The good news for Apple came in a study of 216 smartphone users by Piper Jaffray Apple-watcher Gene Munster. The study found 67 percent of BlackBerry owners plan to buy an iPhone as their next handset. Just 26 percent of BlackBerry owners want to keep the RIM handset. This compares to 94 percent of iPhone owners who said they will buy a new Apple smartphone.
This must be a devious ploy by RIM’s co-CEOs.
“As Nintendo’s share price continues to plummet, it is fair to ask if they are an acquisition target,” observed Panoptic Management Consultants CEO Asif Khan to IndustryGamers. “With a market capitalization around $20 billion, there are a handful of tech companies that could afford to make an offer. Apple, Google, and Microsoft would be the leading candidates in my opinion. Another less likely outcome could be a merger with Panasonic or Sony as neither of those companies could afford to buy Nintendo outright.”
This article’s author, James Brightman, points out that no such plans are in place, nor have there even been rumors to suggest it might happen. But figuring out how Apple should spend its billions in cash seems to be favorite masturbatory pastime of just about every analyst out there, Asif Khan included.
While Apple has been widely credited with expanding the gaming market, [Seamus] Blackley believes it was never its intention to do so. “They hated videogames,” he says. “The victory of games is utterly complete with Apple. It’s a total victory.“They tried real hard to make the iPad about word processing and music, and the audience just doesn’t want it. It’s beautiful. You don’t need to have a games strategy anymore.”
Historical revisionism like this burns my ass.
Seamus Blackley is the guy credited with initially coming up with the concept of the Microsoft Xbox; he’s a really smart guy and the game industry and gamers owe him a debt of gratitude. Blackley’s opinion of Apple and its infamous antipathy towards games is widespread throughout the game industry, and it’s not without historical precedent, at least on the Mac side of the fence. But Blackley is absolutely, unequivocally wrong about the iPad.
By the time the iPad was ready for service, the Games section was already the single biggest segment of the App Store. Loads of game developers had signed on to create content for the burgeoning platform. Apple was already focusing development and engineering to improve the gaming experience on iOS, and it knew full well that iPad users would be playing plenty of games.
Earlier this week I noticed the 32GB model at Costco for $479 — $120 off the standard $599 price. Then, a few minutes ago, while watching ABC’s “Modern Family,” I caught an HP TouchPad ad touting that the entry level model is being offered for $399, a Benjamin Franklin less than the original asking price.
No matter how you look at it, two price cuts a month after releasing a product is not good.
A great video from Russ at the Air Users Blog on how to use Beat Detective and Elastic Audio to bring guitars and bass in time with the drum kit. (more…)
On October 6, 2010 we launched Instagram in the App Store as a way for people to easily share their lives through photos taken on their iPhones. Since then, we’ve seen more than 7 million people from all around the world share photos on our platform. Today, we’re excited to announce that more than 150 million photos have been shared on Instagram and Instagrammers now share photos with one another at a rate of 15 photos per second.
Well that proves it. Clearly the iPhone is not a successful platform for developers.
David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer:
But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Mobile; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.
Publisher Time Inc. announced on Wednesday that all 21 of its magazines will be available on Apple’s iPad this year, including currently unavailable titles like Entertainment Weekly and InStyle.In addition to the iPad, Time’s magazines will be available on “all leading tablet platforms,” with Android, the HP TouchPad, Barnes & Noble Nook specifically named. The press release issued this week made no mention of Research in Motion’s BlackBerry PlayBook.
I can hear the slap in the face to RIM from here.
“The thing is, it may take another year or two before [Apple] starts to decline, but it has to – everything does. Everything revolves so much around Steve, and no matter how good his lieutenants are, they’re not Steve. None of us is going to live forever, though I hope he lives for a really long time,” [Hawkins] added.
Trip Hawkins founded Electronic Arts (EA), the world’s largest independent video game publisher. These days he runs Digital Chocolate, which makes games for platforms including iOS. Hawkins doesn’t have it out for Apple – in fact, he makes a point to note “Digital Chocolate’s games will always be in the App Store,” but he thinks that such declines are a natural part of the life cycle of any company or industry.
Hawkins also complains about Apple’s unwillingness to support Flash and Apple’s “closed model;” two familiar complaints from other developers that, to date, haven’t affected Apple’s ability to sell iOS devices very much at all.
BBC:
A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.
A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.It later emerged that the company’s website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.
The Loop was one of the media organizations that reported on the research – albeit mainly to have a laugh at our poor, beleaguered Windows-suffering brethren. Like Jim said at the time, IQ tests are stupid. (Admittedly, he said that mainly because he can’t get above about 80, but that’s still a B, right?)
InterDigital’s engineers invented some of the technology for high-speed mobile phone networks now used by the world’s biggest handset makers. The King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based company may fetch more than $5 billion, according to analysts at Algorithm Capital and Dougherty & Co. Other companies including Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) are also selling patent portfolios.
InterDigital’s CEO said its patents are “deeper and stronger” than Nortel’s.
New York-based photographer Taea Thale is suing Apple for using one of her copyrighted photos in an iPhone television ad. (more…)
They tell me he calls in regularly. He talks to Tim, he talks to the top guys, he talks about the Apple stores,” Bajarin said. “But while he used to micromanage everything in ways that most CEOs would not, right down to issues with the company cafeteria, the big change with his latest leave is that there’s less micromanagement and more management of his executive team and the big-picture issues.
The execs at Apple know what Steve expects from them and they do it. They buy into the system and make the decisions necessary to get to where Steve wants them to be. Make no mistake though, Steve is still involved.
Apple leads in almost every market it enters these days, and now you can add another metric to the list: connecting to the Internet while flying. (more…)
It’s out, it’s not out, it’s back out again – Skype for iPad is now available, and it’s a free download. (more…)
MacTech Conference 2011 happens in November in Los Angeles, and the event’s early bird registration, which saves attendees $200 on the cost of attending, will end on August 8th. (more…)
In addition to releasing iCloud storage prices on Monday, Apple also released a few images of what its Web services will look like. You can view them all on Apple’s Web site.
Apple on Monday updated its iCloud Web pages, detailing how much it will cost for users to purchase more storage on the service. (more…)
Sources with knowledge of the situation say reports claiming AT&T has blacked out employee vacations during the last two weeks of September in preparation for the retail debut of the next iPhone are misinformed.
I thought September, but announced in September and shipped in October is certainly possible.
Apple has added the ability to re-download TV Shows to its iCloud service. (more…)
Iwata said he is taking responsibility for the 3DS, which translates into a cut in his paycheck. “For cuts in fixed salaries, I’m taking a fifty percent cut, other representative directors are taking a 30 percent cut, and other execs are taking a 20 percent cut,” said Iwata.
A brave move. It’s inconceivable to imagine western executives accepting failure in a similar fashion for their underperforming products – otherwise there’d be more Toyota Corollas and fewer Ferraris in Silicon Valley parking lots.
Drawing a parallel to the Apple ecosystem: the disappointing sales of the Nintendo 3DS handheld demonstrate a point missed by many companies jumping into the tablet market – it’s not just about the hardware. As Bill Clinton might have said if tech was his bag instead of politics, It’s the software, stupid. The 3DS has been plagued by delayed and cancelled games since its release. As a result people aren’t buying. Nintendo can cut prices all it wants, but until gamers have a reason to get the 3DS, they’re gonna stay away in droves.
SecureMac on Monday updated MacScan, the company’s anti-spyware privacy and security software, adding support for Apple’s recently released OS X Lion. (more…)
For years, Apple has confounded the rest of us by not buying things that it should clearly be buying. Not purchasing other well-known companies is so core to Apple’s strategy that it must have a whole department devoted to non-mergers and un-acquisitions.
Harry McCracken has some fun debunking some of the rumors about Apple acquisitions over the years. His point is worth underscoring, though – take much of what you read about such rumors with a grain of salt. Apple keeps its cards very close to its vest.
Apple Inc. won an agreement from Samsung Electronics Co. that the South Korean company won’t sell the newest version of its tablet computer in Australia until a patent lawsuit in the country is resolved.
Apple claims that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet – an iPad competitor – infringes Apple patents. The Australian suit is another volley in the ongoing litigation between Apple and Samsung which started earlier this year. It’s something of a sticky wicket for both companies – Apple still relies on Samsung for parts for its devices. What’s more, Samsung has responded to Apple with countersuits.
Adobe on Monday released a new tool called Adobe Edge that will allow Web designers to bring animation to Web sites using HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. (more…)
Apple was ordered by the U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas early this month to pay damages to Personal Audio. Within weeks, the non-practicing entity had filed a second suit seeking damages for alleged infringement of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, which had not been included in the original suit.
Trying to double-dip against Apple. Thankfully, the judge stopped it.
When OS X Lion was released earlier this month, some users were inadvertently charged multiple times for the purchase. (more…)
In an attempt to promote his new venture, this PR stunt is being done in the hope of distancing his name from the brand that helped make the T-Pain effect so famous. He is asking for $1 million in damages and also for them to stop using his name and image in any marketing. I suppose a simple email wouldn’t sufficed for T-Pain?
I was hoping he would stop making music, but apparently he’s just going with another company called Izotope.
“When students at the new Lake Minneola High School in Lake County return to classes in a few weeks, they’ll have access to more than half a million dollars worth of new iPads that they’ll use at school and at home.“Lake Minneola will be is the first public school in Central Florida to buy the devices for every student as part of a state pilot program to save on textbooks and offer a new dimension in learning for students.”
In the current economic climate, forward-thinking schools looking to employ technology effectively for their students are faced with a dilemma: how to get the most bang for a dwindling amount of bucks? The iPad certainly helps – as long as curriculums, faculty training and IT policies are tailored accordingly.
NPR:
Patents are a big deal in the software industry right now. Lawsuits are proliferating. Big technology companies are spending billions of dollars to buy up huge patent portfolios in order to defend themselves. Computer programmers say patents are hindering innovation.
Personally, I think companies and individuals should be able to protect their products and ideas. However, the balance seems to be off kilter these days.