All Apple All Day

This summer, Apple discontinued the iPod Nano.  After 16 years, the iPod Era was over.  I've held out hope that the iPod would be re-booted as a cellular device - focused less on local storage, and more on streaming Apple Music.  After Tuesday's Keynote, an iPod resurrection seems unlikely.  Because the Apple Watch Series 3 IS the iPod we've been hoping for. 

I get it - a lot of people have been VERY excited about the Apple Watch for a VERY long time. I'm a bit ambivalent - I'm pretty unlikely to buy one at the outset... I wish it had mechanical hands so I could tell time without turning it on. What else might we hear about today?

For a company that's in the midst of a "malaise", Apple sure generates a lot of excitement.  Tickets for WWDC 2013, which takes place from June 10-14, went on sale this morning. Of course, they sold out immediately.  It's fair to assume that there's going to be a Tim Cook Keynote somewhere during the conference - there always has been a Keynote at WWDC in the past. 

The conventional wisdom, right now, is that Apple is in a tailspin and badly needs a new, "magical" product. If Steve Jobs were still alive, we hear, Apple would never go this long without dazzling us.  I don't know if that's necessarily the case. 

I've posted quite a bit about Apple's proposed "iRadio" service, and why their lowball offer on royalties per song streamed may be justified.  Put simply, if the Apple music service is anything like what's been described, it will drive music sales, while making the iPod (or the "Music" app on the iPhone) more indispensable than ever. And now, it appears that iRadio is closer than ever - maybe arriving this summer. 

Analysts have been claiming that Apple is going to develop an HDTV for years . Basically, ever since the  dawn of HDTV and the rise of Apple.  Apple, for what it's worth, has made it clear that they'd like to be a fixture in the living room.  They introduced the AppleTV for exactly that purpose. And they've sold millions.  I've owned all three versions of the AppleTV.  And I believe that the changing nature of the AppleTV device - both in what it does, and how it's controlled - provides us with some clues about how Apple intends to proceed in the living room space.  And it doesn't point toward Apple developing an HDTV. 

I read an interesting post this morning at Monday Note , setting forth a hypothetical "Red Guide" to the Android Market.  The general point is this: while the App Store has been a transformative, massive success, it's also very chaotic and difficult to use. New apps are just dumped in the index, competing with millions of others.  At some level, human curation of apps may be the next "evolution". But what would a curated App Store look like? A hint for my potential answer is to the right - and no, it's not an Apple Power Glove.... although that would be " so bad ". 

I used to have a first-generation 500 GB Time Capsule.  I still have it. Except now, it's a 1 TB Time Capsule.  Maybe your original Time Capsule disk failed, like mine did - or maybe you just want some more breathing room on your TC disk... either way, replacing and upgrading your Time Capsule hard drive is a simple, cost-effective fix.  But don't expect the Geniuses at the Apple Store to fix it. 

Well, that's what's being reported , anyway.  I still hope that this isn't the case.  But analysts keep saying it .  But I still don't think it makes any sense. Apple's iPhone is one of the most profitable products in the history of mankind.  It's a luxury item. It commands a premium on the market. And people are willing to pay that premium.  Just to be associated with the brand. Because they like what owning an iPhone says about them as a consumer.  This way of thinking - no compromises, no price battles - has led Apple from the brink of bankruptcy, to becoming the most valuable company in the world.  Look at the Macintosh. Despite Apple's stubbornly small market share, which (to my knowledge) has never topped 10 percent of PC sales,  Apple rakes in a giant share of the industry's profits .  This is a fundamental truth, and one which Steve Jobs conclusively proved at Apple: create great things, and people will aspire

I wrote a post, about a week or so ago, expressing skepticism about the Apple iWatch rumors.  Basically, my thought process boiled down to " People wouldn't want to show off an iWatch, so Apple shouldn't make one ". And still the rumors continue to build.... Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Apple was experimenting with some sort of curved-glass wristwatch, which would have some iOS functionality. I still didn't get it, and wrote it off as an "Apple HDTV" type of wish-rumor.  After all, it's been a few years since Steve Jobs wowed us all with the iPad. Tablets are mainstream now. We want to be astounded by Apple again. So we look around our houses and try to figure out what products Apple could improve upon. And for the moment, the idea is wristwatches. 

The size is almost perfect. The small bezel on the sides, the shape - the iPad mini is almost exactly what I've been looking for. But I don't have one, and I probably won't get one this year. The reason is - it just doesn't provide any functionality I'm not already getting from my iPad and iPhone. It doesn't quite think different enough for me.   Next year, I want the Mini to be higher-tech, with a Retina screen - and to incorporate some old-timey tech, too. More after the jump. 

The Wall Street Journal and a number of other outlets reported last week that Apple was going to begin producing a cheaper iPhone, presumably going after the "economy phone" market. It would cost users nothing with a 2-year contract, and it would only cost Apple all of the ideals they hold most dear, and much of their current business model.   I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration. But not entirely.  Story time! 15 years ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. Their stock price was in the single digits, and had been for essentially the entire nineties. They were lost. I was still an Apple fanboy, and purchased a Mac LC 3 to take with me to college.  The Mac LC (which stands for "low-cost color") is precisely the kind of misguided product that the  low-cost iPhone - let's call it the "iPhone LC" would be. The computer was so underpowered that  a warning bubble popped up telling me that it literally could not run the MacPaint so