Nice new feature from Flickr. I’ve always been hesitant to tag photos at “home” due to the fact that everyone in the world can then see my home (not that most people would care — but still, a bit weird). Now it won’t be an issue. Well, if you still use Flickr, that is.
Peter Kafka notes that Apple isn’t referring to the new ability to listen to all your music on iTunes before you fully download it as “streaming”. Okay, then if this isn’t music streaming, then neither is Google Music Beta on Android. Because I have from an excellent source that it does the exact same thing.
But why do it this way and not 100% streaming? Two reasons:
1) Performance. Without caching the music, if you lose a connection, it’s game over. Music stops. That’s why all of these services cache and/or buffer to some extent, including things like Pandora.
2) Legality. You can argue semantics, but if you hit a button and a song instantly starts playing before it’s fully downloaded to your machine, that’s streaming. But if these guys call it that, that means another deal is likely required with the music labels. So instead it’s not called “streaming”, it’s called “downloading on the fly” or the like.
Update: And here’s a video showing that iOS will delete the cache after a song is done playing. Call it what you want, that’s streaming — the right way to do streaming for connection interruptions. The music does not permanently reside on your device, nor does it need to fully be there to start playing.
Under promise, over deliver.
I wonder what this could mean for a cheap cloud iPhone…
Well, this one struck a nerve. Here’s the breakdown of the reaction:
Two things:
1) I still love it when I see venom in reactions and then I look at the person’s bio and it reads: “Microsoft enthusiast and .NET software developer” or “Microsoft MVP”.
2) What’s most telling is what the Microsofties aren’t saying: “What do you mean?! That’s a great design!”
So they’re essentially saying, “We agree it sucks, but…”
There is no “but”. It’s awful. I’m sorry, it’s just awful. Compare it to anything you like. It will lose. Cable boxes have better UIs.
Update: And just to add insult to injury, how about a poll?
Yes, I’m linking to myself. I’m just still so confused. How is this seriously what Microsoft is going to release in 2012?
“Invert selection” is a default option that’s shown.
It’s not even that this is extremely cluttered, it’s just everything about it. It has to be one of the worst UIs I’ve ever seen. Period.
If Microsoft is showing this off as a trick to then “wow” everyone at their actual Windows 8 unveiling, then good on them. Otherwise, I’m left with one of two thoughts:
1) I’m an idiot and have no idea what customers want.
2) Microsoft is in serious trouble.
Groklaw:
I don’t usually like to predict outcomes on motions, but I will go out on a limb here and predict that Apple is granted the right to intervene if for no other reason than Lodsys appears to be clueless with respect to the law.
Put simply: Lodsys’ bullshit patent trolling tactic appears fucked.
I’ve always wondered this myself. Figured it was a “we’re The New York Times and you’re not” type thing. But apparently it’s much more organic.
Also briefly mentions the whole “Jobs’s” thing.
I’d say no, there is no chance of this happening.
First of all, Apple doesn’t need webOS. If they make a low-cost iPhone, it will run iOS, just like every other iPhone.
Yes, Rubinstein used to work for Apple and was one of Jobs’ closest generals for a while (he also worked for NeXT). But in recent years his actions with Palm and then HP have probably only pissed off Jobs. Now that Jobs has stepped down as CEO, I supposed Rubinstein could be a good candidate to take the COO reins from Tim Cook — but I’m not sure he’ll give them up in his new role.
Apple is now a completely different company from when Rubinstein left. For example, there was no iPhone, now the company’s key product.
Alongside Tim Cook’s appointment as CEO of Apple, the company is granting him one million RSUs. Half will vest in exactly five years from his appointment, the other half in ten years.
At Apple’s current stock price, these shares would be worth a cool $383.5 million.
For you non-math majors, this works out to roughly $38 million a year to be CEO of Apple.
As a result, I fully expect Cook to take the symbolic $1 a year in salary that Jobs himself used to take (though perhaps a nice yearly bonus too so he can live before the vesting — though he did make $59 million after his bonuses last year).
What’s nice about the RSUs is that they directly incentivize Cook to keep the stock up, which more or less means keeping performance up. Not that he’d slack off otherwise…
No surprise here. As I wrote three weeks ago when the television cloud features quietly launched:
Of course, Apple would never frame it this way, but with the emphasis now squarely back on purchases, it seems pretty safe to say that the television show rental model was a failure.
Today, Apple’s official wording is:
iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows.
Of course, that’s not the entire picture. Yes, customers preferred to buy TV shows instead of rent then — because there was a shit selection for rentals and a great one for buying.
For whatever reason, it seems Apple could not get the networks to bite in a major way on the rental model. Something tells me we’ll hear more about this in a few weeks.
The iPhone, for example, is a marvel. I remember the day I first held one in my hands. It was 2007, and I still had a day job in I.T., working for a bank here in Tampa. I had read about the iPhone on all the tech blogs, but it wasn’t until I actually saw one that I really understood how much everything had just changed. .
Another TechCrunch colleague of mine weighs in on Steve Jobs stepping down on her blog.
I can definitely relate to the iPhone aspect of the story. I walked into an Apple Store on June 29, 2007 not because I wanted an iPhone — in fact, I was sure I did not want an iPhone — but because I was curious after reading all the buzz about it.
I walked out of the Apple Store that day with my wallet $600 lighter.
I’m a little hesitant to write this post, because I worry the outpouring of emotion around Steve Jobs’ departure as Apple’s CEO might result in a strange sort of one-upsmanship, to the point that these personal anecdotes take on a saccharine quality.
Then again, it’s fucking Steve Jobs.
My TechCrunch colleague recalls a close encounter with Steve Jobs.
The one lingering question I had following Jobs’ resignation was about the timing. Normally, Apple is pretty calculated about the timing of such things (see: the news about Jobs’ liver transplant in 2009 — which had happened months prior — breaking after market close on a Friday afternoon… …a day in which Apple also released the iPhone 3GS).
A seemingly random Wednesday afternoon in August appears at first glance to be weird. Yes, it was also after market close, but the market would open the very next day. And yes, Apple is due to unveil the iPhone 5 soon — but it’s still likely weeks away. So why this Wednesday?
Peter Burrows and Josh Tyrangiel for Bloomberg Businessweek appear to answer that:
On the day of the announcement, a person close to Jobs who was not authorized to speak about his health said the outgoing CEO was in Apple’s Cupertino (Calif.) office for the entire workday and attended a regularly scheduled board meeting.
The last part is key. There was a scheduled board meeting. Jobs had to give his resignation letter to the board. He clearly wanted to do that in person. And the board also had to vote on Tim Cook as CEO and Jobs becoming Chairman.
While the initial thoughts on the weird timing may have been about Jobs’ health, various accounts have him no better or worse than in recent months (he was still on medical leave, remember).
It would seem that Jobs just figured now was the right time to formally hand the reins over to Cook — who again, has been leading Apple for months. And there just happened to be a board meeting on August 24, 2011.
