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Popular Science sees boost from Apple's Newsstand
Apple's Newsstand app, which premiered on iOS devices with the release of iOS 5, was designed to improve the sales of newspapers and magazines by giving publishers their own virtual shelf space in a highly visible app. Several other publications have already touted their success stories with Newsstand, and now Popular Science is joining the chorus. The magazine, which is undoubtedly popular with the tech crowd, published cumulative subscription numbers recently. As reported by AllThingsD's Peter Kafka and visible in the chart at the top of this post, PopSci not only saw a leap in subscriptions the second week of October -- coincidentally the time when Newsstand was launched -- but since that time has been capturing new subscribers at a faster rate. The numbers are courtesy of Mag+, the tablet publishing arm of PopSci publisher Bonnier. Kafka notes that he personally uses the New York Times app less often than he did before it moved to Newsstand, and would like to be able to pull items off of the Newsstand shelf so that they're closer to other items that he uses quite often. How about you, TUAW readers? Do you find that you read magazines and newspapers more or less often now that many have moved to Newsstand, or do you avoid Newsstand at all cost? Leave us your opinions in the comments.
Developers eager to submit apps before App Store vacation
It's that time of year again: Snow is in the air, presents are underneath the tree, and Apple is about to shut down the developer's side of App Store for its yearly freeze. The New York Times has done some solid coverage on the shutdown this year, which will start this Thursday, and run for a week and a day after that. Apps will still be for sale, of course, but developers won't be able to release new apps or updated released apps. Every year, developers have to rush to not only, as the NYT says, get their apps out on the store and available before the freeze, but also to try and get their apps in the top 25 paid and free lists, which is where many post-holiday new iPhone and iPad owners start their app shopping. Electronic Arts, which the NYT quotes in its piece, has probably been the most public beneficiary of this App Store break -- a few years ago, the company dropped all of its apps on sale to 99 cents in the days before the freeze, which enabled it to grab most of the real estate in the "top apps" lists, and that big bump has even dictated company mobile policy until now. There's no doubt there is plenty of money to be earned on the App Store this holiday again (and we'll likely see some developers reporting big bumps next week), but I'd suggest that things are changing, soon, if not already. Back in the early days of the App Store, there weren't too many ways to find good apps besides those top 25 lists. But these days, there are a lot more resources, both for users to find the apps they want, and for developers to promote their own apps. So I don't know that we'll see as big an effect from the top 25 lists this year as past year. We'll still see big sales, I'm sure, but I think those will be more spread out than last year. And of course the App Store freeze has one more benefit for Apple: In addition to allowing the company to do maintenance and updates on the store and its infrastructure, it also allows the review and support staff to take a much-needed break for a few days. We'll have to wait and see how it works out for the company and 3rd-party developers this year.
Apple reportedly working on wearable, Siri-compatible devices
If you watch enough Sci-Fi movies, you'll start to crave technology that lets you talk to your device and say things like "Computer, make me a cup of coffee." An early implementation of this voice control is the Bluetooth headset which lets you make calls by speaking to your phone. Now we have voice assistants like Siri and TellMe that give you control over features besides calling. Companies are aware of the potential for voice control and are working hard to develop and improve the technology says a report from the New York Times. The report provides initial details on futuristic, wearable devices that would interact with Apple's Siri voice assistant. One example is a glass iPod nano-like device that you would wear on your wrist. It would interact with your iPhone and let you share information between the two devices. According to the New York Times, a "very small group of Apple employees" are working on Sir-enabled prototypes that you wear as part of your everyday clothing. These wearable devices would establish a network of sensor-filled devices that send and receive information from your smartphone. Everything will connect to your smartphone, and it will become the center of your digital existence. It's not hard to imagine a hands-free system that would track your activity level, start your coffee pot and read you the morning news using sensors embedded in your sneakers and shirt.
New York Times offers political news iPhone app with a catch
I was pretty excited to see the New York Times offer Election 2012, a compendium of news, polling results, candidate bios and a primary calendar. The app was listed as free, but when you actually get it up and running you'll find it is severely limited. If you want all the content, you're going to have to pony up for either a $14.99 Smartphone subscription, or have an All Digital Access subscription for $34.99 a month. If you don't you'll have access to exactly 6 stories per day, and the rest of the content is locked. There are other ways to get your fill of political news. Politico has iOS apps that are politically impartial and free. The Hill is another source of good political news and opinion. PoliticFact.com also offers a non-partisan fact checking iPhone app, and if you want your news with a Democratic, Republican, or Libertarian slant there are plenty of apps to serve you. The Election 2012 app costs money and has ads as well, so I found it the worst of both worlds. If you are already a Times subscriber it's certainly worth a free download with lots of worthwhile content. I couldn't help but feel the app is simply bait to get you to subscribe to the Times. They have every right to ask for subscriptions for any product, but to advertise an app that is free but has very little content is something else again. If you don't want to pay for information that is mostly available elsewhere you have many other options. %Gallery-141647%
NYT: Cook may be more enterprise-friendly than Jobs was
Tim Cook may not be the charismatic Apple CEO that the late Steve Jobs was, but at least to the business world, he's much more apt to meet and work with the chief information officers (C.I.O.'s) at enterprises than his predecessor ever was. The New York Times reported today that Cook is "known to be far more at ease meeting with the C.I.O.'s Mr. Jobs once so memorably disparaged" by mentioning them as the gatekeepers in corporate "orifices." As TUAW readers may recall from the Apple Q4 Earnings Call on October 18, Apple now boasts of 92 percent of all Fortune 500 companies testing or deploying iPads, with the number jumping to 93 percent for iPhones. The Times post quotes Rich Adduci of Boston Scientific, a medical device manufacturer that will have deployed 4,500 iPads to field sales people by the end of the year, as saying "What they've done in the past few years is really started thinking in a deeper way what the enterprise needs." Some of the big enterprise wins that are described in the article include the deployment of 42,000 iPhones by Lowe's, 1,400 iPads for Alaska Airlines pilots, 11,000 iPads for the merged United and Continental Airlines, and an interesting use case for Siemens Energy technicians. Those techs climb 300-foot towers to service wind turbines and the company has found that the iPads are perfect for this work -- they're instantly on, they're light, and the cameras in the iPad 2 make it easy for the techs to send pictures to a tech support group. While only 350 techs currently have the devices, Siemens Energy expects to have about 5,000 within five years. The post notes that Apple's secrecy about upcoming products tends to rankle corporate types, who want to see a five to ten year roadmap of where vendors intend to be. The companies that are making the best use of the Apple technology are aware of the fact that the company is "not an enterprise company." Tim Cook has met with corporate customers more often than Jobs did, doesn't tend to insult those customers as Jobs did, and appreciates the needs of enterprises. But he doesn't deviate from Jobs' view that consumers are the priority for Apple.
NYT: Siri-powered Apple HDTV is definitely coming
Over at the New York Times' Bits blog, Nick Bilton has added his well-sourced voice to the rising chorus of yea-sayers on the rumor of an Apple-branded television set, arriving at some date yet uncertain. Bilton's reporting, stretching back over a year, leads him to believe that while Apple isn't yet manufacturing televisions, the company is within striking distance; it could announce a product by the end of next year and begin shipping in 2013. "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," Bilton says. While rumors of an AppleTV-with-a-TV product have been percolating for years (Bilton pegs 2007 as the start of internal awareness at Apple that such a thing would someday happen), the recent resurgence of the concept is driven in part by a quote in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. The late CEO reportedly said "I finally cracked it" regarding the secret formula for simplifying and enhancing the TV interface. Bilton believes that Siri's intelligent assistant is the key for controlling a TV, giving the program guide a massive shot of search savvy and friendliness. Apple's put some serious talent behind the project, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek; they report Apple's lead engineer on the TV project is Jeff Robbin, who joined the company in 2000 as one of the original designers of SoundJam MP at Casady & Greene; that app eventually led to iTunes. An Apple TV would presumably tackle the wide variance in TV sizes and capabilities with a MacBook Pro/iPhone approach of 'fewer choices, less confusion,' but it's less clear how the company would meet its own expectations for profitability in a challenging market. Getting content and collaborating with other TV providers could be a sticking point, especially without the legendary negotiating skills of Steve Jobs, and Apple hasn't exactly set the world on fire with its existing iOS-based TV product. We'll have to wait and see.
Daily Update for October 26, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Google to launch MP3 store in coming weeks?
Details are still scarce here, but the New York Times is reporting that Google is about to launch a new MP3 store, as part of its ongoing foray into the music business. According to sources within the industry, the platform, not surprisingly, would be directly linked to Google Music Beta and may launch within the next few weeks -- perhaps even before Apple unveils iTunes Match, at the end of this month. It remains to be seen, however, whether Big G will be able to finalize negotiations with record labels and publishers before launching the initiative in earnest -- a potentially major hurdle, considering Google's recent track record. As you may recall, previous negotiations over a proposed locker-type storage service ultimately broke down earlier this year, amid concerns over licensing and illegal file-sharing. As one label executive told the Times, the recording industry desperately wants to "make sure the locker doesn't become a bastion of piracy." An MP3 store, of course, isn't exactly a radical proposal, but its future will likely hinge upon Google's ability to mend relations with a sector it recently characterized as "unreasonable and unsustainable."
A look at Tim Cook's presentation style
Last Tuesday's "Let's Talk iPhone" Apple event was the first time that Apple CEO Tim Cook had the opportunity to run the show for a major product introduction. In the past, of course, most Apple product announcements were "Stevenotes," with the late CEO Steve Jobs wowing the audiences with whatever new products were coming out of Cupertino. Nick Wingfield of the New York Times discussed Cook's different presentation style in a post on the Bits blog. Wingfield noted that Cook left the demonstrations of new products to his colleagues, in particular Eddy Cue, Scott Forstall, and Phil Schiller. He quotes Van Baker, a Gartner analyst, as saying that Cook was smart to avoid being like Steve Jobs: "I think one of the things Tim did was to, in essence, put a stake in the ground and say 'I'm not Steve, don't expect me to be Steve.'" As Wingfield says, the number of iPhone 4S units presold during the first 24 hours of availability seems to show that it doesn't make much of a difference who is telling Apple's story. But former Mac evangelist and current venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki appeared to criticize Cook's style in a Sunday blog post, notes Wingfield. In his post titled "What I Learned From Steve Jobs," Kawasaki wrote that "Real CEOs demo." What's Kawasaki's objection to letting the product guys handle the product show and tell? "Maybe it's to show that there's a team effort in play. Maybe. It's more likely [if the CEO doesn't demo the product] that the CEO doesn't understand what his/her company is making well enough to explain it. How pathetic is that?" I'm hoping that Kawasaki was not singling out Cook with this comment, and would hope that he'd point out Cook's positives with two of the other bullet points in his post: "A players hire A+ players" and "Real CEOs ship." What are your thoughts on Cook's presentation style and the comments from Guy Kawasaki? Leave your comments below.
New York Times' magic mirror helps you get dressed, puts the 'wall' in 'paywall' (video)
Forget crosswords and Krugman, because the New York Times has created a new bathroom companion that looks infinitely more entertaining than either of them. Like some of its Snow White-style predecessors, the Times' "magic mirror" prototype uses Microsoft Kinect to detect and follow your movements, while deploying voice recognition technology to execute your commands. With this omniscient slab affixed to your wall, you can surf the web, flip through your wardrobe and send reassuring e-mails to your teenage daughter, whom you should have driven to school a good 30 minutes ago. An RFID reader, meanwhile, can recognize tagged pharmaceuticals or other products, allowing you to instantly access information on your prescription meds by placing them in front of the reflective LCD. You could also use the mirror to browse through the Times' full slate of articles and video content, meaning you can read about extravagant weekend getaways and urban gentrification from the standing comfort of your sink. Unfortunately for all mankind, the magic mirror is still in the prototype phase and the NYT's Research & Development Group has yet to offer a timetable for its release -- but you can see it in action for yourself, after the break.
U2's Bono has kind words for Steve Jobs
U2's Bono has expressed thanks for Steve Jobs's "invaluable" support in fighting AIDS in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. Bono contacted the editor after The Time's Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote a link-bait column titled "The Mystery of Steve Jobs's Public Giving." In the column Sorkin seemed somewhat obsessed over the "mystery" and lack of a public record about Steve Jobs' charitable contributions. Clearly Bono wanted to set the record straight, as his letter to the editor reads: To the Editor: Re "The Mystery of Jobs's Public Giving," by Andrew Ross Sorkin (DealBook, Aug. 30): As a founder of (Product)RED, I'd like to point out that Apple's contribution to our fight against AIDS in Africa has been invaluable. Through the sale of (RED) products, Apple has been (RED)'s largest contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - giving tens of millions of dollars that have transformed the lives of more than two million Africans through H.I.V. testing, treatment and counseling. This is serious and significant. And Apple's involvement has encouraged other companies to step up. Steve Jobs said when we first approached him about (RED), "There is nothing better than the chance to save lives." I'm proud to know him; he's a poetic fellow, an artist and a businessman. Just because he's been extremely busy, that doesn't mean that he and his wife, Laurene, have not been thinking about these things. You don't have to be a friend of his to know what a private person he is or that he doesn't do things by halves. BONO Dublin, Sept. 1, 2011 In Sorkin's defense, the columnist obviously (and rightfully) cares about the importance of philanthropy. I too am a big supporter of the "those that have more should give more" line of thought, but to jump on a man who's notoriously private about his personal and business dealings when he's just resigned over health issues was a bit much, but then again, link bait is a powerful motivator. As for Bono's reply, at least he didn't call for Sorkin to apologize to Steve Jobs like Forbes's Eric Jackson did.
New York Times envisions Microsoft Surface kitchen table, just don't spill your OJ (video)
Long since gone are the days of sitting at the breakfast table, drinking a cup of coffee and sharing the Sunday paper... or are they? The New York Time's R&D Lab is developing a "kitchen table" based-on Microsoft Surface touchscreen technology, designed to take individuals that are normally face down in their iPads, back to the table for a more social way to consume and share content. The display gives multiple readers the opportunity to sit at the table and interact, with options to share across the surface by swiveling and enlarging images or articles. The Times envisions that it will also be a mode of discovery, where users could get more information on a certain product by placing it on the table to find prices and related NYT articles, which could also an interesting method for advertising -- just be careful where you put that Starbucks cup.
Report: data centers accounted for just 1 to 1.5 percent of electricity use last year, Google claims less than 1 percent of that
You'd think, watching companies like Apple break ground on sprawling data centers, that the number of servers powering our untethered lives was on the rise. In a different decade, you might have been right. But not this one. According to a study prepared at the request of The New York Times, the number of servers in use has declined "significantly" since 2005. That's mostly because of the financial crisis of 2008, says lead researcher Jonathan G. Koomey of Stanford University, but we also can't discount the effect of more efficient technologies. What's more, he says, servers worldwide consume less energy than you might have guessed: they accounted for somewhere between 1 and 1.5 percent of global electricity use in 2010. And while Google, the king of cloud computing, has been cagey about revealing just how many servers house its treasure trove of data, the company said that of that 1 to 1.5 percent, it accounted for less than 1 percent -- meaning, just a hundredth of a percent of all the electricity consumed last year. All told, data centers' energy consumption has risen 56 percent since 2005 -- a far cry from the EPAs 2007 prediction that this figure would double by 2010, with annual costs ballooning to $7.4 billion. Then again, this slower-than-expected growth could well be temporary. Though Koomey can't specify to what extent the financial crisis and technological advancements are to blame, he insists, broadly speaking, that we're primarily seeing fallout from the economic slowdown -- a stay of execution, of sorts, for those of us rooting for energy conservation.
Chinese government to track users of free WiFi, small businesses react with service cutoffs
Thought Google had a mountain-sized stack of your up close and personal online habits? Think again, because the omnipresent search king's all-seeing eyes are nothing compared to the Chinese government, which recently enacted stricter regulations to identify free WiFi users. The government-issued monitoring software will cost the cafes and restaurants it targets $3,100, putting small business owners in a sticky situation -- pay up, or shut down the free surfing. An informal survey conducted by the New York Times found not one owner willing to bow to the Republic's pressure, citing the out-of-pocket cost and low number of actual users. It's possible the move to clamp down on anonymous browsing was spurred by recent youth-embraced, social networking-backed uprisings, like the one in Cairo earlier this year. Seems a loophole in China's net management policy allows "laptop- and iPad-owning colleges students and expatriates" -- the very same group behind recent revolts -- to go online undetected. It remains to be seen if the Communist Party will make this new measure widespread, or just restrict it to central Beijing. For their sake, we echo one owner's hope that "official fervor [will]... soon die down."
New York Times updates iPhone, iPad apps to offer in-app subscriptions
The Gray Lady herself has assented to Apple's rules about in-app subscriptions, so you can now subscribe to the vaunted New York Times right from the mobile apps on Apple's iPad and iPhone. We're still not talking about the print edition, so you can't log in on your phone and then have the paper show up at your door, but you can subscribe to the digital edition from right inside the apps themselves. The prices break down into three different rates -- for just the smartphone app and the digital edition, you'll pay $15. The tablet and digital subscription is $20, and "All Digital Access," which means the digital edition and iPhone and iPad subscriptions, will run you $35. As is the case with in-app subscriptions, the deal will go straight through your usual iTunes account. Because Apple has tweaked the rules since they were introduced, the NYT doesn't have to offer the exact same prices both in and out of the app, so the online deal is a little sweeter -- it's offering the first four weeks of the subscription for just a buck. But iTunes has its own benefits -- if you allow iTunes to share your information, the NYT is giving away a week's worth for completely free. Either way, you've got plenty of options, and that's the best thing for consumers in this fight anyway.
Apple product managers respond to Final Cut Pro X criticism
During our call to discuss Final Cut Pro X earlier this week, an Apple product manager boasted about the product's low price, media management, and ground-up redesign. Unfortunately, when starting from scratch, developers seem to have overlooked a few features that professional users have come to depend on, prompting widespread backlash -- both on internet forums and even on Apple's own App Store, where the $300 download-only app currently has a rating of just 2.5 stars (out of five), including nearly 500 one-star ratings. (Note: you must purchase the app before submitting a rating or review.) The New York Times spoke to product managers about these issues, which include an inability to import old FCP files, no multicamera editing, no support for RED cameras, and no ability to specify QuickTime export settings, among many others. Apple says there are (pricey) workarounds available, or fixes on the way for all but the first issue, but head over to the source link for the full rundown at NYT.
New York Times, OpinionLab sue Lodsys seeking declaratory judgement
Indie developers turned to the Web hours after receiving warning letters from Lodsys last month, but larger devs took a more traditional approach, leaving the communication and finger-pointing to lawyers instead. Two such companies, the New York Times and OpinionLabs, came to light after filing suit against the patent troll yesterday, seeking declaratory judgements to invalidate Lodsys's patents. A nine-page complaint filed by NYT lists four Lodsys patents, including 7,222,078, which had previously been used to target smaller developers. NYT's ad click-through system and OpinionLabs' surveys were both also targeted, and if the suits are successful, Lodsys would be responsible for all legal expenses, and wouldn't be allowed to collect on its patents in the future. We spoke with Julie Samuels of the EFF, who explained that filing for a declaratory judgment could theoretically enable NYT and OpinionLabs to have trials held in California and Illinois, where the declaratory judgments were filed, instead of the Eastern District of Texas -- the notoriously plaintiff-friendly court where Lodsys filed its suit against seven devs on May 31st. Other devs who received letters but have not yet been sued can also do the same. The suits brought by NYT and OpinionLabs formally call the validity of Lodsys's patents into question, but unfortunately don't change the game for devs Lodsys already sued, who would still be responsible for licensing fees and other damages if the court determines the patents to be valid (and their apps to be infringing).
New York Times website harvests iPhone location data
The New York Times Company Research and Development Lab has developed its own tool to take advantage of location-tracking data that caused a kerfuffle when it was discovered that Apple was collecting said data. Although the issue has been resolved, the newspaper points out that regular people can benefit from the information as well as Apple. OpenPaths is a database where anonymous users can contribute their personal location data by uploading it from their phones. The data is password-protected, and contributors can only reveal who they are when they grant access to research requests. Participants can browse their own data after it's uploaded. If you're interested in joining the project, head over to the OpenPaths site to sign up. The site warns that the OS 4.3.3 update can disable access to the data that the site is looking for.
Nook matches Kindle by bundling free web access to NYTimes.com with digital edition sub
Adhering to strict alphabetical order, where Amazon leads, Barnes & Noble follows. The Kindle was last week announced to include access beyond the New York Times' freshly erected online paywall as part of its device subscription to the NYT and now, lo and behold, the Nook family (including the Nook Color) is following suit in identical fashion. If you're happy to obtain your sub to New York's finest paper from the Nook Newsstand -- which costs $20 per month, same as Amazon's levy -- you'll get the bonus, complimentary, free-of-charge privilege of being able to access NYTimes.com without any constraints as well. So what if the online edition used to be free for the past eleventy years? The new Times dictates some fealty be paid and we're happy to see these e-reader purveyors helping to alleviate (mask?) that cost for some of us. Full PR after the break.
Kindle subscription to the New York Times will net you free web access as well
Can't get enough New York Times over your Whispernet? Worry not, dear Kindle reader, for Amazon's on a roll with its announcements today, the latest of which is that a subscription to the NYT on its world-conquering e-reader will also grant users access to the paywall-protected NYTimes.com online portal. No complex rules or conditions, you'll just be one of the insiders who get unfettered access to all the fine old school journalism practiced at Times towers. See Amazon's press release after the break or hit the source link to learn more about the $28-a-month (for international users) subscription. Update: The sub price is $20 in the USA, the $28 cost we first saw relates to those signing up from the UK and other international markets. Thanks, russke!
