Chinese iPad Reseller Market Fizzles

Arnold Kim for MacRumors:

Reuters reports that some of the new pressure comes from Chinese custom authorities which have told shipping companies to stop accepting iPad shipment orders. Meanwhile, the iPad has been added to a list of taxable items entering China. The end result has been much tighter margins than in the past. [...]

The other major factor seems to be an abundance of supply and a simultaneous launch in 10 countries including Hong Kong. As a result, black market prices for the new iPad in China has been falling.

Apple’s 5th Avenue store in NY saw chinese customers returning as many as 30 iPads at a time, according to MacRumors.

Being Pre-Disappointed is the New Disappointed

MG Siegler for TechCrunch on all the disappointing press being generated about the new iPad before it’s even announced:

There’s a very real disconnect between some of those in the tech press and actual human beings, it seems.

It’s not just about advanced knowledge, of course. Some people probably have posts prepped and ready to go right now pointing out what a “disappointment” tomorrow’s announcement will be. The contrarians. It’s no secret that on days with huge news that everyone is writing about, this is the easiest way to drum up more pageviews.

And now there’s something else that feeds this beast. Because Apple continues their insane ascent to the top of the mountain, everyone wants to be the first to call “top!” and successfully predict the downfall of the company. You only build up companies to knock them down, after all. The past several years have left these people looking like total assclowns. But it doesn’t matter. Everyone forgets who said what two years ago. Or six months ago. Or a week ago. All that matters is if you were right this time.

Apple's Press Conference Showed A Brand Unraveling

Jolie O’Dell for Venture Beat:

While today’s Apple event unveiled a couple new improvements to an expected lineup of products, it also revealed a certain sloppiness that was absent from former, Steve Jobs-led launches.

This wasn’t anything major, just a few minor but glaring inconsistencies: Tim Cook going for the “rumpled executive” look in an untucked shirt, the ambiguous naming of the “new iPad,” (not iPad 3 or iPad HD), the use of a truly horrible pun on a new product’s landing page, and finally, the tie-dyed Apple logo at the presentation’s conclusion. [...]

Today, we saw the first cracks in what will eventually become a wholesale break with the past.  What happens next will depend largely on the company’s ability to lead itself now that its founding leader is gone.

The only crack I see is the residue on Jolie’s keyboard after writing this piece.

(via Peter Cohen)

Apple Announces 25 Billionth App Store Download Winner

Eric Slivka for MacRumors:

Apple today announced the winner of its “25 Billion App Countdown” promotion that saw the company pass milestone late Friday. For the first time in one of Apple’s countdown competitions, the winner, Chunli Fu, came from China.

Disney’s Where’s My Water? Free was the milestone download, and the winner will receive an iTunes Gift Card worth US$10,000.

Rob Enderle Knows Nothing About Apple

Nick Heere on Rob Enderle’s latest column “Why Apple suddenly Sucks“, which compares Windows 8 (in public beta) and Mountain Lion (in developer preview):

Nowhere does Enderle cite any early reviews of Mountain Lion, nor make any specific points as to what he thinks reviews dislike. His entire rant hinges on his unsubstantiated, unreferenced statement that 10.8 sucks. And, from what I’ve read so far, reviewers are generally enjoying it. The biggest controversy so far has predictably been Gatekeeper.

This article also relies upon his opinion that Windows 8 is amazing and beloved by reviewers. On the contrary, while the adaption of the Metro interface and the speed of the OS has been widely praised, most seem unconvinced by the combination of a desktop and tablet operating system.

[...]

Furthermore, the two operating system updates aren’t even comparable. Windows 8′s Metro interface is a radical and interesting reconsideration of standard desktop paradigms. Mountain Lion’s name belies its purpose as a relative of Lion. There’s no magical tablet interface, but good, solid updates throughout. Of course, Enderle doesn’t mention any of this. In his world, Mountain Lion is an utter failure (“sucks”) and Windows 8 is the future of everything. The reason this is occurring is because Steve Jobs is dead.

Apple to Hold Educational Event January 19th in NYC

Dan Moren for Macworld:

The invitation received by Macworld shows a New York City skyline drawn on a chalkboard, with the outline of an Apple logo in the middle. The event has some swanky digs, too—the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue.

Rumors of a January Apple event first surfaced earlier this month, and they’d already crystallized around some sort of education topic. Given the New York City location, it also seems reasonable that publishing is in some way involved—perhaps an initiative for bringing textbooks to iOS devices? Will we finally see a version of iBooks for the Mac?

Sir Jonathan Ive

BBC News:

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of design, has been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours list.

Mona Simpson’s Eulogy for Her Brother

Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

An absolutely beautiful read.

Ten Years of iPod

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the iPod introduction, posted below is my first quick review of the original iPod I wrote back in November 2001. Click the image above to check out a Flickr set I created showing the unboxing of my first iPod.

Introducing iPod – November 11, 2001

Just bought an iPod today at my local Authorized Apple Reseller. They received their shipment in last night, but they couldn’t sell them until today. Very odd since alot of people who ordered their iPods directly from Apple started to receive them earlier this week.

The iPod is packaged in a VERY cool 6″ square cube box. Lifting off the outer shell revealed two rectangular boxes attached to each other that open like a book. The attention to detail in the packaging is amazing. The iPod is in the right hand side with the ear buds underneath and the documentation, AC adapter and Firewire cable are in the left.

The iPod is much smaller than I had originally imagined. I did notice the “Don’t Steal Music” on the clear wrapping of the iPod. A very nice feature is the 6 foot Firewire cable. My PowerMac G4 is on the floor under my desk so I’m pleased Apple didn’t skimp on cable length.

I plugged in the Firewire cable to the iPod then into the G4 and sure enough, iTunes 2 launched, asked me what I would like to call my iPod and then commenced to download all my music to the iPod. I only had 90 songs so far in iTunes and it didn’t take more then 2 minutes to download all of them. I unplugged the iPod and started to play with the controls.

The controls are so smooth and easy to use. The jog dial is absolute genius. The ear buds sound surprisingly well! They even have a great bass sound which I thought was impossible with ear buds. Unfortunately, I can’t stand ear buds for more then 5 minutes so I will go out and look for some nice high quality portable head phones.

FINALLY Apple has a product that many Windows users are lusting after, but can’t use. Us Mac users have suffered when cool and new software or hardware comes out and its Windows only or Windows now and Mac later. Now I doubt very much that a cool MP3 player like this will drive people to actually buy a Mac, but it doesn’t hurt. Like Steve Jobs said in his introduction of the iPod, this is the first of a new line of digital devices that Apple is creating. If Apple continues to come out with simple, elegant, easy to use devices like the iPod (I pray for an Apple PDA) I’m quite sure that will start to bring more and more people over to the Mac platform. Only time will tell.

One of the big stinks that many reviewers brought up about the iPod is its price. Well, Mac news sites are reporting that many Apple Stores, Apple resellers and Comp USA’s sold out of thier iPods yesterday. Each Apple Store alone received 200 iPods per store. People know quality when they see it. Like my Dad always says, you get what you pay for. You could pay $100 for a cheap ass MP3 player that only holds 30 songs at a time and has a very slow USB connection or you could pay $400 for an iPod which holds 1,500 songs, comes with a superfast Firewire connection and also doubles as an external hard drive.

Well thats about it. My iPod is now charging with the cool AC adapter with a Firewire port on it and I will be spending the rest of the day ripping the rest of my CD’s.

Square Now Processing $2B In Payments Per Year

Lenna Rao for TechCrunch:

Square’s Keith Rabois also revealed a number of growth statistics for the company, including that the payments service is now processing $2 billion in payments volume per year. To date, Square has been activated by 800,000 merchants which is up from 500,000 card readers shipped in May. Rabois says that Square’s merchants are now 10% of the reach of the Visa/MasterCard world.

Back in May, my Mom called and said she processed her first payment at a farmers market (she makes all natural dog products) with Square. Even though their growth has been impressive over the past couple of years, it really wasn’t until then that I realized that Square has got something here.