(You're reading all posts by Mike Elgan)
About Mike Elgan
Mike Elgan is a Silicon Valley-based columnist who writes about technology and culture. His work appears in a variety of publications, including Computerworld, Datamation, PC World, InfoWorld, MacWorld, ITWorld, CIO, the San Francisco Chronicle. Subscribe to Mike's e-mail newsletter, Mike's List, and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and elsewhere by visiting http://elgan.com.
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Why Your Kitchen Wants an iPad Of Its Own
The Apple iPad is the fastest-growing consumer electronics device in history. But what’s it for? Where do you use it?
As a hard-core iPad fan since day one and a certifiable foodie, I can tell you that the kitchen is the single best place to use an iPad. Sure, you can bring your iPad into the kitchen. But you really should buy your kitchen its very own.
Don’t think of it as a needless expense; think of it as the cheapest possible way to transform your kitchen into the futuristic smart kitchen of tomorrow. For less than $600, you can give your kitchen abilities that even the most optimistic futurists never dreamed of. It’s a wonderful time to be a gadget-happy foodie.
Read why on Houzz.com
Inside Apple’s Secret Plan to Kill the Cash Register
All the major mobile platform companies, including Apple, are working on solutions for “contactless payments” and digital wallets — the use of a phone as a credit card. Google’s Android supports NFC, or near-field communication. Google Wallet enables payments from phones.
Everyone has been waiting for Apple to catch up. The company has a pile of patents that reference a mobile digital wallet service called “iWallet.”
An analyst this week predicted something shocking: Instead of (or in addition to) adding NFC to future iPhones, Apple will use Bluetooth 4.0 for iWallet, a story first reported on Cult of Mac by John Brownlee.
One stunning fact about this prediction is that the wireless hardware has already been deployed at scale. Every major product Apple has shipped in the past year, including the iPhone and iPad, supports Bluetooth 4.0.
All Apple needs to do to make iWallet a reality is ship an app.
Another stunning fact is that Bluetooth 4.0 has a range of over 160 feet. That means participating retail stores can function like Apple Stores — without cash registers. The point of sale can be anywhere in the store. Restaurant diners can pay from the table — without the waiter being involved.
I think Apple wants to kill the cash register. Here’s why they might succeed.
Why Ernest Hemingway Would Have Loved the iPad
Remember when people used to say that the iPad was a “content consumption device” useless for real “content creation”?
It’s a weird thing to say about a gadget offering a gazillion content-creation apps, but people said it. People still say it.
Pundits and writers say the iPad sucks for “real work” in general and writing in particular. I have come to believe the opposite: To me, the iPad is the best writing tool I’ve ever used.
And I think Ernest Hemingway would agree.
Stop Exploiting Steve Jobs
Apple founder Steve Jobs died more than seven months ago. All kinds of people are lining up to hijack his memory for their own purposes. It’s time to stop.
Who Wants iPhone Business Cards?
Talk to Beasty Design. Unfortunately they don’t actually slide to unlock. That’s patented.
Touch Tablet On Track to be Fastest-Spreading Technology in History
The publication MIT Technology Review compares major consumer technologies, from the telephone and television to the mobile phone and tablet. Their conclusion is that mobile phones have gone “mainstream” faster than any other major technology in history, achieving this status in just 20 years.
They also break down speed of acceptance in stages, which makes for interesting comparison. For example, it took landline telephones about 45 years go to from 5% penetration in the United States to 50%, compared with just 7 years for mobile phones.
What’s most surprising about the report is that touch tablets are actually spreading way faster than even cell phones. And this fact is more interesting still when you consider that one company, Apple, is almost solely responsible for this growth, and one product, the iPad, pretty much is the touch-tablet market.
Read the whole report here.
Why ‘Evidence’ Won’t Help You Predict Apple Products
Speculating about future Apple products is really hard to do well. That doesn’t keep everyone from trying. Even grizzled Apple-watching veterans often fail catastrophically with each new Apple announcement.
The reason it’s difficult is that “evidence,” which would normally be the best tool for predicting things, doesn’t work in Apple’s case.
The best criteria are strategic and cultural analyses. But even these are not perfectly reliable.
If you’ve struggled to accurately guess in the past what Apple will announce, don’t feel bad. Even Apple executives themselves don’t know until often very late in the game.
Here’s why predicting Apple products is so hard.
Hey, Look, Everybody! Free Money! (Just Sue Apple!)
Everybody and their mother is trying to cash in on Apple’s success, or dictate the evolution of media and technology through the courts.
Shameless gold diggers, grand-standing government attorneys, vindictive rivals, patent trolls and, well, good old-fashioned morons are dragging the world’s most valuable company into court to try and get their piece of Apple’s $110 billion pile of cash.
You won’t believe some of the crazy lawsuits Apple is currently defending itself against.
Why Apple Needs China
Apple had a crazy earnings call this week. The company nearly doubled quarterly profits, vastly exceeding Wall Street expectations.
Apple’s stock price will probably now reverse course and head back into the stratosphere, and for one reason: China.
Apple sold 35.1 million phones during the quarter worldwide, which provided half the total revenue reported by the company. Half!
Chinese phone sales in the reported quarter were, incredibly, five times higher than the same quarter last year. What’s surprising about this growth is that Apple still hasn’t signed a long-awaited deal with China’s largest carrier — the world’s largest carrier — China Mobile.
So it has become clear to everyone that Apple’s highest-revenue product ever has enormous future sales potential in China.
Also: Apple feels that it has far fewer points of sale (stores) in China than it needs.
When the China Mobile deal happens and Apple builds more stores, watch out. China is likely to become Apple’s biggest handset market, far exceeding even the United States.
Overall revenue for China was $7.9 billion, three times higher than last year.
Another crazy milestone: Asia-Pacific revenue for the quarter was actually higher than European revenue for the first time ever. The relative importance of Asia over Europe is likely to continue indefinitely.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Apple Could Profitably Build Products In America – Report
A new report by the University of Manchester’s Center for Research on Socio-Cultural Change says Apple would be able to manufacture iPhones, iPads and all its computers in the United States and still maintain gross margins of 50%.
The report also concludes that Apple’s way of doing business, which involves “hoarding” cash is bad for America.
Read the report here.
(Picture courtesy of the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center)
