Apple's Top Banana Back on the Jobs
For the first time since his liver transplant, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has put himself back in the spotlight -- taking center stage moments ago at an Apple event in San Francisco.
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Steve Jobs -- Big Man on Campus ... Again
UPDATE 10:03 AM: Apple stock is blowin' up -- it's now up 4.00 a share.
UPDATE: Jobs' return seemed to be noticed on Wall St. -- right now (9:35 AM EST), the Apple stock is up 2.52 a share.
Steve Jobs is back to an Apple a day -- and we've got the proof.
TMZ obtained this photo of the Apple co-founder leaving company headquarters in Cupertino, California around 3:00 PM Wednesday.
It's the first time we've seen Jobs back in action since January, when he took a leave of absence for a liver transplant. Jobs has reportedly been back at work for about a month.
BTW -- this photo was taken on an iPhone.
Filed under: Exclusives
iPhone: It's for You; Will You Accept the Charges?
Enjoy the spotlight Apple -- while it lasts. Apple, as you don't need me to tell you, introduced the $499 iPhone yesterday, and in so doing sent Apple's share price soaring by six percent. Close-competitor BlackBerry stock plunging by even more. To put that in perspective for you: Apple, Inc. is now worth $6 billion more than it was 48 hours ago, and the iPhone won't even be available until June.
I can see why. I recently steeled myself and managed to program -- slowly, painfully -- a few new numbers into my Motorola RAZR V3 cell phone. With its agonizingly slow web connection and painfully awkward text-messaging, being thin really is about its only redeeming quality. Fortunately, as Nicole Richie can tell you, being extremely thin is often enough to keep your name in the papers. When the RAZR came out in July 2004, it stopped traffic; Aircraft-grade aluminum, chemically-etched keypad numbers, all in a package less than 14 millimeters thick. Back then, we all agreed that cell phones were evil, and while they all more or less sucked for anything beside making a call, they were necessary. The least they could be was elegantly unobtrusive.
Steve Job's latest invention aims to contravene those assumptions. In addition to being a phone, it's got a multi-touch screen, scrolling navigation and a 2-megapixel camera, as well as the iPod music and video player. Daily Variety even put news of Apple's new, albeit limited, movie download agreement with Paramount Pictures on its front page the other day. (If you think your monthly cell phone bill is scary now, wait until it includes the price of the six movies, ten shows and eighteen songs you bought with it.)
More, I don't know about you, but my cell phone has taken so many beatings from me, it's considering taking out a restraining order. In contrast, I treat the iPod my wife gave to me like it's a Fabergé egg. I shudder to think what will happen to Apple if the five or six hundred dollar iPhone proves to be as delicate as it is expensive. Rather than use it to order 4,000 lattes, Jobs would have impressed me and the CES audience far more if he'd simply dropped his iPhone to the floor, as I've done a million times, then nonchalantly continued his prank call to Starbucks.
One other thing that leaves me head-scratching: Why would a guy so meticulous about what tech geeks refer to as "the user experience" throw-in with a bunch of chuckleheads like the phone companies? Ultimately, a phone is judged by its provider, and as anyone who's called directory assistance can tell you, the phone companies will deny that a restaurant you just drove by even exists -- especially when you need the number in a hurry.
It appears Wall Street's analysts share the same worries; this summer we'll see if Jobs can revolutionize chewing the fat the way he did spinning the wax.
Filed under: City Of Industry
iPhone: The Yeti of Technology
Once again, the elusive iPhone is on the radar of geeks who are hungry for an Apple-branded phone.
This time, news comes from respected financial magazine "Forbes," instead of the basement of a rabid Apple fan. According to the article, "Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd has secured contracts for 12 million mobile handsets that also function as mp3 players." Now, before you throw your phone into the nearest mulcher, the article goes on to say that the iPhone won't launch until the first half of 2007.
If the article's "industry source" is to be believed, expect Mr. Jobs to announce the iPhone during his annual Macworld Expo keynote speech in January, where the abominable snowman is also scheduled to speak.
Filed under: Celebritoyz
Apple Unveils Movie Store, New iPods
After what seems like years of speculation and rumors, Steve Jobs finally revealed the movie store on Apple's iTunes. The company is clearly hoping the movie store does for motion pictures what the music store did for music. Movies are available for download at $9.99 to $14.99 apiece, and pre-ordered movies are available for $12.99. All movie releases will coincide with that film's DVD release. iTunes 7 is available for free download for Mac and PC now.
Click here... it's not over yet
Filed under: Celebritoyz
Will Hollywood Dance With iTunes?
A few months ago, we read about the plight of a newly minted medical doctor. With his sheepskin in hand, he went on several job interviews, finally finding an employer who liked him, and he, them.
Then the knotty problem emerged: "You've got the job - just tell us what we should pay you."
It's one of the oldest Hollywood tricks in the book, honed to perfection by Miramax Films founder, Harvey Weinstein: Forcing someone to negotiate against themselves. By forcing the doctor to name his price, he instantly put himself at a disadvantage, since he had no way of knowing whether his first suggestion was too low or too high.
Hollywood is facing a similarly agonizing headache right now, as it relates to the ever-expanding way to distribute shows and films.
Take today's headlines that iTunes will soon be offering films along with shows and songs. On the surface it sounds exciting, since Steve Jobs got the record labels to hold hands and sing kumbaya! long enough to agree on the value of a song: 99 cents, and a TV show, $1.99.
But what, precisely is the value of a film?
As Variety's Ben Fritz notes today,
"The main sticking point is price. Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who has been personally involved in the talks, initially proposed selling all films at a flat price of $9.99 -- an offer the studios flatly rejected. 'We can't be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff,' said a studio exec close to the negotiations."
Or can't they?
Almost seven years ago, Coca-Cola explored the notion that the price of a can of Coke should correspond to how badly you might want a cold drink: In 1999, t was said to be working on a vending machine that automatically raises the price of a cola whenever the mercury rises.
It seemed exactly what the industry most needed: Vending maching sales were flat, so why not find a way to goose profits by increasing prices when people were most likely to be thristy? Airlines do it all the time, as anyone who's tried to buy a ticket home for Thanksgiving knows, with impunity.
And what is iTunes if not a vending machine for media?
But there's a reason the Smart Coke machine has yet to debut: Consumers hated the idea with almost as much vigor as the hated New Coke. And with more and more studies linking sugary sodas to childhood obesity, the bottler needed another reason to not buy Coke like a hole in the head.
Tinsteltown's consumers might have a similarly adverse reaction to "flexible" film download pricing, and it wouldn't be to not buy the product. Annoyed beverage consumers might go and pour themselves a cold glass of water instead. They rarely if ever pull out a blowtorch, cut open the soda machine and steal every can of Coke inside. That is, legal downloaders can easily be turned into larcenous ones who'd rather use BitTorrent or some other such Swiss Army Knife like piracy abetting program to pry open Hollywood's canned goods.
iTunes has, thus far, been successful in keeping the price of a song at 99 cents, a price that according to the record labels, is artificially low, and one they have almost no leverage to change.
But regardless of which price is fair, the fact that Jobs' is doing the pricing means it's almost inherently unfair: Thanks to a lock on the market and the lack of interoperability between a songs you buy on iTunes and every other music player on earth, the value of the song to the consumer is limited.
This already has the rest of the world, and Europe in particular, on the offensive:
As Reuters noted late last week,
"Shortly after the French government backed away from a measure that would have legally required Apple and other digital music providers to open their (Digital Rights Management) systems to competitors, Norway attacked. The country's Consumer Ombudsman and Consumer Council say that Apple's practice of limiting music purchased on iTunes to just iPod devices is against Norwegian law as are the terms of iTunes' end-user licensing agreement. Regulators there have given Apple until June 21 to revise its policies or face fines. Fellow Scandinavian governments of Denmark and Sweden reportedly are considering similar actions."
What does all this mean for the odds that you'll be downloading a film on iTunes?
Well, "Napoleon Dynamite" cost $15 million; "Superman Returns" cost $250 million. The tickets will cost the same, and probably the DVDs too. For the first time in a long while, Hollywood has a chance to change that. Even at these inflated budgets, we can't expect one to cost more than the other at the boxi office. Present demand wouldn't accept it. However, because of these ballooning movie budgets, we could expect that a dud like "The Island" will cost less than a hit like "Pirates of the Carribean" as a download. For consumers, that might not be so bad after all. You'll pay more for what you want, and less for what you don't. And for studios, it means punishment for bad films and an incentive to think more carefully about the process of making a film.
Man, all this talk of pricing makes a man thirsty. Can someone spot me $15.95 for a Coke? It's hot out here today.
Filed under: City Of Industry
