codedifferent.com » Culture

Video of the special event: A celebration of Steve’s life.

Christian — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:09:47 +0000

Apple just published the video of the tribute to Steve special event at the Apple Campus on October 19, 2011. So kind, that the Apple folks are sharing the event with us. Thanks. It’s really moving.

Picture: Apple

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish … RIP Steve Jobs

Christian — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:06:43 +0000

Thank you for so much, Steve.

I was deeply moved by Your commencement speech in Stanford as I am when I watch it today …

Live Video Stream of the Apple “Back to the Mac” Media Event

Christian — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:25:46 +0000

Today, October 20th at 10 AM PST (07 PM CET), Apple invited the press to their “Back to the Mac” media event in Cupertino, California. iPhone, iPad and the iPod are quite important … but there sure are the MacBooks, MacBook Pros, the iMacs, the Mac Pros and the Mac OS X as a base for all the success. So it’ll be quite interesting to watch what Steve Jobs will present us today.
As Fortune reported, viewing the live stream requires Safari on Mac OS X 10.6 or an iPhone/iPod touch with iOS 3.0 or better … or an iPad.

Stay tuned for the Live Streaming URL.

[UPDATE] Here’s the live stream: http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2010/

Battle on the emerging market of Active Content: Amazon Kindle versus Apple

Christian — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:08:24 +0000

Apple invited the press to their “Come see our latest creation” event in San Francisco on January 27th. And the computer and e-book industry starts trembling with fear: Companies like Microsoft and Amazon are getting really nervous, because Apple may conquer the emerging market of Active Content.

Apple did not announce that the company will be engaged in the e-book or tablet-market – but the rumors about an “iSlate” or “iPad” are quite persistent. Therefore Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer tried to steal Apple the show at his keynote at the CES in Las Vegas: He just renamed the tablet-PCs on stage as “slate-PCs” … but it’s not about a name.

Kindle Development Kit (picture: Amazon)

Now Amazon announced, that the company will open up their e-book platform for third party developers: Within some month, they’ll release a Kindle Development Kit (KDK) and will also provide the sales channel for the active content created with that software development kit (SDK).
The revenue sharing model looks quite familiar to iPhone developers: 70% to the developer and content provider, 30% for Amazon. But Amazon charges an additional $0.15 per MB for content delivery … as the Kindle is not sold with a mobile phone contract. Amazon has to pay the distribution costs to the mobile network operators if the content is delivered via the mobile data channel.

Amazon is probably in a better starting position in the battle for market shares in the emerging market of Active Content: They have a lot of experience with content distribution with the Kindle and they are in direct contact with the publishers … but Apple has the ability to rouse the e-book-market from slumber by innovation. They may transfer the pathetic e-books into a new and emerging market: Active Content.

There are a lot of advantages for Apple to tip the scales:

big and growing iPhone SDK developer community … Amazon has to build up a comparable dev community around the KDK
well-engineered and sophisticated iPhone SDK … with a full bandwidth of network-, graphic-, data- and sensor-support
color instead of grayscale screens and computing and graphic power
touchscreen with gestures
amazing design
… and there are probably some innovations we don’t expect

Amazon’s move to open up the Kindle to 3rd party developers and create a platform for Active Content is absolutely right … but can it compete with Apples offering? On January 27th 2010 we’ll know much, much more.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes medical leave until June

Christian — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:52:54 +0000

This step certainly wasn’t easy for Steve Jobs: He takes a medical leave until Juni to recover from his health problems – which are more complex than he thought. It’s probably a hefty step for him and his family to share this private information with public interest. But the history and also the future of Apple stick tightly to his name. This tight relationship is also reflected in the stock price, which dropped down more than 7 percent in extended trading when the news was spreading.
The Chief Operating Officer (COO) Tim Cook will work as CEO until Steve gets back in June. Cook ran Apple also for two months in 2004 when Steve was recovering from his cancer surgery – and he has a great reputation.

So, again: Get well soon, Steve!

Sources: Yahoo.com, Spiegel.de, Apple.com

Steve, get well soon!

Christian — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:20:26 +0000

Just read the letter from Steve Jobs and die Apple Community. It’s a pity, that Steve cannot give “his” keynote today, but no problem to get over that. But it’s shocking to hear that it’s because of health problems.
So: I absolutely appreciate his decision – health comes first! I wish you a speedy recovery! Great, that the Apple Board of Directors is just on the same track.

Mac and iPhone Browser Marketshare are Growing Fast

Christian — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:22:28 +0000

It’s quite interesting to go into the browser / OS marketshare statistics Net Applications is gathering.
Within the last 12 months, the marketshare of Apple Mac OS X powered computers increased from 6.38% in Feb 2007 to 7.57% in Jan 2008 – a growth rate of about 19%. This great news for the Mac community – but what’s really surprising is the significant marketshare of iPhone surfers in the last month. The iPhone was introduced to the US market on June 29th 2007 – and in Jan 2008 it’s internet surfer worldwide market share is 0.13% according to the Net Applications. Focussing only on the US market it’s share is even higher at 0.20%!
It looks like the iPhone really fuels the use of mobile internet.

Source: Net Applications

[Update] First German retail Apple Flagship Store will be located in Munich

Christian — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:21:37 +0000

If you can trust the Apple job postings the first retail Apple Store won’t be located in the German capital Berlin – but in the beautiful city of Munich Wonderful: finally a Genious-Bar nearby!
There is just one open question – will the rumors prove right, that the flagship store will be situated directly in the center of Munich at the Marienplatz?

[Update] Today, Georg Albrecht, head of PR Apple Germany, confirmed, that the first German Apple Flagship Store will be located in Munich.

Sources & Graphic: Apple and fscklog

Macworld Keynote 2008 of Steve Jobs online now

Christian — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:16:29 +0000

Apple just put the Quicktime-Stream of the 2008 keynote online. So enjoy the show!

Steve Jobs Keynote: There’s something in the air …

Christian — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:52:57 +0000

This morning, at 9 PST the time has come again: Steve Jobs starts the new Mac-Year with his traditional keynote at the beginning of the Apple centric fair and conference MacWorld in San Francisco. Even back in 1986, when introducing the legendary Mac, Steve celebrated his performance like a rock star – and we’ll get a real show act today, too.
Today it’s remarkable that this time even the Apple homepage is pointing it’s attention straight to the San Francisco event. The Apple marketing strategists sent out a cryptic but promising slogan “2008. There’s something in the air …”. The upgrade of the MacPros probably wasn’t spectacular enough for Steve – so this info was released last week.
So we only can wait and read what all the busy bloggers in the auditorium of the keynote will report – like the colleagues from macrumorslive.com – thanks to built in Airport. Hopefully we can hear the legendary sentence of Steve: “… there is one more thing!”

In the afternoon (PST) Apple.com will provide a streamed version of the keynote speech.