Tech Industry

OK, this Internet TV thing is just getting kinda nuts right now.  A few months ago, the best thing you could hope for was a $600 Mac Mini with a Logitech diNovo Mini keyboard to get Hulu and Netflix and the rest of your movie collection into your living room with any sort of elegance.  What a difference a few months makes.

Now with $99 AppleTV arriving in people’s homes and $200+ Boxee Box and GoogleTV coming at some undisclosed point in the future, everyone seems to want to share everything everywhere.  And that’s great!

Roku/Hulu announced today that they’d be coming to those cheap little streaming Roku boxes.  Incidentally, so did Tivo. So for $10/month plus a $60 down, you can pretty much have basic cable over Internet. Cut the cord! (except that its probably the same coaxial cable that brings your Internet)

I’m really hoping to see Apple to announce a similar Hulu deal for AppleTV.  Hulu Plus already exists on iOS devices so there isn’t a technical issue and if it is on Roku, there is no legal issue related to TV streams.  Soooo….

Let consumers decide whether they want to pay $1-$3/episode on iTunes or $10 + commercials for on-demand TV. If Netflix can be blessed on AppleTV, then why not Hulu?  Oh, and how about some international rollouts Hulu while  we’re at it?

Full Press Roku-Hulu release below:

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COMPUTERWORLD: All reports now suggest Apple will introduce its second-generation iPad in the second quarter of 2011. The device will hit a far more competitive market than it faced in its first iteration, with tablets coming from all directions. Will features be enough to prevail in the growing tablet industry? I think it will be developers who determine who succeeds in 2011’s tablet wars.

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Update: Barron’s reports that Cook said this was BS over coffee this morning.

The empty desk roulette wheel at HP was sure to come around and hit Apple COO Tim Cook at some time.  Today, those rumors materialize at ZeroHedge via Business Insider.  The news dropped AAPL stock price this morning 20 points, but it subsequently rebounded.  How convenient.

The question is: Would Cook rather run HP or wait a few years and head up Apple, a bigger (more interesting) company by market cap?  (Maybe he misses Jon Rubinstein?)

Though, if HP hasn’t been making overtures to Cook, why are they taking so long to formalize the position with Todd Bradley, who seems like a shoe-in at this point?

That’s not to say Cook shouldn’t take this opportunity to renegotiate his contract. :D

Chances? We’re thinking <10%
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Just in case you haven’t guessed already, the analysts over at Goldman Sachs are speculating the next-generation iPad will appear next year, in the second quarter, to be exact.

They anticipate the new Apple (AAPL) tablet will host a 9.7-inch display and will be thinner and lighter than before. We’re also going to see a built-in camera and a mini USB connection – perhaps in anticipation of upcoming European standardization on the interface.
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We’re looking at Amazon’s new Web-based Kindle book samples here, folks, offering you the chance to read the first chapter of a host of books in a format you can host on your Facebook page, website or by email. All very nice, particularly as rumors of an Android-powered Amazon iPad competitor continue to gather steam.
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Millennial Media has released their August 2010 ad impressions report and the results are quite phenomenal for iOS. iOS led the pack with 48% of total advertisement impressions in August. This 48% includes all iOS devices, not just the iPhone, such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

Android comes in number two with 26% of ad impressions just 7% of Research in Motion’s (BlackBerry etc.) 19%. Getting into actual phones (not including non-phone communicators such as iPad, iPod touch, PSP, Kindle etc.) Apple still leads August impressions with 28.32%.
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Apple new sixth-generation iPod nano costs from $43.73, according to iSuppli’s latest tear-down analysis of the same.

The 8GB version of the latest iPod carries an estimated BOM of $43.73, the second-lowest BOM of all members of the iPod line —  only the fourth generation product was less expensive to manufacture at $40.80.
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Giz has put together a pretty good chart which outlines the iPad’s competition. We still aren’t certain on the pricing for the BB PlayBook (Business = Play?!), HP Slate, or the Galaxy Tab but there are many other factors to look at. The chart says it all, folks:

…unless you consider which devices are actually shipping (iPad).  The PlayBook likely won’t ship until iPad 2 rears its head.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaez_4m9mQ&w=670&h=401]

RIM has announced its own iPad killer, dubbed the PlayBook, which the company describes as a tablet with an enterprise focus — however, in an unexpected Canadian blow, all 18 Saskatchewan Party cabinet ministers and five senior officials have been issued iPads.
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Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz warned last month that Apple’s iAds would fall apart. So far, here’s how iAds are doing in booking mobile app ads for December vs. Yahoo and the rest according to Bloomberg:

thanks for the graphic

Also interesting that Apple has matched Google in its first December.
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A UK university is offering free iPhone loans to its fourth and fifth year medical students,  report claims.
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This could be a big deal: demand for the iPhone 4 is already outstrippign supply in China, where local carriwer China Unicom received over 200,000 preorders for the device by Saturday.

The iPhone went on sale in China last week, and the local carrier there intends building up supply as fast as possible.
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Microsoft tries again on October 21st according to reports. Here’s their angle: Spend less time on your Smartphone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvV6_t3crlk&w=640&h=505]

Another one below.
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This past week, many sites reported that Apple would be delaying the new Apple TV that was originally set for a September release. These reports of delays were based off an email Apple sent to customers that signed up for expedited shipping. If you recall, the same email was sent to iPad purchasers prior to its launch. Did Apple delay the iPad’s April 3rd launch date? No.

So we’re going to debunk those Apple TV delay rumors right now by showing you that Apple is already preparing Apple TV orders for shipment. In case you are not familiar, when your Apple.com order turns from the “not yet shipped” to the “prepared for shipment” marker it means that your items are packed up and waiting for Fedex, for example, to pick it up. Based on this, they will probably start shipping later today or tomorrow. Thank you, Bjørn!

This morning we reported on a couple new patents which revealed some realistic new features that may someday arrive for the iPad. On one of the patent images we posted (pictured below) there is a circle-shaped hole on the top of the iPad. This hole is identical to the one seen on the current iPod touch with a front-facing camera and this led to several comments, tweets, and email calling us out for not mentioning the “camera”.

We personally did notice this “camera hole” but didn’t give it a mention as it’s most likely the iPad’s ambient light sensor. If you recall, there was some controversy after the iPad’s announcement when people believed that the iPad Steve Job’s showed off at the keynote had an unmentioned camera, when iPad replacement parts emerged with MacBook-like camera holes, and when we revealed some camera evidence in the iPad SDK (here and here).

In the end, the camera evidence most likely was some left over code when Apple was simultaneously developing the iPhone 4 and iPad, and those “camera holes” turned out to be spots for the ambient light sensor. Because of these we held back on saying that hole is a camera. On the other hand, Apple does not normally include that ambient light sensor hole on their patents as shown here, and here.

So in the end it is really a tossup. That hole could be an upcoming front-facing camera for the iPad or could simply be that ambient light sensor. We think it’s the sensor but let us know what you think in the comments.

On July 16th Apple held a press conference regarding the iPhone 4 antenna non-issue to announce free Bumper cases for all. After the announcement, Apple pulled the Bumpers from sale on Apple.com and as of today they’re still unavailable for purchase. Although this is true for Apple’s online and retail stores in the United States among other countries, the Chinese iPhone 4 launch tells a different story.

According to a photo taken at the iPhone 4 launch event today at Apple’s official Beijing retail location, Apple is selling their black Bumper case. The case is currently offered free to iPhone 4 buyers (via the free case program) until September 30th and it makes sense that Apple would begin re-selling them for profit after that date. It appears that Apple has jumped the gun on that and is already selling them in China. This is only confirmed in China by the picture (Originally posted to M.I.C. Gadget‘s Flickr) so we’ll presumably have to wait until after the 30th to see if the United States follows the trend. Oh, what about the other colors!?

The DOJ did what it does and told Apple and others (Adobe Systems Inc., Google Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc. and Pixar) to stop entering into anti-competitive agreements with other high tech companies.  The agreements between the companies limited recruiters from each company from cold calling employees at the other companies, amongst other things.

Google posted a Public Policy Blog statement on the matter:

In order to maintain a good working relationship with these companies, in 2005 we decided not to “cold call” employees at a few of our partner companies. Our policy only impacted cold calling, and we continued to recruit from these companies through LinkedIn, job fairs, employee referrals, or when candidates approached Google directly. In fact, we hired hundreds of employees from the companies involved during this time period.

I think Apple and Google long ago gave up on refraining from hiring each other’s employees.

Full release below:
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DU, one of the largest cell phone carriers in the Middle East, today confirmed (via Saudi Mac) that parts of the Middle East (Specifically the UAE) won’t be seeing FaceTime functionality on their iPhone 4s. DU also states that the situation is out of their control meaning this is either a government restriction or something to do with Apple. The announcement came via their official twitter page along with some other notes on their iPhone 4 launch plans.

Since no FaceTime for many Middle Eastern customers is a huge drawback the carrier notes that new iPhone 4 contracts will come with one year of free data and data plans will cap at 10 GB versus AT&T’s 2 GB.

http://online.wsj.com/media/swf/VideoPlayerMain.swf

In this clip, Google CEO Eric Schmidt talks about technology, his relationship with Apple and Steve Jobs.  He also told Businessweek that Apple and Google have recently extended their search partnership.

Apple is a company we both partner and compete with. We do a search deal with them, recently extended, and we’re doing all sorts of things in maps and things like that. So the sum of all this is that two large corporations, both of which are important, both of which I care a lot about, will [remain] pretty close. But Android was around earlier than iPhone.

Among other highlights in this (really interesting) interview:
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Target this morning made the rumors that they will be selling the iPad, legit. According to the Associated Press Target announced they will begin selling Apple’s iPad on October 3rd via their retail locations.

Something to note is that Target will only be selling four iPad models starting at $499. This means they’ll be selling all three WiFi variants and only one 3G model. We still don’t know which 3G model that is though.   Target currently sells all of Apple’s new iPods. Target will also be offering 5% off discounts on iPads for Target card holders starting October 17th.

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Of course Apple will never, ever, ever release a 7-inch iPad, the argument goes, why would it, its product lines are models of simplicity, etc., etc. So here’s the news from out of China, Apple is prepping a 7-inch iPod touch.
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