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What if Apple Joined Forces With AT&T To Make a True IP HDTV?

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

I recently read a story in the UK Edition of CNET about Jason Calacanis’ prediction that Apple was working on a networked television.

The key word here is networking.

If it was a networked TV, then it would need a truly networked IPTV platform.

The use of the iPhone as a true rem0te control for your AppleTV and TV in general could come into play.

Imagine, if you will using your current MacBook or MacBook PRO as an adjunct TV receiver off of your U-verse TV Service. 

AT&T is the only only true IP-based provider in the U.S.  Verizon’s offering is not true IP.

Apple could join forces with AT&T Labs and further disrupt the TV broadcasting space.

Comments?

Published on October 25th, 2008 under , , , , , , ,

Why Doesn’t AT&T Innovate at Retail the Way Apple Does?

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

AT&T’s retail operations have the chance to take its innovation to the retail level, yet all they can see to come up with is Microsoft Surface P.O.P. displays.

Here is a case of where Apple is now developing "field trips" for school kids to the Apple store.
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Why isn’t AT&T doing the same thing at their Experience Stores?

Think about bringing in a child to teach them about:

1.   911
2.  What is IPTV
3.  What you can do with a home network
4.  How to be the tech support guru in your home
5.   How to program Mom and Dad’s U-verse preferences
6.   How to get Mom and Dad to shut off the TV and pay attention to the kid.
7.   How to develop good texting behavior.
8.  How to protect yourself online.
9.  When to "friend" or not "friend" a stranger.
10. The history and life of Alexander Graham Bell

If you could send your child to an AT&T store for an "educational experience," what would you want them to learn?

Comments:  alan at weinkrantz dot com

Published on October 9th, 2008 under , , , ,

Why You Should Buy Your iPhone at the Apple Store and Not From the AT&T Store or Best Buy

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

This is NOT a slam against the AT&T stores or BestBuy, who is now selling the iPhone.

My local AT&T store in San Antonio has a great crew.  They are nice people, very helpful, and back in the good old days when I had a BlackBerry or when my kids would lose one of their low-end phones, you could run over to WalMart, buy another cheapo-phone and the folks at the AT&T store would gladly give me a new SIM card, program the phone again, and smile at my son or daughter, and then thank us for being an A&T Customer.

The reason you should buy your iPhone at an Apple store is because you can really learn to use the phone in ways never though possible by asking questions that often times I have found the AT&T reps just don’t know the answers to.

Another reason:  maybe you’ll switch to the Mac (unless you have already done so) and totally integrate your iPhone with your Mac in ways that you just can’t do with a Windows PC.

Next?  Buy the $100 per year One to One training program from Apple.  For $100 per year, you can have a private session with an Apple consultant once a week.  That comes to about $2 per session. 

I am learning more about my Mac, my iPhone, and how to be more productive in my personal, business and family life than ever before.

Where did you buy your iPhone?  Or if you are planning to buy an iPhone, where are you planning to buy yours?

email me:  alan at weinkrantz dot com.

Published on September 15th, 2008 under , , , , , , ,

Even The New iPod Will Have Its VoIP

Source: voip-tech.blogspot.com

Even the new born in Apple house, the well-known multimedia portable player iPod, available on the App Store and very similar to his brother iPhone, will have its VoIP functionality, thanks to the new earphones with microphone it will be possible to make VoIP calls by the TruPhone application and the integrated Wi-Fi LAN (802.11b/g), TruPhone is available for free on the App Store.

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Published on September 14th, 2008 under , , , ,

Thanks to WiFi Smartphones, Mobile VoIP is Growing Steadily

Source: gigaom.com

Business Week today has a good summary of various mobile VoIP services that allow you to make phone calls from your cellphone over the Wi-Fi network. These apps are incredibly popular amongst people who use iPhones, thanks to services such as Truphone and Gorilla Mobile, while others like iCall will soon join the party. And that is just the beginning.

By 2011 the number of mobile VoIP users around the world may rise to 100 million from 7 million in 2007, according to ON World, a consulting firm based in San Diego. ON World estimates that in 2011, mobile VoIP voice services may generate $33.7 billion, up from $516 million in 2006, the most recent year for which the figure is available.

WiFi-based voice calls may not appear to make much sense in this era of $99, flat-rate unlimited plans, but when you have to make a lot of international long distance calls, the cost saving are humongous. I use Truphone on my iPhone and/or my Nokia e71 to make calls to my family and friends in India as well as to my sources, which are spread across the world.

There are times when I have used Skype (via iSkoot) on my mobiles to make calls, but Truphone is my service of choice. I save a lot of money when compared to what calls cost on the AT&T network.

No wonder phone companies don’t have much use for Wi-Fi unless they can use it off-load calls from the precious wireless spectrum to the Wi-Fi network. Others, like T-Mobile USA, have come up with a way to measure calls made via Wi-Fi hotspots and count them against wireless subscriber minutes, unless you sign up for an additional $10-a-month plan, Business Week notes.

So obviously they’ve gone out of their way to neuter VoIP services like Truphone. More recently, Nokia decided to take out VoIP functionality from some of its N-Series devices, like the N78 and the forthcoming N96, in what could very well be called carrier arm-twisting.

I think that if carriers want to compete with mobile VoIP they need to lower their long-distance prices to that of VoIP services. By using their network backbones they can offer convenience and quality to trounce the upstarts. The problem is that wireless companies will not make this logical move — until it’s too late.

Related Stories:

* 7 Ways to VoIP From Your Mobile Phone.
* iSkoot, Not Skype, Launched on Symbian.




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Published on August 26th, 2008 under , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apple and A&T Own 3G

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

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Telecompetitor’s Bernie Arnason has a very good take on how Apple and AT&T "own" the term 3G - at least in terms of the noise level they have created for this term.

Read Bernie’s insightful post here.

Published on July 14th, 2008 under , , , ,

Apple Launches New iPhones App Store on iTunes

Source: alanweinkrantz.typepad.com

Source:  from CNET / NYTimes has a very good story with a business angle on why this matters.

Download the new iTunes version here.

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Published on July 10th, 2008 under , , , , , , , , ,

VoIP-PAL Ends Relationship with Big Apple Consulting

Source: www.voip-news.com

Here’s a company that we haven’t heard a lot about lately: VoIP-PAL.com.

So what’s up with it? VoIP-PAL.com has — in their words — terminated its agreement with Big Apple Consulting USA . . . actually, according to the press release it did nearly six months ago on Jan. 17. Odd that it’s just being announced now, right?

“We have had many inquiries asking us if we have an investor relations firm working with us,” said Richard Kipping, CEO of VoIP-PAL.com, Inc. “So to clarify, we thought we should announce that VoIP-PAL.com, Inc. suspended its agreement with Big Apple Consulting USA on October 17, 2007 for a three-month period pending clarification on certain matters relating to the agreement. After an internal review we decided to terminate the agreement on January 17th 2008.”

Hmmmph. Well, that certainly begs the question, “But why?”

Published on July 2nd, 2008 under , , , , , , ,

xTag Microphone for Apple Released

Source: www.voip-news.com

Revolabs has released the xTag, a wireless microphone. It’s available at the Apple store.

The microphone is for use with Apple computers and connects via USB. According to the company, it has exceptional audio performance for podcasting, VoIP, SKYPE, web conferencing, distance education and speech recognition.

“We are pleased that Mac users will now be able to easily purchase the xTag microphone on the Apple store,” said Gregory Shalov, Revolabs vice president of sales. “The xTag wireless microphone is a perfect solution for educational applications, such as distance learning, podcasting, and recording lectures. It also provides excellent audio for all Mac applications.”

The xTag uses a rechargable battery.

Published on June 19th, 2008 under , , , , , , , ,

Android: Much Coolness, But 3 Big Problems

Source: gigaom.com

Like all the other geeks in attendance, I couldn’t help myself from letting out an audible “whooo” when Google showed off an Android phone demo Wednesday that linked Street View to a compass (see video below). Sure it was just a demo, but watching the virtual-reality performance of photo-maps linked to hand motions shows how cool new applications could be when they start by running on a high-end mobile phone.

Delivering lots of cool new apps is the promise of Android, the open source mobile OS project from Google. With a much-improved iPhone-ish look and feel, the base Android platform seems ready for prime time and on schedule to launch somewhere, sometime, later this year. But I still see three big problems for Android apps that could keep the add-on market small for the foreseeable future.

Specifically the problems are:

– how many carriers are really going to offer Android phones?
– how will users find Android applications?
– how will developers convince users to take a chance and download their app?

Until Google can help answer those questions, Android apps are probably going to lag far behind those provided by big carriers on their captive hardware/software offerings, especially those designed for the already popular iPhone.

With a big crowd overall and packed rooms at Android-specific discussions, the Google I/O conference Wednesday showed there is great interest from the developer community for the idea of an open-source platform for the development of mobile apps. And the list of early winners in Google’s Android app development contest shows a wide range of creative thinking, with developers using the features of mobility and base apps like maps to build new, rich and sometimes quirky programs that would likely never get past the first gatekeeper at AT&T Wireless or Verizon.

But getting back to the problems — without a committed list of service providers, Google doesn’t have much of a market to offer developers yet. Similarly, the company’s silence on any kind of an apps marketplace means developers might be on their own when it comes to marketing their one-off ideas, adding a huge degree of difficulty, especially for smaller shops.

And the lack of an application certification process (Google said Wednesday that users will be asked to certify an app themselves at install) means another big hurdle for developers to cross, namely convincing users to trust that their app is safe, won’t break their phone or transmit personal info to undisclosed locations.

Seems like a lot to ask from users, especially those in the U.S., who historically haven’t been able to do much with their phones other than download new ringtones. Add education to the list of above problems and you see why I think this market is going to stay small for some time.

Paul Kapustka, former managing editor for GigaOM, now has his own blog at Sidecut Reports.

Published on May 28th, 2008 under , , , , , , ,

Everything I’m Reading Points To WiMax for Apple

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

I think the big follow ups to the Sprint/ClearWire/Google/Comcast WiMax venture will come from Apple and Intel.

Here’s why:

1) Apple was the first PC manufacturer to embrace Bluetooth and then WiFi by building it into their computers and making it so easy to connect to.

2) Apple has a WWDC conference coming up. This is a perfect place to make the news come alive so applications that take advantage of the WiMax network can begin being developed.

3) While everyone is thinking Apple will announce a 3G iPhone, which I think will happen, I also may go as far as saying they may talk about the 4G iPhone that works on the new WiMax network and point the developers to go forth in that direction too.

4) I would not be surprised if Apple also announced with Intel as a partner, some type of retrofit to existing Mac Books and MacBook Pro platforms that enables WiMax.

5) In line with that, I would also expect the next Mac Book Air to offer WiMax on board as well as all new Mac Laptops.

6) Last but not least, I would think that the next generation of Apple Airport WiFi Routers and even the Time Capsules also offer a WiMax to WiFi step down transceiver that makes every WiFi network able to access WiMax.

These are all prognostications, based solely on gut instinct and does not come from any information from inside of Apple. I figure that by MacWorld in 2009 many of these SWAGs will either have happened or will be likely to happen.

Published on May 24th, 2008 under , , , , , ,

Apple Dancing in WiMAX Land

Source: andyabramson.blogs.com

This would be interesting if it’s true.

Apple using WiMax.

But what continues to be the untold story is how Apple keeps lining up with other chip makers separate from Intel.

Published on May 4th, 2008 under , , ,

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