By Howard Wen
Computerworld (US)
March 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Open-source software is one of the great success stories of the past few decades. The Apache HTTP Server is the world’s most popular Web server, Linux has more than held its own against Unix and other proprietary operating systems, and Mozilla’s Firefox browser has given Microsoft’s Internet Explorer strong competition over the years.

Could the same philosophy — the free and public dissemination of underlying code and specs, with multiple developers from disparate sources contributing to the design — work for tech gadgets as well? Will we one day commonly use smartphones, netbooks or other gadgets that have been developed under an open-source model, maybe even preferring them over proprietary products like the iPhone?

After all, it’s possible today to design a device — including its electrical and mechanical architecture — on a personal computer with CAD and schematic design software, order nearly all the components needed for it online, and then process the manufacturing of a prototype through a low-cost supplier. So the idea of organizing an open-source project online to build a device isn’t far-fetched, nor is it one that requires millions in start-up funding.

But can such gadgets succeed against those developed by established commercial manufacturers with deep pockets? Mark Driver, a Gartner analyst who specializes in open source, thinks that open-source gadgets have the best chance in markets where the technology has matured to the point that it is commonplace.

“Open source is about commoditization,” Driver says. “These products are taking a market where there really isn’t a lot of concrete differentiation … between what’s out there and providing an alternative, which is exactly what open source does right. Linux got wildly popular not because it did something new; it’s because it did what Unix did, but did it in a much more open fashion.”

Defining open-source hardware

While there are numerous open-source computer and electronics components available today, only a handful of complete tech gadgets are being developed under an open-source philosophy. However, what exactly defines a hardware project as being open source remains … well, open.

Generally, hardware that is “open sourced” means at least some of its plans have been made available to the public, thus allowing others to contribute to its development or, if permitted by its creator, to manufacture the device themselves or even modify the plans to create a new device.

Always Innovating Inc., for example, encourages outsiders to contribute to the development of its ARM-processor-based tablet/netbook hybrid, the Touch Book. Weighing 1.8 lbs., the device features a touch screen, a removable keyboard and a customized Linux operating system distribution. It can run for 10 hours on a single battery charge.

The schematics for the Touch Book are freely available on Always Innovating’s Web site. “We also provide advanced support and consulting services for companies who want to build their own devices starting from our design,” says Chief Operating Officer Alexandre Tisserant.

“This is the way we are following: Build reliable, innovative products, and by opening them, you will get the necessary feedback and contributions to improve them and design new ones faster and easier,” Tisserant says.

That’s the open-source ideal, anyway. On the flipside, “the worst-case scenario would be a project emerging using an open-source moniker, and it ends up being nothing more than a marketing gimmick,” says Gartner’s Driver. “If it’s only from one vendor, or one source of support, those kind of things are the weakest forms of open source.”

Who’s in the market for open-source gadgets?

Unsurprisingly, the kind of user such gadgets are geared toward — and appeal to — the most is the tech hobbyist. The Touch Book has so far sold mainly to this crowd, says Tisserant, who says “several thousand” units have been sold. Yet his company is looking now to sell it to vertical markets. Because the Touch Book is highly customizable, it could easily be integrated into taxis or police cars, or connected to a hospital’s private network as an “always on” portable device for medical staff, Tisserant says.

Then there’s the Frankencamera, a Linux-based digital camera that can be programmed to control exposure, flash, focus settings and more. The camera is being developed by a team of graduate students at Stanford University and is meant for academic use.

“Specifically, we want to make this easy for graduate students doing research that could use a programmable camera, or undergraduate CS students doing courses in programming,” says Andrew Adams, one of the lead developers of the Frankencamera. “We’re graduate students ourselves, and this whole project is born out of our frustration with trying to program cameras to do what you want them to.”

A consumer-oriented open-source project that has so far failed to catch on is the Neo FreeRunner smartphone and its supporting Linux-based platform, called Openmoko. The project was launched by Openmoko Inc., with both the operating system and the design plans for the internal electronics and housing available for others to use and improve on.

The company officially stopped supporting the project in April 2009, according to Product Manager William Lai. “As time and technology progressed, the funds involved in competing with the likes of Apple, RIM, Android, etc. were out of our scope, and we soon realized that the technology outpaced our ability to deliver on a timely basis,” he says.

However, the Openmoko platform and FreeRunner phone are still being developed by a volunteer community.

Distributing and testing hardware is difficult

With software, anyone can download a copy of an open-source program and try it out practically instantly. It’s equally easy to give feedback to its developers and contribute code to fix bugs or add features.

The open-source model in software development thrives on this constant distribute-and-test process: The more copies of the code you can get into the hands of other people, and the quicker you do so, the faster the project’s developers can field feedback in order to fix and improve the software for its next release.

But applying the open-source model to hardware isn’t as straightforward. Copies of prototypes can be expensive to produce and distribute to fellow developers for evaluating and testing, so development doesn’t progress as quickly.

Tisserant calls this “the cost of the test”: “When you get your first piece of homemade hardware, you can do some modifications. But you will have to order a new piece with your new design. This takes time — a few weeks — as well as money.”

In order to seriously challenge the traditional proprietary model of developing hardware, a manufacturing time frame of less than one week would be ideal, says Tisserant: “The easier and faster you can test, the easier and faster you can learn.”

Turnaround time could be lessened with the use of affordable rapid prototyping or fabrication machines. For example, the body of the Frankencamera is laser-cut acrylic. So anyone with access to a laser cutter can take the plans for the Frankencamera’s body and make their own.

A device like the RepRap, a 3D printer for rapid prototyping, could play a significant part in open-source hardware development. The RepRap is itself open source. While commercially available 3D printers cost around $20,000 at the low end, the RepRap’s design is freely available to anyone who wants to build one. (Its developers estimate that the materials cost around $480.) What’s more, the RepRap can replicate many of its own parts, with the rest of its parts cheaply available, so you can build another one using the first.

“Someone with a RepRap or a laser cutter and a soldering iron can put together something. Open hardware designs combined with rapid fabrication gets at exactly the original intent of open-source software — if the design is open, you can modify it to meet your needs, and freely share those modifications with others,” says Adams.

Although the RepRap and other rapid-prototyping machines can speed up prototyping, they’re not an end-all solution since their capabilities are meant for creating only the housing or external case for a gadget. Such a machine can help build prototypes of, say, a netbook’s outer shell faster, but most of the device’s internal electronics still need to be sourced out for manufacture.

Nevertheless, opening up a device to the public (especially during its early design phase) encourages the formation of a community that can propose and contribute improvements. This can help reduce the number of prototypes that need to be built, saving money and time.

The lack of open-source culture among component makers

A device that is open source does not necessarily mean every component within its design schematic is also open source — in fact, it probably uses several proprietary parts.

Any consumer tech device is built with many smaller components. The makers of these parts are usually secretive about revealing their inner workings, unless it’s to a paying client. This can be a challenge for anyone trying to develop open-source hardware if their device’s design plans are to be released publicly.

“In the software world, there’s a rich culture of providing basic open-source building blocks like compilers, editors, support libraries and operating systems,” says Adams of the Frankencamera project. “Unfortunately, chip manufacturing is an inherently expensive business, and there’s far less room for the kind of altruistic sharing that seems to be the major motivator behind a lot of open-source contributors. Having to sign [non-disclosure agreements] to even see how to use a part like an image sensor is common.”

Although he and his fellow Frankencamera developers have encountered hesitation or refusals from companies they’ve approached to acquire information to help them build their digital camera, they have come across some willing to contribute — in particular because of the open-source aspect of their project. (Most of the Frankencamera’s electronics are commodity parts that anyone can buy. A few components, such as the camera’s power circuitry, were specially designed by the project’s team.)

“Companies that are hard to extract information or parts from don’t care whether you’re planning something open source or commercial — they’re equally reticent. People and companies that are willing to help are usually more willing to if it’s going to be open source; they know they’ll be able to benefit from any results too,” says Adams.

The issue of intellectual property

A big question swirling around open-source hardware projects is the legal issue of intellectual property — who owns what (including the whole and the individual parts) in an open-source device, especially if several people are contributing designs? Brendan Scott, a lawyer who specializes in IT law and runs the Web site Open Source Law, strongly advises the creators and lead developers of such projects to address this matter before anybody agrees to make anything.

As for how this should be handled, he says there is no one-size-fits-all answer. “In some cases, it will be better for individuals to retain intellectual property [in what they contribute]; in others, it will be better to transfer it to some holding entity. The main thing about intellectual property in a project is to turn your mind to the issue before you start — or soon after you start — rather than when you finish. By not addressing the issue, you may discover that the issue has been decided for you, perhaps in a way you are not happy with.”

Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of the TechCrunch blog, might agree. In July 2008 he announced plans to create a low-cost Web tablet, later dubbed the CrunchPad. While the hardware development process wouldn’t be fully open, Arrington’s idea was to “design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them,” as he wrote in the announcement.

The project got off to a promising start as TechCrunch partnered with Singapore-based Fusion Garage to develop and manufacture the CrunchPad. In late 2009, however, the agreement fell apart when Fusion Garage announced its intention to sell the CrunchPad without TechCrunch’s involvement. Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan claimed that his company had sole intellectual property rights to the device, while Arrington said both companies shared IP rights.

Fusion Garage plans to sell the device as the JooJoo tablet, and TechCrunch has filed a lawsuit against Fusion Garage. As of this writing, Fusion Garage has been taking pre-orders for the JooJoo, which the company’s site says “will ship in 8 to 10 weeks.”

Asked what legal steps or counsel he and his Frankencamera developer colleagues have taken to protect their hard work, Adams says, “In this regard, life is easier when there’s no money to be made. Because everything we do is as students of Stanford University, we have pretty good legal avenues available to us if someone should try anything nefarious. So far, though, the vast majority of what we have heard from the general public is interest, encouragement and offers of help.”

Applying current open-source licenses to hardware

Another legal matter is whether current open-source licenses apply to hardware, at least suitably enough. Most were drafted in the context of software, and this is evident in their wording: The commonly used GNU General Public License refers to “the Program.”

Scott of Open Source Law postulates that with a generous reading, existing open-source licenses could be applied to hardware projects without modification. “It is not too far-fetched to think of hardware plans and component lists as the source from which an ‘object’ — literally — is ‘compiled’ or ‘assembled,’” he says.

“The intellectual property landscape for hardware is a little different from that of software,” Scott continues. “Copyright applies to copies of software, but does not typically apply directly to copies of hardware, particularly for items for which their form is functional — although making a copy of hardware can result in an infringement for the plans from which the hardware is made.”

Scott anticipates that, over time, licenses will be customized or amended in order to cover issues faced by hardware created under open source. For example, the TAPR Open Hardware License was specifically designed for hardware projects. And the Arduino project, an open-source electronics platform with both hardware and software components, uses a license for the designs of its hardware that is separate from the license for its firmware (the operating software that runs on it).

Making money (or not) from open-source hardware

Always Innovating’s Tisserant acknowledges that hardware companies going the open-source route might have lower profit margins, but he says they can benefit from lower research-and-development costs and shorter development cycles. “The goal is not to keep your secrets and live on endless royalties, but to share the knowledge and grow upon fast innovation,” he says.

Although Openmoko Inc. no longer supports the FreeRunner phone and Openmoko smartphone platform, Lai says the company isn’t through with open-source: “For the last year, Openmoko as a company has been focused on bringing open source in front of an audience of mass appeal. We want to continue to design products using open-source elements,” such as the WikiReader ($99), a pocket reader preloaded with Wikipedia content, says Lai.

As far as the developers of the Frankencamera are concerned, they have no business plan because their project isn’t meant to sell an end product. Their goal is to get the schematics of Frankencameras into the hands of students at other academic institutions, so they can build their own at minimal cost to use in their coursework and research.

In turn, they hope their project will “convince camera manufacturers that letting end users program their cameras is something that actually adds value and makes people want their product more, because there’s a community of enthusiasts constantly adding new features to it,” says Adams.

“How successful would the iPhone have been without the app store? Now why can’t you write and download apps to your camera? Our personal goals are to do interesting research, and give other people the tools to do interesting research, not to make money,” Adams says.

Selling open-source gadgets beyond the techie crowd

Jeff Orr, a technology analyst with ABI Research, thinks for an open-source hardware project to succeed in the marketplace against proprietary, commercial products, it still needs “some ownership — some individual, some entity — that is providing the workforce to assemble and distribute these products … Once I’ve bought it, what’s the support like? Is there a warranty if something goes wrong?”

Still, he is cautiously optimistic about the potential of open source at gadgets’ R&D stage: “Could [the open-source model] challenge the commercial research and development process? I think so … because you create a larger pool of knowledge that any individual or organization could learn from.”

But will an open-source gadget ever take off in the same way Firefox and Ubuntu have, becoming a household name among mainstream gadget users? Open-source gadgets will become more common, Gartner’s Driver predicts, but he is unsure if we will see one that appeals to a wide user base and can challenge an equivalent proprietary product.

“Will we see the same kind of revolution in those kind of devices that we saw in software? That’s probably a much less likely occurrence to happen, at least for the foreseeable future,” Driver says.

Howard Wen is a frequent contributor to Computerworld

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By Jeff Bertolucci
PC World (US)
March 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple’s iTunes Store reached a major milestone this week when it delivered its 10 billionth song, an event that highlights the great success of Cupertino’s digital-download service.

But as successful as the iTunes Store has been in its nearly seven years of existence, a new series of challenges will require it to evolve to stay competitive. These include a growing number of online movie-streaming competitors, a possible migration by consumers to Web-based music services, and a new crop of hardware devices (e.g., the iPad and similar tablets) that expand the market for digital content. Combine these factors with broadband speeds that should rise significantly in the coming years, and there’s a good chance that iTunes circa 2020 may be very different from today’s service.

What changes are in store for iTunes? A few near-term possibilities:

Web-based iTunes: When Apple bought online music service Lala last year, industry watchers assumed Cupertino would integrate Lala with a Web-based version of iTunes. It remains to be seen what plans Apple has in store for its new purchase, but a cloud-based service that stores customers’ music on Web servers rather than on a limited number of hardware devices makes sense, particularly for users with multiple, Web-connected portable devices.

Subscription services: The era of the 99-cent (or thereabouts) song download may not be over, but are its days numbered? Music-streaming services such as Pandora and Rhapsody are popular among iPhone and iPod touch users, and certainly a streaming option would be welcome by iTunes fans. There’s also talk of an iTunes TV subscription service for about $30 per month.

Cheaper TV shows and movies: According recent rumors, Apple may cut the cost of iTunes TV show downloads to $1, a move that could coincide with the iPad’s release in April. Apple currently charges $1.99 for standard-definition TV shows, and $2.99 for high-def. As with the alleged iTunes TV subscription service, it’s unclear whether Hollywood studios would agree to these aggressively priced proposals.

AppleTV: This nifty little media player for the living room hasn’t gotten much (if any) marketing love from the folks in Cupertino. Perhaps Apple isn’t quite sure how to market the box, which hooks tightly into the iTunes Store and downloads movies, TV shows, music, and more. Now may be a good time to trumpet AppleTV’s virtues, however. A number of well-funded competitors, including Netflix, Amazon, and Wal-Mart, the latter of which just announced plans to buy video-streaming service VUDU, are making a play for the online movie business.

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By JR Raphael
PC World (US)
March 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child.
Nearly a dozen underage teens were working for Apple-contracted facilities in 2009, the company has revealed. The news was posted to Apple’s Web site under a section labeled “Supplier Responsibility.”
Apple’s Child Labor Discovery

The underage workers, Apple says, were at three different suppliers’ facilities. Though the specific locations aren’t disclosed, the report says inspectors visited facilities in China, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. The factories in question built iPhones, iPods, and various Apple computers.

“Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit,” the report says.

The legal age in the facilities’ countries, according to Apple’s report, is 16. The workers in question were only 15 when they were hired.

Apple’s Audit: Additional Violations

The Apple production problems don’t end there: More than 60 different facilities were also overworking their employees, Apple says. Apple’s code requires suppliers to work employees no more than 60 hours a week with “at least one day a rest per seven days of work.”

Beyond that, Apple’s audit found two dozen facilities that were paying their people less than the minimum required wage and another 57 that were cheating workers out of legally required benefits — things like sick time and maternity leave. Some factories even cut workers’ wages for “disciplinary purposes,” according to Apple’s report.

Apple says it’s requiring the suppliers to develop new measures to correct the violations.

Some of the measures include repaying workers who were underpaid and implementing new systems to ensure correct payment and weekly work-time in the future. The company promises to follow up with the factories to be certain they’ve taken the appropriate steps.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
February 16, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - In separate announcements from Barcelona today, three traditional powerhouses in computing and communications — Microsoft , Intel and Nokia — kick-started major revamps to their technology to adapt to a quick-changing smartphone and mobile device market that’s increasingly dominated by Google and Apple . 

“Microsoft is in a bigger ’start over’ penalty box than Intel and Nokia, but it really is a start over for all of them,” said Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates about the announcements made at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Microsoft does have a much steeper road to climb to get back into the game than Nokia/Intel does.”

Intel joined Nokia in unveiling Meego , a Linux -based open operating system to be used in smartphones, netbooks, connected TVs and tablets. Meego combines features from Intel’s Moblin OS and Nokia’s Maemo OS. Devices using Meego are expected to arrive in the second half of 2010. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer touted Windows Phone 7 Series software that’s expected to be running on smartphones due out by the 2010 holiday season on a variety of carriers globally, including AT&T in the U.S.
Ballmer said the new version of Microsoft’s operating system for mobile phone will bring “more consistency in the hardware platform and in the user experience” than earlier versions.

In both announcements, it was obvious that the three companies are adjusting to the market success of Apple Inc.’s iPhone and the coming iPad tablet, as well as Google Inc. The search company is behind a host of software applications for a variety of upcoming Android OS smartphones and devices that it helped create in its sponsorship of the Open Handset Alliance.

Gold said that Microsoft has “basically had to nuke its existing OS and start over,” while Intel and Nokia could blend most of the existing code in Moblin and Maemo to create Meego.

Ballmer did not describe Windows Phone 7 Series as a start-over, of course, but implied it comes in reaction to past criticism of Windows Mobile OS and its decline in sales in late 2009.

“We have a chance to make a major impact on the [smartphone] market… (with the new OS),” Ballmer said. “We had to step back and recast.”

Ballmer also didn’t go as far as he did last fall when he told investors that Microsoft had “screwed up with Windows Mobile” and had shuffled its Windows Mobile team to regain lost ground. 

Updated user functions in Windows Phone 7 include concepts such as “hubs” that display a page of contacts called “people,” for example. Other hubs will be labeled “office” for note-taking and synchronizing documents with a PC; “games,” for integrating with the Microsoft Xbox live online community; and “music+video” for synchronizing the smartphone with Microsoft’s desktop Zune jukebox and music store software.

Windows Phone 7 will also provide a touchscreen Qwerty keyboard as in some Windows Mobile 6.5 devices, Ballmer said.

Even with new innovations, Microsoft will continue to employ a licensing model where phone manufacturers pay a fee for Microsoft software, Ballmer said, offering no details. He also argued that “free” software in open operating systems such as Android might not really be free.

Gold called the Meego announcement a positive for both Intel and Nokia. It will help Nokia make a “direct assault” on the enormous momentum behind Google’s Android and Chrome, and will help Intel attack the ARM chip architecture used in smartphones and other smart personal devices, he said. ARM chips, developed and licensed by ARM Holdings, are used extensively in smartphones and mobile phones; Intel has developed the Atom chip to compete directly with ARM.

But Gold said “it remains to be seen if anyone besides Intel and Nokia will embrace Meego.” He believes Nokia will hold onto its existing Symbian OS for lower-end mobile phones, but needs something like Meego for higher end smartphones down the road.

Nokia dominates the smartphone market today with its Symbian OS, but Android is projected to catapult to the No. 2 spot behind Nokia by 2012, according to Gartner Inc. and IDC. 

While Apple’s total share of the smartphone market is well behind Symbian’s, the company’s growth year-over-year — and excitement over next month’s arrival of the iPad — that make it such a challenge for traditional companies like Microsoft, Intel and Nokia. 

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt’s RSS feed@matthamblen or subscribe to . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

Read more about mobile and wireless in Computerworld’s Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.

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By Tom Kaneshige
CIO.com
February 15, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Most iPhone owners really don’t care about security, according to a new survey by ESET, an anti-malware software vendor.

“We don’t see in-depth defense among smarphone users,” James Abrams, director of technical education at ESET, told CIO.com amidst a throng of iPhone owners milling around on the Macworld Expo showroom floor in San Francisco.

It’s likely these iPhone owners won’t take security seriously until the iPhone has a Toyota moment, when a simmering problem finally bubbles over and splatters them right in the public eye. “It wouldn’t surprise me if that moment is still a couple years off,” Abrams said.

ESET commissioned a survey of a more than 1,000 smartphone owners-35 percent iPhone, 32 percent Blackberry, and the rest a mix-and released its findings yesterday. The key finding: a majority of people don’t take security seriously.

Among iPhone and Blackberry users, 55 percent don’t lock their smartphone. Some 40 percent of all smartphone users said they’re concerned with malicious software infecting their device, while only one in four said they actually use antivirus software, including iPhone owners.

Can iPhone owners even run anti-virus software? “None of the iPhone users should have reported that they are using antivirus as Apple will not approve such software for the iPhone, even though Apple has had to pull spyware off of their App Store,” Abrams wrote in his blog. Such is the fallacy of surveys.

Nevertheless, Abrams worries that unsuspecting iPhone owners will have their day of reckoning perhaps in two years. Why so long? He figures hackers are lying in wait, ready to exploit the iPhone.

Hackers might be waiting for Apple to unlock the iPhone for different networks. Or they want iPhones to get into more people’s hands. Perhaps they’re waiting for a banking iPhone app that they can target. “Hackers don’t target for fun,” Abrams said, comparing them to the guy who created a worm for jailbroken iPhones as a joke.

Mobile online banking attracts hackers, Abrams said. The ESET survey found one in four users make purchases using their smartphones. Nearly one in three accesses banking websites or apps. “Combined with access to email and social networking accounts is what makes the devices attractive to hackers and other criminals,” Abrams wrote.

“It is the adoption of commerce that will create the irresistible opportunity for those with malicious intent,” he said.

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By Agam Shah
IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
February 15, 2010

NEW YORK - Hewlett-Packard’s first smartbook, the Compaq AirLife 100, announced on Friday, could be a rival to Apple’s iPad as the two companies aim to attract buyers looking for netbook alternatives, analysts said.

AirLife is a hybrid laptop that combines the hardware and software usually found in a smartphone with the design of a netbook. It is as portable as a netbook but offers longer battery life of up to 12 hours. Apple will soon start shipping the iPad tablet, a handheld device designed to let users browse the Internet, play games, read e-books and view video content.

Though some features differ, the iPad and AirLife share several characteristics, including simplified software interfaces, similarly sized touch-screen displays, and an emphasis on making it quick and easy to access online content. Both devices also have Arm processors, while most netbooks use Intel processors.

The AirLife includes a 10.1-inch touch screen and comes with Wi-Fi b/g or optional 3G wireless broadband connectivity. The device weighs around 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running at 1GHz. It includes 16GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM and 512MB of flash storage. It also includes an SD card slot for external storage.

By comparison, the iPad is powered by an Apple A4 chip (based on an Arm design) running at 1GHz. It comes with storage capacities of 16GB, 32GB or 64GB. It is about half-an-inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and has a 9.7-inch touch-screen display. The device comes with a software-based, on-screen keyboard. Wireless features include 802.11n Wi-Fi, optional 3G mobile broadband and Bluetooth.

Hewlett-Packard plans to initially distribute the AirLife through Telefonica, which is in Europe and Latin America, said Mike Hockey, an HP spokesman. Hockey said there were no plans to distribute the product in the U.S. and declined comment on distribution in other regions including Asia-Pacific and Japan. HP did not provide a specific date for when the AirLife will become available, saying only that it will be out in the spring.

The lack of distribution in the U.S. and Asia-Pacific could give the advantage to Apple, which will make its product available worldwide in roughly 50 days. Despite being the world’s largest PC maker, HP is being cautious with the AirLife, said Jay Chou, a research analyst at IDC. The limited availability through one carrier means it is testing the product before rolling it out worldwide.

“Western Europe is the biggest market for [telecom] operators to bundle netbooks through. It seems like a likely place to test out the waters with regards to smartbooks,” Chou said. Netbook shipments have grown in Europe as more telecom operators bundle low-cost laptops with wireless contracts, Chou said.

Apple also has an advantage with the familiar iPhone software interface in the iPad that users may find easier to adapt to, said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research.

Smartbooks have a folding design, like netbooks, and use the Linux operating system. Linux has seen slower adoption rates on netbooks compared to Windows, partly because fewer applications are available and because of hardware compatibility issues.

However, HP’s AirLife will use Google’s Linux-based Android OS, which has some cache and has found wider acceptance in the mobile-phone community. Android’s growing popularity could help lift the smartbook segment, Chou said.

Some multimedia capabilities and hardware features could also drive buying decisions, Gottheil said. Each device offers its own multimedia advantages — the iPad supports 720p high-definition video, but smartbooks support Flash content, which the iPad does not.

“We don’t know how much that will handicap the iPad in the market,” Gottheil said.

The lack of a keyboard could affect purchasing decisions for the iPad, but it may be an advantage if the device is used as a multimedia device, for example as a video device on airplanes, Gottheil said.

Price is also a determining factor. The iPad starts at US$499. It can be bought as a standalone product, though users are likely to want a data plan as well. HP did not provide pricing information for the AirLife, which is tied to mobile contracts that will also add to the purchase price.

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By Paul Krill
InfoWorld (US)
February 12, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - While Apple with its iPad tablet device may be hogging all the headlines lately, a Microsoft official stressed Thursday that the Redmond, Wash. software giant should not be counted out when it comes to offering its own software on different types of devices.

A video at the Microsoft Global High-Tech Summit 2010 meeting in Santa Clara, Calif. Tuesday showed how devices such as a tablet and a credit card-shaped unit could be served data via cloud computing. Interviewed afterward, speaker Drew Gude, Microsoft director of U.S. High Tech & Electronics, said the future will include these types of devices.

“There’s a ton of innovation going on right now in form factors,” amongst Microsoft and hardware partners, he said. A Windows XP and Vista tablet already has been offered and a Windows 7-based slate device from HP recently was shown at the CES conference in Las Vegas last month, Gude said.

“That video was intended be kind of glimpse of the future,” where Microsoft has taken ideas like Microsoft Surface multi-touch technology and applied it to new types of surfaces and products, he said. Devices shown in the video are under development at Microsoft and could be on the market in the next three to 10 years, according to a Microsoft representative.

Microsoft can serve as an alternative to Apple on the device front, Gude acknowledged.

“Apple has somewhat of a closed architecture in that iPad, and I think people want the power of choice,” said Gude.

Gude and Microsoft’s Dan’l Lewin, corporate vice president for strategic and emerging business development, cited on Thursday innovations fostered by Microsoft and partners. But the company recently has had to contend with an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times written by former Microsoft executive Dick Brass, who charged that Microsoft no longer brings users into the future and never developed a true system for innovation.

“When I read Dick’s comments, being a seven-year veteran of the company, I was kind of scratching my head,” Gude said. Large companies are using Microsoft innovation to improve their businesses, he said.

When asked about the Brass piece, Lewin deferred to a statement from Frank Shaw, Microsoft corporate vice president for corporate communications.

“To make his point, Dick generally focused on ClearType, noting that this technology was ’stifled’ by existing business groups. For the record, ClearType now ships with every copy of Windows we make and is installed on around a billion PCs around the world. This is a great example of innovation with impact: innovation at scale,” Shaw said.

Innovation as a word is overused, Lewin said during his presentation. “Invention is a central element of creating something that might have value. Innovation is more like the process of unfolding it with economic impact,” Lewin said.

Meanwhile, the research group at Microsoft has a mission to further the state of the art and insure Microsoft has a future, Lewin said.

Microsoft investment priorities were listed by Gude: Innovation, product differentiation, supply chain transparency, creating superior experiences, and building closer customer relationships. The investment strategy is focused on low-cost computing, business insight, security, consumerization of IT, and cloud computing.

“The consumerization of IT is a huge issue right now that’s fundamentally changing our industry,” Gude said. “The line is blurring between what is business computing and what is personal computing.”

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By Marco Tabini
Macworld.com
February 10, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - According to market analysis firm ComScore, Apple’s share of the U.S. smartphone market grew by a full percentage point in December of 2009.

The company’s report indicates that Motorola still controls a leading position in the overall mobile market, while Blackberry maker RIM actually commands the smartphone market with over 41 percent of the installed base.

RIM’s slice of the smartphone pie, however, has shrunk by one percent in the three months between September and December of 2009. Meanwhile, Apple’s market share has grown by the same amount, confirming Cupertino’s second spot on that list with over 25 percent of the market. Palm is the biggest loser among all handset makers, with a decrease of over 2 percent over the previous reporting period; its share seems to have all gone to Google, which gained almost three percent from last September.

You may recall that Macworldreported earlier this month on another analysis report, issued by ABI Research, which actually claimed that the iPhone had lost market share based on the number of units sold. ComScore’s numbers seem to confirm the suspicion that ABI’s report reflects shifts in sales due to an overall growth in the demand for smartphones, rather than a decrease of interest in Apple’s products.

The ComScore paper also indicates that the overall U.S. mobile market continues to grow. According to the report, 63 percent of all subscribers now use texting (up two percent) and 18 percent use downloaded apps–an increase of one percent. Unfortunately, the company did not provide a breakdown of usage by brand, which would have shed additional light on the usage patterns of smartphone subscribers compared to traditional handset owners.

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By Eric Lai
Computerworld (US)
February 3, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Like a rising tide lifting all boats, Apple Inc.’s high-profile iPad will help sales of all media tablets to grow nearly 15-fold over the next five years, ABI Research Inc. predicted on Tuesday.

ABI forecast that four million media tablets such as the iPad and Google Inc.’s coming Chrome OS-based tablet, will ship this year. That number is expected to grow to 57 million in 2015.

ABI defines media tablets as touch-screen PCs with screens of between five and 11 inches in size, Wi-Fi connectivity and video and gaming capabilities. That means a Kindle-type e-reader would not be included in ABI’s definition, which envisions tablets that serve as a full-fledged entertainment device, said analyst Jeff Orr.

“Apple’s iPad is not the first media tablet,” Orr said in a statement, pointing to other interesting models launched at CES such as Lenovo’s IdeaPad U1 hybrid tablet/laptop , HP’s coming Windows 7 slate and even the Android-based Archos 5. “But it does help define this new device category.”

Without a keyboard, media tablets aren’t great for creating content. As tweeners in both features and size, media tablets will remain a luxury item, not a must-have, compared to smartphones or even netbooks.

“A tablet will not replace a laptop, netbook or mobile phone, but will remain an additional premium or luxury product for wealthy industrialized markets for at least several years,” Orr said.

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By Ian Lamont
The Industry Standard
February 1, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - After hitting a grand slam with the iPhone, Apple can’t be too happy with some of the early reaction to the iPad. On message boards, Twitter, blogs, and Facebook, a recurring theme has been to compare the device to a “giant iPod touch.”

Considering none of the naysayers have ever handled an iPad, the comparison may seem harsh. But viewing the demo, it’s not hard to see how people came to this conclusion. After all, the thing looks like a giant iPod touch, from the black-and-chrome exterior to the recessed start button. And, while Apple has introduced some new UI elements, such as drop-down menus, other basic features are based on the iPhone/iPod touch model, including the accelerometer, app store, some of the icons used for playing media, and, of course, the touch screen.

There are other criticisms as well. During the event, a comment left on the Industry Standard by reader David Kuan read:

“1 hr into the event … and I am heading towards snoozeville. Here are my iPad not-so-good impressions thus far ….

1. Bezel is too large
2. 1/2 in is TOO THICK Even Kindle DX is thinner at 1/3 in
3. Full size QWERTY is nice but bad ergonomics when typing iPad on a flat surface
4. No SD slot for storage portability (A BIG MISS HERE!)
5. Phenomenal email? I must have dozed off during the “phenomenal” part
6. No camera? Sigh!
7. No FLASH support (MAJOR OUCH!)
8. IPS display means more power consumption and requiring backlight. Difficulty to read outdoors due to glare. OLED would be a much better choice but at this size it is yet to be economical for mass consumer target.”

However, other people are very excited about the prospect of owning an iPad. There have been a huge number of iPad-related tweets saying “I want one,” particularly after the pricing was announced — the base $499 Wifi model seems to be within many people’s budgets.

But the true gauge of the iPad will come when the devices ship in 60 days, and Apple releases sales figures later in the year. Wall Street thus far seems undecided, if Apple’s stock price is anything to go by. It dipped to a low of about $200 during the beginning of Wednesday’s demonstration, but the price had recovered to around $208 90 minutes later.

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By Matt Hamblen
Computerworld (US)
January 29, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - If Apple’s new iPad is going to make its way into large business settings, IT managers will first need to to do some careful evaluations, because even tech analysts are split on the idea.

Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research, blogged today that the iPad will most likely enter the enterprise through the consumer door — just as the iPhone did.

“Make no mistake, this is an attractive business tool,” Schadler wrote. “Laptops will be left at home.”

But Phillip Redman at Gartner Inc., and Steve Hilton at Analysys Mason, flatly rejected that view. In separate e-mail comments both said that the iPad doesn’t fit into the enterprise at all.

“Not enterprise material,” Hilton wrote, noting that it doesn’t include common office productivity tools, uses a custom chipset and and only lasts 10 hours on battery when Wi-Fi isn’t running.

Schadler’s case for the iPad in big business settings was fairly detailed. He noted, for instance, that 20% of companies already support iPhones. And the iPad is “just a big iPhone to them.”

Noting Apple ’s historic ability to time its products for the market, Schadler added that the people the iPad is aimed at is made up of information workers who self-provision what they need, rather than simply using what their employers provide. Schadler calls the trend “technology populism.”

Noting that mobile professionals make up 28% of the workforce, Schadler added that the iPad “offers some superior characteristics for the things that mobile professionals care about.” He stressed the use of messaging and collaboration; a full Web experience on a large 9.7-in. screen; access to business media such as the New York Times ; and full-size document tool support with iWorks on the iPad.

He even suggested that Microsoft start building iPad software into the Office format. “This thing will take off among high-net-worth mobile pros,” he said.

Au contraire, Redman said in an email. “I don’t see a fit at all [with enterprise users],” he said, arguing that the iPad really will be a niche product that fits into the netbook market generally.

“It befuddles us that Apple seeks to kill the netbook segment,” he said. “The netbook was committing hari kari just fine without the iPad.”

The good news for techies trying to decide whether the iPad will do well in the enterprise is this: They have some time to decide. The WiFi-only model doesn’t go on sale for 60 days, and the pricier WiFi-plus-3G model doesn’t hit the streets until the end of April, according to Apple.

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By Eric Lai
Computerworld (US)
January 28, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Despite the introduction of the iPad and the harsh words of Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, netbooks will continue to thrive , say analysts and commentators, who cite the tablet’s missing features and relatively high price.

During the launch today, Jobs called netbooks “cheap laptops” that tried but failed to create a third category between smartphones and notebook PCs.

“The problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything,” Jobs said.

Au contraire, said commentators, who called the iPad nothing more than an overgrown iPod Touch. Others suggested Apple should have launched an iNetbook instead.

ABI Research Inc. analyst Jeff Orr said the iPad is no sure thing.

“Several functions — front-facing and still/video cameras, external storage interfaces, support for Flash in the browser — are absent,” he wrote in a research note. “The iPad prices and gaps in functionality are likely to leave the door open for other media tablet vendors.”

ABI predicts 4 million tablets such as the iPad and the lesser-known Archos 5 to ship this year. That’s a fraction of the 35 million netbooks ABI said had shipped last year — a number ABI expects to grow this year.

“Most netbook purchases are based on a ‘value’ decision for portable and mobile usage, while media tablets will initially be a premium, luxury device focused on the home,” Orr said. “ABI Research expects little impact on netbook shipments in 2010 from the introduction of media tablets.”

Here’s a rundown comparing netbooks versus the iPad in several key areas, with the winner highlighted in each:

Design: iPad. One-half inch thin, 1.5 pounds. That is less than half the size and weight of most netbooks, which are weighed down by their keyboard. The iPad also boasts Apple ’s trademark style.

Camera: Netbooks. The lack of a video Webcam or a still photo camera — cameras being standard on even low-end smartphones today — has been criticized. “The lack of a camera on the iPad is a serious problem, we think,” wrote ReadWriteWeb. “Images and video are a big part of the interactivity on the Web that people have become used to, and we’re not sure how they’ll react to a device that, on the surface, seems like it should have these capabilities but is instead sorely lacking.”

Input: Toss-up. iPhone and iTouch owners will no doubt love the touch experience on the iPad. But independent analyst Jack Gold questions whether users will be able to “do any serious work” without a keyboard. The iPad does come with a dock to attach an optional keyboard, but that negates some of the form factor advantage over netbooks.

Screen: Netbooks. Size-wise, the iPad’s 9.7 -inch LCD display is on par with most netbooks today, but there are also many models with 11- or 12-inch screens. Also, score one point for netbooks, which are this year moving to brighter, lower-powered OLED screens. And dock the iPad for its wide bezel (outside frame), which caused some to criticize Apple for not swapping in a larger screen instead.

Software: Toss-up. Those in entertainment consumption mode may prefer the smooth, tight integration of the iPhone operating system, the iTunes media player and store with the iPad hardware. But for running your company’s applications or e-mail, Windows-based netbooks are better, Gold said.

Web surfing: Toss-up. Designed by an Apple acquisition, P.A. Semiconductor , the iPad’s 1 GHz CPU is reportedly fast. And the iPad will come with Wi-Fi or optional 3G from AT&T for connectivity almost anywhere. The 3G option costs an additional $130 but offers all-you-can-surf for $30 a month, or 250 MB of data per month for $15 — and without a long-term contract. That is cheaper than netbook or laptop plans for 3G, which average $60 a month. On the other hand, the iPad lacks support for Adobe Systems Inc.’s Flash player, which is near-ubiquitous on the Web and available for the Linux and Windows OS on most netbooks.

Storage: Netbooks. The iPad comes with 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash memory. That’s the same as SSD-based netbooks, but less than the hard drive-based netbooks. Netbooks also have USB and/or SD slots for more storage — both of which the iPad lacks.

Price: Netbooks. The iPad starts at $499 and increases to $829 for a fully-loaded, 3G-enabled version. Netbooks start at about $250 and top out to at $600 or $700 for premium models.

Eric Lai covers Windows and Linux, desktop applications, databases and business intelligence for Computerworld . Follow Eric on Twitter at @ericylai , send e-mail to elai@computerworld.com or subscribe to Eric’s RSS feed .

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 28, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple CEO Steve Jobs today unveiled the iPad, calling the tablet a “magical and revolutionary” addition to the company’s existing lines of Macs, iPods and the iPhone.

Priced starting at $499 but with the top-end configuration listed at $829, the iPad will be available within 60 days. The tablet sports a 9.7-in. LCD display, putting to rest rumors of a smaller-sized display that would supposedly use the more advanced, power-saving OLED technology .
“This is a true personal computer with the first radically different operating system since the original Mac in 1984,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “This is absolutely the right answer by Apple to netbooks. If you want the Apple experience, but don’t want to pay $1,000 for a MacBook, here it is.”
Jobs also announced what he called a “breakthrough deal” with AT&T to provide 3G connectivity for the iPad using two pre-paid plans: a $14.99 plan that allows up to 250GB of data monthly, and a $29.99 unlimited data plan. iPad users do not have to sign a contract with AT&T, Jobs added, and can cancel at any time without penalty.

iPad models with 3G capability will be priced $130 more than their WiFi-only cousins: The 16GB iPad without 3G costs $499, for example, while the 16GB model with 3G runs $629.

Ship dates will also vary depending on whether consumers want a WiFi-only or 3G-capable iPad. The former will go on sale in 60 days, said Jobs, or near the end of March, while the latter will follow 30 days after that, in late April.

After claiming that Apple is the world’s largest mobile devices company — by adding iPod, iPhone and Mac notebook revenues — Jobs rhetorically asked the question that many analysts have tried to answer.

“Is there room for a third category of device in the middle?” Jobs asked. “Something that’s between a laptop and smartphone?” If there was, Jobs continued, it needed to be more than either. “This device needs to be better than a laptop or a smartphone … or it has no reason for being.”

Gottheil said he thought Apple nailed it. “We’re getting what I was hoping, something that’s not a Mac, not a Windows PC, something that isn’t complicated to use. I don’t have to know about folders, I just want to use it.”

Key, said Gottheil, was Apple’s decision to use a variation of the iPhone OS for the iPad. “Some 40 million people have figured out how to use [that OS] without much handholding,” he noted. “I want this to be simple, and with the iPhone OS, it is. That’s the killer feature.”

During the 90-minute unveiling, Jobs and other Apple executives demonstrated the iPad’s capabilities to prove their point that the tablet is better than either a laptop or a phone, at least at a host of applications, ranging from Web browsing and games to movie watching and e-books .
“But this isn’t the Kindle killer than some were expecting,” said Gottheil. “It’s portable and a useful size, but I think it’s too heavy and too thick to be an e-book reader killer.”

In many ways, the iPad resembles an overgrown iPhone — the “iPod Touch on steroids” that some analysts, including Gottheil, had predicted last year — down to the touch-enabled display and the appearance of only one button, the Home button, on the device.

The iPad weighs approximately 1.5 pounds, is about half an inch thick, and is based on a 1GHz Apple-designed processor, which Jobs dubbed the Apple A4. “It’s powered by our own silicon,” said Jobs, “[and] it screams.” Although Jobs did not specifically say so, the chip was likely created by P.A. Semi , the Santa Clara, Calif. boutique microprocessor design company Apple acquired in 2008.
Multiple models of the iPad will be available, with prices dependent on the amount of flash memory. Apple will sell the tablet in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models for $499, $599 and $699, respectively with WiFi only, but for $629, $729 and $829 with both WiFi and 3G.

Jobs claimed that the iPad’s battery would last approximately 10 hours while playing video, and remain in standby mode for up to a month without recharging. “I can take a flight form San Francisco to Tokyo and watch video the whole way,” he said.

As many had predicted, including a metric firm that detected dozens of unidentified devices running at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. campus since last October, the iPad runs a variation of the iPhone OS. Apple will release a modified iPhone SDK (software developer kit) later today that has been enhanced to support iPad development, said Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iPhone software.
Most existing iPhone applications can run as is on the new iPad, Forstall added, in either an expanded mode or in a small, iPhone-sized frame.

The iPad’s e-book capabilities, which Jobs compared with Amazon’s Kindle, come courtesy of a built-in app named iBook. Tablet users can download electronic books — they’re in the ePub format — from an iTunes-like bookstore that’s populated with titles by major publishers including Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins and Penguin. To flip a page, readers simply tap anywhere on the right (to go forward a page) or on the left (to go back) side of the iPad screen.

ePub is an open standard maintained by the International Digital Publishing Forum .
Apple has also created an iPad-specific version of its iWork productivity suite, which includes a word processor, presentation maker and spreadsheet. Each of the three applications — Pages, Keynote and Numbers — will cost $9.99 to download from the iPad’s App Store, said Philip Schiller, Apple’s head of marketing. For text and data entry in iWork’s applications, the iPad uses what Jobs and Schiller called an “almost life-sized” on-screen keyboard.

Apple will also sell iPad accessories, including a Kindle-style cover, a docking/recharging station and a keyboard dock that offers a full-sized Apple-style keyboard.

“The price and the keyboard, that’s what puts the iPad over the top,” Gottheil argued. “For some, this can be a full-fledged MacBook substitute. There will be some chewing away of the iPod Touch below and the MacBook above, but the net is that this greatly expands Apple’s market.

“This has the potential of bringing in even more people into the Applesphere,” Gottheil concluded.

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By Tony Bradley
PC World (US)
January 25, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Google didn’t invent the Web search engine, but anyone who just joined the Web-surfing world in the past five years or so might think so. Google has established itself as a trusted and reliable source of information on the Web, and now wants to extend its search dominance and make sure that you “Google it” from your smartphone as well.

Google’s recent acquisitions, namely AdMob and Teracent, position Google to raise the bar for Web-based search advertising, and extend its search advertising empire to the exploding mobile search arena. Google gambled $750 million on the AdMob purchase, which is facing antitrust scrutiny, but will provide Google with a lucrative mobile advertising platform if approved.

Apple has upped the ante on its growing feud with Google by following suit with a mobile advertising acquisition of its own. Apple’s purchase of Quattro will pit it head-to-head against Google in the mobile search advertising market.

On the Web search front, Google captured almost 70 percent of the total search traffic for December 2009, accounting for about 88 million searches out of a total 131 million searches conducted, according to comScore. What is more impressive is that the 88 million searches represent a 58 percent increase from the previous year.

What that means is that, not only does Google have a dominant piece of the pie, but that the pie keeps growing. Google’s 58 percent growth did not eat into its competitor’s shares. Yahoo is up 13 percent, Baidu is up 7 percent, and Bing increased a whopping 70 percent over the previous year.

Google and Bing have both aggressively pursued agreements with social networking providers–primarily Facebook and Twitter–to incorporate real-time status updates within search results. Instead of conducting a search of the Web with Google, and another search of public Facebook status updates, and another search of Twitter tweets, users can perform one-stop-shopping searches the way they always have–just Google it.

Google’s foray into mobile advertising–assuming the AdMob purchase goes through, combined with expanded Web search advertising from the Teracent purchase, and the inclusion of social networking updates within the search results set Google up to not only retain, but extend its dominance of both search and search advertising.

There are a couple obstacles which could get in the way. First, Google’s threat to shut down its operations in China, or to stop censoring its China search results which would result in China shutting it down, could lead to Google surrendering millions of potential searches, and possibly billions in search advertising revenue.

While it wouldn’t have nearly the same impact, Google may also soon be replaced as the default search provider on the most popular smartphone in the world–the iPhone. Apple and Google have had a very public falling out as their “bromance” fell apart, and that has led to the possibility that Apple may partner with Microsoft and make Bing the default search on the iPhone.

Google also faces increasing competition from Bing in general. Microsoft has made innovative strides with Bing which have led to increasing market share. But, even with a 70 percent increase in search traffic from 2008, Bing is still in fourth place with less than four percent of the global search market. Regardless of how successful Bing is, it will be some time before it really poses a threat to Google.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 19, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Mac clone maker Psystar last week appealed a federal court’s injunction that bars it from selling Mac OS X-equipped computers.

Earlier, the company had destroyed all but one copy of its clone-making software to comply with that injunction.

In a filing last Friday to the U.S. Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Psystar appealed the December 2009 injunction, as well as a critical November 2009 decision that effectively gave Apple the victory in the long-running case ruling.

The injunction, which went into effect on Dec. 31, blocked Psystar from selling any system with Mac OS X preinstalled. Psystar voluntarily suspended sales of its Intel -based Mac clones in early December, when it agreed to pay Apple approximately $2.7 million if it lost appeals of a November decision by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup.

In the November decision, Alsup granted Apple’s motion for summary judgment, saying that the Florida company violated Apple’s copyright as well as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) when it installed Mac OS X on Intel-based computers.

Currently, Psystar is not selling computers or software. Four weeks ago, it halted sales of its one remaining product , a software utility dubbed Rebel EFI that lets customers install Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system on their own Intel-based computers. At the same time, Psystar promised it would soon resume PC sales, but said that they would run Linux instead of Mac OS X or Windows.

Psystar has gone beyond simply halting sales of the cloning software and has destroyed all but one copy of the program, according to an injunction compliance report submitted to Judge Alsup Dec. 31, 2009.

In that report, Psystar’s chief executive, Rudy Pedraza, said the one remaining copy of Rebel EFI has been handed over to Psystar’s lawyers for safekeeping. “Pursuant to an agreement between counsel for both parties…counsel of Psystar is retaining one copy of Rebel EFI (and prior versions of Rebel EFI) and all software used in connection with running OS X on non-Apple computers for use in subsequent litigation,” the report stated.

Psystar, which began selling Mac clones in April 2008, has battled Apple in federal court since July 2008, when Apple sued the Doral, Fla. firm , saying it violated copyright laws by pre-installing the Mac operating system on non-Apple hardware.

For its part, Psystar has denied it pirated Apple’s software, and said people who purchase Mac OS X should be able to do with it what they want. “If you purchase an off-the-shelf copy of OS X Snow Leopard, its [sic] your right to use that software,” said Psystar in a Dec. 22 statement. “A publisher cannot forbid you from reading a book in the bathroom or listening to a music disc while riding your bicycle. There should be no difference in the software realm, no matter how much money Apple or anyone else throws at it.”

The only item Psystar has for sale on its site is a $15 tee-shirt that reads, “I sued Psystar” on the front, and “…and all I got was a lousy injunction” on the back. The company is also asking for donations in $20, $50 and $100 amounts.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld . Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer , send e-mail to gkeizer@ix.netcom.com or subscribe to Gregg’s RSS feed.

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By Marc Ferranti
IDG News Service (New York Bureau)
January 8, 2010

NEW YORK - After one of the most tumultuous decades ever for stock exchanges, the new year is starting off on an optimistic note for the tech sector, where many vendors have gained back most of the share value they lost during the Great Recession.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq on Tuesday hit 2308, the highest point it has seen since September 2008, before Wall Street collapsed as banks went out of business or were rescued by the government. The bank bust sent stock markets around the world into a tailspin and drove down shares of IT vendors to levels not seen since the trough of the dot-com crash in 2003.

Since the beginning of last year, however, the Nasdaq Composite has increased by 40 percent in value. Nasdaq computer stocks have jumped 63 percent while the exchange’s telecom shares have increased 40 percent. In comparison, the broader New York Stock Exchange Composite index has increased 23 percent and the Dow Jones Industrials has gained 17 percent.

The comparative share values indicate a broad-based faith that technology is helping to lead the world’s economy out of the recession. Market research companies such as IDC have said that global IT spending this year will return to the 2008 level of about US$1.5 trillion. Optimism about IT was reinforced last month when bellwether vendors such as Oracle and Research in Motion reported quarterly sales revenue that exceeded year-earlier figures.

During the first trading week of the new decade, several new reports gave additional impetus to the high hopes for tech. On Monday the Semiconductor Industry Association issued a report estimating that global semiconductor sales in November hit $22.6 billion, rising 3.7 percent from October. It was the ninth-straight month of sequential gains, and the first month in 2009 that exceeded the year-earlier figure for chip sales, according to the SIA.

The hardware sector did not do as badly as some had feared in 2009, mainly as a result of consumer interest in netbooks and high-end mobile devices. Over the next three years, smartphone users will exceed a billion, according to a report by Futuresource Consulting.

“Last year, mobile phone ownership exceeded four billion users - which equates to nearly 60 percent of the world’s population,” wrote David Luu, senior analyst at Futuresource. “And in the face of a handset market which is slowing on the whole, smartphone sales are rising fast, with our year-end forecasts for 2009 showing smartphone sales representing 17 percent of total handset shipments. By 2013, more than one billion people will own a smartphone.”

At the CES show in Las Vegas this week, a wide range of vendors have been showing off next-generation mobile devices and chips. Among other announcements, Motorola announced the Backflip, Palm updated the Pre, Microsoft and Dell showed off slate computers, Lenovo launched laptops that double as tablets, and Intel announced next-generation chips for both laptops and desktops.

Meanwhile, comScore reported this week that, for the full U.S. holiday online shopping season, $29.1 billion was spent online, a 4 percent increase compared to the same period last year

A spate of mergers and acquisitions is also helping give the sense that the IT sector remains dynamic, as vendors look to quickly ramp up on cutting-edge technology. Among the acquisitions announced this week:

–Oracle said Monday that it bought Silver Creek Systems, which offers software that helps companies simplify and standardize product descriptions.

–EMC said Monday that it would buy Archer Technologies, which develops governance, risk and compliance software.

–BMC said Thursday that it acquired Phurnace Software, a maker of products designed to help deploy Java applications.

–Apple confirmed Tuesday that it acquired Quattro Wireless, which makes an ad-serving, tracking and analytics platform that observers said could help the iPhone maker generate more revenue from online sales.

Terms for these deals were not disclosed, though the Wall Street Journal reported the Apple acquisition was worth $275 million.

On Thursday, Google and video-compression technology maker On2 Technologies said that the search giant is sweetening its bid for the company, adding $0.15 per share to its August offer. Google offered 0.0010 of a share of Google Class A Common Stock for each share of On2 common stock in August. At the time the offer was made, it was worth about $106 million. On2 shareholders apparently declined the deal, but the new offer amounts to an extra $26 million in cash, in consideration for the rise in Google shares since August. Google shares hit a 52-week high Tuesday, closing at $623.99.

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By Stephen Lawson
IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
January 7, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO - Two partnerships backing different forms of mobile TV are using this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show to announce devices that can bring TV to iPhones through the back door.

There’s no built-in hardware for watching live TV broadcasts on the iPhone, but both Qualcomm’s FLO TV subsidiary and a group of mobile TV broadcasters are working with hardware manufacturers to create accessories they say can deliver a full mobile TV experience on the popular handset.

On Monday, South Korean vendor Valups announced the Tivit, a device developed with support from the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), which can pick up Mobile DTV broadcasts over the air and pass them on to various devices via Wi-Fi. On Wednesday, FLO TV followed with an announcement in conjunction with Mophie, a maker of accessory sleeves for the iPhone. They are readying a series of products that add a FLO TV receiver and antenna to Mophie’s Juice Pack line of sleeves for iPhones and iPod Touch units, which include extended batteries.

Both products are set to go on sale in the first half of this year. The Tivit should cost between US$90 and $120, and will work with 3G iPhone models, newer iPod Touch models, BlackBerries, Motorola Android phones, and other Wi-Fi devices, according to Valups.

FLO TV and Mophie did not disclose pricing. Mophie’s Web site includes some information on the Juice Pack TV for the iPhone 3GS.

TV content has been offered on phones in the U.S. for several years, but much of it has been delivered over cellular networks instead of true broadcasting. Picking up broadcast TV requires special hardware, and mobile TV competes against many other mobile applications and forms of entertainment, such as games and online videos. Analysts question whether it will become the blockbuster hit some are hoping for.

FLO TV provides a mobile TV service, offered by both Verizon Wireless and AT&T, that can deliver as many as 20 channels of live and pre-recorded TV programming. The company, founded by Qualcomm in 2004, owns its own licenses for former analog TV channels and operates transmitters in many large and medium-sized metropolitan areas around the U.S. Its programming is focused on national networks such as ESPN Mobile TV, Fox Mobile and NBC 2go, and the service costs about $9 to $15 per month. The content is available on the FLO TV Personal Television, which is a dedicated handheld TV, as well as on selected phones from mobile operators.

Mobile DTV is a specification approved last October by the broadcasting standards body Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The standard is designed for local broadcasts on a portion of the spectrum allocated for regular digital TV. It’s intended for both free simulcasts of a station’s regular programming and, eventually, subscription-based content. The OMVC is made up of 29 U.S. broadcasters that use or plan to use Mobile DTV.

FLO and Mophie didn’t provide many details about their planned products. Users will be able to switch their iPhones or iPods between charging, standby and live TV settings, and the Juice Pack’s battery will provide an extra four hours of viewing time, according to Mophie. The kit will include a stand for table-top TV viewing.

While FLO TV’s rollout is being driven by a revenue-generating service provider backed by a major wireless technology company, ATSC’s Mobile DTV is being deployed one broadcaster or station at a time. There are only 30 stations around the country set up for mobile DTV now, though the group expects hundreds by year’s end. It costs less than $150,000 and takes less than two hours for a single station to set up the technology, according to David Arland, a spokesman for the OMVC and Valups. The OMVC says its members represent about 800 stations nationwide.

Before full commercial broadcasting on Mobile DTV begins, there will be a trial run in the Washington, D.C., area in the first quarter of this year, the OMVC announced this week. Eight local stations there will show as many as 20 channels of free and premium programming to a variety of mobile devices that consumers will try out. Those devices include the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook, the Samsung Moment phone, the Tivit and an LG Electronics portable DVD player with built-in TV.

Though video on phones seems to have a bright future, mobile broadcast TV faces a variety of hurdles, according to industry analysts.

“I’m bullish on mobile video,” said Phil Marshall of Yankee Group. Because the phone is a personal device, it’s a good platform for viewing Web video and video on demand, he said. Once consumers start using high-definition wireless video streaming, they will store shows on the phone for replay on TVs and PCs, Marshall believes.

But mobile broadcast TV falls short in terms of the variety of content it offers and how much consumers can personalize the experience, he said.

“You’re merely replicating a TV experience on a mobile device,” Marshall said.

Mobile TV providers also will need to generate more consumer awareness and enthusiasm for the technology in order to drive further adoption by broadcasters and device makers, according to analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis. The accessory approach these partnerships are announcing at CES also faces a challenge, because TV capability built in to a mobile phone is more appealing to most U.S. consumers, Greengart said.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Google’s Chrome overtook Apple’s Safari to become the world’s third-most popular browser just 16 months after its debut, a Web metrics company said Friday.

Internet Explorer (IE), meanwhile, lost almost a full percentage point in December, the latest slip in a decline that accelerated during the second half of 2009.

Chrome ended December with a share of 4.63%, according to California-based measurement firm Net Applications. Apple ’s Safari, which dropped into fourth place for the first time, posted a share of 4.46%. The swap in positions came a month earlier than Computerworld ’s December prediction, which had been based on a three-month gain-loss trend of the two browsers.

Chrome’s December increase of 0.7 of a percentage point, the largest since Google launched the browser in September 2008, may have been partly fueled by the release three weeks ago of beta editions for Mac and Linux .

Although it fell to the No. 4 spot, Safari didn’t stand still last month: It picked up 0.1 of a percentage point. Opera Software’s flagship browser also gained ground in December, and accounted for 2.4% of all browsers used in the month, a record for the Norwegian-made program. However, Mozilla’s Firefox lost 0.1 of a percentage point, finishing with 24.6%, delaying for at least another month the No. 2 browser’s move past the 25% milestone.

As has been the trend for years, Microsoft ’s IE again made the biggest move of any browser: It dropped 0.92 of a percentage point to 62.7%, a new low for the application that once held a share well north of 90%.

Even more troubling for Microsoft is IE’s quickening decline. IE lost an average of 0.94 of a percentage point in each of the last six months of the year, nearly triple the 0.36 of a point average during the first six months. Notably, the slump came in the face of the availability of IE8, which went final last March, showing that — at least so far — Microsoft has been unable to stanch IE’s losses.

Microsoft continues to make headway in its campaign to convince users to abandon the eight-year-old IE6 for IE8, however. When Net Applications accounts for IE8’s “compatibility view” — a feature that lets users display sites as rendered by the older, and often Web standard-incompatible IE6 and IE7 — Microsoft’s newest browser owned a 23.7% share, compared to IE6’s 21% and IE7’s 15.5% shares.

December marked the first time that IE8 was the most-used Microsoft browser. When the compatibility view data is included, IE8 accounts for 37.8% of Microsoft’s total browser usage share. IE6, previously Microsoft’s No. 1 edition, fell to the second spot with 33.5% of IE’s total.

IE7’s number fell farther than IE6’s last month — the former dropped 1.3 percentage points, the latter, 1.1 points — additional proof that IE8 has stolen much of its share from the more modern IE7. Since IE8’s March launch, IE6’s share has declined 10.4 points, but IE7 has lost almost twice that, falling 19.6 percentage points in the same period.

The relentless decline of IE has been a boon to rivals, of course, which have collected new users at Microsoft’s expense. The shares posted by Safari, Chrome and Opera were all records, for example.

Projecting IE’s slide using Net Applications’ data, Computerworld now estimates that the browser will fall under the 50% share mark as early as mid-May if the dramatic negative trend of the last three months holds true.

Like Microsoft, Mozilla did a good job last month converting users to its newest browser, Firefox 3.5. Fewer than 7% of all browser users ran Firefox 3.0 in December, for example, a decline of 1.2 point2, the largest dip since September 2009. The jump in Firefox 3.5 usage may be in reaction to the impending retirement of version 3.0 later this month, when Mozilla will stop serving up security updates for the older application.

Net Applications measures browser usage share by tracking the systems used to visit the 40,000 sites it monitors for clients, which results in a pool of about 160 million unique visitors per month.

December’s browser data is available on Net Applications’ site.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
January 4, 2010

FRAMINGHAM - Apple will report selling another record number of Macs in the final quarter of 2009 when it unveils its financial figures later this month, a Wall Street analyst said Thursday in a note to clients.

Brian Marshall, of BroadPoint AmTech, estimated total Mac sales at 3.3 million units for 2009’s fourth quarter. If Marshall’s calculations are accurate, it would mean Apple broke the record sales of 3.05 million Macs set in the year’s third calendar quarter by 249,000 machines, an increase of 8.5%.

Year-over-year, Marshall’s estimate of 3.3 million Macs would be a 31% increase from the 2.3 million systems Apple sold in the fourth quarter of 2008. That kind of gain would be a return to Apple sales trends during 2008, when the company racked up impressive year-over-year increases ranging from 21% in the third calendar quarter to a whopping 51% in the first quarter.

Assuming Apple beats the industry average growth again in the fourth quarter of 2009 — as seems certain, even if Marshall’s estimate is on the high side — Apple’s sales will have outpaced the average in 20 out of the last 21 quarters. The one exception: The first quarter of 2009, when Apple failed for the first time since 2003 to boost Mac sales year-over-year.

According to Gartner Research, global computer sales will grow by just 2.3% during 2009.

Marshall also joined other analysts in predicting a resurgence of Apple’s desktop sales by pegging the company’s sales for the fourth quarter at 865,000 units, a year-over-year increase of 19% and a quarter-over-quarter gain of 10%.

Earlier in December, retail research firm said that sales of Apple’s desktops — the iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro lines — were up 74% during October and November in the U.S. At the time, analyst Stephen Baker of NPD credited the revamped iMac for the sales surge.

Apple unveiled the new 21.5- and 27-in. iMacs — the latter available with quad-core Intel processors for the first time — on Oct. 20. Since then, however, questions have cropped up about the 27-in. iMacs’ graphics cards and displays, with large numbers of customers reporting flickering screens , a problem multiple authorized resellers said resulted in Apple’s decision to delay shipping the largest, most expensive models.

Apple will issue its official sales numbers for the fourth quarter in the second half of January during an earnings call with financial analysts.

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By Nick Spence
Macworld U.K.
December 25, 2009

LONDON - According to the Financial Times newspaper, Apple’s long-rumoured tablet could be available sooner than later following an announcement next month.
The FT, in a report linking Apple with TV content providers Disney and CBS, claims Steve Jobs and co will make an announcement in January.

“Apple is preparing an announcement next month that many anticipate will be the official unveiling of its tablet, but the company has so far declined to confirm the existence of the device. Wall Street analysts expect mass production of an Apple tablet to begin as early as February,” the FT reports claims.

Apple has no plans to appear at next year’s Macworld Conference and Expo or 2010 International CES trade show, so any announcement would be a one-off event. Based on previous form, Apple prefers to announce products that are available to buy or order online. Although due to FCC licensing restrictions Apple revealed the iPhone six months before launch.

Rumours have persisted that the Mac maker has been working on a large iPod touch device with extended computing functionality for some time now.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
December 14, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Apple has delayed shipping new 27-in. iMacs until it can figure out the cause of flickering screens and other display problems, according to reports from authorized resellers.

The move came just days after a Web designer created a site that tallied issues with the 27-in. iMacs , including screens broken in shipment, on-again-off-again flickering displays and screens that showed a jaundice-yellow tint.

Two Apple resellers — independent dealers approved by Apple to sell Macs — contacted the Apple iMac (Fall 2009) Issues site to report that all shipments of iMacs had been pushed back at least two weeks as Apple replaces the machines’ graphics cards.

Canadian Web designer Scott Pronych built the tracking site after he received a 27-in. iMac with a shattered screen, saying he wanted to document the display problems. By digging through Apple’s support forum and taking reports directly from others via a form on his site, Pronych has identified more than 600 users who have had issues with their new machines.

A thread on Apple’s support forum dedicated to the flickering screen problem boasts nearly 1,200 separate messages and has a view count of over 173,000, making it easily the most-read of those on the iMac forum.

The resellers who contacted Pronych are in Europe. “I think they are feeling a bit frustrated as a lot of customers are blaming them for slow delivery, and likely they see my Web site as proof that there are some real problems with the graphics system of the new iMacs,” Pronych said in an e-mail Friday.

On Saturday Pronych reached out to the resellers on Computerworld ’s behalf, but both declined to comment on the record. “I don’t want to hurt my ties with the Mac community,” one of the resellers said in an e-mail to Pronych that he forwarded in part to Computerworld . “As you may or may not know, Apple is strong-arming resellers since opening their own Apple Stores,” the reseller continued.

Earlier this week, Apple changed the shipping status on its online store for both 27-in. iMac models from “Ships: 5-7 days” or “Ships 7-10 days” to “Ships: 2 weeks.” Although high volume sales could account for the change, Pronych said he had been told by some users that Apple had pushed back the projected ship dates for their already-ordered iMacs.

Some U.S. resellers were out of stock. A Mac Connection sales representative, for instance, said that the e-tailer’s next shipment of 27-in. iMacs was expected Dec. 18. “I don’t have any information regarding a reason for the delay,” the representative said in a live chat Saturday. Amazon.com reported that a new 27-in. iMac would ship “within 1 to 2 months.” ClubMac.com , meanwhile, said it wouldn’t have 27-in. models until the end of the month. A sales representative from the California-based e-tailer said only that “Apple is not able to get us our shipments.”

Both the dual-core and quad-core iMacs are affected by the flickering screen issue, according to reports filed with Pronych’s site. Those models use AMD’s ATI Radeon HD 4670 and Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards, respectively.

The 27-in iMacs were introduced in late October , when Apple refreshed its desktop lines. According to Pronych’s data, fewer than 10% of the total reports are from users of the less-expensive 21.-5-in. iMacs. The entry-level $1,199 machine uses the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset rather than an ATI graphics card.

If the problem is, in fact, traced back to the ATI graphics cards, it won’t be the first time that AMD’s hardware has been blamed for iMac troubles. More than two years ago, Apple began investigating screen lockup problems with the then-new iMac line that sported ATI graphics cards. Several weeks later, Apple issued a firmware update that seemed to solve the problem for most users.

This year’s new iMacs have also been plagued with performance issues. Within days of their Oct. 20 introduction, users complained about extremely sluggish playback of Flash video. A Nov. 9 update to Mac OS X 10.6.2 targeted the problem, which was resolved for some, but not all, users.

Apple has not responded to multiple e-mails asking for comment on the 27-in. iMac screen issues, including one Friday requesting information about the two-week shipping delay. Apple typically refuses to comment on hardware issues, preferring instead to quietly publish a support document to its site.

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By Tony Bradley
PC World (US)
December 7, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Google has released a new version of the Android SDK. Version 2.0.1 is a minor update to the Android platform, not a significant release, and it doesn’t address the most serious issues faced by Android developers.

The Android Developers blog site describes the update “Android 2.0.1 is a minor update to Android 2.0. This update includes several bug fixes and behavior changes, such as application resource selection based on API level and changes to the value of some Bluetooth-related constants.”

The changes introduced to the platform itself, especially a fix for the camera functionality in the Verizon Droid, are welcomed. Google has also added some tools to help developers, but Android faces challenges stemming both from its relative youth in the app store arena and the diverse software and hardware combinations that developers have to consider.

When Google introduced the Android ‘Donut’ SDK (version 1.6) it was heralded as a game changer because of the changes that Google implemented with the Android Market. Improved app browsing and the ability to include screenshots to help promote applications were cheered by developers.

A recent survey, however, suggests that Android developers are disgruntled and that Google still has a way to go with Android Market. Google needs developers to pump out compelling apps that extend the features and functionality of the Android platform, but many developers right now are dissatisfied with the volume of downloads and overall revenue generated by Android Market.

Google needs to address those issues and continue to grow a robust and satisfied developer community if it has any chance of meeting analyst predictions that the number of apps in Android Market will quintuple in 2010. App store bragging rights aside, Google needs developers to create a diverse array of applications to provide users with the tools they want and drive sales of Android-based devices.
One thing that Apple has done, which Google and other app store challengers need to do as well, is to make app development so easy that anyone with a little programming knowledge can crank out an app. The reason there is an ‘app for that’ for anything you can think of is that virtually every company has developed a custom app of some sort to connect with customers and get some marketing mileage at the same time on the iPhone platform.

Another advantage that Apple has with the iPhone, though, is platform consistency. While there are a few different models of iPhone and iPod Touch available, the hardware itself and the version of the iPhone operating system in use are consistent across the board.

Many people take issue with how controlling Apple is of all aspects of its devices. Apple closely maintains the hardware, and the software, and third-party developers have to jump through hoops to get apps approved for the iPhone. The bottom line, though, is that Apple’s proprietary, closed platform is part of Apple’s recipe for success.

Developers for Android are faced with a different versions of the Android SDK in circulation, and an array of devices with different features and functions. The fragmentation of the Android platform complicates the development process and poses unique challenges for Android developers that iPhone developers don’t have to contend with.

As Google continues to adapt the Android platform and SDK’s, it is going to have to address the issues developers have with the Android Market. More importantly, Google must provide Android developers with the tools they need to simplify app development and ensure that apps will work across the various Android software versions and diverse hardware.

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By Jared Newman
PC World (US)
December 07, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - Malicious iPhone apps that Apple unwittingly approves could attack even non-jailbroken iPhones, according to a developer, but security experts say this isn’t earth-shattering news.
“If you understand the way the security of the iPhone works, I don’t think this is a surprise,” said Charlie Miller, an analyst at Independent Security Evaluators who in July demonstrated an SMS vulnerability that could let hackers take over the phone.

Nicholas Seriot, a Swiss iPhone developer, described a proof-of-concept app (PDF) called SpyPhone, capable of digging up and altering contacts, finding past Web searches, storing GPS and Wi-Fi locations and copying everything you’ve ever typed on the phone except for passwords. (No, you can’t download it from the App Store.)
The data Seriot describes isn’t a direct threat to your passwords or e-mails, but it could be of interest to marketers, spammers, thieves, competitors and law enforcement officials, he says.

Obviously, Apple would never intentionally allow such an application into its App Store–Apple has said it rejects 10 percent of submissions for being “inappropriate,” in some cases because they try to steal personal data–except Seriot says it’s possible to trick App Store reviewers. This could be accomplished by delaying spyware activation, encrypting payloads or changing things around at runtime, Seriot claims.

Dino Dai Zovi, a security researcher and author of “The Mac Hacker’s Handbook,” said in an interview that the concerns Seriot raised are valid. Apple’s reviewers can easily root out applications that, say, read an address book and send the contents to spammers. But it’s harder to detect an application whose methods are less direct, for example by executing a script from a Web server after download. Also, App Store reviewers are only human, and they’re under pressure to approve more apps than any other platform.

Both Dai Zovi and Miller noted that Seriot’s report brings up an Apple philosophy that differs from open platforms like Android.

Apple has a one-size-fits-all approach to data access, so if I download a game, it can still technically access my contacts and keypad entry. On Android, users are told what data is accessed when they install an application, but the review process isn’t as strict. Seriot’s research essentially lists all the things a malicious app could use under Apple’s approach, and notes that only Apple’s censors are standing in the way.

“Largely, it’s up to users to decide what experience they want,” Dai Zovi said. “Do they want the greater freedom with the greater risk of this type of spyware, or do they want the assurances–albeit imperfect assurances–provided by Apple looking over these applications?”

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by John Mark V. Tuazon

In a country where music piracy and digital music downloading runs rampant as the everyday merchandise, setting up an online business offering digital songs for a marginal price may seem like an exercise in futility.

But for Bambi Fonacier, CEO of PinoyTunes.net—an e-store offering OPM music for download—it’s just about time someone starts offering legitimate music downloading the likes of iTunes targeted especially at Filipinos here and around the world.

According to the PARI (Philippine Association of the Recording Industry), the once-P2 billion thriving local music industry has fell captive to treacherous music pirates, posting an average loss of 42.5% in 2001 and subsequently stagnating the industry’s growth the following years.

Fonacier, ever the passionate music lover who was at the forefront of establishing Odyssey, one of the first record bars in the country, remained unfazed by this startling regression in music sales, despite hitting his previous business badly. “Limited CDs are being produced these days, because nobody buys CDs anymore,” he says. “Anyone can just go up the back alleys and buy pirated versions of CDs.”
What others saw as God closing windows on the industry, Fonacier foresaw as a promising opportunity. With an army of music catalogs and years of experience under his belt, he banked on the stellar worldwide popularity of iTunes, a music downloading module developed by Apple, in furthering his business idea.

“The way people consume music is shifting, if it hasn’t already. Music downloading is the trend nowadays,” he excitedly shares. “iTunes is now the number one music retailer in the world, with as much as five million downloads every day.”

Fonacier further adds that according to the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), an international organization of recording companies, seven out of 10 music downloads are legal, which underscores the world’s evolving music download behavior.

Banking on these realities, Fonacier set out to found PinoyTunes.net in 2007, with a nominal seven-figure capital and only 10 people manning the workstations. “It was very difficult to start,” he says, “because we had a lot of back catalogs to update and upload.”
Fonacier noted that setting up the user interface didn’t take a while, but it involved a lot of hits and misses. “Because the website is interactive, we had to configure and test every segment of the site to see if they are working properly,” he explains.

What set them several months to a year back, according to Fonacier, was the laborious process of ripping, editing and uploading their entire 14,000-strong library of songs to their foreign-based server. “We had songs dating several decades back, and we had to painstakingly rip and upload each one of them, including their album covers,” he remarks.

Fonacier’s team initially tried working around the problem by burning the songs on DVDs and sending them to their servers. “But we had problems with the Bureau of Customs, who thought the DVDs were pirated music ready to be shipped abroad,” he says.

Dismayed by the cunning trap that is the bureaucratic red tape, Fonacier decided to enlist the help of colleagues in uploading the music collections. “We only finished uploading all our back catalogs last December, around a year after we started,” he painfully narrates, adding that they are constantly updating their library of offerings as new collections arrive.

Cooperating with suppliers

Acquiring the songs, by itself, proved to be an equally daunting task for Fonacier. Record companies were reluctant to lend him the songs in fear of their products getting pirated or spread around the Internet for free. But with Fonacier at the helm, PinoyTunes had the solid credibility and long history to win the hesitant nods of record companies.

“It took some time for me to convince them,” he recollects. “Because of the very difficult business environment and the proliferation of piracy, they were very hesitant. But because of my previous dealings with Odyssey, there was a matter of trust in the work that I have done with them.”

Fonacier said they had no way of tracking or protecting the files from being spread around, but are instead counting on users to keep the files to themselves. “The problem with Filipinos is that we want everything for free,” he laments. “We don’t have the culture of discipline and accountability that comes naturally in Western countries.”

Carving a niche

Due largely to the chosen medium, PinoyTunes.net’s main market is largely focused on overseas Filipino workers based abroad. “OFWs form majority of our customer base, because they are the ones who don’t have the access and opportunity to buy OPM songs,” he explains, adding that it has since become their company’s mission to service the music needs of Filipinos abroad. “They help our economy, so might as well help them with their simple needs.”

PinoyTunes.net, Fonacier said, taps on the nostalgic sentiments of OFWs abroad—especially those in the US, Canada, Australia and Middle East, their top markets—who are looking to get a taste of Filipino music even if they are in a foreign land. For the same reason, he relates, old Filipino music forms a huge chunk of the music downloaded in their e-store.

“We have an extensive collection of old Filipino music, even those that aren’t available in stores anymore,” he proudly claims. “We even had a customer who bought $45 worth of songs, burned them in a CD and sent it to his mother here in the Philippines.”

Fonacier estimates that at least 60% of the songs downloaded in their site are old OPM songs. “Most of our revenue come from these downloads, especially because of the ‘tingi-tingi’ culture of Filipinos who don’t want to buy whole albums of songs. The beauty of downloading online is that you have the power of choice and mobility at your fingertips.”

Technology pays off

Yet another benefit of running an online business, Fonacier stresses, is the ease of running transactions with customers. PinoyTunes.net uses Paypal, an international payment gateway, to process payments from customer here and abroad.

“I chose Paypal because a lot of people told me that it’s the most widely used gateway around the world,” he says. But when PinoyTunes.net was still starting out, Fonacier says a local bank offered him to use their payment gateway, albeit at a steep price. “I didn’t sign on with them because why would I pay to rent a payment system when I can have one at a much cheaper price?” he explains.
Aside from being widespread and inexpensive, he says they chose Paypal for its user-friendliness, efficiency and robust security. “All you need is a credit card for your transactions. And what’s good with Paypal is that it’s already tried and tested for security because it is owned by eBay,” he says.

Dealing with technology provided Fonacier’s online company a lot of room for innovation. Just recently, they have deployed prepaid card offerings in partnership with a major US supermarket chain that will provide would-be customers the ability to buy songs without the need for a credit card.

Because of the ease provided by technology, Fonacier has nothing but praises for this innovation. “Maintaining an online business is cheaper, compared to establishing a traditional firm,” he explains. “There are no physical goods lost—just digital signals—so you don’t need suppliers. Because of that, there is less paperwork, especially because most of the processes are done automatically.”

Future Perfect

After two painstaking years of careful investment, laborious work and mutual dealings, PinoyTunes.net is slowly getting off the ground. “We are a modest business, but it’s slowly picking up,” he narrates, adding that their website gets a “sizable” amount of traffic these days, especially from users abroad.

Fonacier, however, has not yet received a return on his investments. But this doesn’t stop him from pursuing his passion. “There’s no way e-commerce is going away in the next few years,” he boldly predicts. “With a worldwide audience, you have larger competitors but you also gain a larger market.”

For this reason, Fonacier advises like-minded individuals to find a unique venture to pursue. “You have to do something to differentiate yourself from your competitors,” he explains. “So you have to take a closer look at your competitors as well.”

Running an online business requires dipping one’s toes in both fields calling the owner’s constant attention, Fonacier adds. “You can’t be too focused on the business or technology side of things at once, it should be balanced. Enable collaboration, and source other skills whenever necessary,” he advises.

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By Tim Mercer
Macworld.com
November 30, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - When counting down the ways Apple set the bar for smartphones, it’s safe to say that the phone’s built-in camera–even with the improvements introduced with the iPhone 3GS–won’t find its way onto the list. With low resolution–the 3GS offers 3 megapixels, the other models just 2 megapixels–and no flash or zoom, the iPhone’s camera leaves a lot to be desired.
Camera Genius can’t really do anything about the iPhone’s camera hardware. But the app from CodeGoo can help you take better pictures with a number of features that try to compensate for the iPhone’s photographic limitations.
The app’s Zoom feature lets you zoom in close to your subject by moving a slider across the screen. Since the iPhone’s camera doesn’t have an optical lens, you do your zooming digitally. There’s a drawback to this approach: the further you zoom in, the more pixelated the image becomes. If you zoom in just a little bit, the picture comes out looking pretty good; zooming all the way just trashes the image.

Sound Capture enables you to take a hands free picture by saying “cheese” or otherwise making a noise. Once this option is enabled, the iPhone’s microphone will listen for a loud enough sound to activate the shutter and take a pic. This could really be handy for group shots.

Anti-Shake goes a long way in preventing those blurry pictures that can be so frustrating. The Anti-Shake option uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to monitor its movement and as soon as your hand is steady, it snaps a shot. This is probably my favorite feature of Camera Genius, as it solves a long-time problem I’ve had with blurry pictures from the handheld.

Timer lets you automatically take a picture after a set time. It’s really unbelievable that Apple never included such a feature from the start. Camera Genius lets you choose from 2, 5, 10, 15, and 30 second delays. (A newly added repeat timer lets you capture multiple photos at 10-, 15-, and 30-second intervals.) There is a beep for each second as it counts down so you can gauge when the picture will snap.

Big Button turns the entire screen into a shutter button, allowing you to tap anywhere to take a picture. This makes snapping pictures of yourself much easier when the screen is facing away from you.

Guides makes framing your subject easier by putting lines over the on-screen picture. There are a few different grids you can choose from to help center your picture, make sure the horizon is level or take advantage of the rule of thirds.

Recent updates added other capabilities, such as a burst shooting mode that lets you take shots in rapid succession, confirmed saving, and the ability to edit the location stamp and add your own captions. You can also share photos via e-mail or through the clipboard.

All of these options are neatly tucked away behind a menu button at the bottom of the screen. Once you’ve taken your pictures, Camera Genius lets you preview them without having to leave the app. Camera Genius is quite useful in helping you to take better pictures with your iPhone and each of its features worked as advertised. The only complaint I had was the lengthy amount of time it took to save a picture after taking it. Still, this $2 app goes a long way in making up for the inadequacies of the iPhone’s camera.

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By Glenn Fleishman
Macworld.com
November 26, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO - It’s that time of year when travelers brace themselves to suffer the many small indignities of the road. Why can’t it be easier to print on networks that you don’t have regular access to or transfer files among mobile devices like iPhones? Why is it such a pain to create secure, robust networks with colleagues or friends on the fly using 3G mobile broadband as the Internet connection?

A new wireless networking system, Wi-Fi Direct, will soon help Mac users do all that and more. It lets any wireless device maintain a connection to a network base station while also communicating directly with other devices that aren’t on the same network. And it’s (probably) coming soon. 

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced Wi-Fi Direct in October. The technology will start showing up in hardware and software by mid-2010. Operating system makers like Microsoft and Apple–though they sit on the board of directors of the trade group responsible–haven’t yet signaled their support or a firm timetable for including the technology in new equipment. It’s possible that adapters in a lot of 2008 and 2009 computers and mobile devices will be upgradable, but we don’t know for sure yet. Here’s what we do know:

It’ll be a big improvement over what we have now
In the current scheme of things, Wi-Fi networks come in two flavors: infrastructure, which relies on one or more base stations connected to the Internet, and ad hoc, where two or more computers join together over short ranges. (You can turn a computer into a software base station, too, but the OS X 10.2 to 10.6 implementation can’t do much when compared to a hardware base station.)

Ad hoc Wi-Fi’s flaws

An ad hoc connection would seem to do what Wi-Fi Direct promises. But this kind of connection has a host of flaws, starting with poor security options, low speed, and incompatibility. Ad hoc mode has never been standardized or put through a testing and certification program like infrastructure mode has. This can make it difficult or impossible to use the mode between computers running different operating systems or even different wireless networking hardware.

In ad hoc mode, computers broadcast the same network name with a flag that indicates it’s a computer-to-computer network. With no central coordinating hub, each computer has to listen for broadcasts. That means file transfers and communication tend to crawl along at a fraction of the possible speed.

Apple’s version of ad hoc networking–available from the Create Network item in the AirPort menu–doesn’t allow you to use robust security. It instead relies on the outdated WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption standard. (WEP keys can be cracked in between one and fifteen minutes by someone using free software. Once the person is in, he or she can intercept all data on the network or connect to the network.)

Further, you can only select from 2.4GHz Wi-Fi channels. The 2.4GHz band is the only band that the original AirPort (802.11b) and AirPort Extreme (802.11g) adapters and base stations can use. This band is full of interference. Many other communications devices use it–anything using Bluetooth, cordless phones, base stations, and even some baby monitors. Microwave ovens use a 2.4GHz signal to heat food, emitting noise while active. Industrial, scientific, and medical devices also use the 2.4GHz band. The 2.4GHz band is often known as a “junk” band because of all this jostling and crowding. (For more on spectrum choices, see “Understanding Wi-Fi’s two spectrum bands.”)
Software base station’s flaws Apple also offers a software base station, which was added way back in the Mac OS 8 days, but which disappeared between OS X 10.0 and 10.1; it returned in 10.2. To configure and turn on the software base station, open System Preferences, click on Sharing and select Internet Sharing.

If you choose to share a network connection via AirPort, Mac OS X turns on a software base station and your computer becomes a central Wi-Fi hub. However, the AirPort Options dialog box presents nearly identical options as you’d see for an ad hoc network. And you can’t be connected to a Wi-Fi network and share it with other Wi-Fi clients at the same time.

The technology promises a lot
Here’s a common scenario: You’re traveling with one or more people. You have a fast 3G USB modem for your computer and you’d like to share that 3G connection. Today, you could use either ad hoc networking or the software base station to let your colleagues or friends hook up. But you’d suffer from all the problems I’ve talked about here. With Wi-Fi Direct, other people can connect to your laptop with a high degree of security and simplicity.
Easy connections The protocol includes “service discovery.” In other words, when you try to connect with a Wi-Fi Direct enabled device, you’ll see a connection menu that sums up what it can do. For instance, you might see “printing” or “Internet access” listed as options next to a network name. Today’s Wi-Fi networks only show the network’s name.

Strong security Wi-Fi Direct supports the modern Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), the full wireless security standard that Apple has supported for Wi-Fi infrastructure purposes since 2005. All 2003-and-later base stations and all AirPort Extreme Cards in Panther or later could be updated for WPA2 if they weren’t shipped with such support already turned on. (The original WPA was backwards compatible with older gear, and AirPort Cards could be updated, although not the original 802.11b base stations. WPA2 required additional hardware, limiting support to 2003 and later cards and base stations.)

When you select a network to join, Wi-Fi Direct will initiate a special simplified security connection using Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). A typical scenario will have you press a button on a printer or click a button in onscreen software on the device to which you want to connect to confirm access. Then a secure process exchanges strong WPA2 keys. (It may be implemented the other way around, too: press a button in software or hardware on the device to which you want to connect, then try to join the network; that’s not clear yet.)

Versatile connections One of the key differences between existing Wi-Fi connection methods and Wi-Fi Direct is that a single Wi-Fi adapter can maintain a connection to a base station while also connecting to other devices in this peer-to-peer fashion.

While some of these features may sound a lot like Bluetooth, Bluetooth is a slow way to connect. It’s designed for peripherals that have very little room for batteries, and is already found in hundreds of millions of handsets worldwide. Bluetooth will become faster in mid-2010, using 802.11g for up to 25Mbps for data transfers. But even that new version is keyed more towards device-to-device and peripheral connections rather than network connections or very large transfers. 

Speed Wi-Fi Direct will work with the far less frequently used 5GHz Wi-Fi channels, which can carry data at much higher rates than 2.4GHz because of a lack of interference and the ability to employ “wide” channels that use twice the frequency range. (Technically, you can have wide channels in 2.4GHz, but the lack of spectrum in that band makes it impractical. Apple doesn’t even include the option.)

Glenn Fleishman is a regular contributor to Macworld, and the author of Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, recently updated for Snow Leopard

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By Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor (UK)
November 25, 2009

LONDON - Apple is reportedly refusing to repair machines belonging to smokers because residue from cigarettes seeps into machines and creates a health risk for those fixing the Mac.
The Consumerist website claims it has received reports from two Mac users saing that Apple repair centres in the US have declined to fix machines under Applecare warranties, claiming that have been voided due to second-hand smoke.
“They informed me that his computer can’t be worked on because it’s contaminated,” said one of the website’s readers called Ruth.

“When I asked for an explanation, she said he’s a smoker and it’s contaminated with cigarette smoke which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honouring warranties if the owner is a smoker.”

Both readers took the issue up with Apple’s head office, but were still denied the reapairs under their warranty.

“[Apple did] advise me that nicotine is on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances and Apple would not require an employee to repair anything deemed hazardous to their health,” added Ruth.

Apple was unable for comment on the story.

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By Mike Elgan
Computerworld (US)
November 23, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - All big companies have their critics. But what’s interesting about Apple’s detractors is universal surprise. Their disappointment often stems from finding out that Apple isn’t the company they thought it was. So I’m going to do all you would-be critics a favor, and explain some fundamental aspects of Apple’s culture. Next time, you won’t be blindsided and confused.

Here are four things that Apple believes that explain the unexplainable:

1. Everything Apple sells is an Apple product

Developer Paul Graham wrote an impassioned post this week called “Apple’s Mistake,” where he expressed his shock and disappointment at Apple’s heavy hand with iPhone developers. Graham said the “App Store approval process is broken.” Apple doesn’t “understand software.”

“They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes,” he wrote.

That last statement is truer than Graham realizes. Everything Apple offers on iTunes is viewed by Apple in the same way they view music: They’re all Apple products. When you drop 99 cents for Lady Gaga’s newish single, “Paparazzi,” you’re buying an Apple product, according to Apple. In fact, Ms. Gaga’s only function in life is to make a marginal contribution to the overall Apple experience.

Graham thinks his product is his, and that Apple simply makes the hardware and software it runs on. But Apple views all of it as part of the Apple experience. If you want to sell an iPhone app, Apple will dictate the shape, size and look and feel of the buttons, windows, typeface, and how most of the user settings will appear. They will reject and ban it if it competes with another of their products, or even with possible product directions. If it offends Apple in some way — either because of sex, politics or religion or some other banned topic — Apple will simply deny it. And they’ll take their sweet time deciding, too. As a developer, you have two options: love it or leave it.

This would make no sense if your assumption is that Apple is just another hardware and software maker cultivating an applications ecosystem. But it makes perfect sense if you realize that Apple views app developers as employees or contractors who have been allowed to work for Apple as long as they follow the rules.

Another bit of evidence for Apple’s world view emerged this week. Long story short: A software company called The Little App Factory was put on notice by Apple’s legal department to change the name of their product, iPodRip, because it contained the word “iPod.” The owner wrote an impassioned letter to Jobs practically begging him to intervene and allow the product to keep its name. The man professed his undying loyalty to Apple, and pointed out how he even dropped out of school to devote his life to creating software for Apple products. He said he has 6 million customers, and the product has been recommended by Apple itself.

Jobs’ reply was simply, “Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal. Steve”

This peon wasn’t even worth the hassle of an apostrophe. You see the disparity in how each party views the relationship? The developer’s attitude was: “Hey, I’ve devoted my life to your brand, and I have good reasons why I should be given special consideration as a loyal partner and friend of the company. We can work this out.” Apple’s attitude is: Get in line or you’re fired.”

This isn’t now how CEOs talk to software partners. This is how CEOs talk to low-level employees or unimportant contractors.

There’s a great scene in the upcoming movie, “Me and Orson Welles,” in which Welles responds to a fellow actor’s complaint that “he is an arrogant, selfish…” with the line: “I am Orson Welles, and every single one of you stands here as an adjunct to my vision. [If] you don’t like the way I work here, there’s the door.”

That, in a nutshell, is Jobs’ view of the relationship between Apple and its developer community.

2. Apple products are disposable

Apple makes high-quality, durable gadgets. I’ve dropped my iPhone many times, and it hasn’t got a scratch on it. But don’t let that fool you into thinking Apple wants those products to enjoy years and years of use.

Apple expects you to dump your old product and buy the new one just as soon as it comes out. And they don’t expect you to sell the old one to someone else. There’s no such thing as an old Apple product. There is only the current Apple product, and trash.

Phones similar in size to the iPhone, for example, typically have a removable battery. A battery that can be replaced is just common sense, given that batteries rapidly lose their ability to hold a charge after a few hundred charges. But iPhones are not designed to last. They’re designed to be used until the new one comes out, then discarded. The same goes for iPods.

iPhone and iPod batteries don’t make sense, unless you understand that these are disposable products. They look like fine china, but they’re sold like paper plates.

3. Nothing exists unless Apple sells it

Steve Jobs famously said that “People don’t read anymore.” This comment (which you’re reading, by the way), was made in response to a question about the Amazon Kindle. In Steve Jobs’ world view, nothing exists outside the Appleverse. People don’t read because Apple doesn’t sell a reader.

Mark my words, when Apple ships its tablet or some other device that can be used for the serious reading of books, people will read again.

4. Apple doesn’t want to be a successful business

Tech watchers love the horse race aspect of technology industry competition. Apple competes with Microsoft. Apple competes with Google. Apple competes with companies like HP. But Apple doesn’t see it that way.

Industry titans like Microsoft, Google and HP instinctively “fill out” their product lines to dominate huge areas of technology. Microsoft, for example, wants Microsoft software running on wristwatches, supercomputers and everything in between. Google wants to offer every conceivable service that can be squeezed through an internet connection. HP’s massive product line runs the gamut from consumer digital cameras sold at Best Buy to entire data centers filled with enterprise systems.

Apple doesn’t want to dominate like this. It has no interest in this kind of imperialist expansion. Apple is interested only in surgical strikes into this business or that product category, where they can solve design problems others have failed to solve.

Understanding this about Apple helps explain otherwise inexplicable decisions, such as why Apple got into the mobile phone handset business, and why the company is so ambivalent about business products.

To Apple, the mobile phone industry proved clueless at how to offer a compelling user experience with a phone, with its history of cramped buttons and claustrophobic user interfaces. They believed, correctly it turns out, that their designers could drop a game-changing phone into the market and “change the world” again. But when Apple casts its gaze at the enterprise space, it doesn’t see sufficiently compelling design problems that will emotionally affect users. So why bother?

Apple’s choices in markets it gets into make no sense, unless you understand that they don’t want to dominate industries, or even maximize revenues. They just want to design and sell better products that will affect user experience in markets where that’s an achievable goal.

Of course, business success is great. But Apple sees that as only a means to the end of shipping thrilling designs.

Steve Jobs was recently named CEO of the Decade by Fortune Magazine. I’m sure Jobs’ ego was pleased by the designation. But ultimately, he doesn’t care about this sort of thing as much as you might expect. Jobs doesn’t want to be viewed by history as a Lee Iacocca or a Henry Ford. He wants posterity to look at him as a Mozart or a Da Vinci. He wants to be seen as a builder of beautiful things, not a builder of business empires.

Next time Apple does something that infuriates you, or makes you go “huh?” remember that Apple has its own unique world view. And only by understanding that perspective can you understand why Apple does what it does.

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By Gregg Keizer
Computerworld (US)
November 20, 2009

FRAMINGHAM - Reports that Apple will produce a $2,000 tablet next year fit the company’s historical pattern of going for the luxury end of the technology market, an analyst agreed today.

According to reports from Asian component makers, Apple will push back the release of its long-rumored tablet into the second half of the year, in part because it plans to introduce a 9.7-in. model featuring an OLED (organic light emitting diode) display, Taiwan-based DigiTimes said today.

Component manufacturers in Taiwan and China told the publication that Apple will launch a pair of tablets in the latter half of 2010, one sporting a 10.6-in. TFT-based display, the second a smaller OLED screen.

Previously, talk about Apple and a tablet had centered around a ship date in the first half of next year, perhaps as early as February 2010 . Apple would probably use an iPhone-esque two-stage launch that pre-announced the hardware, a strategy that would give developers time to create applications or tweak existing iPhone software, said analysts. The retail price most often bandied was somewhere between the $200 of the iPhone and iPod touch, and the $1,000 of Apple’s lowest-priced MacBook notebook, with an in-between price of $800 favored by many.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, admitted he’s as uncertain as anyone about the validity of the DigiTimes report, but said both the delay and a high-priced model made sense, given Apple’s history.

“I don’t think a delay would cost them much,” Gottheil said today. “It’s not like someone else is stepping in and snarfing up the tablet market. And a delay fits a life-long pattern for the company, which likes to wait to get things right.”

So it goes with the talk of an OLED-based tablet, which DigiTimes ‘ sources estimated would cost Apple between $1,200 and $1,700 to make, with about a third of that going toward the 9.7-in. OLED screen. Those costs would put the retail price of the device at around $2,000, although by partnering with wireless carriers — which would bundle the tablet with long-term data plans, as they do currently with the iPhone — Apple could reduce consumer up-front costs somewhat.

“Apple doing a luxury, top-end tablet is quite reasonable,” said Gottheil. “They’ve done that many times before.”

In mid-2007, when Apple launched the original iPhone, it priced the smartphone at $599 , significantly above rivals’ devices and triple what it now charges for its iPhone 3GS when customers sign up for a two-year data plan.

“Coming up with a high-margin, high-priced tablet is something that Apple would love to do,” Gottheil opined. “The quad-core iMacs, for example, have put a terrible hurt on the Mac Pro, just as the lower-end MacBook Pros have on the 17-in. MacBook Pro. Those moves have significantly reduced the sales of their top-end hardware.”

That’s one reason why a $2,000 tablet, with a correspondingly high margin, has to look attractive to Cupertino, Gottheil added.

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