The announcements today (October 4th) coming from Cupertino’s giant didn’t make everyone smile -most did not get what they expected.  It was a tough first presentation for the new Apple CEO – the first in the era after Steve Jobs – and he really might have wondered if he had raised the bar high enough.

But why should he?  Apple continues to sell the current iPhone 4 briskly and is moving strongly into new markets like China.  So the company is focusing on more efficient and stable production conditions and the optimization of international sales.  And what could be more needed than a “World Phone”, a phone running all international mobile network standards and providing ultimate flexibility?  Not only for customers, but also for their retail chain.  Simply put, one model to be sold worldwide.  A producer’s dream coming true…

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There is a prejudice about the Chinese, that they will fake nearly anything.


I will start with a non-tech story a friend of mine from Shanghai told me: a colleague of his bought a Audi A6 in China for a really good price – a “lucky punch”, a bargain.  This made him happy.  A view months later there was a problem with the motor, and as the guy isn’t a great mechanic he took the car to the nearest Audi garage.  A day later the garage rang him up and asked him where he bought the car.  He told them he bought it in Shanghai, but not from an official Audi dealer.  The garage employee responded: “Hm… , well, OK, that maybe explains something, because actually your car is not a real Audi….”   Hard to believe?
I thought this was really priceless, that even German cars are now being faked (‘knocked off‘) in China.

Coming to another kind of fake:  five years ago I have been to one of the official tourist knock off markets in China that specialized in garments, handbags and watches.  I’ve since been told that this market was closed down due to the pressure from all the luxury brands on the Chinese (by the way, I have never seen a bigger Louis Vuitton store than in Shanghai) – so I really thought that the times of these markets were over.  Well, as it always happens in China: if something closes, it remains for this for some weeks and then it pops up in another side of the city…  and now, voilà, it’s not only cloths, shoes, and handbags – the new thing is, they even fake electronics nowadays.  Clearly, the iPhone is the #1 knock off you see everywhere.  And they even have a faked the software on it, the icons look pretty similar and it works more or less.   But if that’s  not enough, all forms of iPods of course, iPads (yes, 1 and 2) and Blackberry knock-offs are available too.   Sure, you’ll see all of our iconic Asian status symbols there!

But see yourself on the pictures (sorry I forgot to take one of the iPhone display showing the operating system).

Ground control to Major Tom – it’s now official, Planet Earth has found a new religion.

First the iPod. Then the iPod Touch. Next, the iPhone. And now, voila, in comes the iPad! At least throughout the Western hemisphere, the iGospel seems to have taken solid hold.

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I used to write a fair amount of music for television commercials.  It was interesting to have a glimpse into the workings of the advertising industry for a few years, even from the ‘gun-for-hire’ sidelines – for example, I was once called back in to do some minor revisions on a previously approved music track for an aerosol carpet deodorizer because of last-minute changes required by legal at the ad agency.

In this particular commercial, the product’s effectiveness was illustrated by an ‘odor-smelling wand’ prop waved over 2 pieces of carpet recently sat upon by the family dog – one carpet treated with our deodorizer, one with theirs.  After the post production was complete, though, it was discovered that the number of (fake) beeps coming from the prop didn’t accurately match the (real) numbers coming from the underlying focus group testing – so the spot had to be reedited with the correct  ratio of fake beeps  – hence my (and the voice-over talent’s) call-back.

Such is the attention paid to potential litigation arising from directly comparative advertising…

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“What we are seeing in the U.S. today in terms of smartphone penetration, 3G data, nobody else is seeing in the rest of the planet,” said Ralph de la Vega of AT&T during a conference call the other day.

“The amount of growth and data that we are seeing in wireless data is unprecedented,” he added.

As the long-standing negative buzz on AT&T’s network has peaked over the past few weeks (due in part to a recent Consumer Reports article and an aggressive advertising campaign from Verizon), AT&T has shifted from the somewhat defiant and dismissive stance taken earlier this year (when such reports were characterized as “anecdotal feedback” and “sweeping generalizations”) to a more plaintive tone – as demonstrated above.

Whether or not it’s good long-term policy for any company to publicly complain about how difficult it is for them to provide the service they’re being paid to provide is open for discussion – particularly when that company’s current windfall success is almost entirely dependent upon a soon-to-expire exclusive partnership with another company (i.e. Apple).

In any event, while the technical challenges AT&T faces may be very real, I would be more receptive to the recent “data networks are hard” excuses coming out of the company if it were able to a better job of getting even voice coverage up to par in the NYC area – above is a screen shot from my iPhone, taken from my home office.  My apartment (the blue dot) is located within 2 miles of downtown Manhattan – not exactly the middle of nowhere.  Yet, I get almost zero bars – and an unusable voice connection.

In AT&T’s defense, the company has recently launched an iPhone app to allow users to send the company location-specific reports of poor service (of course, in cases of no coverage you’d have to put the iPhone on an available wireless network for the app to function).

So that’s what I’ve done – I’ve installed the app, sent in my report, and am waiting  to see if my voice (let alone data) service improves.

In the meantime, while at my desk at home, it would appear I own an expensive  iTouch.

Several decades after the advent of CAD, electronic ignition and anti-lock brakes, digital technology continues to make new inroads into the auto industry. A few of the more interesting examples:

Advertising?  There’s an app for that. Volkswagen is planning to promote their new GTI (the performance version of the Golf) exclusively via a licensed and rebranded mobile game app released for the iPhone and iTouch.  Recognizing a substantial overlap between the iPhone and GTI demographics, VW is apparently counting on the free app alone to get the job done, and at a much lower cost than traditional commercials and print ads.  The game uses the iPhone/iTouch motion-sensing, includes a virtual VW showroom (at left), and in a clever promotional move, VW plans to give away free cars to the six highest-scoring players.  If effective, look for more convergence between apps and advertising going forward…


The car network Another innovation from Germany: the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in collaboration with manufacturers such as BMW, Audi, and Daimler, is working on the specification of a network standard to unify the various (until-now) standalone digital systems found in the modern automobile. Dubbed “Security in Embedded IP-based Systems“, the research project is aimed at reducing complexity and ensuring security, and will be based on Ethernet networking technology and the same Internet Protocol upon which the internet is based. We’re thinking such a system could easily find its way into the aviation industry as well. Yet more uses for ethernet – after over 30 years, maybe the most successful, extensible and long-lived networking technology ever invented.

I have to admit I’ve been more than a bit skeptical of recent reports touting mobile video as The Next Big Thing.  Yes, it’s something a lot of people (especially younger people) seem to want, it’s a great use case for us mass-transit users, and with Moore’s Law apparently still in effect, current hardware can now support an excellent user experience.

My issue, though, is with the network.

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A Wall St. analyst’s report on Apple today has touched off a new round of buzz on the rumored Apple netbook – essentially, a 9-inch iTouch.

Although we wrote about this over two months age here,  it’s well worth a bump: given that hulu has just decided to stop waiting for Apple to let Flash onto the iPhone OS and will instead release a workaround app of their own using MP4/Quicktime (à la youtube), this device promises to be one seriously cool “lean-back” (lean way back, if you want to take it to bed) internet video device for the home.

This is going to be a huge success.

Huge.

Which would happen first – would Apple and Adobe get together to bring Flash (and therefore hulu) to the iPhone, or would hulu (like the similarly Flash-based YouTube service) write a workaround iPhone App?

Historically, Apple has been uninterested in letting Adobe get its Flash Player technology onto the iPhone.  Technical power consumption issues have been often cited,  but given that Google’s Android devices have had Flash support from almost square one, perhaps a more reasonable explanation for Apple’s resistance has had to do with a desire to promote their competing Quicktime technology.   Meanwhile, Flash has become the clear defacto standard for web-based video streaming (according to Adobe, the Flash Player is installed on  98% of US browsers) – and in terms of the still nascent embedded CE hardware market, Adobe alone seems to ‘get it’,  recently making decisive moves to become just as ubiquitous there as they are on the browser (more on that here).
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Have you recently taken the New York subway, let’s say, to 23rd, 66th, 86th, or 103rd street?

If you exit at any of these stops you’ll notice some of your favorite entertainment stores vanished. Shut down. Closed for good.

At 23rd and 6th Avenue Barnes&Noble, gone! At Lincoln Center Tower Records‘ flagship store, gone! Over at 86th and 2nd Avenue Circuit City, vanished. And at 102rd and Broadway Blockbuster Video closed its doors, too.

Be it for books, music, movies, or consumer electronics (for anyone 30 years or older), those were among the brands you would likely turn to first – to discover, buy and play your entertainment retail. 

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