The joy of iPad

post from Apple on 02 March 2012 11:03:22 AM. © Apple

Apple is about to introduce a new iPad. Good — for I need to buy a new one. I left my old one with my mother. When visiting my folks in India, I decided to leave my Macbook Air at home — I didn’t want to write and just wanted to spend some quality time with the family. Instead, I carried my iPad 2. (I don’t leave home without it.)

When at home, I did a FaceTime call with my siblings who also live overseas. I handed over the iPad to my mom. She had this look of amazement, one of pure unadulterated joy as she chatted with her grandson.

Being a broadband nerd who cannot stop thinking and talking about the need for speed and connectivity, this moment captured essentially what me, and by extension GigaOM, is all about — connectedness and the change it brings. For once, the technology didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter how it was happening — just that she could talk to her grandson who was oceans apart from her. If there ever was a moment that captured the emotion of a piece technology, that was it. The look on her face made me realize how lucky I am to write about an industry that makes such things possible. I also thought to myself, maybe somewhere Steve Jobs is smiling too.

Apple, clearly, is not for everyone. But for me that moment of joy experienced by my mother is enough of a reason why there will be no other. Apple’s competitors will do their own thing. Some, like Samsung, will do spectacularly well. But for me, Apple finds ways to delight people, pushing technology into the background. When Steve Jobs passed away, I wrote:

Jobs put life and soul into inanimate objects. Everyone saw steel, silicon and software; he saw an opportunity to paint his Mona Lisa. People saw a phone; Steve saw a transporter of love. People saw a tablet; he saw smiles and wide-eyed amazement. They made computers; he made time machines that brought us all together through a camera, screen and a connection.

The smile on my mother’s face captures what I wrote the best.The iPad is now with mom. She set up her iCloud account. She figured out Skype, browsing and email. She knows how to send iMessages. More importantly, she has created FaceTime connections for all those who matter to her. I get a feeling that her Windows PC will gather dust and she will be bothering me a lot — right in middle of a meeting in San Francisco. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

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Could tablets could outsell PCs by next year

post from Apple on 02 March 2012 11:03:22 AM. © Apple

At their current and expected growth rates, tablet computers are on pace to start outselling traditional form-factor PCs by the third quarter of 2013. The bold prediction comes from Horace Dediu, author of the always informative Asymco blog. Apple?s iPad will lead the way, with Android tablets following and Windows 8 slates picking up steam.

As with any forward-looking predictions, certain assumptions have to be made and Dediu outlines his as such:

Mac sales growth continues at 25 percent per year.
Windows 8 brings only a small sales boost in 2012 as enterprises don?t rush upgrades
Windows 8 tablets account for 7 percent of all Windows PCs in the final quarter of 2012, jumping to 20 percent by 2013.
Yearly iPad sales growth doubles this year and next
Sales growth of Android tablets, including the Kindle Fire, still lags behind the iPad, but sees 80 percent growth a year.

Overall, I think these assumptions are generally reasonable, given the time frame of a two-year look and based on historical data. Even two years is pushing the crystal ball a bit in the mobile space as technology advances are cycling faster than 24 months, but again, Dediu?s approach makes sense.

Naysayers will be quick to point that some activities will always require a traditional PC. I see their point when you look at CAD software, movie production, or custom enterprise applications that require some computing feature not yet feasible for tablets. For these, and similar, computing needs, I agree; for now. But times are a-changing. I noted this in my GigaOM Pro report (subscription required) just last month by explaining why the PC you buy in 3 years may not be a traditional PC.

Tablet hardware is improving quickly, which brings software innovation as app developers take advantage of more processing power and graphics capabilities. Input on tablets can be a challenge, but one look at the Asus Transformer Prime and its keyboard dock offers a glimpse of current and future solutions. Remote desktop solutions abound and some, such as OnLive, don?t even require you to have your own PC; you simply connect to one in the cloud.

Simply put: Mobile devices are enabling new economies, opportunities and functions we couldn?t envision just a handful of years ago. Ignore this trend and you?re sure to think that there?s no way tablets could ever outsell PCs, let alone do so within the next two years. Look at the next generation embracing tablets, however, and you start to see that the idea isn?t so far-fetched after all.

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Looks like Bloom Energy is behind Apple’s
massive fuel cell farm

post from Apple on 02 March 2012 11:03:21 AM. © Apple

I’ve heard from a couple sources that fuel cell maker Bloom Energy is the supplier behind Apple’s planned massive 5 MW fuel cell farm to be built at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. However, neither Bloom Energy nor Apple would comment on any potential deal. I’ve also heard that Apple already has a few Bloom fuel cells running on its campus.

But it would make sense if Bloom is involved. Last month, Apple unveiled that it planned to build one of the largest fuel cell farms at its data center in North Carolina. The planned 5 MW fuel cell farm is supposed to run on biogas (methane from organic waste) when installed, according to Apple. Bloom’s fuel cells are large boxes that suck up oxygen on one side and fuel (natural gas or biogas) on the other to produce power. That means that with the fuel cells (and a solar array that will be built) Apple’s data center will have a source of cleaner distributed power that isn’t coming from the local utility via the grid.

Bloom offers boxes capable of supplying 100 kW, which could translate into 50 Bloom Boxes being installed at Apple’s data center. Bloom has been in negotiations for similarly large-sized deals in the past, such as its negotiations in Delaware to build a 30 MW fuel cell farm (300 Bloom Boxes), and it has already installed 12 Bloom Boxes at Adobe’s campus in San Jose, Calif.

Apple is also touting the fact that its fuel cells will be run on biogas, and Bloom has substantial experience selling biogas-based fuel cells. Both Adobe and eBay are running their Bloom fuel cells on biogas. Bloom has also been the go-to fuel cell maker for Internet, telecom and computing giants’ experiments with fuel cells.

There are only a few fuel cell companies that even have the capacity to be in the running for such a deal. Beyond Bloom, there’s UTC Power, a division of United Technologies, one of the older fuel cell makers. UTC Power sells a 400 kW phosphoric acid fuel cell and says it has sold 50 of these 400 kW units to customers worldwide since 2009, according to its 2011 annual report. If you divide up Apple’s planned 5 MW (5,000 kW) fuel cell farm into UTC’s 400 kW integrals, you get 12.5 fuel cells — the math doesn’t exactly work.

FuelCell Energy could also be behind the deal, but FuelCell Energy tells me that “Apple is not a customer at present and there is not an FCE plant operating at the Cupertino facility.”

I’m not 100 percent sure of this news, but pretty sure. I’ll update this if I hear more or if I’m wrong.

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Parsing the latest rumor about Apple’s TV
plans

post from Apple on 02 March 2012 10:03:45 AM. © Apple

In a story published Thursday, the New York Post has what appears to be new evidence that Apple “plans to launch a streaming TV service by Christmas.” At first glance, it’s a pretty compelling and sensational story… But take a closer look at what the article is actually reporting, and it doesn’t seem like Apple is creating its own bundle of video channels at all.

Here are the pertinent details, as the Post lays them out:

Apple is pitching the idea of offering channels as apps for its devices, including its Apple TV set-top box.
It?s unclear whether it would group the apps together and charge a fee — similar to a cable TV subscription — or offer the channels on an a la carte basis.
Apple has tried to get cable operators to work with it to improve the accessibility and look of video services and in the process dump their clunky cable boxes in favor of sleek Apple devices.
Apple hasn?t given up, however, and is said to be pursuing deals with telecom companies such as Verizon and AT&T. It hopes to get traction with a single player in hopes of pulling the rest of them along.

Frankly, I don’t know who the Post’s sources are, but putting aside the sensationalist lead paragraphs, based solely on the supporting evidence provided by the story, it doesn’t appear that Apple is actually building out a streaming service of its own. What it sounds like to me is that Apple’s Eddie Cue has been meeting with executives from content owners and distributors — the networks and the cable and IPTV companies — and trying to get them to build apps for the next generation of its Apple TV products.

Even look at some of the supporting quotes from media executives in the NY Post story:

?They want everything for nothing,? said [one] media executive.
?They want to create the interface, and they wanted to work with the cable guys to manage bandwidth across the TV and broadband pipeline,? said [another] source familiar with the talks.

If that’s the case, Apple’s plans for TV services seem to be not all that different from how it’s partnered with content owners for the iPad or other mobile devices built on iOS. It wants content providers to create apps for its platform — for free — with it controlling the interface and how users access and navigate the content.

All of this has been reported to different degrees in the past, including stories in Bloomberg and The Globe and Mail in which Apple has been in discussions with operators about partnering to bring their live and on-demand TV services onto its video platform. (I wrote about why it would do so in this post.)

The key bit of tension here appears to be that the networks and distributors expect Apple to license their content for a new range of TV devices. They don’t want to build free apps that would help Apple sell devices and could potentially cannibalize their broadcast and cable TV audiences. And they’re also probably not very keen on Apple’s “apps as channels” plan, in which they would lose control over how their content is browsed or navigated, or how it would likely be displayed on the TV alongside apps from streaming video services like Netflix.

But all of that is a whole different story from what the Post — and others — are implying when they say Apple is “pushing ahead” with its video ambitions. There’s no real supporting evidence in the article to suggest that Apple is looking to build a bundled streaming service of its own, just that it’s trying to corral content owners and distributors into making their content available as apps.

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Shedding light on mobile marketing

post from prMac on 02 March 2012 09:45:00 AM. © prMac

How does a mobile app reaches the top of the AppStore? How do you stand out from the tens of thousands games available? This is what Molecube asked itself a few days away from launching its fourth game, Justin Mac Fart. By launching the blog "The Experiment", they are exposing the other side of the coin by applying strategies popularized by marketing experts and benchmarking their efficiencies. By shedding light on its creative and marketing process, Molecube is aiming for total transparency.

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A free-to-play game Farm Up! HD gets more
user-friendly than ever

post from prMac on 02 March 2012 09:45:00 AM. © prMac

Farm Up! HD gets an update that makes farming in the 1930's America even more smooth and fun. From the very release date the game has enjoyed the attention it was given by the casual gamers' community. It currently holds a 4.5-star rating on the App Store and the developers' team closely works with the feedback from gamers. The results of this communication are introduced in the 1.03 patch released today.

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Physics Game Troll Blaster Available for Free for
Limited Time

post from prMac on 02 March 2012 09:44:00 AM. © prMac

Mobile software firm eMobiSoft Inc. has made their smash hit game Troll Blaster free for a limited time. In Troll Blaster, the player fires a strategically selected weapon onto a structure containing evil trolls. Players progress by killing all trolls. Version 1.1 offers new in-app purchases for 'Grenade Power' which allows players to add one grenade to any and all levels at any time and more. The game is very challenging so for some of our players this will allow them to gain a bit of an edge.

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Pixowl's Popular Safari Party Game Adds New
Multiplayer Mode

Pixowl is pleased to announce the addition of an exciting new multiplayer mode for Safari Party, its popular iOS puzzle game. The new mode allows up to eight players from across the globe to challenge each other at the same time, in a frantic, two-minute contest to see who can set the highest score while trying to disturb their opponents by sending to their screen devastating tornados. The inclusion of Safari Party's multiplayer mode is the result of a partnership between Pixowl and Nextpeer.

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Math flowers for mommy - amazing math tilt game
for kids

Math: Flowers for Mommy is a fun tilt game and educational app in one. With this app kids will learn math addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The game has 12 fun and challenging math levels. Tilt the device to move bike left or right and pick certain flower shapes and colors and after that complete the level to solve math expression. A joyful girl character, colorful levels, music and interesting sound effects make learning fun, engaging and memorable.

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Econ Technologies Updates ChronoSync and
ChronoAgent

Econ Technologies updates ChronoSync to version 4.3.1 and ChronoAgent for Mac to version 1.3.1. This maintenance release contains a few fixes and follows the successful release of ChronoSync version 4.3. ChronoSync is the automated synchronization and backup application for Mac OS X and ChronoAgent for Mac is a utility that runs on the destination Mac and communicates directly with ChronoSync. If you're synchronizing two Macs, then the combination of ChronoSync and ChronoAgent is the answer.

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