Could cable cutters give TiVo a second life?
Hulu Plus is now (finally) available for TiVo premiere, which puts me about 10 steps closer to pulling cable's plug and going over-the-air and digital downloads/streaming -- that is if fraking AT&T Internet doesn't cap my bandwidth first.
Hulu popped the announcement this morning for the second time since September. But it's no foolie this go around. Hulu Plus really is available for TiVo Premiere.
What does Apple Store 2.0 look like?
The retail experience looks nothing like the rumors, and certainly not two dot oh. But it's two dot something. The shopping experience is different, for sure. Basically, every product in Apple Store now has its own iPad bearing additional information, interactively. The paper placards are gone. I thought Apple couldn't make enough iPad 2s to sell, so why fill more than 300 stores with them? Say, won't the iPads get kind of hot under their plexiglass enclosures?
My teenage daughter and I trucked down to Fashion Valley Mall here in San Diego early this evening to shop for my wife's birthday, which gave me chance to look inside the Apple Store. After weeks of rumors, supposition and innuendo, Apple launched its new retail experience today. Several Mac sites had dubbed the retail makeover Apple Store 2.0. I saw sales associates carting around iPads, and then there were the aforementioned iPads beneath every product in the store (as you can see from the photos above and below).
Apple would be nothing without its retail stores
Well, Apple would be much less than it is today. Much less. The more than 300 retail stores allow Apple to take risks that other tech companies can't, and lets new customers -- the majority Windows PC users -- take chances on Macs and iOS products, too. The stores also nurture a vibrant ecosystem of software and peripherals that might not be there without the stores. Related, Apple learns lessons from the retail shops it extends to its virtual iTunes and Mac OS applications stores. Apple Store may be the smartest thing ever done by the company. The retail stores enable Apple to build better products.
Apple takes a Big Risk on Retail
Can Apple stop the Android Army's advances?
Apple cannot win the smartphone wars, but it could dramatically slow Android's advances by taking a dramatic risk to its handset margins: offer a $99 iPhone 4 available globally, following iPhone 5's release. Such an aggressive pricing strategy could be enough of what Apple needs to win the mobile platform wars.
3GS: Model for Success
Microsoft jumps ahead of Apple with big back-to-school promo
Microsoft can't wait for the Class of 2011 to graduate before offering a sweet back-to-school Windows PC deal for the next group of students. Perhaps somebody decided to get in front of Apple's yearly Mac promotion offering free iPods to its customers. Either way, the dueling promos, assuming Apple's comes as expected, will be much bigger than the giveaways. The promotions represent a showdown of younger consumers' digital lifestyles around gaming.
"Starting May 22nd for a limited time, we are bringing students a very special offer. When students buy a Windows 7 PC over $699, they will receive a free Xbox 360," blogs Microsoft's Kristina Libby. That's the 4GB model, which retails for $199.99.
Android conquers the world -- tough luck Apple
You simply can't trust analyst predictions. Today, Gartner reported that Android passed Symbian for first-quarter in smartphone shipments and market share. That's sooner than some analyst forecasts, while later than others.
More than 36 million Android handsets sold during the quarter compared to 27.6 million Symbian phones, for 36 percent and 27.4 percent market share, respectively. Apple's iOS ranked third, with 16.9 million sales and 16.8 percent market share. Unlike most other analyst firms, like IDC, Gartner measures actual handset sales rather than shipments to carriers and dealers.
Xbox update adds PayPal, hopefully no bricks
Today, Microsoft announced that the latest Xbox 360 system "Spring" update is immediately available, on a rolling out basis. So some lucky gamers will get the update today, while others will have to wait. They're lucky as long as the update doesn't, ah, brick their consoles.
Microsoft's Major Nelson (aka Larry Hryb) formally announced the update, which will allow "U.S. and international Xbox Live users to make purchases on their Xbox 360 consoles with their PayPal accounts." Well, almost internationally. PayPal won't be available in more than a dozen countries: Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan. That includes most of the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia and India. In other words, if you live in three of the four largest emerging markets, Xbox Live and PayPal aren't for you.
Which Windows 8 version will you buy?
That's a question many customers may ask, if a report from Bloomberg proves to be right: There will be at least five Windows 8 editions -- four for ARM processors. Bloomberg quotes Intel's Renee James, from a presentation given earlier today. It's not exactly Intel's place to be revealing Microsoft Windows versioning plans, which is reason enough to question the claims. But, hey, the duopoly is called Wintel for a reason.
Microsoft has already announced that the next Windows version will support ARM processors. So it's unsurprising that Windows 8 might fork down separate ARM and x86 paths. For the purpose of this story, I'm calling it Windows 8. But Microsoft hasn't announced or seriously hinted at the nomenclature. You can take the name or leave it.
Chrome OS is only a failure to people living in the past
Point-Counterpont. In the second of two posts about Google's cloud-connected operating system and Chromebook, Joe Wilcox argues that PC defenders are an unimaginative lot living in the past. He refutes Larry Seltzer's morning commentary: "I'll take Windows and a good browser over Chrome OS."
I'll be the first to admit that laptops running Chrome OS aren't for everyone. But they're for many more people than my colleague Larry Seltzer suggests. He argues that a Google OS-powered notebook is "defined not by what it can do but by what it does not do; there's nothing that a Chromebook can do that a Windows notebook running Chrome browser cannot." The same reasoning could easily apply to smartphones, tablets, televisions and other high-tech devices running an operating system and web browser. Yet consumers and businesses use these devices in droves. Context often defines what's good enough, and that's missing from most Chrome OS criticisms.
The Qik and the dead
Can it only be a week ago that Microsoft announced an agreement to buy Skype for a stunning $8.5 billion? The investment group selling Skype will make more than $5 billion on its September 2009 investment -- pay off that is sure to send venture capitalist vultures circling around the craziest Silicon Valley startups. But there's a cautionary tale -- a troubling backstory: The fate of Qik.
It's a far too common story, and Microsoft has been there before: Somebody buys a tech company that recently acquired a smaller one, which gets lost in the acquisition. Skype bought Qik in January for around $100 million. Qik's fate is perhaps the great uncertainty in the Skype acquisition, and none of the companies involved will say anything during the quiet period between regulatory approval and the deal closing.
What was the first Apple Store like?
Ten years ago today, I stepped into the world of Apple retail. Company CEO Steve Jobs hosted a group of journalists to see the first Apple Store, which opened at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Va., on May 19, 2001. It was a strange gathering if for no other reason than timing. Recession gripped the country, Apple had reported several consecutive quarterly losses and Gateway was in process of shuttering 40 stores (and would eventually close them all). Apple Store didn't fit.
Apple Store Understated
Happy day! Playstation Network is back up -- well, almost
Is the waiting finally over, or is Sony making more promises? Today, the entertainment giant announced partial PlayStation Network restoration, after a 24-day self-inflicted outage. PSN is being restored in Europe and the United States and, at that, on a rolling basis. This evening, I downloaded the necessary PS3 firmware update necessary to access PSN only to be confronted by that nasty "PlayStation Network is undergoing maintenance" screen, now in dark gray instead of the previous grim green. However, before posting the service went live.
In a video message announcing PSN's return, Sony Representative Corporate Executive Officer and Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai says that PSN, Qriocity, and third-party services like Hulu and Netflix are being "restored in phases, and I'm pleased to say that the first phase has been launched in most regions of the world." He claims that Sony has been "working around the clock" to bring gaming and media services "back online."
Don't believe the hype: PS3 users aren't switching to Xbox 360
Yesterday, Edge reported that the PlayStation Network outage is negatively affecting PS3, with gamers trading in their consoles -- half for cash, the rest for Xbox 360. Today, the story is being picked up everywhere, it seems, and repeated as gospel. One problem: Edge's report is largely about the United Kingdom (there was one Belgian retailer quoted). What about the United States? Based on a massive poll conducted by Betanews and random calls to a half-dozen GameStops, there is no evidence of mass consumer exodus from PlayStation 3 to Xbox 360 -- at least in the States.
The Problem at Hand
Who is dropping Dropbox over terms-of-service changes?
Not surprisingly, Dropbox's recent ToS changes have upset many users. In late April, I posted a poll asking people to describe their reaction to changes that would allow law enforcement access to some subscribers' Dropboxes. About 71 percent of respondents are unhappy with the changes.
The ToS revision was unexpected. Before the change, the service boasted that "Dropbox employees are unable to view user files." Now it's "Dropbox cooperates with United States law enforcement when it receives valid legal process, which may require Dropbox to provide the contents of your private Dropbox." Essentially, Dropbox strips off encryption when the cops come asking for access to specific user files -- or at least I should hope specific instead of broad fishing expeditions.
Chrome OS: The ghost of Netscape rises to haunt Microsoft
Google's Chromebook announcement couldn't have been more timely, for its irony. Yesterday, during Google I/O, the company gave Chrome OS its big official debut and set June 15 as launch date for the first Chromebooks -- from Acer and Samsung. Today, Microsoft antitrust oversight ends -- a decade after an appeals court upheld most of the claims against the company while throwing out a remedy threatening breakup into two entities. Chrome OS and Microsoft's U.S. antitrust problems are strangely linked, as the ghost of Netscape rises from the grave to haunt the company cofounded by Bill Gates. Google couldn't have successfully developed Chrome OS, if not for government oversight.
History of an Antitrust Case
Joe's Bio
Joe Wilcox is BetaNews executive editor. His motto: Change the rules. Joe is a former CNET News staff writer, JupiterResearch senior analyst, and Ziff Davis Enterprise Microsoft Watch editor.
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