December 2009
15 posts
Apple TV Potential
I own and love my Apple TV. With that said, I can see where it’s not for everyone and is not the “must-have” product in its category (No set-top box has that distinction).
“Sales of Apple’s wireless streaming set-top-box are up less than 10 percent in 2009…” according to Steven Baker, of NPD Group (link). The post implies that with a major upgrade to the...
“Technologies that hide complexity the way Core Data does can encourage “voodoo...”
– Dave Mark and Jeff LarMarche, authors of “More iPhone 3 Development: Tackling iPhone SDK 3” (Amazon link). If you bought the previous book by these two, you can get a discount on the eBook by visiting apress.com
Apple to release iChat Mobile for next version of... →
Scoop on 9to5mac.com regarding the potential for iChat on the iPhone. Definitely a potential killer application for the next iPhone, although it would require a camera on the front-end of the iPhone for video chat. iChat without this would not be a killer app. Incidentally, I thought this would come with last year’s iPhone. Glad I hedged by stating it was only 50% likely a front-end camera...
50% likelihood of tablet. What does this mean?
Gene Munster wrote another note to clients stating there is a 75% chance of an Apple event in January, and a 50% likelihood that the Apple tablet will be shown/announced.
All this really states is that he doesn’t know if the tablet will make an appearance. Yes, Apple has reportedly reserved the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 26th. Therefore, all the 75% says is,...
“Merry Christmas!”
– Me
1 tag
Apple TV to Replace Cable Box?
MG Siegler wrote “The cable companies suck. All of them. Some suck less than others. But they all suck.”
For the most part, I agree. I’m extremely conscious of value vs. cost in my purchases and subscriptions, and cable does not provide the value on par with what I pay. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not the high cost that bothers me. The Playstation 3, with its high cost,...
“Content has fewer options, but it’s still a great model to use. Give away the...”
– Marco Arment.
Unfortunately, this model (give away a portion for free and charge for the rest) for podcasts is flawed because the inherent value of podcasts is zero.
Podcasts are similar to radio in value, where you give away the content in hope of making money in other forms. For the radio...
“RSS reading is a very fragmented experience circa 2009. People can monitor news...”
– Richard McManus (link). Back in the mid-2000s, I always thought RSS was heading towards a mainstream technology, and I implemented some extremely creative ideas at Shopcatching.com with RSS. Unfortunately, RSS use never rose to where I thought it would be (I even use Techmeme more than RSS feeds...
Fake Steve and AT&T →
I’ve been waiting for Fake Steve’s response to AT&T’s comments on charging heavy bandwidth users. He did not disappoint. There’s too many great quotes to list. Click the title to read the whole article.
“We love the idea of a browser-only tablet and at $200-$300 might have taken a...”
– Seth Weintraub, 9to5mac.com Editor. My thoughts exactly.
CrunchPad. I mean JooJoo.
A new touchscreen was announced, named JooJoo. If anything has been done correctly, it’s that this thing has gotten a ton of press. Unfortunately for Fusion Garage, I’m positive that press is due to Techcrunch. Plus, the press hasn’t been too positive.
The JooJoo seems like a nice product, but I don’t plan to buy one because I’m not sure the company will be around...
The Death of Satellite Radio
For the past few years, satellite radio has been in trouble. It’s extremely expensive to operate (satellites are expensive to make and get into space), but incredibly difficult to get people to pay a lot of money. Think about it. When the iPhone came out in 2007, people lined up to pay $600 for a cell phone when they could get another brand of phone for much less (even free). Satellite...
AT&T
Check out this link. It states that Consumer Reports did some research and found out AT&T is last in customer satisfaction.
It’s hard to argue. I have AT&T, due to my iPhone, and the service is not great. Here’s some (what I believe) funny stories that have happened due to AT&T service.
A great song that I recognized (but did not know the name or artist) played on the...
