Comment Apple Not Sharing Any Pie (Score 1) 662
Well, it looks like a lot of what I expected was announced. What's really impressive is how brazenly Apple has dictated terms and cut into other companies' business models.
The terrible notification system in iOS to this point has actually benefited Apple in 2 major ways: it appeased the iPhone wireless carriers by allowing archaic, expensive text messaging to still seem relevant (email alerts didn't appear on the lock screen, but text messages did), and it provided Apple with a future selling point.
Now that they're updating the notification and messaging systems, it's likely that text messaging volume will very, very gradually begin to dwindle for iPhone users. The carriers can't be too happy about this since texting services are their cash cows.
On the web browsing front, integrating Reader into iOS Safari is likely to frustrate a lot of advertisement-subsidized sites. The strength of its implementation will also push publishers into their News Stand platform (the choice will be: "no revenue for you through the web since we'll strip out all your ads or revenue with a commission to Apple through News Stand").
The iTunes Match service is going to trick lots of people into paying for access to music they already have. It'll be interesting to see how Apple authenticates music via Match: will it use some fingerprint analysis from the actual sound stream (à la Shazaam), or will it simply read through tags? Either way, it'll be easy for someone to log into Match once on a system with a huge library to get access to thousands of songs. I wonder if people with huge libraries will sell services to help you "unlock" lots of music on iTunes Match and/or if there will be frequently updated "master" iTunes databases with proper tags and placeholder files posted all over the internet? Apple's basically selling an all-you-can-eat music subscription service (comparable to Napster's) at a low annual rate and making its users jump through hoops or pay more to get access to the whole library. This is going to further kill CD sales and record stores; once Apple moves to Lossless audio, there'll be very little reason for Apple customers to access digital music any other way (perhaps unlimited access to the whole library and lossless quality will be available in a couple of years for a higher subscription price).
Finally, iCloud is going to hurt Dropbox and Google's bottom lines. Google's going to be implementing most of the same functionality once they get Chrome OS off the ground, but Apple's lead is formidable.
Barring any major technical or privacy failures and given the appetites of their fans/customers, it's hard to see Apple failing to pull all of this off. Apple's waving the stampede through their velvet rope and right into their club. Once inside, though, it's going to be awfully hard to get out.
The terrible notification system in iOS to this point has actually benefited Apple in 2 major ways: it appeased the iPhone wireless carriers by allowing archaic, expensive text messaging to still seem relevant (email alerts didn't appear on the lock screen, but text messages did), and it provided Apple with a future selling point.
Now that they're updating the notification and messaging systems, it's likely that text messaging volume will very, very gradually begin to dwindle for iPhone users. The carriers can't be too happy about this since texting services are their cash cows.
On the web browsing front, integrating Reader into iOS Safari is likely to frustrate a lot of advertisement-subsidized sites. The strength of its implementation will also push publishers into their News Stand platform (the choice will be: "no revenue for you through the web since we'll strip out all your ads or revenue with a commission to Apple through News Stand").
The iTunes Match service is going to trick lots of people into paying for access to music they already have. It'll be interesting to see how Apple authenticates music via Match: will it use some fingerprint analysis from the actual sound stream (à la Shazaam), or will it simply read through tags? Either way, it'll be easy for someone to log into Match once on a system with a huge library to get access to thousands of songs. I wonder if people with huge libraries will sell services to help you "unlock" lots of music on iTunes Match and/or if there will be frequently updated "master" iTunes databases with proper tags and placeholder files posted all over the internet? Apple's basically selling an all-you-can-eat music subscription service (comparable to Napster's) at a low annual rate and making its users jump through hoops or pay more to get access to the whole library. This is going to further kill CD sales and record stores; once Apple moves to Lossless audio, there'll be very little reason for Apple customers to access digital music any other way (perhaps unlimited access to the whole library and lossless quality will be available in a couple of years for a higher subscription price).
Finally, iCloud is going to hurt Dropbox and Google's bottom lines. Google's going to be implementing most of the same functionality once they get Chrome OS off the ground, but Apple's lead is formidable.
Barring any major technical or privacy failures and given the appetites of their fans/customers, it's hard to see Apple failing to pull all of this off. Apple's waving the stampede through their velvet rope and right into their club. Once inside, though, it's going to be awfully hard to get out.