All this cool, new stuff from Apple today, but one thing is gone from us. It’s something that likely wasn’t selling well anyway, but also serves as a turning point for Apple. We’re talking about the iPod Classic, which has been quietly removed from the Apple website and store.
It would appear that Apple’s acquisition of Beats by Dre, aka Beats Electronics, aka Beats Music, has been finalized. With it comes a message from Beats, likely written by a top wordsmith from Apple. It sounds that way, anyway, bringing on words that deem Beats headphones worthy of sitting alongside the iPod, iPad, and iPhone as Apple’s key "instruments."
Apple released their earnings today, and their staggering sales figures continue on a trend pleasant to Wall Street. Their sales figures, however, didn’t make such an impact. The bread-and-butter of Apple, the iPhone/iPad duo, have slumping sales.
If you’re like — well, anyone — you’ve got a lot of stuff lying around the house you’re not using. The thought of getting rid of it has crossed your mind, but the exercise of listing on Craigslist (and the subsequent lowball offers) is exhausting. A new app, which is rolling out in Austin and San Francisco ahead of other markets, can take care of all the leg work for you.
Even when you go camping, you take your smartphone. For the drive up, or back down — maybe even for the compass app — a smartphone is still good out in the middle of nowhere. What it’s still poor at, however, is communicating. That’s where goTenna comes in.
If you thought the iPod Touch was dying, think again. Apple has released a slightly updated version, at least for one model. The 16GB variant now has all the things the 32GB and 64GB models have. Apple also lowered the price a bit, enticing us to want one even more.
Supposing there really is an iWatch headed your way via Apple, there’s a good chance the device will take out a big chunk of Apple’s focus on the iPod. Brian Blair of Rosenblatt Securities suggests that the complete absence of a 2013 refresh of the iPod line suggests Apple is bringing in a new force to supplant it. I believe that Apple’s age of the wireless music player will take shape in the form of the iWatch, either holding the music itself or bouncing the music to one’s car stereo (smart stereo, that is) from the iPhone.
Imagine a different world, a world without Apple, the most dominant company in the world. Better yet, imagine a world where Apple never existed and never launched its computers, never offered the iPod or iPhone, and never unveiled an iPad.
Now that all of that is in mind, imagine what the world would be like. Would it be a better world? Would the technology industry have more innovative companies delivering technologies we have now? Would companies that Apple demolished along the way have found a way to succeed and do what Apple hasn’t?
Apple, at least under Jobs' regime, almost never or only so rarely grants interviews, so when it gave Sunday Times the probably once in a lifetime chance to talk to Jonathan Ive, not even the sudden and almost inexplicable downpour in California will stop it. Thanks to that, we are able to get some insight into the thoughts of the man who designed some of the world's most iconic products.
The next big release from Apple appears to be stacking up as a wearable device, coming up more than just a couple of times with a code-name iWatch. This device has been teased again today with a release inside China with inside sources suggesting Apple has been creating prototypes of the device and is currently testing more than one model. This miniature device is also set to look rather similar to that of the 6th generation iPod nano with a very similar battery size, lending steam to the idea that the change-back to a larger size for the line in favor of the iPod Shuffle was done for more than one easy-to-see reason.
This weekend Apple recognized World AIDS Day in bright red lights and red innards across the world. With their red Apple logos up front of stores turned red with red plastic filters and their (PRODUCT)RED merchandise rolling through the store, Apple made certain they were seen as one of the world's largest supporters of the cause.
For the first year ever, Apple held no special media events for any of its iPod line of products. Since its induction in 2001, the iPod has received some form of public promotional treatment every year. It also underwent some hardware changes--sometimes major, sometimes minor--every year, but not in 2013. This could signal an eventual phasing out of the iPod as a standalone music player.