02.28.08 - 04:00pm
Apple has come back against analysts who have said that Apple most likely won’t meet their goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008, with COO Tim Cook saying in a talk last night that Apple would do anything to reach that goal including dumping their revenue sharing model if they must. “We’re not married to any business model. What we’re married to is shipping the best phones in the world,” Cook said.
Cook said that all the unlocked iPhones in places like China were not a bad sign but rather a sign of continuing iPhone demand. Apple is also planning to set up pre-paid iPhone plans as some regions of the world don’t have post-paid plans. Visual voice mail and some other key features may also have to be dropped in some regions.
As far as the Touch cannibalizing iPhone sales Cook was clear saying, “I’d rather Apple cannibalize Apple than somebody else cannibalize Apple. It was very key for the iPod line to go in this direction.”
Category: apple, iPhone | Tags: 10-million, apple, iphone-sales, Tim-Cook | Be the First to Comment »
02.27.08 - 11:53am
One way to get students to choose your University over others - give ‘em free stuff. Not just any stuff, but cool stuff and stuff that has high technology advantages for the students. What would that be? Why an iPhone or iPod Touch of course.
This year anyone going to the Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Texas for their first year will receive a free iPhone or iPod Touch at the start of their fall semester.
“We are not merely providing cutting-edge technology tools to our incoming students,” said Kevin Roberts, ACU’s Chief Information Officer. “We are also providing the web applications that ensure these tools will become critical to the students’ learning experience.
The devices will be used for homework alerts, directions to professors’ offices, meal and account balances, in-class surveys and even quizzes. Along with that they will be used to experiment new web applications. Already the ACU IT department has developed 15 web applications for the devices.
Category: iPhone | Tags: acu-university, apple, free-iphone, free-iPod-Touch | Be the First to Comment »
02.18.08 - 11:29am
Apple and China Mobile may not have agreed on a collaboration for the iPhone, but that hasn’t stopped Chinese consumers from purchasing the phone and running it on the China Mobile network. As of the end of 2007 China Mobile said they had over 400,000 iPhones active on it’s network. Amounting to more than has been activated in all of Europe.
“The main reasons that Chinese mobile users purchase smartphones include entertainment (such as music players, cameras and video) and to access mobile Internet applications (such as IM, e-book, and games). We believe the iPhone will be favored by these consumers as it can better meet such demand”, Anty Zheng, Content Manager In-Stat China, explained in a February report.
Category: iPhone | Tags: apple, china, iPhone, unlocked | Be the First to Comment »
02.13.08 - 12:40pm
Are you a game designer looking for a new job - now is the time with Apple who appears to be making their next foray one of breaking into the world of gaming.
Apple is asking for their Apple trademark to now include “handheld units for playing electronic games, handheld units for playing videogames, stand-alone video game machines, LCD game machines, and electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only. They are also advertising for a new “game producer/designer to develop consumer entertainment software.”
Whether or not Apple will simply be going into the iPod/iPhone gaming realm or whether they are once again going to release a multimedia console is anyone’s guess. Apple released a console called Apple Pippin in the mid-90’s but wasn’t able to make it work. This was of course before Steve Jobs came back on board. Having Jobs there this time changes everything.
Category: apple | Tags: apple, steve-jobs, trademark, video-gaming | Be the First to Comment »
02.01.08 - 03:12pm
Owners of the new iPod Classic are saying that the new software update brought a little more than just data but electricity as well. Sending jolts measured at 500mv of DC through the headphone jack and the iPod docking connection.
The jolts could be harmful to any attached equipment and seems to occur even when the iPod is turned off. Hissing, static and buzzing have also been reported by the Apple users forums and Stereophile.com.
Other complaints from the upgrade include frozen iPods, which Apple has replaced, and lost music files.
Apple of course is keeping mum on the issue but iPod Classic owners beware.
Category: iPod | Tags: apple, ipod-classic, new-upgrade, problems | Be the First to Comment »
01.29.08 - 05:21pm
Fresh off the victory of signing all four major music labels allowing their music to be sold DRM free online, Amazon has announced they will be going global with Amazon MP3.
“We have received thousands of e-mails from Amazon customers around the world asking us when we will make Amazon MP3 available outside of the U.S.,” Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president of digital music, said in a statement. “We are excited to tell those customers today that Amazon MP3 is going international this year.”
No details were released on when the site will begin launching in other countries, but the news brings Amazon MP3 one step closer to outright competition in market share with Apple iTunes. Amazon’s songs are priced for less than Apple’s with most of their songs going for $.89 cents to Apple’s $.99 cents. Also all of Amazons 3.3 million songs are DRM free. iTunes has 6 million songs but only those from EMI are DRM free.
Category: itunes | Tags: amazon-mp3, apple, global-expansion, itunes | Be the First to Comment »
01.29.08 - 02:06pm
Ever since Steve Jobs announced in his keynote address at Macworld that the company had sold 3.7 million iPhones analysts everywhere have been crunching the numbers and coming up with a differentiation between Apple’s numbers and the cell phone’s companies activation numbers. A 1.4 million differentiation.
What happened to the phones? First it was believed that they were stuck in stores backlog inventory waiting to be sold. Now after careful research by Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray and A.M. Sacconaghi, Jr. of Sanford C. Bernste the thought is that the iPhones are out there, sold and unlocked.
Munster monitored Apple stores in New York, San Francisco and Minneapolis and reported that 40% of the people buying the phones were buying 2 at a time. He also said “The majority of the people who were buying more than one phone were Asian, and they were bringing small buses of people who all buy more than one phone.” Conclusion was simple. They were taking the phones back to Asia, unlocking them and using them there.
Category: iPhone | Tags: analysts, apple, missing-iphones, unlocked-iphones | Be the First to Comment »
01.17.08 - 03:46pm
Movie rentals are now available from iTunes following an announcement from Steve Jobs at MacWorld on Monday.
The videos can be rented for $2.99 to $3.99 with a $1 upgrade if you want to purchase the video in HD format. They are not however, compatible with the 5G video iPod or the Touch unless you pay for the $20 upgrade.
Why are they not compatible with the 5G? Nobody really knows and Apple isn’t saying. Many believe Apple simply didn’t want to take the time to create a software upgrade for the old iPods, especially when it gives users a reason to purchase a new model. Some believe there could also be hardware limitations in the older versions.
Category: iPod, itunes | Tags: $20-upgrade, apple, iPod-Touch, movie-rentals | Be the First to Comment »
01.16.08 - 11:35am
Four years ago iTunes was just a fledgling set to rise to unparalleled heights. At the time the Super Bowl was a huge booster for iTunes which combined with Pepsi launched a commercial set to Greenbay’s version of the song “I Fought the Law” encouraging buyers to buy legally online from iTunes rather than illegally downloading tunes from various sources.
Over 1,000,000 songs from iTunes were given away free in the Pepsi promotion and iTunes has then grown expeditiously year after year, becoming the extreme dominant in the download market and helping to propel iPods to explicit dominion.
Today however, a new era is emerging and rather than Apple being the underdog to Microsoft, with an almost cult like following, Apple is now the one on top and as the new “King of the Hill” is the one everyone wants to overcome.
Category: MP3 Players, apple, itunes | Tags: amazon, apple, drm, itunes, justin-timberlake, pepsi | Be the First to Comment »
01.11.08 - 03:03pm
Amazon has added Sony BMG to their already large repertoire of DRM free music as BMG joins Universal, Warner and EMI, selling their songs DRM free from the Amazon website. This puts Amazon’s DRM free catalog at an impressive 3.1 million songs.
The addition of BMG’s music on Amazon puts a larger dent in the Apple/iTunes dominace over the market as Apple still has yet to sell any of its music DRM free except that from EMI. All the other music on iTunes can only be played on an iPod and have limited download use due to the Fairplay restrictions on the music.
“We are constantly exploring new ways of making our music available to consumers in the physical space, over the Internet and through mobile phones, and this initiative is the newest element of our ongoing campaign to bring our music to fans wherever they happen to be,” said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony BMG, in a statement.
Category: itunes | Tags: amazon, apple, drm, itunes, sony-BMG | Be the First to Comment »
