With Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference just weeks away, expect plenty of reports of new features to come crawling out of the woodwork. In fact, here’s one from the Wall Street Journal — they claim that Apple has been doing some major tinkering with their iCloud storage service, the fruits of which will be unveiled on June 11.
First up is the ability for users to share and comment on each other’s photos, a pretty dramatic shift away from iCloud’s current approach to photo storage. As it stands, each user has a single Photo Stream meant mostly to make sure images are on the devices they need to be on. This shift in sharing actually sounds a little reminiscent of Apple’s recently-killed MobileMe service, though how exactly the sharing process would play out within iCloud is still up in the air. → Read More
Well, that was fast. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer just announced on Apple’s Q2 2012 earnings call that the company’s iCloud service has attracted 125 million users in the roughly six months since the service launched.
It seems like just yesterday that Oppenheimer revealed that the service had 85 million users, and the service’s subscriber base continues to grow at a seemingly steady pace.
→ Read More
Yandex may be in line to become the default search engine on devices that Apple sells in Russia. But for now it’s engaging in a little competition with Cupertino, and others. Today the Russian search giant is launching its own answer to iCloud: a free web-based storage product it’s calling Yandex.Disk.
Users of Yandex.Disk get up to 10 gigabytes of space that they can use for personal documents, photos, music and videos, and like iCloud and Microsoft’s Skydrive the service is aimed specifically at offering storage services that help keep users tied in to the rest of Yandex’s portfolio of products. The files can subsequently be accessed from any internet-enabled device. → Read More
At this morning’s Apple’s event in San Francisco, the company announced an update to its iCloud service, which will now support – at last – movies! The movies you purchase on iTunes will be stored in the cloud and made available for re-download to any of your iOS devices – the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. → Read More
iCloud just works. That’s the message of Apple’s latest commercial titled iCloud Harmony. The service took off like a rocket when it first launched late last year. Partly fueled by the massive success of the iPhone 4S, Apple claims to have more than 85 million users on the service. But as awesome as iCloud is now, it’s set to get even better and this commercial is likely just the first of a larger advertisement campaign. → Read More
With today’s reveal of the next version of OS X - OS X 10.8, aka Mountain Lion – Apple is more deeply integrating its iCloud service into the operating system itself. No longer will storing your documents in the cloud feel like an extra, value-added feature – it will feel like part of the OS itself. The cloud is just another drive, Apple seems to say, and saving to the cloud should look and feel no different than saving to your Documents folder or your Desktop.
The idea, of course, is not novel. It’s what startups like Dropbox are doing today: making a drive that appears like any other, but that can be accessed from any machine. While on the surface, it’s easy to dub iCloud “Apple’s version of Dropbox,” the truth is actually more complex: it’s about building a new computing paradigm. → Read More
Apple has built a search engine for apps. It’s called iCloud – or more technically, it’s one aspect of the overall iCloud service. Using it, you can search through every app you have installed on your iOS device or have ever purchased in the past. And it’s available on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch right now.
The average smartphone user has 64 mobile apps installed on their mobile device. I’m ahead of the curve. I have around 400. It’s pushing nearly 7 GB of storage. Granted, many of these apps were installed for testing purposes only – they aren’t used daily by any means. But my real problem is that I’m not inclined to remove apps I don’t use. They just sit there on the phone, abandoned, languishing on the back screens. I could delete them, but I don’t. You know…just in case.
But the promise of iCloud, as I see it, is that these apps can disappear from the iPhone’s homescreen, but never have to fully disappear from reach. They can be recalled through a simple search. → Read More
The smarts in Siri turn out to be about context, all the more powerful as the service flows through apps. Regular updates will give developers impetus to wire in their app to the notification bus. Shouldn’t a New York times alert also search the major news sites for live video as it happens? I’d pay more for a notification-aware app, and even more for an uber notification routing service that I can teach to personalize my account according to the metadata of me, my cloud of follows, and the followers of those follows. → Read More
Cloud Engines, Inc., makers of the Pogoplug line of devices and accompanying software, are launching a new hardware product today called Pogoplug Mobile. The device works like the company’s current Pogoplug product – you attach your hard drive or drives, plug it into your router and instantly have your own personal cloud. In short, it’s like a NAS (network-attached storage) box for your home.
But with the new Pogoplug Mobile, the system has been optimized for use with mobile devices. It’s more of a “mobile accessory,” says CEO Daniel Putterman. That’s why you’ll soon find it on the shelf next the Bluetooth headsets, and not hidden away in the hard drive aisle, he says. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — explored the legacy and impact of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. @dsearls called him the Beethoven of Business, and we spent the hour and 15 minutes matching that to what I called Jobs’ ability to listen to the future. In recent years, Jobs has turned his focus on perfecting the microcomputing experience toward inventing a mobile platform that will last for decades to come.
For those of us who saw the tech revolution as a child of the space program and the music of the ’60s, living in the time of Steve Jobs has been the same kind of rare gift, swimming in real time with the giants of our history books. It’s hard to predict what will come next, for Apple or any of us, but something tells us Jobs will be there in spirit as we build on his vision. Imagine…
→ Read More
As we approach the fall, all the rumors of the Apple empire descend upon us. And this year may be the craziest yet because for the first time since the iPhone’s inception, Apple did not release new hardware in the summer. And there are still whispers of an iPad revamp as well. iOS 5 is coming. iCloud is coming. And then there are the iPods which are traditionally updated in the fall timeframe each year. Things are already getting crazy enough that potential Apple announcement dates are topping Techmeme one minute, and then stories debunking those dates are the top story in tech the next minute.
This will only get worse.
But there’s a reason people write up these rumors. Because people read these rumors. And the reason they do that is because sometimes those rumors are correct. And more often than that, they’re at least somewhat correct. That hope keeps peoples’ imaginations running wild. Now it’s time for me to indulge that. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Danny Sullivan, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — talked patents and PR, Spotify, and everything except Google+ for the first time in months. It’s not that G+ has jumped the shark; in fact, it is the shark on which realtime video streaming will emerge when YouTube finally goes live. It’s a race with iCloud to get there, with AirPlay-enabled Spotify stoking the fire in the near term.
Social signals are gaining value as feature sets and hardware mature, as we harvest our laboriously-created investments in individual and virtual spheres of influence. For the Gang’s part, we’re going to begin broadcasting live from and to the iPad as events warrant it, starting with a trip to the heart of the emerging Social Enterprise at EvolutionCRM in New York next week. → Read More
Perhaps you recall that back in June, there was some confusion as to whether or not there would be web apps for Apple’s upcoming iCloud suite of products. While we maintained from the beginning that we had heard that there would be, some were certain there wouldn’t be — something which we again refuted. Anyway, this eventually led Apple to clarify that yes, there would be web apps for iCloud. Still, it wasn’t clear just how robust they’d be, or when they’d be available beyond “this fall”. Today, we’re getting more answers.
iCloud.com has just gone live for developers. That seems to be a pretty good sign that the web component will launch alongside iCloud itself at some point in the next few months. And if the log-in screen is any indication, the web apps are going to be beautiful. → Read More
This week’s episode of OMG/JK is a long one — the longest yet, in fact, at 30 minutes. Jason and I apologize for going on and on but we had a lot to talk about. It’s been roughly three weeks since we last recorded an episode and a ton of stuff has happened.
And while we don’t even come close to getting through all of it, we do go pretty in-depth on some of the major things: iPhone vs. Android sales, WWDC, iOS 5, iCloud, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Google Music Beta, Facebook’s Project Spartan, dining in hell with Facebook’s PR team, Facebook’s new Photos app, Twitter/iOS, and Chromebooks. → Read More
Apple has just published a MobileMe to iCloud transition FAQ. Of note, there has been a lot of confusion as to whether or not iCloud apps would be accessible on the web. We had previously heard that yes, they would for sure be available via web apps on icloud.com (similar to the ones currently found on me.com) set to launch at an undisclosed date in the future. But plenty still refused to believe that. So today, Apple has answered the question once and for all. Sure enough: → Read More
If you’ve been staying up all day and all night in hopes of picking up a brand new 3TB Apple TIme Capsule before the world ends next October, you’re in luck. According to FCC filings, we can expect to see the following new SKUs hit the Apple store sooner than later:
MD031LL/A – AIRPORT EXTREME 802.11N (5TH GEN)- USA
MD032LL/A – TIME CAPSULE 2TB (4TH GENERATION) – USA
MD033LL/A – TIME CAPSULE 3TB (4TH GENERATION) – USA
Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a piece entitled Lessons in Longevity, From IBM. In it, author Steve Lohr looks back at the past 100 years of IBM and points out the keys to their longevity: shifting and adapting to new markets and times. He then lays how three tech powers today — Microsoft, Google, and Apple — may make similar moves to weather the inevitable storms.
At a high level, the parallels make some sense for Microsoft, and to a lesser extent, Google. They make no sense for Apple. → Read More
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about consumer cloud services. There’s Apple’s recently-announced iCloud, Amazon’s Cloud Drive, Google’s Music Beta (which is your music in the cloud) and, of course, Microsoft’s SkyDrive. All of these to one extent or another are moving away from simple online lockers, and we see that today with the release of the latest update to SkyDrive.
The navigation is less clunky. Groups are now built in. Docs open up in online versions of Word or Excel, and can also be opened in the traditional desktop Office apps with edits syncing back and forth. But the biggest change is SkyDrive’s transition away from Microsoft Silverlight to HTML5 for all but a few remaining features. Photos and videos are all viewed with HTML5, which brings infinite scrolling of thumbnails and a new slide viewer. Videos now use the H.264 format and the video player is HTML5 instead of Silverlight. → Read More
Earlier today, I was reading Joshua Topolsky’s editorial on This is my next about Apple’s “mistake” in turning their back on the Web and I kept stopping. I disagreed with basically everything.
First of all, his entire argument is based on what I believe to be a fallacy: that Apple is going to completely turn their back on Web support for iCloud. I have reasons to believe this is not the case, as I stated last week, and reiterated today. Others have since chimed in with similar notions and a bit of evidence to the contrary. While Apple may not have anything to say about web support for iCloud apps right now, let’s revisit the situation in a few months.
Beyond that, there is no denying that with iCloud, Apple is placing a very strong emphasis on native applications versus Web-based applications. You could argue this has been the case since the initial release of the App Store in 2008 (remember in 2007 when developers were told to make Web apps for the iPhone?). But I absolutely agree that the message seems more clear than ever: native is the way forward. → Read More
Usually Apple launches are all about new product, and the WWDC keynote by Steve Jobs and crew was no exception. IOS 5, OS/X Lion, and iCloud were the tech version of a triple play, mainlining the iPad into the Mac and virtualizing the two product lines via the Cloud. What this means for Apple’s competitors is being debated right now, particularly in Redmond and the GooglePlex. But The Company Formerly Known as Don’t Be Evil has its work cut out for it, with little room for error.
Some thoughts on the realignment fostered by Apple iCloud: → Read More
San Francisco, CA
