Apple

Longhorn For Christmas 2006 Promises Microsoft
After several years of delays, Microsoft has assured computer-makers that Longhorn, the next version of Windows, is on track for release by the end of next year.
The new operating system has taken so long to appear, even Bill Gates conceded that he was impatient to see the job finished: “Whenever I see those demos, I just think, ‘Gosh (steady on Bill!), let’s get Longhorn done’” the Microsoft overlord told the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle.
The software uber giants were at the conference to show off some of the underlying technologies and features planned for Longhorn, originally promised waaaaay back in 2003.
Ol’ Bill was on hand to demonstrate Longhorn’s new graphic interface, claiming that it offers better ways to visualise data, with users being able to see through windows that are stacked on top of each other.
His speech also enthused about Longhorn’s “more natural file organisation” offering faster searching and Microsoft’s big focus on security: “If you had to take one area where we put the most investment in, the security area would be the head of that list by a significant amount,” he said.
Longhorn aims to boost security by placing cryptographic keys in special silicon chips built into PCs – a more secure solution than the current practice of storing encryption locks as data on a hard drive.
This chip would render sensitive files inaccessible, even if the dastardly hacker was trying to boot the machine from a portable hard drive or floppy disk.
Not everyone has welcomed this initiative – christened the Next Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) – with Microsoft cynics, critics and privacy advocates suggesting that it offers a back door for commercial interests to nefariously gain access to personal PCs.
There are also deep suspicions that the chip could be used to enforce highly restrictive DRM schemes for music, movies and software.
A less controversial new feature is Microsoft’s attempt to take on their Macromedia-guzzling rival, Adobe, with a new technology called ‘Metro’.
This would offer a built-in method to let users view and print graphical documents, without the need to install the application that created the original file – in other words, a rival to Adobe Systems’ popular PDF technology and PostScript page description language.
“When I look at Metro, I see PDF and PostScript in the crosshairs,” ruminated Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox. “Adobe is a very successful company, and PDF is an entrenched technology, but Microsoft is doing what it always is trying to do, and that is woo the developers with an alternative.”
Microsoft’s hardware conference comes just a few days before Apple releases its operating system update, Mac OS X Tiger, which offers a fast file-searching feature similar to the one promised in Longhorn.
This similarity has set the two companies at each other throats as they argue about who copied who.
At Apple’s annual meeting last week, CEO Steve Jobs hissed that Microsoft was “shamelessly” copying OS X, cattily adding, “They can’t even copy fast.”
Microsoft group Vice President Jim Allchin was having none of it, claiming that it was Apple that “became fixated on Longhorn” after Microsoft showcased some early file-searching capabilities at a conference in October 2003.
“I think they saw something that we were doing that was pretty cool,” Allchin commented, huffily adding that “There is a question of how much we should show, so that they can try to copy again.”
Longhorn’s long-delayed release in 2006 will mark a full five years since the release of Windows XP – in computer terms, that makes XP almost Neolithic.
Microsoft Longhorn
Longhorn Development Centre
27 April, 2005
IPod And iBook Sales Send Apple Profits Skywards
Stratospheric iPod sales send Apple executives into raptures of hugging joy, with profits almost quadrupling in a year.
The company reported a net profit of US$290m on $3.24bn in revenues for the fiscal quarter ending 31 March, comparing with profit figures of US$46m on sales of US$1.909bn in the same period last year.
“Apple is firing on all cylinders, and we have some incredible new products in the pipeline for the coming year,” frothed CEO Steve Jobs in a statement.
Shipments of Apple computers were up 43 per cent over last year to 1.07 million units, with the Powerbook line of high end notebook computers showing a 34 per cent increase in units shipped relative to last year.
The Power Mac desktop computers were among the worst performers, with year-over-year shipments declining by 19 per cent.
The company said it sold 5.3 million iPods (up 558 per cent on the same period last year) and 1.07 million Macintosh PCs last year.
These figures reveal that Mac sales are up by nearly 40 per cent with iPod sales are up five-fold.
Apple also revealed that its iTunes Music Store has now sold more than 350 million songs worldwide since April 2003, with the combined sales of song downloads, iPod-related accessories and services accounting for US$216m in revenues.
Although sales of iPods increased by 16 per cent, revenue from the product dropped by 16 per cent after Apple added the lower-cost iPod Shuffle to its range.
Apple’s bulging coffers can expect a further boost from sales of the new Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger upgrade, which will go on sale on 29 April.
Apple
14 April, 2005
Apple Tiger OSX Launch Date Announced
Apple Computer has announced that the latest major update of its Mac OS X operating system, code-named Tiger, will be available on 29 April.
Modestly described as “The World’s Most Advanced Operating System,” Apple’s highly anticipated update to Mac OS X (now at version 10.4) will be available to mobs of grasping Mac huggers on Friday, 29 April.
With over 200 new features on offer, Apple aficionados should find the upgrade worth the price, with one of the most eagerly awaited new features being a sophisticated new search facility called ‘Spotlight’.
This powerful core application lets users search just about everything on their system – files, emails, contacts, images, movies, calendars and applications – with the results appearing “instantly”.
Stealing a march on their Microsoft rivals, Spotlight can also rummage around inside the metadata of files and organise search results by criteria, such as the kind of content, author, edit history, format, size etc.
The new OS will also feature Dashboard, an accessory desktop application letting users display a variety of real-time information from the Internet, including stocks, weather forecasts, track flights and currency rates and other third party apps.
Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs was clearly excited by the new OSX upgrade: “Tiger’s groundbreaking new features, like Spotlight and Dashboard, will change the way people use their computers, and drive our competitors nuts, trying to copy them.”
Other updates include an updated Safari browser offering built-in RSS support, improved connectivity with other desktop operating systems and support for the next-generation video-compression standard H.264 (allowing multiple users on the video-conferencing program iChat).
Mac OS X version 10.4 “Tiger” will be available on 29 April from 6:00 pm at Apple’s retail stores and through Apple Authorised Resellers for a suggested retail price of £89 (US$129, €129)
Apple will also be offering a “family pack” version of the software, for £139 (US$199 €199), serving up to five computers in a single residence.
Apple OSX
13 April, 2005
Apple iPod Under Pressure From East
Until now, Apple has been pretty safe in its position of master of all digital music players. That’s lead to speculation of their crown slipping. We’re fresh back from the European consumer show CeBIT and saw many, many good looking, highly functioned, portable music players there.
The Far Eastern companies that’ve been building digital music players for the Western companies have learned a few tricks. Not content to just been passivley manufacture, they have discovered design and embraced it. In our view they have what is needed to go toe-to-toe with Apple.
In addition to that, Korean electronics giant Samsung has launched a hefty push into the highly competitive MP3 player market with six brand-spanking-new players.
The half dozen new players should be available in the first half of the year, ranging from a 256 megabyte flash memory type to a 30 gigabyte hard disk drive model capable of holding about 7,500 songs.
The pocket-sized players will sport colour screens and radio tuners, while some will allow users to watch music videos or take digital photographs.
The company has vowed to grab a giant sized slice of the highly lucrative market within in the next two years.
Samsung sold 1.7 million MP3 players last year, and is the market frontrunner in China. Mindful of expanding its presence, the company said it will focus on products that go beyond the basic flash and hard-disk categories and include products that target the premium, fashion and video-enhanced market segments.
In other words, they’re going to try and outflank Apple by stuffing their players full of multifunctional and multimedia gizmos that allow users to play electronic games, watch music videos and movies, and view digital photographs.
We’ve no doubt that these players will be lovely little fellas, but whether they’ll be capable of overcoming the sheer market presence and all-round design quality of Apple – and more recently Sony – is open to question (Sony’s shift to open standards, switching from its proprietary ATRAC music format to MP3 is a highly significant development).
Both Apple and Sony have branched out into music delivery solutions and it remains to be seen whether a hardware-only product will have enough clout, ‘cool’ and interconnectivity to unseat the market leaders.
After all, with zillions of options available to consumers, it’s vital for music device makers to offer shedloads of connectivity with other hardware, along with easy access to the content.
Samsung
18 March, 2005
Lose friends The Apple Mac Way
Even the most die-hard Mac hugger is having problems defending the company’s recent litigious spree, where Apple seems determined to become ‘The Man’ and use its corporate power to crush all before it.
We find this action particularly strange given the inevitable rise of competition in the portable digital media space. As we’ve saw at CeBIT, the Chinese and Taiwanese MP3-player producing companies have embraced design to good effect. Apple’s iPod crown for the future is now a lot less certain, and given this we’d have thought this would be a time they would be trying to maintain their current friends and make new ones. Instead they appear hell bent on irritating everyone.
First off, there was the case of the bloggers at Apple Insider, PowerPage and Think Secret, mercilessly pursued though the courts after they leaked snippets of Apple’s future plans to their excited audience of Mac users.
Wielding their big white shiny Apple Mac stick, the company successfully won a judgement from the Santa Clara County Superior Court forcing the bloggers to admit to their sources.
The court also granted Apple powers to root around the blogger’s e-mail records in their near-religious quest to track down the culprit.
A wave of international protests followed the ruling by Judge Kleinberg that the laws covering the divulging of trade secrets “outweighed considerations of public interest” with the Guardian newspaper arguing “Was Enron’s off-balance sheet funding structure a “trade secret”, for instance?”
Business Week was equally unimpressed: “Apple has the right to use the legal system to help it punish those who have misappropriated its trade secrets, or to identify employees or partners who may have broken confidentiality agreements.
But going after the Web sites or forcing them to divulge their sources will put the company in the middle of a freedom-of-speech firestorm that will be a costly distraction for management, and could tarnish the Apple brand.”
Not surprisingly, the EFF was also deeply concerned about the ruling:
“We’re disappointed that the trial court ignored the Supreme Court’s requirement that seeking a journalist’s confidential sources be a ‘last resort’ in civil discovery,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. “Instead, the court asserts a wholesale exception to the journalist’s privilege when the information is alleged to be a trade secret.”
“This is a broad-brush ruling that threatens journalists of all stripes,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.
Writing in The Scotsman, long time Mac user Stewart Kirkpatrick was equally unchuffed, “In California at least, Apple has destroyed journalism by undermining the most vital tool of our trade: the ability to receive information without having to shop the person who told you.”
Meanwhile, Mac was busy flexing its bully boy corporate muscle in the UK, successfully squashing a smaller company holding prior rights on the iTunes.co.uk domain.
The company registered the name in November 2000 – four years before Apple launched its UK service – with the URL redirecting to their music search engine on CyberBritain.
Apple initiated the complaint because it secretly applied for a UK trademark for the name iTunes on October 27 2000. This application was confidential – known only by Apple, its filing agents and Her Majesty’s Patent Office – and was not published in the TradeMarks Journal until December 6 2000.
After being asked to issue a decision on a complaint through its Dispute Resolution Service, UK domain service registry Nominet has decided that the domain should be handed to Apple.
The owner of iTunes.co.uk, Benjamin Cohen, expressed his frustration. “I must admit that we were not expecting this decision by Nominet’s appointed expert. Apple chose to launch the UK brand of ‘itunes’ within the UK with the knowledge that we had owned the name for three years before their US launch and four years before their launch within the UK,” he said.
“We now face two decisions, whether to appeal to Nominet directly or refer the matter to the High Court. Both of these options are expensive and are not necessarily within the means of a small business. However, the recent High Court victory of Phone4U.co.uk against the major retailer, Phones4U – owned by the Caudwell Group – leads me to think that our case may be extremely strong.”
It’s clear that the Apple self-destruct PR offensive isn’t over yet, with The Register reporting the mysterious case of Google’s vanishing Mac OS X-style interface.
Designed as a tribute to all things Mac, a software engineer had replaced the main text navigation bar on the Google home page with a Mac OS X-style dock sporting a row of eight icons zooming and shrinking as the mouse hovered over them.
The coder was clearly so enamoured with Mac that he included a loving poem above the copyright notice on the Google page: “Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you”. (sickbag please!)
Sadly, it appears that litigious Apple don’t find anything funny these days, and the design promptly vanished off the Web completely with neither Apple nor Google offering any explanation.
It does seems strange that a company that prides itself for ‘thinking differently’ seems to have embarked on a mission to appear as unpleasant, as ruthless and as willing to crush the little fella as its Redmond neighbours.
With a scathing report in The Guardian concluding that Apple is effectively, “asking to be loathed and subverted”, some pundits are wondering why Apple should actively seek to alienate the people who are its fans and customers.
Put simply, such actions don’t make much business sense.
Google’s X Files disappear
Apple is ‘real loser’ in Think Secret battle
How Apple lost its groove
Nominet backs Apple iTunes domain claim
Blogger lawsuit peels Apple’s shine
17 March, 2005
MP3 Player Sales Set To Nearly Quadruple By 2009
Shipments of MP3 players soared by an enormous 116% in 2004, as hundreds of wallet-tempting products arrived in response to the phenomenal success of Apple iPod player, according to a survey by Market Intelligence firm, iSuppli.
Propelled by the soaring growth in demand for hard disk drive (HDD)-based products, iSuppli predicts shipments of MP3 players will nearly quadruple from 2004 to 2009.
The company forecasts that total MP3 player shipments will expand to 132 million units in 2009, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.1% from 36.8 million in 2004.
Although growth in 2005 is expected to slow from the frenzied buying levels of 2004, the MP3 market will continue to expand at a rapid rate, with iSuppli predicting unit shipments of MP3s rising to 57.7 million in 2005, up 57% from 36.8 million in 2004.
The super, soaraway success of the iPod echoed the public’s love affair with HDD-based MP3 players, with competitors moving quickly to offer products that aped the iPod’s use of a 1.8-inch HDD.
The iSuppli report also predicts that HDD-based MP3 player shipments will grow by a CAGR of 41.8% from 2004 to 2009, as compared to 22.9% for flash-based players.
Shipments are expected to 56.2 million units in 2009, up from 9.8 million in 2004, with HDD-based products accounting for nearly half of all MP3 shipments, at 42.6% in 2009 (up from only 26.6% in 2004).
The overall small form-factor HDD market had revenues of US$2.2 billion in 2004 and likely will rise to US$5.7 billion in 2008, generating a CAGR of more than 27 % over this period, iSuppli predicts.
The first vendor to ship 1.8-inch HDDs was Toshiba. Hitachi Global Storage Technology also has started shipping these drives and Western Digital Corp. (WDC) is expected to begin shipping them later in the year.
The research group said electronics producers stood to benefit from consumers’ willingness to pay more for “waaaaaay cool” products, something that Apple traditionally excels at and something that Sony clearly has in mind with its funky new line-up of Walkmans.
“Initially, (Apple’s) iPod was quite expensive, but the company reduced prices when the competition arrived. It also has aggressively introduced many generations of products in quick succession over the past four years,” iSuppli said.
But iSuppli warned companies not to try to squeeze too many features into their products: “The so-called ‘Swiss Army Knife’ approach has not succeeded in the MP3 market. Simple, elegant products that perform a few functions with easy-to-use interfaces have sold well in the marketplace, while the do-everything approach has failed.”
So, there goes my idea for a MP3 playing toaster then.
iSuppli
17 March, 2005
Apple To Join Blu-ray – CeBIT 05
In a board meeting yesterday, Apple computers committed to join the Blu-ray Association and will occupy a seat on the main board.
In the battle of Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD disc formats, this is pretty big news. Although in the current percentage of computers sold, this isn’t a massive surprise, with Apple keen on pushing themselves (successfully) as a media company, this will have a significant impact on the success of the Blu-ray disc format.
Importantly Apple joinging will generate lots of news discussion about Blu-ray. On that note … did you know that pre-recorded Blu-ray discs were see through? Me neither, until I got my hands on one at the Sony press launch (see image at top of story).
Currently Dell and HP are the other two computer companies that sit on the board. Apple will be the 16th company to join the board, joining the 110 companies that have committed to Blu-ray.
Steve Jobs said “Apple is pleased to join Blue-ray Association board as part of our effort to drive consumer adoption of HD.” In return Apple will include the same HD video CoDec that Blu-ray uses in QuickTime 7.
There’s big money and effort being put behind the success of Blu-ray, and with a lot of content companies, CE companies and, computer companies getting behind it, it appears to be pulling ahead.
Blu-ray has been shipping in Japan now for quite some time. Sony’s BDZ-S77 (catchy name) was the first product to ship, and has been followed by other companies, some of which support the dual-layer 50Gb version.
During CeBIT, Philips and Sony have announced computer drives capable of burning Blu-ray disks, or “BD” as those in the know call it. The first Blu-ray consumer device to hit the market in US and European market will be the Sony Playstation 3.
Why does anyone need it? The quick and simple answer is HD TV. Because of the resolution of an HD picture, considerable amounts of storage are required. By 2008 12% of European homes will have HD-capable TV, and more importantly, at the same time, 3m homes to have HDTV service. Clearly HD is already big in Japan and in growing the US.
Blu-ray disc carry 25Gb per layer. There are two layers currently in market, single and dual layer. Others multi-layers discs are being brought to market and we understand that Sony has an eight layer, 200Gb disc running in the Lab.
Blu-ray
10 March, 2005
Apple Shares Fall As Sony And Napster Bite
Apple Computer shares dropped Tuesday as Sony relaunched its famous Walkman line amongst concerns that increased competition from Napster might impact its dominance of online music and portable players.
The soaraway success of the iPod music player has transformed Apple’s balance sheet and its stock price, with the company shining as one of the best performers in the Nasdaq technology index over the past year.
But some industry pundits are predicting that Apple is being damaged by serious competition from a new generation of smaller, sleeker and cheaper MP3 players from the likes of Sony, Rio and Creative and a host of online music services led by Napster.
Shares of Apple have dropped 8.5 percent since the announcement of the stock split on 11 February, and have fallen some 6 percent this week alone.
“Competition concerns are certainly going to influence how this stock trades,” said Warren West, principal at Philadelphia-based GreenTree Brokerage Services, which executes trades for institutional investors such as asset managers and hedge funds. “Investors in general have enjoyed the stock moves, there’s a lot of money that has been made, and people are going to start taking profits _ especially after the split.”
Over the last twelve months, Apple’s share price has gone from US$23 (€17/£12) to an all-time high of US$81.99 (€61/£42) just before the split was announced.
Investors must now decide if the company’s share price can maintain its strength in the face of a market getting becoming increasingly crowded with rival products.
Sony are aggressively targeting the iPod with their Walkman line of digital music players, hoping to woo customers with lightweight and compact flash memory players instead of bulkier, hard drive-based units.
In fact, many of the new iPod alternatives aren’t trying to compete with Apple’s player at the high end but are focussing on consumers who are choosing between cheaper, lower-storage-capacity flash-media players and pricier, entry-level hard-drive players that hold more than 1,000 songs.
The Sony flash-media players will be knocked out for as low as US$130 (€97/£68) – not as cheap as the new iPod Shuffle, but considered to be better value because of a longer battery life and more features.
“Flash is going to be here for a while, because it’s more affordable,” Kelly Davis, product manager for Sony Electronics, says. “People are trying to get more capacity for their dollar.
The new Sony players are expected to give the company the No. 2 position in the portable music player market by next year.
Apple’s iTunes service is also coming under attack, with rival Napster recently boosting its sales outlook with growing demand for its new “Napster To Go” subscription service, expected to generate US$15 million for its fiscal fourth quarter.
Apple is also experiencing competition from music services offered by rivals such as Microsoft Corp., Real Networks, and Yahoo.
The company still remains in good shape though, with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicting continuing good sales for the iPod line.
“Our checks have left us more confident that demand for Apple’s key products most notably iMac, Powerbook, Mac mini and various versions of the iPod continue to be ahead of expectations,” Munster told clients in a research report. “We anticipate that strong demand across various segments of the company will allow Apple to exceed Wall Street estimates for overall revenue and earnings.”
Munster expects the company to report earnings of US$1.04 (€0.77 /£0.53) per share on revenue of US$12.81 billion in 2005, up from previous expectations of a 98% share profit on sales of US$12.25 billion.
Piper Jaffray told clients it expects Apple to sell 3.8 million iPods during the second quarter, including 1 million iPod shuffle models, followed by 4.6 million iPods during the third quarter, with the Shuffle model accounting for 1.8 million of the sales.
Apple Shares Fall on Sony, Napster Fears (PA)
Sony MP3 players
Apple iPod
9 March, 2005
Jens MP-120: Better Than iPod shuffle?
Jens of Sweden has unveiled its latest cool digital music player which they reckon will give iPod Shuffle a run for its money.
The midnight black, cigarette lighter-sized MP-120 music player can squeeze in 300 tracks (depending on track compression) and a features a USB 2.0 port.
It is available for SEK 1344 including VAT (US$194/£102/€148), which the cheeky Jens claims will undercut the iPod Shuffle by a massive one krona (£0.07/US$0.14/€0.11).
“Steve Jobs claims users prefer to be served random tracks than choose from among hundreds of their own tunes. We don’t agree which is why we offer a player, that besides random tracks, also allows users to see and choose exactly what they want to hear. Given today’s prices I’m convinced we can sell more MP-120 than iPod Shuffle in Sweden, despite Apple’s advertising budget,” says Jens of Sweden chief executive and founder Jens Nylander.
We admit we’re fans of Jens. We used to have a Jens MP-130 which we dearly loved – using it to listen to music, carry data and record interviews with broadcast-quality clarity. Everyone we showed it to was wowed by it and we would in turn enthuse about it at every opportunity. How many products can you say that about?
Then some low-life nicked it when we were at the AtHome conference in Nice at the end of last year. It broke our hearts. If this player is anything like as good as our dear MP-130, it’s going to be a contender.
The iPod shuffle has a fundamental weakness that Apple tried to turn around as a benefit. It has no display. In our experience, when you’re randomly listening to selection of tracks from a large music collection or a collection of podcasts, you want to know the name of the tracks you like and the ones you hate. The MP-120 has a display.
Jens of Sweden’s earlier MP-400 player was offered in seven colours – as well as 24-carat gold – and with the MP-120 model, it is taking customisation one step further by allowing customers to choose their own headphones.
The MP-120 can function as USB file storage memory, and also has an OLED screen and dictaphone.
It supports MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG Vorbis music files, and the built-in lithium battery should give users about 22 hours’ playing time.
While we don’t think Steve Jobs will be losing sleep over this, we think this will have a ready market with those who don’t want to conform to the Apple mentality.
The MP-120 is now available on Jens of Sweden’s Web site.
Jens of Sweden
25 February, 2005
Apple/TiVo Bid Rumours Considered
Rumours pointing at Apple as a potential bidder for TiVo have given the digital video recorder company’s shares a healthy boost – and got people wondering whether the deal would be a good fit.
TiVo’s technology which allows viewers to skip ads breaks and to pause and rewind live television made it a must-have gadget, although some of the competition is catching up.
As of 31 January this year, TiVo had a subscription base of 3 million (the majority of them from DirecTV), and said it’d added around 698,000 subscriptions during its fourth quarter. And the company has said it is not for sale.
But for some, a tie-up between Apple and TiVo would be a marriage made in gadget heaven, bringing together some of the coolest gadgets – and brands – the industry has thought up in the last few years. And it is possible to see a few areas where it would make sense.
With Apple’s stock running at such a high price and TiVo’s suffering, the purchase of TiVo (the whole company is currently valued at under $400m), could be easy – almost a rounding error.
Nearly every media and technology company is aiming at the living room now, either with Media Centre-style PCs or other digital hubs to spread content such as video and music around the home.
For Apple, bringing video to its massively popular iPod would certainly be an understandable step, perhaps allowing users to dock the iPod with the TiVo and download favourite shows. But it is hard to see how popular this would be in the short term.
Neither TiVo nor Apple are commenting on the rumours. Other media giants have been floated as potential buyers for TiVo as well, and financial analysts remain split on whether any deal is on the cards.
Tivo
Apple
25 February, 2005