Absolutely there is more room for improvements and those improvements can be categorized as long term massive improvements. Lets hope it will happen in the near future.
Fair enough, Ron. That's been the appeal of Rhapsody for me -- as much or as little music as I like, same very low, flat monthly rate (you pay extra if you start ripping tracks, but since I can access my Rhapsody account from any device, I rarely want to).
This would be an extension of the iTunes store where instead of buying individual tracks, you would pay a monthly subscription. It's less like Pandora (which is how the WSJ described it) and more like Rhapsody.
In the words of the late, great Gilda Radner (playng Emily Latella), "Oh, that's very different."
Because Apple has all those devices in play, an all-you-can eat subcription service could in fact be an attractive option if done right, but it would still have a number of obstacles to overcome, chiefly the record companies themselves, which would likely charge ridiculous fees to Apple (and they don't have Steve Jobs to bully them into participating this time).
Secondly, it would depend how much Apple charges for the service. I still think Spotify and Pandora offer better options at this point, but as the article pointed out there are still only 13.4 m subscribers in the world. Many people (myself included) are content to use these services and put up with the ads.
For now, Apple is holding back, and as I've written participation is not a guarantee of success, but this article defines the service differently than the WSJ and it is more promising than I originally thought.
k9gardner - It's a hardware company in the sense that hardware is its primary focus, and the way it generates profits. The software and services are tools to enhance the hardware.
That's why Apple only flirted briefly with licensing its OS, Microsoft-like, why its own apps are less desired than its competitors, and why it's had such a struggle with cloud computing (with the enormous exception of iTunes).
Something I wanted was to able to listen to a particular song ... I've filled that void with YouTube but sometimes I dont need/want the video (but pay for it: data). Spotify filled that gap, but I think there's room for more.
Ron : Why are you saying that there is no need for Apple to enter Internet Radio Market ? Any specific reason ? I feel they have the capabilities to do that and Im sure they are considering it in a strong way because they ahave everything in place other than Internet Radio. True there are apps which connects to internet radio but its not the same after all.
DukeW, such a curmudgeon! "Does the name SCO ring any bells?" First of all, which SCO are you talking about, old SCO, or The SCO Group? Second, what's the relevance? None that I can see. Many companies, like the various incarnations of SCO, shake and wobble as they go through growing pains; factions develop, groups split off, new ones are absorbed. Sometimes they are able to be assimilated into a cohesive whole, sometimes the stresses are too great to be reconciled. Apple has gone through some of this on several occasions in its life, but nothing recently that has been on the level of what you seem to be talking about.
Let's fast forward a decade or so to where Apple is now. "Their products are clever, but in no way superior." Can you back that statement up? I can make the opposite claim, and say that their products are superior, and I can back it up with examples of greater attention to details of design, execution, human interface, overall fit and finish, usability and, ultimately, recyclability. Some of these areas are not even in the equation for competing products.
I agree wth what you're saying, but I'm not jumping through hoops here to use other products. There are great products already out there. That's my point. When Apple created the iPod and the iPhone, yes they innovated and yest they created a better product because the existing ones just weren't that good. That's not the case here. The existing products are actually quite good.
As for iTunes, I assure you I'm not alone. Most people I know who are regular Apple product users loathe iTunes.
I think Apple for the most part has made great products, but they have done it by identifying problems in the exsting products and coming up with much better alternatives. In his biography, Steve Jobs talked about creating the iPod and the iPhone as a reaction to how weak the existing products were They created products they wanted to use. I don't see much room for improvement in this particular area. Of course it's possible that Apple is looking at something different, but I doubt it.
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Social media has been with us for a decade -- but employer policies and the law are anything but firm about the most appropriate usage of this powerful tool.
Businesses often struggle to decide which domain to use. When it comes to purchasing a domain name, you have plenty of extensions to choose from, ranging from .com and .net, to .me, and even .mobi. But which one should you pick?
I've been writing about how the next evolution of the Internet might just be an advertising revolution, and how corporate IT can stay involved as the enablers and providers of the technologies that make this possible.
In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
