Category Archives: Uncategorized

Apple’s Antitrust Problem

November 13, 2011 – 5:58 pm

Tweet(First in a series) Will Apple face the type of antitrust issues Microsoft had to contend with in the 90′s? Possibly, but not with the same magnitude. Apple is by no means locking up its market the way Microsoft controlled the personal computer field with Windows. Still, the question arises for the iTunes Store, the [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Tagged , | Comments (25)

The Discreet Shift to Twitter

November 6, 2011 – 9:14 pm

TweetYou hear things about Facebook. You see things. As its audience matures, a subtle shift might be underway. Of course, numbers remains staggering. Facebook is heading toward the 800 million users mark, mostly by conquering new markets. The growth is distributed as follows : Middle-East Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America grow by around 60% per [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Comments (28)

From Heaven: iTV

November 6, 2011 – 9:14 pm

TweetSearch for the word ‘‘cracked’’ in Walt Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (or flip to page 555 if you have the bricks-and-mortar version). The second hit yields the following: It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it. “It” is the mythical Apple iTV. Even though Walt’s report of the [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Tagged | Comments (62)

Steve’s Bio: A Personal Perspective

October 30, 2011 – 9:19 pm

TweetLet me jump to the conclusion: This is an extraordinary book on many levels: informative, entertaining often, insightful, sympathetic but not indulgent; it rises to its unusual subject and manages to render its complexity in a straightforward manner that attests to the biographer’s talent. Get thee to a physical bookstore, if you can find one, [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (16)

You Cheat. We Cut Prices

October 16, 2011 – 11:27 pm

TweetSurprise: To boost its circulation, Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Europe engaged in massive channel stuffing. No kidding. It sounds like everyone discovers, all of a sudden, how medias (old and new) actually work. Granted, when it comes to cheating, News Corp is in a class all by itself. The phone hacking scandal pushed the [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Comments (6)

Premature Evaluation: The iPhone 5 Introduction

October 16, 2011 – 11:08 pm

TweetOn October 4th, after months of speculation, Apple finally introduces the iPhone 5. The kommentariat are ecstatic and approvingly list the new smartphone’s strongest points: Twice the processor speed; seven times the graphics oomph; a new camera with an Apple-designed lens, 8 megapixels and improved image processing; the power of the new iOS 5; iCloud [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (7)

The Teacher

October 9, 2011 – 7:51 pm

TweetSteve Jobs taught us so many things… To us whose professional life strides tech, ads and media, his way of fostering innovation, of creating an obsessive culture of perfection remains both inspirational and enigmatic. For those who like design and engineering, there isn’t a single field Apple hasn’t entered — or at least influenced. When [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Tagged , | Comments (7)

Too soon…

October 9, 2011 – 7:48 pm

Tweet‘Humor is the politeness of despair’, an approximate, googlish translation of l’humour est la politesse du désespoir, a saying attributed to noted post-WWII Left Bank jazzman, writer, and engineer, Boris Vian, So, let’s start with the reverent, despairing humor of Chris Calloway in Wired Magazine’s memorial to Steve Jobs: “Heaven got a major upgrade today…” [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (20)

Dreaming at the Kindle Potential

October 2, 2011 – 10:01 pm

TweetWith each introduction of a new reading device publishers around the world are overcome with the same recurring same fantasy: What if it worked, this time around? Could a reliable business model emerge for news publishing companies? Last week’s launch of new Kindles is no exception to the cyclic fantasy. For those who where on [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Comments (9)

Google’s “Interesting” Week

October 2, 2011 – 9:48 pm

TweetLet’s start gingerly, with Nokia. You’ll recall the indignation when Nokia threw Symbian under the Windows Phone 7 bus and osborned its existing product line. Nokia dead-ended Symbian handsets, causing sales to plunge while everyone waited for the new MicroNokia smartphones. The company didn’t stop there. It then presented Meego, the offspring of Intel’s Moblin [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (60)