Apple, Google Makes Cord-Cutting Easier - More Needs To Be Done

I’ve cut the cord a long time ago.  The only paid service I’ve got is Netflix streaming )and at times, I don’t even know why I have it given the limited content).  Netflix, Hulu, and an assortment of other online video content that is available, maybe you should take a long hard look at your entertainment needs and consider cutting your cord if you haven’t already.

Consider this: Google’s Nexus Q has sold out even at the high price of $300.  And the Q is really nothing more than a very expensive device for Android users to stream videos and images onto your HDTV from an Android devices.  Again, at $300 per unit, which is more than Apple’s hobby, Xbox 360, and PS3, the Nexus Q managed to sell out.

And speaking of Apple’s hobby, the Apple TV, does a bit more and while it costs only $100, it does have a new function when Apple released the latest OS X.  Rather, newer Macs gained a new function:  Airplay ability – allows users to mirror whatever it is on the screen of their Macbook through the Apple TV and onto the HDTV.

Folks, right about now, content owners should be quivering and panicking right about now.  Instead of being respected by the Hulu app, Mac owners can how use the Web-based Hulu site to stream content.  The same goes for shows on ABC, NBC, FOX, and anyone else that had previously respected viewing access on mobile.

Obviously, users with devices that support HDMI has been doing this for a while now but the ability to do this without making sure your device is sitting next to your TV does take this to another level.

The question comes back to cutting your cable or SAT TV cord.  There are still definitely more desktop-based contents than for mobile.  But content owners will have to realize that the living dynamics has changed.

Soon, everyone will be streaming content.  Artificial restrictions like this placed on Hulu will go away.  Makes zero sense that content you can watch freely on the Hulu site is not available on the Hulu app.  And to top it off, not all paid content are available for the mobile apps.  

Soon these barriers will have to come down.  And the sooner more of us cut off the $100 a month bill to the cable guys, the faster these walls will crumble and force newer consumer friendly business models.

And as competition between Apple, Google, and Microsoft heat up in the living room, I think whatever innovations and new features that will be coming out will also hasten this cord-cutting phenomenon.

iPhone 4/4S: Buy Now or Hold?

It’s practically August now.  Well, we’re about 48 hours from August 1st and for mobile watchers trying to decide when Apple will release new iOS devices this fall, it is going to be a feeding frenzy of rumors in the next four to six weeks.  Obviously, the choice is clear for those who are considering switching, buying, or upgrading to a new iPhone:  don’t buy anything for the next couple of months until Apple finally releases the 2012 iPhone, iPhone 5, or whatever they want to call it.

That’s for people in the United States and maybe Canada.  The decision could be a little obviously for European customers and definitely harder for Asian mobile warriors because of the way Apple staggers their iPhone launches.

It comes down to a couple of factors.  For instance, I needed a new iPhone last summer, 10 weeks before the new iPhone 4S came out and I went ahead and got the iPhone 4.

No regrets.  Because I needed it.  I did get the 4S three weeks after it was released, used it for a while and gave that to my mom.  Right now, the iPhone 4 is one of my main mobile devices.

Today, there’s specific talk about when Apple will be unveiling and releasing the next iPhone and juicy details about other products.  So, it’s that time of the year and while we’re still in July, it is already beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Bottom line:  if you can wait, please do so.  If you need something now, buy it, enjoy it, and don’t look back.  Even at 9 months and 21 months old, the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 are two of the best mobile devices on the market respectively.

Note:  I love reading rumors but won't traffic in them so you'll have to look through the pipes that is the Internet and find them for yourself.  Today's rumors are quite specific so you won't have any trouble.  My recommendation above is based on what I know at this particular time and based on Apple's history.

Social: Apple Needs To Add Google+ To iOS and OS X

I know I am going to get some pushback for this but I think Apple should include Google+ as part of its wider integration with social media and networks. The other day, I talked about the values of "networklets" like Foursquare and Yelp that offer values to users beyond anything that Facebook and even Twitter can hope to achieve at this time (even Twitter has had better success than Facebook).

Well, despite Google claiming Google+ having a couple of hundred million users, not many uses it on a consistent basis as Facebook, Twitter, and networklets. However, Google+ works more like a networklets because it is composed of a variety of subgroups of audience and users that geared towards specific interests. Writers, sports fans, tech pundits who following one another, etc.  Artists often share their latest work. This is why I even use Google+ on a regular basis.

And this reason alone is why Apple needs to include Google+. These subgroups have strong passions for their causes or work. And this fits right into what Apple's users are like. Talented, motivated mobile users that has a lot to share.

I know that what I am suggesting is highly unlikely to come to fruition. There is just too much animosity between Apple and Google at this point over mobile patents. A deal of this kind ole old benefit both companies immensely.

Apple gets another network and a new set of data about its users. A strong Google+ contingent in Apple's work gives a strong counterweight to Facebook.

For Google, well, Google+ will get millions of new users, talented, motivated, and a willingness to open up their pocketbooks.

Could this happen?  Yes.  Not for a while.  For Apple, Google is the main threat than Facebook, Microsoft, or anyone else poses right now. Until the patent war is over and the result is one that Apple can live with, we won't see this happen. Even now, Apple is purging one Google app or service after another from iOS.

We already know what Twitter interface in Android, iOS, and OS X looks like and how it works. It's likely Facebook integration will work in a similar manner.  Should Google+ be added, just imagine being able to update all three or more social networks with just one clip.  Right now, you have to go through different apps and that just is a pain.

Apple Needs To Add Google+ To iOS and OS X

I know I am going to get some pushback for this but I think Apple should include Google+ as part of its wider integration with social media and networks. The other day, I talked about the values of "networklets" like Foursquare and Yelp that offer values to users beyond anything that Facebook and even Twitter can hope to achieve at this time (even Twitter has had better success than Facebook).

Well, despite Google claiming Google+ having a couple of hundred million users, not many uses it on a consistent basis as Facebook, Twitter, and networklets. However, Google+ works more like a networklets because it is composed of a variety of subgroups of audience and users that geared towards specific interests. Writers, sports fans, tech pundits who following one another, etc. Artists often share their latest work. This is why I even use Google+ on a regular basis.

And this reason alone is why Apple needs to include Google+. These subgroups have strong passions for their causes or work. And this fits right into what Apple's users are like. Talented, motivated mobile users that has a lot to share.

I know that what I am suggesting is highly unlikely to come to fruition. There is just too much animosity between Apple and Google at this point over mobile patents. A deal of this kind ole old benefit both companies immensely.

Apple gets another network and a new set of data about its users. A strong Google+ contingent in Apple's work gives a strong counterweight to Facebook.

For Google, well, Google+ will get millions of new users, talented, motivated, and a willingness to open up their pocketbooks.

Could this happen? Yes. Not for a while. For Apple, Google is the main threat than Facebook, Microsoft, or anyone else poses right now. Until the patent war is over and the result is one that Apple can live with, we won't see this happen. Even now, Apple is purging one Google app or service after another from iOS.

Firday Movie: 6 Min of Cloud Atlas Trailer

Source:  Blastr.

It's been a while since I've explained about our Friday Movie post.  See, back when I was still a TA and a research assistant at UCLA, we used to sneak out on Fridays for after movies.  With premiums happening at the time there and like with about ten or so theaters, you get a wide range of selections of movies.

Awesome time.  Obviously, can't do that no more.  However, I've decided to bring this tradition via Friday trailer or shorts.  And this, it's from Cloud Atlas (wiki) starring all time favorite actor, Tom Hank, based on a book by the same title.

It's a series of stories that are intertwined and about how it affects. According to Wikipedia, the plot for the novel "...consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or observed) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last are interrupted at some moment, and after the sixth story concludes at the center of the book, the novel "goes back" in time, "closing" each story as the book progresses in terms of pages but regresses in terms of the historical period in which the action takes place. Eventually, readers end where they started, with Adam Ewing in the Pacific Ocean, circa 1850."

I think it's one of things where you have to read the book too, which I am considering doing this weekend.  Well, enjoy the movie below!

Cloud Atlas - Trailer / Bande-Annonce 6 Minutes... by Lyricis

Looking forward to the movie in October!

Social: "Networklets" Purposes and Recommendations Are Better Than Ads

When Facebook bought Instagram for like a gazillion dollars, you have to ask why.  I know all the talks out there about how it was a threat to Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg just kinda bought them out because he somehow knew that it would be a huge benefit to Facebook in the long run.  I don't buy it.

Instragram was a threat but it's other social networklets (a term I should trademark me thinks) like Foursquare, Yelp, and others that have their own social networks, albeit not as big as Facebook but big enough to be a threat.  And, furthermore, these networklets are much more useful than Facebook alone.

Clearly, Foursquare has figured out just how it wants to monetize the network of eighty or so million users via businesses paying to show up as recommendations.  Its intrusiveness is the key to winning users over and provides a more measurable tool for Foursquare and its partners on the effectiveness of the campaign.

More about Yelp and Path and what they bring to mobile users.

Apple Buys Fingerprint Company - Question is Why

Source:  Marketwatch.

Woke up this morning to this incredible surprise:  Apple bought a company that specializes in making sensors for fingerprint authentication.  You're like what?  I'm still "like what?".

The company is called unsexily Authentec and was acquired for $356 million in cash.  

And yeah, after reading a couple of posts in this, I know this is related to security obviously.  For mobile?  Definitely.  It'll be interesting to see how Apple plans in integrating this with the iPhone and iPad which both have a wide enterprise adoption.

AllThingsD speculated that there could be something in the works that Apple wants exclusively for itself. This would be my guess as well.  Otherwise, there would not be a need for Apple to also acquire rights to certain patents and such.

Reuters goes one step further and figures this could have something to do with mobile payment.  It figures that even with a year or so lead in mobile payment, Google has not been able to get users to adopt its payment system en mass.  By providing additional security measures in its iOS devices, Apple could leap ahead by providing users with a peace of mind that their payment information is less likely to be intercepted.

Whatever the reason, security is the biggest threat going forward in any new mobile features or devices and the one company that can provide the greatest amount of it for its users would likely have an edge in the market - be it for real or for bragging rights.

It'll be interesting to see what Apple does as far as AuthenTec's other deals and if they'll continue to supply Apple's competitors with chips and software.