Apple Mac HQ

Unless you have been on another planet, you probably heard about the special Apple event tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The Apple event begins at 10AM Pacific in San Francisco, CA. Everyone article in the mainstream press pegs it as a given that Apple will announce a tablet of some kind. We know the tablet is coming, but what exactly will it bring? If it’s just a large iPod touch, I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed.

I’ll be checking the action as it goes down live via Engadget. They have already setup a place holder for their live coverage here. We’ll have our own recap and reaction of the event after it’s finished.

David Weiss created a cool “Prediction Score Card” for the event tomorrow. You can download a copy here. If you participate in the score card, come back and post your score in the comments after the event. I’ve already filled mine out so I’ll post my score tomorrow afternoon.

Do you have any predictions you’d like to share? Use the comments below to post your ideas.

My DVR will be working overtime this week as CNBC will be airing some great television programs for Apple fans.

“Welcome to Macintosh” is a 2008 documentary chronicling the history of Apple. Important figures in Apple’s past make appearances, including Guy Kawasaki, who was responsible for Macintosh marketing in 1984, as well as Andy Hertzfeld, who worked on the original Macintosh design team. Leander Kahney, the author of the popular Apple book “Cult of Mac,” is in the documentary also. “Welcome to Macintosh” will be airing on January 4th at 9:30 PM EST.

The 2009 documentary “MacHEADS” discusses Apple fans and the popularity of Apple products. There have not been any films in the past that have focused on the legions of fans that are devoted to Apple. “MacHEADS” will be airing January 5th at 10:00 PM EST.

“Planet of the Apps” discusses the phenomenon that is mobile phone apps. The popularity of these apps was fueled by Apple allowing third-party apps for sale for the iPhone and iPod touch starting in July 2008. Other companies have tried to mimic the App Store’s success by launching stores of their own, but have not been nearly as successful as Apple has. “Planet of the Apps” will be airing on January 7th at 10:00 PM EST.

I rarely watch movies so I have not seen either of the documentaries, but it will be exciting to watch them as well as “Planet of the Apps.”

Apple’s recent purchase of Lala has many intriguing ramifications for Apple users.

Lala is a music site that lets users stream music.  Lala scans your hard drive to see which music you already own.  If songs match what is in their library, or you upload your tracks, you can listen to that music an unlimited amount through their web site.  If you don’t own the tracks, you can listen to them once.  After that you can buy a web version that can be streamed forever or “upgraded” to a downloadable version.  The streaming component flies in the face of Apple’s “download-and-own-forever” model.  Apple sees that music consumption may evolve and they are preparing for this change.  It is unknown whether Apple will keep Lala’s current model or alter it to a “all-you-can-eat” subscription.

There is no way the Lala iPhone app sees the light of day, presuming that Lala isn’t kept as a separate service that is away from Apple’s ecosystem.  Streaming content could be provided through the music app on the iPhone/iPod touch (and hopefully Apple’s potential tablet) with optional caching for offline playback.  It would be nice to have downloadable music for iPods lacking WI-FI, with music files that time-expire.  Syncing through iTunes could then verify service membership (i.e. once a month).

There have been endless debates on the value proposition of MobileMe, especially in light of alternative free services that can be combined to be similar to what MobileMe offers.  Adding a streaming music service to MobileMe would increase its value significantly.  I would assume that being a subscriber to Apple’s music service would not require being a MobileMe member.

It would be great to have my music stored in the cloud from anywhere with a Internet connection.  Any Lala web site functionality will probably be rebranded as a Apple product and thus become iTunes in a browser.

Apple TV has not sold well.  Coupling this music service with the proposed video subscription deal that could be occurring soon and I would be far more interested in getting an Apple TV.  Content is king, and the variety and amount of music and video available will be key to increasing Apple TV’s popularity.

Many music services I have tried have left me wanting more.  Hopefully Apple’s will have enough content to please me.

Apple released information about their Black Friday deals, and as usual the discount is minimal. If you’re looking to save big bucks on Apple hardware, you’re going to be disappointed. The Apple hardware included in the sale carries a discount around 8% – 10%. If you need to pick up some software or accessories, there are deals to be had. You can save $50 on Office 2008, $15 on Bento 3, $21 on a mophie Juice Pack Air, and many more discounts.

The discounts apply to online shopping only, however Apple does say “select offers also available at U.S. Apple Retail Stores”. This is a one day sale, so act fast if you want to take advantages of the reduced prices!

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discusses Apple’s interest in competing with Nintendo in the portable games market.  If I were Nintendo, I would be worried.

Nintendo has been able to beat previous handheld competitors, such as the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx, but Apple is different.  Previous competition was focusing on games only, whereas the iPhone/iPod touch can do so many things very well.  The Sony PSP does do a lot too, but not nearly as much or as well as the iPhone/iPod touch.

iTunes has helped Apple effectively sidestep brick and mortar retailers to provide digital content, which is the future of content distribution.  Nintendo has few digital offerings, but these downloads are limited to the DSi, which makes up a small percentage of Nintendo’s handheld sales.

Developers of all sizes do not have to pay much for development costs and have a far easier time getting on the iPhone/iPod touch platform.  Apple’s review process has been arbitrary and lengthy at times, but less restrictions have been placed for apps compared to DS games.  There is also far more variety in content then the DS provides.

There is already a large library of games for the iPhone/iPod touch.  There are poor titles in iTunes, but there are also many great games.  These games are also priced cheap, which is attractive for consumers.  DS games usually cost upwards of $30.

Apple does face some obstacles.  Like the Wii, many developers have not designed games for the iPhone/iPod touch’s unique controls in mind and have ported games from other platforms that had “regular” controls.  It is a way for large publishers to milk successful franchises.  Publishers have been focusing more and more on popular franchise that do not stray to much from what made them successful, so care is not taken when brining games to the iPhone/iPod touch.  At least for Nintendo they can make good games for the Wii’s controls.  Apple must rely on third-party developers to make games that work well with the touchscreen.

The iPhone/iPod touch does not have as many great games as the DS.  With Nintendo’s franchises on the DS, this is not surprising.  The App Store has not been open for long (since July 2008), and with larger developers making a bigger push to bring popular franchises to Apple’s handheld, the gap will close between Apple’s and Nintendo’s portable game offerings.

It is hard to compete with a device that does many things well, which is why some companies have made devices that do one thing very well (the Kindle for example).  Apple has been able to make a great multi-functional device, while Nintendo has not shown this yet. It will be interesting to see what Nintendo does to maintain dominance in the handheld market to ward off Apple.

Friday the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant in Tennessee “about two months ago”. In the WSJ article, there was very little details about the source of the information.

Today, the program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute confirmed what some had suspected, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital. Citing the patient’s private health information, no additional details were available.

Get well soon Steve!

One cool section of the Apple website that you may not know about is the profiles section. On a semi-regular basis, Apple showcases companies or people and how they use Apple technology. There are two of these sections, one for Pro and the other is Business.

Recently, Apple profiled the hottest company on earth, Twitter. The profile on Twitter talks about some of the Apple technology they use and mention some third-party software tools too. If you’re interested in seeing some of the Twitter office and reading about how the company uses technology, you should read the profile.

One of my favorite profiles from the Pro section is the Washington Post. The Washington Post profile is in video form too!

[Via Daring Fireball]