Imagine that your devices could send you a push notification asking if they could switch themselves off. That you could switch appliances on and off remotely to stop them drawing power in standby mode. That would be neat, right? Well, that’s exactly what the energy-saving Parce plug will do.
Just the other day I asked my Twitter followers to recommend me a good app for making animated GIFs out of my photos. The response was stunning in its silence – not a single reply. But I don’t care. I now have PicGIF, a Mac app that does one thing: Turn Pics into GIFs.
Tim Cook traveled to China for the third time in as many months to seal a blockbuster deal with China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier. Apple is now available on all of China’s largest cell phone networks, opening up a market of mind-boggling proportions. Cook, in a rare TV interview with the chairman of China mobile, said he was “incredibly optimistic” about Apple’s prospects.
People underestimate how big a deal China will be in the next 10 years. The West still thinks of it as a poor country, but within a decade more than three-quarters of the urban population will be middle class, according to McKinsey. By next year, China will account for about 20 percent, or $27 billion, of global luxury sales, according to another McKinsey report. Whether shopping at home or abroad, Chinese consumers are snapping up pricey cars, jewelry, clothes and watches. This is a tidal shift in an enormous economy. The pundits who say that Apple should be making a low-cost phone to compete with low-cost Android phones have got it wrong. Apple will end up selling every top of the line phone they can make and then some.
There are a few seeming contradictions to these trends. China may be known for its massive commerce of counterfeits, but middle-class consumers there are primed to pay a premium for the genuine article. Apple’s iPhones and other goods have clear status value, and middle-class Chinese consumers will buy them en masse.
Luxury car sales already prove this point: Jaguar sales were up 157% in China in 2013, nearly three times the growth in any other region. Growth is so strong, Jaguar Land Rover is shifting sales from Europe and the US to China, it’s now their primary market. Mercedes and Lexus are selling so many cars in China at a huge markup they’re not even bothering to export them. Even low-end retailers are adjusting their wares to suit these upscale tastes: Wal-Mart is also aggressively expanding in China, where they’re targeting the upper-middle class with suburban stores that require a car to reach and the shelves are stocked with pricey merch.
Japan in the 80s had a reputation for cheap shoddy knock-offs, now it’s the world’s third largest economy. Korea went through the same transition, thanks in large part to Samsung and other global conglomerates. China’s next. But now there’s a difference is scale: Tim Cook’s giddiness is due to the fact that the next decade, China will become a vast middle class economy with hundreds millions of consumers who want Apple’s products.
The essential Apple product will stay the same. I predict that Apple’s response will be much like that iconic American chain, McDonald’s. In addition to clogging arteries with Big Macs and fries from Norway to Lebanon, the local restaurants give a nod to local traditions. In France there are high-end pastries, there’s the Maharaja Mac of lamb or chicken in India and rice burgers in Hong Kong. It’ll be fascinating to see what Apple will offer in the way of “local menu” items in China.
Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has been working on a big-budget Steve Jobs biopic for awhile now. Not only will it have way less zero Ashton Kutcher, but it will be funded by Sony and probably go down as the Jobs movie of record.
Sorkin was confirmed to write the script back 2012, but there’s been little news out of the project since then. Today it was reported that the script has finally been turned into Sony, which means that production is just around the corner.
LAS VEGAS — Walking the long, dusty road between the Encore Hotel and the CES Convention Center, I was approached by two guys. They offered to give me a ride. I know I should never accept rides from strangers but their offer was to good to pass up. It was the most creative and original marketing ploy I’ve seen at CES.
First debuted in 2005, the bring-your-own-monitor Mac mini has always been Apple’s entry-level Mac desktop, but at an entry level price starting at $599, the Mac mini isn’t exactly “cheap” compared to competing budget desktops out there.
Doubtlessly, Apple doesn’t consider this a problem — they’ve never tried to compete in the race to the bottom — but what if Apple did release a Mac mini that was cheaper? Over at Letemsvetemapplem.eu, they’ve taken a crack at imagining what such a 2014 Mac mini would look like, and they think it would look a lot like a double-stuffed Apple TV, and start at just $399.
More details below, including a close-up of the concept.
According to Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White earlier this year, Apple’s busy working on an “iRing" finger ring we’ll use to control our Apple devices with. The suggestion was so preposterous that even the usually poker-faced Tim Cook cracked a joke about it.
The reality is that much of the “digital hub” functionality that an iRing would have brought will likely be carried out by the iWatch when it finally surfaces. For those who really wanted this rumor to be true, however, never fear: several companies have created their own third-party iRings to bring this rumor to life.
Remember those Topeka Capital Markets reports from last year about how, by this time, we’d all be using finger rings to control our newly launched Apple televisions?
While those predictions may not have come to fruition just yet, music technology company IK Multimedia is launching an iRing of its own that will allow people to perform specific tasks on their iOS devices using gestures.
We recently called SteelSeries’ H Wireless gaming headset a “miracle of sound and function.” Will the same enthusiasm hold true about the company’s other gaming accessories?
SteelSeries is obviously hoping so, since is has announced its new wireless iOS gaming controller — the Stratus — at CES 2014.
Today LaCie announced its new lineup of hard drives, including the Fuel, a wireless 1TB hard drive that works with the Seagate Media iOS app. This is the first collaboration between the two storage companies since Seagate bought LaCie last year.
Besides the Fuel, LaCie is also unveiling three new hard drives at CES, including the Little Big Disk portable drive with Thunderbolt 2.
Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?
Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.
Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include something to keep you up-to-date on late-night TV, a creepy virtual boyfriend, and an app to help you randomly name your baby.
Here you go:
Late Night Talk Show Review — Entertainment — Free ($0.99 Upgrade)
If you missed your favorite late-night talk show, and you’re jonesing for a monologue, a Top 10 List, or whatever the hell Jay Leno does, you might want to pick up Late Night Talk Show Review. It collects video clips from 11 shows (and an assortment of things from Comedy Central) and updates them regularly. So if people are still gathering around water coolers these days, you will be all set to discuss that funny thing that Conan said.
I don’t know — my office just got a water cooler recently. I don’t really know how this whole thing works yet.
PocketBoy — Entertainment — Free
PocketBoy was the developer’s idea to keep his girlfriend from feeling lonely when he was away. It’s a blank virtual “doll” that you can slap your loved one’s face on and listen to it say adoring things in a not-at-all creepy robot voice. It’s endearing in a way that I can’t quite figure out, and the different “play” modes are pretty cute. I’m not sure what the whole “Frog Mode” bit is all about — “There is no Frog Mode, silly” — but even that’s pretty cute.
This app is cute. I admit it.
Name My Baby! — Lifestyle — Free
Unless you have some amazing relatives you were close to and to whom you want to pay tribute, naming a baby is hard. And not just for the reasons outlined in this amazing Saturday Night Live sketch where Nicolas Cage reveals that cruel schoolchildren can make fun of any name you can come up with. Name My Baby hopes to take the stress out of the whole ordeal by randomly generating first and middle names for both boys and girls. And even if you aren’t expecting, it’s kind of entertaining to see some of the combinations it comes up with.