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- Why Apple’s iTunes Concessions Are a Double-Edged SwordToday
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Apple’s announcements at Macworld may have lacked some of the flair and sizzle that CEO Steve Jobs usually brought to his keynote, but there was one announcement that, arguably, will wind up changing the playing field considerably. That announcement is the news of DRM-free sales from all of the major music labels through iTunes, and the addition of variable pricing. As rumored during the run up to Macworld, the world’s largest online music store will soon start selling songs for 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29 each.The only question now, as Peter Kafka notes in a post at MediaMemo, is whether anyone will care or not — and whether it will help to fix any of the music industry’s systemic problems.
Amazon (among others) has had DRM-free songs from the four major record labels available in its online store for almost a year now, and it sells many of them at a lower price than Apple does. But so far that hasn’t helped Jeff Bezos and his team loosen
- As Broadband Growth Slows, Telcos Lose OutToday
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A new report from Pike & Fisher should strike fear in the hearts of telecommunications companies. First, it posits that broadband growth will decline by 12 percent in the U.S. (although subscriptions themselves will grow by 8 percent), and that of the 5.7 million new broadband subscribers anticipated in 2009, three fourths of them will choose cable. That’s certainly not good news for carriers hoping to stem landline loss (P&F estimates landlines will decline almost 16 percent next year to 86 million). It also puts a crimp in plans to offer converged services across televisions, mobile phones and computers — something both AT&T and the cable guys are itching to do.
Wireless subscriptions have helped carriers along, as the incredible growth of wireless data adoption has somewhat offset the loss of landlines and the slow growth of DSL. However, those new subscriptions may also wane. Pike & Fisher estimates that 60 percent of wireless subscribers will have a 3G handset, but the report didn’t make any guesses about wireless data subscription growth.
Fears of a wireless subscriber slowdown led ye
- Jan 6: What’s Hot on The GigaOM NetworkToday
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IBM readies free Symphony productivity suite for Mac. [OStatic]
How to get paid better in 2009. [WebWorkerDaily]
Adobe marches into your TV. [NewTeeVee]
Scan and turn books into audio files. [jkOnTheRun]
Skype 2.8 Beta Goes Live. It is Good. [theAppleBlog]
Smart grid could create 280,000 smart jobs. [Earth2Tech]
- WebEx on Your iPhone, FinallyToday
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If I had to name one collaboration application that I to use on an almost daily basis, with the exception of Google Docs, my answer would be Cisco’s WebEx. A lot of companies make pitches to me using WebEx. Despite its patchy performance on the Mac, it is still an easy way to get through a PowerPoint. Well, WebEx just got better, thanks to the new WebEx for the iPhone app. It also works on the iPod Touch.
In other words, you don’t need to be in the office to get going — you can totally do meetings from anywhere — as long as AT&T’s temperamental 3G network is working. Your WebEx system needs to be iPhone compatible at the back end, though, and for now you can view the presentations but not start them from your iPhone. I think that, despite all the reservations about iPhone in the enterprise, apps such as WebEx for iPhone indicate that it will find footing inside corporations.
- Apple Gives Desktop Apps an Internet LifeToday
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It wasn’t quite the same lively Macworld keynote without Steve Jobs, but it looks like self-deprecating Phil Schiller, Apple’s VP of worldwide product marketing, did an admirable job of introducing a whole slew of products, including the new Macbook Pro (17-inch version) and the new DRM free iTunes music store, without so much as mentioning Steve Jobs. Of all the product launches, I was most impressed with Apple’s new software – iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09. In this day and age, when it is widely assumed that all apps are moving to the Internet, Apple has done the opposite and given its desktop apps a big boost. What I was impressed by is how the company has brought the Internet into these applications.
The new version of the iPhoto application now allows you to seamlessly upload photos to Facebook and/or Flickr. Without much effort, it also allows you to geotag the photos, helping bring “location” into the desktop.
