As usual, iSupply has dissected the component used in the new iPod Shuffle in order to evaluate its true manufacturing cost as well as Apple's margin. According to their evaluation, Apple could save 72% out of the current retail price. In details, the 4 GB memory chip will cost 6 USD, while the entire electronic part will be less than 6 USD. Once assembled, equipped with the earphones and properly packed, it should not cost more than 22 USD... So it is a rather substantial margin for Apple, even if you add the not evaluated shipping, localization, design and R&D costs. For sure such figures will give ammunition to the usual suspects prone to attack Apple for any piece of information. We indeed would have preferred to have a cheaper new iPod Shuffle if Apple's margin is so ... substantial...
Billboard: iTunes prices up, sales down
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Multimedia, iTunes
I coulda told you this, though I am a little surprised that we've seen the results so fast. Despite iTunes having put the new tiered pricing into effect just last week, Billboard is reporting that they've already seen sales drop on the higher-priced tunes. The iTunes Top 100 chart has 40 different songs with a new price of $1.29, and one day after the changes, those songs dropped an average of 5.3 places on the chart, while cheaper songs moved up on average. And on the second day of the price change, ten of the tracks that saw their prices rise within 24 hours dropped a huge 12.4 chart positions on average.Of course, we're talking only a matter of days here, and there are all kinds of things that could have affected this average drop -- lots of the tracks that became expensive were from a Rascal Flatts album, and it could be just that the album has lost popularity, bringing the average down. And don't forget that even though these sales figures may be dropping, they haven't dropped nearly enough to show a loss of revenue (though fewer songs may be selling, they're still making more money).
But for those convinced that higher prices mean lower sales numbers, these first few days of figures will seem to connect all of the right dots. We'll have to wait and see if the long-term effects match up to the figures Billboard has seen so far.
TUAWBillboard: iTunes prices up, sales down originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iPhone vs. Windows Phone: It's in the Way That You Use It
When an iPhone fan picks up a Windows phone, his or her first impression may go something like this: "It's difficult to find various features, it's kind of ugly, the hardware doesn't quite match the software, and it's generally user-unfriendly." Vice-versa, when a die-hard Windows Mobile user picks up an iPhone, he or she might think, "This is a locked-up, inflexible platform designed mainly to get you to buy more stuff from Apple, like movies, music and apps."
Bluetooth 3.0 to Be unveiled on April 21st
According to the last information from the web, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group will officially unveil the third version of this wireless format on April 21st. The main improvements are based on the software, and only minor modifications have been made on the hardware part. Indeed, the version 3.0 will work on the hardware currently used in version 2.1, and the new software layer will allow access to the Wi-Fi chips of computers and devices to optimize the transfer speed. It will be possible to use both wireless protocols depending on the amount of data to be managed as well as on power consumption settings.
The BT 3.0 should be quickly integrated in all devices, eventhough its main interest will be to take advantage of Wi-Fi larger bandwidth and data transfer speed, so it will not make sense for all devices, so customers will have to pay attention not to consider it as a must have as it could of course be used as a strong marketing point to extend lifetime of aging products.
We now have to wait for Apple to update/upgrade to BT 3.0. new models as well as current models should be ready to get it, as soon as Apple release a compatible BT firmware version. It could give users the ability to get ride of their wire-based connection to synchronize their iPhone/iPod Touch, if Apple is finally ready to allow it...
iPhone App Of The Day - Zombieville USA
If you’re looking for some brainless, gun toting fun then you can’t go wrong with Zombieville USA. This iPhone/iPod Touch game has you playing as a gun wielding redneck trying to survive a zombie apocalpyse. The game play is tight, and it has a wonderful design behind it. The game is on sale for $0.99 right now, so get on it.
Let your tweets incubate with Birdhouse for iPhone
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, iPhone
For these types, a tweet isn't something that's typed and quickly posted a few seconds later -- it's a chance to make his/her followers chuckle. To that end, they take great care to ensure that each tweet is finely honed and worded to deliver the maximum amount of gag within the 140-character limit. Birdhouse is an application for these people.
Dubbed by its creators as "A Notepad for Twitter," Birdhouse isn't your typical Twitter client. Instead of reading, replying to and favoriting your buddies' tweets, it focuses on composition. Got an idea for a really hilarious joke? Plug the idea into Birdhouse, then come back to it when you have time. Tweak and refine it until you've got just what you want, and hit publish.
There's no hard limit to the number of drafts you can keep at once, and it maintains a timestamped history of all of the tweets you've published. You can rate each message using a 5-star system, and it also allows you to email yourself a complete list of all pending and published tweets in case you're staring at the business end of an iPhone restore and you don't want to lose that truly golden mom joke you've been working on.
Birdhouse [App Store] is available now for $3.99US.
TUAWLet your tweets incubate with Birdhouse for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iQuarterback 1.1 from former Ensemble Studios devs
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
Now that's interesting -- a big time studio forced to close by their corporate overlords is finding new life in iPhone development (FuzzyCube isn't the only studio to come out of the Ensemble breakup -- Robot Entertainment, Bonfire Studios, and Windstorm Studios are all being started by ex-Ensemble employees right now, though FuzzyCube is the only group to have released a game so far). Lots of game developers are facing a crunch right now, and with the iPhone easy and cheap to develop for, we might see even more of these former larger game devs turn to the smaller screen.
TUAWiQuarterback 1.1 from former Ensemble Studios devs originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Increased Price per Tracks on Online Music Stores: The Worst Strategy?
Last week, Apple finally agreed to offer a variable pricing policy for music tracks on the iTunes Store, breaking the past 0.99 USD/track strategy to make Music Majors happy. If one will have to search hard to find music tracks with lower than 0.99 USD price tag, as supposed to be according to the PR from Music Majors, everyone noticed the large price increased applied to many artists. The US website Billboard publishes the Top 100 ranking for both songs and artist, and specifically analzed which ones were affected among its Top 100 panel over the first 48 hours following the price increase.
Figures are quite clear and ranking is directly affected by the price change. In average 1.29 USD tracks have lost 5.3 positions, and it will be translated into lower revenue for hte corresponding artist/Music Majors. The foloowing scheme indicated the lsot of revenue following the price increase:
In other words, a decrease of 20% of sales, makes the price increase per song ineffective in raising up revenues. As most of hte hit are often purchase aalone, and not the entire album, high-price tag might not be the right answer, and Music majors will have a hard time in fighting against thsoe figures.
So, the current cinclusion of this experiment is quite simple: customers willing to purchase music are not ready to buy at any cost, and the current strategy followed by music mjors might well be the worst decision taken in the past years in this industry. By increasing the price tag, Music mjoars have successfully decreased the average purchasing budget of customers, and might even pushed others to turn to the P2P network for getting their music tracks. In all cases, sales will decrease for Music Majors, as well as revenues.
This is quite amazing to see those companies not able to "re-Think Different" their business model and not being able to adapt their physical music offers to virtual offer at lower cost. One could purchase the entire album at lower cost than download it from onlien stores. Why they did not think of decreasing the price of their song catalog, increasing sales might have also be translated into increased revenues. It is maybe time to change the way those companies "think"...
.Mac Groups and Homepage: This Is the End
Mobile Me offered the option to create Groups for easily sharing photos, info and files with friends, as well as Homepage to generate webpages via an online interface. Both services incldued in mobile Me will be cloased own on July &th without any further details. This was for sure planned for a long time, as both services interface were not upgraded to the Mobile Me design and were still featuring the aging .Mac look.
If one looks at solutions offered by third-parties, from Google to Adobe, including microsoft, they are all working on implementing online applications to allow users to create, edit or publish documents, webpages, photos, etc. from any computer without the requirement of running a local application or hosting any files. With iWeb and iPhoto, we simply have easier publishing tools, but we are still running both applications locally. It is only with iWork '09 that Apple seems to have understood the interest and needs to release its own online application solutions, eventhough it remins limited when compared to Google Documents or Microsoft Office Live... In some years, we will know if this decision from Apple was right or not.
Steve Jobs' new job: Digital Nomad In Chief
According to this morning's Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs is working on digital nomad-oriented products, while himself living as a digital nomad -- a telecommuter if not an "extreme telecommuter." How will actually living the digital nomad lifestyle improve his vision for new products?
New iPod Shuffle: 72% Margin for Apple!?
As usual, iSupply has dissected the component used in the new iPod Shuffle in order to evaluate its true manufacturing cost as well as Apple's margin. According to their evaluation, Apple could save 72% out of the current retail price. In details, the 4 GB memory chip will cost 6 USD, while the entire electronic part will be less than 6 USD. Once assembled, equipped with the earphones and properly packed, it should not cost more than 22 USD... So it is a rather substantial margin for Apple, even if you add the not evaluated shipping, localization, design and R&D costs. For sure such figures will give ammunition to the usual suspects prone to attack Apple for any piece of information. We indeed would have preferred to have a cheaper new iPod Shuffle if Apple's margin is so ... substantial...
Billboard: iTunes prices up, sales down
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iTS, Multimedia, iTunes
I coulda told you this, though I am a little surprised that we've seen the results so fast. Despite iTunes having put the new tiered pricing into effect just last week, Billboard is reporting that they've already seen sales drop on the higher-priced tunes. The iTunes Top 100 chart has 40 different songs with a new price of $1.29, and one day after the changes, those songs dropped an average of 5.3 places on the chart, while cheaper songs moved up on average. And on the second day of the price change, ten of the tracks that saw their prices rise within 24 hours dropped a huge 12.4 chart positions on average.Of course, we're talking only a matter of days here, and there are all kinds of things that could have affected this average drop -- lots of the tracks that became expensive were from a Rascal Flatts album, and it could be just that the album has lost popularity, bringing the average down. And don't forget that even though these sales figures may be dropping, they haven't dropped nearly enough to show a loss of revenue (though fewer songs may be selling, they're still making more money).
But for those convinced that higher prices mean lower sales numbers, these first few days of figures will seem to connect all of the right dots. We'll have to wait and see if the long-term effects match up to the figures Billboard has seen so far.
TUAWBillboard: iTunes prices up, sales down originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iPhone vs. Windows Phone: It's in the Way That You Use It
When an iPhone fan picks up a Windows phone, his or her first impression may go something like this: "It's difficult to find various features, it's kind of ugly, the hardware doesn't quite match the software, and it's generally user-unfriendly." Vice-versa, when a die-hard Windows Mobile user picks up an iPhone, he or she might think, "This is a locked-up, inflexible platform designed mainly to get you to buy more stuff from Apple, like movies, music and apps."Bluetooth 3.0 to Be unveiled on April 21st
According to the last information from the web, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group will officially unveil the third version of this wireless format on April 21st. The main improvements are based on the software, and only minor modifications have been made on the hardware part. Indeed, the version 3.0 will work on the hardware currently used in version 2.1, and the new software layer will allow access to the Wi-Fi chips of computers and devices to optimize the transfer speed. It will be possible to use both wireless protocols depending on the amount of data to be managed as well as on power consumption settings.
The BT 3.0 should be quickly integrated in all devices, eventhough its main interest will be to take advantage of Wi-Fi larger bandwidth and data transfer speed, so it will not make sense for all devices, so customers will have to pay attention not to consider it as a must have as it could of course be used as a strong marketing point to extend lifetime of aging products.
We now have to wait for Apple to update/upgrade to BT 3.0. new models as well as current models should be ready to get it, as soon as Apple release a compatible BT firmware version. It could give users the ability to get ride of their wire-based connection to synchronize their iPhone/iPod Touch, if Apple is finally ready to allow it...
iPhone App Of The Day - Zombieville USA
If you’re looking for some brainless, gun toting fun then you can’t go wrong with Zombieville USA. This iPhone/iPod Touch game has you playing as a gun wielding redneck trying to survive a zombie apocalpyse. The game play is tight, and it has a wonderful design behind it. The game is on sale for $0.99 right now, so get on it.
Let your tweets incubate with Birdhouse for iPhone
Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, iPhone
For these types, a tweet isn't something that's typed and quickly posted a few seconds later -- it's a chance to make his/her followers chuckle. To that end, they take great care to ensure that each tweet is finely honed and worded to deliver the maximum amount of gag within the 140-character limit. Birdhouse is an application for these people.
Dubbed by its creators as "A Notepad for Twitter," Birdhouse isn't your typical Twitter client. Instead of reading, replying to and favoriting your buddies' tweets, it focuses on composition. Got an idea for a really hilarious joke? Plug the idea into Birdhouse, then come back to it when you have time. Tweak and refine it until you've got just what you want, and hit publish.
There's no hard limit to the number of drafts you can keep at once, and it maintains a timestamped history of all of the tweets you've published. You can rate each message using a 5-star system, and it also allows you to email yourself a complete list of all pending and published tweets in case you're staring at the business end of an iPhone restore and you don't want to lose that truly golden mom joke you've been working on.
Birdhouse [App Store] is available now for $3.99US.
TUAWLet your tweets incubate with Birdhouse for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
iQuarterback 1.1 from former Ensemble Studios devs
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store
Now that's interesting -- a big time studio forced to close by their corporate overlords is finding new life in iPhone development (FuzzyCube isn't the only studio to come out of the Ensemble breakup -- Robot Entertainment, Bonfire Studios, and Windstorm Studios are all being started by ex-Ensemble employees right now, though FuzzyCube is the only group to have released a game so far). Lots of game developers are facing a crunch right now, and with the iPhone easy and cheap to develop for, we might see even more of these former larger game devs turn to the smaller screen.
TUAWiQuarterback 1.1 from former Ensemble Studios devs originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Increased Price per Tracks on Online Music Stores: The Worst Strategy?
Last week, Apple finally agreed to offer a variable pricing policy for music tracks on the iTunes Store, breaking the past 0.99 USD/track strategy to make Music Majors happy. If one will have to search hard to find music tracks with lower than 0.99 USD price tag, as supposed to be according to the PR from Music Majors, everyone noticed the large price increased applied to many artists. The US website Billboard publishes the Top 100 ranking for both songs and artist, and specifically analzed which ones were affected among its Top 100 panel over the first 48 hours following the price increase.
Figures are quite clear and ranking is directly affected by the price change. In average 1.29 USD tracks have lost 5.3 positions, and it will be translated into lower revenue for hte corresponding artist/Music Majors. The foloowing scheme indicated the lsot of revenue following the price increase:
In other words, a decrease of 20% of sales, makes the price increase per song ineffective in raising up revenues. As most of hte hit are often purchase aalone, and not the entire album, high-price tag might not be the right answer, and Music majors will have a hard time in fighting against thsoe figures.
So, the current cinclusion of this experiment is quite simple: customers willing to purchase music are not ready to buy at any cost, and the current strategy followed by music mjors might well be the worst decision taken in the past years in this industry. By increasing the price tag, Music mjoars have successfully decreased the average purchasing budget of customers, and might even pushed others to turn to the P2P network for getting their music tracks. In all cases, sales will decrease for Music Majors, as well as revenues.
This is quite amazing to see those companies not able to "re-Think Different" their business model and not being able to adapt their physical music offers to virtual offer at lower cost. One could purchase the entire album at lower cost than download it from onlien stores. Why they did not think of decreasing the price of their song catalog, increasing sales might have also be translated into increased revenues. It is maybe time to change the way those companies "think"...
.Mac Groups and Homepage: This Is the End
Mobile Me offered the option to create Groups for easily sharing photos, info and files with friends, as well as Homepage to generate webpages via an online interface. Both services incldued in mobile Me will be cloased own on July &th without any further details. This was for sure planned for a long time, as both services interface were not upgraded to the Mobile Me design and were still featuring the aging .Mac look.
If one looks at solutions offered by third-parties, from Google to Adobe, including microsoft, they are all working on implementing online applications to allow users to create, edit or publish documents, webpages, photos, etc. from any computer without the requirement of running a local application or hosting any files. With iWeb and iPhoto, we simply have easier publishing tools, but we are still running both applications locally. It is only with iWork '09 that Apple seems to have understood the interest and needs to release its own online application solutions, eventhough it remins limited when compared to Google Documents or Microsoft Office Live... In some years, we will know if this decision from Apple was right or not.
Steve Jobs' new job: Digital Nomad In Chief
According to this morning's Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs is working on digital nomad-oriented products, while himself living as a digital nomad -- a telecommuter if not an "extreme telecommuter." How will actually living the digital nomad lifestyle improve his vision for new products?
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