Vienna, Austria-based tunesBag is opening up the public beta version of its social music service today, after allowing access by invitation only for the past year or so.
The launch has been a long time coming, considering the fact that the startup has already produced a fully functional web client, and Adobe-AIR powered desktop client and applications for iPhone, Facebook and Boxee since its founding in late 2008.
Once again, talking about Apple’s future as a multichannel video distributor is all the rage. But people familiar with the discussions between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and video programmers over a possible subscription package say the talk is far ahead of the action, one reason why details are still murky. If the subscription package could be pulled off with an announcement from a single player, I have no doubt Disney (NYSE: DIS), which isn’t commenting about this but multiple sources tell me is open to the idea, would be first in line.
Not because Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a major shareholder in Disney but because Disney liked the publicity—and the results—from being first in the iTunes store with prime-time episode sales and movies. And because Disney CEO Bob Iger is a pragmatic experimenter, open to finding new ways to make money from programming but careful to avoid destroying core value. That’s why you don’t see ESPN full programming offered in a way that might damage its high value to multichannel distributors.
Much of the web is based around clickstreams. The latest version of Whrrl, a location-based application by Pelago, wants to take that concept into the real world, with “footstreams.”
Up until this point, since the launch of version 2 of its iPhone app earlier this year, Whrrl’s focus has been on storytelling. That is, allowing users to tag places they’re at with stories and pictures. But the latest version shifts the focus towards creating a digital record of all the places you go in the real world, Pelago CEO Jeff Holden tells us. “It’s about places, not location,” he says.
Are you finished with your Christmas shopping? Like most people, there’s probably not enough time in the day to work, hang out with the family and friends, and then actually do shopping. If you’re missing the perfect gift for someone and you’re getting down to the last few days, Apple wants to make your life easier.
Apple has had an “Express Shopping” service since 2006 at the Apple Stores. They take a limited number of Apple products and keep them in a roped-off area. If you need to purchase a MacBook Pro, for example, you wander into the area and one of the Apple Store employees helps you to make your purchase and get you out the door as quickly as possible.
Ranking cell phone companies is a tough thing to do. Some of these companies have a bunch of popular handsets, whilst others have just one or two yet manage to sell as many or more. Rank the companies by cumulative sales across all of their lines and the results will swing one way; rank them model-by-model, and they might look completely different.
Such is the case with the iPhone, according to the latest numbers from The Nielsen Company. While RIM’s marketshare with their BlackBerry line is still nearly double that of Apple’s, the iPhone has now surpassed everything else to become the most popular phone in the US.
Whenever you talk about games on a mobile platform, you usually have to also mention that while things like high-end 3D graphics are certainly possible, there are usually some concessions that have to be made. But in the case of the iPhone, perhaps not: Epic Games has apparently been showing Anandtech their Unreal Engine 3 on Apple’s handheld, the same graphical engine that runs modern console hits like Gears of War 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum. There’s even video, and the thing looks pretty darn incredible. It’s possible that in the hands of a skilled developer, you could have a very impressive realistic graphical game running on the iPhone hardware.
Some of the iPhone hardware, that is — the engine was shown off on the 3GS and the 3rd generation iPod touch, so only those have the speed and power (and the OpenGL ES 2.0) to pull this off. But it’s impressive nevertheless. Epic hasn’t licensed this version of the engine yet as far as we know, but they promise to show off more in the future, so we’ll be keeping an eye out. One more version of the iPhone, and we might be looking at games that can compete graphically with even modern consoles.
‘Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we’ll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com. Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won’t. Each is lovingly generated by the deal-bot every day, so get ‘em while they’re hot. Enjoy!
iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] Wild West Pinball for iPhone / iPod touch downloads for free, more
The WSJ and the New York Times, among other outlets, are reporting that Apple is in preliminary discussions with ABC and CBS (at a minimum) about a possible subscription plan arrangement for broadcast and cable TV channels. This idea was noted by All Things D in November, which cited a target price of $30 a month for subscription access via iTunes. If the company can get content providers signed up, the service would be likely to launch next year, say both papers.
It’s also possible that Apple’s Lala purchase could play into this new model, with ’shows in the cloud’ and micropayment options that would improve the user experience for TV-watching. Meanwhile, the NBC-Comcast deal might throw a wrench into the works for Apple, and it’s not clear that the other broadcast and cable networks are inclined to make a deal at this point; while CBS has few cable assets to protect, and ABC/Disney have a powerful vote in favor of collaboration with Apple, the other companies may have more to lose by throwing in their lot with the iTunes juggernaut. NBC, in particular, has a hit on its hands with the ad-supported Hulu site, now the second-biggest programming provider according to comScore. If only there were some kind of portable viewing device that could play back your videos…
Yesterday, Google published a long manifesto on the “meaning of open” in the form of an email to all employees republished as a blog post. In it, senior VP of product management Jonathan Rosenberg, makes an eloquent argument for why open systems always win and urges Google’s employees to always strive to be open when designing products. An open Internet spurs innovation and brings more consumers on board, which ultimately means more searches and increased use of Web applications.
The gist of his argument is that a bigger, better Internet is good for Google. He writes that Google employees should resist the impulse to create closed products and systems, and even makes a swipe at Apple for doing so (bold added for emphasis):
Quick, which company was founded first: Facebook or Youtube? What year did Apple launch the Jesus phone? Can you name three of the biggest financial calamities of the past decade? The three-minute video above from WatchMojo recaps the decade in business and technology.
The video strangely alternates between the fraud and financial crises of the general business world (Enron, the housing bubble, Bernie Madoff) and all the change and innovation of the tech world (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, the iPhone). It’s as though it is talking about two different worlds or two different eras. If the next decade is going to be anything like the last one, I’ll stay in the tech world.