I was really let down by the Macworld 2008 keynote yesterday. Steve Job's keynotes are a thing of lore, and yesterday, his legendary speeches lost a bit of their allure. There was a lack of 'BOOM's, no 'one more thing', and actually, an obvious empty spot, bereft of new, exciting products.
For the last year, Apple could do no wrong. They have released a stream of complete, advanced products, which has directly translated into a build up of momentum, and their shares ballooning to $200. Given these circumstances, the keynote was never going to live up to the collective Apple communities' expectations.
The online community tends to glorify these speeches, but I have already noticed websites such as Gizmodo and Engadget turning a accusing eye to Apple's court. The only way to sum this up is to take an objective look at what Apple 'really' released yesterday. Firstly, we have the success of Leopard, a solid release that really helped Apple to increase their market share following Vista, or 'OS Version Hell', as I like to call it. So far, so good. But from here on, things turned a bit sour.
Next came the release of Time Capsule, essentially a promised feature of the original beta version of Leopard which was removed from the Gold Master at the last minute. After a long wait, we are offered a 'new product', essentially an Airport base station and a hard drive in one. What was wrong with my original Airport Extreme and Hard drive that I had set up for Leopard? Instead, now I have to fork out for a stand alone product, when third party peripherals are cheaper, probably more reliable, and generally preferable.
There was much controversy surrounding the failed first incarnation of Apple TV, the most recent occasion where risky innovation hasn't worked for Apple. Apple TV 2, however, looks set ot work, and the Movie Rentals idea is a solid one. The price is right, with the $4.99 fee sitting somewhere lower than your average Blockbuster.
Next exhibit- the iPod/iPhone debacle. The reality of an SDK is getting ever closer, but Apple thought it would keep us sated to release some new applications for the iPod, ported over from the iPhone. How cool! We get stocks, weather, notes, mail and maps, all for 'free'. That is, if you don't already have an iPod. Early adopters get stung by Apple, just as usual, by having to fork over $20 for five free applications.
And finally, the Macbook Air. I was initially wowed by this thing, and its hard to deny Apple's marketing plan- it fits inside an envelope? 'The thinnest laptop ever' is an excellent piece of computing design and minituarisation, but could have been oh so much more. There are a few areas where the target market (road warriors), will find issues, such as the non-replaceable battery.
I respect and adore Apple, but yesterday they came dangerously close to losing my interest altogether. Its isn't a coincidence that the shares have fallen to $160, and the 'Keynote Index' theory is broken. All in all, Macworld 2008 wasn't successful, and Apple will have to reel out some special products over the next few months in order to regain their impetus. Where were the new Apple Cinema Displays? Where was my iPhone 3G announcement? Where was my Macbook Pro refresh? These, and many more glorious products, were noticeably absent...
Written by Will on January 16th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Apple and Apple TV and Macbook Air and Macworld and Macworld 08 and SDK and Steve Jobs and Time Capsule and iPhone and iPod and keynote and leopard.
All signs are pointing to an announcement of iTunes movie rentals at Tuesday’s Macworld Expo; that’s the conclusion drawn after a Bloomberg report quoted “people familiar” with Apple’s upcoming addition to the media download service. Newcomers Warner Bros. and Fox will join existing studio partners Paramount, Walt Disney Co. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. in making their films available for temporary download, priced at $3.99 for 24hrs.
 
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Written by Chris Davies on January 9th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on Analyst and Apple and Apple TV and Macworld Expo and iTunes and iTunes Store.
Right now you have to download content on your computer in order for it to be available on your Apple TV. After the release of the iTunes Wi-Fi store there are rumors floating around of a similar feature popping up in the next Apple TV update.
With the recent advent of movie rentals through iTunes this would be a great new feature. With all of these devices sporting access to the iTunes store Apple is going to have to move the library associations online so people can have access to all of the content they’ve purchased regardless of which device was used.
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Written by James Allan Brady on September 12th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Apple and Apple TV and iTunes Store.
Almost as shocking to Apple (AAPL) watchers as the news that NBC Universal is not renewing its iTunes contract is the news that the network’s content, according to the New York Times, represents 30% to 40% of digital video downloads on Apple’s site.
When did that happen?
NBC is hardly the Must See TV powerhouse it was in the days of Friends and Seinfeld. It routinely runs fourth in the Nielsen broadcast TV ratings, and on iTunes it has to compete with not just ABC, CBS and FOX, but with 63 other networks, including youth-oriented powerhouses like Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. Comedy Central alone offers the Daily Show with John Stewart, the Colbert Report, South Park and the Sarah Silverman Show, just to name their top sellers.
NBC’s top sellers on iTunes, as many commentators have noted, are The Office (currently the No. 2 season download on the site, after Showtime’s Weeds) and Heroes. But scroll down the page and you start to get a sense of how NBC could be racking up all those $1.99 charges. The network has a strong bench. Number 3, 4 and 5 downloads are Scrubs, 30 Rock and Studio 60. Below them you’ll find series like Friday Night Lights, My Name is Earl and the Law and Order franchises.
And unlike Comedy Central, which offers only the last dozen or so episodes of the Daily Show, NBC has gone for the Long Tail play, digging deep into its archives to repackage old Saturday Night Live episodes, Gen-X nostalgia like the A-Team, Xena and Saved by the Bell and Baby Boomer classics like Dragnet, Rod Sterling’s Night Gallery and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. All told, it has put some 1,500 hours of programming on iTunes, all of which could disappear in December when the two-year contract with Apple runs its course.
Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, it’s almost as if Jeff Zucker’s NBC were using the iTunes Music Store as a proving ground to test the format and audience appetite before striking out on its own — or rather with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. — on Hulu.com, scheduled to launch in October.
Could Apple have made a strategic blunder, letting NBC slip through its fingers? As the Times points out, NBC’s defiance, following Universal Music’s rebellion earlier this year, could embolden other networks, whose contracts will presumably come up for renewal in the months ahead.
"No The Office, no Battlestar Galactica, no Heroes?," writes MG Siegler at ParisLemon. "Suddenly I’m starting to rethink video on iTunes. No Universal Music
Group tracks, no Fox movies? Suddenly I’m starting to rethink iTunes in
general. Apple is still in an utterly dominant position even
without NBC — its the music sales, not the video sales that drive the
service — but it could all come crumbling down rather quickly." (link)
Steve Jobs, asked recently what he most admired about Bill Gates, answered that he envied Microsoft’s ability to work with its partners (link). Both men bargain hard, but Gates seemed to be better than Jobs at keeping his frenemies inside the tent. Has Jobs learned that lesson? We may see next Wednesday, when we find out how he responds to Zucker’s challenge, and what he plans to do next with iTunes, the iPods and Apple TV.
UPDATE: Apple has called NBC’s bluff. See Apple to NBC: Drop Dead.
Written by Philip Elmer-DeWitt on August 31st, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on AAPL and Apple TV and Hollywood and Steve Jobs and Television and iTunes.
The Apple (AAPL) event set for a week from today has unleashed a torrent of speculation, including two particularly enticing rumors that surfaced overnight.
Wi-Fi Music: MacDailyNews and 9to5Mac both posted brief reports suggesting that Steve Jobs next Wednesday might introduce new iPods that could download music and other content over the airwaves. MacDailyNews framed their tip like this:
Apple will debut "wireless-capable iPods"
next Wednesday along with "wireless iTunes Store sales," enabling users
to buy content "directly from iPod, iPhone," a single source often
familiar with Apple’s digital content plans tells MacDailyNews…. This is a rumor. We have no other information. We
cannot confirm this information independently at this time, but felt it
plausible enough to bring to your attention. (link)
"I think it would be a bold and killer move by Apple to go with a wifi iPod and begin direct to iPhone and iPod music sales," writes one Apple watcher on The Mac Observer’s Apple Finance Board. "I would be surprised and impressed by how aggressive that move would be."
High-Definition Video: Carl Howe at Blackfriar’s Marketing puts the timing of the Sept. 5 Apple event together with an Aug. 27 press release from Akamai (AKAM) and gets this:
What has gone more or less unnoticed is the fact that Akamai,
Apple’s long-time Internet content partner, has announced that it is adding high-definition video to its Internet distribution offerings.
A
coincidence? Perhaps. But add the fact that Apple TV, a product whose
revenue is being recognized as a 24-month subscription model like the
iPhone, sports high-definition outputs, yet has no high-definition
iTunes content yet, and you’ve got a high-definition shoe ready to drop
sometime; the only question is when. (link)
Two curious lines of speculation with nothing much more than wishful thinking behind them. They may not have much predictive power, but they are strong indicators of the direction Apple’s users and investors would like to see the company going.
Written by Philip Elmer-DeWitt on August 30th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on AAPL and AKAM and Apple TV and Hollywood and Television and iPhone and iPods and iTunes.
There was much controversy surrounding the failed first incarnation of Apple TV, the most recent occasion where risky innovation hasn't worked for Apple. Apple TV 2, however, looks set ot work, and the Movie Rentals idea is a solid one. The price is right, with the $4.99 fee sitting somewhere lower than your average Blockbuster.
Next exhibit- the iPod/iPhone debacle. The reality of an SDK is getting ever closer, but Apple thought it would keep us sated to release some new applications for the iPod, ported over from the iPhone. How cool! We get stocks, weather, notes, mail and maps, all for 'free'. That is, if you don't already have an iPod. Early adopters get stung by Apple, just as usual, by having to fork over $20 for five free applications.
And finally, the Macbook Air. I was initially wowed by this thing, and its hard to deny Apple's marketing plan- it fits inside an envelope? 'The thinnest laptop ever' is an excellent piece of computing design and minituarisation, but could have been oh so much more. There are a few areas where the target market (road warriors), will find issues, such as the non-replaceable battery.
I respect and adore Apple, but yesterday they came dangerously close to losing my interest altogether. Its isn't a coincidence that the shares have fallen to $160, and the 'Keynote Index' theory is broken. All in all, Macworld 2008 wasn't successful, and Apple will have to reel out some special products over the next few months in order to regain their impetus. Where were the new Apple Cinema Displays? Where was my iPhone 3G announcement? Where was my Macbook Pro refresh? These, and many more glorious products, were noticeably absent...
