Gadgets and Gizmos

Apple iTunes Mobile 1.0 arriving soon

Here’s a very cool development from Apple. iTunes Mobile 1.0, the first version of iTunes for mobile devices, is on track for release by June 2005. iTunes Mobile is a joint-venture product of Apple and Motorola. The required Motorola phone (yes you need one of these to take advantage of iTunes) is scheduled for release in the second-half of the year. The main problem until now was finding a mobile carrier who would be willing or capable of providing the iTunes service:

Cell phone companies, including Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint, are planning on rolling out music download services later this year, according to a recent BusinessWeek story, and want to charge $2 to $3 a song, justifying the premium over Apple’s normal 99-cent price by the convenience of grabbing a tune whenever one pleases. Apple instead wants customers to copy purchased songs from their computer to the phone for playback, and does not favor direct purchases over a cell phone provider’s network.

almOne to strengthen business in Asia-Pacific region

Henry Cheung, sales director of wireless products for Asia Pacific at PalmOne, is saying that PalmOne will strengthen its marketing and its channels to boost sales of its smartphones in the Asia-Pacific.

Recognizing that growth in the PDA market is slowing down, PalmOne will continue to focus both on PDAs and smartphones, although the smartphone market has a high growth potential, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, Cheung stated.

Prepare for the Mobile OS war

Two Gartner analysts, Nick Jones and John Girard predict big trouble for Symbian when the “Beast of Redmond” finally releases its Magneto release of Windows Mobile some time in Q3-Q4 2005.

Jones believes that the lead Symbian currently enjoys as a smartphone OS will evaporate when Magneto finally appears. Magneto will effectively fix the bugs and fill the holes in the current version of Windows for Smartphones. That will mean the difference between the two offerings will be largely down to marketing – an area where the Beast of Redmond is acknowledged to enjoy a lead. The Beast will portray its offering as the obvious choice for corporate users.
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Windows Mobile is the most predictable development platform

Venture Development Corp. (VDC) conducted a study analyzing the global market for mobile software. Their research suggests that “overall development time and development time predictability are two of the most critical issues facing developers.” In retrospect they conclude:

Microsoft is emerging as one of the most predictable development platforms (determined by the difference between actual and planned development time). In addition, mobile applications developed on a Microsoft platform generally have a shorter development time than similar Linux, PalmOS or Symbian projects.

VDC is expecting the global market for commercial mobile software (including OSes, application frameworks, java service and provisioning solutions) to reach $1.6b by 2008 (2004: $540m).

Sony and Toshiba working on unified optical disk format

Sony and Toshiba said they are in negotiations to resolve their competing next-generation optical disk formats, aiming to give consumers a unified video technology.

But both sides played down a report in the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun that said the Japanese electronics makers were on the verge of agreeing on a compromise “hybrid” next-generation DVD format.

In the battle for a high-definition successor to DVDs, Sony (SNE) leads an international group promoting the Blu-ray disc format. A rival group led by Toshiba (TOSBF) is promoting the HD-DVD format. Each has the support of several big electronics makers and movie studios.
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