Steve Jobs was a visionary man. He revolutioned our lifes in more than one way along the last three decades. From Lisa to the iPad, he brought his creativity to our day-to-day life.

He’s made a small company one of the most respected not only in the tech industry but in all of them. And further to his death, his legacy will remain.

Steve has been fighting with health issues for some time now. Despite a forced leave, he returned to Apple in order to perpetuate the constant innovation for which the company has grown to be known for. But then later, in August 2011, he had to permanently resign as a CEO but still holding a chairman position.

Today many mourn him. And I would like to pay him my respects as well.

Steve Jobs insights, creativity and innovation will be missed. He was a talented speaker and reputed to pay attention to the smallest details influencing Apple’s strategy and products. He will join the hall of fame of people remembered several centuries later.

Many fans mourn him across the world, including President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Google (who changed its home page). here are a few testimonies from fans in  Apple stores around the Bay area.

And as a reminder: If you’re feeling moved by his death, do not forget to donate to cancer research.

Apple announced the release of the new iPhone, called 3Gs, during the World Wide Developer Conference 09, held on June 8th. Rumors and speculations have been going on, long before, as it usually does before any WWDC. Many of which were quite promising.

While the announcement was going on, a foule of people was there, following each of them, waiting for the breath-taking one. But it never came. Several interesting features have been announced, but most of them were rather tied to the Firmware 3.0 (which will be available as of June 17) rather than the 3Gs.

The innovative stake at Apple during the last year has been pretty low, or at least, not focused on the iPhone. There has been no improvements on the design, one of Apple’s major focus. No improvement on the screen quality. No improvement on useability. Not even a frontal camera for 3G conversations.

Among the improvements, you can find:

• 3MP Camera and video recording
• OpenGL support
• Compass
• Voice control
• 32GB storage

Complete list is here.

Mainly, the focus was purely technical: better speed, better battery life, better camera, more storage, Nike+ support. But again, this is far from creativity, far from revolution. I am not saying the 3Gs won’t be a great phone. And I will be part of the guys upgrading, since I’m still keeping a vintage 2G as I was not particularly seduced by the 3G and was expecting more from the next-gen.

The innovation slowdown is not just iPhone related. You can see it slowing in every major Apple line of products. Macbooks just got greener, Snow Leopard had the same focus: technical improvements, less features introductions than what Leopard did.

Is it a sign that Apple’s creativity is slowly reaching its limits ? Or is it because the main driving force (aka Steve Jobs) is leaving the business inch by inch (mainly due to health reasons) ?

Apple will, for sure, have to react if they don’t want to lose the market they’ve been winning. Palm Pre and Android are there as big threats and if you have to SWOT the smartphone market, you’d notice that Apple would face a great list of Ts (Threats) despite the Ss (Strenghts) and the Os (Opportunities) which they share with their competitors.

Rumors announced an important price drop for the new Apple smartphone. Expectations were around 199$ for the 8GB model with a new contract.

At&T announced their new prices today:

- 199$ (8B) and 299$ (GB) for subscribers who qualify and wish to extend their contract (2 years)

- For new contracts and customers who don’t qualify, it will cost them 399$ (8GB) and 499$ (16GB)

- The latest case is to opt for a pay’n'go, in this case the prices will be respectively 599$ and 699$ for 8GB and 16GB.

The plans will remain the same, ranging from 69.99$ to 129.99$.

This is quite anecdotal as the price of the first generation iphone was judged excessive (400$ for 8GB version) but was partly justified as Apple set the price and forbad the ressellers to sponsor the smartphone.

The new business model has seen quite some changes:

- 30% of revenues sharing with Apple : gone

- Non-ability to sponsor the smartphone : gone

- Contracts are signed in-store : black-market gone

All conditions are there to enable a fair introduction of the iPhone 3G on the market and gain a significant market share, but eh… come to think lust for profit will never be satisfied.

This sets the tone. Now let’s see how Orange will react.

Now would you exchange a ticket to Tokyo against this iPhone ? I wonder.

]]> http://www.thinkervine.com/blog/2008/07/01/att-reveals-iphone-3g-prices/feed/ 1 http://www.thinkervine.com/blog/2007/04/04/musique-sans-drm/ http://www.thinkervine.com/blog/2007/04/04/musique-sans-drm/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:52:44 +0000 fays http://www.subversion.fr/blog/?p=126     

Apple et EMI ont signé un accord afin de diffuser les morceaux de la major sans protection anti-copie sur la plateforme iTunes.]]>     

Apple et EMI ont signé un accord afin de diffuser les morceaux de la major sans protection anti-copie sur la plateforme iTunes.

Cet accord est une première tentative face aux critiques qu’essuient majors et plateformes de diffusion depuis plusieurs années. Les morceaux sans DRM (excepté les albums des Beatles) seront disponibles au prix de 1,29€ alors que les morceaux protégés seront continueront à être commercialisés à 0.99€, cependant, le prix des albums reste inchangé, cela visant à favoriser l’achat d’albums plutôt qu’une vente de morceaux à l’unité.

Cet accord vise d’une part à satisfaire certaines exigences des associations de consommateurs qui ont assigné Apple en justice pour abus de position dominante et reprochent à la firme américaine la non-portabilité des morceaux achetés via iTunes (ces derniers ne peuvant être lus que sur des iPods). D’autre part, cette expérience permettra de voir si les DRMs représentaient un réel frein au développement du commerce de la musique numérique ou si ce n’est qu’une barrière pretexte.

EMI compte étendre la commercialisation de ses morceaux sans protection à l’ensemble de ses partenaires (eg. fnacmusic et virginmega) de manière à toucher un maximum de public. Les prochaines semaines devraient significativement être révélatrices et auront très probablement une influence sur la décision des autres majors qui hésitent à suivre cette initiative.

Seul reproche: le prix.. Même si l’album numérique reste significativement moins cher qu’un album acheté en magasin (6.99€ versus 14€ en moyenne), le prix d’un morceau unique est estimé trop élevé par les clients. La prochaine démarche sera peut être de proposé des tarifs plus attractifs ou des formes d’abonnements ou forfaits.

A noter que Apple est actuellement assignée par Bruxelles devant la cour de justice européenne à cause des différences de prix et des catalogues proposés en fonction de la situation géographique des acheteurs.

• Player MP3
• Enregistreur
• Jeux : bluecube, invaders, ipobble, lights, nimesweeper etc… En tout une douzaine de jeux
• Des démonstrations graphiques
• Lecture de fichiers textes
• Visualisateur d’images
• Shell (permettant d’éxecuter un certain nombre d’applications externes)
• Lecteur video

Le résultat en images :