Mountain Lion - What It Means For iOS Users

For many of you, you might be on a Mac running Lion or a variant of the Leopard OS, regular or snow.  But today, Apple unveiled "Mountain Lion", an update to Lion that was released almost a year ago.  It gained many new iOS features like iMessage and greater iCloud integration.  Oh, and for gamers, Game Center is coming your way.

I've left my Macbook Air at home backing things up while downloading Mountain Lion.  You'll have to be an Apple developer in order to do that.

I'll check back with actual user notes later this evening.  I can't way to try out iMessage.  Oh, by the way, iMessage is free to download right now. You' don't need to be a developer in order to do that.  So, go give it a go!

Privacy Should Be Apple's Stronghold But It Let Users Down - Twitter Steals Contacts

Bad Apple!  That’s about all we can say about the Twitter accessing user contact information without telling people about it and without asking for permission first.  What’s up with that, Apple?  This is just plain stupid and wrong.

And here is Twitter’s response after getting caught red-handed:  “We want to be clear and transparent in our communications with users. Along those lines, in our next app updates, which are coming soon, we are updating the language associated with Find Friends — to be more explicit. In place of ‘Scan your contacts,’ we will use “Upload your contacts” and “Import your contacts” (in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android, respectively).” (Source:  Media Bistro)

Seriously, this is the type of behavior I expect from Facebook, maybe even Google, but certainly not Twitter, Apple’s iOS social partner.

What now?  Certainly, apps like Twitter and Path last week should never have had access to user contacts with their explicit approval.

Now, Apple is saying that future apps will need to get user permission before getting access to those private data.  

Congress will certainly be looking into this because privacy is becoming a hot topic due to past bad behaviors from Facebook and Google.

What Apple needs to do now is review the whole approval process as well as app policies to make sure this doesn’t happen again.  And Apple has to be very transparent about privacy.  Done right, it could make Apple the champion for the average mobile warrior and force competitors to follow.

Google First With NFC But We Still Need An iPhone With NFC To Make Mobile Payments Ubiquitous

I saw my first Google Wallet payment system over the weekend at a gas station of all places.  There are probably more in my area that I am not aware of.  But let’s be honest, Google, for most folks, is about search and gmail.  Androids they know about but that’s about it.  And even with the attention given to the Galaxy Nexus with its NFC feature, there simply isn’t enough of them out there for merchants to begin rolling out mobile payment systems.

Even a leading Android blog, Droid-Life, admits that until Apple has an iPhone featuring NFC will mobile payment actually begin to take off.  Just ask Starbucks about their app for mobile payment.  It’s taken off as more and more iPhone users embrace it.  Helps that you get rewards for using it.

Unless Google is willing to “pay” or reward users to use NFC to pay for goods and services and has enough devices with NFC capability to reach a critical point, it’ll be a long time before I can pay for my bean burritos at Taco Bell or my nephews’ Happy Meals at MacDonald’s.

But we’ll definitely get there faster if Apple adds a NFC chip to the next iPhone and they begin to flood the market by the tens of millions.

So, if you’re a mobile warrior looking to leave your credit or debit cards at home, I personally look forward to the day when I can leave my wallet at home, then let’s hope Apple comes through for us soon.

iPad Trademark In China Isn't About Who's Right - It's about the Two Million Apple Employs

Apple is in a dogfight with a small money losing company called Proview in China that claimed to own the “iPad” trademark in China.  And now, they’re looking to milk it with a Chinese legal system that is less about law and more about who you know and what political points can be scored in the long run.  And let’s not forget that there’s a transfer of power in Beijing at this moment.  Not sure if that’ll have an impact.

Here’s a summary of this.  Apple bought the rights to the trademark “iPad” worldwide from Proview’s Taiwanese counterpart.  Proview in China said that sale doesn’t include the use of the name in China.  Hence, the lawsuit that for the moment looked to be looking good for Proview as it has won a case against Apple.  Apple is appealing, obviously.

Now, Proview is looking to exert pressure on Apple by requesting that China ban export of iPads.  The legal details aren’t important to us mobile warriors.  What’s important is how Beijing will react to all this.

Will it try to strike a blow against a foreign company that also employs about a million or two of its workers?

Yeah, tough call on the surface but if you come down to it, it’s not.  You want political stability and to enhance your reputation about rules of the law or try a go at nationalism.  And Beijing cannot allow underlings to handle this because they’re looking for their own self-interests, not that of their country.  So, they’ll need to step in and reach some kind of a deal on this quickly.

Oh, not that anyone in China is reading this blog but trying to get Apple to capitulate by taking away few dozen iPads is not going to scare anyone.  If anything, I reckon this is just a show until Apple “wins” its appeal or a deal is struck.

This is just the political and economic reality in China.

Wireless Providers Behaves Badly And Only the Media Seems Surprised

No one should be surprised by what wireless carriers or providers do anymore.  A contract isn’t a contract like the old days when they’re allowed to change them on the fly.  Or contracts that say they can change terms on customers whenever they want.

This MSNBC post that customers are surprised by AT&T’s move against unlimited data strikes me as disingenuous because the writer cannot possibly believe the crap AT&T is giving him for the article.  This isn’t about bandwidth or anything of that nonsense that AT&T used to try to buy T-Mobile.

It’s about money and control. The industry lost their control when the iPhone-lead and then Android waves hit them.  We’re used to doing wireless a certain way and they want to control that.  Furthermore, they want to milk as much as they from users as they risk becoming the dumb pipes they deserve to be.

Why?  Well, the wireless industry was slow to react when Apple and Google assaulted the wireless market with their innovations and revolutionize the mobile industry.  And this is the only way they can try to slow things down or buy time until they can figure out how they would respond.

And the wireless lobby in Washington has scared the politicians in Washington and made the FCC impotent.

And this teethless MSNBC post does nothing except to tell us what we already know.

Mobile War For Google Is About Search; For Apple, It's Just One Small Battle

Interesting note here about mobile search.  By 2016, a majority of searches will take place on mobile devices, specifically, wirless over smartphones.  AllthingsD suggests that a Bernstein report excluded tablets.  Had that been included, we may well see search on mobile, including smartphones, tablets, and devices like the iPod touch, move ahead of traditional desktop searches even before that.  Perhaps by 2014 or 2015 at the latest.

ATD goes on to suggest this is what Apple and Google is fight over.  I think its only one aspect of the larger mobile war.  After all, the mobile market isn’t just about searches.  Rather, searches will become only a small part of the growing and ever-changing mobile experience.  Even app uses will continue to evolve.

Rather than replacing Google with Bing or even something else, Apple will do what it does – and no one really knows what that is.  Siri would be my guess.

Apple and Google used to be good friends.  The only reason that changed was when they began to compete in the mobile hardware market.  And they are both still competing with Microsoft’s vastly improved Windows Phone so it’s not like Apple will get into bed with Redmond any time soon.  It doesn’t want a resurgent Microsoft and have to fight Google and Microsoft at the same time.

I wouldn’t put it past Apple to try to hurt Google on search at all.  And mark my word:  Apple will because it also recognizes that search is what puts food on the table for Google.  As to how, again, Siri perhaps.  As to when?  That’s the question.  It could be happening now, slowly.

See, Apple isn’t consciously out to destroy anyone in particular.  Had Google not come out with Android and was content with just doing web services and search, things between Apple and Google may still be cool.  Now, all bets are off.

For Google, search might be the war but for Apple, it’s just one of many battles it has to eventually fight on in the larger mobile war.

Source: AllThingsD

After the iPad 3, Apple Should Continue With The iPad 2 - But How Much?

Apple should and probably will make the iPad 2 available even after introducing the iPad 3 in the next 4 to 6 weeks.  That is almost a certainty given the educational focus that Apple wants starting with the special education event in January with the focus on etextbooks and iBooks Author.

After introducing the iPhone 4, Apple kept the iPhone 3GS on the market with a $100 price cut to entice mobile warriors who are unwilling to shell out $200 for the iPhone 4.  That was in 2010.  In October of 2011, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S at the price points of the original iPhone 4, pushed the iPhone 4 into the 3GS spot, and gave the iPhone 3GS out for free.

How about the iPad 2?  At what price point should Apple make the iPad 2?  Cutting $100 and make the iPad 2 available starting at $399 is a natural move.  It'll be something that is expect from Apple.

But I really would like Apple to go lower, not for my sake.  For the moment, I plan on keeping my original iPad as my mobile weapon of choice.  Rather, I hope Apple could make the iPad 2 available at $350 with 8 GB of storage for the sake of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of students who could really benefit from learning revolution that Apple is leading with its mobile devices.

I don't want to say that this is wishful thinking on my part.  Rather, Apple can achieve a couple of things by making the iPad 2 at the $350 price range.  One, this will really give Apple the tablet momentum that it might needs against Android 4 and Windows 8 tablets that will come out throughout 2012.

Another point:  education.  What I thought missing from Apple's January 19th education, which focused on textbooks, e-learing, and iBooks Author, was that Apple did not address how they were going to get an iPad into the hands of the student.  If you ask me, Amazon with the Kindle Fire, even with its diminutive 7" screen,  offers an affordable solution.  Now, I know the argument that the 7" screen is too small to do much.  Hey, I understand and know that to be a fact.  However, you think those educators strapped for cash are going to care at that point?  $200 for the Fire versus $500 for the iPad.

By pricing the iPad 2 closer to $350, the price difference becomes much more manageable.  On top of that, should Amazon release its own 10" tablet, Amazon would have to price it in the money-losing $250 range to give itself some pricing room.  But ta $100 different, what would you go for?  A proven iPad 2 or a 10" Kindle that likely have many features taken out that should be in a modern tablet so Amazon can keep the price down?  The answer is obvious.

And with a pricing range from $350 all the way up to $830, Apple has pretty much the whole tablet market covered - iPad 2 from $350 to $399 and the iPad 3 from $500 up to $830.

And getting the iPads into the hands of these students is critical to Apple's future.  Apple will be able to corner a large segment of the k-12 education market as it leads and revolutionizes the future of learning.  This move could potentially translate into sales for Apple's other products as these students go to college or join the workforce.

We're talking about iPhones, iPods, Macs, and even Apple TV or Apple HDTV.

Hey, who knows.  Today's iPad-taught kindergartener may well be tomorrow's proud new owner of the iCar when he or she turns sixteen.