Stop The Presses!!!! I have news that is going to shock the world! I’ve just recieved word from a very reliable source that the next gen iPod is going to use a portable fuel cell powered by human feces. Actually, it’s a brand new microreactor that can run on most kinds of animal feces. (more…)
For those of you who have been keeping up with the rumors on the internets, it seems that Apple might be announcing the MacBook on Tuesday. What’s even cooler is that the MacBooks could come in both black and white. YEAH! I’m stoked. Also, Nintendo is making their big splash on e3 in L.A. on Tuesday. Could these two companies be cooking up some bizarre plan to work together? Conspiracy theory? Yes. Impossible? No. (more…)
It seems like every time that a product or service hits it big - like the iPod, MySpace, or Craig’s List, hundreds of other companies or individuals try to copy the idea. Most of the time copycat products never do as well as the original did. Yet, even when the copycat product improves on the idea, it still doesn’t seem to catch on in the same way that the original did.
How does this happen? Well the reasons for copycatting are obvious enough. If something is successful, then people want in on the money and the success. Then, the obvious thing that people do is take the original product and make it better and cheaper. Conventional wisdom says that this should work. However, it doesn’t work and a whole generation or two of so-called “iPod killers” has proved this. You can’t just slap on new features and unseat the iPod or MySpace or Craig’s List. It just won’t work! (more…)
So I don’t usually report on financial news, but I’m pretty impressed by this. Apple’s year over year growth for the last quarter is about 30%. Revenue jumped by around a billion dollars. Profits jumped about $100 million or so. While Wall Street was expecting more from Apple, I have to say that they are full of crap. Steve Jobs and company have managed a huge turnaround over the last few years and it’s nothing short of phenominal. Also of some interest is that this was Apple’s second highest quarterly sales in Apple history. For a tech company as old as Apple to survive this long and now be having this much success speaks volumes.
I read a blog post today that reminded me of one of those really harsh realities of being a tech blogger. As much as we love the cool products that Apple makes or the “Don’t be evil” mantra of Google attempts to live by, once in a while we must all be reminded that Google, Apple, .and every other corporation at their very best are still very much for profit corporations. Now, this in itself isn’t perhaps a bad thing. However, the one glaring problem with all companies is that the rules are usually decided by what is illegal (what they can get away with) and not always what is “the right thing to do”. (more…)
It seems like every time you turn around Sony is pimping some new format that is meant to change our life, or perhaps just Sony’s bottom line. Yet Sony, more than any other company I know of, seems to be consistantly hell-bent on creating a new format for every device they create. At the same time the failure rate of these formats is extremely high and very well known. When I hear Betamax, MiniDisc, and UMD almost by default my eyes glaze over and I think what might have been. I sypmathize with Sony because they create some really awesome technology, but the more I look at Sony, the more I see a company who doesn’t even understand its own success. (more…)
The Mercury News is reporting that Microsoft is working on a portable game system based around the Xbox brand. It’s being assumed that this portable gaming device is going to be some kind of iPod/PSP/DS killer. I really just don’t think that Microsoft can pull it off. Wait, let me rephrase that. I sincerely hope that Microsoft doesn’t rip off the PSP or the iPod because if Microsoft does that, the Xbox Portable would be a failure. The iPod is great because of the fantastic iTunes integration and a super-simple interface. It’s does all the important things right and is a huge success because of it. Competitors who have tried to kill the iPod have failed because they tried to do the whole bigger is better/more features thing that just doesn’t work in consumer electronics.
The PSP is successful because of the Playstation brand and that’s it. There are a handfull of games that are good, but it’s mostly overpriced trash rehashed from the PS2. To combat the lack of real games Sony has opted for a media strategy with the PSP. Make it do everything other than games and people will love it. Where this strategy falls short is that it doesn’t do music as well as the iPod and it doesn’t do games as well as the Nintendo DS. In most respects I think that the PSP is a pretty weak product among gamers. I and I’m sure many others don’t even use mine anymore and am waiting for the Nintendo DS Lite. The hottest thing to do on a PSP is to play emulated (and illegal) copies of old Nintendo and Super Nintendo games. Even UMD sales are slowing to a halt.
Microsoft, take notice of these facts. You need to create a device that capitalizes on the coolest innovation that you’ve created in gaming - The Xbox Live Arcade. Don’t try to do what Sony has done and made a portable PS2. Instead, make a cool device that plays Xbox Live Arcade style games - fun games that I can pick up and play for a few minutes and stop as needed. Geometry Wars on a portable console would be incredible. Gamers don’t want to play through an hour long Halo level on a portable gaming machine. Gamers want quick fun that they can put down at a moment’s notice. If gamers have to spend ten minutes getting to a save point, then you’ve already lost the battle. Take a page out of Nintendo’s playbook. Make the Xbox Portable cheap, make it have some killer games, and make it “portable fun” instead of living room fun. After all, the Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Gameboy Advance SP, DS, DS Lite are the gaming machines that are on top, not the PSP.
I know that the Video iPod is one of the most talked about Apple products that has not yet been released. Yes, the 5G iPod can play videos, but Steve Jobs and company are very careful to say that the 5G iPod is a music playing device first and that it just happens to be able to play videos. However, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the 5G iPod wasn’t made specifically for playing movies. It has a 4:3 screen ratio, a somewhat limited video content selection currently available, and most importantly, a horrible battery life for playing movies. If Apple wants to sell full movies on iTunes, they are going to need a device capable of playing movies in a widescreen format at the very least.
Now, before the latest Apple annoucements, a lot of rumor sites reported on a possible video iPod being announced. Someone even went so far as to make a really excellent fake of a real production sample of the iPod Video. It was really joke on everyone. Needless to say there are many people out there who think that it’s only a matter of time before Apple launches the iPod Video. I tend to agree.
So, this latest bit of rumor comes from the good folks at Apple Insider. According to the site Apple has put the “at risk” classification on the 5G 60GB iPod. That means that within the next 60 days the product could get replaced and that retailers should carefully monitor their inventory levels.
Now, I will be the first to admit that rumors and speculation mean absolutely nothing until the real products are unveiled. This is especially true with Apple. I don’t think that this Apple Insider report proves that Apple is going to unleash the iPod Video soon.
Also, this week iTunes did start selling a Disney Movie. It wasn’t a big hit movie like the Lion King. Instead, it was a Disney Channel movie, so it seems like more of Apple testing the market, rather than making an honest attempt at selling whole movies on iTunes.
So, will we see the iPod Video during Apple’s 30th birthday celebration?(probably the next Apple event) I honestly don’t know. The last two Apple media events have been a bit of a letdown for me. Macworld unveiled the MacBook Pro, and the February event unleashed the iPod Hifi. I realize that the MacBook Pro is really exciting to a lot of people, but we all knew Apple was going Intel, so it wasn’t exactly a shock. Ever since the “one more thing” event there hasn’t really been “one more thing” for Steve to unveil. I hope that Apple has been saving the good stuff for the 30th anniversary. Otherwise, we won’t be seeing an iPod Video, we’ll be seeing the iProjector - a LCD projector that has a built in iPod dock. Whoop-de-do.
Dude, you’re getting an Alienware. News article at The Inquirer outlining why it makes sense.
The Mole’s Take
I think this is a move that Dell needs to make. Dell has driven down prices to the point that they have razor-thin margins on their consumer PC’s. Most of Dell’s money is made in Corporate lease and server deals. That’s where the money is. The consumer PC business is not a place where Dell makes a lot of money. Their companion products aren’t exactly selling like iPods either. Buying Alienware would make a lot of sense because they have a high profit margin and are really good at selling gaming PC’s. If Dell does this they will most certainly need to retain most of Alienware’s operations as they currently are. If Dell tries to make Alienware into something that resembles Dell, then they would kill it and gamers would go elsewhere for their gaming rigs.
One thing is for sure, Dell is a cheap computer company and not a “cool” computer company. No matter how shiny you make a Dell, it still isn’t “cool”. The best evidence of that is the Dell DJ’s and other music devices. They are a joke and haven’t even put a dent in the iPod that it was intended to kill. Now that Apple is going Intel, Dell needs something to help their consumer image, otherwise cheap is not going to cut it.
It’s the morning of the next great Apple announcement. What should we expect to see today? Video iPod? MacBook(iBook)? MacMini? iTablet? Well, all of those are great possibilities, but are they fun enough? A couple of them are, but as the mole I try to look deeper into the conspiracy theory to find the hard(ly) published rumors that slip through the cracks of most journalistic efforts.
So what could it be? Don’t be surprised if we see iTunes show up on the PS3 or the Xbox 360. Both systems are extremely media-centric and want to be the center of your digital life in the same way that the iPod and iTunes already are. Now, since Apple has partnerships with both Sony and Microsoft for various things, either company could have made a deal with Apple to get iTunes on their system. However, it’s more likely that we would see iTunes on the Xbox 360 for two reasons. One, it’s already on the market. Two, Apple owes Microsoft big. It wasn’t too many years ago that Microsoft gave Apple the cash infusion that it needed to stay alive, not to mention that Microsoft signed a 5 year deal to support OSX with Office. Apple wants iTunes and iPod to be everywhere. The iPod already works great with the Xbox 360. If iTunes shows up on the Xbox 360, it will sell 100 million consoles for that reason alone. That’s 100 million people buying movies from iTunes. That’s just too much business for Apple to turn down.
Any other great conspiracy theories out there? Think I’m crazy? MAKE A COMMENT!
