Google vs. Apple, this could get messy…
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Mac Media, iPhone
It was Steve Jobs who pointed out during his excellent D8 discussion this year that it was Google who decided to enter the phone market and compete with Apple. They of course made this decision after Eric Schmidt became a member of Apple’s board in 2006 only to resign after issues concerning conflict of interest last year. And now, Wall Street Journal reports that Google wants to enter the online music industry. Not a lot of real information yet, but they say that it will launch at some point with in the next year.
In other news, people in Palo Alto, California have reported what seems to be rampant screaming of various obscenities. Well, clearly he saw this coming, right? Google is the largest online services company in the world I think, and it is only natural that after Apple and Amazon have entered the online music industry that Google would follow. Especially since they do have Android, and their is money to made in music and ringtone sales on mobile phones as has been already proved.
But does Apple really have to worry about Google and their dinky music store? It’s not like they have to worry about their dinky phone operating system, or at least not yet. Nielsen’s recent reports indicate that Apple has 28% of the smartphone market compared to Android’s 9, which is also still less than Microsoft’s and RIM’s (which is still the dominate).
And look at iTunes, it has over a quarter market share of the U.S. music industry. That’s not a quarter of digital downloads, that’s overall against bog box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. They hold a vast majority of the digital market which is already crowded with the likes of Amazon, Real Networks, and some other meaningless companies that don’t matter anymore like MySpace and Microsoft.
And frankly, Apple should be happy that Google wants to enter the digital music market and potentially hook it into the Android OS. It will take some of the heat off from the investigation that the Department of Justice is conducting of Apple and iTunes.
New Apple TV…I mean Mac mini
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Apple TV, Mac Media
Apple has introduced an all new Mac mini featuring a new uni-body aluminum casing, as well as HDMI port and an SD card slot. Which makes it sound to me like they have introduced a new Apple TV, this time with a DVD drive, which I think is an excellent addition. Certainly a better addition to the product than it’s $699 starting price tag, which does make it more expensive than most standard Blue-ray DVD players and the new TiVo Premeire XL.
That doesn’t bode well considering it can’t be hooked up to cable or satellite without some sort of third party jerry-rig such as El Gato’s EyeTV line of products. The EyeTV also allows you to channel surf on your Mac in the same way that a TiVo does. It stands to reason that a cable input with a cable-card slot would have been a killer application for this product. By the way, the EyeTV capable of recording HD cable/satellite to a Mac is an extra $200.
However, putting the lack of native DVR functionality aside, why is it that this machine doesn’t come with the Apple TV software. As far as I can tell, it only comes with the standard version of Mac OS X with the standard version of Front Row which looks like the Apple TV back in 2007. Why not make Apple TV a Mac OS X application that replaces Front Row? Steve Jobs himself as called the Apple TV a “hobby” in the past and it doesn’t seem like it would hurt their margins in any way. Steve Jobs had a lot of interesting things to say about this at the recent D8: All Things Digital conference.
Clearly, Apple added an HDMI to the new Mac mini for the hobbyists who have been asking for it since 2008 or so. But, it looks like thos same hobbyists will have to turn to interfaces such as the EyeTV or my personal favorite for this application, Boxee which allows development of applications such as for TWiT.tv and NetFlix streaming.
Speaking of which, is anyone at Apple paying attention to my idea about apps on the Apple TV? That also applies here.
iPhone on the Lam
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Mac Media
I have never been a fan of Gizmodo, or anything that Gawker publishes, because I enjoy Engadget (and it’s sister TUAW and I am familiar with their writers. This past week, I was able to add yet another reason why Gizmodo doesn’t happen to be my own cup of tea when they heralded their acquisition of “found” hardware in the form of a fourth generation iPhone.
They proceeded to dance around how exactly they acquired this iPhone until finally admitting that they bought it from some shady character for $5,000. Then, Apple asked for Gizmodo to respectfully return the hardware, no take down notices and no threats of lawsuits. Well, Brian Lam decided that he hadn’t had enought fun and wrote back to Apple telling them that “it was burning a hole in our pockets.”
I have to say it. Brian Lam works for a company that back in 2006, claimed that they had the first ever iPhone and it turned out to be that Linksys VoIP thing that I don’t even think exists anymore. They are now continually obsessed with Apple and trying to bait Mac fanboys to get into flame wars in their comments such as this recent post calling Apple “backwards” over claiming that HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript are open platforms while Adobe Flash is not. Completely ignoring the fact that the statement is completely accurate and relevant to the issues between Apple and Adobe and development platforms on the iPhone and iPad, or, as John Gruber said, “spot on.”
Also, don’t forget that one of their sister sites is obsessed with a pop star with a whacky sense of dress about whether or not she has the correct set of reproductive organs. Because if we could only get a clear answer from her, then and only then will we find Osama Bin Laden and there will be peace and Democratic elections in the Middle East.
My point is that these Gawker clowns are more interested in controversy and page views than they are in actually being the journalists that they claim to be. Engadget on the other hand has never resorted to cheap tricks and I thoroughly doubt they would be doing underhanded deals such as buying questionably acquired hardware in a back alley. Because of stunts like this, bloggers and news websites are never going to be taken seriously and they will now probably have more difficulty acquiring review units of hardware and software for the bigger companies.
This last month, millions of people read the reviews of the iPad written by David Pogue of the New York Times and Walt “Goatee” Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. My local paper, the Salt Lake Tribune carried the review from Edward Baig, the tech journalist from USA Today. Where as, only a couple hundred thousand read the reviews on Engadget and Gizmodo. If Gizmodo pulls cheap tricks like this, how likely is it that Apple will be willing to give them advanced peaks at new products or invite them to the next Steve Jobs keynote? I’m willing to bet that Brian Lam and Jason Chem are on a hit list now.
Above all, is Gizmodo’s cheap tricks going to hurt other bloggers in the highly competitive tech blog sector? Sometimes, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch (no pun intended, I think).
Lisa is now Tickled Pink
Posted by Andrew | Filed under Mac Media
I am one of Lisa’s (LisaTickledPink) new followers on Twitter, a person who in only just the last few days has joined Twitter, been discovered by Kevin Rose and pushed to almost 12,000 followers by the TWiT Army. All in an effort to prove that Leo Laporte has more Twitter juice than some guy named Conan O’Brien, who apparently used to have his own TV show.
Lisa of course had the email notifications on by default to let her know when someone new was following her. Which means she woke up to an email box that was brought down to it’s knees. But, she’s going to get an iPad out of it as well as one of her thousands of followers. Hence, I am following her as of this morning.
The tweet that brought Lisa to so much fame and no fortune was “I hate technology,” usually technology haters don’t join twitter. And that was only her second tweet, and she only had two followers according to Rose on the latest episode of TWiT, when she was originally chosen. Lisa has since revealed that she didn’t know who Leo was (obviously, she lives in New Zealand and isn’t tech savvy.) or what an iPad is. She also says that Leo owes her a dress to wear for her upcoming radio interview, I guess she wasn’t lying when she admitted she wasn’t tech savvy.
But, how long will this popularity last? It is not very typical for someone to just get 12,000 followers over night, especially, someone who has only had an account for a little less than a day. I imagine that Lisa may be in for a big shock when the day after Leo announces the winner of the iPad, thousands of people leave her fold. But, that is what is to be expected, people won’t follow you unless you have something to say, something interesting, funny, thought-provoking, but something. No one got followers telling everyone what they had for lunch, and I can’t get followers because I can’t be bothered to tweet anything except my blog posts and Jazz games.
By the way, if you don’t follow me on Twitter, the Jazz beat the Los Angeles Clippers 107-85 on Saturday night (warning: instant playing video), I was there and it was awesome.