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Weaker iPhone 5 Demand?

Remember when everyone could get a new iPhone on release day regardless of when their contract was set? I do … That’s changed and now we are all back to the standard mobile upgrade cycle. Price matters.

Apple’s orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said.

The Cupertino, Calif., company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the people.

Apple notified the suppliers of the order cut last month, the people said.

The move indicates that sales of the new iPhone haven’t been as strong as previously anticipated and demand may be waning. It comes as the company has been facing greater challenges from Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE +1.24% and other makers of smartphones powered by Google Inc.’s GOOG -0.20% Android operating system.

via WSJ.com.

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Steven Sinofsky on CES

Steven Sinofsky has a very solid recap of his experience at CES this year. He notes key trends and observations which are all well considered, but I particularly enjoyed this bit …

Expecting a company to unveil something at the show is somewhat misplaced. On the other hand, a big part of CES, at least for me, is really being able to see any (large) company’s full product line “end to end” and to see how they are fitting pieces together to deliver on scenarios, value, or competition. Smaller companies have an opportunity to show off their products in a much more interactive fashion, often with very knowledgeable members of the team showing things off. Most importantly, CES lets you see “side by side” whole categories of products—you see the positioning, the details, and how companies present their products.

Unveiling a new product or technology that is a cross-industry effort, one involving many partners, does work particularly well at CES. Intel’s efforts around Ultrabooks, in 2012 and 2013, demonstrate this. While Intel’s booth and large scale presentations show off Windows 8 and Ultrabooks, the amplification that comes when seen on display at Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, and more is where the sum of the whole is greater than the parts.

via Learning by Sharing.

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Android’s Clipboard is Somehow Lacking

android

Using any device I’ve found that it’s impossible to copy and paste rich content through the clipboard. I’ve seen this in the browser (Chrome) and Pocket. Even in Pocket, where you can email a full article view, images are still missing. On iPhone I can regularly capture full web content to email … I do this many times a day actually for article sharing and find it’s strangely limited on Android.

I’m running the latest Jelly Bean on a Nexus 7, Galaxy Nexus and have CM10 running on a Galaxy Note.

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Why Beats/Daisy will be different

I don’t disagree necessarily but this is a pretty arrogant perspective. I would welcome more highly discoverable, great music in my life. I don’t want it programmed in an expected way however and historically our good friends in the music industry haven’t helped the situation.

Why Beats/Daisy will be different: [Other music subscription] companies, these services, all lack curation. They call it curation; there’s no curation. That’s what we did as a record label, we curated. There’s 150 white rappers in America; we served you one. We are heavy on curation, and we believe it’s a combination of human and math. But it’s a give and take. Right now, somebody’s giving you 12 million songs, and you give them your credit card, and they tell you “good luck.” You need to have some kind of help. I’m going to offer you a guide. You don’t have to use it, but it’s going to be there, and it’s going to be a trusted voice, and it’s going to be really good. via AllThingsD

See you in late Q3 if they keep schedule.

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Casio’s G-Shock mobile companion

You either like the classic (and typically bulky) G-Shock styling or you don’t, but you’ve got to respect the tech here. Casio has a Bluetooth 4.0 watch ready to pair with your phone for continuous augmented info display. Speaking of which I cannot wait to get my Pebble next month … CES is just the beginning for these paired devices.

via Engadget

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Forced Desktop Activation for Mobile?

Setting up mobile via desktop? Really??

 

Popped a SIM into a Galaxy Note and found this lovely message.  There’s no way around the activation process on the desktop which makes little sense to me.  I’m not a new or novice user and this is far from the first device I’ve even activated on AT&T.  Having gone through the desktop process now I see they want to make it theoretically easier for a user to add their account credentials and tweak some basic home screen settings, but that’s really not hard in your hand.  It would be nice to see a choice.

I can’t even use the Note until a code gets sent back to the handset.

Actually … with a few extra taps back you can apparently exit out and start with a Google Account, but that’s not exactly obvious.

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Amazon’s AutoRip!

amazon_autorip

Amazon just announced a very cool new service that will enable cloud access to any of the CD’s you’ve purchased (some limitations) from them.  When I think back through the decade+ purchase history, this is considerable for me.  I can’t believe it took this long to even get this going as they’ve been able to validate purchase for a long time and have had a cloud streamer for a while as well. I’ll have to really check this out out to get a feel for how it really works.

Meanwhile back in 2004 … 

via The Verge

 

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Nokia on the rise?

Nokia shipped 4.4 million Lumia devices in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing its total smartphone shipments to 6.6 million devices, the first increase in smartphone shipment numbers in a year.

But the Finnish handset maker still expects its main devices and services unit to record a fall in net sales in the fourth quarter of 2012, to €3.9 billion ($5.10 billion) from €6 billion a year earlier, with total device shipments projected at 86.3 million units, down from 113.5 million. Nokia is due to report its full fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 24

via Nokia Boosted by Brisk Lumia Sales – WSJ.com.

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Aereo CEO on Bundles and Fees

aereo_logo

More power to Aereo … I’ve played with a demo account and it works quite well. Tempting even.

Ad Age: So broadcasters shouldn’t have dual revenue streams, like cable channels?

Mr. Kanojia: I don’t know their business at all. All I know is the current paradigm is this: They have [broadcast] spectrum. They are required to program in the public interest and to offer it widely for free. You are allowed to have an antenna. There is no prohibition on where you have it; it can be on your roof, your window or 50 feet away; in my computer or in the cloud. Tell me what the dispute is? Because you didn’t see it coming? That is really what it is.

Ad Age: But since fees are so important to broadcast now, why shouldn’t they fight it?

Mr. Kanojia: Technology catches up. When the VCR came out there was the same hyperbole: It’s going to kill television. They made billions. It spawned a whole industry of home video. These technologies [Aereo] are single-cast, they know where you are. I think they are just ignoring that technologies like these are immensely helpful in attracting younger audiences and are helpful in creating new ad models.

via Advertising Age

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Minimalist, Chainmail Shoes

PaleoBarefoots® ANTERRA

PSFK spotted this pretty amazing looking minimalist running shoes called PaleoBarefoots and I have to say I’m very curious about what they are like.

A quick googling and I can see they are quite expensive, though on second thought given the materials, you probably don’t need to worry about replacing them anytime soon, so perhaps it’s more of an investment.

The trail running I’ve been doing has been via New Balance MB010 which I love.  They’ve got a 4mm drop which I thought would be a good intro to minimal running and so far that’s been accurate.  They also have a waterproof upper which has been great on the trail and recently in the snow as well keeping me both warm and dry.  I’ll probably switch it up when the weather gets warmer to something more breathable.

New Balance M010

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Massif Management: Surf Photographers

More Salty Pictures via slideshow at the link below. #solid.

This past fall, Jonathan Feldman formed Massif Management, a photo agency that represents a group of young surfers who are also photographers. “They’re ‘surf photographers’ insofar as they shoot waves and wave riders, but they’re also working across any number of different genres, from art and fashion to travel,” Feldman told me. “Still, for all these guys, surfing is an abiding passion, and I think you feel the presence of the ocean in their photos, even when they’re working away from the water. They make salty pictures.”
via The New Yorker.