Apple trying to store your video in the cloud
Apple has told the studios that under the plan, iTunes users will access video from various Internet-connected devices. Apple would, of course, prefer that users access video from the iPad, the company's upcoming tablet computer, the sources said. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Apple doesn't comment on rumors or speculation. The news comes a month after Apple spoke to the major record companies about a similar plan involving music.Apple's vision is to build proverbial digital shelves where iTunes users store their media, one of the sources, adding "basically, they want to eliminate the hard drive."By cramming digital songs, videos, and all manner of software applications on computers and handheld devices, there's some indication that consumers are maxing out hard drives, particularly on smaller mobile devices. That has led to speculation among Apple watchers that some consumers might slow their purchasing of new content, if they have nowhere to easily put it.It's a bit of leap to reach that conclusion,certainly when a stagnant economy might be hampering sales, but there are some worrisome signs. The NPD Group reported last week that the number of people who legally downloaded songsdropped by nearly a million, from 35.2 million in 2008 to 34.6 million last year.Screen Digest, a research firm that focuses on the entertainment industry, on Monday said growth in movie downloads slowed dramatically in 2009, following sharp increases in the two prior years. Screen Digest had projected that total U.S. online movie sales for 2009 would come in at about $360 million, but the total reached only $291 million, the company said. "(Apple) just doesn't have the leverage it once did. Apple can't dictate terms or position itself as a digital savior."--James McQuivey, Forrester analyst Before iTunes users can store their movies and TV shows in Apple's cloud, the company must get the studios to sign on. This may not be easy. The studios want to make sure that Apple's plans play nice with non-Apple devices and services. Hollywood isn't interested in any walled gardens, said James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research."The studios are very concerned that they're going to get roped into somebody's proprietary platform," McQuivey said. "They want a world where consumers have a relationship with the content, and not with the device or the service. They are in a position to force Apple to go along and make sure that content bought [via] iTunes will play on a Nokia phone. That is very un-Apple-like."The upper hand in Hollywood"Apple would prefer not to do this," McQuivey continued. "But it just doesn't have the leverage it once did. Apple can't dictate terms or position itself as a digital savior." The reason that Apple doesn't wield the same power over the film and TV industries that it did with music is that more players are willing to give the studios what they want. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE, is a consortium of heavy-hitting media stakeholders lining up to create standards for file formats, digital rights management, and authentication technologies. The group includes Adobe Systems, Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Lions Gate Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Microsoft, Netflix, Panasonic, the four largest recording companies (Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, and Warner Music Group), Samsung, Sony, and Warner Bros. Entertainment. DECE's goal is to make sure that a movie or TV show bought from Comcast's video service will play on Samsung devices or on Netflix's service. Not all the studios have joined. Walt Disney has create a DECE-like service called KeyChest, which is supposed to be DECE-compatible. Applying more pressure on Apple is Google, one of its main rivals. Google, obviously, has YouTube. It's also eyeing some start-ups with cloud technology to beef up its streaming services.Two weeks ago, sources told CNET that Google had informal acquisition talks withCatch Media, a Los Angeles company that wants to become a clearinghouse of sorts, in which consumers move media around the Web, and Catch handles the permissions and licensing. So what's Apple's answer to the Google threat? Apple is building a new data center in North Carolina that, according to reports, will be the backbone of its streaming offerings. In December, Apple bought Lala, a struggling music service with an expertise in cloud computing. Google was also trying to acquire the company, but Apple outbid Google.The one thing that could help Apple pull away from Google and hand it more clout with the studios and TV networks, is if iPad catches on with consumers. The Web-enabled computer tablet, which is due to hit store shelves later this month, features a 9.7-inch display screen and can play back video at up to 720p resolution, the sources said. If consumers start buying video to watch on the iPad, Hollywood could soften its stance on standards. But McQuivey says Apple can't create any proprietary formats, at this point. "Apple can't suddenly make the iPad a closed environment," he said. "Apple is not in any position to refuse to limit its customers' choices. By pioneering (the apps), Apple is stuck doing what's right for consumers."
Microsoft's desktop future may look like a phone
Microsoft's desktop future may look like a phone
It is precisely this fuzziness that offers Google and Apple a chance to get a leg up on Microsoft, but is also why Microsoft may be able to cement its lead.Google is clear about its aims: it wants to get users into a browser as fast as possible. Why? Because the more we use the Web, the more likely it is that we'll bump into Google's revenue-generating services. While this started as a PC initiative for Google with the Chrome OS, the Chrome browser, and other projects, Google has kicked it into hyperdrive with its increasingly popular Android mobile operating system.Apple, for its part, is equally clear about its aims: it wants to get users into iTunes or its App Store. Why? Because for all the money it makes on hardware like Macs and the iPhone, Internet-scale revenues derive from such services that aggregate and distribute digital goods. Apple's strategy is bidirectional: its Macs drive adoption of iPhones, and the iPhone drives sales of Macs.But mobile is what makes it hum.Microsoft, however, has been less clear about its aims, particularly with the traditional desktop. It wants people on Windows...why? Well, because Microsoft earns a license fee for every copy of Windows sold./p>This has historically been a home-run strategy, but it may be a decreasingly defensible revenue model in a world conditioned by the Web (and Google) to expect software to be free.;p>Neither of its primary competitors charges for the OS, which will eventually call into question Microsoft's practice of doing so.Of course, Apple's OS X can't be easily divorced from Apple's hardware, making it arguably a much more expensive OS than Microsoft ever dreamed of selling.But Google? It's serious about giving away Microsoft's business.Is Microsoft doomed?Of course not. Any company with billions in profit each quarter can afford to spend its way into a winning strategy.Microsoft has already sold 90 million copies of Windows 7, suggesting that its demise will be greatly exaggerated for some time to come, especially as its market share is again on the upswing with Windows 7.Even so, I suspect the future of Microsoft's "desktop" OS business is going the same direction as Apple's and Google's: mobile.Mobile gives Microsoft a fresh start with lots of room to grow.It also gives it an effective way to extend its brand into others' platforms, as its Bing search growth on Apple's iPhone could signal, while simultaneously letting Microsoft experiment with new business models that don't threaten its traditional licensing-based model (as cloud computing does for its server and "desktop" businesses). Perhaps most importantly, and this is equally true for both Google and Apple for their respective environments, mobile allows Microsoft to innovate the Windows user experience.Apple has started to extend the iPhone experience with its iPad, and I suspect we'll see Microsoft do the same with Windows Phone 7.Microsoft's consumer and enterprise customers will have little appetite for a radically changed "desktop" experience...unless they first grow accustomed to it on their phones.For each of these three major OS vendors, the nature of the OS, and its associated business models, is changing rapidly.Mobile, however, holds the key to each company's growth, and may signal convergence on a new way of monetizing an OS: app stores, advertising, and other online services.But all delivered on a mobile device that looks less and less like a phone and more and more like a PC...without actually being one.
It is precisely this fuzziness that offers Google and Apple a chance to get a leg up on Microsoft, but is also why Microsoft may be able to cement its lead.Google is clear about its aims: it wants to get users into a browser as fast as possible. Why? Because the more we use the Web, the more likely it is that we'll bump into Google's revenue-generating services. While this started as a PC initiative for Google with the Chrome OS, the Chrome browser, and other projects, Google has kicked it into hyperdrive with its increasingly popular Android mobile operating system.Apple, for its part, is equally clear about its aims: it wants to get users into iTunes or its App Store. Why? Because for all the money it makes on hardware like Macs and the iPhone, Internet-scale revenues derive from such services that aggregate and distribute digital goods. Apple's strategy is bidirectional: its Macs drive adoption of iPhones, and the iPhone drives sales of Macs.But mobile is what makes it hum.Microsoft, however, has been less clear about its aims, particularly with the traditional desktop. It wants people on Windows...why? Well, because Microsoft earns a license fee for every copy of Windows sold./p>This has historically been a home-run strategy, but it may be a decreasingly defensible revenue model in a world conditioned by the Web (and Google) to expect software to be free.;p>Neither of its primary competitors charges for the OS, which will eventually call into question Microsoft's practice of doing so.Of course, Apple's OS X can't be easily divorced from Apple's hardware, making it arguably a much more expensive OS than Microsoft ever dreamed of selling.But Google? It's serious about giving away Microsoft's business.Is Microsoft doomed?Of course not. Any company with billions in profit each quarter can afford to spend its way into a winning strategy.Microsoft has already sold 90 million copies of Windows 7, suggesting that its demise will be greatly exaggerated for some time to come, especially as its market share is again on the upswing with Windows 7.Even so, I suspect the future of Microsoft's "desktop" OS business is going the same direction as Apple's and Google's: mobile.Mobile gives Microsoft a fresh start with lots of room to grow.It also gives it an effective way to extend its brand into others' platforms, as its Bing search growth on Apple's iPhone could signal, while simultaneously letting Microsoft experiment with new business models that don't threaten its traditional licensing-based model (as cloud computing does for its server and "desktop" businesses). Perhaps most importantly, and this is equally true for both Google and Apple for their respective environments, mobile allows Microsoft to innovate the Windows user experience.Apple has started to extend the iPhone experience with its iPad, and I suspect we'll see Microsoft do the same with Windows Phone 7.Microsoft's consumer and enterprise customers will have little appetite for a radically changed "desktop" experience...unless they first grow accustomed to it on their phones.For each of these three major OS vendors, the nature of the OS, and its associated business models, is changing rapidly.Mobile, however, holds the key to each company's growth, and may signal convergence on a new way of monetizing an OS: app stores, advertising, and other online services.But all delivered on a mobile device that looks less and less like a phone and more and more like a PC...without actually being one.
Apple's WWDC keynote- What we didn't get
Apple's WWDC keynote: What we didn't get
It seems like every Apple event comes with an increasingly large dose of sparkling hype, and plenty of supposedly imminent announcements end up not happening.This year's Tim Cook keynote speech at WWDC had its share of big news, and plenty of excitement -- iOS 6, Retina Display MacBook Pros -- but here's what wasn't there.Related storiesComplete WWDC 2012 coverageApple's WWDC news: New MacBook Pros, iOS 6, upgraded SiriFirst take: MacBook Pro with Retina DisplayApple unveils iOS 6 with 200 new features, Siri gets updateConsolidation of the MacBook lineYes, that Retina Display MacBook Pro is stunning and covers a lot of what I was looking for in a MacBook, but Airs and Pros still exist, and with lots of different screen sizes. Is choice confusing or welcome? I personally would have preferred the fancy Pro to be a bit more affordable.4G on a MacBookWell, there still aren't any MacBooks with built-in mobile broadband. The Retina Display MacBook Pro seemed like a shoo-in for 4G LTE, but it didn't come to pass.No new iMacs or Mac MinisThe Mac Pro got stealthily updated on Apple's Web site without a mention in the keynote speech, but the iMacs and Mac Minis are still last year's models. Best guess: news will come on those soon.Apple TV SDK/App StoreThe biggest pre-WWDC rumor fell flat on its face: Apple didn't speak a word about the Apple TV or any apps. Apple HDTV hardwareAs mentioned above, no Apple TV, and that included hardware as well as software. We knew the odds on Apple TV hardware were slim to none, and the keynote didn't pull any surprises.The next iPhoneNo one expected a new iPhone, but still: while iOS 6 was a star of the keynote, the next iPhone remained a mystery. However, iOS 6 practically offers enough new features to make an existing iPhone (3GS or later) feel new.iPad MiniWas anyone expecting this? For the sake of being a completist, this is on the list. The newest iPad remains the third-gen version that debuted in March.Update/overhaul of iTunesDo you find discovery of apps difficult? Feel frustrated by the design of iTunes? There are redesigned mobile versions of iOS content apps like the App Store in iOS 6 along with integrated Facebook recommendations, but iTunes hasn't made many changes.Anything you were expecting that didn't appear?This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.PlayApple's WWDC 2012: iOS 6, Mountain Lion,...See full gallery1 - 4 / 27NextPrev
It seems like every Apple event comes with an increasingly large dose of sparkling hype, and plenty of supposedly imminent announcements end up not happening.This year's Tim Cook keynote speech at WWDC had its share of big news, and plenty of excitement -- iOS 6, Retina Display MacBook Pros -- but here's what wasn't there.Related storiesComplete WWDC 2012 coverageApple's WWDC news: New MacBook Pros, iOS 6, upgraded SiriFirst take: MacBook Pro with Retina DisplayApple unveils iOS 6 with 200 new features, Siri gets updateConsolidation of the MacBook lineYes, that Retina Display MacBook Pro is stunning and covers a lot of what I was looking for in a MacBook, but Airs and Pros still exist, and with lots of different screen sizes. Is choice confusing or welcome? I personally would have preferred the fancy Pro to be a bit more affordable.4G on a MacBookWell, there still aren't any MacBooks with built-in mobile broadband. The Retina Display MacBook Pro seemed like a shoo-in for 4G LTE, but it didn't come to pass.No new iMacs or Mac MinisThe Mac Pro got stealthily updated on Apple's Web site without a mention in the keynote speech, but the iMacs and Mac Minis are still last year's models. Best guess: news will come on those soon.Apple TV SDK/App StoreThe biggest pre-WWDC rumor fell flat on its face: Apple didn't speak a word about the Apple TV or any apps. Apple HDTV hardwareAs mentioned above, no Apple TV, and that included hardware as well as software. We knew the odds on Apple TV hardware were slim to none, and the keynote didn't pull any surprises.The next iPhoneNo one expected a new iPhone, but still: while iOS 6 was a star of the keynote, the next iPhone remained a mystery. However, iOS 6 practically offers enough new features to make an existing iPhone (3GS or later) feel new.iPad MiniWas anyone expecting this? For the sake of being a completist, this is on the list. The newest iPad remains the third-gen version that debuted in March.Update/overhaul of iTunesDo you find discovery of apps difficult? Feel frustrated by the design of iTunes? There are redesigned mobile versions of iOS content apps like the App Store in iOS 6 along with integrated Facebook recommendations, but iTunes hasn't made many changes.Anything you were expecting that didn't appear?This content is rated TV-MA, and is for viewers 18 years or older. Are you of age?YesNoSorry, you are not old enough to view this content.PlayApple's WWDC 2012: iOS 6, Mountain Lion,...See full gallery1 - 4 / 27NextPrev
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