Entries Tagged 'Software' ↓

Daniel Eran Dilger
Inventory shortages of the iPhone appear to predict the launch of a new 3G model, long expected to be released this June around the first year anniversary of its debut. However, the rumor mill has recently kicked into overdrive to predict the arrival of another new device based on the same platform, either focused on gaming or serving as a tablet device. This is highly unlikely, for the following reasons.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft’s marketing of Windows Vista and the Zune have failed in large part due to the fact that Microsoft has not learned how to effectively sell consumer products. Consumers buy Windows and Office, but that’s because they have no choice, not because of the company’s marketing savvy. Microsoft only effectively markets its products to businesses, which represents a very different type of sales relationship.

Businesses are so used to disgorging overloaded language about facilitating and empowering that they don’t find Microsoft’s marketing of the same caliber all that difficult to swallow. Consumers are a whole ‘nother ball game, and Microsoft is striking out in efforts to reach them. This has big impacts on the company’s future prospects.

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft has been keeping awfully quiet about sales figures for its Zune, a product that many Windows Enthusiasts originally predicted would cause considerable grief for Apple’s iPod. However, despite a new model refresh last fall and plenty of advertising, Microsoft has been left to announce that its actual sales are still a joke.

According to an Associated Press article citing Jason Reindorp, Zune’s director of product marketing, the device has sold “just north of two million” between its debut in November 2006 and May 2008. Apple has sold roughly 76 million iPods during that same period, more than doubling the installed base of iPods since the Zune’s debut.

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Pitted against Microsoft’s efforts to crush Flash using its own copycat Silverlight platform, open source projects seeking to duplicate Flash for free, and Apple’s efforts to create a mobile platform wholly free of any trace of Flash, Adobe has scrambled to announce efforts to make Flash a public specification in the Open Screen Project.

Will it help get Flash on the iPhone? Here’s the first segment of a three part series with a historical overview of the wars between Flash and Adobe, Microsoft, Sun, Apple, Google, and the open source community, the problems Flash faces today, and what future Flash can hope for as an open specification.

Continues: AppleInsider | Flash Wars: Adobe in the History and Future of Flash

Incidentally, Flash was the subject of the first article I wrote on RoughlyDrafted: Flash in the Plan

Technorati Tags: Apple, History, Software

Gene Steinberg of the Tech Night Owl podcast invited me to join Bob LeVitus and Steve Kruschen on his weekly show this week. I rattle on for some time about Apple’s purchase of PA Semi and the portability of Windows versus NeXTSTEP and Mac OS X; PowerPC vs Intel x86; the vaporware of Copland, Gershwin, and Taligent compared to Vista, Windows 7, and Singularity; and Apple’s success in a slow economy. You can hear for yourself and subscribe to the Tech Night Owl RSS feed at:
The Tech Night Owl LIVE with Gene Steinberg

May 1, 2008 episode:

http://www.techbroadcasting.com/podcasts/nightowl_080501.mp3

Earlier episodes I’ve participated on:

Mar 20 08
Jan 31 08
Jan 3 08
Nov 8 07
Sep 20 07
Aug 9 07
Jun 14 07
Apr 26 07
Mar 1 07
Jan 11 07

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPod, Mac, Microsoft, Software

The next generation of iPhone appears set to claim exclusive access to advanced graphics core and video decoding technology, thanks to a secret licensing deal between Apple, mobile graphics leader Imagination Technologies, and Samsung, the iPhone’s ARM “system on a chip” manufacturer. The result may be an ideal platform for handheld gaming and high definition video playback.
Continues: Apple’s bionic ARM to muscle advanced gaming graphics into iPhones

Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi appears to fit well into the company’s plans to pioneer the development of a new WiFi mobile platform with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Apple is certainly not the only company to see the vast potential in mobile devices. The market for smartphones and mobile Internet devices is currently broad and diverse, with lots of competition both in the hardware components used and in the operating system and development platforms offered.

Today’s growth in mobile messaging and computing devices bears some similarity with the explosion of desktop personal computing in the early 80s described in the previous segment. The difference is that today there is no big equivalent to IBM threatening to enter the market; all the existing, leading competitors in mobile devices are already large and established companies.

Unlike the 1981 IBM PC, which pushed the unremarkable x86 processor and Microsoft’s copycat software ahead of superior technology, mobile devices today are being sold on their actual merits in terms of hardware and software. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone working to shoehorn the square pegs of x86 processors and Microsoft Windows software into the round hole of mobile devices. Here’s a look at the state of chips in mobiles, and how PA Semi expands the options for Apple in the mobile market.

How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History
Why Did Apple Buy PA Semi?

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Daniel Eran Dilger
Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi does not signal an entirely new direction for the company. Throughout its history, Apple has designed sophisticated custom chips for use in its computers, in addition to codeveloping complete microprocessors. According to those in the know, it appears that after acting to jettison its internal custom silicon efforts and delegate much of that work to Intel, Apple experienced some remorse and acquired PA Semi to get right back into the chip design business. Here’s a look at Apple’s history in chips, leading up to how Apple’s acquisition of PA Semi relates to the beleaguered future of Microsoft’s Windows.

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With the deluge of data hitting users in the modern age, managing piles of information has become increasingly important but also more difficult. Evernote is on its way to both the Mac and the iPhone, and promises to simplify the effort needed to catalog, tag and organize web clippings, text and handwritten notes, photos, emails, audio clippings, and more, making it easy to search and review all those bits later without having to think too hard about how to do it.
Continues: Evernote for Mac, iPhone to make managing information overload easy

Daniel Eran Dilger
Just ahead of its recession defying, record setting Q2 2008 earnings reports, Apple revealed plans to buy PA Semi, a chip designer specializing in processors based on IBM’s Power architecture. This news sparked a flurry of confusion from observers: why is Apple getting into the semiconductor business after partnering with Intel in its Mac systems, aligning with ARM licensees for its mobile WiFi iPhone platform, and particularly after decisively migrating away from PowerPC in 2006?

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