Welcome, Apple. Seriously. (Not!)

Rivals Say Apple’s iPhone Won’t Be A Huge Success

When IBM introduced its Personal Computer in 1981, Apple — then the market leader — took out a memorable full-page ad in The New York Times. Its blurb was, Welcome, IBM. Seriously.

Nokia — today’s market leader in wireless communicators — was too cheap and too unimaginative to do the same when the iPhone was announced. But they still evince a similar sentiment…

Nokia Corp. CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told analysts last week that he does not think Nokia, the world’s No. 1 handset maker, needs to change its business approach because of the iPhone.

But Apple’s entry “will stimulate this market, it’s very clear,” he said. “The fact that we will see multipurpose devices from many manufacturers, I think it will be good for the industry. And in that way, I very much welcome [Apple to the market].”

Welcome to your likewise plummet from the mountaintop, Nokia.

Seriously.

A (P)odcast Will Be Worth More Than This

Air America Fire Sale
Documents: Bankrupt liberal radio network to sell for $4.25 million

Within five years it will be so.

Reference: (p)odcast

iPhone: Three — Count ‘Em — Three Cores

 What’s Inside Apple’s iPhone? Three ARM Processors

LONDON — Warren East, president and chief executive officer of ARM Holdings plc, has confirmed that “at least three” processor cores developed at his company are present within the iPhone from Apple Inc.

When asked how many ARM processor cores were in the iPhone, East said his company has a good track record of not talking about customers’ products. “ARM is in 90 percent of the world’s [mobile phone] handsets; we’re in WiFi, baseband processors and applications processors and most of the world’s MP3 players. So it’s at least three,” East said.

Reaction To Jobs Vs. DRM

Reading Between the Lines of Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’

In other words, the music industry wants a magical DRM format that gives them — not Apple, not Microsoft — complete control over all digital music. And a unicorn and a rainbow.

You honestly have to wonder whether the people running the RIAA are retarded.

It’s simple: They’re crooks!

As for the Europeans calling for “opening” the iTunes Store, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a few years from now we find out bribery was involved to stir up this anti-Apple advocacy. There are several suspects I could name… and at least one has nothing to do with music at all!

Reference: Free iPod Backup Software

iPodDisk

What
In short, it’s just another tool that enables you to copy your own music from your iPod.

iPodDisk is designed to make it easy and intuitive to copy music off iPod; it enables you to do so within the Finder, or whatever application that can read files.

With my iPhone lust, surely a Mac is in my future… even if it’s just a mini.

How Tech Has Affected The Cost Of Recording Audio

This comment was an education for me. It will probably be one for you too.

I was aware of the change in video production costs (what Ed Wood would have been able to do today!), but not audio.

RIAA: Suck

Cost of a CD

For every album released in a given year, a marketing strategy was developed to make that album stand out among the other releases that hit the market that year. Art must be designed for the CD box, and promotional materials (posters, store displays and music videos) developed and produced. For many artists, a costly concert tour is essential to promote their recordings.

You lying sons of bitches.

Tell me what justifies every fucking movie and TV soundtrack going for $18.00 and up!

Where are the concert tours for those?

The music videos?

The posters?

The store displays?

That nearly-universal (no pun intended!) pricing is the end-result of collusion and if we had a government that was awake, your asses would be seated in front of Congressional committees and the FTC for racketeering, price-fixing, restraint of trade, and price-gouging.

I’m old enough to have bought soundtracks when they were on vinyl. There was never such price-fixing in those days. Never. And the prices were reasonable! We didn’t feel as if we were being cheated and spit on.

Don’t Cry For The Suits.

Update: An essay that reminded me these swine were once indeed charged with price-fixing CDs!

That Z Word

The Marketing Genius of Steve Jobs

Apple fans are zealots. And they are zealots for a simple reason. Apple makes superior hardware to anyone else out there. And not just from a fashion and design perspective. They just make stuff that works. They are gaining important market share in computer sales (disclosure, I recently switched to a Mac myself and they featured my blog post about it in the Apple “Hot News” section.”).

I used to be one, back in my LC III System 6 days (and before that to 1984!).

Now, whenever I play with a Mac at an Apple Store, there is Something That Holds Me Back. I don’t know what it is. One thing I don’t like is — here comes the heresy! — Safari. It Just Feels Wrong. I know there are Mozilla-based/Firefox-based browsers for Mac OS X too, but these are never on Apple Store Macs, so I have not experienced them.