Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley this week raised his Fire sales estimate for this very reason. “We are raising our 2012 sales forecasts to 14.9 million from 12.7 million,” he wrote. “But we believe there is an upward bias, particularly from the new 7- and 9-inch models, which we expect to launch in mid-2012.”

It’s been speculated upon before, but it’s interesting to hear that Amazon may have a 9-inch version of the Fire headed to market later this year, particularly now that we know Apple’s iPad 3 will debut next month. Makes you wonder how the retailer’s loss-leader strategy will translate to the larger-screen tablet market that Apple dominates.

Maybe they’ll call it the Kindle Conflagration.

One other point worth noting here: In raising his Fire estimates, Bartley also reduced his Kindle e-reader unit estimates to 24 million from 28.6 million. It’s not clear that increased Kindle Fire adoption is responsible for that decline and Bartley doesn’t offer an explanation for it. But it’s pretty easy to make the argument that the Fire is cannibalizing sales of its less-capable predecessors.

[Image credit: The jjinc24/U8oL0 Web]

The tiny, Atlanta-based company launched in October 2010. Run by CEO Juan Pablo Gnecco and CTO Alan Queen, Movl (pronounced (MOE-vul) develops what it calls “multiscreen, multidevice” apps that are meant to enhance the connected-TV experience.

In early 2011, Movl’s Pictionary-like WeDraw app won $200,000 as part of Samsung’s Smart TV apps competition. Last month, Movl announced that it had developed an app called SwipeIt, which works on Android phones and Samsung TVs (and is technically owned by Samsung), allowing users to “swipe” content from their phones and have it appear on their TV screens.

Now the company is working on something called Direct Connect, which adds to the existing Connect service and is designed to work with both the Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities of mobile devices. One example the company gave was tapping into a smartphone’s built-in accelerometer and using the phone as a game controller.

Movl is also experimenting with a multiscreen, interactive ad platform and something it has code-named Kontrol TV, which will offer shortcuts for users to find multiple TV apps from the same app — and not just channel apps, but also trends, tweets, and other social media references related to TV shows. The company is aiming for a May launch of Kontrol TV.

Essentially, Movl is to Samsung TVs what AirPlay is to TVs using the Apple TV box. While enabling users to “throw” content from their mobile devices to their TV screens, Movl also wants to package all the various TV-related apps on that mobile device into one “shell.”

The apps currently work on Samsung TVs, Google TV-equipped sets, iOS and Android devices. Movl said that it is becoming increasingly focused on developing everything in HTML5, which Gnecco and Queen say they see more smart TVs moving toward.

Cuban explained his interest in the company by saying he thinks smart TVs, as a platform, are getting ready to take off, as new TVs get more powerful by the day.

He also said he feels the introduction of an Apple TV — as in an Apple-manufactured television set, not Apple TV in its current form — wouldn’t necessarily disrupt small fish like Movl, because they might have an already-established user base if or when an Apple TV comes out. Apple won’t ever have 100 percent of the TV market, and both Samsung and Vizio have a solid foothold, Cuban believes.

There’s also the question of whether Movl’s new applications could potentially raise the ire of cable operators, who have been introducing their own apps for mobile devices, and who might not like Movl’s idea to aggregate all TV-related apps into Movl’s Kontrol “shell,” as the company describes it.

But Movl says it’s not looking to usurp other apps — it mainly just wants to make it easier for a user to toggle between various TV apps during a multiscreen viewing experience. The company has been speaking with some cable providers that are interested in using Movl as a possible white-label solution, it says.

At any given Summit, you might rub elbows with Bill Clinton, Russell Simmons, the president of Georgia, or drummer ?uestlove from The Roots. The event is not lecture-driven; it’s meant to inspire open discussions and connect people through out-of-the-box activities.

The atmosphere at this year’s Summit Basecamp was even more dynamic and powerful than in previous years. It took place in Squaw Valley, Calif., and brought many attendees together on a deeper level. Regardless of the range of business icons, politicians and artists, Rishi Malhotra, President of Bollywood content distributor Saavn notes, “Summit has this unique ability to make everybody equal.”

Unlike other multi-discipline events, Summit Series doesn’t just promote back-patting and lofty ideas, it actually drives action. Connections kindled through the event have led to hundreds of start-up investments, non-profit initiatives and new art programs.

Here are four trends buzzed around the Summit that could spur the next wave of innovation:

1. Technology fuels an education revolution. Catalyzed by cloud computing, online video, and the lower cost of tablet PCs, a crop of new initiatives are set to change the way the world learns. Four notable examples are:

   Free classes: Khan Academy, with its mission to “provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere,” is leading this entire space. Over 2600 online videos are now free to the world, covering a variety of educational topics.

   The Behaving Game: ClassDojo has built an entirely new model for managing student behavior in real time. The rewards system feels like the future of getting a “gold star” for good behavior. The company came out of the U.K. last summer and is already one of the fastest growing education technology companies, ever. ClassDojo is diving into the realm of behavior management, a completely untapped area of education innovation.

   Extreme PC makeover: Neverware is another awesome company looking to make “old school computers” new again, thanks to one central server installation. The Neverware Juicebox is a server appliance that ends the need to upgrade all desktops in a school. Once installed on the school’s network, all of the PCs run Windows 7 as though they were new, fast computers. So instead of being forced to replace old PCs, schools can use Neverware’s affordable service to keep machines up to date with the newest OS available.

   DIY coding: Thanks to Codecademy, programming is no longer a skill reserved for the Internet elite. With its interactive self-teaching JavaScript course, Codecademy encourages individuals with no coding background to dive in and learn how to build Web sites at their own pace.

   New companies like these, coupled with Apple’s push behind its iBooks textbook store and Pearson Education’s incubation AlleyOop, which gamifies adaptive learning, demonstrates that major corporate support for the sector is also happening. Combined with this group of start-ups and many others, 2012 should be the year of education innovation.

2. Beyond Facebook. Despite Facebook’s pending IPO, this year’s Summit buzzed about a new cadre of social media gathering spots.

   Google+ was a popular topic among many Summit attendees. Discussions revolved around Google’s ability to scale its social network and leverage assets such as Gmail and Android. Some attendees believed that Google’s ability to potentially turn on a requirement that any new Android user sign in via Google+ could be a major game changer, resulting in hundreds of millions — if not a billion — new users.

   Interest-based social networks were a hot topic this year. These services, many of which are primarily accessed via smartphone or tablet, cater to specific passions — with particular buzz around services like Pinterest, Thumb, Foodspotting and Instagram.

3. Go global or risk losing out to your copycat. The old rules of building a start-up in America meant incremental growth: Build a critical mass and then expand, country by country, only making moves when a service or product could meet the needs of a new market and its economics.

   Today’s start-ups are going global at a faster rate than ever before because a good idea spreads faster than ever. The rate of copycat creators in Asia, Europe and Latin America is forcing U.S. start-ups to launch and then expand quickly, before spinoffs of their own products surpass them. A new crop of gatekeepers appeared at this year’s Summit, offering effective ways to take businesses to China, India and the Middle East. Lesson of Summit: Once you create a hit service, you need to rapidly scale it before someone else does.

4. Self-Measurement. The past two Summits have spread a powerful message of self-measurement. Based on the nearly full sessions ranging from breathing to yoga to self-confidence, tomorrow’s leaders are more in tune with their spiritual, physical and mental health.
   As Tim Chang, Managing Director of Mayfield Fund summed up nicely, “Summit was a great checkup and check in on the power of self-evaluation and the potential for innovation in every aspect of our lives.”

   Additionally, technology and self-measurement are aligning with each other. From blood-pressure-monitoring iPhone apps to memory-strengthening online videos, there was an emphasis on ways to improve one’s daily routine, focusing on a true work/life balance. Expect technology and self-measurement to continue to grow in sync and produce amazing new services.

Let’s see how these trends play out in 2012.

As Chief Talker of VSCpr, Chattha’s agency has led strategy and public relations efforts for over sixty technology brands representing a combined $20bn in public market capitalization and disruptive start-ups that have successfully exited for a combined $4.7bn to the likes of Google, Visa, Nokia, AOL and Omnicom Group. Chattha received the gold star award for Publicist of the Year and Digital Communications Professional of the Year as judged by reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post in the 2011 Bulldog Reporter Stars of PR Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @vijaychattha.

If you are looking for a more positive story here, Warner is happy to provide one. Digital revenue jumped 17 percent, and now accounts for 28 percent of the company’s sales. (As always, the label cites guy-you’re-unlikely-to-complain-about Michael Buble as one of its biggest stars. Shudder to imagine a Buble-less quarter for Warner.)

Most interesting is Warner’s take on the kind of digital revenue it is seeing, which we can assume is a rough proxy for the rest of the business.

Downloads — primarily from iTunes, but also Amazon and other players — accounted for $205 million in music revenue last quarter, while payments from streaming services like Spotify and Deezer generated $15 million. But that streaming revenue is growing at a 36 percent clip, compared to 15 percent for downloads.

If people who used to buy albums from iTunes ditch the service for a $10 monthly subscription to Spotify, Rhapsody or the like, then the industry would see substantially more revenue, as paidContent notes. But not even the optimistic music folks think we’re heading there.

A much more realistic best-case scenario: Some people who weren’t buying any music at all start shelling out a monthly fee for subscription services, turning pirates into profit centers. That still won’t be enough to replace the dollars the industry has lost since its pre-Napster party days. But it is much, much better than nothing.

Sources say the company has chosen the first week in March to debut the successor to the iPad 2, and will do so at one of its trademark special events. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.

No word yet on a street date for the iPad 3 (assuming that’s what it’s called), though my guess is retail availability will follow roughly the same schedule as that of the iPad 2: Available for purchase a week or so after the event.

As for the next-generation iPad itself, sources say it will be pretty much what we’ve been led to expect by the innumerable reports leading up to its release: A device similar in form factor to the iPad 2, but running a much faster chip, sporting an improved graphics processing unit, and featuring a 2048×1536 Retina Display — or something close to it.

If 2011 was the year of the iPad 2, will 2012 be the year of the iPad 3? Said a source familiar with the device: “What do you think?”

An Apple spokeswoman declined comment on the timing of the event, saying the company does not comment on rumors and speculation.

How can I burn a slideshow that I made in iPhoto on my MacBook Pro onto a CD?

A:

You can export the slideshow as a video (a QuickTime movie in Apple parlance) and then burn that video to your CD.

Here’s how: In iPhoto, after you’ve created the photo slideshow, with titles, music and so forth, click on the “Export” button at the bottom of the slideshow-creation window. Choose an option for the resolution of your movie and click “Export.”

Then, choose a destination on your hard disk where you’ll temporarily store the movie. Next, insert the recordable CD, and copy the movie into the window representing the CD. Finally, click on the “Burn” button at the upper right of that CD window.

Q:

I have recently gone almost all Google: I moved my business email to Google, am using Google Docs, etc. I am in need of a new laptop and am considering a Google Chromebook. My question / concern is: What about programs I may need, such as iTunes, or some printer / scanner software, or an accounting suite? Will there be room for some of these programs and if so, will they operate on Chrome OS?

A:

Google’s Chromebook doesn’t run traditional programs. It is designed to only run so-called Web apps—app-like Web sites, from Google and others, that operate inside the Chrome browser. Also, it has very little local storage and depends on the Cloud—remote Internet servers—for most storage of apps and data. So, the bad news is you can’t install iTunes or your favorite Windows or Mac accounting suite on a Chromebook.

The good news is Google and others are churning out more and more Web apps for Chromebooks. For instance, there are a variety of music and accounting apps that might meet your needs. You can check these out at chrome.google.com/webstore.

Q:

I recently switched from BlackBerry to an Android-based phone. Do I need to install any anti-virus or firewall apps on an Android smartphone like what we do on a PC?

A:

It all depends on your tolerance for risk, your tolerance for running security software, how adventurous you are at downloading apps—and who you believe. Various reports have claimed that Android malware is surging, but last week Google disclosed a fairly new technology called “bouncer” that it has been using internally to weed out harmful apps. And the company claims there has been a big drop in malware in its app market in recent months.

My recommendation would be that if you are a safety-first person, or someone who experiments with lots of apps from companies you don’t know, you should consider using security software on Android.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

Evidently, Google has no trouble with that percentage at all.

In a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) today, Google said that should it complete its proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility, it will license the company’s standard-essential patents under “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory” terms (FRAND). To that end, it will honor Motorola Mobility’s existing essential patent licensing commitments and grant new ones going forward with “a maximum per-unit royalty of 2.25 percent.”

Now that might not sound like an untoward sum, but applied against a device’s selling price, it’s sizable. A rate of 2.25 percent on 2011 iPhone sales, for example, would have amounted to about $1 billion in potential royalties for Motorola.

That doesn’t seem fair or reasonable. More to the point, it runs contrary to the principles of FRAND licensing commitments, and bolsters arguments recently made by both Apple and Microsoft that the mobile industry really needs a consistent patent-licensing scheme.

“It’s a prohibitive royalty rate as long as they want to apply it against the selling price of what they call the ‘relevant end product,’” says FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller. “If they asked for 2.25 percent of the price of a baseband chip, they would at least propose a reasonable royalty base and one could then talk about how many patents go into such a chip and what the relative value of their patents is. But 2.25 percent of the selling price of the product as a whole is absolutely out of step with the concept of FRAND and with industry practice.”

In a letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, Apple said the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting appropriate royalty rates that all members would follow.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Less lucrative, that’s what.

Charting the industry’s performance over the past five years, Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt figures its revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011 — $71.4 billion — is about twice what it was in the fourth quarter of 2007 — $37.9 billion.

But remove Apple from the picture, and that revenue declines — dramatically.

Turns out that without Apple, the mobile computing industry’s revenue in the fourth quarter of 2011 would be about what it was in the fourth quarter of 2007.

In Q4 2007, that was $37.93 billion. And in Q4 2011, it was $37.97 billion. In other words, non-Apple revenue in the mobile computing industry has been nearly stagnant for five years. Which is not to say that revenues wouldn’t have grown had Apple never entered the scene. Just that Cupertino has been doing a hell of a job commandeering a lot of their growth the past few years.

And that’s remarkable. Because overall, the industry’s revenue has increased over that time; it’s just that the bulk of that increase has gone to Apple. In the fourth quarter of 2011, for example, Apple generated $33.5 billion in mobile device revenue, which is about 47 percent of the $71.4 billion generated by the broader industry.

What seems to be happening, then, is that the bulk of the industry’s revenue growth is accruing to Apple, and because the company has the highest margins around, that’s where most of the profit is ending up, as well. Consider the earnings before interest and taxes chart, below.

“Apple is dominating the industry’s pool of profits,” says McCourt. “With about 11 percent of industry shipment volumes of smartphones and tablets, Apple generates about 47 percent of the industry’s revenues, and over 80 percent of its operating profits.”

But even Dad’s covers couldn’t fix everything: Some books showed their age with dog-eared pages, highlights, tears and leftover love notes. Plus, they weighed several pounds each, tugging down my JanSport backpack.

This week, I tested a one-stop solution to much of that which ails textbooks: Apple’s iBooks 2. This redesigned iPad app offers enhanced educational textbooks that are, for now, focused on high-school students and cost no more than $15 each. Apple’s smallest and least expensive iPad can store roughly eight to 10 textbooks, along with other content. (High schoolers have an average of four textbooks a year, according to Apple.) The iPad itself weighs just over one pound.

These electronic textbooks include interactive materials that seem like they should’ve been available long ago: multiple-choice questions that can be answered with taps on the screen, embedded videos, dynamic diagrams that change with touch gestures and flash cards for studying important terms in a book.

The big catch is you need an iPad to read these textbooks, and schools or parents may have trouble budgeting for these devices. The least expensive iPad costs $499. Apple argues the low cost of books will offset the cost of the device.

Currently about 1,000 of the iBooks 2 books, 11 of which are textbooks, have new enhancements such as video, dynamic diagrams and study flash cards. A pinch gesture will restore a zoomed-in image to its place in a book.

Also, some people have trouble reading long passages on the iPad’s backlit screen, or find it uncomfortable to hold. In the sun, its reflective surface makes reading nearly impossible.

Currently about 1,000 books, 11 of which are textbooks, have the new iBooks 2 features. These include titles from well-known publishers like Pearson Education, Dorling Kindersley and McGraw-Hill; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt books are coming in time for the start of the next school year.

But the books also include published works from teachers, experts and regular people who used Apple’s new iBooks Author app to create a book. This is a free app for Macs for creating and publishing content. User-created books are approved by Apple and then made available in the iBooks store for free or for a price.

I downloaded several of the new iBooks textbooks onto my iPad, including “Biology,” “Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life,” “Chemistry” and “Life on Earth.” I also downloaded an older AP Biology title without enhancements: Zoomed-in images weren’t in focus, and the book lacked interactive materials.

Delightful animations and gestures abound in these enhanced e-books.

Tap on any image to see it larger and tap different parts of the image to see animations, like an electromagnetic spectrum diagram in a science textbook that showed frequency and wavelength as I tapped on images of infrared lamps and lasers. A two-finger pinch returns the image to its place in the book with a playful animation.

Highlighting works in several colors and readers just hold down a finger and start dragging that finger along text to highlight.

When these books are read with the iPad held in landscape (horizontally), visuals take up large portions of the screen. But when the iPad is in portrait mode, text takes center stage, with smaller representations of each image appearing in the margins. This option to focus on reading could be a real help for kids who are easily distracted. Some titles, however, may only be readable in landscape view.

Study cards, a digital version of the 3-by-5 index cards you used to spend hours making by hand, are a huge timesaver. Every term in a book’s glossary generates its own study card. The front shows the word, and a tap on its corner flips the card to show its definition.

Even highlighting is easier and looks better in iBooks 2: It works in several colors, and rather than turning on highlighting first, readers simply hold down a finger and start dragging that finger along text to highlight. Study cards also are created for every passage you highlight.

But I found a few bugs. The new iBooks 2 app crashed several times and an Algebra 1 book froze in mid-download. The download didn’t complete because my iPad was full, but a notice about this didn’t appear, even after rebooting, until several hours later.

Apple later reported that the file I was trying to download was corrupted, and replaced the file.

And there are other curious omissions. Some parts of these books, like blank lab charts and chapter review questions, didn’t offer a built-in place to enter answers.

For that, I had to create and add a digital note in the book (using the iPad’s on-screen keyboard) or do the unthinkable—use a pencil and paper.

An Apple official said all notes are text-based and there are no current plans for finger or stylus input.

In addition to iBooks, Apple revamped its free iTunes U app, which used to be limited to audio and video lectures for higher education.

Now, iTunes U is available for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and can include all sorts of course components like the new iBooks textbooks, outlines, Web links and apps. This content is free, except for in-app materials including things like textbooks or apps. I downloaded Duke University’s “Introductory Chemistry” in iTunes U and it contained 567 videos, books, documents, apps and Web links.

If anyone can move textbooks into a new realm with interactive, smart gestures, it’s Apple. But iBooks needs to work out a few kinks before it can be used as a full replacement for physical textbooks.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/a-textbook-case-of-ipad-fun-with-studying/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120207/neil-young-the-donkey-and-digital-music-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120207/neil-young-the-donkey-and-digital-music-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:00:07 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171907 Neil Young has a long and storied career, but he didn’t want to talk about it when he came onstage at D: Dive Into Media last week. Instead, the musician was pushing his vision of the future: One where lots of people listen to really good-sounding music.

To be clear: Young isn’t complaining about today’s songs. He’s complaining about the way those songs are recorded and distributed.

There’s a colorful donkey input-output metaphor here, which Young uses to make his point. And he also has a plan to fix the problem.

But first he has to convince people there is a problem. And, as Walt Mossberg and I point out, lots of people have been buying (and stealing) music in the MP3 format that Young hates, and they don’t seem to be complaining about it.

Young says former Apple CEO Steve Jobs agreed with him, though. And now he’s looking for new allies. You can see the entire pitch here:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120207/neil-young-the-donkey-and-digital-music-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120206/motorola-seeks-slice-of-iphone-ipad-sales/ http://allthingsd.com/20120206/motorola-seeks-slice-of-iphone-ipad-sales/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:21:17 +0000 Ian Sherr and Harriett Torry http://allthingsd.com/?p=171864 Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. asked Apple Inc. to pay a potential royalty of 2.25 percent of sales for some iPhones and iPads last year, representing possibly billions of dollars in licensing fees.

In a letter filed in a California court last month, a lawyer said Motorola, which is being acquired by Google Inc., had “demanded” the royalty for a license of its patents.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120206/motorola-seeks-slice-of-iphone-ipad-sales/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120206/twitter-ceo-dick-costolo-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120206/twitter-ceo-dick-costolo-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:30:04 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171635 Last week, we got to talk a deep roster of old and new media heavy hitters at D: Dive Into Media. Now we’re bringing you the full interviews from that conference, kicking off with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.

Costolo and I started out by talking about Twitter’s recent dustup with Google, but we jumped around a lot, touching on everything from Twitter’s deep integration with Apple to its response to government censorship.

The core of the interview, though, focused on Twitter’s evolution as a business and its relationship with media companies, who use the service to promote their products. (See: Yesterday’s Super Bowl.)

I think it’s quite obvious that Twitter itself is a media business — it attracts its users’ attention, then rents that attention out to advertisers.

Costolo says that advertising will be Twitter’s core revenue driver, but he disagreed with my assessment: “We’re in the media business, but we’re not necessarily a media company,” he said. It wasn’t the only time Costolo disagreed with something I said that night:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120206/twitter-ceo-dick-costolo-the-full-dive-into-media-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120206/phone-maker-htc-reports-tough-quarter-and-forecasts-continued-pain-ahead/ http://allthingsd.com/20120206/phone-maker-htc-reports-tough-quarter-and-forecasts-continued-pain-ahead/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:18:17 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=171636 Taiwanese phone maker HTC on Monday reported a lackluster fourth quarter and predicted a further drop in sales and profit margins amid strong competition.

For the fourth quarter, HTC said it earned 10.94 billion Taiwanese dollars ($369 million), or 13.06 Taiwan dollars per share (44 cents U.S.), on revenue of 101.42 billion Taiwan dollars ($3.42 billion).

That’s a revenue drop of more than 2 percent from a year earlier, for a company that until recently had been seeing sales doubling those of prior periods.

HTC had already warned of the sales drop when it released unaudited results last month. However, its outlook for the current quarter offered a further disappointment.

The company forecast that, for the current quarter, sales will drop to between 65 billion and 70 billion Taiwanese dollars, with gross margins falling to 25 percent from last quarter’s 27 percent. HTC said it expects the dip in margins to be temporary.

“While short term performance may not meet the results as expected, we have gained further experience and advancement in the areas of brand management and product innovation,” CEO Peter Chou said in a statement. “These fundamental strengths and the groundwork we have laid will take us into 2012 with a renewed focus and determination.”

HTC was on a roll for much of 2010 and 2011, rapidly growing sales amid the surge in Android demand.

In Monday’s earnings release, the company reiterated its plans to focus on fewer new devices this year, a strategy similarly being undertaken by also-struggling Motorola.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120206/phone-maker-htc-reports-tough-quarter-and-forecasts-continued-pain-ahead/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120204/khush-tries-teaching-the-world-to-songify-live-video/ http://allthingsd.com/20120204/khush-tries-teaching-the-world-to-songify-live-video/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:07:57 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171255 We spent a lot of time at the D: Dive Into Media conference talking about the way entertainment gets distributed. But it was also important to talk about the way it gets created. App-maker Khush’s pitch is that it lets everyone become an entertainer, via its music apps that let even the most tone-deaf mumblers create a song.

Here, co-founders Prerna Gupta and Parag Chordia show off some of their creations, including Songify Live, a new app that will let you make music in real time with an iPhone, even if you’re a tone-deaf mumbler like myself.

I do sort of wish we’d kept audio warrior Neil Young onstage just a few minutes longer, so we could have captured his reaction to all of this:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120204/khush-tries-teaching-the-world-to-songify-live-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-tweaks-ibook-language-your-content-is-your-content/ http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-tweaks-ibook-language-your-content-is-your-content/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:08:17 +0000 Peter Kafka http://allthingsd.com/?p=171265 A couple weeks after introducing its new iBooks Author app, Apple has clarified legal language about what happens to the books users create with the software. Apple continues to insist that users can only sell electronic books in the iBook format via its iTunes store. But it makes it clear that the content of those books can be sold in any other format, without Apple’s approval.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-tweaks-ibook-language-your-content-is-your-content/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120203/push-comes-to-shove-german-injunction-targets-apples-icloud-email-alerts/ http://allthingsd.com/20120203/push-comes-to-shove-german-injunction-targets-apples-icloud-email-alerts/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:46:24 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=171222 Apple managed to have an injunction against online sales of certain models of the iPhone and iPad in Germany suspended. But it wasn’t quite so lucky with a second injunction against iCloud push email notifications.

This morning, a Mannheim Regional Court granted an injunction against Apple’s implementation of push email in iCloud and its predecessor, MobileMe. Sought by Motorola Mobility, which claims Apple has infringed its European patent on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method,” the injunction could force Apple to deactivate push email in iCloud in Germany, though it will leave the broader service intact. Assuming it stands. And at this point, it’s not yet clear that it will. Apple, as one might imagine, is fighting it.

“Apple believes this old pager patent is invalid, and we’re appealing the court’s decision,” a company spokeswoman told AllThingsD.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120203/push-comes-to-shove-german-injunction-targets-apples-icloud-email-alerts/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-all-ipad-and-iphone-models-will-be-back-on-sale-online-in-germany-shortly/ http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-all-ipad-and-iphone-models-will-be-back-on-sale-online-in-germany-shortly/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:00:01 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=171130 That was fast.

Apple, which has spent the past day pulling older model iPhone and iPad inventory from the shelves of its online store in Germany, is now scrambling to restore it. This morning, a court temporarily suspended an injunction that prevented Apple from selling or distributing iOS devices believed to infringe certain Motorola Mobility patents.

In a statement given to AllThingsD, Apple confirmed that the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and 3G/UMTS-based iPads should be returning to the shelves of its German online store in a matter of hours.

“All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly,” an Apple spokeswoman told AllThingsD. “Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

The injunction at issue here was granted last December, but wasn’t served until recently, sources say. Apple began making the appropriate adjustments to its German online store earlier this week, while continuing to appeal the injunction, which was subsequently suspended this morning.

So what happens next? Well, this is only a temporary suspension. So, at best, it’s a brief reprieve for Apple, until the legal issues surrounding it are resolved. Top among them: Apple’s argument that Motorola Mobility is not honoring the FRAND licensing obligations (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) it has on some standards-essential patents.

“In a best-case scenario for Apple, the suspension would now be in effect until the appeals court makes a decision on Apple’s appeal,” FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller explains. “In that case, it would be in effect for well over a year.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120203/apple-all-ipad-and-iphone-models-will-be-back-on-sale-online-in-germany-shortly/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120202/signs-you-may-be-working-on-a-fake-apple-product-comic/ http://allthingsd.com/20120202/signs-you-may-be-working-on-a-fake-apple-product-comic/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:30:56 +0000 Nitrozac and Snaggy http://allthingsd.com/?p=170644

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120202/signs-you-may-be-working-on-a-fake-apple-product-comic/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20120202/worlds-top-3-phone-makers-nokia-samsung-and-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20120202/worlds-top-3-phone-makers-nokia-samsung-and-apple/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:51:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=170846 IDC’S latest mobile rankings are out today, and they show a strong, continued shift in the industry. In the fourth quarter of 2011, the world’s top five handset manufacturers were Nokia, Samsung, Apple, LG and ZTE — in that order.

Nokia shipped 113.5 million units during the quarter, down from 123.7 million during the same quarter a year earlier, according to IDC. Meanwhile, Samsung shipped 97.6 million, up from 80.7 million a year ago.

That’s a nice jump, but nowhere near as impressive as the one charted by Apple, which shipped 37 million iPhones during the quarter — up from 16.2 million during the same quarter a year earlier — for a more than 128 percent increase.

That spike gave Apple an 8.7 percent share of the mobile phone market in the fourth quarter. Which really is astonishing, when you think about it. Recall that when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone in 2007, he said Apple hoped to someday claim 1 percent of the overall handset market. Five years later, the company has far surpassed that humble goal, and is well on its way to claiming 10 percent.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120202/worlds-top-3-phone-makers-nokia-samsung-and-apple/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-poaches-another-xbox-marketing-vet/ http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-poaches-another-xbox-marketing-vet/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:05:29 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=170811 Robin Burrowes, former head of Xbox Live marketing in Europe, has a new job. At Apple. The exec, who served as head of product marketing for Xbox Live in Europe for three years — and before that, as marketing manager for Xbox U.K. — is heading to Apple’s European office to oversee App Store marketing. Burrowes is the latest hire in a parade of gaming executives recruited by Apple that includes former Nintendo PR manager Robert Saunders and former Xbox PR manager Nick Grange.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-poaches-another-xbox-marketing-vet/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-versus-samsung-win-some-lose-some/ http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-versus-samsung-win-some-lose-some/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:04:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=170677 Apple’s celebration of a recent German court ruling upholding a sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablets was cut short when another German court handed it a defeat to go along with its victory.

The Munich I Regional Court on Wednesday evening denied Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus, Samsung’s flagship Android smartphone, and its Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a newer version of the tablet intended to further differentiate it from Apple’s iPad, keeping it immune from litigation.

That differentiation didn’t much come into play in this ruling, though.

At issue in this case was a touchscreen-related patent that Munich Regional Court Judge Andreas Mueller evidently felt wouldn’t stand up. Said Mueller, “Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection.”

So, two patent spats resolved — for the time being. But the broader intellectual property battle between Apple and Samsung continues to rage on in various courts around the world.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120202/apple-versus-samsung-win-some-lose-some/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120201/avid-brings-its-pro-sumer-video-editing-app-to-ipad/ http://allthingsd.com/20120201/avid-brings-its-pro-sumer-video-editing-app-to-ipad/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:17 +0000 Lauren Goode http://allthingsd.com/?p=170580 Avid, maker of high-end digital video and audio production tools, is bringing its “pro-sumer” video editing software to the iPad.

The app is available starting Thursday as part of the Avid Studio suite. The app will run on iPad only, though Avid says it’s exploring other mobile operating systems.

Avid Studio for iPad costs $4.99 to start; after 30 days, the price will jump to $7.99.

That’s still much less than what other current desktop editing applications cost, including Avid’s own Avid Studio ($129.99), Adobe Premiere Elements ($99.99), Apple’s Final Cut Pro X ($299.99), and Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum ($59.95).

The iPad app marks the Burlington, Mass.-based company’s first video editing application for tablets. Video editing software generally requires a substantial desktop system or a bulky laptop; using video editing apps on relatively small smartphone screens can be cumbersome. Avid is hoping its app hits somewhere in the middle.

“We’ve seen a shift in how creation is happening, and it’s really happening on almost any device,” said Tanguy Leborgne, vice president of consumer and mobile technology strategy at Avid. “We think the tablet is more than just a consumer device; more and more people are creating on it.”

While Avid says the app captures most of the editing capabilities available on its desktop system, there are some obvious areas in which an iPad editing app would be lacking.

For starters, pro-level editors accustomed to using a large screen for edits will likely feel a tablet doesn’t provide enough screen real estate for real edits.

Also, with Avid Studio on a PC, video editors can export a Flash video file, and burn video files to a CD or DVD. On the iPad, neither of those functions is an option.

Users also likely won’t want to export lots of large, high-definition video files to the iPad and take up storage space on the tablet.

Fortunately, full projects and video files can be transferred to and from the Avid Studio app via iCloud and iTunes. Finished movie files can also be shared directly from the Avid app to Facebook and YouTube.

The idea is that the iPad app and the desktop software are complementary, Leborgne said, so that users who want to create and edit projects on the go can do so, but ultimately preserve them by taking them to the PC.

The Avid iPad app does have some nice features, including an interface that includes a storyboard area and an editing timeline. And while some video editors rely heavily on customized keyboards or a mouse, others might appreciate the ability to pinch and squeeze videos and images to scale them on the touchscreen of the iPad, or the ability to move text and titles around with their fingers.

Avid’s new product comes just a couple days after Apple released an update for its Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) video editing software, which addressed video editors’ complaints about the software’s lack of professional-level bells and whistles. Now FCPX includes multicam editing, advanced chroma-key features and the ability to open up old FCP projects in the new software.

While Adobe Premiere is considered the first popular digital video editing application, it was Apple’s Final Cut Pro, which launched in 1999, that eventually chipped away at the market of video editors using Avid’s high-end system.

Apple’s FCPX also comes at a significantly reduced price from previous iterations of Final Cut Pro, which used to cost around $1,000. Both Avid and Adobe responded to Apple’s new software by offering discounts to users who switched over to their software.

“Both Apple’s product and the pricing strategy were the same thing we’re trying to address here,” Leborgne said. “But for professionals, it relayed to them that Apple was not really focused on the higher end of the market.”

As evidence that some professionals were disappointed with the new FCPX, Leborgne pointed to Hollywood production company Bunim/Murray — the reality TV pioneers dropped Final Cut Pro in favor of Avid.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120201/avid-brings-its-pro-sumer-video-editing-app-to-ipad/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20120201/apple-spotted-shopping-around-for-tv-parts/ http://allthingsd.com/20120201/apple-spotted-shopping-around-for-tv-parts/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:02:43 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=170346

The Macintosh TV

If Apple doesn’t already have a smart television in the pipeline, it’s almost certainly considering building one. That’s the latest from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who says the company has been scoping out the TV component supply chain as a prelude to entering the market.

“In January we spoke with a major TV component supplier who has been contacted by Apple regarding various capabilities of their television display components,” Munster wrote in a note to clients today. “We see this as continued evidence that Apple is exploring production of a television. This latest data point follows January 2011 meetings in Asia that led us to believe Apple was investing in manufacturing facilities for LCD displays ranging from 3.5″ mobile displays to 50″ television displays.”

So Apple’s reportedly been shopping around for parts that might be used in TVs.

Not the hardest of evidence that the company will actually produce one. That said, the signs do appear to be adding up. Over the past few months we’ve heard chatter claiming Apple televisions have been prototyped and that Sharp has been retooling a production line at one of its factories to produce the modified amorphous TFT LCD displays that will grace them.

If that is the case, it’s entirely possible that the TV market will be the next one Apple attempts to reinvent. And if it pulls it off, the rewards could be great. Some say Apple stands to gain an incremental $50 billion to $100 billion in market cap if it produces a compelling HDTV, one that not only trumps the competition but steals market share away from it, as the iPhone has from incumbent smartphone producers.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120201/apple-spotted-shopping-around-for-tv-parts/feed/ 0