Great, but sad article by Mat Honan for Gizmodo about Yahoo completely missing the point of Flickr, ruining it and everything else. It’s a shame, since I always thought Flickr was pretty cool. The fact there has never been a Yahoo-made iPad app (the is an iPhone one) for it speaks volumes.
I’m a fan of ESPN Radio, and its app, previously $2.99, was an iPhone-only app that wasn’t the prettiest, but featured access to the live stream, podcasts, and entire shows. The new app (4.0), which comes down the line as an update for existing users, is now universal (hooray) and has been redesigned. Streaming now requires a $4.99 in-app purchase, as well as making an ESPN account. Unfortunately, after August 1, the older version of the app (3.3) will cease to work, forcing people to update. To add insult to injury, the app isn’t even designed for the new iPad’s Retina Display.
I’m all for developers getting paid for what they do, but to actively shut down existing features that people have already paid for, and then ask for more money for a “better” experience is absurd. I understand with things like MLB’s At Bat app, where you pay for a year of the service, but I think a lot of people are going to be turned off by this update, which just comes across as slimy. I might get ESPN podcasts via Instacast, and streaming via TuneIn Radio.
People whine about the cost of a $5 app on a $500 device all the time, but in this case, it’s on principle.
Sad, a bit embarrassing, and unsurprising:
Glenn A. Britt, the company’s chief executive, said in a group interview on Friday that the challenge for digital video was that there was no simple way to get Internet-based video onto the television screen. He wasn’t familiar with AirPlay.
“I’m not sure I know what AirPlay is,” he said, though he noted that he was an enthusiastic Apple customer. “Today we want to be on every screen. Today it’s a little bit clunky to get programming from the Internet onto the TV — not so hard to get it on your iPad. What’s hard is the plumbing, what wires do you connect, what device do you use. So the current Apple TV, the little thing, the hockey puck, really doesn’t do anything to help enable you to get Internet material on your TV.”
Peter Burrows and Andy Fixmer have a really interesting article for Businessweek about Apple’s involvement with product placement and the media, along with quite a bit of historical context (via Daring Fireball):
…HP gets lots of free product placement, but usually in scenes where filmmakers want the setting to feel, well, typical. “If the studio is using the product as it would be used in the real world, then it makes perfect sense to select HP,” says Christensen, who has gotten HP desktops on the sets of The Office and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. “Government agencies use tons of HP.”
Apple products, on the other hand, sometimes take a lead role as an object of devotion, as in a famous 2010 episode of Modern Family. Airing just two days before the first iPad hit stores, the episode centered around dad Phil Dunphy’s quest for the new device.
It seems Facebook is a bigger threat to SMS than iMessage. It makes sense, since most smartphones (and some other phones can access Facebook) and it goes through a data connection instead of per-message costs.
