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Steve Jobs

Wired has always some very good articles about Apple and in particular about Steve Jobs. Like this one from Leander Kahney - absolutely worth reading!

If there's no easy-to-find spot and he's in a hurry, Jobs has been known to pull up to Apple's front entrance and park in a handicapped space. It's become a piece of Apple lore — and a running gag at the company. Employees have stuck notes under his windshield wiper: "Park Different."

Well, actually, it turns out the articles is about management theories, leadership styles and enslavement versus empowerment. And Google versus Apple.

Apple pie

Noticed that ALT statement on the recent DiVx newsletter?

Missing iTunes widgets / charts

Maybe you´ve read about Apple´s foray into social networks and syndication of user behaviour titled My iTunes. The current set of widgets and feeds only features data for items purchased at the iTunes store. This maybe a good privacy trade-off since some people claim - wasn´t that Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer ??? - that most tracks on iPods are P2P downloads and thus stolen. (So that would be like pinpointing your hard-drive to the RIAA.)

Still I´d like to see a widget or list of my favorite tracks and - even better- the favorite tracks in a certain period, let´s say this past week. That would be cool - published as a weekly statistic on my weblog, like my person Casey Kasem show. Possibly with the option to exclude P2P downloads.

Should I?

Just got this by eMail:

The Perfect Thing

Wired has a great article on the birth of the ipod titled The Perfect Thing. Worth reading.

30 years

Nice.

iPod business

John Gruber has an interesting article comparing the iPod Juggernaut with the MP3 player´s competition and analyzing Apple´strategy. Here´s a nice quote:

In short, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, Apple’s iPod competitors are totally fucked.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod

Word of the week

Wafer inspection (at Apple or at The Postal Service).

iPod Zubehör

Andreas Winter (vom evolver)  kauft sich einen iPod. Lesenswert!

Da befindet sich ein iPod-Dock-Adapter in der Packung. Den versuche ich stundenlang ans Gerät zu stecken. Geht aber nicht. Des Rätsels Lösung: Der iPod-Dock-Adapter ist nicht etwa ein Dock, mit dem man seinen iPod schön ins Schreibtischchaos adaptieren kann. Es ist ein Adapter, den man braucht, damit ein iPod-Dock, das extra Geld kostet, sich überhaupt verwenden lässt. Genial!

Trouble at the iTMS

Dave Winer rants about the iTunes Music Store. Well, I really like it, but I agree - it´s annoying that you can´t re-load your purchased music in case your harddisk crashes. After all, you purchased the music.

But then again, as with CD´s, it´s the old question - do you buy the music (the right to play the music) or the CD (the physical item)? With the CD it´s the latter, because otherwise if you´d scratched the CD you could ask for a (free) new one at the store. Then again, if you´d own the rights, you might give the CD to someone else who doesn´t mind playing it without owning the right. Strangely, in this case DRM would (or might) permit you playing the songs on the computer or MP3 player while denying those rights to the other guy. Brave new world!

New flag

Apple not only introduces new PowerMacs and Powerbooks, but also a new flag for Austria (see larger image). Heck, there are no kangaroos here!

apple on your desktop

Mac lovers will enjoy this desktop image over at mandolux featuring the original Mac Plus from 1984. Cool!

Switching

Mac application developers speak out their opinion about switching their apps to Intel (over at oreillynet).

If, when and maybe

When (and if) Apple will announce a move to Intel chips on Monday at WWDC, they may experience the Osborne effect. There´s a name for everything. (via John Gruber)

iPod goes boom

Those Americans Australians! Apple did warn people not to eat the iPod (shuffle). But they didn´t warn not to put it through the washing machine and fix it afterwards with a screwdriver. ´Cause that´s what a kid in Melbourne did - Kaboom the iPod went. (via derstandard.at)

Isn´t that a nice story for the evening? So kids, remember - do not mess with the iPod!

Mobile photography? Mobile music?

iPodlounge reviewed the Apple iPod Camera Connector:

Therefore, we recommend the iPod Camera Connector to specific iPod users only: photo hobbyists who won't mind its lengthy transfers and/or can live with the battery drain.

I guess this sentence also applies to the €369 iPod photo itself (or roughly €400 with the connector as a mobile music and digital backup solution), because there´s no need to carry a bigger and heaver iPod around.

I´m confused! I haven´t got an iPod yet, and I haven´t decided yet which to buy. Well, I think as long as I won´t go on any lenghty trips to the other side of the world, a 500 MB (~ €40) or 1 GB CF (~ €70) card will do - with out any backup solution - and possible a smaller and lighter iPod. But which one? :-)

Cool Apple gear

Business 2.0 has a list of Apple gear we´d love see, like an iPod watch (using Bluetooth to sync with iTunes), a WiFi enabled iPod, a video pod and an iPhone (which may or may not be realized soon). A thing not mentioned, but quite interesting IMHO and certainly appealing to the Apple crowd, would be an Apple-branded digital VCR and a flat-screen TV with wireless link to the VCR and/or an Apple mini or an iPod.

If all that´s not enough, read the Business 2.0 article on Steve Jobs.

Enter the zone

Now that´s marketing advertising. Cool! And expensive. iPod Zone @ the Tube.

Apple on a subscription?

According to AppleInsider Apple might introduce an iTunes subscription service sometime later this year to compete with similar services from Real Networks and Napster.

In a research report released to clients last week, Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Milunovich downplayed the potential of the subscription-based sales model, but said he believes Apple can establish a subscription service with few barriers to entry. "Record label executives we spoke with believe the market could be bimodal with the majority people choosing to purchase and a niche for subscription services," the analyst wrote in his report.

Higher margins at Apple

An analysis by Piper Jaffray has a bright future for Apple, mainly due to the success of iTunes and the iTMS, as sales at the iTMS have crossed the 300 million mark.
Link: Forbes.com: ITunes' Margins Seen Surging In 2006 And Beyond.