sleepy

Is Nintendo the Apple of Steve Jobs' Eye?

Apple's galloping into the future and they're expected to hand over all the gold in their saddlebag for a dead moose. Dream on.

Why Research in Motion Is a Takeover Target

MSFT buy RIMM? Yes please - we missed out on the Yahoo chance to suck the cash out and let MSFT fade away faster.

Sorry, but it's not about devices, or even OS's (although you need both). Remember CPM/86 or OS/2? Or even the old Mac OS. They all looked like winners at one time, but were beaten from behind by a poorer product. And all those early iPhone comparisons saying something else was better, faster, cheaper or had more features. But people bought iPhones anyway.

Everybody does mobile messaging well enough now. RIM should sell to the first offer, but it's probably too late already. RIM's fallback task is to hold on to enough revenue for 5-10 years while it finds a new place. But I doubt if the management has that creativity in them, as Apple didn't before SJ's return.

Apple May Find Itself at Risk in Legacy Core Business

The author is mindlessly regurgitating competitor propaganda.

How does this desirable "poised" state occupied by Google and Microsoft have any significance to Apple or its customers?

What exactly is "proprietary" about anything an Apple customer is tied to? Not video, audio, pictures, mail, calendar, address book. It's Microsoft that's proprietary and near universal, but Apple also takes the trouble to buy licenses and interoperate out of the box with Microsoft's proprietary Office, Exchange and and SMB. All built on an open source OS foundation.

Even the iPhone App store is open to all. But it does guarantee that the provenance of your software is traceable, and that the performance and battery life of your gadget is predictable. If you think Android is so open, how can it be that Android phones are even carrier locked at all? And wait till you see what you can and can't do with a Verizon Android phone.

These are all design decisions made by Apple, and they are proving to be the right ones.

AT&T OKs VoIP For the iPhone, Too Bad Google Voice Isn't VoIP

On yer bike and go home, TechCrunch. Spoiled brat whingeing instead of any kind of insight about what's really happening here.

The End of Exclusive: How Apple Plans to Grow Market Share

Actually, iPhone is a commodity handset; it's just a commodity with its own category, and a relatively high price. What makes it a commodity is (1) quantity sold/in use, (2) they are all iPhones with uniform device and global service specified and part implemented by Apple (via iTunes and MobileMe), (3) universal software update keeping them all in step.

Apple have created a product in its own generic market space, which is a business proposition for a carrier very similar to a basic voice+SMS phone, except for the higher ARPU it generates. It thus offers large and immediate growth for the carriers out of the saturated voice market. Apple's largest current business is selling growth to the carriers.

Google Releases a Nuke, Apple Won’t Win This Fight

Consider the possibility that Google knew perfectly well they could revise and resubmit despite the initial version having been rejected, but are playing to win acceptance of the app in its current form. That could be a reason to conflate a specific rejection with total rejection, and a reason to redact those parts of its letter to better catch Apple off guard with the FCC.

If Google can show they asked Apple "can we revise and resubmit", and Apple said "no, the app is unacceptable in any form", then yes, Apple lied. Otherwise, don't take it personally, it's just business.

Whatever you think is going on, sooner or later a stake will be driven through the heart of the mobile voice cartels, and both Google and Apple will be big winners when it happens.

Google Releases a Nuke, Apple Won’t Win This Fight

Firstly, Google can, by definition, offer this as a web app. Mobile Safari supports local storage and the HTML5 goodness.

Secondly, it doesn't matter if Apple's process included a flat out rejection. Their openly published FCC plainly told Google and us that revision and resubmission (like any other developer) is what Apple expects, with some prospect of being successful.

Thirdly, this isn't a serious dispute between the two; it's artificial. They want to goad the regulator into swiftly diminishing the power to veto applications exercised by carriers and devolved to Apple by AT&T in the case of iPhone. If the regulator forces Apple to accept Google's app, that would be equally applicable to all carriers, and both Google and Apple are ready to jump in to voice services with both feet if that happens.

Buying Apple Today: Like Buying Microsoft in 1998?

One way I like to look at this is to consider the market cap of whole markets that Apple is in (PC's; cellphones; music and video players; music and video distribution; web services; retail; music, photo and video creation) and estimate the smallest market cap Apple might take from incumbents in each market. The answer gives a surprisingly large total, even without Apple being a dominant player in any market. (And that's before you consider retail banking as a possible market for Apple - give it a few moments thought. A hundred million credit cards registered could become a hundred million retail banking customers.)

Apple knows full well that the market is more powerful than itself (unlike Microsoft, although Microsoft may finally be learning). So Apple can't rush off into the distance with innovation; to move the whole market they have to keep their innovation bottled up and let the competition get close enough to keep up. Some read this as risk from competition and falling margins but it's simply Apple playing its unbeatable hand for maximum long term gain.

What’s Really Going on with Apple, Google, AT&T and the FCC

Apple is tied by exclusive carrier agreements. These exclusive carrier agreements are the means whereby Apple did the FCC's job for it, and bust wide open the mobile internet (making a financial killing at the same time). Apple achieved this by demanding affordable unmetered mobile internet access, while protecting the carrier partner's high margin voice revenues; in exchange the carrier partners got growth in a saturated market.

I am sure Apple is ready and waiting for regulators to take over this unacknowledged public service, so Apple can move forward itself with internet based voice services. Equally I am sure Apple does not want to be holding the door open for Google and others while still pinned down by these exclusive carrier contracts. Regulation on this would mandate that third party internet based voice services must be permitted on any mobile data contract, and that's a tough rule for the lazy carriers to swallow. All the players (Apple, Google, FCC, AT&T) must know this is what underlies the public role-playing.

I find Mr Arrington's take on it superficial and unnecessarily offensive to Apple.

What Will the Next iPod Touch Offer?

Move on - nothing to see here. What was the education that informed the guesswork?

It's true that the back to school promotion helps clear inventory of the current iPod model, but there's no rigid link synchronizing iPod transition; could be before or after.

You can play your iPod touch through external stereo speakers several ways: wired from the headphone socket; wired from the dock connector or wirelessly via bluetooth. Most dock solutions also recharge the iPod.

App approval isn't arbitrary. Here's a kind-of-obvious starter for what you can't have: apps that replace Apple-designed core functions (eg email and iPhone telephony); apps that are illegal (eg stolen content); encourage illegal activity (eg unlicensed music broadcasting); may be offensive (but now there's a rating system).

Anyone desperate to do any of these things can write a Palm Pre style web app to run under Safari - there are no Apple controls over that. These days web apps are pretty powerful.

Not keeping your main copy of your music in iTunes is perverse in the extreme. The way normal humans play their music at home using their iPod touch is to use the free Remote app to stream it from iTunes to (multiple) external speakers. Also check out Simplify on the App store.

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

RIM, weaker in the market, has to concede all these points to remain competitive and has moved to near-saturation market share, destroying margins, unit sales growth opportunity, and forward control of their own platform. Might look good to an individual user for now, but it's not attractive to an investor.

Apple, immensely strong in market, hugely bigger margins, in tight control of their platform and carrier relationship going forward, can go wherever they like, including picking off any of your "disadvantages" that are real, whenever they want.

It's Time to Build a Real Mobile Web

I think Apple wants openness too, but it's a long term goal. Meantime, for at least five years, they have to work with carrier cartels. Exclusive carrier deals, including the Apple imposed condition that the standard contract for iPhone must have unlimited data, and insisting that that data transport is neutral and not linked to carrier walled gardens for content delivery, navigation etc. are far bigger issues that Apple has achieved for us. The penalty (for now) is that they protect the carriers voice revenues.

Why the FCC Wants to Smash Open the iPhone

Apple wants to control the core functionality of the iPhone, and it's not finished developing it yet. Don't underestimate the scope and timescale of Apple's strategic thinking. This is an issue that needs to be resolved, so Apple needs to be somewhat abrasive; that doesn't mean that their stated current position is the desired end state; they just aren't ready to have part of the voice telephony application veer off at a tangent.

Looking at it another way, the voice network will inevitably be subsumed into the internet, but that would cripple carrier revenues today. Apple and others have to continue working with the carriers for a few years more, because of the way politicians have set up mobile communications licensing.

If You Think Steve Jobs' Health Is Not a Material Event...

"The fact this saga is still dragging on and being handled improperly is a sign of some kind of board governance issue."

This is drivel. It has been handled perfectly. His medical records are a private matter. Any likely impact of ill-health on the company's operation has to be disclosed. It was: The company disclosed the expectation of a 6 month absence, confirmed it after the operation, and he's back at work now. What more can a shareholder expect?

rrtmzd: Where is your evidence that there is any "denial of mortality", that SJ did not accept the original diagnosis, that the cancer is terminal, that that the original surgery was merely "palliative". You're the one living in a make-believe world, not Steve Jobs, who by my reckoning is frighteningly logical in everything he does, including the handling of his cancer.

Apple: Is the iPhone OS Upgrade Too Good?

Even purchasers of the 2-year old original iPhone get this upgrade free. Giving them (and new customers) a good feeling about buying an Apple product at any time. Selling more iPhones, not less.