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Apple WWDC: iOS 5, Lion, iCloud
Steve Jobs was on hand today to kick off Apple's WWDC keynote. Lion took the lead, with no surprises except a $29.99 pricetag and a July ship date.
iOS is getting a new "Notification Center"; Twitter is being integrated; he announced a split thumbable keyboard for iPads; wireless syncing; and a native IM system for iOS devices, shipping in the Fall.
iCloud will be free, syncing apps (Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork apps) across devices. Photostream is iCloud for pictures. iTunes iCloud will let you re-download your tracks at last, and iTunes Match will let you match your ripped CDs to Apple's copies.
...he introduced the Apple community to Android, Windows Phone 7, Linux, Windows, and OS X Snow Leopard.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
But I will definitely go for Lion at $29. The thing is, how will it be made available to Leopard users? Jobs said it was Mac App Store-only.
(posting non-anon this time)
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
2001: Record labels sue my.mp3.com in to oblivion.
2011: Record labels can't wait to suck on the iTunes Cloud teat.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
I think that the idea is that users don't interact with files and the file system. They interact with songs through the iTunes interface. I know there are a million and one reasons to do clever things with the file system organization for music, but I think that 99% of users don't really care about how their songs are laid out on the FS. They think of them as songs, not files.
Putting very mildly indeed, iTunes Match is an important announcement.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Steve himself pointed out that MobileMe was a misstep. As someone who has cobbled together a cable-based home iTunes network, Gmail (via both a desktop/laptop web browser but also through iPhone's Mail app for notifications, etc.), Flickr & iPhoto, AppleTVs, a 60GB iPod, my wife's iPod Touch, Things for to do lists, etc., etc., etc., the only thing that is not encouraging to me about this is the thought of redoing everything again. But if Apple is actually putting some energy into this (and from the data center pictures, it looks like they are), it's might be too tempting to refuse.
And iTunes Match? Does anyone else find it baffling how they are getting away with this? I mean, for $25 I get legal versions of every single—ahem, questionably procured, shall we say— tracks in my gigantic iTunes library? Did the record companies read the fine print on this? I mean, as a voracious music consumer, I'm NOT complaining... we've all known for a long time that things were going to have to change in regard to digital media and copyright. And say what you will about them, I could see Apple being the company to make it happen. But really... how did they get away with this?
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
1) We get to claim 30% of your revenue
... and we paid out 2.5 billion dollars so far to developers. Also just out: The Apple app store (the one where you can buy apps for Macs only) is the _largest_ seller of PC software! Beating Walmart, Best Buy and anyone else. And can you tell me any other store that lets developers keep 70% of the revenue.
With $2.5 Billion in sales of independent software in the last year...thats how.
I know several of developers that HATE the idea of what the iStore is...and at the same time, are making far more money using it, selling their products far cheaper, than they ever did before.
You can either be religious about all of this, or you can be pragmatic.
If you were selling anywhere else, you'd have to deal with CC processing, you'd have to deal with boxed products. You'd have to deal with a shitload of other hassles...in this regard, the only hassle you have to do is to mind read what Steve Jobs is planning on doing next and for most developers, this isn't a problem.
Even a friend that just has a product kicked out recently...said he made enough before it was kicked out...and it isn't like his code isn't reusable. Will fix the problems and resubmit.
And if this is too much of a problem, they can always go program for Android.
Welcome to last year.
Love and kisses,
Android
Really, though all these things are good, but Apple is going for the same thing IBM and Microsoft tried in the 80s and 90s by locking users into a static platform. There's better bells and whistles now, but when Facetime can't connect with anything other than an iOS or OS X device, you'll have to say forget it and go with something more cross platform like Google Voice. Many of the new features advertised already exist in one form or another and the ones that are unique are more 'Huh. Interesting, but not enough to make my buy one'.
As for #4, I believe it is "4. Pay the record companies a boat load of cash." which is all they really want. can you blame them?
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Thats ok, my wallet was stuffed with those 500 dollars i saved buying an Asus laptop anyway.
My -1 Troll is actually a +1 funny. And my -1 flame is actually a +1 insightfull.