Apple

Tim Cook’s Apple: the one Apple story to read today

Erica Ogg — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:07:33 +0000

Credit: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg

The biggest challenge for Apple over the next several years will be how it adjusts under the leadership of Tim Cook. We’ve seen bits and pieces of what this new era means for Apple, but Fortune writer Adam Lashinsky has a cover story on Thursday that pulls it all together and is chock-full of fascinating details about how Apple is changing with him at the helm.

We’ve deviated from our usual roundup of must-read Apple coverage to highlight the story by Lashinsky, who wrote a book last year called Inside Apple. Here are the five most interesting details from the story that any Apple watcher should take note of:

Wall Street loves Cook. Not only has the stock skyrocketed since Cook took over as permanent CEO in August, but he has given investors their long-awaited dividend, and he actually, like, talks to investors. And they love him for all of those things. Said one Goldman Sachs analyst: “By any quantitative measure, so far his performance is phenomenal.”
Cook has embraced corporate types. He’s brought in a lot of MBA-toting new employees to Apple. And it’s not a real surprise, given his background as COO, that he’s emphasizing operational efficiency. But some are starting to wonder if efficiency is becoming more of a priority compared to engineering creativity. One former long-time Apple engineer is quoted as saying, “It looks like it has become a more conservative execution engine rather than a pushing-the-envelope engineering engine.”
He’s a communicator. He was recently photographed meeting with Speaker John Boehner in Washington, D.C. But Lashinsky reports that he told several high-ranking politicians that he wanted to be “personally accessible to them.” The same seems to be true of his employees — he’ll randomly sit down to lunch with them at the Cupertino campus’s cafeteria — and his partners — he personally visited a Foxconn plant in the aftermath of the public outcry over working conditions there.
He is not scary. Siri isn’t a finished product and has understandably had bugs. That would not have gone over well were Steve Jobs around, notes one employee. And whereas in the Jobs era employees feared him, some Apple employees now seem a little more relaxed, as he tells in one anecdote about an engineer who didn’t feel like he had to rush back to work right after lunch anymore. And the annual retreat for the company’s 100 best performers was actually considered fun this year and not as stressful as it had been under Jobs.
He is shepherding the creation of new products that employees like. At the top performers retreat, those in attendance got a look at future products. One veteran executive was “blown away” while others “came away totally comfortable with where the company is headed.”

The main takeway: Cook is doing his own thing, and that means doing things differently than Jobs. The changes he’s instituted clearly make a lot of investors happy and life as an Apple employee sounds a little less terrifying. But it’s still too soon to tell if either of those things will do what many fear: transform Apple into an ordinary company.

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Yahoo Axis: A surprisingly fresh take on mobile browsers

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 24 May 2012 14:55:56 +0000

Yahoo announced the launch of a new mobile browser on Thursday: Yahoo Axis is available in the iTunes App Store for iOS devices and will be supported on other mobile platforms in the future. An Axis plugin for HTML5 browsers on the desktop allows for browsing sessions and searches to be synchronized from smartphone to computer. With Axis, Yahoo is attempting to turn the browser from “destination to companion.”

I was leery when I heard the news about Axis, mainly because Yahoo’s mobile strategy has arguably been second-rate by comparison to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Then I took Axis for a spin on my iPhone and I was pleasantly surprised. In my opinion, Yahoo has accomplished its stated goals with Axis, and its peers could learn something from the venerable search company.

First, I’m very impressed with the user interface implemented in Axis. It’s simple and fast to use once you understand it. Essentially, the browser has a number of sliding panes — both horizontally and vertically — that you swipe to get around the web.

You start out with an address bar that’s also a search field and results begin to appear immediately. Swiping left to right shows more results, which are essentially thumbnails of visual information; far richer than just text results. Tap a thumbnail and a bottom panel rises, showing the a web page. Bookmarks are available with a right to left swipe (or a tap) of a small ribbon icon. Tap an icon on the bottom of the browser and thumbnails of open tabs appear for your to navigate through or view.

The entire UI is seamless and very focused on swiping as opposed to tapping. Yahoo clearly spent time figuring out the best way to take advantage of the touchscreens found on today’s smartphones, and the effort shows. Although geared for mobile devices, I really like how Axis allows you to switch views optimized for iPhone, iPad and desktops from within the settings. I never expected to say this, but Google, Microsoft and even Apple could learn from Yahoo’s UI approach here. That’s debatable and open to personal opinion of course, but I really like what Yahoo did here.

How much will Axis matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not too much because even with the well designed user interface, I don’t expect a significant number of iOS device users to switch browsers. Some might use Axis — or Opera, Dolphin HD or another third-party browser — on occasion, but since all links in iOS open Safari, few will likely bother to open up Axis on a regular basis. That’s a shame because Yahoo has delivered a solid browser for mobile devices in Axis.

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Apple defends its e-book pricing as “perfectly proper”

Erica Ogg — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:02:57 +0000

In the latest court filing in the ongoing Justice Department e-books price-fixing suit, Apple said it did not conspire to fix the prices of digital books to hurt competitors and called the case “fundamentally flawed,” according to a Reuters report.

According to Reuters’ copy of the filing, Apple stated:

“Apple’s entry into e-book distribution is classic procompetitive conduct” that created competition where none existed, Apple said in its court papers.

“For Apple to be subject to hindsight legal attack for a business strategy well-recognized as perfectly proper sends the wrong message to the market,” it added. “The government’s complaint against Apple is fundamentally flawed as a matter of fact and law.”

Apple also denied that the government “accurately characterized” the comment attributed to Jobs.

The “comment attributed to Jobs” is referring to a January 2010 email from Steve Jobs in which he seems to suggest how to set prices of e-books between $12.99 and $14.99.

The “fundamentally flawed” characterization of the case by Apple in the latest filing is a slightly more agressive version of the company’s initial response to the suit last month, when Apple called the accusations from the DOJ “simply not true.”

In April, the DOJ filed suit against Apple and five publishers – Hachette, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins (who quickly agreed to settle), Macmillan and Penguin — accusing them of colluding to keep Amazon out of the e-book market unless it changed its pricing structure.

To get up to speed on the case since then, see my paidContent colleagues’ “Everything you need to know about the e-books lawsuit” post.

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Financial Times exec: iOS apps don’t work for publishers

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:04:16 +0000

It’s been close to a year since the Financial Times left the iTunes app store to launch a a web app for its paid content, and FT.com Managing Director Rob Grimshaw told the audience at GigaOM’s paidContent 2012 conference that this move has more than paid off. “It’s been a tremendous experience,” Grimshaw said, adding: “The audience didn’t shrink, it expanded.” He went on to say that FT.com’s mobile web app has seen more than two million users – more than FT.com ever saw for both of its iOS apps combined.

FT.com took the step after negotiations about in-app subscriptions broke down over Apple’s demands to take a hefty cut of the subscription fees. “We felt that the terms that Apple were offering were detrimental… to our business,” explained Grimshaw. Asked whether he lost a big promotional opportunity by leaving the iTunes store, he replied: “I don’t need Apple to tell the world the Financial Times is here. We’ve been here for 120 years.” He added that iOS apps don’t seem to be working for publishers, as they’re not bringing in enough revenue. Said Grimshaw: “I’m not sure it’s all that it’s cracked up to be.”

Grimshaw also shared some experiences with taking FT.com behind a paywall, which has been largely a success for the publisher, with now 285,000 people paying for access to the site. He said the biggest challenge early on wasn’t to find the right price point as much as to find the right mindset within the company: “Publishers are used to being B2B operators. We didn’t know our customers.”

Grimshaw was joined on the panel by Piano Media CEO Tomas Bella, whose company is operating a joint-industry payment platform that gives paying customers access to paid content across a wide variety of sites. Piano started off in Slovakia, but wants to be in a total of five markets by the end of the year. Bella said that his company’s approach works particularly well for smaller publishers who don’t offer as much value to their readers as a big entity like FT.com. “The system was created to lower the barrier to payment,” he explained.

Keep up with the discussion at paidContent 2012 via livestream (registration required) and #pc2012 on Twitter.

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Straight Talk: It could let you dump AT&T or T-Mobile

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:39:46 +0000

Earlier this month, I took a look at Straight Talk, a TracFone-owned mobile virtual operator that resells service on both AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S. I personally bought a T-Mobile compatible Straight Talk SIM card for my Galaxy Nexus because the deal for unlimited everything at $45 per month and no contract sounded too good to be true. For the most part, Straight Talk delivers on its promise with two small exceptions that I’ll point out shortly. The company calls its product a “BYOP” or Bring Your Own Phone prepaid service.

Since trying the service, I’ve received a number of questions about it and the company noticed. So in order to help me answer them intelligently, Straight Talk sent me a loaner unlocked iPhone 4, two AT&T SIMs (regular sized and micro SIM) and some pre-paid monthly service cards.

Unlimited isn’t quite unlimited, except for voice and messages

So here are some follow up experiences I’ve had with both my phone and the loaner iPhone 4, which hopefully helps you decide if Straight Talk’s $45 month to month service is an option for you. First, let me point out the two key exceptions that I’ve found.

Apple’s Visual Voicemail isn’t supported by Straight Talk, so if you go this route, you’ll be calling in to hear your messages. I don’t think that’s a huge issue, at least not for me personally as I use Google Voice for all communications. However, some folks may not be happy with the feature loss.
For $45, Straight Talk advertises unlimited voice minutes, messages and HSPA+ data (There’s no LTE support, even if your phone is capable of using AT&T’s LTE service). Based on user-reported experiences, Straight Talk won’t cut you off provided you keep your monthly usage to 2 GB or about 100 MB per day. Hit either of these and you might get a message about excessive use, along with the threat of service termination. History shows that I use about 1 to 1.5 GB of mobile broadband a month on my phones (I use Wi-Fi a ton), so this works well for me. If you want truly unlimited data or use more than 2 GB per month on your phone, this isn’t the plan for you. Don’t even try it, would be my recommendation.

Note: I asked Straight Talk about the limit and was told that company is trying to “focus on trust and communication with customers.” It’s likely that TracFone has no way to throttle after any limits, since it doesn’t operate the networks. As a result, the company will warn folks for excessive use and potentially disrupt service if you don’t limit your usage.

Good value or no?

If you can live with those two caveats, I think the service is a great value. I was using a $30 data-only T-Mobile SIM in my Galaxy Nexus paired with low-cost VoIP calling but due to coverage issues with dropped or missed calls, I’m much happier with the Straight Talk SIM. My first month of service ends next week and I’ve already added 3 months to my account for $130 thanks to a $5 bundle savings. And because my kids have T-Mobile Sidekick 4G handset and share 1,000 minutes, I ordered a pair of Straight Talk SIMs for them as well. They use very little data but tons of minutes and messages. Now I’ll save on their service and not worry about voice minute overages.

Some questions people have asked me along with answers:

How hard is it to set up a Straight Talk SIM on an iPhone? Great question since you can’t directly access the network or APN settings on an iPhone without jailbreaking it. It’s quite easy to set up the new SIM. Just pop it in your iPhone and hit this site in mobile Safari over Wi-Fi: http://unlockit.co.nz/ Here you’ll get a small file to download after choosing Straight Talk as your provider. This file will set up the phone to work with the new SIM and the process takes all of two minutes.
Is it difficult to set up the service on an Android or other phone? Nope, this is super easy as you can access the APN settings directly on most smartphones. You simply enter the settings provided with your SIM card. It takes a minute or two at most to type the data in.
What about MMS on the iPhone? The above setup solution doesn’t enable MMS, so there are several manual methods to enable both data and MMS. First, back up your iPhone in iTunes with its current SIM. Then swap SIM cards and restore your iPhone backup with the Straight Talk SIM in the handset. Again, this isn’t an issue for me personally as I use Google Voice for messages. There’s plenty of information on Straight Talk setup in this wiki page if you need it. If you have a cut-down T-Mobile SIM, you can follow these simple instructions as well. Or you could jailbreak your phone to get access to the settings.
Are the network speeds the same? According to my testing: Yes. I’ve used my Galaxy Nexus with both a T-Mobile SIM and Straight Talk SIM for T-Mobile’s network and found the speeds to be equal. On T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network where I live, I routinely see between 6 and 8 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up and ping times around 120 milliseconds. The same test on my iPhone 4S with a SIM from AT&T and then from Straight Talk showed no difference either.
How’s the coverage? Since Straight Talk is paying AT&T and T-Mobile for their networks, the coverage is the same as if you were paying those operators directly. I haven’t seen any coverage differences at all. If you get good coverage now from one of the two carriers, you should get the same with a Straight Talk SIM.
If I can save money with this SIM, why wouldn’t I do it? First, if you’re a heavy data user, I wouldn’t recommend this option, as stated above. Second, you’re bringing your own phone. That means you either pay full price for your phone — which can be anything from $400 to $700, if not more — or you keep your current phone and close out your contract with an early termination fee. You’ll have to check with your carrier to see how much that will cost. I’ll be closing my T-Mobile contract on the two Sidekicks, for example, so my break-even point is a few months out. Lastly, if you use a CDMA phone (such one from Sprint or Verizon) or you want LTE service, this plan won’t work for you.
What about tethering or using the phone as a mobile hotspot? That’s expressly forbidden in the terms of service. You might get away with it for a short bit here and there, but once you bump up against some heavy usage in a single day, you’re raising the red flag to Straight Talk’s systems.
Can I port a number to Straight Talk? Yup, not a problem. You do this when you activate your SIM card online. I didn’t do this for my account. Although I now have another new phone number, nobody knows it because of Google Voice. I will, however, port my kids’ phone numbers next week.

No, this service isn’t for everyone. Heavy-duty data users, folks that want LTE, use a CDMA phone or don’t want to pay full price for their handset are unlikely candidates. But for someone like myself that buys unsubsidized hardware, doesn’t want a long term contract and can supplement mobile broadband with Wi-Fi usage, the BYOP plan at Straight Talk offers solid savings and the same level of service found from national carriers.

Disclosure: The free 30-day service provided by Straight Talk was for testing purposes, not for my personal use, and the iPhone will be returned, per our editorial policy. I pay for my own phone service and provided my own Galaxy Nexus and iPhone 4S smartphones, which I bought out of pocket last year.

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Dell blames iPad, mobile devices in PC sales lull, plus 4 other Apple stories to read today

Erica Ogg — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:12:54 +0000

With so many people writing about Apple, finding the best stories and reports isn’t easy. Here’s our daily pick of stories about the company from around the Web that you shouldn’t miss:

Dell admits “alternative mobile computing devices” — aka the iPad and other smartphones and tablets — are having a significant effect on its PC business, Marketwatch reports.
How big of a chunk has the iPad taken out of the entire PC market? Asymco has a good visualization of the latest numbers.
Following his epic takedown last week of Digitimes’ faulty Apple reporting, Harry McCracken at TIME posts a response from the Taiwanese publication and his own post-mortem thoughts on Apple rumors that are worth reading.
Speaking of rumors: more hints that Microsoft may be closer to releasing an iOS version of Office, according to BGR. And, in a twist, there might also be an Android version in the works too.
Not only did the mediation talks between the Apple and Samsung chief executives not bear much fruit, accusations between the two companies continue to fly. This time Samsung is accusing Apple of withholding documents in their ongoing court battle, writes The Mac Observer.

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After fruitless CEO meeting, Apple, Samsung look headed for trial

Erica Ogg — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:22:56 +0000

In a surprise to almost no one following the case, Samsung and Apple are not any closer to an agreement to stop suing each other following a rare face-to-face session in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday between the two companies’ CEOs. There is still no resolution to the ongoing legal battle over the design of Apple and Samsung mobile products, Samsung told the Korea Times on Wednesday.

“The two technology giants could find no clear agreement through the talks, according to a Samsung official,” says the report.

As the two sides failed to come to any agreement, and unless some other deal is struck in the meantime, they will proceed to trial, which is scheduled for June 27.

One of the reasons few expected a settlement or any progress is that the meeting was ordered, not voluntary. Samsung CEO Choi-Gee-sung and Apple CEO Tim Cook were told to meet before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh last month.

Apple has accused Samsung of “slavishly copying” its iPhone and iPad designs, while Samsung wants Apple to pay royalties on a variety of mobile patents. Cook recently told reporters and financial analysts that he has “always hated litigation,” Apple “just want[s] people to invent their own stuff.”

Update: FOSS Patents got a look at the official record of the proceedings:

The two orders don’t state a result. What is know for sure is that ‘Tim Cook & various counsel’ met with ‘G.S. Choi & various counsel’ for nine hours on Monday and seven hours on Tuesday. The minute entry for Monday said that they were going to meet again on Tuesday (which was the original plan), while the minute entry for Tuesday doesn’t say anything about a continuation of this effort, which suggests that there aren’t any near-term plans for further talks of this kind.

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Content, not hardware, has made tablets the current king

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:18:05 +0000

Tablets may be a hot item now, but they’re just getting started. By 2016, 34 percent of the U.S. population — 112.5 million — will own tablets, making them the fastest adopted consumer electronics device in history. But tablets alone won’t be the big story in the coming years according to James McQuivey, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research. Speaking at the paidContent 2012 event on Wednesday, McQuivey noted that it’s not just a “tablet or iPad world” coming, but an “everything world.”

“Rapidly converging technlogies accelerate the benefits of consumer delivery,” McQuivey said, and that benefit is digital content and entertainment. “It’s all about the software,” he said, because software services make the content easy to access across a wide number of devices, such as the 35 million e-readers also owned by consumers. “The big thing happening is a platform promise between device makers, service providers and consumers.” That’s why the iPad is a hit: It’s a solid blend of hardware, software and ecosystem support.

This “platform promise” is bringing unprecedented use of devices for content, particularly with the iPad. Consumers are looking for a full package; not just a nice piece of hardware. And until others can offer that full, “everything” package, Apple will continue to lead. But don’t count out Microsoft, McQuivey said, given the 70 million Xbox 360 devices connected to televisions.

“The platform is the new throne where content reigns and content is king,” he notes. “And the platform promise can make or unmake a king at any time.” The iPad might be sitting on the throne now, but as competitors build up the promise of their platform, the game of thrones rages on.

Tablets: Not Just an iPad World http://www.scribd.com/embeds/94546961/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-kcbm7z74vhennn7m52k

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Jony Ive: Apple doesn’t like ‘godless’ products

Bobbie Johnson — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:35:39 +0000

Ahead of receiving his knighthood from the Queen, Apple’s Jony Ive has given a rare interview to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph — outlining some of his thoughts and feelings on product design.

While the article focuses, perhaps unsurprisingly, on his links to Britain — his design education, how London’s a vibrant city and so on — and runs over the now-familiar details of his career, there are a few choice quotes where he explains a few things about his sensibility.

In particular, he mentions how Apple tries hard to make its customers feel that the products and services have a built-in sense of care. By that he means trying to instill a carefulness and thoughtful philosophy right through the product — and avoid the worry that producing millions of devices would somehow introduce a “godless” quality to the things it makes.

“We try to develop products that seem somehow inevitable. That leave you with the sense that that’s the only possible solution that makes sense.”

“I think subconsciously people are remarkably discerning. I think that they can sense care. I think it’s a wonderful view that care was important – but I think you can make a one-off and not care and you can make a million of something and care. Whether you really care or not is not driven by how many of the products you’re going to make.”

“One of the concerns was that there would somehow be, inherent with mass production and industrialisation, a godlessness and a lack of care.

“We’re keenly aware that when we develop and make something and bring it to market that it really does speak to a set of values. And what preoccupies us is that sense of care, and what our products will not speak to is a schedule, what our products will not speak to is trying to respond to some corporate or competitive agenda. We’re very genuinely designing the best products that we can for people.”

The allusion to “godlessness” may seem odd, but I suspect that he hasn’t turned to religion — and is in fact referring to the soullessness of many designed-by-committee, manufactured-by-the-ton products.

Given how rarely Ive steps into the limelight (even now) (he also spoke to London’s Evening Standard a couple of months ago) it’s worth a read: the rest of the interview is here.

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Apple scourge Lodsys continues patent rampage against developers, corporations

Jeff John Roberts — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:38:47 +0000

Patent troll Lodsys became infamous after it extracted a license from Apple only to turn around and sue small iOS app developers for including features like in-app purchasing in their products. But one startup is now taking a stand and has asked a federal court to examine the case.

Lodsys, a shell company that doesn’t do anything but file lawsuits, appears undeterred by the pressure from Apple or by popular contempt. This month alone, it used the same patents to sue dozens more companies, including names like Dell, Rosetta Stone and Overstock.com. Last month, a federal court finally gave Apple permission to intervene in one of the lawsuits and argue that its own license should protect the app developers.

But it appears that Lodsys is continuing its shakedown of small app makers by offering them a “licensing solution” they can’t refuse in return for a share of their royalties. The troll’s latest antics came to light this week after a brave Seattle app maker, A Thinking Ape, refused the shakedown and instead asked a federal court to declare that apps like “In Your Dorm” don’t infringe the patents.

The complaint by A Thinking Ape lists Lodsys’ campaign of lawsuits against everyone from the New York Times to Wolfram Alpha and sums up the nature of the racket:

Defendant does not create products; it solely engages in aggressive litigation tactics to compel licenses of their AssertedPatents from companies that do produce products.

A handful of other developers have tried to stand up to Lodsys in the past but most capitulated soon after and agreed to pay the troll a tax (rumored to be 2.5 percent of revenues).

The Soul of a Patent Troll

Patent trolling took off after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office began issuing a flood of questionable “business method” patents related to things like software and, believe it or not, a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich. In 2006, lawyers used such a patent to threaten Research in Motion with an injunction against the BlackBerry and extract a $612 million payout.

Lodsys appears to have perfected the art. The troll has been sending identical threat letters (you can see one below) that extol the virtues of patent developer Daniel Abelow. The letter explains that “Dan” has been to several Ivy League schools and “an independent consultant on presenting information via the internet.”

So who is this latter-day Ben Franklin? Here’s a shot from his homepage:

Dan repeatedly describes himself as an “inventor” but it doesn’t appear he has any training in science or engineering. An average person would be as likely to call Dan an inventor as they would call former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson a computer scientist.

But given the state of the patent system, it appears we’re stuck with the likes of Dan for a while. Or at least until courageous app developers or Apple can flush Lodsys and its shadowy backers from the patent system once and for all.

Here’s a typical Lodsys letter. Scroll down to see Dan’s marvelous inventions in action:

Lodsys Letter Copy

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