Posts in stories

Thoughts On Twitter #music

Music

Music

Earlier today, Twitter released its official #music app.[1] This first release, like Vine before, is iPhone-only with a web counterpart. I believe that Music, more than Vine, can give an indication of the direction Twitter may take in regards to its media strategy. But first, I’d like to highlight two excerpts from Twitter’s blog post announcing Music:

Twitter and music go great together. People share and discover new songs and albums every day. Many of the most-followed accounts on Twitter are musicians, and half of all users follow at least one musician. This is why artists turn to Twitter first to connect with their fans — and why we wanted to find a way to surface songs people are tweeting about.

Today, we’re releasing Twitter #music, a new service that will change the way people find music, based on Twitter. It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement, to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists. It also brings artists’ music-related Twitter activity front and center: go to their profiles to see which music artists they follow and listen to songs by those artists. And, of course, you can tweet songs right from the app.

“Tweets and engagement” are key factors of the algorithm Twitter is using to “detect and surface” tracks, both popular and emerging. The fact that half of all users (active or not) follow at least one musician on Twitter is an important metric to keep in mind. Read more

Quantifying The Australian “Apple Tax”

On Friday, Apple (along with Microsoft and Adobe) will front the Federal Australian Parliament’s inquiry into IT Pricing. You may recall that after failing to voluntarily appear, the committee in February of this year summonsed the three, effectively forcing them to appear. Given Apple’s appearance, I wanted to take a closer look to see what Apple actually charges for their products (both hardware and media from their iTunes and App Stores) and see how it compares to the US.

Methodology

Doing this kind of analysis can be fairly contentious given there are a few ways to do it, various assumptions you have to make, and different ways of presenting the information. To be clear, here is how I have constructed the data presented in the graphs in this article.

  • I collected from Apple’s website, the Australian and US prices of all their key products and main models (but not built-to-order models).
  • GST is removed from Australian price: The Australian price includes a 10% GST (goods and services tax), so I removed that from the Australian price because US prices do not include a sales tax, that is added at checkout based on which US state the customer is from (sales taxes varies across US states).
  • Now that both prices don’t include sales taxes, I convert the Australian price from Australian dollars (AUD) to US dollars (USD). I use a 3 month average of the exchange rate. The 3 month average smoothes out any temporary peaks or troughs in the exchange rate and gives Apple a fairly lengthy period of time to alter prices if there was a significant change in the exchange rate.
  • This now gives me the price of the Australian good in USD and without GST, a figure that can now be compared with the US price. So I calculate the percentage markup of the Australian price based on the original US price.
  • NOTE: Methodology for the Media calculations do vary a bit, read the notes I include with them.
  • I encourage you to scrutinise my calculations by taking a look at the Excel document I created, linked below.

Acknowledging The Threat Of Samsung


In the past week Apple’s marketing chief, Phil Schiller, gave three interviews and the company sent out a new “Why iPhone” email campaign - both timed perfectly around the announcement of Samsung’s new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. Some have called it out as Apple going on the defensive, others have said it’s Apple on the offensive. I’m not sure that you can categorically say it’s one or the other – it doesn’t really matter much.

Read more

iPads for Work

Shawn Blanc, writing about the iPad as a “professional” device:

Even amongst the readers of this site — whom are decidedly, clever, nerdy, and prone to living on the bleeding edge — when I talk about using the iPad as my laptop, I get more than a few raised eyebrows and responses from people who still need or prefer to grab their MacBook when it’s time to work away from the office. Even my own wife would not be persuaded to get an iPad when she needed a new computer.

I think there are many facets to this discussion. I’ll pick two.

More “advanced” users who are aware of the scripting and automation features of OS X miss those in the transition to the iPad; on the flip side, users who don’t want to automate anything still need to get work done using suites like Office or Google Docs, but the iPad doesn’t offer the same degree of functionality that a computer has in those areas. It’s an important difference: “geeks” who want robust automation combined with flexibility (usually the same people who end up writing on the Internet, like me), and people who don’t require anything fancy but just want to get things done at the office. Given the iPad strengths (portability, screen) and constraints (text selection and editing topping the list), I believe the first segment requires a deeper reworking of iOS, while the second is more related to simply finding the right third-party apps (if any).

Case in point: the aforementioned Office and Google Docs. Apple’s iWork suite was stuck for almost two years with a ridiculous file sharing mechanism, then received iCloud support, which was better, but still far from bulletproof. Even more pragmatically speaking, the iWork apps for iPad were a major breakthrough in 2010, but in 2013 they still lack many of the features of the desktop versions: Pages’ change tracking is an example, Numbers’ limited chart creation is another. What about Office, which, speaking of spreadsheets, admittedly offers even more power with Excel? Microsoft still hasn’t shown anything. Google Docs? Google insisted on giving users a web app for years, then switched to a native app, rebranded as Drive, that, however, is fairly behind when compared to the “regular” web app. This is just a possible scenario – Office-type apps – but you get my point. And yes, in spite of jokes aimed at Microsoft – people still do use Office (or, again, the free, Office-type Google Docs).

What about geeks? They usually are early adopters of features and products that go on to find success with “everyone”. I speak for experience when I say those users would like to see better inter-app communication and a way to automate tedious tasks. The funny thing is – while I purposefully took some concepts to the extreme – those aren’t “nerd requests” at all: Services, for instance, have been one of the most visible, understandable examples of OS X apps communicating with each other through data and files. Automator has allowed the creation of workflows with a “visual approach” for over a decade now.

So while I’d say this is undoubtedly “geek” and beyond most people’s needs, can we say something as simple as avoiding duplicates wouldn’t be beneficial to all kinds of iOS users? Does the “average” iOS user need to jump between 7 apps to complete a single task? How can Apple improve that area while keeping iOS easy to use and secure? How do they balance “geeky” features with “everyone” features? Could Automator go mainstream with an iOS version?

Does iOS need to be “more advanced” to be taken seriously for work purposes?

There are many questions. In the two areas I mentioned, Apple will need time to rework some aspects of iOS; developers still need time to figure out how to let people work on iOS devices.

Ultimately, I agree with Shawn. iOS devices – and iPads in particular – are professional grade devices, but their full potential will be uncovered by further developments of Apple’s software and third-party apps.

Always Beaten

In thinking about the latest round of rumors of another company supposedly “beating” Apple to a market in which Apple hasn’t entered yet, I remembered how this sort of scenario happened many times in the past. I wanted to understand if “beating to the punch” is really the parameter we should be looking at.

Therefore I used Google to find evidence, and I was given plenty of it.

August 2009: Bloomberg Businessweek says Nokia beat Apple to the punch by unveiling a netbook.

January 2010: Electricpig wonders if a Microsoft Courier appearance could beat Apple to the punch.

January 2010: Tom’s Hardware believes the HP Slate will beat Apple to the tablet punch.

July 2011: Dvice says Motorola is preparing to beat Apple to the market with a Retina Display tablet.

December 2011: BGR says Samsung could beat Apple to the market with a Retina tablet.

April 2012: The Los Angeles Times asks whether IKEA has beaten Apple to an all-in-one television.

June 2012: WebProNews says a Google Maps announcement will beat Apple to the punch.

June 2012: AppleFanSite asks if Microsoft has beaten Apple to the 7-inch tablet market with an Xbox Surface tablet.

September 2012: Forbes asks if Nintendo has beaten Apple to an iTV.

October 2012: Gizmodo says Amazon beat Apple to the classroom.

January 2013: Business Insider says even Sony will beat Apple to making a giant phone.

February 2013: MacRumors says Samsung could beat Apple to market with an iWatch competitor.

How many of those races – “being first” – resulted (when true) in a subsequent return in terms of profit? And how many of those headlines were purposefully crafted for the sake of pageviews?

Two brief thoughts. First, for a company that’s been beaten like that, Apple is doing surprisingly well.

More importantly, I believe it’s clear that, in Apple’s case, the market didn’t care about who was first. But there are some aspects to consider.

People wanted – and I think they will continue wanting – the best products, not the ones that arrived first on the shelves. If the best product is also first, even better. But if the first product isn’t worth the money, I see a problem.

Apple was “beaten to the market” in many other occasions that I haven’t listed here: higher capacity portable music players; LCD color screens; digital marketplaces; video chat; and yes, even smartphones. I am not poking fun at the headlines – I am using them to point out a general “notion” that has been going on for years among tech companies, reporters, and consumers: that “beating someone else to the punch” is automatically synonymous of increased chances of success.

I wonder if Apple’s competitors believed they needed to “beat Apple to the punch”. Because from where I stand, I see one that underestimated the iPhone, one that is making billions, and another that is ridiculously late. Others aren’t doing very well, or they are taking entirely different approaches. Did they really want to beat Apple to the punch, or was it just a headline that told us they would?

Apple is a company, and like every company they want to make a profit. Unlike others – many others – they have been smart in investing resources not to beat HTC, Sony, or RIM to the punch – but to make the best products without being late to the point where people wouldn’t care anymore.1

Making sure that your product is good and that you’re not extremely late to the game. It’s overly simplified, but I’d say that, with such underlying philosophy, being second is generally a good position.2 It buys a company like Apple time to understand what the market wants and what is required to produce new products on a large scale for a profit. In other words: the Apple TV is still a hobby.

Or maybe I’m wrong, and Apple’s competitors were first and did have a superior product, but for some reason Apple convinced the masses to buy iOS devices instead even if they came “second” to the market. But I don’t think so.

Looking ahead at this (rumored) wave of new products – watches, televisions, game consoles – I think the real question is: who can beat others to the punch in delivering the best product?

  1. Apple was also second in other areas, and they’re struggling there. But that’s a different topic. Yes, Apple has problems. ↩︎

  2. The next obvious step to prove this theory will be the Apple television as opposed to, say, Samsung Smart TVs. ↩︎

A Better App Store

Better App Store

Better App Store

Marco Tabini has a good overview of how the App Store (both for iOS and OS X) could use some improvements now that the 1 million app milestone is in sight. I particularly agree with his points on curation:

Given the sheer volume of apps on the App Stores, Apple’s role in curating them is becoming more and more important. The company’s notoriously tight grip on its distribution channels is often the source of much controversy, but there’s no denying that, by and large, it promotes all apps on an even field: In any given week, the latest release from a giant like, say, Electronic Arts could share the “Editor’s Pick” spot with an app written by an equally talented—but much more wallet-impaired—team of independent developers.

App Store curation is a topic I have been covering on MacStories for the past year, so Marco’s observations resonate with me. Looking back at my Four Years of App Store article from May 2012, it’s clear that the App Store team has done a very good job in increasing “human curation” with custom sections and weekly features, but there’s still lots of work to be done. So, with the one-million app mark approaching, I thought this could be a good time to offer some suggestions for improvements (you’ve probably already seen a lot of these as tweets in my Twitter timeline).

Read more

The Untapped Potential Of Dual Screen AirPlay Games & Apps

What do you know about Dual Screen AirPlay games? Chances are, you don’t know much about it and might not even know what on earth I’m talking about. It’s a feature of AirPlay - the protocol that allows iOS devices to stream audio and video to an Apple TV. More specifically, Dual Screen AirPlay is the ability for app developers to use a connected Apple TV as a secondary screen, displaying different content on the TV as to what is on the iOS device. In theory it’s an awesome feature that has significant potential. In reality there haven’t been many examples of its implementation, let alone many that did so in a unique and exciting way.

So today I look at where Dual Screen AirPlay has been used, focusing on games in particular and then look to why it hasn’t been as widely deployed. I’ll also touch upon the problems with its implementation, where it could be improved and lastly a brief discussion on its potential in video apps as well.

Read more

Could Apple Be Moving To Twice-Yearly iPhone & iPad Releases?

Just over a month ago, Horace Dediu of Asymco penned an article entitled ‘Does S stand for Spring’ in which he hypothesised that perhaps Apple might be moving to a biannual (twice-yearly) release cycle for the iPhone and iPad. Over the past month I’ve gone back to read Dediu’s hypothesis as news articles and analyst opinions surfaced and I did some analysis of Apple myself. It’s got to the point that I really think Dediu’s hypothesis has got real potential to become reality. So I decided to take some time to present Dediu’s evidence in a slightly different way, elaborating on some of his evidence and hopefully add to the discussion. But if you haven’t read the Asymco article yet, I’d highly recommend you do so before proceeding:

‘Does S stand for Spring?’ - Asymco

Read more

Mapping Apple’s International iPhone & iPad Rollouts

Apple has on three seperate occasions announced that the iPhone 5 will have the fastest international rollout of any iPhone ever - at the announcement keynote, during the Q4 earnings call, and in their press release announcing opening weekend sales of the iPhone 5 in China. The claim was, no doubt, meant to impress investors, press and the general public, but I was curious as to how fast it really was compared to previous iPhone rollouts. So I decided to track down the launch schedules of all the iPhones to date and then again with the iPad. In the end I found a few trends, some oddities and that Apple’s claim was (mostly) true.

iPhone 5 will be available in more than 100 countries by the end of December, making it the fastest iPhone rollout ever.

- Apple Press Release

Read more