Kiwibloke » Apple

Lana Hits the Streets with Sheep Eye Delicacy (Video)

GregR — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:00:46 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSCUjVacGcc

Lana hits the streets of downtown Wellington with $50 for anyone who will eat sheep eyes.

Wayne Brady Headlines NZ Comedy Festival

GregR — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:42:35 +0000

Emmy Award Winning US Comedian Wayne Brady is all set to turn down under upside down at this years Kiwi Comedy Festival. The show which gets underway from May 1st has once again managed to attract some of the biggest names in the business to these shores to shows in Auckland and WellingtonÂ - and some of them are returning after sell out shows in previous years.

Brady will be hosting the Crunchie Comedy Gala (TV2), Dylan Moran (the star of TV’s Black Books), UK comedian Steve Coogan (aka Alan Partridge), Irish comedian Ed Byrne and Scotland’s Danny Bhoy.

Also returning to the Festival are Dai Henwood, Ben Hurley, Brendhan Lovegrove and Jeremy Corbett. Comedy Divas, Class Comedians, Crunchie Comedy Convoy, Late Laughs and the Nickelodeon Kids Comedy SeasonÂ all will appear.

Whilst the main festival will be in Wellington and Auckland, the Cadbury Crunchie Comedy Convoy is moving through Tauranga, Napier, Palmerston North and New Plymouth before crossing the Cook Strait to tour Nelson, Blenheim, Christchurch, Invercargill and Queenstown.

The NZ International Comedy Festival takes place inÂ Auckland between the 1st May 24th May, Wellington May 3 to 23rd May and The Cadbury Crunchie Comedy Convoy hits the road from the 19th May to 30th May.

Now time for some history, a famous Kiwi Commercial for the Cadbury Crunchie Bar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws837kxz0RM

If you are interested, here is a Cadbury Crunchie bar.

Flight of the Conchords Honored with Hall of Fame

GregR — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:43:29 +0000

Uploaded on Flickr by tinabinaboobops

The New Zealand Fringe Festival topped off an amazing season by naming Jemaine and Bret as members of the inaugural New Zealand Fringe Hall of Fame.

The Fringe Hall of Fame recognises individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the New Zealand Fringe Festival over the years and Bret and Jemaine are shining examples of such individuals who have used Fringe as a platform to create diverse, brave and gob-smacking work,” said Fringe Arts Trust director Mark Westerby.

You can read more here.

Steve Jobs Prepares Wall St for No Steve Jobs

GregR — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:23:43 +0000

Uploaded on Flickr by Sigalakos

There was always going to be a time when their is no Steve Jobs at the head of Apple, it was not a matter of if, just when. The trick for the company was to decide when and how to handle this transition and how best to manage Wall St through the process.

Wall St is a fickle paranoid bunch of people who like to craft their perception of a company in the simplist terms. In the case of Apple, Steve Jobs is god inventor, designer, negotiator, artistian and weaver of gold. Without Steve Jobs, Apple is 40,000 people wandering around aimlessly. This of course worked well for Apple and they have done nothing to dispel this.

This of course is a convenient up til now. But now they have a problem. Steve’s health is a concern and the concern is real. In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. This nonetheless is serious and is the situation behind the current sabbatical. In a letter dated Jan. 5 to the Apple community, Jobs revealed that he was being treated for a hormone imbalance that had been causing him to lose weight, but said doctors had pinpointed its cause and were treating the symptoms.

However Steve Jobs has been unusually quite which is very unusual for him. One person who know Steve Jobs from the very early days, Bob Cringely adds:

Steve Jobs has stopped using his computer. Heâ€™s off curing himself of something he wonâ€™t name and in some manner we canâ€™t know but I CAN tell you right now it doesnâ€™t involve using his computer.

A friend of mine has for years been one of Steve Jobsâ€™ Internet chat buddies. And as such his chat client has â€“ again for years â€“ shown as Steve came online each day and remained there for hours and hours as youâ€™d expect a Silicon Valley mogul to do. And itâ€™s a trend that continued well past Jobsâ€™ announcement that he was taking a six-month leave of absence to get well. But then Steve started logging-on less and less. And several weeks ago he stopped logging-on at all.

Steve Jobs is also a master in creating an alternative universe and it would not be like Steve to simply hang up his hat and leave, there needs to be some drama to it.Â Steve Job is going to leave the company, it is not a matter of how but when. It is very likely that Steve Jobs will not return to Apple in the capacity of CEO after his six months rest, indeed it is likely that this six months is a preparation for the inevitable statement from the Board that Steve Jobs will be in a consultant role as the company searches for a new CEO.

Wall St may in fact be distracted elsewhere after the six months, they indeed have short memories, and this transition will move through a normal course. What is clear is that this 6 months of no Steve news will certainly help the cause.

Kiwi Golfer Pegged as Next Tiger Woods (Video)

GregR — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:27:46 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbXcXfknrTY

Golfer Amateur Danny Lee turned down a $582K payout from the Johnnie Walker Classic to stay amateur so he can play in the US Masters this year. He was invited to compete because of his win at the US Amateur championship last September. LeeÂ stole Woods’ record as being the youngest US Amateur winner last year in that Championship.

[NZ Herald]

Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson Takes on Hong Kong Press

GregR — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:34:58 +0000

Uploaded on Flickr by betta design

Top Gear continues it’s march around the pacific, this time turning up this weekend for the Top Gear Live show in Hong Kong.

According to Hong Kong’s The Standard:

Well, not for long. Soon, the engagingly verbose presenter was cracking jokes about copresenter Richard Hammond’s height (or lack of it) and Hong Kong’s taxi drivers. “Why are the taxis here not fitted with rear suspension and why is everyone a Michael Schumacher?” he observed.

Clarkson goes on to explain how he has seen all of Hong Kong in 24 hours and is now tired. Hong Kong is the last stop of the World Tour which commenced on the 30th October last year, passed through Jo burg, Sydney and Auckland. North American viewers are completely out of luck.

The tour has not been without it’s incidents with Jeremy calling Gordon Brown a one eyed git, Ferraris being Toyotas,Â Stig storming out of a press conference and Hammond and Clarkson almost being at the wrong end of a bird strike.

They will be sadly missed at this end of the pacific.

[The Standard]

Cuba St Comes Alive for Carnival

GregR — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:46:50 +0000

Uploaded on Flickr by jesstherese

On 21 February the Cuba St Carnival will mark its 10th year of celebrating the distinctive culture of Wellingtonâ€™s much loved street. Each year the Carnival continues to grow and this year will be no different, with crowds of 150,000 people expected. The iconic and quirky shopping street will be filled with music and dancing as it celebrates its renaissance from what was formally a shopping back water in Wellington.

â€œThe Cuba Street Carnival is an event that gets the whole city buzzing. Although itâ€™s just 10 years old, the Carnival has already become an iconic Wellington event – celebrating the capitalâ€™s truly vibrant culture.” according to Meridan Sponsor Mel SeyFort

Other highlights to look out for at the Cuba Street Carnival include a display of street art as you have never seen before, to Latin American performances, as well as music from a wide variety of acts including the Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra, and The Tutts.

Uploaded on Flickr by Velvet Android

Above it is photo of the love it or hate it buckets in Cuba St Wellington

There are over 80 bands and DJâ€™s booked to play on 8 stages and four entertainment zones throughout the streets of Wellington. Everything from big main stage acts, to Caribbean style steel drums, and a whole stage devoted to highly excitable Latin performers.

The International Street PerformersÂ include Rubber Band Boy (world record holder for â€œThe Most Rubber bands on a single Faceâ€), plus Canadaâ€™s Magic Brian, Pinkyâ€™s Street Circus from Australia, The Brothers from Nowhere (USA/NZ) and Piper McKenzie (Canada).

Zune The Impossible

Kiwi Bloke — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:05:13 +0000

Uploaded on November 11, 2006 by penmachine

Victor Godinez of the Dallas Morning News comments today about the fate of the Zune and indeed why iPod users should care.

But anyone who plans to buy an iPod should hope that Microsoft is able to turn the Zune into at least a modest success.

His basic argument is that having healthy competition will force Apple to improve it’s product. He has cited the lack of an FM radio in the iPod as an advantage in a competitive landscape. However there are his arguments are based on Apple having competition, where as the speculation as to the demise of the Zune i totally based on the question as to why Microsoft should be in the portable music player business.

There are numerous competitiors to the Apple iPod including Sony, Philips, Archos, iRiver, SanDisk, Creative, Cowon, iBiza, Blue Raven, Coby, RCA, Toshiba, Music Gremlin, DigiArmor, Cowon, Yukyung among many others. If we narrow it to effective competition, ie those that have distribution ability, we still have Sony, Philips, Creative and Toshiba. (I would also argue SanDisk).

The problem with Microsoft being in the portable music business is that it is highly unlikely that Microsoft will ever be a significant player in the music market. Microsoft needs to have products with a $1Billion + runrate in order to satisfy it’s shareholders and customers. Couple that with the failure of Vista, customers and shareholders are unhappy that Microsoft are playing around the edges and not working on their core product offerings.

The failure of Microsoft Zune to even dent the iPod marketshare is exactly the same problem as Sony has delivering sales on it’s Walkman products: the portable music industry has a high network effect and that network effect is iTunes. ITunes through it’s critical mass now has tremendous market power in the delivery of digital content and all major content owners must deal with them. ITunes are the price maker in this market, everyone else is a price taker.

Just like Windows OS has a very strong network effect, so too does iTunes. And for this reason people have a valid reasoning to suggest that Microsoft should not be in the Zune business, especially since it’s revenues are going in the complete opposite direction from upward.

Opshop – Jason Kerrison and Brendon Hartley racing at the A1GP

Kiwi Bloke — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:56:47 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvxzYDGIMh4

Jason Kerrison from the Kiwi band Opshop was the guest drive of New Zealand’s next motoracing hope Brendon Hartley during the A1GP in Taupo over the weekend.

Piranha Cause Death and Destruction in Wellington

GregR — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:15:13 +0000

Uploaded on Flickr by lcrf

At Wellington’s Great India Restaurant today, 14 Piranhas died when the aquarium sprung a leak and dumped 1000 litres of water onto the restaurant floor.

Restaurateur Champaklal Tailor arrived to open up the restaurant yesterday to find it flooded and just one fish still clinging to life amid a heap of its dead family members.

Piranhas are found only in the Amazon basin, in the Orinoco, in rivers of the Guyanas, in the Paraguay-ParanÃ¡, and in the SÃ£o Francisco River systems. Piranhas are normally about 15 to 25 cm long (6 to 10 inches), although reportedly individuals have been found up to 43 cm (18.0 inches) in length.

Happy Birthday Apple Mac !!!

Kiwi Bloke — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:27:47 +0000

Uploaded on flickr by benjibot

On Saturday the 24th January 1984, the Apple Macintosh turned 25. You view Steve Jobs demonstrate the MacIntosh for the first time in front of 3000 people at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FtgZNOD44

More Head Wind For Windows Mobile

Kiwi Bloke — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:31:13 +0000

Mobile OS Market Share

Analyst firm Canalys has released the results of it’s Consumer Mobility Analysis Report and it is very good news for Apple, good news for RIM and Microsoft and bad news for Nokia:

The success of Apple and RIM, as well as fifth-placed HTC with its Windows Mobile devices, has eaten into Nokiaâ€™s share of the smart phone market â€“ a market it has led consistently for several years. Nokiaâ€™s broad portfolio of models, and the wider audience it attracts, does leave it more exposed to the trends affecting the overall handset market. Year-on-year its smart phone shipments fell in Q3 for the first time. â€œNokia is also transitioning from some very successful volume drivers, like the N95 and E65, to a number of successors, such as the flagship N96, and shipments of these new models have not yet ramped up,â€ noted Canalys analyst Tim Shepherd. â€œAnd Nokia has taken time to bring a touch screen product to market in the wake of the iPhoneâ€™s success, despite having had the experience of producing the Series 90-based 7710 four years ago. Conversely, vendors such as HTC with its Touch Diamond have capitalised on customer demand for this type of product.â€

As every one expected in the Apple earnings conference, the Apple iPhone 3G has leaped past RIM to take number two position for smartphone shipments. Blackberry still grew at a healthy clip but expect their margins to be squeezed as they sell more “down market” phones such as the curve.

Nokia has nowhere to go but down currently as the buzz is elsewhere with the Apple RIM battle and the coming rationalization of the Linux market with the Andriod Operating System.

The odd man out is Windows Mobile. After 8 years on the market, it has failed to grab more than 13% of the market (much like SQL Server) and is coming under heavy criticism for it’s interface and jumbled approach to the mobile market. HTC is the number one shipper of Windows Mobile, but they have put a tremendous amount of effort behind the new T Mobile G1 device. If Andriod does big things for HTC (and Samsung) then life gets very uncomfortable for Windows Mobile.

Windows Mobile currently costs vendors between $8Â – $15 per handset which translates into $40 – $65 million in license fees per quarter. If Android can show an increased ARPU (average revenue per user) for the carriers in the same way as Apple iphone has done for ATT Wireless, then it is going to put Microsoft in a difficult spot. Smartphones for consumers are all about functionality, but smartphones for carriers are all about more data packages and more revenue.

However Microsoft understands that the future of mobile is tying data-sucking services to the device and not just mobile Outlook but a host of services including location, search and social stuff. Microsoft has a long way to go to convince carriers that they are in the game.

iPod 2.0 Goodness

Kiwi Bloke — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 16:20:51 +0000

The upgrades to 2.0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch has arrived. If any one has tried to install upgrades and new applications in other smartphones then they will appreciate just how good iTunes + iPhone/iPod integration is.

I upgraded my iPod touch to 2.0 and added in Ebay app, AOL Radio (with NPR goodness on it), trip adviser, iTunes Remote.

I had one problem and it had to do with the DRM system. What happened is that the applications loaded but would not run. A blank screen would briefly appear then it would return to the main menu. To fix this problem you need to read this. Basically, delete apps (hold finger down on app until it wiggles), reauthorize your mac then resync your ipod/iphone. This fixes an out of sync DRM thingee.

iPhone Mania Hits Kiwiland

Kiwi Bloke — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:23:26 +0000

[Uploaded on July 10, 2008 by SashaNZ]

IPhone 3G Mania struck New Zealand at 12am (NZ Time) this morning as red beanie (touke) wearing yanks desend on Auckland’s VodaphoneÂ shop on Queen St.Both ifixit.com and Engadget.com flew to New Zealand to get their mitts on lamburgers and Apple’s iPhone.

Engadget was on hand to chronical the world’s first iPhone 3G owners.

The first person in the world to own an iPhone 3G was 22-year-old AUT physiotherapy student Jonny Gladwell..

Apple Flash Holdout Flash In The Pan

Kiwi Bloke — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:20:19 +0000

[Uploaded on August 31, 2007 by nobihaya]

The Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spilled the beans over progress made on getting Flash working on the iphone yesterday:

MACMILLAN: And then just to follow-up was on the Apple iPhone 3G — any update on Flash support within that device? Thanks.

NARAYEN: With respect to the iPhone, we are working on it. We have a version thatâ€™s working on the emulation. This is still on the computer and you know, we have to continue to move it from a test environment onto the device and continue to make it work. So we are pleased with the internal progress that weâ€™ve made to date.

The exchange was made during an earnings release conference call on Tuesday. It is no surprise that progress has been made given the fact that mobile safari is built on exactly the same framework as the full blown Safari.

Whether or not we get Flash on the iPhone is and has been a function of marketing and politics between Adobe and Apple. Indeed the Flash on iPhone discussion is just one part of a much larger battle for web development tools currently going on between Microsoft and their Silverlight Project, Google with it’s support for open standards, Adobe’s Flash specification and Apple.

Macromedia Flash’s early success was because of Microsoft. In 1997 Macromedia and Microsoft came to a bundling agreement with Internet Explorer 5 which allowed it to be quickly distributed. Couple this with a growing developer base that found it easy to use and flash quickly became the prevalent. Interestingly enough, Microsoft inked the deal to fend off the threat from Netscape and Java.

Up until it purchased Macromedia in 2005, Adobe attempted to destroy Flash through a number of failed initiatives including VML and PGML. Once Adobe acquired Macromedia and Flash, it set about extending Flash’s dominance in the market. Flash was given a big boost by the explosion of video content on the net lead by the popularity of You Tube, the first large scale video distribution side.

Today Flash is not supported on the iPhone and Apple have made it clear that it’s preference is open standards using XML, Javascript and HTML rather than any one particular proprietary runtime such as Java or Flash or Silverlight. However this desire may yeild to more practical considerations on making the iPhone platform a mobile game changer and take control of the consumer smartphone market (as opposed to the corporate smart phone market dominated by RIM).

This will ultimately mean that flash is supported but Apple will extract a price from Adobe over that support and that is much better support for Non Windows platforms. Apple will not allow Adobe to provide anything less than a top notch Flash Player 9 for the Mac and iPhone.

And with the 3G iPhone, Apple just may have the big stick to bring Adobe into line.

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Mobile Times They Are A Changing

Kiwi Bloke — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:28:02 +0000

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

2007 will go down in history as the turning point where smartphones became mobile phones. With RIM on a roll with itâ€™s business ready blackberry, to Apple charging onto the scene with their user (and app) friendly iPhone, to Googleâ€™s Android mobile platform, 2007 was packed the sort of tipping points that make Malcolm Gladwell giddy.

Each of the â€œnewâ€ vendors are predicated on the user experience as the dominant need, not the need of the carrier and their business model. Indeed I have argued before that existing manufacturers (eg Nokia, Motorola) are subjected to the limitations their market and have acted accordingly. The carrier decides what features will be provided to whom and the manufacturer created it. Sure their was some give and take, but the immutable law was that the carrier decided what was on the phone and the manufacturer build it, and the sales person sold it.

So the key limitation was not that phones were not offered by the manufacturers but that phones were delivered consistent to what the manufacturers believed would be accepted by the carriers in their network. However 2007 was characterized by a fundamental change in how the consumers view the mobile phone lead by Apple.

Subsequently two new business models have arrived, the Apple iphone alternate reality and the Google application goodness reality.

Right in this mix you have an extremely clever consumer products organization that knows how to play hard ball. It is no secret that ATT was on the receiving end of negotiations with Apple over the iPhone. Apple received concessions that were unheard of in the industry up to that point. What is lesser known is that Appleâ€™s iPhone pricing strategy is exactly that a strategy. The original $599 price was there to straddle the market. What that means is that you price the product close to the perception price when you launch it (ie $599) to capture the early adopters and to set R&D budgets for competitors because they had to respond to the product. Then 6 months later drop the price back to an aggressive position ($399) and again make the competitors respond. This is a technique used simply to slow down the competition by creating two reaction points. (This also allows consumers to react as well. Consumers react to changes in prices not absolute prices.) Apple brings a degree of marketing and product sophistication that has not been seen in the mobile market.

Much to the chagrin of the traditional model, Googleâ€™s Android platform is largely subsidized by search and advertising revenue. It is main premise is to allow developers and customers to come up with a platform that appeals to the widest audience. It is largely based on open source and hence is very extensible.

More importantly it has the support of Googleâ€™s core applications including search, docs, maps and others. It dominant motive is to provide a consistent platform for the delivery of Google goodness, and the extensibility to allow new applications (such as say traffic reporting system based on GPS, Google maps and real time traffic data. The Android platform has an anchor tenant so to speak.

2007 provided much in the way of change for the mobile market. It was a world of change from the beginning of the year to the end of the year in how the consumer viewed their role. However this has only opened the flood gates of change. The Block C auction in the USA proved that the open access rule does not destroy the value of the network as the carriers threatened, Apple and Google (and Symbian) are pushing the value of mobile applications, and Intel and ARM are pushing the limit of whatâ€™s possible with CPUs and by extension personal mobile devices.

BMW M3 CSL Strips Down

Kiwi Bloke — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 14:18:42 +0000

BMW has released a stripped down M3 for the club racing circuit. Based on the original 3.0 CSL. Coming in at 3052lb (1385 k) it is 400lb less than the standard M3. What’s more it produces 360hp from a non blown 3.2L inline 6 engine…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovDuWrTQ7ik

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Airport Extreme is a Dream

Kiwi Bloke — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:55:24 +0000

I have just installed the new Apple Airport Extreme at home to replace the Linksys and older Apple Airport Express.

The whole process took less than 20 minutes to:

Connect Powerbook G4, MacBookPro and Dell Laptop
Add HP Officejet 6100
Add 2 USB Hard Disk Drive

The bonjour system is amazing. All the peripherals came up and synced the first time…

I still have nightmares about people asking me to configure their Windows Networks at home…

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iPhones Delivered to Stores

Kiwi Bloke — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:16:19 +0000

iPhones being delivered from an undisclosed location…..

…waiting the freight at each location on Sunday were armed personnel, who were reportedly hired by Apple through its courier’s ground handling agent and then cleared by the Transportation Security Administration. Armed guards are extremely unusual for freight coming out of the Asian sector, those familiar with the matter explained, and are typically reserved for shipments containing riches such as gold and diamonds.

You can read more here.

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Real Steve Channels Fake Steve

Kiwi Bloke — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:13:53 +0000

While fending off the evil eye from Bill Gates (whilst Bill was looking for ideas to steal), Steve Jobs managed to put in that he reads the Fake Steve Jobs blog.

Walt Mossberg asked: Do you read the Fake Steve Jobs blog?
Jobs: I have read a few of the FSJ things recently, but I thought it was pretty funny!

You can see the video here.

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Apple Share Holders Confab

Kiwi Bloke — Sun, 13 May 2007 11:14:31 +0000

This weeks Apple Shareholder’s meeting offered some more insight into the world’s favorite computer company with the world famous crusty and opaque CEO, Steve Jobs.

Aside from handing Greenpeace representatives a new one, (however Apple shareholders have managed to get Jobs to respond), Jobs also noted that the iPhone is on time, there is a real possibility that iTunes will get video rental, and Leopard will be worth the wait.

Not one to miss an opportunity to snipe Microsoft, Jobs also noted:

After being questioned about the amount of money the company invests in research and development, Jobs said Apple’s capacity to deliver new products is limited only by its ability to find talented new employees capable of great work. “I wish developing great products was as easy as writing a check,” he said. “If that were the case, then Microsoft would have great products.”

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Another Nail in Zune Coffin

Kiwi Bloke — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:07:02 +0000

Just as soon as I proposed that Microsoft adopt a DRM Free platform in order to compete with Apple, Apple announces DRM free music from EMI on Itunes….

Reacting to Apple’s announcement Monday that it will soon begin selling music tracks from EMI without copy protection, PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster advised investors to look out for an increase iTunes music sales, explaining that the removal of DRM abolishes one more barrier to entry into the iTunes+iPod ecosystem.

It is difficult to underestimate the important seismic change that the music industry is going through. I suspect that Jobs picked off EMI in typical fashion (ie. divide and conquer) in order to prove that DRM free is ultimately the way to go and EMI cracked.

This is not good news for Microsoft and at this time be hiding the chairs from Ballmer…..

Technorati Tags: apple ipod microsoft msft zune xbox itunes argo pyxis
Check out Indie Music Mix Podcast here

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Angry Zune Users Vent

Kiwi Bloke — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 12:18:35 +0000

Angry Zune users threaten to return their Zune Players on Zune Insider.

One reader ripped the company for not telling customers early on that the update was pushed back. “I just don’t get why no one let us know before because the Zune team blatantly must have known before today that they weren’t gonna make the supposed deadline,” he said. Another reader placed the blame on the Zune team, even going as far as questioning their dedication. “Is the ZUNE team actually taking their product seriously? If they did, there would be no delay. Xbox team might have to take this over and GET THE JOB DONE!” Finally, there were a few pro-iPod commentsâ€”just as you would expect from a good ol’ Zune trashing. “When I got off work this afternoon I boxed everything up, including the a/v kit, premium headphones, and Zune and headed over to Circuit City where I returned everything and purchased an iPod video.” – ArsTechnica

Hmmm…, world’s largest software (only) company, they know what the work around is, they know where the bug is, and they can’t release a patch to fix for over two months……

Technorati Tags: apple ipod microsoft msft zune xbox itunes argo pyxis
Check out Indie Music Mix Podcast here

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Too tough for Zune

Kiwi Bloke — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 14:21:11 +0000

My post on the weekend about the impending doom for Zune created a lot of feedback. Most of it was positive but some was negative and their were the usual supporters from the “Microsoft can do no wrong” cult. Here is some responses to the feedback:

IPod was successful because it was cool

Those of you who support the iPod, the iPod was not successful because it was cool, it was successful because it created an integrated music experience that released us from the tyranny of the Compact Disk (CD). Although there we very good players before the iPod, such as the Rio Player and the Sony MiniDisk Walkman, it was Apple that first made it so simple that anyone could purchase, burn and listen to music. Itunes is by far the easiest CD ripper and music organizer on the market. You dont need a degree in computers to load and play music. Yes the iPod is cool but the compelling feature is the simple to use interface (both iTunes and iPod).

Also the click wheel allowed you to use it when commuting. Using one hand while holding onto the railing on the subway train is very important. It is no coincidence that New York is a huge market for Apple.

The iPod has better sound than the Zune and vice versa

This is not the point. Better sound is a subjective criteria (ie matter of taste) and beside most Joe and Joeline Sixpack’s can’t tell the difference anyway. What did happen is that they could rip and listen to their music in a couple of mouse clicks.

The XBox is a Success therefore the Zune will be successful argument

This is bogus. Firstly I don’t believe the XBox is a success as defined by Microsoft. Microsoft lives by the curse of the Windows/Office monopoly. This means that people measure Microsoft success by the success of Windows, that is anything less than total domination of a market is a failure. In Microsoft terms, Xbox, 3rd place in a market with two strong competitors is not good. After 5 years on the market it is

However I want to be fair to Microsoft, it is extraordinarily rare that a product can capture the kind of market share that Windows/Office has. I can think of only two other products that have that level of success, the iPod and Google. We cannot realistically expect any company to meet the ridiculously high standard of Windows/Office market share and nor should we measure Zune based on this high standard.

To answer the question, Xbox and the gaming market has nothing to do with the Portable Music Player market other than they have some overlap of users. The Zune is not a product extension of the Xbox no matter how much you can allude to Zune mixing with the Xbox environment. They are decisions that can and are being made separately.

iPod is not compelling

Bollocks !!!!, in the last quarter (1Q 2007) was 21 million units including me buying 2 new iPods (Nano as a gift and a blue shuffle for the gym, I have the 60GB Video as well).

My point was that the Zune has no compelling features over and above the iPod, and in fact it has less features, the wireless thing is a gimic and it has been crippled by it’s DRM system and the concessions made to the music industry.

Summary

The point is that the Zune has been a miserable failure (29 – 40K units see here) by any consumer product which is why the VP for Zune was fired. It offers no compelling features over and above the iPod and hence no reason to purchase the product over the industry standard. To get the product to market, Microsoft had to make major concessions to the music industry which left the product crippled. The only way to create a compelling product beyond what Apple has is to completely support MP3 and make it into an open platform which isn’t going to happen.

So unless something radical happens, the Zune is doomed…..

Technorati Tags: apple ipod microsoft msft zune xbox itunes argo pyxis
Check out Indie Music Mix Podcast here

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Macs, Lies and DV Tape

Kiwi Bloke — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:24:33 +0000

Interesting article from Apple about using the Canon XL1s:

Director Steven Soderbergh and producer Scott Kramer shot â€œFull Frontalâ€ chiefly in digital video (MiniDV), using Canon XL1s PAL cameras. The camera was selected for its maneuverability, which allowed Soderbergh to hand hold the camera, and for the image quality it generated, which conformed perfectly with the directorâ€™s vision for the movie.

Macs, Lies and DV Tape

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Zune Really Irrelevant Product (RIP)

Kiwi Bloke — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:15:39 +0000

I have written a number of posts about the so called iPod killer, the Zune Player and it’s debut on the market. As of today, the Zune Player is a failure:

From Roughly Drafted:

â€¢Apple 72.7%
â€¢Sandisk 8.9%
â€¢Microsoft 3.2%
â€¢Creative Labs 2.9%
â€¢Samsung 2.0%

Â Once again, NPDâ€™s numbers only cover retailers that supply it with data, which excludes Apple, Costco, online sales, and mail order outlets.Based on NPDâ€™s numbers and my math, it would appear Microsoft sold $7.2 million in Zunes in January via retail outlets, which at $250 each would be just short of 29,000 units, making its Dr Evil goal of â€œone million Zunes!â€ by June 2007 a bit of a joke.

Although RoughlyDrafted is partisan, the analysis does stack up. With retail margins of 30% puts the unit numbers between 29,000 at the low end, and 44,000 at the high end (depending on the whole sale or retail cost). The numbers that NPD uses are most of the major outlets, but they do exclude Costco, Walmart and Apple Stores.

As the wireless zapping thing turned out to be a gimmick, and that it relied on your friends not having iPods, there is no compelling reason to purchase the Zune over the iPod. It offers no benefits that cannot be found in the iPod and in many cases they are inferior to the iTunes/iPod combination.

The truth is that without a major market disruptor, Microsoft taking on the market for MP3 players and effectively competing with Apple is impossible. This is just like the battle with Windows Live Search vs Google Search, without a major shift in how and why people search, Microsoft (and for that matter Yahoo) will remain far behind in market share.

Although markets are constantly changing and evolving there are a few immutable laws that they are governed by. The first understanding is that markets are accumulated or aggregated consumer (read people) behavior that result in a metric, that is revenue or units sold.

The first being the law of motion and equilibrium, that is consumer behavior tends to be habit and does not shift radically over time unless their is a jolt from a shift in externalities that result in a shift in behavior. A good example of shift in behavior is the change in parking at your local Starbucks. Starbucks relies enormously on foot traffic and such changes in patterns of parking at your local Starbucks effects the sales of coffee over time.

In the MP3 player market, Apple took over market share from Sony Walkman because they were the first to create a truly integrated experience where as the Walkman stumbled badly in this respect. In fact so badly that they missed the MP3 Player boat. In the music distribution market the disruption was the flow between downloading music from an online store onto the iPod and the standard distribution which is CDs. Suddenly you didn’t have to purchase those other 10-12 songs you didn’t really care for and could purchase only the songs you did like (what ever happened to the Vinyl Single). What Sony did not realize that adding another layer between the CD (the ripping part) and the user increased resistance to the product, where as Apple reduced a layer (the CD package) between the purchased music and the listener.

The bottom line is that the Microsoft Zune Player today offers no reason for the consumer to change it’s behavior and continue to purchase iPod/iTunes combination and no amount of advertising will shift that perception with out a radical departure from the model that Apple created. There are some radical things that you can do, for example you can completely remove DRM from the Zune Market and Player and completely open it up, but with the music industry determining the product design at Microsoft this is not going to happen.

The bottom line is that Zune is and will fail to ignite the imagination of music consumers because their imaginations of what they want to see in a omnipotent music player is currently beyond what the music industry will allow them to deliver………

Technorati Tags: apple ipod microsoft msft zune xbox itunes argo pyxis
Check out Indie Music Mix Podcast here

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Gates v Garfield

Kiwi Bloke — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 17:04:22 +0000

Those of us who love “On the Media” on NPR and the sarcastic Bob Garfield will appreciate that a one on one with Bill Gates is probably not going to turn out well. Unlike the fawning Businessweek type business rags that getting on their knees talking to business not-so-luminaries (anyone remember Business at the Speed of something..), Garfield has no such pretentions that marketing and media is all dollar driven.

Bob asked Billy G what he thought of the Apple Ads featuring John Hodgeson

GARFIELD: I want to ask you one more thing: Those Mac ads — how do you feel about the John Hodgman character?

GATES: I can’t comment on someone else’s ad.

GARFIELD: OK … but he’s you.

GATES: Yeah, I’m not gonna comment on someone else’s ad.

GARFIELD: OK, well, Bill Gates, thank you so much for joining us.

(Silence)

GARFIELD: Can I just have a clean goodbye?

(Silence)

GARFIELD: OK, can you just say goodbye? Thank you or goodbye or something like that?

GATES: Goodbye.

Anyone would think he was interviewing Dick Cheney……

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Apple UK Ads

Kiwi Bloke — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:00:30 +0000

Direct Link to YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7kTwpdr_gU]

The Brits have their own Mac and PC adds from Apple. You can get them here.

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The Instant Icon, the Apple IPhone

Kiwi Bloke — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 06:14:06 +0000

The Apple IPhone announced today is truely the state of art in industrial design. It is by far the most comprehensive and compelling phone ever invented. Although they had a great product with the Apple TV (iTV) and are delivering a compelling media controller for the phone, the IPhone has blown away anything that CES has to offer.

There are some things that you may have missed:

Steve Jobs showed the Beatles on Itunes. It is our understanding that Apple Corp (The Beatles Holding Company) has not agree to any digital rights however Jobs showed in on the IPhone and Itunes today.
Cisco and Apple have negotiated rights to the trademark “IPhone” but it had not been signed at the time of the announcement
The Operating System in the Phone is Mac OSX. This means that it is multitasking user system but it also the world’s first BSD powered phone
All aspects of syncing is going to be done through Itunes, not ISync as originally suspected.
IChat Video is not part of this release of the phone because the camera is on the back of the phone not the front of the phone. I believe that this will come in time.
There is no VoIP Client (iChat) probably because the relationship with Cingular
The Safari browser has tabbed view with a quasi cover flow metaphor
It is the first phone to take mashups to the next level, indeed it could be the first mashups on phones
Localized services are very imporant for the phone experience going forward
Cingular’s partnership is exclusive which means Apple got some concessions but the only one announced is the visual voicemail

Apple today upped the stakes today and created a real challenge for Motorola and Nokia, not from the sales figures but from a customer perception. The current crop of smartphones now look pretty average.

technorati tags: apple iphone cingular keynote macworld
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icerocket tags: apple iphone cingular keynote macworld

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Apple phone makes I talk

Kiwi Bloke — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 04:47:21 +0000

Direct Link to YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56uLXupE-oU]

technorati tags: voip phone italk apple
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