Showing posts with label icloud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label icloud. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Amazon, The Best and Foremost Enemy of Apple Part.III



With icloud, Apple may, however, go far beyond the Cloud Drive. Amazon is focusing effect on media content, where Apple offers various services in addition to "productivity" (email, calendars, contacts, files synchronization, etc). Amazon then simply create a digital record, while Apple was able to convince record labels and management companies of copyright to allow the download multiple purchases or duplication of an iTunes library.

Apple takes the advantage because she thought the solution in the cloud as an extension of its equipment, as part of a full circle closed ecosystem. Amazon also has a closed ecosystem: the Kindle (designed by Lab126 ... in Cupertino). It is difficult to measure the success of Kindle and its associated download platform, Amazon do not provide sales figures, but it is undeniable.

Kindle and iPod are similar: they have succeeded where others have failed with a formula not necessarily new, but distinctive hardware and an integrated software platform available at the right time (technological convergence and preparing the public for the idea). The iPod had a hard drive, the wheel and then iTunes FairPlay DRM, the Kindle screen eIink had its modern, its persistent and 3G as well as its free Kindle Store and a closed file format. In many ways, it has demonstrated the viability of the eBook.

Apple today hunting on the lands of the Amazon with iPad and iBookstore, as do other manufacturers, but from Amazon in this market is 90% (although it is in rapid decline and to fall to 70-75% by the end of the year). In the same way as iTunes, Safari or icloud is available on Windows, you can access the Kindle platform on many devices. Amazon has understood before others, and just as Apple, the central content at low prices and high volume ("set an aggressive price and go for volume" said Steve Jobs): the logical step after that 'we bought books on the Kindle Store, readable only through the application Kindle, is to buy a Kindle.

(Cont.)

Amazon, The Best and Foremost Enemy of Apple Part.II



Amazon's strategy could not be further from that of Apple, who swears by the gross margin, but the two companies come together on several issues, starting with the extreme loyalty of their customers. Better roads Amazon and Apple seem to be closer to the point of cross soon: as Apple has expanded the distribution and service (iTunes Store, App Store, icloud), Amazon’s has ventured into the field equipment (Kindle, a tablet soon). Soon, the two companies may well be in direct competition: each will have a complete ecosystem of distributing content to custom equipment designed and equipped with built-in software.

Amazon launched its music store in late 2007, more than four years after the opening of the iTunes Store. The lack of DRM, the highest quality and lower prices than iTunes Store helped catch up: Amazon has quickly become a viable number two, at least in the United States. The size of the catalogs of the two shops is now similar (14 to 16 million according to the counts): Amazon is characterized by regular lower prices, and generally a more flexible fee schedule, while Apple is known to afford some exclusives (the Beatles to name a few).

Jeff Bezos's company managed to consolidate its position as she was only 4% of purchases of digital music in the United States in early 2008, it now accounts for 11.6% of the market. This growth is currently not at the expense of iTunes, solid leader slight increase, reaching 70% market share. In a sense, Amazon helps strengthen Apple, eliminating weaker competitors such as Rhapsody, but Amazon is growing quickly: Apple may need to be wary.

Amazon's business practices are in fact just as formidable as in the early days. For the promotion of Amazon MP3 and its natural extension, the Cloud player, Jeff Bezos has not hesitated to sacrifice millions of dollars to provide music for song bread and gain new customers. Obviously the transaction cost as much as a traditional advertising campaign, with a different conversion rate.

(Cont.)

Amazon, The Best and Foremost Enemy of Apple Part.I



It is frequently contrasted with Apple to Microsoft, Apple and more recently in Google. Amazon is to forget: in many ways, the firm of Jeff Bezos is perhaps the most formidable competitor to Apple, the electronic book to digital music, sales of applications for sale of equipment.

Amazon-smile, The fictionalized story of Apple based much of its current image: the return of the prodigal son has helped to revive the phoenix from the ashes, to replay the scene of the Macintosh iPod, iPhone and iPad and iTunes in the background. Less well known is the story of Amazon, so it is no less exciting.

Founded in 1994 and launched in 1995, Amazon.com is designed as the "largest bookseller in the world" free from physical constraints, the site was ambitious to sell more books than all its competitors combined. Its founder, Jeff Bezos, quickly launched an ambitious acquisition policy, increasing the acquisition of electronic bookstores (Bookpages, future Telebook and Amazon UK, Amazon DE future, in 1998, Audible in 2000) and many and varied many Internet services (IMDb, Wise in 1998, Alexa in 1999, several management systems in 1999 and 2000).

Amazon's business model has long been atypical in the first version scribbled by Jeff Bezos, it was not about generating profits, but simply to attract capital (the company goes public in 1997) and grow fast enough to reach many markets. The competitive advantage allows it to keep prices low. The genius of Bezos was to take calculated risks: to provide the delivery is a dead loss, but can attracting customers and hope to sell enough to generate a high margin on volume. This set of communicating vessels is the trademark of Amazon.

After years of losses as investors impatient and have to find all the patches available to present the results at their best, the activity becomes profitable Amazon bookstore in mid-2000 before all the activities going on green end of 2001. The demonstration is striking: 80% of sales are made by regular customers, who then spend about € 30 a month on Amazon.

Consolidation accounting rules, limiting or omitting certain practices disguising costs, Amazon is in the red board? Bezos offers delivery and conceded large reductions: sales explode and losses are reduced by half. Amazon MP3 should be promoted and its companion Cloud Drive? Jeff Bezos's company made loss of $ 2.6 million in selling off the last album in fashion; But earned nearly half a million users.

(Cont.)

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Apple Confirms iCloud Web Apps



Apple has published a FAQ on the transition to MobileMe icloud. She confirms that including MobileMe web apps (mail, contacts, calendars, Find My iPhone) will be accessible through icloud.com this fall. These functions will remain thus accessible icloud in a browser.

E-mail, contacts, calendars, bookmarks and services Find My iPhone and Back to My Mac to MobileMe will be transferred from icloud. It will also find a new way to sync keychain, widgets, Dock items and preferences system (see for example, use Dropbox and symbolic links, as we explained for example Safari extensions, read: No -by-Step: synchronize your Safari extensions on multiple Macs). IWeb publishing, galleries and iDisk disappearing in favor of new services icloud: iTunes in the cloud, the flow of photos, backup and restoration, or the automatic download of applications and electronic books. The storage space by default is 5 GB, expandable against payment: Apple will specify the conditions by launching icloud.

All active MobileMe accounts June 6, 2011 were automatically extended for free until June 30, 2012, when MobileMe will disappear forever. This period allows current users to find alternatives to services that will be then removed in the summer of 2012. Even if a user has the MobileMe transition icloud, he can access their iWeb sites and galleries until June 30, 2012.

This will keep MobileMe address (@ mac.com or @me.com) addresses icloud default is en@me.com. The MobileMe Family Pack can be converted: the master account and each account will become members’ icloud individual accounts. Apple does not specify the fate of aliases, and has not lifted the veil on the conversion of accounts with expired MobileMe account. Finally, Apple recalled the terms of repayment of current MobileMe subscriptions for those who do not need the extra time to retrieve any data.

Mac OS X Lion New revolution ahead Part.III



Again Apple wanted to streamline the Airdrop, which allows exchanging files with Mac nearby, without configuration and without any Wi-Fi network; however, this method gives a semblance of consistency to the file, so that everything in Lion pushes the use of IOS as: applications become points of access to their own files, for a presentation as a library.

This mode of use has had some detractors, not unreasonably given the way so far, management of files for each application was made in iOS iTunes. Again icloud addresses this problem and provides a consistent solution: the file no longer exists. Those who demanded a Finder IOS will be for free: the concept itself has become simply obsolete. It remains to propose a way to exchange files with other users on how to easily Airdrop of IOS.

And it took many steps to arrive at the disappearance of the file as we have always known. These functions are direct descendants of Time Machine, but also Spotlight: it is the search for metadata that is likely to make navigation file obsolete term. Integrated with facial recognition photos can do research on the content of images them, without having to remember the name and location of the jpeg. Various teams are currently working on generic object recognition in images.


But Apple is not his first attempt. In 1995, she tried to redefine the boundaries between applications and files with OpenDoc, which allowed the use of application functionality scattered within a single document. Certainly, there was no question at that time to end the file, Apple still had tried a different approach, which proved unsuccessful, and to which he was terminated shortly after the return of Steve Jobs at Apple, then as special adviser Gil Amelio.

Still, for users of Mac OS X, there will be definitely a before and after Leo. In the future, you may rethink the way you currently manage your files with some amusement.

Mac OS X Lion New revolution ahead Part.II



In common use, you can switch operation between various parameters Version: block the file status (not to automatically save the changes you might add), clone the file (to create a working copy, thus incidentally create template files), and return to the status of the document as it was when you opened it. Let us make no mistake: with this feature, Apple editing for the first time since the first Macintosh in 1984 not backing up files.


In other words, these functions would have greatly benefited from the support of ZFS, which incorporates features specifically iterative and incremental backups, among others. Unfortunately Apple has had to abandon plans to support ZFS in Mac OS X as a matter of license. Apple will have no rest, probably at the cost of a little more space on the disk and less flexibility, HFS + cannot bear comparison with ZFS.

The Finder itself reflects these “flattening” files: the default view window now displays all the files on the disk equally, with no indication or hierarchical file. Ultimately, it is conceivable that Launchpad takes precedence over the Finder to become the default access mode, although direct access to the files will remain indispensable for some time.


Apple has also brought another part of the answer to this question with icloud, which synchronizes your devices seamlessly. A user will no longer have to use USB or send each its own files by email to make them move from one machine to another, which a little disembodied file. There remains the problem of communication of a file to another person.

(Cont.)

Mac OS X Lion New revolution ahead Part.I



Apple had already obliterated the notion of IOS file; it will push the logic even further with Leo. Who among us has never found a raging against fatal crash, which occurred "unexpectedly" before any backup job in progress? And conversely, never regretted a backup unfortunate, disfiguring involuntarily working hours following a false manipulation '?


So far, it was the user that he belonged to "make clean" to manage their files, save, classify, list them, in short, time well productivity unnecessarily flown by itself, and worries that everyone without. In the absence of any alternative, we had to do against bad luck, good heart.

Mac OS X 10.7, two technologies relegate such practices to the level of inconsistencies of the past as automatic backup of IOS, and versions, a system that allows to go back on the various stages of changes in your.

With the automatic backup, you will not have to worry about any crashes, power failures and other accidents: the application opens in the state where you left off, reopening the file on which you were to work. Better yet, the windows are repositioned such that you had placed before leaving the application, and even the current selection is returned in the same condition. Nothing distinguishes the application state between the two moments.

Versions promises to further ease the use of software: with a format similar to Time Machine, you can navigate in time to return to previous versions of your document. If you want a version you can scroll the document window to inspect it, and even make a copy and paste from an old to a new version. This feature alone promises new ways of working and use your Mac. The work is temporal and it will be possible to annotate a document as and when its edition to appear with nothing in the end and a simple return on the file's history will reveal these notes.

(Cont.)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Is iCloud going to use Windows Azure!?




In recent weeks, Mary-Jo Foley, a journalist specializing in Windows for ZDNet, has received several indications that Apple would use Windows Azure, the platform-as-service Microsoft. She was dismissed out of hand these rumors, but the assumption seems to be confirmed now iCloud was presented.

Sending an image IMessage causes authentication to servers Windows Azure. The study of communications network connected to IOS devices icloud indeed shows contacts with Windows Azure servers and Amazon AWS in addition to Apple's servers, as shown, for example Apple Infinite. GigaOM has sought advice from three experts from the cloud: if two do not think that such communications be sufficient evidence, the third draws an explanation of interest.

Apple already has data centers, used especially for MobileMe and updates of software. They are however not sufficient to properly distribute the content around the world: Apple relies on a distribution network (CDN), provided in particular by Akamai and Limelight. The contents are duplicated on thousands of servers around the globe to accelerate downloads. So according to this third expert, Apple would use a similar strategy to icloud: the data center of Maiden would host the master files, but copies are placed on servers Windows Azure (and Amazon AWS) as a cache.

In light of new observations of network traffic on an iPhone with iOS 5, Infinite Apple has another theory: Apple's servers would not be used to store files, but to manage the links between different files, scattered servers, Windows Azure and Amazon AWS, as close to their users.

In any case in detail, the use of external services for icloud is not surprising. While the data center of Maiden is the ninth largest in the world, but Microsoft up three data centers in the top 10: the Redmond Company has one of the largest accommodation capacity in the world, with a system, Windows Azure that has nothing to prove. Apple is pragmatic on the matter: she knows the world of data center is not his strength, and does in fact not a single Mac in the Maiden. Windows Azure is also a product that Steve Jobs knows well: his other company, Pixar, had worked in the cloud version of its rendering engine, system demonstration in the Microsoft cloud.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Windows XP private icloud




"Using icloud PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for access to contacts and calendars", says Apple. Yes, Windows XP is not compatible with icloud, which operate on iTunes yet 10.3 and MobileMe.

Apple has always been very conservative with Windows, preserving a great backward compatibility because of the unwavering support of XP users to their OS. If Vista was not convinced things are different with Windows 7, which is gradually forgetting his great ancestor. As does Microsoft itself, moreover, Apple thus moving towards the phasing out of Windows XP, which remains the operating system most widely used.

Remind all intents and purposes that Apple is much more aggressive with its own OS: it has always supported the version of Mac OS X and the current version. Thus, iTunes 10.3 is only compatible with Leopard and Snow Leopard, and it is not surprising that the media is full icloud as Lion and Snow Leopard.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Mac OS X Lion Redesigned !!!




Believe, the latest build of Mac OS X Lion brings something new on Find your Mac. In previous betas, some evidence suggested that Apple would incorporate this feature in Mac OS X, this no longer seems to be doubted that with new build which includes among others an icon for this service.

Also found in the system, a reference to find my Mac Messenger. 9to5 messenger believes this would make the link with the user in case of computer theft. Left to speculate, it is not surprising that this new feature takes place in icloud.

Failing to make big new features, this version seems to have many cosmetic changes here and there. Thus, the download manager in Safari has been reviewed. The bubbles in iChat have also been slightly redesigned, like the bars of tabs in preferences. And they put forward some changes that reflect a listen to criticism from the first users of Leo. Like buttons showing a panel is selected. In this beta they have taken a more traditional look of button pressed and darkened.

In previous versions of Leo, Apple had also inspired iOS with a principle that the ruler is moved and displayed in a tone remained clear enough to indicate the current panel. This was not necessarily explicit.