{"id":2665,"date":"2010-02-03T19:24:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T03:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2665"},"modified":"2010-02-03T19:24:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-04T03:24:38","slug":"ipad-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/03\/ipad-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"iPad Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Book Pricing<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon blinked.<\/p>\n

In case you missed the story, over the weekend Macmillan drew a line in the sand.\u00c2\u00a0 No more devaluing our product, no more underselling to boost Kindle market share, we’re not going to let you sell electronic books for $9.99 upon date of hard cover publication.<\/p>\n

Oh YEAH??<\/p>\n

Well, yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 You should have seen the mealy-mouthed Amazon explanation when the retailer caved.\u00c2\u00a0 Something about Macmillan having a "monopoly over their own titles"?\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n

The record companies want to raise prices at the iTunes Store and Steve Jobs goes public and calls them greedy.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Bezos just caves.<\/p>\n

But the truly interesting point is Macmillan’s desire to stand up to Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 It was emboldened by a product that has not yet hit the shelves, the iPad.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Jobs said electronic books would be a straight 70\/30 deal, in favor of the publisher.\u00c2\u00a0 And books would cost $12.99 to $14.99.<\/p>\n

Overnight, with an unreleased product, Steve Jobs changed electronic book pricing.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n

(Meanwhile, emboldened by Macmillan, HarperCollins is now angling for a better e-book deal with Amazon, which Murdoch said today is ready to renegotiate. Meanwhile, Murdoch, who controls HarperCollins, referenced Apple’s higher prices in his criticism of Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 So, Bezos takes his finger out of the dike and the water comes rushing in, just like that, all because Jeff is afraid of Steve Jobs and Apple.)<\/p>\n

2. Flash<\/span><\/p>\n

You should have seen the blogosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 Up in arms.\u00c2\u00a0 The iPad doesn’t support FLASH!<\/p>\n

And it doesn’t have a camera, which the ultimately released edition is now rumored to include, and there’s no USB…<\/p>\n

But Flash?\u00c2\u00a0 How can we run the Internet without Flash?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the standard!\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, you could see the blank spot in the "New York Times" page Jobs pulled up in the demo, where the movie was supposed to go.\u00c2\u00a0 The iPad can’t triumph…\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe you can get away without Flash on the tiny iPhone, but not the iPad!<\/p>\n

Then Jobs struck back.\u00c2\u00a0 Trumping the naysayers by saying that Flash sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 That it’s the main reason Safari crashes on computers.<\/p>\n

Mmm…\u00c2\u00a0 That’s right.<\/p>\n

I don’t know if you’re on a Mac, but it never crashes, not only the whole computer, but any individual program, except for occasionally Microsoft Office, where so many cooks ended up releasing a half-baked product, and Safari.<\/p>\n

Yes, it’s not frequent, but Safari crashes.\u00c2\u00a0 Or hangs.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s always the damn movie.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s always Flash.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, online, there’s all this hoopla about HTML5.\u00c2\u00a0 How it and H.264 are better than Flash and are going to replace it.<\/p>\n

Wow.\u00c2\u00a0 Talk about turning lemons into lemonade.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Jobs is so powerful he can change the STANDARD!\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, this is not the first time he’s done it.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember the iMac without the floppy drive, with USB connectors?\u00c2\u00a0 Seen a floppy drive recently?\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t USB the standard (is the proprietary iPod connector about to be the new standard?)<\/p>\n

3. AT&T<\/span><\/p>\n

There were audible groans in the auditorium when Jobs stated that high speed cellular connections for the iPad would be through AT&T.\u00c2\u00a0 The groans may not have made the official video, but do you wonder why the stream doesn’t appear until hours later?\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got to be cleaned up!<\/p>\n

AT&T has shitty 3G coverage.\u00c2\u00a0 Just watch TV and see the maps.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, AT&T’s 3G is extremely fast, WHERE YOU CAN GET IT!\u00c2\u00a0 Which is in the metropolis, assuming the system’s not overloaded.<\/p>\n

But today it was revealed that Verizon just didn’t bid high enough.\u00c2\u00a0 That AT&T put its money where its mouth was.\u00c2\u00a0 Coming up with a low-priced service plan that other providers weren’t about to match.\u00c2\u00a0 Giving AT&T a monopoly on Apple products and time to finally get those infrastructure changes in place before everybody abandons the legacy carrier.<\/p>\n

All this and the iPad has not yet been released.<\/p>\n

It seems the world comes down to two kinds of people.\u00c2\u00a0 Those who are afraid of Apple and those who are not.\u00c2\u00a0 Verizon is not.\u00c2\u00a0 But they just reported shitty numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 Amazon is.<\/p>\n

You see companies believe that Steve Jobs is in control of a giant tribe, who will follow him anywhere.\u00c2\u00a0 So far, Mr. Jobs has not revealed a compelling reason to purchase an iPad.\u00c2\u00a0 But that doesn’t mean he won’t.\u00c2\u00a0 And when he does, when the tribe has acquired it and harangued newbies to join the team, do you want to be left out?<\/p>\n

This is utterly amazing.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got a President, a whole cadre of elected officials whored out to corporations, their approval ratings in the dumper. But we’ve got a businessman (aren’t we supposed to hate businessmen?) who appears beholden to no one, in search of excellence, willing to do it his way at the risk that potential partners might take the highway.\u00c2\u00a0 When so-called musical "artists" are eager to sell out, do you wonder why Steve Jobs has got such a throng of admirers, such a posse?\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where an unreleased product changes the course of business?<\/p>\n

AT&T would be in the same boat as Sprint without the iPhone and now the iPad, hemorrhaging customers.<\/p>\n

Adobe felt it won the war of Web video and rested on its laurels, just like Microsoft.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got dominant market share, Flash is the standard, you have to use our product…huh?\u00c2\u00a0 Especially if the platform changes.\u00c2\u00a0 Microsoft may own the desktop, although their share is slipping, but it’s losing tremendous ground in the new medium, mobile devices.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell who’d want Windows Mobile after using Windows on their desktop?\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not like Windows Mobile has gotten good reviews.<\/p>\n

And if you think physical books are the way of the future, then you’re unaware of the towns that no longer sport a bookstore, like Laredo, TX, you’re unaware that library hours are shortening, that Borders is on the bring of bankruptcy and Barnes & Noble might soon be taken over.\u00c2\u00a0 The publishers are too ignorant to even see what’s going on.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re running into the arms of Apple to avoid Amazon.\u00c2\u00a0 Who do you need to fear most? Just look at a Kindle and an iPad and you’ve got your answer.\u00c2\u00a0 Publishers are doing BETTER by selling e-books on Amazon today, they’re getting physical book wholesale!\u00c2\u00a0 But fearful of $9.99 becoming the pricing standard, they’re taking a worse deal from Apple.\u00c2\u00a0 Retailing the books at higher prices, but getting less in return.\u00c2\u00a0 But how about when you want to raise prices again?\u00c2\u00a0 Look what happened with the record companies.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, Apple had all the power, not them.<\/p>\n

But publishers are shortsighted.<\/p>\n

And Amazon is weak.<\/p>\n

AT&T realized it’s better to get on the Jobs bandwagon than not.<\/p>\n

And the public wants cheaper prices, or it steals.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that Steve Jobs really cares, he’s in the hardware business…\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Book Pricing Amazon blinked. In case you missed the story, over the weekend Macmillan drew a line in the sand.\u00c2\u00a0 No more devaluing our product, no more underselling to boost Kindle market share, we’re not going to let you sell electronic books for $9.99 upon date of hard cover publication. Oh YEAH?? Well, yeah.\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-technology","category-the-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-GZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2666,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2665\/revisions\/2666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}