? If there is sufficient prospective customer. Our market study shows that a large number of customers finds such an offer attractive.
Does the Musikflatrate come this year?
If everything runs smoothly, it can fold. We hold conversations.
Also with the other large music companies?
The offer becomes the more attractive, the music selection is the larger. I legend not that it would be uninteresting, if we make it alone. But it would not be reliably like that stretching.
Can you intersperse your Musikflatrate without the market leader Apple?
Apple is a very strong partner for us. We talk with Apple, as we with many other enterprises also talk.
Is Apples power too large?
The market share is enormous. On the other hand Apple developed a load-carrying digital business model for the music market, and of it we both profit.
They could boycott and on other selling partners set Apple?
That would not be present in our interest, and if we intended it, I would not say it to you.
Can you on the 99 cent, which Apple requires today for the Download of a song, live?
Compared with the margins in the CD business, our digital profit margin is good. But we cannot be lucky nevertheless with the today's prices. They reflect the value of the music not sufficiently. Our market study shows that the customers are ready to pay for the correct music more. And we will try to intersperse this.
How?
For example there is co-operation "Comes with Music", which locked universal Music with Nokia. Who buys a certain mobile phone, pays a unique surcharge and has thus unlimited entrance to the music. One pays thus for the music in the package with a mobile telephone. That is a large wachstumschance for the music industry. Sony BMG does not cooperate however at all with Nokia. Not yet. We have a total concept and to talk not only with Nokia, but with numerous mobile phone manufacturers and network carriers. They will hear very soon of us.
Also regarding Apples iPhone?
We talk with many offerers.
Which ideas have you still, in order to earn with music far moneys?
First of all: The CD market is not dead. It shrinks, but the people are still ready for example to pay for a Premium CD a Premiumpreis. In addition we lock ever more so-called 360-Grad-Vertraege with our musicians. That is, we participate also at their concert and Merchandisingeinnahmen. We want besides regionally to expand, particularly in India and China. In India for example the business with sound TRACKS is promising.
Are your artists really ready to divide their tour incomes with you?
Functioned better than original expects. We have today 252 this so-called 360-Grad-Vertraege with our artists. That I could not be dreamed before one and a half years, when we began thereby.
In addition nevertheless however only newcomers are ready, or?
Yes, but we make also with established artists new contracts, which include for instance the Merchandising. With "IL Divo" for example. We close each year more such contracts and make to it something money already. In two to three years we will make about a quarter of our business in this way - thus beyond the pure clay/tone carrier business.
Past year Topkuenstler such as Madonna and Radiohead began to bring their music out without disk company. Run away you thus not rather star?
Really prepares for me no sleepless nights. I am sure me that the large music companies - and we are world-wide the number two - are continued to use. An artist is a mark, and this to construct and maintain is not simple. The very most successful musicians, who tried it without major, failed and returned.
For example?
I do not call names. But I legend you: It needs hard work to make a newcomer the star and just as hard work, so that the new album of a superstar sells itself as well as its previous. Therefore 99 per cent the large star remains with us. Also to the Bertelsmann boss Hartmut Ostrowski applies.
Is the music fan?
Definitely. It was always inspired, if with Bertelsmann meetings Sony BMG artists arose.
Who will have interest in the future still to possess enterprises in a so difficult industry?
Enterprises, which believe in the music and its digital future.
And who does that?
At present Vivendi, Sony, Bertelsmann believe in it and obviously also financial investors. Bertelsmann is no longer very much interested in the music business. Otherwise they would have sold probably hardly the crisis-firm music publishing trade. The music publishing house of Bertelsmann was never part of Sony BMG; its sales does not concern us. We make money with clay/tone carriers, a music publishing house with author rights, thus for example with the percentages of profits of the music, which runs in the radio. There are however group advantages between publishing house and clay/tone carrier business. We would have gladly both together under our roof, because a broader and closer co-operation with our artists and producers makes possible for us. Our two owners Sony and Bertelsmann talk at present about it. We are optimistic that we in the publishing trade soon to become active to be able.
However on much smaller basis than with the earlier Bertelsmann publishing house, or?
Naturally, we must again develop the business.
It means, Sony is not inspired of the idea, because you could make their own publishing house ATV competition?
The rumor is wrong. In the opposite, Sony supports us. They are now 59 years old and oscillate between its residence Hamburg and the company center in New York.
How long do you want to still do yourselves?
For the moment my work makes large fun for me.
And which you make thereafter?
Their contract runs until March 2009. Legend I you today not yet, but it will remain interesting.
The discussion led Marcus Theurer.
Source: WiredLabels: Apple, BMG, DRM, iPhone, ipod, Nokia, Sony, Total Music |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:23 PM |
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| Wednesday, March 26, 2008 |
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Apple Is A Bad Windows Citizen
Posted by Dave Methvin, Mar 25, 2008 08:52 AM
Over the past week, Apple has been raked over the coals for its force-feeding of new applications through Apple Software Update. The "update" word there might lead you to believe that Apple would only use the utility to deliver updates to software you previously installed. Yet Apple also uses its "update" program to download software you never requested.
A thread at the Apple site shows some of the worst of Apple-fanboy behavior. If Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) tried to deliver, for example, an evaluation copy of Office 2007 through Windows Update, the industry and users would go into nuclear meltdown over the outrage. Yet the Apple regulars spend lots of time carefully parsing the English words in each Apple Software Update message and declare it to be no big deal that an updater tries to give you Safari even though you don't currently have it and didn't ask for it.
Perhaps Apple and its fans may feel comfortable about doing software distribution through the same aggressive techniques pioneered by Windows crapware makers. Maybe Apple felt like it should fit in with the crowd -- "when in Rome" and all that. If aggression and dirty tactics are the way to peddle Windows software, then darn it, Apple isn't afraid to throw an elbow. That's the way it works -- getting your software down on the user's system, no matter what the tactics.
Here's a conspiracy theorist's explanation. Apple makes a competing operating system and fights with Microsoft OEMs for the same hardware customers, so Apple may not be concerned that Windows users get a less-than-stellar experience. It's like Apple throwing a Baby Ruth into the pool while nobody is looking, then pointing and yelling, "Doody! What a horrible user experience! Buy a Mac!"
In some ways, Apple has cleaned up its act in the past year. It used to be that Apple's QuickTime download page offered a prominent download for the QuickTime-iTunes bundle but hid the QuickTime-only download in a tiny link further down the page. Today, both options get equal billing, although the bundle is still selected by default. The "please spam me" e-mail address entry is optional, although you wouldn't know it by reading the form.
Fortunately, there is a way to say "no, thanks" to Apple's unwanted software advances -- or at least get it to leave you alone for a while. When you get the Apple Software Update pop-up, check the items you don't want and click Tools, Ignore Selected Updates. You'll need to do that when the next "update" of the unwanted software arrives, too. That is a bit of a misnomer, of course, since they aren't really updates. But why argue semantics when you're trying to keep Apple's unwanted software off your system?
Source: Information WeekLabels: Apple, Microsoft, Office, QuickTime |
| posted by Perimbean @ 12:05 PM |
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How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong
By Leander Kahney 03.18.08 | 6:00 PM
One Infinite Loop, Apple's street address, is a programming in-joke — it refers to a routine that never ends. But it is also an apt description of the travails of parking at the Cupertino, California, campus. Like most things in Silicon Valley, Apple's lots are egalitarian; there are no reserved spots for managers or higher-ups. Even if you're a Porsche-driving senior executive, if you arrive after 10 am, you should be prepared to circle the lot endlessly, hunting for a space.
But there is one Mercedes that doesn't need to search for very long, and it belongs to Steve Jobs. If there's no easy-to-find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space.
(Sometimes he takes up two spaces.) It's become a piece of Apple lore — and a running gag at the company. Employees have stuck notes under his windshield wiper: "Park Different." They have also converted the minimalist wheelchair symbol on the pavement into a Mercedes logo.
Jobs' fabled attitude toward parking reflects his approach to business: For him, the regular rules do not apply. Everybody is familiar with Google's famous catchphrase, "Don't be evil." It has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that — proponents say — are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms. Trust decisions to the wisdom of crowds. Treat your employees like gods.
It's ironic, then, that one of the Valley's most successful companies ignored all of these tenets. Google and Apple may have a friendly relationship — Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board, after all — but by Google's definition, Apple is irredeemably evil, behaving more like an old-fashioned industrial titan than a different-thinking business of the future. Apple operates with a level of secrecy that makes Thomas Pynchon look like Paris Hilton. It locks consumers into a proprietary ecosystem. And as for treating employees like gods? Yeah, Apple doesn't do that either.
But by deliberately flouting the Google mantra, Apple has thrived. When Jobs retook the helm in 1997, the company was struggling to survive. Today it has a market cap of $105 billion, placing it ahead of Dell and behind Intel. Its iPod commands 70 percent of the MP3 player market. Four billion songs have been purchased from iTunes. The iPhone is reshaping the entire wireless industry. Even the underdog Mac operating system has begun to nibble into Windows' once-unassailable dominance; last year, its share of the US market topped 6 percent, more than double its portion in 2003.
It's hard to see how any of this would have happened had Jobs hewed to the standard touchy-feely philosophies of Silicon Valley. Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It's hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell's Pocket DJ music player. Likewise, had Apple opened its iTunes-iPod juggernaut to outside developers, the company would have risked turning its uniquely integrated service into a hodgepodge of independent applications — kind of like the rest of the Internet, come to think of it.
And now observers, academics, and even some other companies are taking notes. Because while Apple's tactics may seem like Industrial Revolution relics, they've helped the company position itself ahead of its competitors and at the forefront of the tech industry. Sometimes, evil works.
Over the past 100 years, management theory has followed a smooth trajectory, from enslavement to empowerment. The 20th century began with Taylorism — engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor's notion that workers are interchangeable cogs — but with every decade came a new philosophy, each advocating that more power be passed down the chain of command to division managers, group leaders, and workers themselves. In 1977, Robert Greenleaf's Servant Leadership argued that CEOs should think of themselves as slaves to their workers and focus on keeping them happy.
Silicon Valley has always been at the forefront of this kind of egalitarianism. In the 1940s, Bill Hewlett and David Packard pioneered what business author Tom Peters dubbed "managing by walking around," an approach that encouraged executives to communicate informally with their employees. In the 1990s, Intel's executives expressed solidarity with the engineers by renouncing their swanky corner offices in favor of standard-issue cubicles. And today, if Google hasn't made itself a Greenleaf-esque slave to its employees, it's at least a cruise director: The Mountain View campus is famous for its perks, including in-house masseuses, roller-hockey games, and a cafeteria where employees gobble gourmet vittles for free. What's more, Google's engineers have unprecedented autonomy; they choose which projects they work on and whom they work with. And they are encouraged to allot 20 percent of their work week to pursuing their own software ideas. The result? Products like Gmail and Google News, which began as personal endeavors.
Jobs, by contrast, is a notorious micromanager. No product escapes Cupertino without meeting Jobs' exacting standards, which are said to cover such esoteric details as the number of screws on the bottom of a laptop and the curve of a monitor's corners. "He would scrutinize everything, down to the pixel level," says Cordell Ratzlaff, a former manager charged with creating the OS X interface.
At most companies, the red-faced, tyrannical boss is an outdated archetype, a caricature from the life of Dagwood. Not at Apple. Whereas the rest of the tech industry may motivate employees with carrots, Jobs is known as an inveterate stick man. Even the most favored employee could find themselves on the receiving end of a tirade. Insiders have a term for it: the "hero-shithead roller coaster." Says Edward Eigerman, a former Apple engineer, "More than anywhere else I've worked before or since, there's a lot of concern about being fired."
But Jobs' employees remain devoted. That's because his autocracy is balanced by his famous charisma — he can make the task of designing a power supply feel like a mission from God. Andy Hertzfeld, lead designer of the original Macintosh OS, says Jobs imbued him and his coworkers with "messianic zeal." And because Jobs' approval is so hard to win, Apple staffers labor tirelessly to please him. "He has the ability to pull the best out of people," says Ratzlaff, who worked closely with Jobs on OS X for 18 months. "I learned a tremendous amount from him."
Apple's successes in the years since Jobs' return — iMac, iPod, iPhone — suggest an alternate vision to the worker-is-always-right school of management. In Cupertino, innovation doesn't come from coddling employees and collecting whatever froth rises to the surface; it is the product of an intense, hard-fought process, where people's feelings are irrelevant. Some management theorists are coming around to Apple's way of thinking. "A certain type of forcefulness and perseverance is sometimes helpful when tackling large, intractable problems," says Roderick Kramer, a social psychologist at Stanford who wrote an appreciation of "great intimidators" — including Jobs — for the February 2006 Harvard Business Review.
Likewise, Robert Sutton's 2007 book, The No Asshole Rule, spoke out against workplace tyrants but made an exception for Jobs: "He inspires astounding effort and creativity from his people," Sutton wrote. A Silicon Valley insider once told Sutton that he had seen Jobs demean many people and make some of them cry. But, the insider added, "He was almost always right."
"Steve proves that it's OK to be an asshole," says Guy Kawasaki, Apple's former chief evangelist. "I can't relate to the way he does things, but it's not his problem. It's mine. He just has a different OS."
Nicholas Ciarelli created Think Secret — a Web site devoted to exposing Apple's covert product plans — when he was 13 years old, a seventh grader at Cazenovia Junior-Senior High School in central New York. He stuck with it for 10 years, publishing some legitimate scoops (he predicted the introduction of a new titanium PowerBook, the iPod shuffle, and the Mac mini) and some embarrassing misfires (he reported that the iPod mini would sell for $100; it actually went for $249) for a growing audience of Apple enthusiasts. When he left for Harvard, Ciarelli kept the site up and continued to pull in ad revenue. At heart, though, Think Secret wasn't a financial enterprise but a personal obsession. "I was a huge enthusiast," Ciarelli says. "One of my birthday cakes had an Apple logo on it."
Most companies would pay millions of dollars for that kind of attention — an army of fans so eager to buy your stuff that they can't wait for official announcements to learn about the newest products. But not Apple. Over the course of his run, Ciarelli received dozens of cease-and-desist letters from the object of his affection, charging him with everything from copyright infringement to disclosing trade secrets. In January 2005, Apple filed a lawsuit against Ciarelli, accusing him of illegally soliciting trade secrets from its employees. Two years later, in December 2007, Ciarelli settled with Apple, shutting down his site two months later. (He and Apple agreed to keep the settlement terms confidential.)
Apple's secrecy may not seem out of place in Silicon Valley, land of the nondisclosure agreement, where algorithms are protected with the same zeal as missile launch codes. But in recent years, the tech industry has come to embrace candor. Microsoft — once the epitome of the faceless megalith — has softened its public image by encouraging employees to create no-holds-barred blogs, which share details of upcoming projects and even criticize the company. Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz has used his widely read blog to announce layoffs, explain strategy, and defend acquisitions.
"Openness facilitates a genuine conversation, and often collaboration, toward a shared outcome," says Steve Rubel, a senior vice president at the PR firm Edelman Digital. "When people feel like they're on your side, it increases their trust in you. And trust drives sales."
In an April 2007 cover story, we at Wired dubbed this tactic "radical transparency." But Apple takes a different approach to its public relations. Call it radical opacity. Apple's relationship with the press is dismissive at best, adversarial at worst; Jobs himself speaks only to a handpicked batch of reporters, and only when he deems it necessary. (He declined to talk to Wired for this article.) Forget corporate blogs — Apple doesn't seem to like anyone blogging about the company. And Apple appears to revel in obfuscation. For years, Jobs dismissed the idea of adding video capability to the iPod. "We want it to make toast," he quipped sarcastically at a 2004 press conference. "We're toying with refrigeration, too." A year later, he unveiled the fifth-generation iPod, complete with video. Jobs similarly disavowed the suggestion that he might move the Mac to Intel chips or release a software developers' kit for the iPhone — only months before announcing his intentions to do just that.
Even Apple employees often have no idea what their own company is up to. Workers' electronic security badges are programmed to restrict access to various areas of the campus. (Signs warning NO TAILGATING are posted on doors to discourage the curious from sneaking into off-limit areas.) Software and hardware designers are housed in separate buildings and kept from seeing each other's work, so neither gets a complete sense of the project. "We have cells, like a terrorist organization," Jon Rubinstein, former head of Apple's hardware and iPod divisions and now executive chair at Palm, told BusinessWeek in 2000.
At times, Apple's secrecy approaches paranoia. Talking to outsiders is forbidden; employees are warned against telling their families what they are working on. (Phil Schiller, Apple's marketing chief, once told Fortune magazine he couldn't share the release date of a new iPod with his own son.) Even Jobs is subject to his own strictures. He took home a prototype of Apple's boom box, the iPod Hi-Fi, but kept it concealed under a cloth.
But Apple's radical opacity hasn't hurt the company — rather, the approach has been critical to its success, allowing the company to attack new product categories and grab market share before competitors wake up. It took Apple nearly three years to develop the iPhone in secret; that was a three-year head start on rivals. Likewise, while there are dozens of iPod knockoffs, they have hit the market just as Apple has rendered them obsolete. For example, Microsoft introduced the Zune 2, with its iPod-like touch-sensitive scroll wheel, in October 2007, a month after Apple announced it was moving toward a new interface for the iPod touch. Apple has been known to poke fun at its rivals' catch-up strategies. The company announced Tiger, an upgrade to its operating system, with posters taunting, REDMOND, START YOUR PHOTOCOPIERS.
Secrecy has also served Apple's marketing efforts well, building up feverish anticipation for every announcement. In the weeks before Macworld Expo, Apple's annual trade show, the tech media is filled with predictions about what product Jobs will unveil in his keynote address. Consumer-tech Web sites liveblog the speech as it happens, generating their biggest traffic of the year. And the next day, practically every media outlet covers the announcements. Harvard business professor David Yoffie has said that the introduction of the iPhone resulted in headlines worth $400 million in advertising.
But Jobs' tactics also carry risks — especially when his announcements don't live up to the lofty expectations that come with such secrecy. The MacBook Air received a mixed response after some fans — who were hoping for a touchscreen-enabled tablet PC — deemed the slim-but-pricey subnotebook insufficiently revolutionary. Fans have a nickname for the aftermath of a disappointing event: post-Macworld depression.
Still, Apple's radical opacity has, on the whole, been a rousing success — and it's a tactic that most competitors can't mimic. Intel and Microsoft, for instance, sell their chips and software through partnerships with PC companies; they publish product road maps months in advance so their partners can create the machines to use them. Console makers like Sony and Microsoft work hand in hand with developers so they can announce a full roster of games when their PlayStations and Xboxes launch. But because Apple creates all of the hardware and software in-house, it can keep those products under wraps. Fundamentally the company bears more resemblance to an old-school industrial manufacturer like General Motors than to the typical tech firm.
In fact, part of the joy of being an Apple customer is anticipating the surprises that Santa Steve brings at Macworld Expo every January. Ciarelli is still eager to find out what's coming next — even if he can't write about it. "I wish they hadn't sued me," he says, "but I'm still a fan of their products."
Back in the mid-1990s, as Apple struggled to increase its share of the PC market, every analyst with a Bloomberg terminal was quick to diagnose the cause of the computermaker's failure: Apple waited too long to license its operating system to outside hardware makers. In other words, it tried for too long to control the entire computing experience. Microsoft, Apple's rival to the north, dominated by encouraging computer manufacturers to build their offerings around its software. Sure, that strategy could result in an inferior user experience and lots of cut-rate Wintel machines, but it also gave Microsoft a stranglehold on the software market. Even Wired joined the fray; in June 1997, we told Apple, "You shoulda licensed your OS in 1987" and advised, "Admit it. You're out of the hardware game."
Oops.
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he ignored everyone's advice and tied his company's proprietary software to its proprietary hardware. He has held to that strategy over the years, even as his Silicon Valley cohorts have embraced the values of openness and interoperability. Android, Google's operating system for mobile phones, is designed to work on any participating handset. Last year, Amazon.com began selling DRM-free songs that can be played on any MP3 player. Even Microsoft has begun to embrace the movement toward Web-based applications, software that runs on any platform.
Not Apple. Want to hear your iTunes songs on the go? You're locked into playing them on your iPod. Want to run OS X? Buy a Mac. Want to play movies from your iPod on your TV? You've got to buy a special Apple-branded connector ($49). Only one wireless carrier would give Jobs free rein to design software and features for his handset, which is why anyone who wants an iPhone must sign up for service with AT&T.
During the early days of the PC, the entire computer industry was like Apple — companies such as Osborne and Amiga built software that worked only on their own machines. Now Apple is the one vertically integrated company left, a fact that makes Jobs proud. "Apple is the last company in our industry that creates the whole widget," he once told a Macworld crowd.
But not everyone sees Apple's all-or-nothing approach in such benign terms. The music and film industries, in particular, worry that Jobs has become a gatekeeper for all digital content. Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music, has accused iTunes of leaving labels powerless to negotiate with it. (Ironically, it was the labels themselves that insisted on the DRM that confines iTunes purchases to the iPod, and that they now protest.) "Apple has destroyed the music business," NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker told an audience at Syracuse University. "If we don't take control on the video side, [they'll] do the same." At a media business conference held during the early days of the Hollywood writers' strike, Michael Eisner argued that Apple was the union's real enemy: "[The studios] make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who's making money? Apple!"
Meanwhile, Jobs' insistence on the sanctity of his machines has affronted some of his biggest fans. In September, Apple released its first upgrade to the iPhone operating system. But the new software had a pernicious side effect: It would brick, or disable, many phones, especially those containing unapproved applications.2 The blogosphere erupted in protest; gadget blog Gizmodo even wrote a new review of the iPhone, reranking it a "don't buy." Last year, Jobs announced he would open up the iPhone so that independent developers could create applications for it, but only through an official process that gives Apple final approval of every application.
For all the protests, consumers don't seem to mind Apple's walled garden. In fact, they're clamoring to get in. Yes, the iPod hardware and the iTunes software are inextricably linked — that's why they work so well together. And now, PC-based iPod users, impressed with the experience, have started converting to Macs, further investing themselves in the Apple ecosystem.
Some Apple competitors have tried to emulate its tactics. Microsoft's MP3 strategy used to be like its mobile strategy — license its software to (almost) all comers. Not any more: The operating system for Microsoft's Zune player is designed uniquely for the device, mimicking the iPod's vertical integration. Amazon's Kindle e-reader provides seamless access to a proprietary selection of downloadable books, much as the iTunes Music Store provides direct access to an Apple-curated storefront. And the Nintendo Wii, the Sony PlayStation 3, and the Xbox360 each offer users access to self-contained online marketplaces for downloading games and special features.
Tim O'Reilly, publisher of the O'Reilly Radar blog and an organizer of the Web 2.0 Summit, says that these "three-tiered systems" — that blend hardware, installed software, and proprietary Web applications — represent the future of the Net. As consumers increasingly access the Web using scaled-down appliances like mobile phones and Kindle readers, they will demand applications that are tailored to work with those devices. True, such systems could theoretically be open, with any developer allowed to throw its own applications and services into the mix. But for now, the best three-tier systems are closed. And Apple, O'Reilly says, is the only company that "really understands how to build apps for a three-tiered system."
If Apple represents the shiny, happy future of the tech industry, it also looks a lot like our cat-o'-nine-tails past. In part, that's because the tech business itself more and more resembles an old-line consumer industry. When hardware and software makers were focused on winning business clients, price and interoperability were more important than the user experience. But now that consumers make up the most profitable market segment, usability and design have become priorities. Customers expect a reliable and intuitive experience — just like they do with any other consumer product.
All this plays to Steve Jobs' strengths. No other company has proven as adept at giving customers what they want before they know they want it. Undoubtedly, this is due to Jobs' unique creative vision. But it's also a function of his management practices. By exerting unrelenting control over his employees, his image, and even his customers, Jobs exerts unrelenting control over his products and how they're used. And in a consumer-focused tech industry, the products are what matter. "Everything that's happening is playing to his values," says Geoffrey Moore, author of the marketing tome Crossing the Chasm. "He's at the absolute epicenter of the digitization of life. He's totally in the zone."
Leander Kahney (leander@wired.com), news editor of Wired.com, is the author of Inside Steve's Brain, to be published in April by Penguin Portfolio.
Source: WiredLabels: Apple, Google, iMac, Intel, iPhone, ipod, Mac OS, Mercedes, OS X |
| posted by Perimbean @ 11:49 AM |
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Wired: Apple is Evil/Genius
March 25th, 2008
Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 7:37 am
Wired Magazine’s Leander Kahney has a cover story on Apple (”How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong” Issue 16.04 ) that’s worth a read. Overall it’s pretty well balanced and fair and has just enough edgy snarkiness to keep you reading.
Kahney takes Apple to task for being the antithesis of Google:
Everybody is familiar with Google’s famous catchphrase, “Don’t be evil.” It has become a shorthand mission statement for Silicon Valley, encompassing a variety of ideals that — proponents say — are good for business and good for the world: Embrace open platforms. Trust decisions to the wisdom of crowds. Treat your employees like gods.
It’s ironic, then, that one of the Valley’s most successful companies ignored all of these tenets.
…by Google’s definition, Apple is irredeemably evil, behaving more like an old-fashioned industrial titan than a different-thinking business of the future. Apple operates with a level of secrecy that makes Thomas Pynchon look like Paris Hilton. It locks consumers into a proprietary ecosystem. And as for treating employees like gods? Yeah, Apple doesn’t do that either. (emphasis mine).
and Jobs for being a tyrant:
Jobs, by contrast, is a notorious micromanager. No product escapes Cupertino without meeting Jobs’ exacting standards, which are said to cover such esoteric details as the number of screws on the bottom of a laptop and the curve of a monitor’s corners. “He would scrutinize everything, down to the pixel level,” says Cordell Ratzlaff, a former manager charged with creating the OS X interface.
Source: ZDNetLabels: Apple |
| posted by Perimbean @ 11:47 AM |
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Installing Apple's Safari Web Browser in Ubuntu Linux
By Scott Gilbertson
March 24, 2008 | 8:36:24 AM
While Apple may be pushing Safari on Windows, the company has historically ignored Linux users. Fortunately, thanks to WINE, which allows you to run Windows applications without installing Windows, it's not too difficult to get Safari running in Linux.The Ubuntu Unleashed blog recently posted instructions on how to install Safari using WINE on Ubuntu, but with a few tweaks, you should be able to get it running on just about any Linux distribution. The instructions even include installing the Flash plugin for Safari in WINE. Of course if you aren’t looking for the Apple-specific front-end, WebKit, the engine that powers Safari, is also used in Konqueror. [Update: As Douglas Greenshields points out in the comments below, WebKit is actually based on KHTML (Konqueror's web browser), and it is not technically part of Konqueror.] However, if it’s the Safari interface you’re after, WINE is your answer. The only real dependency, aside from WINE, is that you install Microsoft’s Core Fonts, but you’ll need them for just about any application running under WINE. I tested the install out of curiosity and it worked without a hitch. As you can see in the screenshot above, I’ve got the Windows version of Safari running in Ubuntu and the Flash plugin works just fine. The main menu items are a little bit off, but it’s still usable and surprisingly snappy. Source: WiredLabels: Apple, Konqueror, Linux, Safari, Ubuntu, WINE |
| posted by Perimbean @ 11:15 AM |
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| Monday, March 24, 2008 |
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Mac Buyer's Guide: Which Apple Should You Pick?
We've tested the Mac Pro, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, the iMac, the Mac Mini, and the XServe. There's not a bad Apple among the bunch, and some are truly superb. We'll help you choose one that's right for you.
By Richard Hoffman
InformationWeek
March 22, 2008 07:00 AM
Maybe that most recent e-mail virus was the last straw. Maybe you've been longing for a computer that "just works" and that you actually look forward to using. Maybe Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Vista finally just sent you right around the bend. Perhaps it was that "Mac guy" on the commercials. Or maybe you are the "Mac guy."
The Mac Pro is as fast and powerful as it looks.
For whatever reason, you've decided to buy a new computer from Apple and want a little help sorting out the different models. Well, you're in luck, because perhaps more than at any other time, Apple's product lineup is clear, logical, and targeted at distinct types of users and uses. The entire product line is one of the strongest Apple's ever had. Without hyperbole, it may be the best overall line of computers anyone has had, ever -- there's not a bad Apple among the bunch, and some are truly superb.
Plus, if you're a PC guy or gal contemplating making the switch to the Mac world, the good news is that, if you have to, you can still use Windows on just about any new Mac. Parallel's Desktop for Mac, VMWare's Fusion virtualizer products, and Apple's own included Boot Camp dual-boot enabler all allow Windows to run at native or near-native speed on your Mac. So, these days, your choice doesn't have to be either-or, it can be both.
From design to function, from form to performance, you pretty much can't go wrong with anything Apple is currently selling. We've tested them all in our labs over the past months, and they're just that good. Read on and we'll help you choose the right one.
Pro is the label for this powerful beast, and a Pro it is, in capacity, capability, and price. If you are serious about your work, whether it is graphics, programming, video, number-crunching, or just about anything else, the Mac Pro will chew it up and spit it out.
The aluminum industrial design that has been a part of the last several versions of the Pro is both sleek and efficient. Under the hood, the Mac Pro proves it's not just all show, with what is still one of the most accessible, best-designed desktop chassis ever built. Four full-size expansion slots give the capability to add to your monster -- two are PCI-Express 2.0 (one of these is double wide to handle wide high-performance graphics cards), and two are the slower PCI Express variety. Four easily accessible 3.5-inch drive bays hold high-speed SATA or SAS drives up to 4 TB. Quad-core Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Xeon processors (up to 3.2 GHz) do the heavy lifting, and a 12-MB L2 cache per processor, a 6-MB cache shared between each pair of cores, and dual 64-bit, 1,600-MHz frontside buses make sure the powerful CPUs rarely sit idle. Up to 32 GB of 800-MHz DDR2 dual in-line memory modules provide about as much RAM as most folks will ever need.
A huge array of ports provide virtually every connectivity option under the sun: the back of the Mac Pro holds both optical and analog audio in and out jacks, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, and two gigabit Ethernet ports. Easy-access front ports -- another FireWire 400 and FireWire 800, two more USB 2.0, and a headphone jack -- make it convenient to attach peripherals such as video cameras.
Graphics options include one or more ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT cards, but the Nvidia Quadro FX 5600 will provide world-class capability (at pro prices, adding $2,850 to the cost). The bottom line is that you can trick up the Mac Pro to do anything you want it to do, so long as you have the cash. A base model costs a reasonable $2,799, given the capabilities, and you can customize the Pro all the way up to five figures with options.
For a laptop that provides high-end features and power, and is a true desktop replacement for power users, the MacBook Pro delivers the goods. Both the 15-inch and 17-inch models are fully fitted with expansion ports (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, DVI video, optical/analog audio in and out, and ExpressCard), and the latest version includes up to 4 Gbytes of 667-MHz RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU at up to 2.6-Ghz speeds.
802.11n wireless capability plus Gigabit Ethernet provides external connectivity and the Nvidia GeForce 8600M graphics card provides very solid, if not blazing, performance while still being relatively frugal on power. We've seen MacBook Pros used as portable multimedia production stations, and they can do just about anything a desktop can do, in a well-designed and portable package.
All that power doesn't come particularly cheap -- the 15-inch starts at $1,999 and the 17-inch begins at $2,799, so if budget is your top concern and you don't need the full capacity of the Pro, Apple has provided the MacBook to meet your needs.
The MacBook is positioned as Apple's "consumer" laptop, but it is also an economical business laptop for those who don't need the full capabilities, or price, of the MacBook Pro. Eschewing the brushed aluminum of Pro for a clean black or white chassis, and downsizing from a 15-inch or 17-inch screen to a crisp and well-lit 13.3-inch screen, the MacBook is smaller and ligher, and uses an integrated graphics processor instead of the more powerful, but also more expensive, Nvidia graphics card in the Pro.
You can still get up to 4 GB of RAM and the hard drive options go all the way up to 250 GB, but the starting price of the basic MacBook, at $1,099, is about half that of the lowest-priced MacBook Pro. Both laptops use an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU with the processor speed of the MacBook being a notch or two slower than the Pro, at 2.1 GHz or 2.4 GHz. Apple has positioned the MacBook as an affordable all-around laptop and it delivers on the promise, giving good performance at a budget price. As small and light as the MacBook is, Apple has another option for those for whom even 5 pounds is a couple of pounds too many.
The MacBook Air is a study in compromises. If you want one of the lightest, smallest, most mobile full-featured laptops available, the Air is the one you want, and fair warning, when you hold one in your hands, it's very hard to resist the allure. Sure, it currently has the highest "wow, cool" factor and geek-envy quotient out there (and the Air plus an iPhone is the obvious digerati's choice), but the real reason you'd want one is maximum portability -- the combination of light weight, sleek design, and capability is genuinely amazing.
The processor isn't as fast as much of the rest of the Mac line, but it's fast enough, a true Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Core 2 Duo processor, running at either 1.6 GHz or 1.8 GHz, and it sips power like a miser. Included memory is good at 2 GB of 667-MHz DDR2 SDRAM standard, but there is no capacity for further expansion. The 13.3-inch glossy screen is absolutely brilliant, and the backlit full-sized keyboard and multitouch gesture-supporting trackpad are usable even in cramped quarters.
The stylish iMac desktop has a clutter-free all-in-one design.
The battery life is good, but the nonremovable battery is perhaps the most questionable design feature in the Air -- you can't carry an extra battery for extended off-power use, and to replace it eventually you'll have to send the unit back to Apple.
But it truly does fit in a manila envelope (varies between 0.76 inches and an amazing 0.16 inches thick), weighs almost nothing (3 pounds), and is small enough to use even in a normal coach airline seat. You'll definitely want to spring for the optional external optical Superdrive (add $99 to the $1,799 starting price), as well as the USB 2.0 to Ethernet adapter ($29), since the Air has neither included. The hard drive option (80 GB) is fairly small by usual laptop standards, and the optional 64-GB solid-state drive which, along with a faster processor, takes the Air to a stratospheric $3,038, is clearly only for those who really need it or for whom price is no object. In short, the Air does not make as good a desktop replacement as either the MacBook or MacBook Pro, but for pure portability, the Air truly is on top of the world.
The new iMac looks like nothing more than a sleek Apple LCD monitor, but amazingly Apple fit the rest of the computer into the well-designed all-in-one case as well. Both the 20-inch screen model (starting at $1,199) and the higher-end 24-inch variety (starting at $1,799) are good, solid, all-around performers, providing everything a desktop user could want in one compact package, without the sprawl of clutter and wires a typical desktop offers.
With maximum 4 GB of 667-MHz SDRAM, up to a 1-TB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive (CD/DVD burner), built-in camera, and bundled iLife software suite, the iMac provides just about everything an individual or family could need in a desktop package, minus the mess, and at a reasonable price point.
The Mac Mini gets little press these days, even from Apple, but it is still the least expensive Mac you can buy, starting at $599 (albeit with no display, keyboard, or mouse, all purchased separately). Just slightly larger than Apple's Airport Extreme wireless access point, at 6.5-by-6.5-by-2 inches deep, the Mini looks more like an accessory than an entire computer, but it includes all the normal features and connectivity options you'd expect.
It's no speed demon compared with the rest of Apple's lineup, but it runs the same Intel (NSDQ: INTC) Core 2 Duo CPU (1.83 or 2.0 GHz), has a minimum of 1 GB of RAM standard, and comes bundled with Apple's iLife software suite. If you need a basic computer without high-end speed or blazing graphics capability, or a very small, portable computer-in-a-box, especially if you already have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, the Mini is by far the cheapest way to enter the Mac world.
Most people, when they think Apple, don't think of corporate and enterprise server rooms, but in recent years, there have been a surprising number number of mission-critical government systems built on Apple's XServe and XServe RAID platform, in part due to Apple's high performance for low cost, as well as lack of vulnerability to most widely circulated Windows-based malware and other security risks.
Apple's XServe is still a value leader, if not quite as ground-breaking as it was at introduction, and it offers true enterprise-level capability and features in a standard rack-mountable format. The XServe comes with one or two quad-core Intel Xeon processors running at 2.8 or 3.0 GHz, up to 32 GB of 800-MHz DDR2, and RAID options. It also offers the kind of remote manageability and redundancy necessary in any true server-room product -- options for dual power supplies, RAID options, lights-out management, remote access and management via VNC or the Apple Remote Desktop 3 package, as well as the ability to run either headless or with an ATI Radeon X1300 graphics adapter. And the real kicker here, compared with similar Windows-based servers, is the low cost of the Mac OS X Server license; for unlimited clients it's an absolute steal, and without having to hassle with complex licensing agreements. One low price, no license wrangling. That's music to an administrator's ears.
Apple's long-term focus on the large enterprise, never its core market outside of scientific, media production, and education arenas, has always been somewhat meandering. So it was no huge surprise to see Apple's XServe RAID product, a price/performance leader when it was first introduced, quietly discontinued in mid-February 2008. Those needing mass storage solutions for server-class situations are directed to a similarly capable, but rather more expensive, product called the VTrak E-Class from third-party vendor Promise.
Source: Information WeekLabels: Apple, iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook Air, Macbook Pro, Xserve |
| posted by Perimbean @ 3:35 PM |
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| Saturday, March 22, 2008 |
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Apple To Ban SDK Developers From Accessing iPhone Music Features?
Posted by Eric Zeman, Mar 21, 2008 09:37 AM
Since Apple released the SDK several weeks ago for the iPhone, the euphoria has slowly been fading. Reports that not everything will be open for access and other detractors have tempered the initial joy. The latest piece of bad news? Developers won't be able to create music players for the iPhone.
It appears that the SDK doesn't permit any access to iTunes, the iTunes library, or any facets of the iPhone's music player. What does this mean? Music services such as Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), or eMusic, couldn't create their own applications or download services for the iPhone. It also means that other developers could not create completely new and different music applications.
First off, I don't know why you'd want to do the latter. Is any third-party music player software really going to outperform the iPhone's music player in basic functionality? I doubt it. And can anyone really blame Apple for wanting to protect its own player? I can understand why it would want to prevent Real -- or any other company -- from crafting a version of RealPlayer or other music-playing software that would encroach on one of the core applications of the iPhone.
However, I would hope that this doesn't mean developers can't craft plug-ins or other features that can be added to the iPhone's music player. For one, the equalizer needs a little help. It may have a ton of presets that let you change the sound of your music, but I want my own sliders. I think a fully user-customizable, 7-band EQ should be a minimum for the iPhone's music player. But that's just me. Other than that, I can't think of any real weaknesses that the player has. It's vastly more usable than any other player on the market.
The Inquirer, however, says, "This [restricted access] makes it impossible for iLike, Last.fm, Qloud, or OnTour to create iPhone-compatible widgets that might expand basic iTunes functions." That statement scares me a bit, and leads me to believe that my dream of seeing a nice EQ for the iPhone is going to remain but a dream ... unless Apple itself makes one.
That aside, where does this leave developers? Is this really a vexing issue? Did anyone think that Apple would open the iPhone so wide that third parties would be able to create applications to supplant those of the iPhone? I didn't.
None of this matters to the hacker community, which will continue to do as it pleases with the iPhone.
Source: Information WeekLabels: Apple, iPhone, iTunes, SDK |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:45 PM |
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Apple Files Patent For Holographic 3-D Display
Apple says recent developments in computers and computer graphics have made spatial 3-D images more practical and accessible.
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
March 20, 2008 10:00 AM
Future Apple computers may be capable of displaying images in 3D, without requiring polarized glasses. Apple on Thursday filed a patent application for a three-dimensional display system.
"Recent developments in computers and computer graphics have made spatial 3-D images more practical and accessible," the patent application explains. "The computational power now exists, for example, for desktop workstations to generate stereoscopic image pairs quickly enough for interactive display."
The patent application goes on to assert that two-dimensional projections of 3-D scenes are inadequate. "Without the benefit of 3-D rendering, even high quality images that have excellent perspective depictions still appear unrealistic and flat," it says.
It identifies the shortcomings of existing 3-D display techniques, noting that they may require a viewer to remain in a fixed position, to wear polarized glasses, or may fail to render shapes so that they appear to have the same volume and density at different viewing angles.
Thus the patent application goes on to describe a projection display system that renders images in three dimensions while still allowing viewers freedom of movement. It proposes to achieve this effect by tracking the position of the viewer(s).
"No headgear needs to be worn by the observer," the patent application explains. "In one embodiment, the system of the present invention provides a stereoscopic 3-D display and viewing experience; in another, it delivers a realistic holographic 3-D display experience."
As is the case with any patent application, there's no guarantee Apple will ever commercialize this technology. Before it does, graphics cards will have to incorporate a stereoscopic rendering engine.
Source: Information WeekLabels: 3-D, Apple |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:42 PM |
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Apple Releases Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n) Firmware 7.3.1 Update
March 20, 2008
Late Wednesday, Apple released its Time Capsule and AirPort Base Station (802.11n) Firmware 7.3.1 update. The patch, a four megabyte download, brings the Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n units for firmware version 7.3.1 and includes bug fixes. In the case of the AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n, the update also includes security fixes.
The update requires AirPort Utility 5.3.1 or later and Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run and can also be located and installed with Mac OS X's built-in Software Update feature.
Source: PowerPageLabels: Airport, Apple, Mac OS X, Time Capsule |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:40 PM |
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Apple: Gartner Now Says iPhone “Ready For Business”
March 20, 2008, 1:07 am
Posted by Eric Savitz
Gartner has had a change of heart about the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
When the iPhone was first launched, Gartner analysts had expressed concern over some security issues with the device. But in a release on Wednesday, Gartner said it has changed its stance in response to the company’s announcement of new features designed to make the phone more compatible with enterprise IT needs.
Gartner says the new capabilities allows the iPhone to match up against the Research in Motion (RIMM) Blackberry, Windows Mobile devices and phones built on the Symbian Series 60 platform.
With its license of Microsoft’s (MSFT) ActiveSync software allowing the device to connect with Exchange, Gartner says, “enterprises can provide sufficient security for iPhone during Exchange personal information manager and e-mail use.”
Gartner contends the new features “will open up a huge market for the iPhone, which previously had been stymied by a lack of basic business security and application functionality.”
Apple on Wednesday fell $3.15, or 2.4%, to $129.67.
Source: Tech Trader DailyLabels: Apple, BlackBerry, iPhone, RIMM, Symbian, Windows Mobile |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:37 PM |
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Singapore Telecom to launch Apple's iPhone in September - report
March 20, 2008: 03:28 AM EST
SINGAPORE, Mar. 20, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (OOTC:SGAPY) is launching iPhone in September, but the telco has declined to confirm or deny that it has struck a deal with iPhone maker Apple Inc, local broadcaster Channel News Asia reported, citing industry sources.
A spokesman from SingTel declined to comment on the report.
While Apple is targeting to sell 10 million iPhone units this year in Asia, talks with telcos around the region have dragged since last year over Apple's unprecedented demand that it be given a revenue share from each iPhone sold to mobile phone subscribers.
'The news, if true, is positive for SingTel. Given iPhone's (appeal to consumers), we believe iPhone would lead to higher market share for SingTel. However, the impact on SingTel's bottom line should not be very significant given Apple's hard bargaining tendency and tough competition from StarHub,' said DBS Vickers in a note to clients.
Even though iPhone is not yet available in Singapore, DBS said Singaporeans have bought an estimated 10,000 units since the mobile phone was launched in the US in June last year, with some paying as much as 1,000 Singapore dollars for a unit.
If the news is true, SingTel would likely be the first telco to officially launch iPhone in Asia. China Mobile had in January ended talks with Apple about the launch of iPhone in China.
Apple has also held talks with other Asian telcos, including NTT DoCoMo (NYSE:DCM) , Japan's biggest mobile phone company.
Source: CNNLabels: Apple, China Mobile, DBS, iPhone, NTT DoCoMo, SIngTel, StarHub |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:32 PM |
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Switched On: Apple DVR could find its calling in iPhone
Posted Mar 19th 2008 11:56PM by Ross Rubin
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.
A recently unearthed patent filing shows Apple is thinking beyond its current living room video vending machine, the Apple TV. Among a number of new features, the design specifies how DVR information could be sent to a portable remote control similar to Apple's existing iPod and iPhone, taking integration among its products to a new level.
And it's not just working together for the sake of some superficial "better together" marketing angle. How many times have you heard friends discussing some great new show that you missed? With the capabilities Apple illustrates, one could perhaps call up the TV listings right from their iPhone and schedule to record the next episode. What's unknown is how Apple would transfer recorded DVR shows to an iPod or iPhone -- would recordings by synced through iTunes? And, if so, would they be tied to an authorized account to discourage internet redistribution?
In fact, while the addition of DVR features might raise questions about Apple retreating from selling TV shows, it would really reflect the reality of these show purchases being opportunistic (as well as perhaps serving as a tactic to bring NBC back to the bargaining table). Besides, DVR integration with the iTunes store could lead to more revenue opportunities. In the aforementioned scenario, the DVR could offer the opportunity to buy the episodes missed so far.
While patents don't necessarily portend market entry, would TiVo be able to withstand a market entry from Apple better than the Rio or Treo did? The DVR pioneer has stepped up its service offerings significantly over the past few years; few broadband-delivered TV entertainment services have escaped its partnership purview. These have included internet information and casual games, TV shows and movies on demand, subscription music services, video podcasts and more. No US TV platform offers a more versatile array of services, but the jack-of-all-trades approach still hasn't brought sustained profitability or enough pull from TiVo's simpler and cheaper cable competition.
Apple would be well-positioned to supersede even TiVo's functionality if it offered an SDK for Apple TV (or a DVR-enabled successor) as it has for the iPhone. In addition, Apple could gain a significant marketing advantage versus TiVo – and indeed the cable companies -- if it stuck to its subscription-averse philosophy, or perhaps rolled the subscription fee into .Mac. The latter could provide online TV listings for remote scheduling similar to the way MSN offers the feature for Windows Media Center.
Apple could clearly bring a lot to the DVR. The question is, what could the DVR bring to Apple that would motivate it to play in this extremely competitive market? (This is not a new question to Switched On readers.) However, an opportunity to bolster its offerings in portable electronics markets that it leads (iPod) or where its share is growing (iPhone) might persuade Apple to see the living room as a more strategic support environment for its iCosystem and less of a cash cow.
Source: EngadgetLabels: Apple, DVR, iPhone, SDK, TiVo |
| posted by Perimbean @ 4:29 PM |
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