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Global Marketing VP Allison Johnson Is Leaving Apple→

Global Marketing VP Allison Johnson Is Leaving Apple

John Paczkowski at All Things Digital reports this morning Apple’s Global Marketing VP Allison Johnson is leaving the company after 6 years for a new marketing firm she has co-founded with a former Facebook PR executive.

At Apple, Johnson has managed global advertising for some of the company’s most revolutionary products and the iconic ads for them. Those ads have been created by TBWA\Chiat\Day, which plays a powerful role at Apple.

Of course, this key part of Apple’s business is watched over closely by CEO Steve Jobs, to whom Johnson has reported directly.

Johnson, former senior vice president of marketing at HP, came to Apple in 2005 to “take a top marketing post” during the sales explosion of the iPod line. Johnson lead several of Apple’s marketing campaigns since then, and it’s surely a big loss for Apple. In January, Apple’s Design Director Sarah Brody left the company as well for Paypal.

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KansasFest→

KansasFest

This is awesome RT @danfrakes: A yearly convention dedicated to the Apple II: http://t.co/NOOBJuu

Mac|Life Online Editor Roberto Baldwin (@strngwys - where are the vowels man?), Retweets Dan Frakes on one of the coolest conventions I wasn’t aware of. Dedicated to only the Apple II, KansasFest welcomes hobbyists to Kansas City, Missouri, where workshops, keynotes, contests, and other sessions take place over a span of six days this year from July 19th to July 24th. Some of the sessions include hacking together an expansion card, a programming competition known as HackFest, and a vendor fair for old equipment and hardware from the days of yore. This is seriously cool, and if the nostalgia flu is kicking in, you might want to get in during the early registration. This year will mark their 22nd annual convention.

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2011: $100 Billion Revenue Year for Apple?→

2011: $100 Billion Revenue Year for Apple?

With the success of iOS devices and Macs, and the release of the iPad 2 that saw huge lines across the world, analysts are now revising their estimates for Apple’s revenue in 2011 and are predicting Apple might be on track for a $100 billion revenue year:

This morning, Needham analyst Charlie Wolf raised his FY 2011 revenue forecast for the company to $103.9 billion from $98.9 billion; his EPS forecast goes to $23.25 a share from $22.25. For FY 2012, he now sees $125 billion in revenue and profits of $27.35 a share, up from $118 billion and $25.50. The higher estimates, he writes, reflect a revised forecast for iPad sales: he now sees the company selling 30 million units this year and 40 million next, up from 20 million and 30 million previously.

Last night we reported Apple will announce its Q2 2011 financial results on April 20th. The company is expected to provide sales numbers for the iPad 2 and the Verizon iPhone, which was initially rumored to have sales “below Apple’s expectations”. There is no doubt the release of the iPad 2 will play an important role in Apple’s 2011 strategy; the iPhone 5, in the meantime, is generating different reports about a possible “delay” that is making Wall Street Analyst update their estimates again.

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HOW TO: Use Amazon Cloud Player With iOS Devices→

HOW TO: Use Amazon Cloud Player With iOS Devices

One of the standout features of iCab Mobile is the ability to change the browser User Agent. In other words, this lets the website think that you are visiting from a browser other than Mobile Safari. Changing the Browser ID to “Safari 5 (Mac)” will allow users to download music using the Mobile Safari method, even if Amazon does change how it serves downloaded files.

Christina Warren notes that there isn’t a technical limitation preventing Amazon from serving content to iOS devices, but currently you have to either use an alternative browser to change the User Agent or download each song one-by-one for playback in Safari. I’m still miffed that Amazon isn’t flexing their muscle and aggressively pursuing the iOS platform at launch, considering that’s really where the market for cloud based music streaming exists. The uploading and playback tools might be a little rough around the edges, but Amazon’s integration and incentives need to give Apple a run for its money on the platform that counts.

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Camino’s Future Is Uncertain, Might Switch To WebKit→

Camino’s Future Is Uncertain, Might Switch To WebKit

The developers of Camino, a Mac browser based on Mozilla’s engine, are not sure about what the future holds for their software. Namely, as Mozilla announced the end of Gecko embedding (a technique that allowed Camino’s devs to include Gecko into the Cocoa interface) the team is asking whether for future versions they should switch to (much more supported and widely adopted) WebKit:

As a purely community-based open source project, no one is employed to work on Camino; all Camino developers are volunteers, working on Camino in their spare time, as a labor of love. While maintaining embedding in a fork of Gecko is theoretically possible, we don’t have the manpower for a sustained effort of that kind. A more realistic option would be to port Camino to WebKit, but while this would be much easier to maintain in the future, it would require a large amount of initial work.

For what it’s worth, a very small percentage of MacStories readers use Camino, but we don’t want to see the project be discontinued just yet. I think turning Camino into a WebKit-based lightweight alternative to Safari and Chrome might actually be a great idea.

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Amazon Cloud Player Doesn’t Work On iOS — But It’s Not A Flash Issue→

Amazon Cloud Player Doesn’t Work On iOS — But It’s Not A Flash Issue

On Android devices, Cloud Player works by way of the Amazon MP3 app. This app does not exist on the iOS platform because it would compete with Apple’s iTunes Store. Presumably, Amazon could make another stand-alone app for Cloud Player or include it in one of their other Amazon iOS apps, but Apple new platform rules on subscriptions make this a bit murky (Amazon’s Cloud Drive is free for 5 GB but costs a yearly fee for more storage).

You’d think the alternative would be to simply launch an HTML based web-app at this point. @GlennF points out that Safari can support background audio with iPhone 3 software as well, though Siegler reminds us the audio player simply doesn’t work. I worry that the lack of support for iOS devices at launch is a huge missed opportunity, especially when you could have directly insulted Apple by playing on their own turf. Now, the talk won’t be about that Amazon launched cloud based storage and streaming, but that they aren’t on the most popular media devices at launch. I’m under the presumption that Amazon wants a native app in the App Store (but can’t), but then again we’re talking about the same company that requires Android owners to install the Amazon Appstore in eight steps. Thankfully for the Amazon MP3 app, it only takes one.

On the upside, 5 GB (then 20 GB for a year if you simply buy an album) of free cloud storage is incredibly generous, and I suspect John Gruber might be right about the development of a tablet or phone to coexist with a new media ecosystem (see the 8-Steps link above).

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Obama Has An iPad→

Obama Has An iPad

Sure the President knows how to sign iPads, but how about owning one? Even if it’s been called “a distraction” in the past? MarketWatch reports, indeed, President Obama has an iPad:

Do you have an iPad?” asked Ramos next.

I do have an iPad,” Obama replied, joking later about also having his own computer.

I mean, Jorge, I’m the president of the United States,” Obama said. “You think I’ve got to go borrow somebody’s computer?” said Obama to laughter. “Hey, man, can I borrow your computer? How about you? You’ve got one?

Obama also says he uses a BlackBerry phone. Perhaps RIM could trust him to have a preview unit of the PlayBook? There shouldn’t be problems with “leaks” at the White House anyway.

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Analyst Predicts Apple Will Be Bigger Than IBM and HP→

Analyst Predicts Apple Will Be Bigger Than IBM and HP

Founder of Forrester Research George Colony thinks Apple will outgrow IBM and HP, keeping its steady 50% sales growth rate year after year:

They’ll be bigger than IBM next year, and they’ll be bigger than HP the year after that,” Colony said, citing Apple’s 52 percent sales growth last year. At current growth rates “they’re going to be a $200 billion revenue company,” he said.

Hewlett-Packard had sales of $126 billion in the year that ended in October and IBM’s revenue was $99.9 billion last year, making them the largest technology companies, respectively, by sales. Apple ranks No. 1 by market capitalization.

HP is coming out with a tablet this summer (following the Palm acquisition), whilst IBM has become more of a research giant rather than a consumer electronic company. Apple may be bigger than both companies from a user’s perspective, but it’ll be interesting to see whether the HP TouchPad will be able to change the current tablet market landscape.

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“No Acrimony” Over Serlet’s Departure - A Planned Transition→

“No Acrimony” Over Serlet’s Departure - A Planned Transition

Following this morning’s news that senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet is leaving Apple after 22 years of collaboration with Steve Jobs, John Paczkowski at All Things Digital puts the pieces together and says this is a planned transition that’s been in the works for months:

There’s a reason Craig Federighi, who is to take over Serlet’s role, handled demo duties for Apple’s Lion preview demo last year (see video below). And there’s a reason Serlet has been selling off Apple shares recently. They’ve been preparing for this day, which sources tell me is not at all the result of a spat over differences in strategic direction or the diminishment of OS X’s importance to Apple.

“There’s no acrimony there,” one source close to the company told me. “Bertrand’s just decided it’s his time to move on. Avie (Tevanian, former senior vice president of software engineering) handed off to him and now he’s handing off to Craig. It’s just a changing of the guard.

Serlet says he wants to focus on science now. People speculated this morning that Serlet might have left because of the iOS-like approach Apple is taking with Lion, but that sounds like a really stupid theory. I bet Serlet himself saw the evolution of OS X into something like Lion years ago.

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