Apple's net income in the most recent quarter was up 67 percent year-over-year to $1.01 per share or $904 million as revenue rose to $6.22 billion. Wall Street's average estimate was 86 cents per share on $6.07 billion. Shows you what analysts know. The company sold 1.1 million iPhones, more than 10 million iPods and 2.16 million Macs. [AP]
Doug Morris, head of Universal Music, the most powerful of the four major record-label groups, thinks he has a plan to reclaim the music industry from Apple, maker of the iPod and iTunes. There are scant details and the plan is in flux, but the basic idea, dubbed Total Music, is this: All of the studios will pool their content for online distribution and share in the revenue. The service will be a subscription subsidized by any form of provider: device manufacturers, music stores, cellphone carriers, whomever. The consumer doesn't have to pay for a music service because it's baked in, the music industry finally gets the revenue stream that they've been missing. But we're skeptical.
Apparently college kids are warming up to Macs again. While Apple's share of the overall computer market is about 5.6 percent, lots of students are picking up Mac notebooks. 40 percent of Princeton students have Macs, up from 10 percent four years ago. 55 percent of Dartmouth freshmen are using them, up from 30 percent two years ago. The study also mentions that The University of Virginia and Cornell are seeing upticks in student Mac users. This is a complete turnabout from the situation a decade ago, when Yale told incoming freshmen not to buy a Mac. Why the dramatic comeback?
Why, in this age of lightning-fast publishing, do members of prestigious national publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal still agree to embargoes? Microsoft, it seems, has placed an embargo on its new Zune models, but Gizmodo already has photos, and the Silicon Alley Insider, too, has already scooped its much-larger business-news rivals, with reports that Microsoft will introduce new Zunes with flash-memory storage, competing with Apple's iPod Nano line. Jay Greene from BusinessWeek, Jeff Leeds, music reporter at the Times, and Nick Wingfield of the Journal, we hear, were among the reporters scribbling away at the Microsoft launch event in the Seattle area today. And what did they get in exchange for agreeing to sit on the news?
Kitchen appliances:
"This microwave looks great. Does it have a popcorn setting?"
"A popcorn subscription, yes."
"Sorry?"
"There is a popcorn setting, but it's only good with this list of popcorn manufacturers. We were at least able to get Pop Secret and Orville Redenbacher to agree on a 99-cent price point for each use."
"Erm. How about this model? Is popcorn free on this?"
"Yes, but you can only use it three times."
"Oh."
"There is, however, a bonus: You can play five pre-loaded microwave games."
"On this little screen?"
"One of the games is 'Guess what I'm cooking.'"
Maybe New York magazine had it right: Could Apple CEO Steve Jobs be getting too cocky for his own good? In an interview with USA Today, Jobs tells people who shelled out $599 for an iPhone that's now selling for $200 less, "That's technology." In other words, tough titty. It's a heck of a marketing strategy, if you can call it that. Never mind that we basically agree with Jobs, and think smug iPhone buyers got what they deserved — Jobs could certainly have delivered the message with more tact. Another sign of how out of touch Jobs has become. In the interview, he reveals that he buys songs through the iTunes Store, even when he already owns the CD, out of sheer laziness. Life is rough when you're the billionaire CEO of Apple.
Oh neat oh neat oh HOLY CRAP! Wait, really? I didn't expect that. The iPod touch looks pretty sweet, but won't I just feel stupid when I have to pull out my other phone? I'm all "whee, I'm surfing the Internet in a cafe on my iPod," or I'm all listening to music, and then ring, there's my phone, just like always, only this time I also have a big-ass minicomputer in my pocket. And there's no camera. Actually this looks like a raw deal. Okay, how about the iPhone? What's new there? Hrm. Not much, I guess.
Did you rush out and buy an iPhone the moment they went on sale? Then there's a word for you: SUCKER. After rolling out a new line of iPods, including touchscreen models that do everything an iPhone does but make calls, Apple has dropped the price on the most expensive iPhone to $399, a 33-percent slashing. Of course, Apple's iPhone is competing with heavily subsidized cell-phone models, which rapidly drop in price after soaking the early adopters for everything they're worth. It should come as no surprise to the technically adept, gadget-lusting geeks who splashed out for an iPhone early on. We just hope that paying $200 for two months of insufferable smugness was worth it.
Next week's special Apple press event will be disappointing to Beatles fans — a group that included CEO Steve Jobs. Silicon Alley Insider reports that, despite an homage to the Beatles on the invitation, which reads "The beat goes on," a long-awaited announcement that the Beatles library will be available on iTunes won't be part of the September 5 event. Instead, it will feature, yes, yet more iPods. Are they still making those tired old things?
We knew Microsoft had a Herculean — nay, Sisyphean — task when it rolled out its Zune MP3 player last year. It didn't help matters when Microsoft "designers" chose putrid brown as a launch color. Despite Microsoft's pledge of continued support of the product, it looks like it — or a major retailer left with unsold stock — is dumping Zunes on the cheap. Woot, the deal-a-day online retail site, is currently selling white Zunes for $150 apiece, a 50% discount over the retail price. While the site doesn't list available stock, hot items are known to sell out quickly. This obviously doesn't describe Zune, though.
A power failure at a Samsung factory in Seoul, Korea forced a partial shutdown of chip production for the world's largest memory supplier. The breakdown is likely to boost competitors Hynix and Toshiba and impact manufacturers of consumer products using NAND Flash memory... particularly Apple, makers of the iPod and JesusPhone, who had — until recently — been reaping the benefits of high margins. [AP]
TIM FAULKNER — One expects Microsoft to try every marketing tactic conceivable, especially if it seems hip and new, but can even the most loyal and deluded Zune marketers think this is an effective idea? Does anyone think these are not planted or that five or six dead iPods at the bottom of a three foot tall bin is even conveying the intended message? [Photo credit: fimoculous from Flickr.]
TIM FAULKNER — As reported by TechCrunch, Pandora, the music recommendation and internet radio service based on the Music Genome Project, made a series of announcements yesterday to better position itself against its competitors (last.fm, LAUNCHCast, SomaFM, and numerous others) through agreements extending their service to others' devices. However, the decision to launch their own branded device seems contradictory and highly questionable.
Just discovered Drivl.com, a clever daily comedy site with articles like "The Worst-of-Web-2.0 Awards," "Workplace Kama Sutra" (tales of sex in Indian call centers) and "Seven Phases of Owning an iPod" (pictured). Its low Alexa rank indicates this site is an undiscovered gem. Steal the jokes for your water-cooler conversation before this site catches on.
"Oh J r me, how shall we ever express the empty shell our lives have become?"
"We must hold a mock protest against something so banal, the world sees instantly it is but a satire on the whiny petite bourgeoisie, distracted from the true existential questions of our time."
"But what if they take us seriously?"
"Mon amie, they couldn't possibly be so stupid."
