Archive | March, 2009
5Words for March 3rd, 2009
Mac desktops aside, fairly quiet:
EyeFi Wi-Fi cards double memory.
T-Mobile’s fifty-buck calling plan.
HBO prepping more online video?
iPhone users dominate mobile Web.
Intel targets more mobile gizmos.
Apple’s quiet MacBook Pro upgrade.
Hey, Apple: no numeric keypad?
Apple Upgrades Its Desktops
3. March 2009
To quote Steve Jobs, boom! Apple just did a sweeping update of its desktop Macs that involves lower prices, beefier components (especially graphics), and other improvements. And it also upgraded its wireless networking gear. All in all, it confirmed a ton of rumors that swirled through the blogosphere in recent weeks.
A very quick rundown of some of what’s new:
–The iMac line now includes an $1199 20-inch model and a flagship $1499 24-inch model with 4GB of RAM and 640GB of hard-disk space that begins at the same price as a more spartan 20-inch iMac previously did, both with the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics that first showed up in last fall’s new MacBooks;
–rumors about a Mac Mini with five USB ports were boring but true–the new Mini has ‘em, along with Nvidia 9400M graphics and both DVI and Mini DisplayPort (it now has the ability to drive two monitors at once). And Apple says it’s the most energy-efficient desktop in the world;
–AirPort Extreme wireless routers and Time Capsule router/storage devices do simultaneous 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz dual-channel networking, and offer a guest login feature;
–the high-end Mac Pro line now starts at $2499 ($300 less than before), sports Intel Nehalem Xeon CPUs and Nvidia GeForce GT 120 graphics (ATI Radeon HD 4870 is optional), includes both DVI and Mini DisplayPort video output, and features an “updated interior provides easy access to all components within the Mac Pro for hassle free expansion.”
Whew–that’s a lot of overhauling–all of it reflecting Apple’s classic strategy of improving the specs at a given price point and doing some price cuts without going anywhere near the lowest pricetags in the Windows world. (Folks who keep guessing the company will go cheap all of a sudden should remember this: In certain respects, Apple is a profoundly predictable company.) It’s not the least bit surprising that Apple simply rolled all this stuff into the Apple Store rather than holding a press event and attempting to create maximum hoopla. Putting even Phil Schiller onstage to discuss these new desktops wouldn’t have been worth the effort.
Which brings up a question: Does this mean there won’t be any more strikingly newsy new Apple products in the near future? And the answer, of course, is who knows? We’ll presumably see a new iPhone in the not-too-distant future, and there’s a good chance that it’ll be a more notable upgrade than any of these new desktops. Apple TV is probably due to be reinvented at least a little. And the fact that Apple has recently updated all of its desktops and laptops doesn’t mean that there’s not a chance that it’ll introduce an all-new computer of some sort soon. Not a garden-variety netbook, surely…but a non-netbook that can compete with netbooks is plausible enough.
One fact about Apple product rollouts: The fact that it does a bunch of them on one Tuesday doesn’t mean it’s not saving more introductions for just a few Tuesdays into the future.
On the other hand–and here’s a bit of profound analysis–I think we can deduce that the rumors about an Apple event on March 24th to launch new desktop Macs were false.
Just for fun, I’ll end with a comparison of the backsides of the spy-shot Mac Mini that some folks rejected as an obvious Photoshopped fake and the Mini which Apple did, indeed, release today…
Roku’s TV Box Adds Amazon Video on Demand
3. March 2009
Roku’s little $100 digital video player–also known as the NetFlix Player–just got a lot more interesting…and a lot less Netflix-centric. The company is rolling out support for Amazon’s Video on Demand, adding Amazon’s 40,000 movies and TV shows to the 12,000+ offered by Netflix’s Watch Instantly service (there’s some overlap). It’s the least expensive, most straightforward way to get Amazon video onto a TV. (Other options include TiVo and a $200 adapter for Sony Bravia TVs.)
40,000 items give Amazon Video on Demand one of the richest content libraries of any Internet service, but it still doesn’t make for a full-blown Blockbuster substitute: It’s missing some titles (all Disney releases, notably) and everything is in merely adequate standard-definition, not HD. Stuff looked reasonably good on my 19-inch 720p LCD TV, and–like all SD content–not so impressive on my 42-inch 1080p one.
Netflix Watch Instantly provides all-you-can-enjoy access to its eclectic (read: incomplete and random, but interesting) library of titles. But except for some free items, Amazon puts a la carte prices on everything it offers. TV shows are 99 cents to rent (when available) and $1.99 to buy; movies are $3.99 (new releases) and $2.99 (everything else) to rent for 24 hours, and mostly $14.99 (new releases) and $9.99 (everything else) to buy. The prices are comparable to those at Apple’s iTunes and other purveyors of online video. But Amazon being Amazon, there are some deals–at the moment, for instance, you can rent Journey to the Center of the Earth or Meet Dave for 99 cents.
The Roku box is so small (about the size of a loaded club sandwich) and cheap in part because it doesn’t contain a hard drive. I wondered if that would leave it gasping to keep up with video as it streamed it wirelessly over the Net, but in my tests with a 6Mbps cable-modem connection, it performed like a champ–playback was smooth and glitch-free. There was just a pause of a few sections at the start while it buffered enough data to begin, and a similar one when I fast-forwarded into a TV show or movie or skipped backwards. (Both Netflix and Amazon give you nifty thumbnails that help you figure out where you are as you hop around.)
Since there’s no drive, even Amazon titles you purchase sit on Amazon’s servers when you’re not watching them. In fact, you get can at them not only through the Roku box, but also from a PC or Mac, or other devices that support Amazon Video on Demand.
At a hundred bucks, the Roku player is one of the least expensive ways to get video off the Internet and onto a TV. But Roku didn’t just make its gadget cheap–it tried to create an Internet TV box that’s as simple as possible. Setup is a cakewalk (the box has HDMI, component, S-Video, and composite hookups, and both Wi-Fi and Ethernet). The remote control has nine buttons and needs no explanation; browsing around in menus just makes sense, and Netflix and Amazon work similarly. My one major gripe: You can sort through popular Amazon content via sections such as “Top TV Shows” and Top Channels,” but there’s no way to search on the box or even see alphabetical lists of titles. To really get access to all 40,000 items, you need to find and buy them in a browser on a computer. (As for Netflix, all locating of content is done on a computer, where you put items in a queue just as when you order DVDs; the box is for playback only.)
This box lacks the versatility of the $229 Apple TV, which syncs up video, photos, and music between your TV, Macs and PCs, and iPod or iPhone. It also makes to attempt to compete with the image quality of either Apple TV or Vudu’s $149 box, both of which offer a fair amount of HD. (The only HD Roku currently has are 200-odd Netflix items, and the quality far from eye-popping.) But the player is cheap, small, simple, and fun, and the Netflix feature provides unlimited access to a smorgasbord of material for the cost of a Netflix subscription. I got a kick out of it.
The Roku digital video player is available direct from Roku and from Amazon. Here’s a video walkthrough of what it’s like to find and watch Amazon video on the Roku (and, after the jump, some still images).
The Tragic Last Days of Circuit City
2. March 2009
Liquidation: It’s an ugly word for the ugly process of shutting down a retailer by selling off stuff little by little until there’s nothing left that anyone’s going to buy at any price. And my most recent visit to my local branch of the soon-to-be-defunct Circuit City in the Bay Area was…ugly. Literally. The place, which says it’s down to its final week of business, was in gloomy disarray–one part rummage sale, one part junk closet, and barely recognizable as the splashy consumer-electronics merchant that has been around for sixty years. And the bargains still weren’t exciting enough to attract more than a trickle of shoppers. After the jump, a bunch of photos I snapped with my iPhone.
Toys R’ Us Toying With Used Game Sales
2. March 2009
When it comes to buying and selling used video games, Gamestop has failed to win me over. The store pays criminally low rates for used games, especially recent releases, and it’s all the more infuriating when you see that same game sold back again for more than double what you’re offered. A couple of weeks ago, the store quoted me roughly $25 to buy back Afro Samurai, which is currently sold used for $55.
Any competition is welcome in my book, so I hope Toys R’ Us’ experiments with buying and selling used games works out. Joystiq confirmed today that the toy giant is trying the idea in “a couple of New York stores,” according to a company rep, not including the Times Square location. Another blogger spotted one of the stores in Nanuet, N.Y.
Details are scarce, because Toys R’ Us doesn’t like talking about its test runs, and at present no one is saying how the rates compare to Gamestop. Still, as Joystiq points out, used game sales account for 42 percent of Gamestop’s profits, and sales are expected to reach $2 billion this year. If another major retailer wants to step in on that turf, so be it. As much as it pains me to buy video games from a toy store (you know, the infantilization thing), I can’t argue with saving a few bucks these days.
For now, I’m selling my games back through Gamefly, the mail-order rental service, which offers solid trade-in rates towards the cost of a subscription. Used game sale prices are also better with the service, to the point that you can buy a game with the money from two used ones and still have some leftover credit. Two used games would rarely, if ever, cover a $55 purchase at Gamestop.
Flock: Goodbye Mozilla, Hello Chrome?
2. March 2009
TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington (who’s back from his month-long blogging hiatus) is reporting that one of my favorite products is going to undergo a radical change. Flock, the browser with built-in support for Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites, will supposedly dump Mozilla, the platform that’s most famously used by Firefox, and build a new version of Flock that uses Google’s Chrome as its engine.
Arrington says that the Flock folks feel like they don’t get enough love from the Mozilla team, and while I don’t know if his scoop is the real deal and have no insider info on the back story here, I do recall once asking the Mozilla team a question that involved Flock, and feeling the tension in the room ratchet up a notch. It’s hard, of course, for Mozilla to both keep busy spreading Firefox and also help a Firefox rival like Flock be successful. But Flock might face the same challenges if it ends up working with Google. We’ll see.
A Chrome-based Flock could potentially have some upsides–the current version, like Firefox, is slow to load (on my Mac, anyhow) and sometimes feels piggy when it comes to resources. Chrome’s emphasis on efficiency could result in a meaner, leaner Flock. (At the moment, Chrome is Windows-only while Flock also speaks OS X and Linux, but Chrome’s support for those two OSes will likely be ready long before a Chromed Flock is complete.)
But if Flock does go the Chrome route, it has one major implication for current users: Right now, one nice thing about Flock is that it runs nearly all Firefox extensions just fine. There are surely Flock fans who, if forced to choose between sticking with Flock and keeping their favorite extensions, would keep the extensions and switch to Firefox. Given that Flock remains a cult favorite rather than the mass-market hit its creators would like it to be, it would be a shame if the lack of extensions bummed out too many of its existing users.
I’ve asked Flock if it has any comment on all this, and will report back…
Update! Here’s a statement from Flock CEO Shawn Hardin:
Flock hasn’t ceased development efforts on the Mozilla platform. Our upcoming release of Flock 2.1 is built on the Mozilla platform. Having said that, the browser space is heating up, and we’ve seen a variety of new technologies emerge over the last several months that are appealing.
We always have and will continue to make architectural decisions that balance what’s best for our users and what’s best for Flock as a business. This has resulted in a healthy, growing user base and business for Flock, and we expect this to continue in 2009. In fact, with almost seven million downloads almost entirely from word of mouth, Flock enjoys a highly satisfied user base (consistently over 92% customer satisfaction, with very strong net promoter scores, and an average of four hours of usage per day).
With a continuing focus on user-centered browser innovation, our team is in active research and development on a range of exciting new enhancements to Flock. It is still far too early to comment on anything specific, but we are very excited about this design phase.
That’s not an acknowledgment that Flock is switching platforms, but it also falls very far short of the commitment to Mozilla you’d think Flock might express if TechCrunch’s report was hooey. It’s not startling that there’s going to be a Flock 2.1, or that it’ll be built on the existing Mozilla underpinnings–if Flock is indeed moving to Chrome, it’s going to take awhile, so an interim Mozilla-based update makes sense.
Gartner Predicts Significant Drop in PC Sales
2. March 2009
A new research note from analyst firm Garner predicts that the PC industry will “suffer its sharpest unit decline in history” in 2009. Gartner predicts a nearly 12% reduction in sales from 2009, but noted that many PC makers are and their suppliers are equipped to adapt to the changing reality of the market.
“The PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC suppliers grow increasingly cautious,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner. Sales in both emerging and mature markets will both decline at steep rates,10.4 percent and 13 percent respectively, according to the report.
The Gartner report is not so much a “Debbie Downer: as it is a reflection of today’s economic reality. Consumers and businesses are just spending less. And it’s not surprising to see them stretch out the useful life of the computers they already own.
Worldwide mobile PC shipments are expected to reach 155.6 million units, a 9 percent increase from 2008. Desktop PC shipments are forecast to total 101.4 million units, a 31.9 percent decline from 2008. Mobile PC growth will be substantially boosted by continued growth in mini-notebook shipments; excluding mini-notebooks, other mobile PC shipments will grow just 2.7 percent in 2009.
Desktop PC sales are forecast for a marked 31.9% decline; whereas, mobile PC sales are expected to increase nearly 10% from 2008. The report credits the burgeoning popularity of netbooks–low cost mobile PCs–for the growth. Netbooks are cushioning sales, but remain too few to offset the collapse of the desktop PC market, the report noted.
Regardless, PC makers have learned their lessons from 2001, when the market contracted just 3.2%, Gartner says. “Razor thin margins and the lessons learned in 2001 have schooled PC vendors and channels in the necessity to invest in their supply chains. These investments have given them much better visibility of demand, even though products are largely being built in Asia by third parties and therefore have long lead times.”
The PC market is far from collapsing, and the availability of Windows 7 later this year (unless it’s January) will likely boost sales. Back-to-school and holiday sales likely won’t be as robust as they would during normal economic times, but there are still a lot of PCs that will be sold this year, and there will not be a dust bowl in Silicon Valley.
Orbitz Sales Tactics: “Convenient!” And Sleazy!
2. March 2009
I’m planning a business trip to Las Vegas for the CTIA Wireless Show at the end of this month. After starting my research at the wonderful Kayak travel search engine, I ended up at Orbitz, which offered some attractive-sounding package deals for a flight and hotel room. I started clicking my way through to buy.
A few pages into the purchase–Orbitz makes you burrow through a lot of stuff to book–I noticed something over on the right-hand side of the page:
Orbitz had added a $14 bus pickup and dropoff to my order. One I hadn’t asked for. And it told me it was doing it “for my convenience.”
AMD to Split Itself in Two
2. March 2009
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The chipmaker is hoping splitting itself up is what it needs to compete with Intel. While the original announcement of the breakup happened in October, the actual breakup occurred today. The larger of the two would still be AMD, which would retain about 14,000 employees, and would be charged with design and marketing.
Manufacturing of the chips would be the responsibity of the temporarily named Foundry Co. 3,000 of AMD’s employees would transition there. AMD would have a 50 percent stake in the new company. Most importantly, the company would no longer have any debt.
That has been assumed by the Abu Dhabi government in return for a large stake in Foundry. Intel should be a bit worried: now debtless, AMD will have a much easier time in taking the chipmaker head-on.
White House No Longer Using YouTube
2. March 2009
It appears as if the Obama Administration has decided to stop using YouTube as a method to embed its videos into websites for the Government. Starting with this weeks address, videos are now served in Flash through technology provided by Akamai.
While most seem to be labeling it as a way to answer privacy concerns, I always thought it kind of weird for a government entity to be using a branded solution for streaming media.
Our government (in theory at least) is supposed to not show any favoritism towards any one company. Seeing that big ol’ YouTube logo everytime I watched the President’s address always seemed slightly odd.
If it did have to do with privacy concerns, YouTube had actually made some effort to strengthen its privacy policy for those watching videos on government websites. Apparently the Administration didn’t get the message there.
Videos would still be pushed to YouTube as they have been before. However it now appears that Akamai’s technology will serve them on the actual government site.
Hey! Skittles! Get Off of My Cloud!
2. March 2009
Skittles, the venerable candy (which I tend to confuse with its Mars, Inc. stablemate Starburst Fruit Chews) is trying something hip and happening today: It’s turned its homepage over to a Twitter search feed for “skittles.” Obvious result: All of a sudden, Skittles is a hot topic on Twitter. Kind of. Actually, almost none of the conversation about the stuff has to do with any of the things that make Skittles Skittles: It’s just folks mentioning Skittles to get on the Skittles home page. Including saying disgusting, scary, and/or offensive things about Skittles.
Unlike GM’s famous backfire with its Chevy Tahoe user-generated commercial contest, the Skittles stunt, I suspect, was never about getting people to talk earnestly about the features and benefits of the product in question. I suspect that Mars knew that much of the chatter would be self-referential, strange, and obnoxious. The goal was to co-opt Twitter, period, even if it led to people theorizing that Skittles might be made in Chinese sweatshops from the blood of kittens. Call it social-media marketing nihilism.
(Actually, come to think of it, is it even possible to say positive things about Skittles beyond expressing a fondness for their taste? The damn things just don’t have much in the way of personality beyond being colorful, sweet, and vaguely fruit-flavored–by comparison, Peanut M&Ms or Three Musketeers are deep, profoundly Proustian foodstuffs. Which might be why Mars went the direction it did with this party trick: It’s hard to imagine many people talking about Skittles otherwise.)
I’m reminded of Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign from January, which had the fast-food giant doling out free hamburgers to people who unfriended compatriots on Facebook. It got people talking about Burger King for sure, but it also involved gaming somebody else’s world to promote junk food. Some people called Facebook clueless when it quashed Burger King, but I kind of got the point.
I like Twitter. I like the fact that it’s an open, rambunctious, and honest reflection of what millions of people feel like talking about on any given day–so call me a humorless old fogy if you will, but today’s explosion of manufactured interest (aka unpaid product placement) for Skittles kind of ticks me off. I assume it’ll be brief, but I’d shed no tears if Mars came to regret the whole idea. Somehow, though, I think it would only do so if the campaign led to a sharp decline in Skittles sales–and maybe not even then. I’m guessing that other marketers will eyeball today’s prank jealously, and try to top it with even more over-the-top, obnoxious takeovers of social-media sites.
Me, I’ve bought no Skittles in this decade–actually, I don’t recall buying any in the 1990s, either–so a personal boycott wouldn’t have any effect on sales. The best I can do to protest is to buy and consume the fruit-flavored wares of a Skittles rival manufactured by someone other than Mars. Say, Jujubes. No–Chuckles. Definitely Chuckles.
Random side note as long as I’m talking about empty calories and social media: Slim Jim has its own social network that has very little to do with processed meat snacks, but does try to associate its product with having “absolutely no regard for proper conduct or state laws of any kind.” It also makes a funny about shaving the neighbor’s cat. Again, call me a boring old person if you will, but I’d love to hear Slim Jim manufacturer ConAgra reconcile this stuff with the blathering it does about corporate values and responsibility.
You gotta wonder how the company would feel about Slim Jim fans vandalizing its headquarters–a violation of both proper confuct and, I’d imagine, state law–and then impishly blaming it on their “spicy side.” And if ConAgra CEO Gary Rodkin has any pets, I hope he keeps them inside.
But I’ll say this for Slim Jim’s experiment in marketing through social networking: Unlike Skittles, it created its own playground rather than taking over someone else’s…
The Smartphone is Destined to Replace the PC
2. March 2009
Once upon a time, a garden-variety computer was the size of a room. Then minicomputers came along–the “mini” indicating that they took up no more space than a good-sized refrigerator. Next came personal computers–machines similar in size to the desktops of today. Then laptops–the hottest form of which are the pint-sized models known as netbooks. For decades, in other words, computers have reliably gotten tinier as technology and economics permitted.
What’s next? Surely not Ultra-Mobile PCs, the mini-Windows devices that almost nobody except Microsoft and hardware manufacturers ever got excited over. The next computer is the smartphone–ones like the iPhone, the BlackBerry, the T-Mobile G1, and many of the handsets that debuted a couple of weeks ago at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
5Words for March 2nd, 2009
2. March 2009
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March? In. Like a lion!
Skittles stages goofball Twitter stunt.
Apple desktop event rumors begin.
Microsoft scuttlebutt: Live Search revamp.
iPhone becomes an ancient Mac.
AT&T: bring back your handset?
Foxmarks becomes Xmarks, adds features.
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3. March 2009
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