News Archive for 05/07/04

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Mobile music services threaten Apple, iPod dominance

07/04, 1:00pm

Threats to AAPL future

The future of Apple and the future success of the iPod hangs in the balance, as the cell phone industry preps its own mobile music services. A new Wall Street Journal report says that despite the growth and success of the iPod/iTunes industry, "Apple's polishers seem to be missing a looming threat: Wireless-phone companies are teaming with the music industry to make most mobile phones into music players. While optimists think Apple could sell 45 million iPods next year, mobile-phone makers will sell more than 750 million handsets. All those phones could weigh on the iPod's growth prospects -- and Apple's premium stock valuation. Cellphone users won't need to lug around a second gadget to have their music..... With the rollout of full-track music download services in the next 12 months, the wireless phone could become the music industry's biggest and most profitable distribution channel." [paid subscription required]

Briefly: U2 on ITMS, iPod killing, Firefox on Mactel

07/04, 12:35pm

Firefox on Mactel

In Brief: Within hours of London's opening Live 8 performance by U2 and Paul McCartney, Apple begun offering the opening performance of The Beatles track "Sergeant Pepper" (sung by McCartney with U2) via the iTunes Music Store.... Two teenagers are under arrest Sunday on suspicion of killing another teen for his iPod.... Apple's iPod and other portable digital media devices have become as useful to criminals as they are to the general public.... One website has posted photos of what it says is iTunes mobile software running on a Motorola E790 phone, while AppleInsider says that iTunes 4.9 already recognizes some Motorola phones as an iPod phone.... Mozilla.org developers, with the help of Apple, have ported the Firefox browser to Intel-based Macs.

Apple criticized for RSS implementation in iTunes 4.9

07/04, 12:25pm

iTunes RSS extensions

Apple is being criticized for creating a propietary tags within its new iTunes RSS extensions, which were released as part of iTunes 4.9 to support the new podcasting features. According to Tom's Hardware Guide, "leaders in the RSS community, including the standard's own creator, are taking Apple to task for developing an ill-advised DTD without seeking input and guidance from the community." Internet guru Dave Winer, has "chastised Apple for explicitly using the name of its technology, "itunes," within the DTD namespace. With this and other measures that appear, at least on the surface, to be part of an unsupported effort to make the iTunes DTD proprietary, and a podcast's inclusion in the iTunes catalog exclusive to Apple."