Steven Hodson wrote about what happens when cool trumps openness and transparency. He essentially lashes out at buzzword loving "Web 2.0" and "social media" crowd singing the praises of openness and transparency and then mostly using MacBooks, a product according to Mr. Hodson from "one of the most closed and anti-community companies around."
Captialism is about many things, but openness and transparency only play in when it will net more money! Should Apple be completely open and transparent about how many iPhones will be available for purchase on Friday July, 11? Not if such transparency would cause short-term hit to the stock price it shouldn't.
For the last few years what Apple has been in a lot of ways, is a company that sells the best MP3 player that just happened to sell computers and other stuff. For a lot of reasons, including Apple’s impressive retail strategy, that’s actually helped Apple greatly in terms of selling more computers to home users, and I expect that will continue for years to come.
I’ve been a hardcore Windows guy since the late 1980s, and initially stayed away from Apple due to price and because new software wasn’t usually developed for Apple computers nearly as soon as it was for Windows-based PCs. That’s starting to level out and I’m pretty sure my next desktop purchase will be an iMac.
Apple’s products are impressively designed and built and perhaps even more importantly, very impressively marketed. Overall, at least right now, the notion that Apple is only for the cool kids is not bad for Apple (or its shareholders) at all.
Openness and transparency may have their virtues, but if you have a crappy product or business model no amount of openness and transparency on the Internet will make a real difference. When you get right down to it, great product design and great marketing trump Web 2.0 and social media in spades. If you’re a start-up company or someone like Gary Vaynerchuk, I think “social media” to build your brand makes a ton of sense.
But if you’re Apple, already having spent a gazillion dollars on product design and marketing, openness and transparency aren't you're priority. While Web 2.0 has been all the rage on the nets, not participating on Twitter or FriendFeed hasn’t hurt Apple’s topline revenue, earnings or stock price at all. The stock has risen from $57.56 on June 16, 2006 to $180.81 on June 11, 2008.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Openness and Transparency is Nice, But...
Monday, June 9, 2008
Hey Apple, What Am I Supposed to Do With My Old iPhone?
Ok. Let’s see: I paid:
$599 for an 8GB iPhone on June 29, 2007
I know, you think I’m a total dope. Don’t blame you, really, but I’m an early adopter and a gadget geek and having the phone for those few extra days before Apple cut the prices by $200 was OK with me. They did give back $100 as a credit. I’m OK with how all that transpired and I wanted the phone day one so I don’t feel ripped off.
On July 11, 2008 there will be a new iPhone, billed as “twice the speed, half the price”.
I don’t mind paying $199 for another phone. Or even $299 for a 16GB version. I’m that geeky and love the version one model that much. Twice the speed isn’t a ton faster, but it will likely get me using the network more than twice as much so I don’t mind that the data will cost $10 a month more and effectively eat up all the hardware savings over and then some after two years.
There are perils of being an early adopter and to anyone who’d say to me, “It’s your own damn fault, you should just wait a few years, the damn thing will be FREE!” I would completely agree with you if complaining about money was the issue. Some will complain fiercely on that score and I too would say to them, “It’s your own damn fault!”
But there’s a problem with the iPhone. If I could upgrade to a new phone and use the old one as an iPod touch that I could synch with iTunes and use as a normal iPod without jailbreaking it, or give it one of my friends with kids so they can use it as a portable video/music device instead of buying an iPod touch, I’d be fine with that.
But here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll get a new phone and then – my old phone is in a precarious state. It doesn’t work unless it’s activated and I can’t have two phone active with the same phone number without causing some complexity in my life. Essentially, unless Apple is going to do something special that allows me to use the phone, sans the phone as an iPod touch that I can sync with iTunes I’ll need to sell it.
Since the new frakking phone is $199 I don’t see getting more than $50-$75 or so for the old one, and it’s worth MORE to me than that as an iPod touch.
What do I think should happen? One of two things:
A.) Apple needs to give me some way to use the old phone as an iPod touch without hacking it or
B.) Apple needs to let me trade it in for $100 (which coupled with the $100 credit would essentially make the phone free, but from my perspective I will still have spent $499 for one phone). Again, it’s not about the money. If my current phone would work as something other than a pretty paperweight without hacking it, I’d be OK with that.
Sadly, my guess is it will be C.) none of the above and Apple will answer the question of "What am I supposed to do with my old iPhone?" like this: "not our problem."
I hope I have that wrong.
What’s it gonna be, Apple?
Saturday, May 17, 2008
My Fantasy League Pick for Yahoo's Board: Steve Jobs
Over 11 years ago, after seeing one of the release candidates for Windows 98, I wrote “The browser wars are over, Microsoft won.” I took a lot of heat from the Netscape and Mac faithful, but at the time it was obvious that whatever the default was in the late 90s was going to win.
That was one prediction that I got right. But saying “the search wars are over, Google won” isn’t a prediction, but rather a statement of what already happened. Here’s a screen shot from a recent day’s worth of search traffic for TVbytheNumbers:
If search is the focus, combining Yahoo and Microsoft doesn’t really make up much ground. I’m mostly for Yahoo staying a separate entity because it has such massive scale overall. It’s lagging in search, but its other properties ranging from mail, to MyYahoo, to Yahoo sports perform very well. My theory, boneheaded as it may be, is with that much scale you ought to be able to figure out how to make more money. The one problem I have with the combination isn’t really Microsoft, it’s that combining the companies doesn’t seem like it will wind up increasing the scale that much.
Today Fred Wilson posted a list of board members he’d like to see in light of Carl Ichan’s recommendations. To be honest, I’d rather see Mark Cuban than a lot of Fred’s recommendations. Though I loved Fred’s pick of Bill Gross, overall there are too many deep-thinking smart people on his list. I’m not sure anything ever gets accomplished when you throw that many deep thinkers in a room. And with the mix of people Fred recommends I’d worry about the testosterone warrior mentality of making Google the target of all strategy. I think that would be a bad strategy. I’ve seen what happens when companies make their major competitor the sole focus, and it doesn’t usually work out well.
The one guy I’d really like to see on Yahoo’s board if we’re doing fantasy league is Apple’s Steve Jobs. Think about it. Apple stopped making Microsoft its direct focus, all doing so got it was the need to ask for Microsoft’s help to bail it out! Which Microsoft did.
It took a while, but then came the iPod and now Mac and its OS are very steadily gaining share too. The Apple Store? A retail hit! The Microsoft Store? Not so much. Jobs seemingly knows how to ride these things out better than anyone. Marc Andreesen may be a great product guy and Tim O’Reilly may be a genius at seeing the future. But Jobs has the practical experience of actually surviving something similar.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Disappointed in Steve Jobs
See: Time Net Show Viewers (Millons) 18-49 Rating/Share 8:00 ABC Americas Funniest Home Videos (R ) 6.02 1.5/5 CBS Ghost Whisperer 9.33 2.3/8 NBC Amne$ia 4.51 1.3/4 CW Friday Night Smackdown! (8p-10p) 4.56 1.4/5 FOX Bones (R ) 4.54 1.2/4 9:00 ABC Duel 3.93 1.2/4 CBS The Price is Right 8.55 2.2/7 NBC Dateline (9p-11p) 6.78 1.8/6 FOX Canterburys Law 6.07 1.4/4 10:00 ABC 20/20 4.82 1.5/5 CBS Numb3rs 9.91 2.3/7 Anyway, Fred Wilson kind of pissed me off because he was right twice. First, last week he said he wasn't interested in the NCAA semi-finals because after Davidson was ousted, it just wasn't very interesting. I figured, you know, that with a bunch of number one seeds playing each other the games would at least be good. They weren't. Boring as hell really. The only good outcome at all of any of that was that the Kansas/North Carolina game was such a blowout, out of boredom I flipped channels and wound up hitting the two-hour pilot of Firefly right at the very beginning. I'd heard many good things about it and had been meaning to watch (the series only lasted 14 episodes, but then they also added a 2 hour movie later). I enjoyed it. Other than that, the only good news was that in about the span of one week, the Washington Capitals went from not being in the playoffs to winning their division and getting the #3 seed in the Eastern conference. It all came down to the last game. If they won, or even lost in overtime, they would win the division, and if they lost they would be eliminated. They won. Alex Ovechkin will certainly win the MVP award without question now that the Caps are in the playoffs and Ted Leonsis, in addition to getting to go to the playoffs, and having the home ice advantage for the first round, will get some playoff revenue. I'm delighted for him. Go Caps! Ok, Steve Jobs. I sort of had a "I knew it was you, Fredo!" moment. Damn you Fred Wilson. I took a break from studying php code and saw a comment by Fred on one of his blog posts were it said he was disappointed in Apple/Jobs for not going with Flash on the iPhone. While there is no Flash on the iPhone, I'd always heard it was "coming soon" (of course that's been over 9 months now) and was unaware any decision had been made. So I Googled and yep, sure as hell Jobs said a month ago that it wasn't going to happen. I hope this is just some negotiating strategy, and not some business strategy. In fairness, you need a good WiFi connection to stream anything well, but that's not a problem for me. The H.264 streaming built into the iPhone to work with YouTube works extremely well on the iPhone with a WiFi connection, even for very high quality videos. But here's the problem, MOST of what I want to watch isn't on YouTube. In fact, almost nothing I want to watch is on YouTube. It seemed like Adobe thought they could build it anyway because of the iPhone SDK, but from what I read, it doesn't play really nicely with Flash, and so it's not looking good, and I'm guessing that's going to scuttle any thought of Slingbox on the iPhone, too. I hope that's wrong. If not, it sucks. It also limits significantly how I want to use my iPhone for video. I've got a DVR on my computer and a couple of ways that I can stream to other computers (whether I'm at home or not). One just directly via my computer via software from Orb.com, the other SlingBox. And whatever Orb does with H264 or .MV4 it isn't the same as what YouTube is doing because even over a good WiFi connection, it's pretty useless for the iPhone, sadly (I could stream music well enough, but video never worked well). It took Jobs a while to come around to saying, "DRM is bad for consumers," and for the same reasons I hope that he'll come around with Flash. Because really, making your device so it is prohibitive from working with the stuff your customers already have – that's got to be bad for consumers. iTunes is fine, but I don't love it so much that I'd marry it. And if someone makes an iPhone clone, with a phone, with a touch screen, with an actually, real-life operating system such as Apple has done with the iPhone (and NOT something like Windows Mobile), oh I will switch for sure. Of course, exactly at the point that happens, Jobs will make sure my phone works with whatever I already have. I understand Steve Jobs' desire to have "control", but it's a double-edged sword. One edge of it did wonders for the way the iPhone works. The reason Windows Mobile sucks compared to the iPhone is because it's not a full operating system that takes up nearly a Gig of space. The way Apple went about "control" allowed them to actually put a full-fledged computer on the phone. But for all the reasons DRM is bad for consumers, this is bad too. We want control of our stuff, and if your stuff doesn't play nicely, it's bad. If it's 2:30pm and I'm not home but I have my iPhone and a good WiFi connection, I feel like I ought to be able to connect to my computer or SlingBox and stream Pardon the Interruption to myself. But no dice. And yeah, I know ESPN winds up putting it online, but guess what? That's ALSO in Flash. Steve Jobs, like Fredo, you broke my heart.
I spent about four hours today screwing around with trying to be able to paste tables from Excel into WordPress directly, with no luck whatsoever really, and another four hours or so trying to figure out some CSS and PHP related stuff in WordPress (I was a little luckier on that front, but not much really). I don't want to talk trash about WordPress because it blows my mind that you can get an extremely powerful content management and publishing system essentially for free. But it does piss me off that I can post an Excel table directly into frakking Blogger and it works with no problems whatsoever.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
NBCU Madness
Whoa. Ego will cause some really wacky results. As has been widely written about, NBCU is pulling its shows off iTunes at the end of the contract. Apple, since it wasn’t going to be able to offer “seasons passes” anyway, and probably to stick it to NBCU a little decided to just go ahead and pull the shows from NBCU (all the NBC content plus other shows like Battlestar Gallactica) at the start of the new season.
Today it was announced that NBCU has done a deal with Amazon to make the shows available via Amazon Unbox. The price? $1.99 — NOT the $4.99 NBCU was allegedly trying to stick to Apple iTunes customers. Additionally, there’s a 30% discount for the season passes. For a brief moment in time, the shows live in both places and it’s easy to do the comparitive pricing. Individual episodes are $1.99 on both services, but the season pass on iTunes for Heroes Season 1 is $42.99, and via Amazon Unbox it’s only $31.99. It looks like a really good deal on price.
But there are downsides. First, the Unbox content only works with Windows and with Tivo. Mac video fanboys, you’re outta luck. Second, if you’re without a Tivo, you’re locked into using the “Unbox Player”. Translation, good luck getting that on your Apple TV, iPod or iPhone.
I always thought the season pass pricing on iTunes was ridiculous. It’s definitely better on Amazon, but the downside is the media isn’t really yours to do whatever you want with. You’re locked into certain ways of watching it. In fairness, due to DRM protection this was also mostly true with iTunes but at least I could buy content and get it right on my iPhone, and at least Steve J. is striving to end all DRM.
The $31.99 on unbox is at least cheaper than the $38.99 I can buy the actual boxed set of DVDs with actor and director commentary, fancy booklets, etc. from Amazon for. Apple’s season pass is more than the DVDs!
NBCU won’t sell as many shows on Amazon. Period. And when it comes crawling back to the gang in Cupertino and is back on iTunes, it will be with the same pricing as Amazon.
But here’s the thing, NBC probably generates more revenue from the broadcast advertising on its worst rated show than it makes with a years worth of sales on iTunes. Bottom line is right now this is just fun stuff to write about. The real world does not yet care.
(originally posted on TVbytheNumbers.com)
Sunday, September 2, 2007
And the #1 Reason I'm Not Prone to Hack my iPhone is...
I prefer the deliberate variety of iPhone destruction over the "accidents can happen" approach.
iPhone, no accessories needed
I've had way more than my fair share of iPods. Big ones, small ones, and ones with video too. When it came to the iPod, some accessories were necessary. For one, they weren't that durable. Dropping them was not a good thing. And the screens scratched very easily, which could be problematic especially if you planned on watching any video on them. So I tried out my fair share of protective coverings. I settled on the JIO action jacket for the 80GB video iPod. Although it doesn't get much use anymore because when the iPhone is in the charger, I go with the Nano. The Nano has a slip-on rubber cover from JIO, and if you drop it will bounce. So along comes the iPhone, the greatest gadget ever designed in the world if you would like to listen to music, watch video content (I watch tv shows on it more than I watch YouTube) browse the web and your e-mail all on one device. Oh yeah, it's also a telephone. While I know there are accessories for the iPhone and I did try the clear acrylic case w/kickstand that makes it easy to prop up your iPhone for watching video, I nixed it. It adds too much bulk to the form factor. Generally when I'm carrying my iPhone, it's in my front pocket and it's a great form factor; much better than the 80GB iPod. Though the ability to easily prop up the iPhone for video display is nice, and though it does look very, very pretty in the clear acrylic case, I didn't find that any of that made it worth the extra bulk in the front pocket. I have been successful in MacGuyvering solutions for propping the device up for video. If I am out and about and have 30 minutes to kill and feel like watching the latest episode of Entourage and I'm at a bar or eating, there are all kinds of improvisational ways to prop the iPhone up. And if I'm not actually needing my hands for anything else, just holding the device and looking at it works amazingly well. I've had my iPhone for over two months now and I am still amazed by how well it renders video and how much I enjoy watching it on a 3.5" screen. Protective coverings? Well I could get the case that's pretty much the equivalent of what I have for my Nano. I sometimes think I ought to because I am prone to drop a phone. But having already dropped it three times at least, I conclude it's terrifically more durable than the iPod. Also, I like the way the basic iPhone looks, black on the front, silvery metallic gray on the back. I don't really want to cover that up. What about protecting the screen you say? Well, I know about protecting screens that need protecting and I'm a big believer in that. This devices screen doesn't need any protection though. There are all kinds of membranes and whatnot that you can buy to protect the screen, but it's like a glass coffee table. It doesn't scratch. It's had keys and coins rattling around in my pocket bounce against it – it doesn't scratch. If you examine my iPhone closely you will see that there are some small scratches on the metal that borders the screen. You have to look hard though. So while there are plenty of screen protectors for sale, it's my opinion that they are an absolute and complete waste of money. The rest of the accessories? Well, I haven't seen (or therefore used) any 3rd party ear buds that have a built in microphone. I'm not sure any exist. One of the greatest improvements for me by going to the iPhone is that if I am increasing the likelihood that I'll be deaf by age 60 by listening to music full blast through the ear buds, at least if I get a phone call I know it! In the old days pre 6/30/07, when I was a poor schlub with an iPod and a cell phone, if I was listening to music full blast and I got a call on my cell phone, even if it was on vibrate, guess what happened? If you guessed: nothing because you had no idea you were getting a call at all, you guessed correctly. With the iPod I tried many 3rd party headphones and always went back to the default headphones that came with the iPods. I thought their sound quality the best. They have durability issues, but for what many "high quality" third party buds cost you can get five of the Apple issued versions. I have already had to replace my ear buds for my iPhone once already due to a defective clicker – the mechanism built into the microphone that allows you to pause, forward to the next song, and if you're so inclined answer the phone should you receive an incoming call. I chalk this up to a defect rather than a durability issue, and either way I got my under warranty replacement buds no questions asked. The accessory I want doesn't exist. It's essentially the standard issue ear buds that are wireless. I suppose it would have to have a little loop to be sort of like a necklace. It will be a hot item when it's invented. Yes, I'm aware there are stereo wireless headphones available, but they are not ear buds. I don't want bulky things on my ears. The Lt. Uhura look was cool in the 1960's, and I know that for many high powered "look at me!" types, the Bluetooth style earpieces just wreak of that "I'm so fabulous and important!" look they are going for. But it's not for me. I am fabulous, but not in that way. The other wireless headphones I've seen are of the full-on earmuff style. No thanks. I'm waiting for the wireless buds, and I'm sure someday when Apple can figure out how to make them without sucking the life out of the battery much faster, I'll get them. The rest of the accessories to me involve fashion. I am not a fashionista. I have nothing against fashionistas, I just am not one. Apple has made huge inroads with the fashion conscious crowd though. When I went to the Apple store in downtown San Francisco late one Wednesday night to get the replacement ear buds mentioned above, the thing that struck me was the mix of the crowd. It wasn't the Apple fanboy geek set. It was a mix of normal people and fashionistas and a smattering of fanboys. There are all kinds of ways to decorate your iPhone, but I think it's plenty pretty just as it is. I do think some of the laser art people have done on the backs of the phone is pretty cool though and I can think of one practical use for that: identification. A lot of people where I live already have iPhones. While I have yet to walk off with the wrong iPhone, I could see it happening. I don't know that laser art would work out any better than having your own custom wallpaper (which I do), but it's something to consider. As for writing for iProng, if Bill Palmer wants stories about the best ways to get video on to the phone, or some really nifty web sites that have cool as hell iPhone implementations, I can think of much to write about. But when it comes to accessories, the iPhone just doesn't need any. 
Bill Palmer runs iProng, a site dedicated to iPods & iPhones, but mostly it's dedicated to the accessories for those devices. We had some Facebook back and forth about my contributing some columns to iProng and I've been thinking about what to write.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Seidman vs. Gorman TVbytheNumbers-style
TVbytheNumbers.com is still in shambles, but you can give it a look at www.tvbythenumbers.com/wp .But man cannot live by charts and numbers alone, so we're toying around with a couple of ideas to be more entertaining. Here's one...
OVER/UNDER
First question. Over or under ONE YEAR before NBCU shows are back on Apple's iTunes?
Robert: UNDER! NBC Universal has a problem. The way the it is set up I believe they will ONLY be able to sell well digitally if someone actually wants to watch it on the iPod. Otherwise, they'll go to NBC's site looking to see where they can buy Heroes and one of two things will happen:
1. $4.99? WTF!?
2. Even if it's $1.99 - HEY! they archive all the shows here during the season! I'll just watch it FOR FREE (there are ads, but only a few with what any of them are currently doing. It adds about 2 minutes instead of 20 you'd see on TV). Under, definitely under.
Bill: OVER! You're insane to think that the executives making these decisions at NBCU are sane, rational people trying to figure out how to make the most money and act in their own self-interests.. It's all about ego, and they can't handle that Steve Jobs is so, so fabulous and they're so, so not. Unless GE & Vivendi fire the dopes at NBCU who made this choice, I'm sticking with OVER.
Next question: Over/Under ONE HUNDRED TIMES that Les Moonves says "Only 45% of DVR users zap through the commercials" during the 2007-2008 season?
Robert: This is a ridiculous question. And a ridiculous statistic that's only true if you squint and ignore the actual data. I'd be prone to go over, even at ONE THOUSAND TIMES. More and more people will be moving to DVR usage and more and more advertisers will be upset about it. Moonves will constantly and consistently try to soothe them while still getting their greenbacks. OVER
Bill: Ahh, the pain and agony of having to agree with you. OVER. I have nothing else to add.
Next Question: Over/Under TEN: Number of this season's new shows that make it to next year's lineup?
Robert: If you include the CW in this mix, which we must because we here at TVbytheNumbers are a very inclusive bunch there are FORTY SIX new shows. I don't want to go over though because I think the number is exactly 10. So I'm going to push and say 10
Bill: The game is OVER/UNDER! We'll have to start changing these questions (e.g. 10.5) to force you into being a man and growing some stones. It's UNDER, it will be around 8 or 9 shows. But this is a dumb question to be asking now because Fox is holding back all their good stuff until January. I can't WAIT for The Sarah Connor Chronicles! Not to mention my favorites 24 and American Idol. No wait, I don't actually like either of those shows, I might give the Return of Jezebel James a try though. UNDER!
Robert: You know you can't wait for ABC's Cavemen! But when it comes to ABC I'm all about seeing my boy Mark Cuban winning Dancing with the Stars and watching Denny Crane (Boston Legal).
I don't know that I'll watch ANY new show. I may even bail on 24, it sucked last year. They say it will be better this year, with a female president. Fortunately I don't have to worry about that until next year. I'm pretty set in my ways.
Bill: You will watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles and you know you're going to watch the Bionic Woman AT LEAST once.
Robert: I'm as likely to watch the Bionic Woman as I am to watch 20/20, which is never. I didn't like it in the ‘70's, I won't like it in '07.
Bill: Admit it, it's already on your Tivo...
Next Question..(p.s. Zap2it has good full coverage of all the lineups).
Over/Under: Seven Weeks that Mark Cuban Lasts on "Dancing with the Stars"?
Robert: OVER, people are crazy if they don't think Cubes is advancing to the finals. I'd say he's going to win at all except for two words: Jane Seymour. C'mon, how am I going to bet against Jayne Seymour? But Mark will crush Marie Osmond and Scary Spice. You just wait!
Bill: Why do you make me suffer through your man-love for Cuban? Are you going to send him "good luck" flowers too? Cuban won't fare any better here than he did with the Benefactor (6 weeks!) UNDER, under, under, definitely under.
Robert: You're insane, but that's a great idea about the flowers! That's it for this week boys and girls...
(this is a complete mockup and may not accuately reflect the opinions of either of us, though that will always be true! The idea is also completely a ripoff of Tony Kornheiser's and Michael Wilbon's fine work on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption).
Sunday, August 12, 2007
ESPN PodCenter on the iPhone
Update 08/13/07 7:32A PDT: No desktop real estate that I've found so far. Digging around though I found this link: http://sports.espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/iphone/
Ear buds for the iPhone
my pause/fast-forward/answer phone clicker (where the mic is) on the ear buds is already broken. It didn't even last 6 weeks...
Friday, August 10, 2007
Being Pushed towards Mac
Marc Cuban vs. Steve Jobs: Who ya Got?
When it comes to Mark Cuban and Steve Jobs, my answer is: BOTH. I pick both. If I could only pick one, sorry Cubes, I gotta go with Jobs but, dude, he invented the iPhone, maybe you’ve heard of it!? (indeed, I am lamenting the outing of Fake Steve Jobs!) I use my iPod/iPhone much more than I watch any HDTV, HDNet or otherwise. But I don’t have to pick just one here, so I pick both. They both announced some new products this week.
Apple announced its new line of computers including a sweet 24” iMac. I am not historically a user of Apple computers, but I have been leaning towards buying one when the new Apple Store opens up on Chestnut Street about 5 blocks from where I live in San Francisco. It’s just an elegant machine and all the issues I had with the Mac vs. PC debate years ago are no longer issues for me.
The only ding against the iMac I have at all is that there aren’t more options and it’s not very customizable. It apparently doesn’t come with a high end video card and that’s disappointing. If you want an iMac with a high end video card, too freaking bad: you can’t have one. You have to buy a Mac Pro, and that’s way more computer (for way more money) than I need (or need to spend). I like the elegance of the all-in-one iMac, but I am big into video applications on my computer and am disappointed there aren’t more options.
Mark Cuban recently announced Ultra HD Video on Demand, which, according to a write-up in Variety:
Cuban is offering it to DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Charter, Verizon and other cable-network distributors as a snob-appeal add-on to Cuban-financed and -distributed films that show up, for free, on his 24/7 HDNet Movies on the same day the pics open in theaters.
A shout out to Variety write John Dempsey because the phrase “a snob appeal add-on” will forever be etched in my vernacular! I have not been in love with the movie theaters and their $10 ticket prices for some time. Ultra HD aims to bring you theatrical releases sometimes even weeks before their theatrical releases at a retail price of $12.95-$19.95 depending on the movie.
I find this pricing extremely reasonable and I wonder years from now if these types of services won’t pummel the movie houses. Sure, for one person it’s more expensive, but add a second person in your living room and it’s either cheaper or competitive. If there are four people in your living room, it’s a fantastic deal, especially when you factor in the “you got to see it first!” aspect. There’s definitely something to be said for snob appeal add-ons. I hope the studios like this model and that it takes off rapidly.
Cuban is ahead of Jobs on this front, but those of you who have read any of my screeds on Apple’s Four Steps to Total World Domination know that I believe getting stuff from iTunes on to your big screen is a part of that plan. If that’s true, ultimately Steve Jobs and Apple will be offering the same type of thing as Ultra HD.
Over the long haul, unless Cuban somehow beats Jobs to the punch with some easy way of getting that UltraHD movie onto my iPhone/iPod, I think Jobs will win this contest. But it’s not clear to me yet whether several years from now when Apple TV is no longer a “hobby” whether Apple will do deals directly with the studios or just cut a deals with offerings like Cubans. If I have to guess, I am guessing Apple will cut the deals directly with the studios itself, but my guessing is often wrong.
Update 10:26 PDT: I just saw this poll on the Motley Fool and was a little sad because I don't need to buy any of them, but things are looking good for Cuban if this sentiment can be extrapolated to the rest of the world:
Plasma screen, high definition TV
(6296 votes - 40%)
Computer
(3569 votes - 23%)
Washing machine
(1875 votes - 12%)
iPhone
(1875 votes - 12%)
Air conditioning
(1992 votes - 13%)
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
First Generation iPhone is NOT for the Mass Adopter
Someone who is much smarter than I am and way, way, way more successful who I’m sure would prefer that I not capitalize on his good name put it to me more or less like this: the iPhone like devices will someday reach mass adoption, but the first generation iPhone won’t.
He went on to complain that the phone was too much gadget and not enough phone and needed to be improved where it was more phone and less gadget.
I agreed with him about the first gen iPhone not reaching mass adoption, though for different reasons than product design specifics. I’m not really sure on the other stuff. Here were my thoughts:
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I agree the 1st generation iPhone is not a device that leads to mass adoption. I’m not sure if we agree on the reasons though.
There are a couple of aspects about the phone that suck. one of them can easily be fixed via software and the other can be improved, but I don’t know about “fixed”. First, there’s no “speed dial” and that’s just dumb. But as product development goes, that’s not so hard to fix and can be done via software. There’s a harder problem though – if I pull the RAZR out of my pocket and flip it open, I can just start dialing. Not so with the iPhone. Here are all the steps involved:
1. Hit “wake” button
2. Slide to unlock
3. If not already on home screen, or phone functions hit “home” button
4. Touch telephone
5. Select “keypad”
There are a few shortcuts I can think of to knock steps off, but I can’t solve the problem of making it as easy as the RAZR to place an outbound call. However, it handles inbound calling much better (and better than the RAZR). It wakes itself automatically and displays the caller id info, and it’s one press to take the call (or send it to voicemail). For the added benefits of the integrated media player and web browser I can live with it taking a few button presses to make an outbound call. If voice activation is your thing, seems like that can and will be solved for.
There are many things I like about the browser implementation, but the browser has some bugs and issues which I have no doubt will be much improved by version 2.0. But as iterations go, it’s already much more Windows 95 than it is Windows 1.0
I’m guessing mass adoption occurs with the 3rd generation. By then there should be some copycats/competition. No matter what happens the iPhone can’t dominate the cell phone space as Apple dominates the portable media space with ipods. And certainly not the one flavor with a $500 and $600 pricing structure based on storage model. There are too many phones at lower prices. While one could argue the iPod isn’t always the best price/value, Apple at least has models of the iPod that play across the broad pricing spectrum.
While I have no doubt they’ll wind up being a few flavors of iPhones, seems like they’d all be in the above $300 spectrum for a while. There’s a huge part of that market Apple will not be competitive at all in but I’m guessing Apple doesn’t care. Its stated goal is 10 million units by the end of ’08. In its earnings announcement they project one million sold by the end of September. That will give them 5 quarters to get 9 million more iPhones into the world. Christmas and launch of V2 will be key, but it seems like a reasonable bogey.
Rarely is the first generation of anything gadgetry (even TV and radio) for the mass adopter. But as first generations go, it ain't bad at all.
AAPL Total World Domination on Track
Why I am not long AAPL with great resolution is indeed very quirky on my part (up over $13 in the after hours, it would have significantly outperformed my YHOO trade so far!).
To my Mac loving friends who are bitter over all the iPod attention, buck up, Apple sold about 1.5 million more Macs than iPhones in the quarter. Apple expects to hit 1 million iPhone by the end of Q3. That basically will give them 5 quarters to add 9 million more to hit the stated objective of 10 million units by the end of 2008. Five quarters to pump almost 2 million iPhones per quarter into the world.
Apple is selling almost 10 million iPods per quarter now. When I saw whatever the # was a year ago, my thought was yeah, but can that keep up? Apparently for now the answer is it can. iPod sales were up more than 20% over the prior year’s quarter. Even Macs are pushing towards 2 million sales per quarter.
The stock got dinged a little earlier in the week when AT&T reported 146,000 units for the last 2 days of June. Apple’s number for those 2 days was 270,000. Whether the discrepancy is over activation issues, or something else, I don’t know, but as Apple claims it’s on track for one million units by the end of September, we can assume Apple expects to average about 8000 units a day sold between now and the end of September. Or they’ll blow by a million a month and a half earlier and everyone will be amazed. I’m not sure what I make of the guidance other than I can’t believe Apple would talk about making a million units by the end of September if not absolutely certain it would happen.
You can read more details at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/business/25cnd-apple.html?ref=business
Disclosure: much to my own disgust, I really am not holding any shares of AAPL. But, I will keep singing the mantra of "buy strength/sell weakness", on that basis AAPL looks like a buy I still need to get around to (it was up over $13 to somewhere around $150 in after hours trading)
Monday, July 23, 2007
The iPhone: It's Not Hype
Over three weeks into the iPhone lifestyle and I am not buying the anti-hype hype. The thing does what it’s supposed to and for me it’s a keeper.
It’s the best iPod ever, combined with a phone that has the best portable browser for a phone ever. What exactly is the hype? If it doesn’t have better integration with corporate e-mail by V2, that’s an issue. But otherwise being control freaks paid huge dividends – for the consumer. Here’s why: I think the single thing that differentiates this phone (besides it being the best iPod ever) is that it takes up nearly a gig (ok, more like 3/4ths) for the OS. It’s a computer that has the phone built into it, not the other way around.
Microsoft didn’t have that kind of leverage when creating Windows Mobile and I don’t know if they have a bigger operating system for mobile in testing, but if they do it’s the most hush-hush MSFT beta ever. If Apple solves the corporate e-mail and Edge network challenges, by the time people are ready to upgrade their older blackberries, I think people will jump ship. Seems like the software advantage will be an advantage for a while. OK, so it doesn’t cure cancer. But it’s not hype, it’s the wave of the future.
The genius of Steve Jobs may be how well the “iPod everywhere” strategy is in place. I see them everywhere. Everywhere. More and more people tuning out the world with ear buds. God bless you, Steve Jobs. But this gets people using Apple products on a daily basis and is great for the Apple brand.
One of the comments I hear from all my real world iPhone demos is “it works just like it does in the commercials”. And it’s true, it does. It really isn’t hype. The thing is, if you suck at what your job, your still going to suck, iPhone or no iPhone, but the iPhone is a good gadget.
I don’t need access to corporate e-mail, it works OK. Not great, but good enough for most of what I need, and this will be improved even before the next generation, I’m sure. The Web browser is awesome. Ok, it has some glitches with page loads, and it is unusable for regular use with the Edge network, but on WiFi, very cool. OK, like once a week it has weird glitches and I have to turn it all the way off and back on, and voila, normal operation. It’s not perfect, but I could live with that a couple of times a day even. It’s not like the thing takes a long time to “reboot”.
And besides It really is the best iPod ever. The bigger, improved video screen is a huge addition for me, but I think the bigger deal here may be the touch screen controls. Once you get the hang of it, it seems much improved even over the iPod in terms of controlling your media experience. Ok, so even Steve Jobs isn’t ready for people to ask, “How do I get stuff off of my DVR and onto my iPod/iPhone?” but there aren’t that many people asking right now. That will change.
I believe something else is going to change: Apple is going to start taking some share away from Microsoft when it comes to personal computer upgrades. Mindshare of “having cool products”, coupled with a growing retail presence, adds up to more people upgrading to Apple computers. The “it’s been out 6 months” are starting to trickle in for Vista and apparently some are considering its launch a bust.
I find that ironic, because at least on a new OEM machine, it’s the best version of Windows I’ve ever used. I don’t have to reboot very often, and while some programs do crash, generally performance is good. I could do with more memory (and I have 2GB) and better video memory, but this wasn’t a high end gaming system either (it was ~$1200, without a monitor). What operating system you have is becoming more and more transparent. If it has a web browser and e-mail and you can do what you need to do, and it will be “cooler” than having a windows machine for the next 5 years, I believe barring a major economic downturn, many people will upgrade from Windows to a Mac.
Even one of my Mac friends is expressing some faux bitterness for all the attention the iPhone is getting versus the beloved Mac. But there’s no hype with the iPhone, the product works as advertised. I think it’s a function of timing. There are barriers involved with switching cell phones, even if you’re not switching carriers. Then there’s another barrier, $600. It’s hard to argue with the success of the launch and whether it’s closer to a half a million sold versus a million sold in a little over three weeks, as long as it’s over 500,000 in a little over 3 weeks, that’s a pretty steep ramp towards one million.
When the Mac launched, there just wasn’t the pent up demand for home computing. You could make the argument that there was an opportunity to take advantage of the “cooler stuff” opportunity in the mid to late 1990s, but while the first few years of Steve Jobs return might have been slow, the last few years seem to be bearing more fruit. Apples perhaps.
Looks like Apple is on track for total world domination.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
For the Love of Orb (and Slingbox, Too!)
This is a very long piece on media liberation otherwise known as easy media portability. This is more rough (and mostly completely unedited) thinking on these topics. What's covered: some of the barriers in general, a brief Orb vs. Slingbox comparison, more 'put your TV on your iPod', and some "Fear of Apple".
There are some Slingbox lovers out there. Some Orb lovers too. There aren't enough of us though. In both cases I think the barrier is currently too steep to reach mass adopter status and not just because either of the products are particularly hard to use, or represent unsolvable technological challenges, but instead because of how people think about stuff and the barriers involved with changing behavior. The barriers are so hard. For instance, at least the last time I checked, most of the HDTVs hadn't wound up actually hooked up to any type of a set top box (STB) that could provide an HD signal. So you're talking about something were even when someone probably paid more than $1000, the people who bought it didn't wind up ordering the thing from their cable or satellite provider that would actually utilize fully what they just paid for. We can be very strange people.
This challenge may make you scratch your head. It might make you think "nah", but look it up. I think the cable and satellite companies have both stepped up in marketing their HD offerings, so this is changing now. But as of last year, MOST HDTVs were not hooked up to any HD content.
Most "Microsoft Media Center PCs" don't even likely wind up ever getting used as a Media Center PC. Many people buy laptops and desktops without even knowing (or knowing and not caring) that it's a Media Center PC. The first Media Center machine I bought was accidental. I had no idea it was a media center PC until I'd unboxed it and saw it had a TV tuner card built in. Since I had cable already in that room for Internet access, I split the cable and checked it out. I liked it. Then I started experimenting with ORB, and I liked it even more. But I do still have some geeky instincts (I thought I'd lost it for a while), and I like playing around with media portability and figuring out how to get it to work. Most people don't operate like that and never will.
This is even more complex than the traditional challenge of marketing something. Traditional models would be more like AOL and Quicken coming bundled on the Computer. Usually most people ignore most of this stuff too, however, AOL and Quicken can do something that doesn't make any sense for Microsoft to do with the Media Center PCs. AOL and Quicken can send you a post card (or a new shiny CD in the case of AOL) and this marketing makes sense, because if you act on it, these guys know what happens: they get paid.
Microsoft would have gotten more attention if they charged $9.95 a month to actually make the media center usable as a DVR. If it would have charged for the program Guide like TIVO does, way more people would've heard about it because if that would have happened, MSFT would have spent some money on sending people who bought Media Center PCs a postcard. On the other hand, I'm glad they didn't, because having a couple of lifetime program guides with Tivo, I would have probably not tried the Media Center's DVR out.. Similarly, I'm glad that ORB didn't ever charge me a fee.
On the other hand these are the exact same reasons that nobody has really heard of ORB or the Microsoft Media Center. I don't know how important it is for Microsoft to be perceived at the forefront of this or whether it should be important to Microsoft. I conclude that for ORB, its decision is it would rather wait for the right time than burn tens of millions of dollars in marketing as Slingbox must do.
ORB vs. Slingbox
Media Liberation is the concept that if I somehow paid for media already and can store it for my own personal use legally, I ought to be able to have access to it wherever I am.
I have gotten questions from more than one person on why I love ORB so much more than Slingbox. If you already have a TIVO and your goal is to be able to watch live or recorded tv from some remote location, I love Slingbox as much as I love ORB. You want to watch on a laptop, even some phones (sadly, not the iPhone) or any computer connected to the Internet (again, sadly no iPhones), I don't have a problem with Slingbox, though if you want it to work on your Sony PSP, you're better off going with Sony's Location Free Player or whatever they have decided to call this product these days (it's basically a Slingbox made by Sony).
There are two reasons I personally prefer ORB to Slingbox. One, it allows me to fully conceptualize in every way the notion of a media server. Secondly, while Slingbox and its ilk will give me easy remote access to live or recorded tv, I have much more than that in my digital media library. All my songs, pretty much any picture I've ever taken and decided to keep since 1997, live and recorded television, and movies and other DVD-style compliations.
Slingbox only lets me get at a piece of that, but I'd say on an application specific basis, especially if you are already set up with a DVR and all that you want to do is get remote access to live and recorded TV. Slingbox is the not only the path of least resistance, unless you already have a TV tuner card and a version of Microsoft Windows that supports Media Center, Slingbox is cheaper.
As it happened, I did already have a Media Center PC, so I played around with it. While I don't love (or hate) the Media Center interface, I do find the version in Vista an improvement, but in terms of remote access, I do love ORB, because unlike Slingbox, it puts the concept in my head of "put all the stuff I paid for here" and get it whenever/wherever I want. I am very enamored with this concept, and in the end whether content is all physically in one place or whether it's virtually distributed, as long as I can ultimately get to it all easily through one interface, I'll be satisfied. For me, ORB is the thing that most enables the "future vision". But there are yet more barriers than "what's ORB's business model going to be exactly?" I honestly don't know currently and "hope Yahoo lightening strikes twice and Orb.Com becomes the Broadcast.Com of the 2000s!" But there are bigger barriers with the consumers than Orb's business model.
Nobody Really Cares Yet, Including Apple
But for now, while WiFi isn't really free and ubiquitous...how much should Apple care yet?
In theory, the widescreen iPhone (and ultimately stand alone iPod) will be the most popular portable media device ever. But it doesn't easily support streaming presently, I will not be shocked if Apple's implementation of Macromedia's FLASH player for the iPhone still blocks me from streaming live TV. Fortunately for Apple, I was already braced because of Sony. Sony, whose PSP did ultimately get around to supporting FLASH, still managed to block streaming protocols. I can stream to my PSP, but only via additional hardware: Sony's location Free Player, or by a convoluted process where I use the PSP to connect with my Playstation 3 at home, and then use the Playstation 3's web browser to access ORB.
While I realize there is some interest in this, especially among enthusiasts and early adopters, for most people the last paragraph just causes their eyes to roll into the back of their heads. We're clearly still in the early adopter stage with some of this stuff and as a result, intero