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      iPhone sales growth nearly halts

      March 12, 2010 /

      iPhone handset sales.It’s funny how one success story can send the world into a frenzy. The iPhone has been an undisputed success, gobbling up market share by the full percentage point. It’s not unstoppable, though. As the latest comScore stats show, actually, sales growth is nearly nonexistent.

      Let’s start with the good news, though. Apple is sitting at 25% market share – an incredible number for such a young presence in the market. This is the number that had everyone scared. The bad news for Apple is that it has stopped growing. Relative to the market, the last three months have only been up .3% for Apple. Compare that to RIM who’s up 1.7% on its 41.3% market share in October of last year. Android more than doubled in the last three months, granted only from 2.8% to 7.1% but that is still massive growth.

      Part of the problem is no doubt that Apple has conditioned the world to believe every summer will bring a new iPhone. If that’s not the case in 2010, we might see some very stagnant iPhone numbers before year’s end.

      Source: comScore

      iPhone, Mobile, News

      In-flight Wi-Fi becomes more popular, bans certain services

      March 11, 2010 /

      In-flight Wi-Fi.In-flight wi-fi is getting a lot more popular, as in popular enough for mass consumption. Unfortunately, that also means airlines are trying to anticipate all the ways wi-fi can be used for evil as much as it can be used to make money. It’s unfortunate because really they have no idea what they’re doing.

      Take the case of John Battelle, a happy father on a recent United Airlines flight who just wanted to say goodnight to his kids. He jumped on video chat and was promptly approached by a stewardess who told him that in-flight video chat is illegal. Illegal. Why? The terrorists of course. They could use it to coordinate an attack, you know, since video chat is the only way to communicate in-flight. Email definitely wouldn’t work. Neither would AIM. Twitter. Facebook. Ya know, I’ll stop there. No reason to beat this thing into the ground.

      Here’s an excerpt from Battelle’s blog:

      So what’s a curious guy to do? To the Internet! Which is exactly what I did. Responses starting pouring in. Including one from a pal at the State Department, who echoed my basic goal: To use video chat to tuck my kids into bed isn’t a crime. Or at least, shouldn’t be.

      The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits “two way devices” from communicating with the ground. However, the PLANE HAS WIFI. To combat this, not unlike China, United and other airlines have blocked Skype and other known video chat offenders. Apparently, they missed Apple iChat. Oops.

      Oops, indeed. You can bet this will be an ongoing battle between the airlines, our government, and the consumers, most of whom are under the impression that airlines screw them in every way possible.

      Source: Battelle Media

      Mobile

      Reading Material: The iPad rocks for content creators

      March 10, 2010 /

      iPad with iBooks.There’s been a lot of talk about the iPad and its potential to revolutionize the publishing industry. I’ve never really bought it, though I couldn’t always say why. I didn’t think the new form would really encourage publishers to change all that much. Penguin proved me wrong in its discussion of new iPad content, but even Penguin didn’t completely sway me. This article by a book designer named Craig Mod did.

      Craig’s whole point is that the iPad not only offers something new, it offers something very old – the experience of reading an actual book. His position is that the iPad preserves the book by more realistically allowing publishers to port their published form, books, onto a new device. The Kindle could only approximate things with its black and white display. By contrast (wink, wink), the iPad’s full color gives publishers the tools they’ve always had for creating rich content experiences. The arrival of links and what we now consider “content-rich” experiences are just icing on the cake.

      His article offers a long and winding history of designing books and the kind of thought that goes into a reading experience. It’s worth reading for anyone interested in the future of the written word and/or a passion for creating consumable content.

      Source: @craigmod

      Computers, Digital Media, ebooks

      Apple supposedly warned HTC before it sued

      March 10, 2010 /

      iPhone with some devil horns.Part of the hullabaloo surrounding Apple’s recent litigation against HTC was that it supposedly came with little warning. That would have left HTC without much time to find suitable workarounds for the infringements in question, if it actually wasn’t warned in the first place. According to Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner, Apple did warn handset makers that it would be much stricter with regard to IP violations in the new year.

      “Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors,” Reiner wrote in a report on the matter. If he’s to be believe, HTC may be the first in a string of suits that could lead to lucrative licensing deals for several of Apple’s technologies.

      Source: CNN

      Uncategorized

      What happened to iTunes LP?

      March 9, 2010 /

      iTunes LP content.Remember six months ago when Apple held an iTunes event just to announce iTunes LP, the premium content service that was supposed to revive the album? According to most reports, nobody’s buying LP. Not a person. It’s no surprise, really. The target audience is a bunch of audiophiles who likely buy physical media for quality’s sake and that unmistakeable pretense of being one of the remaining few to own that physical media. Your average iTunes customer just doesn’t care that much.

      Granted, there are only 29 options if you want to buy LP content, so it’s not like the format has any serious support behind it. But why was LP created in the first place? Was it something the fans were really clamoring for or was it something the labels wanted so they could try to squeeze a little more money out of digital content. I’m gonna go with that second one.

      Apple, Audio, Digital Media

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