Author Archive | Harry McCracken

Roku Dips Below $50, Adds HBO GO

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 11, 2011 at 6:00 am

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Roku, which pretty much invented the cheap, easy-to-use Internet TV streaming box, is the sort of scrappy startup which you might have assumed would get steamrolled by mammoth competitors early on. Instead, it’s continued to do well even as Apple and Google have muscled in on its territory–in part because it’s a fine product, in part because it’s aggressively priced, and in part because the lineup of content is good and keeps getting better.

Today, Roku has news on two of those fronts. It’s introducing a new basic model called the Roku LT that brings the price down to $49 for the first time–cheap for a Roku, and absurdly cheap in a market in which some products cost $200 or more. The LT does 720p video, and joins fancier models at $59, $79, and $99. (The top of the line Roku 2 XS does casual gaming, including Angry Birds.)

Are there people who wouldn’t buy a $59 Roku who will buy a $49 one? Roku thinks so, and it does sound like a lot of fun for the money. It’ll be available from Roku and retailers in early November.

Roku is also announcing that it’s adding the HBO GO streaming service to all Roku players at the end of this month. HBO includes moves and full seasons of all HBO shows, and is available only to people who subscribe to HBO via cable or satellite. It joins more than 300 other channels on Roku, including Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu Plus, Pandora, Major League Baseball, and much more.

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Wait, Isn’t the iPhone 4S Supposed to Be a Disappointment?

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 10, 2011 at 1:27 pm

Boy, does Apple’s iPhone 4S event feel like it happened a long time ago. In fact, it was less than a week ago, and as you may recall, many observers declared the new phone to be a disappointment. But now Apple has released pre-order data, and it seems to suggest that real folks are excited about the 4S. A million people pre-ordered in the first 24 hours, breaking the iPhone 4’s record of 600,000 in the same period.

Why the disparity in reactions? I can think of a few reasons.
Continue Reading →

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Qwikster: Gonester!

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 10, 2011 at 9:06 am

I have a confession to make. Ever since Netflix announced its plans to spin off its discs-by-mail business into a self-contained business called Qwikster, I’ve been assuming it would reverse the decision, and have frequently checked Qwikster.com for signs it had done so. I last did it early this morning.

And now it has. In a blog post, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix will stay, well, Netflix. I never stopped assuming this would be the eventual outcome, especially when the initial announcement was followed by radio silence. There was just too much that was too wrong with the idea–the fact that Netflix was eliminating one of its principal attractions as a service, the fact it did so with a video that almost seemed to brag about it, the name, the fact it didn’t have the Twitter handle. It was all the irrational  result of some sort of bizarre midlife crisis, and the oddest part of all is that the idea got announced before the company came to its senses.

The controversial price hikes, however, remain in place.

Netflix is a fine company with a fine service, and–until recently–the way it’s navigated its transition from a snail-mail powered enterprise to a digital one has been really admirable. With any luck, it’ll get back to business so quickly we’ll forget this brief period of weirdness ever happened.

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A Strange Sort of Prison, a Strange Sort of Freedom

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 9, 2011 at 5:19 pm

Free software advocate and GNU creator Richard Stallman has blogged that he’s glad Steve Jobs is gone. That’s, um, gauche. But it’s not why I bring up his post. He also calls Jobs “the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom.”

Apple products? Jails. Cool ones. Apple fans? Jailbirds. Foolish ones. Got that?

Eric S. Raymond, also a free software advocate, has also written about Jobs’ passing. He’s more dignified about it, but the gist is similar. He says:

What’s really troubling is that Jobs made the walled garden seem cool. He created a huge following that is not merely resigned to having their choices limited, but willing to praise the prison bars because they have pretty window treatments.

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Steve Jobs and Edwin Land

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 8, 2011 at 8:17 pm

Over at the New York Times, Christopher Bonanos has a nice piece comparing Steve Jobs to the entrepreneur/technologist he resembles most by far: Polaroid’s Edwin Land. Bonanos says that virtually none of the Jobs obituaries mentioned Land, but I remembered to do so in my piece for TIME–in the third paragraph, in fact. And last June, when I wrote about Polaroid’s SX-70 camera, I found the Land/Jobs parallels so compelling that they threatened to take over the article.

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And So the iLine Begins Again

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 7, 2011 at 8:43 am

Having trouble <a href="pre-ordering an iPhone from AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint Hop on a plane and head to Tokyo. I'm still here, and the iPhone 4S, as in the U.S., has gone on preorder. It's available from wireless carrier SoftBank, and as I strolled around Harajuku and Shibuyu this past evening, the hoopla was underway and the crowds were forming, presumably to place orders in person.

A few photos after the jump. (The signs are hard to read, but they all make reference to the 4S.)

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Steve Jobs, on the Cover of TIME Once More

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 6, 2011 at 10:43 pm

My friends at TIME had just finished work on the issue that comes out this Friday when the world learned of the passing of Steve Jobs. They stopped the presses, called an emergency meeting–here’s photographic evidence–and put together a new cover story. (And what a cover that is.) I’m honored to say that the obituary I wrote for TIME.com became part of the print magazine’s coverage. (I also have another story in the issue, on Facebook’s new Timeline and Open Graph features.)

 

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Steve Jobs Signs an Apple II Manual

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 6, 2011 at 8:40 pm

And one more memorable item of Jobsana from Craig Elliott: His autographed Apple II manual, dated on the ninth anniversary of Apple’s founding. (He still has the Apple II, too.)

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The Day Steve Gave Craig a Porsche

Posted by Harry McCracken on October 6, 2011 at 8:34 pm


Craig Elliott, who shared the Steve Jobs thirtieth birthday video with us, also sent along this delightful photo of him with Jobs. Here’s why Steve is presenting Craig with a new Porsche:

In 1985 Apple had a promotion called “Test Drive” where you could borrow a Mac for the weekend from your local computer reseller.  At the same time they had a sales contest for reseller sales people.  I had just finished my undergraduate degree (Animal Science/Microbiology) and needed to make some money for grad school, so I went to work for a local computer reseller in Ames, Iowa (I was always the computer guy in the lab).  At the end of the sales contest I got a letter from Apple (I knew it was legit because it was done on a yet to be shipped LaserWriter) saying that I’d won and was invited to Cupertino (my first trip to California).  There were other winners from other regions (but I sold the most 🙂 ) and I got to have dinner with Steve and Mike Murray (VP of Marketing). As a guy that had been playing with Apple II’s since 1978, it was more than a dream come true.  I was 24 years old,  having dinner with Steve Jobs.  I personally understand the term “reality distortion field”.  I also spent the week with other sales and marketing execs at Apple in interviews, a tour of the factory and meetings. at headquarters.  Steve gave me the keys to a Porsche 944 and then about 3 months later, Apple called back to see if I would consider moving to California and work at headquarters.  I stayed for 10 years.  After my second sabbatical, I helped found a new networking and communications company called Packeteer as CEO, took it public in 1999 and retired in 2002 at 41.

Lots of people can rightfully say that Steve Jobs changed their life.

Me, too.

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