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MacWorld Results

by Jason Wilk on January 6, 2009

macworld-expo

  • A very mild keynote to years past. Below we have confirmed or denied all of the Apple predictions and included a breakdown.


1. Unibody 17-inch MacBook Pro. Consider this a lock for being announced tomorrow. The Unibody design which is currently being used on the 13-inch MacBook and 15-inch MacBook Pro will finally make its way to the 17-inch MacBook Pro production line. Speculation is that it will be much thinner due to a ultra-slim non-removable battery. Status: Confirmed

  • Longest battery life for a Mac notebook ever. Lasts 3 more hours and is the same size.
  • Graphics and colors get a major upgrade from new NVIDIA GeForce Card
  • 320 GB hardrive.


2. iWork Updates. Look for Apple’s famed application line to be getting updates. We have reasons to believe this will be the year that Apple makes the jump allowing documents to be saved and edited in the cloud. Status: Confirmed.

  • Documents being written on Pages can now be saved to iWork.com, where they can be viewed, downloaded or commented on. No online editing yet.
  • Technology updates to iPhoto such as auto face recognition, geo-tagging of photos.
  • Download music lessons on GarageBand 09′ from artists like Norah Jones.
  • Slideshows made with Keynote 09′ can use a synced iPhone to flip through presentations on a projector.
  • iMovie gets some Hollywood updates. Scene stitching of multiple camera angles, easier to use, etc.
  • Price: $79 for single user, $99 for the family pack, and $49 with a new Mac

3. Steve Jobs Appearance. Watch out for Steve Jobs to make a surprise appearance. As we have pointed out, the man has been out eating at his favorite Yogurt shop in Palo Alto. No one has heard from him in a month and it is perfect timing to come back around for a new product release. Status: Confirmed

  • After all, he did show up on paper.


4. New iTunes. Updated iTunes with DRM Free music. Status: Confirmed.

  • iTunes has sold 6 billion songs
  • 10 million songs are available
  • 75 million accounts have credit cards.
  • The music store on the iPhone is now available over 3G
  • Pricing for some songs will be lowered to $0.69

4. iPhone Update. First, we will see an upgraded applications store to help developers get more exposure to their creations. Second, if and when iWork gets announced going into the cloud, watch out for the update to include document editing and storage straight to the iPhone. What’s likely to not be included in the update: Flash (sorry Adobe) and Copy/Paste. Status: False

5. New iPhones. Apple will first release a new upgraded storage version of the iPhone, offering at least a 30 gig option. Second, its not likely but there is some hard evidence that shows the iPhone Nano could debut tomorrow. An iPhone Pro is not likely. Status: False

6. 60+ GB iPod touch. This seems to have been getting delayed all year. Tomorrow is the day it will see light. Status: False

7. Low Cost Offerings. We will potentially see an upgraded version of Mac’s most affordable computing member, the Mini. Look out for new specs and a large promotion around this if it launches. Apple needs something new to offer consumers with smaller pockets, protecting the margins on their current offerings. Status: False

8. New iPod shuffle. It will be the first shuffle to easily fit in your wallett. It’s the size of a credit card. Status: False


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Amazon’s Latest Blow To eBay, Stops Offering BillMeLater

by Jason Wilk on January 3, 2009

bill-me-later

  • Amazon.com, which fared the best out of all online shopping destinations this holiday season, has stopped supporting BillMeLater, eBay’s latest questionable acquisition which ran a bill of nearly $1 billion. It was widely speculated that Amazon would drop the ‘buy now, pay later’ service considering their move in the past to cut Paypal after eBay acquired it. Amazon now has their own payment system in place.
  • Before eBay’s purchase of BillMeLater, Amazon had retained a 10% stake in the company. They had never held a board seat, thus their ties to it were limited beyond equity and good faith to use of the service.
  • On Tuesday, Friedman Billings Ramsey said Amazon let merchant partners know about the change, which went into effect Wednesday. BillMeLater’s top customers without Amazon, still include OfficeMax, Apple, Newegg, and QVC.
  • BillMeLater still has strong promise however without the giant retailer. Last year they had $31.6 billion in addressable sales, compared to $26.1 billion for PayPal. eBay couldn’t ignore those numbers as many speculated that BillMeLater could eventually surpass PayPal as the dominant payment processor on the web due to it’s ability to quickly process payments and instantly adjust credit ratings for consumers. Whether or not it succeeds in the long run, eBay could not ignore the acquisition which could have fell into the hands of a viable competitor, threatening one of their most profitable arms.
  • We still speculate that eBay is on the fritz, however the company was the top destination traffic wise for the holidays with 85 million visitors compared to Amazon’s 76 million (ComScore).
  • Was this a message from Amazon to eBay that competiton is heating up even more between the two giants?

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Microsoft Loses Their LiveSearch GM

by Jason Wilk on December 17, 2008

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  • Microsoft has lost an important leader on their quest to gain a larger share of the search market. LiveSearch general manager, Brad Goldberg, who has been with MSFT since 1997, is leaving to become CEO of Peak6 private equity group.
  • Goldberg was the most recent Microsoft executive to take on the seemingly never-ending battle against Google. Although he didn’t help much with the market share, Brad did help to launch Live Search Cashback, which arguably was a success.  
  • Goldberg’s last role at the company included finding a new brand name for Microsoft to re-brand LiveSearch. He is the one who came up with the name Kumo. It is still not clear when Microsoft will go ahead with a re-brand, considering the speculation is Microsoft wants to use the Kumo domain after they acquire Yahoo. 
  • This exit is fine for Microsoft who has just named a former Yahoo executive Qi Lu the new president of its Online Services Business. Lu will be in charge of bringing new life to Microsoft’s online presence, which is probably one of the tougher business development jobs in the world right now. 

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Confirmed: MacWorld Expo Will Miss Steve Jobs And Big Product Launch

by Jason Wilk on December 16, 2008

  • As Apple builds for the annual MacWorld Expo on Jan.5th, rumors (now confirmed) are circulating that not only will Steve Jobs be a no-show, but there will be no new major product announcement. With only three weeks to go, Jobs is not confirmed as giving his annual keynote, Adobe is scaling back its presence at the show, and Belkin has pulled out all together. As of right now, the MacExpo site mentions nothing of a keynote speech, which has been included in previous schedule announcements prior to the expo. Jobs missing Macworld would be a terrible thing, especially in this market state. Although prior accusations of a heart attack turned out to be false, it is widely known that Steve has been sick with cancer in the past and has been seen in photos skinnier than ever.
  • Moreover, aside from Jobs’ health, David Bailey, an analyst at Goldman Sachs downgraded his rating on Apple (Business Week) He says weaker consumer spending will force Apple to hold back on launching a new product to try and keep demand high for their current offerings. With such uncertainty in the markets, a product launch could be the last thing Apple wants to mess around with, even if it is potentially ground breaking. Speculation of no product announcements is further magnified by the poor efforts of false citizen journalists to come up with potential product rumors like the iPhone Nano as the announcement at MacWorld. There will be no iPhone Nano or Mac Tablet touch-screen computer announcements at this expo.
  • What can we expect? Well, Adobe pulling out means that we certainly won’t be seeing any flash demonstrations on the iPhone. On stage demos sure to take place include a run through of the new app store that will have a better user experience for finding the right app in a sea of now 10,000. The real winner at the show would be to finally get out the real ‘copy and paste’ update along with a mail search function. Talk about a couple crowd pleasers with that will take a strip of code and certainly boost sales. More to come later…

CONFIRMED: Apple today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo,

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New Apple Rumors Hint Of A $600 Netbook

by Jason Wilk on December 7, 2008

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  • Faced with a deflated stock price paired with a financial crisis, analysts such as Ezra Gottheil from Technology Business Research (TBR) are claiming Apple no longer has the ability to charge such a premium for their machines and is looking into offering a low priced alternative.
  • In the companies past, pricing has risen consistently for their computers as they find new ways to find ‘upgrade’ their specifications to deem the price worthy. While Apple has largely avoided penetrating markets such as developing nations due to high prices, the coming years in America might see similar spending patterns for luxury computers.
  • At $999, one can buy Apple’s cheapest MacBook, which is twice the price of a mid-range Windows based systems. With the future’s focus on software as a service (SAAS) from companies like Google, Salesforce, Zoho, and more, we are seeing a rapid shift in productivity moving to the cloud. People are listening to their music, collaborating on documents, communicating and watching television all while online. Why is this important for Apple? Because more and more people are realizing that they really just need a computer that is capable of getting them online.
  • Enter the low-priced netbook . Low cost, high emphasis on just getting online and less focus on hardware storage. Once considered too little to be effective (9 inch screen, 3/4 size keyboard), companies like Dell have now started to roll out 12″ netbooks with full keyboards at an average price of $600. Smaller screen netbooks are seeing prices in the $300 range.
  • TBR is confident that Apple will release a computer in the netbook class within the first half of next year, but one that is up to Apple’s standards.  Steve Jobs’ has said that $500 systems are typically “junk”, however Apple changing the market by offering a low-priced, functional machine with high quality yet lower specifications could make waves for the entire industry.
  • Apple would  have to accept the risk of cannibalizing sales for some of its more lucrative notebooks, but this would protect them in the event of a shift away from consumers looking elsewhere to get a new computer from a reputable brand.
  • Jobs currently believes netbooks are part of a “nascent” category that may not pan out and has said he would be “surprised” if large volumes of notebook buyers shifted to the very bottom of the price spectrum and created problems for Apple (Apple Insider)
  • Myself being an Apple user, I have been avidly searching for a low-priced netbook to replace my aging Macbook that will satisfy my needs. As a writer and heavy user of online applications, my wants of having a computer with the quality and specifications of Apple are being comprimized by my needs of getting a new computer with great reviews for a price under $600. I constantly ask myself the question while shopping, what can I personally get done on a Mac that I can’t get done on a netbook and the answer is well, nothing. This consumer mindset which is only further becoming a mainstream reality has surely passed onto the higher minds in Cupertino. There is high speculation that at Jobs’ next keynote speech, that he will address the economic state and offer his solution to customers and investors wondering how Apple will take advantage of it. Maybe Apple’s newest executive from IBM will take charge of this agenda.

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