Media - what is it good for…

So the blogosphere is abuzz with the iPhone 3G and app store launch.  I am convinced this will be a huge success but lots of teething problems are present in the launch.  And the issue I have with this is that very few people (Om Malik excluded) seem to be taking Apple to task for all the problems.  Had this been any other company there would be plenty of slamming going on.  Ah, yes, the reality distortion field knows no bounds…

Congrats to Peter Gotcher and the rest of the folks at Topspin!  We need more companies like this one that are actually trying to do something positive for the recording industry.   And I think Topspin might win the coolest cover picture for a company launch.  Follow the link and check it out.  I could never skateboard but when I retire I am going to learn to surf…

Jeremy posted this morning about Garmin charging $70 to update the maps on his Nuvi to the latest & greatest maps.  As I talked about before, I believe Apple is aiming to make the iPhone the premiere mapping device and here Garmin is giving users another reason to ditch their devices.

Additionally, do most consumers really need the “new and improved” maps?  Roads are typically not constructed that quickly so perhaps sticking with the old maps work just fine…

Steve Jobs to John Markoff:

PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods

I blogged about the acquisition here and my speculation about the purpose of the acquisition is confirmed by the Jobs quote (if you believe that he is honest here).  A couple of interesting things here:

• The success of TI in the 1990s was largely down to their cosy relationship with Nokia.  Essentially TI builds custom versions of their chips for Nokia.  Some time later, slightly altered versions of these chips are available to other customers.  This gives Nokia a time-to-market advantage over its competitors.  As the relationship evolved and Nokia’s volumes grew, there was also a pricing advantage for Nokia.  Both Nokia and TI has profited handsomely from this relationship.
• Apple has a history of doing silicon in-house.  They build custom chips for their Macs in the 1980s.
• By bringing the SoC design capability in-house, Apple gets tremendous negotiating leverage with outside silicon companies.  So even if Apple never does deploy a PA Semi design, they could pay for some (or all) of the acquisition purely via negotiating leverage.
• To the extent Apple actually does deploy a PA Semi design into an iPhone, Apple cuts out one (high-valued) participant out of the value chain.  This alone probably pays for the ~$278M acquisition of PA Semi.

Steve Jobs may or may not announce a new iPhone today and that’s important but it almost does not matter because the real power of the iPhone is the SDK and apps that get built on it.  Apple has effectively turned the iPhone into a developer platform and that has a tremendous multiplier effect on the value of the device to consumers.  Even if Apple did not announce a new iPhone, the platform play alone will drive users to the device.  It also has a great lock-in effect as developers will want to develop for the platform with the most users.  Michael Gartenberg makes the point well here.

I still think Apple will introduce a new iPhone today (contrary to my earlier opinion) but it’s really the platform that matters.  I am sticking by my earlier prediction that Apple will segment their iPhone line-up and have essentially a vanilla version (ala Macbook) and a nicer version (ala Macbook Pro).

Tottenham bought Giovani Dos Santos for £4.7M.  Villareal bought Jozy Altidore for $10M.  So looking at pure transfer fees (I realize there are sell-on clauses etc) that makes these guys supposedly about worth about as much.  There is something wrong with this picture.  While Jozy holds great promise Giovani is much further along.  Here’s a guy who was in the Barcelona A squad and made 38 appearances for Barcelona.  So seemingly he is much further along in his career than Jozy.  So either Tottenham got a really nice deal done or the MLS got very good money for Jozy.

What do you think?

There is a great article in the NY Times about Jorge Flores of Chivas USA.  It points to something I talked about before: there is great untapped soccer talent in the US in the form of immigrant kids or kids of immigrants.  The article actually downplays the potential of drawing a lot of kids from this demographic but I think the article is wrong on this count.  The problem is that organized youth soccer in the US is not picking these kids up (I know they are trying) which is a shame.  I am convinced this demographic could help US soccer in a big way.  I am hoping the Seattle MLS franchise is wise to this and manages to get more kids from this demographic on to youth teams and subsequently into the MLS.

There is a fascinating series of articles about the singularity in latest issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine.  Read them all.  Very interesting.  Intuitively I believe in the possibility of “thinking machines” that exhibit some characteristics of human consciousness.  However, when and how sophisticated these machines will be is very unclear to me.  In terms of these machines being able to extend life (or person X’s consciousness), while that may be possible, this quest for immortality seems at odds with one of the unique characteristics of humans, that we are indeed mortal.  I believe this mortality is a key part of the human experience.  Take that away and the human experience becomes something very different.  

This is the second IEEE spectrum article I have referenced in the last couple of weeks.  Not sure if the magazine is getting better or what. 

Why would you implement a new rule that you now will be overturned in the courts?  That’s what FIFA did today with their 6+5 ruling which is trying to limit the number of foreign players on a given club.  The EU has already made it clear that it violates EU labor laws.  So why forge ahead with the new rule?  I really don’t know but some say this is actually an attempt to create more parity between rich and not-so-rich teams.  I also don’t get why it was so overwhelmingly approved given it’s chances of actually having some effect.  To me in reinforces the view of FIFA as an old-boys network.  The Economist covers this well here.  The NY Times also covers it but gets part of the story wrong.  They assert:

Beyond the legal issues, there are also questions of sport at stake. Does this sort of competitive protectionism really help develop domestic players? Some in soccer believe so. Or do players benefit from the increased competition with players from abroad? Clearly the influx of foreign players has boosted Europe’s top leagues. But has it also hampered England’s success while boosting Manchester United and Chelsea’s fortunes?

Well, there is no credible proof that England’s success has been hampered because the EPL has taken off and that there are more foreign players in the league.  There are lots of great English players as evidenced by 10 of the 22 players starting in the Champions League final.  Why the England team is not as successful as it should be is another question and most likely unrelated to the number of foreign players in the EPL.

Adobe and Qualcomm announced a deal today to integrate Flash into the BREW developer platform.  The most significant parts are:

• going forward Flash developers can count on Flash being present on Qualcomm powered handsets (most prominently Verizon’s handsets)
• that there will be no Flash royalty that handsets will have to pay to include the Flash runtime which makes it a no-brainer for the handset vendors
• access to BREW APIs from Flash which means that Flash authors do not have to learn a new authoring tool.  It also means BREW developers have a new developer tool available to them that is quite different to what they are used to (Eclipse and VS).
• it’s a setback for Silverlight as it’s further proof that Adobe is managing to get Flash into more places and obviously mobile phones have a huge footprint.