JustinFlood.com

Why Apple pulling out of MacWorld is the best thing they could have done.

I know it’s sad and shocking to the throngs of people who paid thousands of dollars in hotel and airfare to make sure they we’re all set for this January’s SteveNote at MacWorld, to find out that he’s not even going to be there.   It was also shocking to a community accustomed to meeting up every year at MacWorld, to find out that the company the trade show was MADE for, has decided to no longer participate in it.

But to be honest,  it’s the best thing Apple could have done.

First of all,  we’re in what is likely to become an economic crisis only slightly smaller in scope than the great depression.   Apple has a lot of cash in the bank, and I have a feeling they want to keep it that way.   Spending millions of dollars on a booth, and a keynote at a tradeshow every January,  when you have reporters at your beck and call to come to your headquarters any day of the week is simply economically irresponsible.   Over the years Apple has proven that product reveal press conferences on their own terms work just as well as the ones at MacWorld.   Sure you won’t be able to get into one anymore if you aren’t in the inner circle of Apple Favored Press,  but who cares?   There are so many live blogs of the event, and an HD quality stream of it available afterward.   Does it really matter?

Secondly,   HAVING to deliver an important keynote every January has likely driven the development teams at Apple insane.  Every year I imagine December at Apple headquarters being quite an un-happy place to work.  Instead of being able to enjoy the holiday season,  everyone is likely in crunch mode working on finishing whatever is to be debuted at MacWorld in the beginning of January.   And as we know from the recent iPhone and MacBook releases,  Apple is no good when it comes to it’s quality control on it’s first gen products.

Not being required to give a keynote every January will likely give Apple dev teams the ability to get a product more polished before its release,   and Steve and Co.  will be able to schedule a keynote for whenever the cool new product is actually DONE.

So what’s up with Steve not being in the keynote this year?   Simple.   He wants a clean break from MacWorld.   I wouldn’t expect any groundbreaking announcements,  that’s for sure.  If Steve is trusting the show entirely to Shiller,  they haven’t got anything cool up their sleeve for January.     So what will they show?  Maybe a couple of speedbumps on existing products,  perhaps a 32 gig iPhone?   Maybe a $99 iPhone nano.     Show off the improvements of Snow Leopard.   But nothing that the world is gonna “ooh” and “ahh” over.   Apple’s goal here is to make MacWorld irrelevant to their business.    So they will damned well make sure that this keynote is as irrelevant as possible.   Heck I wouldn’t put it past them to have an event with Steve at the helm a couple weeks after MacWorld just to screw them.

If there is one thing I really respect Apple for,  it’s the uncanny ability they have of being able to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without any regard for what might happen.  If something doesn’t work for them, they change it, whether you like it or not.   OS X is a perfect example of this.     They tossed out the old OS entirely and started from scratch.   They knew it would be painful in the short term, but it put them on the stellar track they are on today.   Same goes for MacWorld.   They used it to their advantage when they were a smaller company, and this was the best place for them to get publicity.   Now that it’s more money than it’s worth, and they can simply call the bloggers in on any old day of the week,   why spend the money?   It’s not worth it.   Out with the bathwater Macworld!

So all in all,  I don’t think for a second that Apple leaving MacWorld is a bad thing for Apple.   They’ll still be able to bring us all the cool stuff we expect, and now it’ll be on their own terms,  instead of the yearly CES style keynote that they have had to do in the past.   Seems more like their style anyway.

Is it bad for MacWorld?   Of course it is!   Without support from Apple, or at least Adobe,  the show is doomed.  But with these days of Twitter, and blogs,  is a trade show really necissary anymore?   Not as much as you’d think I’d imagine.

Tags: Apple, MacWorld

Is iTunes ditching DRM tomorrow???!

According to an article on Gizmodo,  it looks as though Apple might just be ditching DRM tomorrow across most if not all of it’s music store.

Speculation about if when iTunes would score DRM-free tracks from all major studios like Amazon and Walmart has been rampant, but according to a rumor at AppleInsider, all this speculation may come to an end tomorrow.

AppleInsider cites a Dec. 3 story from the French publication Electron Libre that says iTunes will remove DRM from Sony BMG, Universal and Warner tracks on December 9th, like it already does with EMI and indie content. The story doesn’t say what percentage of tracks from the major labels, or what the cost bump for the new tracks might be, if any, though it seems to say the thing might cover every single album and track on iTunes. In fact, check out this rather ungraceful machine translation of the French story for yourself:

…The signals are clear today. iTunes should offer catalogs of three majors Universal Music, SonyBMG Music and Waner [sic] rid of technological protection measures next Tuesday, Dec. 9. The transition to DRM Free should be at a global level…

With that opener, it almost reads like a fortune. I for one hope this fortune comes true. [Electron Libre viaAppleInsider]

Somehow though, I don’t see this happening tomorrow.   This isn’t something Apple would do lightly, and with the Macworld keynote coming up in around a month,  why not save it until Steve is on stage?  It seems like a strangely un-Apple sort of move, though they’ve surprised me before.

I suppose like most things Apple, I’ll find out somewhere around noon eastern time.

Tags: Apple, DRM, iTunes

Apple’s netbook/tablet to be based on ARM architecture?

In other news that doesn’t surprise me at all, rumors are swirling that Apple’s entrance into the netbook/tablet arena will not be running an intel based chip.   To be honest, I’m not sure why this is shocking anyone.

Apple has always been big on playing with the wording of it’s public statements.  At the last Jobs keynote, the CEO of Apple stated that they didn’t know how to make an inexpensive Mac without compromising quality.   So whatever this device is, you can bet on the fact that it will NOT be a full on Mac.   Hence, it probably won’t run a full on intel processor.   I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Apple does not want to release a cheap product that will cannibalize the sales of it’s oh-so-popular MacBook line.

So what IS this mystery device that is hidden beneath the bowels of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino California?  Likely something that is based more on the iPhone archetecture than anything else.  In fact I’d expect it to resemble Nokia’s N-series tablets more than an iMac or a Macbook Air.  This article from Computerworld, makes a good argument for that as well:

To recap, here are the reasons, I believe that Apple will choose the ARM platform for their upcoming Netbook/Tablets.

1. Apple has an internal PA Semi team working on future ARM chips for the iPhone/iPod Touch
2. ARM chips cost an order of magnatude less (to license) than Intel equivalents
3. ARM chips take up less space on a motherboard
4. ARM chips use many times less power, enabling much longer battery life and much sleeker design.
5. You won’t need to virtualize Windows on these types of devices.  Most other Apple applications can be easily ported between chips.
6. Apple wants more control over the processors, which it can’t have with Intel.
7. While a variant of the iPhone version of OSX is the most likely of candidates, Snow Leopard’s optimization release might also be for ARM as well.

So Whatever we’re looking at here. It isn’t a Mac.  I can be pretty sure of that.  With companies starting to produce netbooks running Android,  I can totally see Apple modifying the iPhone OS and subsequently the App Store, so that they will run on a netbook style device.

Hopefully the App Store will become device aware,  only allowing you to download apps written for your specific device, as that would seem to provide the most Apple-like user experience.

So what are the advantages to this new kind of device?   Likely a bigger / higher resolution display,  possibly a physical keyboard, perhaps USB ports for extending the functionality, a faster processor and graphics chip allowing for more complex / graphically intensive apps and games.   Not to mention the fact that a physical keyboard would likely entice devs to write some good office software for the platform as well.

Regardless of what is coming.  I certainly am in the camp that believes that this (comparatively) low-priced device will NOT be a full on Mac, but more of an extension of the iPhone / iPod touch platform.  Either way, January can’t come fast enough.  I want to find out!

Tags: Apple, iPhone, netbook

AppleTV – Turning a Hobby into a Business.

Since the release of AppleTV, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has maintained that it isn’t yet a serious business venture for Apple, but more of a “hobby”.   For some this is simply a way of explaining away a less-than-successful product, but I think Jobs is being more honest about it than we think.

It IS a hobby to them, but I think it’s likely that you’ll see the AppleTV going from a hobby to a business soon.  Very soon.

Jason Calacanis recently talked about how Apple is going to go into the Television business,  making flat panel TVs.  While I’m sure they have a few Apple flat panels in the lab, there is no freakin’ way they’re ever going to get themselves into such a commoditized business.   They would have to compete with EVERY television maker out there, and there just is no way for them to grab enough marketshare to make it worth it.  In a world where $700 Vizio HDTVs are King,  there is no way for Apple to add enough value to make a $2000+ TV worth it to most people, which is likely where they would want to place it in the price structure.  I still think the set-top box is the way for them to go.

Why?  Find out after the jump.

More »

Tags: Apple, AppleTV

The Fake MacBook Nano makes us want an Apple netbook even more!

I know it’s never going to happen, or at least, Steve Jobs will do his damnedest to make sure such a product never sees the light of day,  but I’ll be damned if I don’t really want a Mac netbook like one of these.

Gizmodo posted these pictures of what is likely an MSI Wind modded into a shiny new MacBook Nano.  It’s obviously fake, but probably not very far from what Apple could come up with.  So why don’t they?

Simply because they won’t make enough money off of them.

Of course Steve Jobs says that they don’t know how to make a cheap laptop that isn’t “a piece of junk”,  but what that really means is,  we dont know how to make a cheap laptop that isn’t a piece of junk that we still make a 50% profit on.  If Apple has been consistent on one thing since the return of Steve Jobs well over 10 years ago, it’s that they won’t release a product unless they are absolutely sure that they will be able to make a serious profit margin on it.

Even Apple’s iPhone 3g which retails for $199 makes Apple a serious profit margin,  it’s just that we don’t really pay it.  AT&T does.  It’s rumored that AT&T pays Apple $399-499 for each iPhone 3g and then subsidizes it to the price we see today.

Apple doesn’t want to cannibalize the sales of it’s wildly-successful MacBook line with a line of laptops which at the $500-700 price range, would be of serious interest to average consumers.  Not to mention the fact that the sub-optimal performance of OS X on an Atom based netbook would hurt the user experience, something we know Apple is NEVER interested in doing.

So what WILL show up in that open $500-$700 slot in Apple’s product line?  I have a feeling that we’ll find out the answer to that question in January at MacWorld.

Tags: Apple, Macbook, MacBook nano

Is Microsoft considering using WebKit for IE?

AppleInsider today posted an EXTREMELY interesting article proporting that Microsoft may be considering WebKit as a replacement rendering engine for it’s currently lackluster Internet Explorer web browser.  From the Article:

The student put Ballmer on the hot seat by asking, “Why is IE still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?”

“That’s cheeky, but a good question, but cheeky,” Ballmer replied, according to a report by TechWorld. Ballmer explained that Microsoft would need to consider the future of the browser and determine if there is any lack of innovation for the company to capitalize upon with ‘proprietary extensions that broaden its functionality.’

“There will still be a lot of proprietary innovation in the browser itself so we may need to have a rendering service,” Ballmer said, adding, “Open source is interesting. Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8.”

Ballmer also admitted the delays in moving from IE 6 to IE 7 during the development of Vista under the Longhorn project. “But I don’t what to go there,” he said.

Will it happen?  I doubt it.  At least not in the desktop version of IE.   Microsoft has far too much vested in it’s proprietary technologies in IE.  I highly doubt they’d give them up just for the sake of standards compliance.

What I think is more likely is a shift to WebKit as the rendering engine of the next generation of MOBILE Internet Explorer.  WebKit has proven its worth in the mobile space as the core of both Apple’s Mobile Safari, and as the core of the browser on Google’s G1.

Without a doubt WebKit is the fastest and highest quality mobile browser available today, and Microsoft moving it’s mobile offerings there would make a significant improvement over the current iteration of Mobile Internet Explorer without requiring the development time needed to develop their own version.   Considering how fast Microsoft is falling behind in the Mobile Space, with Windows Mobile 7 now scheduled for a few YEARS from now,  incorporating a better browser and some UI improvements into something like a “Windows Mobile 6.5″,  could be the only way to save their marketshare which is quickly being sucked away by the likes of Apple and RIM.

The fact that Ballmer even MENTIONED this says a lot about the fact that Microsoft knows it’s missing the boat in the browser war and is starting to wake up to the fact that they need to work on it quickly.

Tags: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Webkit