Head of Time Warner Cable: Im not sure I know
what AirPlay is

post from Daring Fireball on 14 May 2012 03:02:55 PM. © Daring Fireball

Brian X. Chen, writing for the NYT Bits blog:

AirPlay, a software tool included with Apple?s iPads and iPhones,is widely viewed as being potentially disruptive to the cableindustry, because it makes it easy for people to view a broadvariety of Internet content on a television. Time Warner Cable?sleader, however, hasn?t heard of it.

Zero surprise.

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http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/time-warner-apple-tv-airplay/

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HP Restarts Tablet Manufacturing

post from Daring Fireball on 14 May 2012 03:02:55 PM. © Daring Fireball

Suchit Leesa-nguansuk, reporting for The Bangkok Post:

Hewlett-Packard has announced it will resume production ofconsumer tablets but says it will run them on Microsoft’s newWindows 8 operating system. The world’s largest technology firmsuspended its TouchPad WebOS tablet production line last year onpoor sales.
Restarting production is a strategic move aimed at capitalising onthe extraordinary growth in tablet sales, chief executive MegWhitman said yesterday at the Global Influencer Summit 2012.

Extraordinary growth in tablet sales, or extraordinary growth in iPad sales?

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-mct-hp-restarts-tablet-manufacturing-2
0120510,0,269117.story

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Anatomy of an iTV Rumor

post from Daring Fireball on 14 May 2012 03:02:55 PM. © Daring Fireball

Philip Elmer-DeWitt debunks the latest round of “confirmation” of an Apple-branded TV set:

What none of these reporters mentioned (or apparently bothered toconsider) is that Gou — whose factories assemble 40% of theworld’s electronic devices — is one of the industry’s mostsecretive executives. He is privy to the future product plans ofthe most valuable electronics brands — not just Apple, but alsoSony, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and the rest. He is trusted byhis business partners because he never leaks their secrets.
Given how jealously Apple guards its own secrets, and howrelentlessly it pursues those who spill them, what are the chancesthat Gou would say anything — ever — about an unannounced Appleproduct, real or imagined?
I’d say, nil.

Exactly. Too many people don’t even think before regurgitating this stuff.

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Read The Full Article:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/05/14/anatomy-of-an-itv-rumor/

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Looks like iCloud will get some big upgrades at
WWDC

post from Apple on 14 May 2012 02:04:13 PM. © Apple

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple will announce it is adding new photo and video syncing services to iCloud at its June developers’ conference, something it’s heard from unnamed sources that are “familiar with the matter.”

These improvements are said to include the ability to not just sync photos across devices, but also to share photos and albums outside of Photostream, and allow others to comment on the photos.

Videos will apparently get some iCloud love too: Right now Photostream only syncs photos between Macs, iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. According to the Journal’s report, videos will also have the ability to be synced through Photostream or something similar.

These iCloud improvements are said to be part of the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 6, which will be previewed for developers at the show – just as 9to5Mac said last week in its report on Apple’s plans for its own mobile mapping service.

It’s remarkable how quickly Apple has moved to build up its iCloud services, particularly for a company that previously hasn’t had much success with networked services. Apple CEO Tim Cook has embraced iCloud, calling it “a strategy for the next decade,” and users have responded by signing up in droves: iCloud was introduced at the same developer conference last year and as of April, Apple said more than 125 million customers had signed up for it.

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http://gigaom.com/apple/looks-like-icloud-will-get-some-big-upgrades-at-wwdc/

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DishPal - Delicious SNS Becomes the Essential
Networking App

post from prMac on 14 May 2012 01:25:00 PM. © prMac

DishPal, a food social network service created by SK Planet for iPhone, has made it into the category Social Networking Essentials on the App Store. Once launched DishPal got also mentioned in both "New & Noteworthy" and "What's hot" sections on the App Store in over 100 countries worldwide. DishPal contains a number of features that make it worth trying. It allows you to share favorite food photos with friends, take part in a round the clock virtual potluck party and socialize.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-42696.htm

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Dotland Game Updated - The Popular Puzzle Game
Adds More Levels

post from prMac on 14 May 2012 01:05:00 PM. © prMac

UK Design Centre Limited is announcing today the release and immediate availability of the updated version of Dotland Game for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Dotland is a new creation of the long-standing turn-based puzzle game that has been around for eon years. The update includes more challenging levels to the popular game. Dotland is a highly addictive squares game where players can enjoy several innovative levels. The players are presented with a grid of dots, which connect by turn.

Read The Full Article:
http://prmac.com/release-id-42695.htm

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Choose your Favorite Fonts in Suitcase Fusion

post from Manage This on 14 May 2012 01:03:21 PM. © Manage This

[...]

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http://blog.extensis.com/font-management/choose-your-favorite-fonts-in-suitcase-f
usion.php

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Superstacks: How consumers trade convenience for
choice

post from Apple on 14 May 2012 01:03:19 PM. © Apple

Are you an Apple or an Android person? This common question underscores a fundamental truth to how consumers buy and choose hardware and services online today. To the big two players we might also add Amazon and Microsoft, as the purveyors of what an Accenture report out today calls a “superstack.”

The consulting firm dubs the combination of hardware (even down to the silicon) and operating system as well as services and software a “superstack.” The focus of the report is the spread of this “superstack” concept from the mobile and consumer world over to the enterprise, especially as it relates to cloud services. But the concept hit me at a personal level, especially since yesterday I received an iPad for Mother’s Day. My first reaction was tepid since we already have an iPad and I don’t buy my content from Apple or use its services. (Seriously I have gone at least four years without remembering my iTunes password, and only my recent receipt of a MacBook Air with the Mac App Store forced me to finally get back on board and update my credit card.)

Too many platforms and not enough time.

Instead I’ve spent my time on Google’s Android “superstack” and buying and keeping my content on Amazon’s “superstack.” Apple’s place in this universe was as a provider of beautiful, lightweight hardware with a battery that lasted for almost a whole day. But with the iPad I’m suddenly back in the position where I have to make an effort to move my Amazon content off its cloud and onto my hard drive and into iTunes if I want to consume it on the iPad. And on the movie front I can’t actually download content from Amazon or Google Play, and must go to the Apple store.

Suddenly I’m stuck having to ask myself what movies or music or apps do I want to use or play and then decide the device I need in order to play them. And that is the truth of the superstack. The entire point is to circumvent the openness that the Internet and the digitization of content has enabled and once again lock consumers into a single platform for their content determined in part by the hardware they choose. And yes, I am aware that I can spend time transferring unprotected content between platforms and can download apps to help me use Gtalk on a Mac for example, but for many consumers this is too much: consumers trade convenience for choice.

Superstacks are everywhere in the new economy.

And it’s not only happening at the device and cloud layer. The creation of “superstack” services, where one predominant player controls an entire field, occurs all over the web today. There, the tools for lock-in aren’t agreements struck with content owners and different OSes, but access to data and the limits placed on APIs. For example, your attention is Facebook’s most valuable asset, so it strikes deals to let folks access it and can play kingmaker for a variety of apps. Meanwhile and Twitter guards those who can access its API well. And there will be plenty of others rising up to own various platforms on the web in travel, payments, games, coupons, etc.

There’s another large area where superstacks are developing, which I find to be the most problematic, and that’s between the Internet providers and the content industries. So Comcast’s ownership of NBC-Universal and its access to Hulu is troublesome. Even if an ISP doesn’t own a content company directly, the ties and influence the pay TV side of their business exerts over its broadband access business can be a problem. That’s why companies such as AT&T, Cox and Charter are joining Comcast in implementing broadband caps.

Somehow, we’ve moved from locking customers into proprietary systems using hardware as was done in the old Bell and IBM days to building proprietary systems using operating systems, control over data and access to content. As is generally the case, the consumer tends to value convenience over choice, until the choice outside the walled garden looks better than what’s inside (see TiVo). The challenge for any of these companies is to make sure it’s options still appeal to consumers even if it means co-opting the innovations occurring outside the wall (again, see TiVo and video on demand), while building its walls as high as possible.

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http://gigaom.com/2012/05/14/superstacks-how-consumers-trade-convenience-for-choi
ce/

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Gina Trapani on Brogrammer Culture

Gina Trapani:

That’s one small way brogrammer culture is actually useful. It’s ared flag for women engineers, product developers, designers,project managers, marketers, business development and PRspecialists. It says: This is a company that you’d want to avoid.

Agree completely, but I’d go further and say it’s a red flag for anyone, regardless of their gender or job.

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Read The Full Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/10/opinion/trapani-brogrammer-culture/

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Drawing Bad Conclusions

Peter Kafka, reporting on some video-watching numbers from Freewheel, an online video ad company:

More evidence that Microsoft is increasing its lead in the digitalliving room race: Data that shows its Xbox gaming console is themost popular non-PC device to watch Web video. That is, morepeople are watching Web stuff on Microsoft?s machine than on theiPad, iPhone or any Android machine, anywhere. And when it comesto home viewing, competitors like Apple TV, Google TV and Roku areso far behind they?re not even competitors.

That Xbox is proving to be a popular — and growing — platform for video is interesting. But there’s no use comparing it to Apple TV based on Freewheel’s data, because, as Kafka himself points out in his next paragraph:

Now the asterisks: Freewheel is only measuring ?professionalcontent? that runs with ads, because that?s how it makes itsliving. So that means it?s counting stuff from companies like NBC,CBS, ESPN and Vevo, but not YouTube cat videos. It?s also notmeasuring Netflix usage. On the other hand, this isn?t a poll orsample, but data compiled by the company?s own ad servers.

So the reason Apple TV doesn’t show up in Freewheel’s data is because it doesn’t show any ad-backed video. Freewheel’s data isn’t about online video watching — it’s specifically about ad-backed online video watching. It may well be that Xbox is used for more aggregate video watching than Apple TV, but you can’t make such a comparison using Freewheel’s data.

And it shows you how much ground Google will need to make up as itgets ready to relaunch its Google TV. Ditto for Apple, if and whenit ever gets serious about transforming Apple TV into somethingother than a ?hobby.?

Again, Apple TV is irrelevant to any discussion based on Freewheel’s data. And as for making up ground, iOS devices account for 57 percent of Freewheel’s reported usage — double Xbox’s share.

Assuming Freewheel’s data is both accurate and relevant, the conclusion we should draw from it is that iPhone/iPad/iPod iOS devices dominate post-PC ad-based video watching, Xbox is second with half iOS’s share, and Android is a distant third with half-again Xbox’s share. Kafka somehow draws the conclusion that Xbox is winning and Apple TV is way out in crickets-chirping territory.

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Read The Full Article:
http://allthingsd.com/20120510/microsofts-sneaky-success-the-xbox-is-the-most-pop
ular-video-player-in-the-u-s/

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