Good morning and welcome to Monday, after a pretty quiet weekend on the Apple news front: today’s highlights led by BSkyB taking a shot at iTunes while the US Army has adopted a video surveillance system – based on Macs.
Read on too for some small Mobile Me improvements, the iPhone’s on its way to the United Arab Emirates, Teens love their iPhones (and don’t really ever buy a Zune – who does?), Sirius brings satellite radio to the iPhone and some analysts think Apple’s trading close to its maximum now (we don’t agree, BTW). Read on…
BSkyB goes on iTunes attack
BSkyB is a huge TV provider in Europe, particularly the UK. The company this week launches its iTunes attack, offering music from EMI, Sony and Warner, along with several of the larger indie labels (but no Universal content yet).
It’s a subscription service charging users a flat fee – 10 songs for £6.49, or 15 songs for £7.99. There’s no ads, at least. BSkyB is part of the huge conglomerate which also owns MySpace and MySpace Music.
Read it here.
Is my Mac watching me?
Well, if you happen to be a member of the US Army it might be. The Army has four video surveillance installations that are based on OS X. Why? Because, despite initial opposition by Army IT people (same as IT folk everywhere else, know Macs will put them out of business), they soon swing round in face of better memory management, better platform security, better interface….
Chris Gettings, CEO and president of VideoNEXT, a company installing these systems for the US Defence Dept, points out: “With Apple they couple the Unix reliability with a world-class user interface. That’s the stumbling block on Red Hat. It’s a little bit complicated … The user interface for Apple is marvelous. It’s so easy to use and intuitive. It’s the hallmark of the platform.”
Gettings can put as many as 60 cameras on one Apple server – while on equally spec’d Windows machines he can only place 50 cameras. “That can be a measurable difference in some of these larger deployments,” he notes. So there’s the Mac for you – safe and robust enough to join the army.
Mobile Me gets pepped
A small Mobile Me update has added iDisk Public Folders through a new Public Folder page, includes sundry usability improvements and an improved ‘Find My iPhone’ function now accessible in the main nav bar.
iPhone heading for Dubai
Well, looks like the iPhone 3GS is on its way to ship in the incredibly prosperous UAE, where no doubt oil rich shiekhs will pick up a few dozen of the Apple devices to share among their friends and family. The iPhone’s expected to ship there by the end of the month. Local carrier, Etisalat, “already has over 30,000 iPhone subscribes, and hopes the 3GS will boost its subscription numbers,” a report informs.
Teens won’t go Zune, iPhone love grows
Recall the stats from Piper Jaffray last week?
– 22 percent of students expect to buy an iPhone in the next 6 months;
– 15 percent of students own an iPhone’
– iPod market share among teens is 87 percent;
– Among the 40 percent of students that buy music legally 93 percent of those use iTunes.
Now consider just how you can lie with statistics. Two years ago in a similar survey, 13 percent of US teenagers said they planned to buy a Zune, and almost none of them did. Apple owns the MP3 player market. It’s that simple.
Siriusly iPhone
Sirius has introduced SkyDock, which, like TomTom is a combined device and iPhone app solution which means you can use your iPhone to listen to satellite radio broadcasts in your car. You get nifty on-screen radio controls, too. Watch the video…
AAPL trading close to max?
Some say it is, reckoning the gap between its GAAP and non-GAAP income details is close to being closed. We don’t agree – we think you also need to factor in the coming Christmas market (which if it’s anything like last year will see consumers shopping extensively as we all await the next decade of cut backs and recession); you also need to consider the impact of the iPhone launching in new countries, and finally add a little weight to the notion that Apple’s moving away from exclusive deals with operators, another move that’s likely to positively impact sales.
We also predict healthy back-to-school Mac sales leading into the holiday quarter, and you got to anticipate some level of excitement when the rumoured tablet launches next year. Saying this, for us it’s a trifle academic, at AAPL’s current prices investment’s way beyond our reach.
Aspyr announces enhanced Star Wars title
Aspyr this morning announced Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. This upgraded version of the original title ships in Europe this winter. It combines the originally released title with three new levels and new characters and so on, all designed to reflect different attributes of the Star Wars universe. Something for a slow Christmas day, perhaps, though a family session of The Beatles: Rock Band may have the edge.
Deals for the day
A pair of attractive-seeming deals for US and UK readers.
US readers – take a look:
We can’t believe this new deal. A Sony Bravia XBR KDL-40XBR7 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV – and it’s a 40-inch monster with 1,080p and it costs under $1,000 – $999 to be precise – that’s a really rather tempting $1,100 off the book price, and you’re getting a Sony Bravia. Sounds like a good deal to us – go see…
UK readers – a deal for you:
It’s easy to stare across the pond at the deals offered to our US cousins, but we think this one looks pretty attractive – an all in one printer, scanner and copier coming in at under £30 – and it’s an HP. The HP Deskjet F4280 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier sets you back just £29.99 rather than its £46.63 regular price, a 61 percent discount. Take a look…
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